1905-06-19

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 177) respecting certain patents of David Thomas Owen.-Mr. A. Lavergne.
Bill (No. 178) respecting the Canada Central Railway Company.-Mr. A. Lavergne.
Bill (No. 179) respecting the Brandon, Saskatchewan and Hudson Bay Railway Company.-Mr. A. Lavergne.
Bill (No. 180) further to amend the Act of 1899 respecting the city of Ottawa.-Mr. Fielding.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. FIELDING moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 181) to amend the Bank Act. He said : The purpose of this Bill has already been mentioned to the House. By our present Bank Act the number of the directors of a bank is limited to be not less than live nor more than ten. With the growth of our banking institutions, as respects both the amount of their capital and the wider held which they are constantly occupying, the limitation of ten directors has been found inconvenient, and already a Bill has been introduced into the other branch of parliament for the purpose of allowing one of the banks to enlarge the number of its directors and also to appoint an honorary president. We think it desirable that our banking legislation should, as far as possible, be general ; and, as the object of the Bill is one to which no reasonable objection could be had. we prefer to deal with it by a general Bill. We therefore propose in this amendment to strike out the limit of not more than ten, leaving the bank free to have, not less than five, but otherwise as many directors as time and experience may show to be necessary. We tind that both in England and the United States many banks have very large boards of directors. As a number of our banks are increasing their capital and enlarging the field of their operations, we propose to make this amendment in a general Bill rather than to make special provisions applicable to the varying conditions of different banks.
Mr. SPROULE.: You do not fix any limit to the number ?


Mr. FIELDING.: Not otherwise than that there must be not less than five. We think there is safety to the public interest in having a large board.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.
AMERICANIZATION OF CANADIAN [DOT] TELEGRAPH LINES.
Mr. F. D. MONK (Jacques Cartier).: Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day are proedeeded with, I wish' to call the attention of the government to a matter of some urgency. I will do so as briefly as possible, and, to put myself in order, will conclude iii the usual way. I desire to point out to the government what, to the mind of many,

is an impending danger to the Canadian telegraph system in the Americanizing of a portion of that system in violation of the provisions of the Alien Labour Act. I refer more particularly to the 4mericanizing of the Great Northwestern telegraph system. Members of this House will remember that about twenty years ago that system, as it exists to-day, was composed of the Montreal Telegraph Company, the Dominion Telegraphe Company and a company called the Mutual Union Company, of less extent than the other two, but still of some importance. The systems as they existed then attracted the attention of American capitalists and the Western Union Telegraph Company, having acquired, as I am informed, complete control of the Dominion Telegraph Company, established a company called the Great Northwestern Telegraph Company ; and that company absorbed the then existing companies-the old Montreal Telegraph Company, the Dominion Telegraph Company and the Mutual Union Telegraph Company. I need not acquaint the House with the details of the arrangements that were then made. It is sufficient to say that a certain dividend satisfactory to the shareholders of these respective companies was granted to them, and the new company entered into operations of the lines of the old companies and has operated them ever since. Not much attention was paid at the time to this transformation ; but within the last two or three years the attention of American capitalists interested in the amalgamation has been directed anew to Canada, and they have undertaken to completely Americanize the system, and in so doing, as I am informed credibly, they are violating every day and intend to violate still more the provisions of the Alien Labour Act. Some notice of this was taken in the public press some time ago. In one of the papers I find this paragraph :
Great Northwestern telegraph changes. Mr. S.	B. McMichael, of Minneapolis, a son of the general manager of the Great Northwestern Telegraph Company, is now located at Montreal. In connection with his presence there are said to be several changes pending as a result of his investigation and report. Already a new chief operator and chief accountant have been installed. Changes are also said to be Impending in the Quebec office.
In another newspaper appears a telegram, under date of May 26, as follows :
A Telegraphic Shake-up.
Montreal office of the Great Northwestern loses
two of Its chiefs-Will Americans be imported ?
From our own correspondent.
Montreal, May 26.-The shake-up which has been predicted in the Great Nortwestern Telegraph Company here, owing to the Western Union, which leases the lines, becoming active in the management, has come. Mr. Thomas Rodgers, who has been an official of the company for many years and has held the post of Mr. MONK.
chief operator, has been dismissed. He will be succeeded by a telegraph man from the United States, and it is stated _that Mr. Rodgers, who is looked upon as a very competent man, will be taken over by the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph Company. The former chief accountant, W. J. S. MoCormack, left the service of the Great Northwestern some weeks ago, and now occupies a berth with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and it is stated that other changes will follow, including the withdrawal of Manager Powell, of the Montreal office.
The facts, as far as they have been ascertained,-and they have been communicated to me by reliable people-are as follows : The first president and the general manager, I think, since the creation of the Great Northwestern Telegraph Company, was Mr. H. P. Dwight, of Toronto-a gentleman who, I believe, initiated the telegraph system in Canada, and has always been considered a very competent man. Not long ago the American interests appointed Mr. I McMichael, of Minneapolis, general manager In place of Mr. Dwight, and Mr. McMichael came here and assumed the duties of his office. From my information, Mr. McMichael's services were secured in the city of Minneapolis as general manager here, and he came here for the purpose of carrying through the changes to which I am now adverting. Mr. L. S. Humes, of St. Paul, Minneapolis, was afterwards appointed general superintendent at Toronto. A little later on, Mr. S. B. McMichael, son of Mr. I. McMichael, general manager, of the city of Chicago, was appointed superintendent at Toronto, and entered upon the duties of his office. I believe the attention of the Department of Labour was drawn to these changes, and Mr. S. B. McMichael was for some reason or another-supposed to be on account of illness-withdrawn from the service of the company temporarily, and a report was made to the Department of Labour that Mr. McMichael, of Toronto, was the superintendent of the company there But the report failed to indicate that his services had been engaged in the city of Chicago and he had been brought to Toronto to fill that position. Another appointment of recent date is that of Mr. F. R. Carney, of Chicago, Illinois, who was appointed manager at Ottawa to replace Mr. Bethune, to whom a retiring allowance was given on account of his long services. Mr. Carney is in office here, and his services were secured at Chicago by tbe American interest. Mr. Callahan, of Chicago, was named cashier at Montreal to replace Mr. W. J. S. McCormick and tbe services of Mr. Callahan were also secured in Chicago. Several other minor appointments of the same nature as those I have just mentioned were also made, and I was informed in Montreal, where the company has a large number of minor employees, that a plan is in contemplation of importing from Boston and other points in the United States, line men and other men to replace those at present labouring for
7G45

the company in Montreal and the surrounding districts. Under these circumstances, I deem it my duty to call the attention of the government to this matter. I question whether it is in our interests as Canadians that the service of that important system should be entirely placed in the hands of aliens. Here in Ottawa, I presume, the government itself has considerable relations with both telegraph systems, and I think it is important that this system should be controlled by Canadians. 1 think it is the duty of the government, through the Department of Labour, or by any other prompt course it may see fit to adopt, to see whether the law is being violated in the way I have indicated, and if so, to bring to this state of things a prompt remedy. According to the decision given a day or two ago,
I believe, by Mr. Justice Anglin in Toronto, in the case of the Pere Marquette employees, it might be necessary, if that decision be well founded, that the government should make some change in the law as it exists. Personally I regret that hostile legislation of this kind should be in force between the two countries, but it was begun in the United States ; and as long as an alien labour law is in force there, and enforced very severely against Canadians, it is the duty of the government to protect labour in our own country. I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: My hon. friend stated at the beginning of his remarks that the present telegraph company, of which he complains, was incorporated by this parliament some twenty years ago. This company then absorbed two or three Canadian companies, and at the time it was understood that a large number of American capitalists were going into the organization. I forget at the moment the terms of the Act, but it was well known at the time that this incorporation of the Northwestern Telegraph Company was going to bring a large proportion of American capital into the country. We did not, I believe, then take the precaution that we have taken of late years of providing that there should be on the board of directors a certain proportion of British subjects.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I think my right hon. friend is mistaken. I think there was at that time a provision in the law that the majority -of the directors should be Canadian. In fact I know of only two Americans on the board, Mr. I. McMichael himself and Mr. B. Brooks. The others are Canadians. Mr. Hugh M. Baird, Mr. Adam Brown, Mr. W. C. Matthews and Mr. James Hedley and the late Hon. Mr. McOougall were the Canadian directors. But I do not think the board has sat at all with regard to any of these changes. I am informed it was never consulted and that the changes were carried out entirely by the American interests, irrespective of what the Canadian directors might do or think.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not know. Perhaps the board may he Canadian. There is no provision in the Act of incorporation, so far as I know, providing that there should be a certain number of British subjects. That may or may not be the case.
If it is the case, I am happy to say I was under a misapprehension. But in that case, the Act to which my hon. friend objects would not have been committed by a Canadian board or sheltered by their authority.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: As I am informed, they are not consulted.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER, If they are not consulted then, it is to be presumed, that the facts are somewhat different from what my hon. friend (Mr. Monk) has understood them to he. My information-the little I have on the subject-goes to show that these men are practically transfers of Canadians from one position to another and that my hon. friend is under a misapprehension. My information just received, is that these changes have not been to the detriment of Canadians, except in one case.
I am informed that Mr. Rogers, whom my hon. friend has just named was replaced, not by an American, hut by a Canadian by the name of Graham. I understand that the same is true of all the others exce.pt in one case. In that case an American has superseded an old man named Bethune, who has been pensioned for life. But while this is my information, still, on the complaint of my hou. friend, we are called upon to look into the matter. I cannot say, of course, what our decision is to be. W e had an Alien Labour law up to three days ago ; it is a question whether we have it now. In the opinion of one judge the law is ultra vires.


Mr. FOSTER.: And, there is no appeal ?


Wilfrid Laurier: I am not sure as to that. All this matter has to be looked into. At present, we do not know whether we have an Alien Labour law or not. Of course, I think we have it yet: Not because I am in love with that kind of legislation ; it is not a thing to be generally approved. But our action in passing it was an action in self defence. In order to reach a deci-; sion as to what we shall do, we must have the best information and advice on the subject whether the Alien Labour Law is m force or not.


Mr MONK.: I merely wish to say to my right'hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) that there can he no doubt about the facts


Wilfrid Laurier: They are disputed.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: There is no doubt about Mr. McMichael having come to this country and the position of general manager having been taken from Mr. Dwight. There is no doubt ' whatever about Mr. Hughes or about Mr. COMMONS
S. B. McMichael, or about Mr. Carney, manager in Ottawa baying replaced Mr. Bethune. The information that my right hon. friend has is the information, as I am informed, given to the Department of Labour. But that information is incorrect. So far as my information goes, there is no doubt whatever that these gentlemen were engaged in tlie United States and came here for the purpose of filling these positions. They are under contract ; they are in violation of the Alien Labour law. And if an inquiry is made, my right hon. friend will find that my statement of the facts is absolutely correct. Before further changes are made, I think that, as the Department of Labour costs us pretty dear, and as this is essentially within its functions, the matter ought to be looked into immediately to prevent Canadians losing their positions merely because of the fact that they are Canadians.
Motion (Mr. Monk) to adjourn, negatived.



HALF BREED SCRIP.

George Eulas Foster: I gave notice to the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) that I would bring up a question in connection with half-breed scrip.


Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Minister of the Interior).: I have here a further instalment of the papers on that subject which I will lay on the table.


George Eulas Foster: When, on a former occasion I spoke on this question of scrip, I had to do so largely from hearsay, having no papers before me except a small memorandum. Since that time the Minister of the Interior has been good enough to bring down the first instalment of the papers. And although those that I asked for are not all down, I think it would be well to make a statement to the House and for .the information of the government-and I ask the attention of the government to it-on the facts as shown in the papers so far as we have had laid before us. I want to say in the first place


Wilfrid Laurier: Would not my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) wait until the House is voted into Committee of Supply ?


George Eulas Foster: I think I would rather deal with it now, if my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) does not object. The whole question arises, as the House knows, on a change of policy made on the 13th of August, 1904, by an Order in Council passed on that day, the policy changed having been one thoroughly understood by parliament, and to the extent that no adverse vote was registered against it-acquiesced in by parliament. The policy was with reference to ?co'iUSi scriP b>T half-breeds who. after ISSo, had left this country and gone to the United States of America, and had, it is presumed, taken residence on Indian reserv-


Frederick Debartzch Monk: ations there, availing themselves of the privileges granted by the United States to men of part Indian blood. The last commission appointed on this subject was that of Mr. McKenna. That commission reported on the 31st of May, 1901. And that report and the minister's report accompanying it, formed an Order in Council approving of the different recommendations which were made. Of these recommendations I wish to refer only to two. No. 6 of these recommendations is as follows :
Inasmuch as those persons of mixed blood in Canada who participated in the benefits of band life on Indian reservations are excluded from receiving said scrip, I have taken the position that half-breeds who have left Caniada and taken up their residence on Indian reservations in the United States and participate in the benefits of Indian life there, as well as halfbreed children admitted to United States Indian schools, be likewise excluded.
And the last recommendation is :
In order to avoid the disputes on the question which was raised, I would suggest the desirability of making it clear that it is understood that in the case of money scrip no powers of attorney are to be accepted or acted upon, and that in cases in which the half-breed asks for land scrip the commissioner has no authority to accept or act upon any assignment of power of attorney.
The matter went on from 1901 to 1904, when, on the 13th of August, an Order in Council was passed traversing the order which approved of section 6, and, in short removing that disability and making it possible for the claims of that class of halfbreeds who had left the Northwest and gone to the United States to again receive consideration. In that Order in Council of the 13th of August, 1904, it was reiterated that personal attendance was a requisite of the location of the land by the half-breed who was the grantee in the case.
That brings me in short to the position in which we found it when we undertook the discussion of this question the other day, and it is with that preliminary which sets out the conditions of the controversy that'
1 rest the case so far as the policy is concerned in that regard, and come down to what is revealed in the present papers. This matter lay in that way until January, 1904, with this exception, that there was a petition in July, 1903, from these halttbreeds of Turtle Mountain who are the interested parties in the case, asking that their case should be reviewed, and complaining that their rights were withheld from them wrongly by Mr. McKenna, and against what bad been the idea of the government as shown in the Orders in Council appointing the commission. That was in July. 1903. Then there was also a presentation of the case made by a barrister of Winnipeg, by the name of Chaffey, who picked out one particular case, elaborated it, thereon made his appeal to the minister and

sent it into him about the latter part of
1903.	That appeal was considered by the minister, was commended as an able document, but the writer of the same was informed that the government could not traverse its action and would not reverse its decision. That was in December, 1903. So that the petition of July, 1903, from the Turtle Mountain half-breeds and the presentation of the case by the barrister of Winnipeg, in December, 1903, were both considered, both refused by the government as contrary to their adopted policy. That brings us to the first of 1904. Now suddenly in August, 1904, the Order in Council to which 1 have referred was passed, that policy was reversed, a new policy was promulgated, and no notice was given of that new policy from the 13th of August until the latter part of October, when it appeared in the official gazette. These are not the most popular of notices, and as a matter of fact the interested parties, whether -they were the half-breeds of Turtle Mountain, or whether they were barristers or brokers who had been interested in the claims of these same half-breeds, did not know that anything had taken place as a reversal of the policy until nearly the 1st of January, 1905, and some of them not fully until March 2, 1905.
What had been going on in the meantime? A party by the name of McDonald, of the city of Winnipeg, one of a firm of three, had in some way or other become acquainted with what was proposed or with what had -been actually carried out. So. far as these papers go, no notice was given to McDonald of the Order in Council until October 0th, although it was passed on August 13th. But McDonald's position was so different *from that of all the others that though neither he, if we presume that to be a fact, received any intimation until October 0th, and none of the others received full information until the beginning of the following year. Mr. McDonald, by prescience, intuition or otherwise, knew that something was going to take place, and in July and August of the year in which the Order in Council was passed, Mr. McDonald visited -the half-breeds in North Dakota and undertook a certain work amongst them which will be better detailed hereafter. He pursued that work assiduously up till -the time and after the time of the passing of the Order in Council, and with such good success that before the 1st day of January, 1905, when some of his 'competitors and others interested in -the business found out that something was going on, a large number of scrip was already in Mr. McDonald's hands. Fifty-five had been issued in the month of November,
1904,	ninety-three in all had been issued before the end of 1904, of the whole number of 136 issued altogether, of which fifteen have not yet been sent to their destination. So you may practically say that before any
others interested, whom the department knew well were interested, from months and years of communication, from tens and scores and hundreds of applications and assignments filed by them in the department from time to time, and up to the very end of 1903, practically all the scrip which had been allowed by Mr. Cote was in the hands of Mr. McDonald before any of his competitors or others interested in the matter found out what was going on.
Mr. SPItOULE. That is a scoop.


George Eulas Foster: Well, it was fortunate for Mr. McDonald. Mr. McDonald seemed to have worked for that end. I do not find fault with him in that respect. He commenced in January, 1904, by getting an opinion from Mr. Ewart, and later from Mr. Wilson, both barristers in the city of AVinnipeg, in respect of these particular half-breeds. These letters and information he transferrerd- to the department. I am not going to make a long -story of this, but in the end Mr. Wilson advised him to try and get the department to reverse their policy, and above all to try and get the department to do away with the necessity of personal location. On July 2nd, Mr. McDonald preferred his request to the department asking for a reversal of the policy, and asking that the personal location attendance should be dispensed with.


Wilfrid Laurier: Reversal as to what?


George Eulas Foster: Reversal of the policy of the department under the Order in Council of January G, 1901, in which they approve of Mr. McKenna's disallowance of -the claims of that class of the half-breeds who had left the Northwest after 1885, and had taken up their residence and participated in Indian reservations on the south side of the line. On July 2nd, he asked for the reversal and on July 14, the government said: We will consider it, that is the department said it because I notice that the department appears largely to have been the government. Then, between July 2nd or July 14th and October 6th, from -these papers we are asked to believe that no correspondence took place between Mr. McDonald, in Winnipeg, and the department here, at least none has been brought down and I assume there was none. But, if there was none, it is not presumable that there was no communication, and so, on August 13, 1904, an Order in Council was passed. On October 3rd, Mr. -Sifton, at that time the minister, instructs Mr. Smart of the Order in Council which was passed and I think it is well that these instructions should be upon the records. They are in the form of a memorandum.
October 3rd, 1904.
Mr. Smart.
Attached is an Order in- Council authorizing me to deal with -scrip claims which for certain rea-

sons were disallowed by Mr. McKenna. Under this order I nominate Mr. N. 0. Cote to investigate. I do not desire that for the present at least, he shall hold any sittings in the west, but that he shall receive the evidence in writing as it is filed before him here and report to me.
I call attention to the phrase ' and report to me.'
You will se6 that the order contemplates dealing with the applications which were made before Mr. M'cKenna in one way or another.
That is not accurate. The Order in Coun-c.d contemplated only those which were disallowed by Mr. McKenna, and for one reason and for one reason only-residence and participation in the United States.
Mr. Cote may proceed to examine the evidence as soon as the claims are filed in the department.
On the 18th October, fifteen days thereafter, Mr. Smart issued his instructions to Mr. Cote :
Ottawa, 18th October, 1904.
Memorandum, Mr. N. O. Cot6.
With regard to the half-breed claims that you are about to investigate, it is desired that you should examine the evidence taken before Mr. McKenna, and in all cases where it is sufficient to prove the claims, ipass them at once and issue the scrip.
The instructions to Mr. Smart from the minister were for Mr. Cote to examine them ' and report to me.' Mr. Smart varies that by saying to Mr. Cote :
Where it is sufficient to prove the claims, pass them at once and issue the scrip. In other cases you can consider the affidavit evidence presented, and, where it is sufficient, act upon it and issue the scrip. I
I call attention to the fact that the deputy minister of the department absolutely varied the instructions of his minister, and varied them so that the minister, instead of receiving a report and seeing the scrip before it was issued and to know why it was issued, the scrip was issued threafter, as a matter of course, on Mr. Cote's requisition to the accountant, and signed by the deputy minister.
Now, the next correspondence I find is on November 11th, when the department writes to Mr. Macdonald, telling him that they have received his letter of 10th ultimo inclosing 114 orders for delivery of certain half-breed scrip :
I am directed to inclose herewith for your information a list of the claims which have been reconsidered up to date under the Order in Council of 13th August, 1904, with the decision arrived in each case. Where the scrip has not already been sent to the claimants in your care, it will be issued in due course and transmitted in accordance with the orders filed, provided such orders are found satisfactory. Each case will be dealt with in the usual way, but where powers of attorney were filed here, or with Mr. McKenna, prior to the orders handed in by you, the cases affected by it will have to he held in labeyance for the present. "


George Eulas Foster: That is on November 11th. Under the minister's Order in Council it was declared that prior assignments in the case of such scrip were the assignments which would be recognized. It was tneu said that in such cases:
They will have to he held in abeyance for the present.
Why ? I do not know, but there is a very instructive commentary on that. On November 11th they would have to be reserved in abeyance for the present, but on December 17th, an Order in Council was passed rescinding that part of the provisions of the Order in Council about prior assignments that was to be observed and be binding on the government. Before Mr. Chaffey, who had spent thousands of dollars in arranging the preliminaries of these claims and had made liis deposits and filed his assignments and powers of attorney before the department, knew what was going Oji that Order in Council of December 17th was passed and the ground that he had on account of his prior assignments was cut from under his feet. The order was deliberately changed.
In the future correspondence in relation to any of these claims, one claim only will be dealt with in each letter, which is the usual practice of the department, but, while this lias been departed from on this occasion in order to advise you in a general way what progress has been made so far in the investigation of the claims which were disallowed by Mr. McKenna on the ground of the residence of the claimants residing in the United States.
Now, this letter from Mr. Macdonald, with its 114 orders for delivery, does not appear in the correspondence. I have made a note of that, and I would like the hon. minister to bring it down, so that we may see what Mr. Macdonald said in that regard. About this time Mr. Chaffey appears-on November 2nd-and he says in his letter o: November 2nd that he :
Noticed by the press some time ago that an Order in Council had been passed in Vegard to some of the Northwest half-breeds living on American reservations.
He drew up a test case, he made his plea to the minister, and he was turned down by the minister. Mr. Chaffey asks in his letter for a copy of the Order in Council and a statement as to what had really been done in the case. In reply to his letter he gets a copy of the Order in Council of 13th August, which is the first time Mr. Chaffey gets his hands upon the order of the minister passed in Council. On November 25th some other peculiar instructions were given to Mr. Cot6 by the deputy minister. The deputy minister of that date writes :
Memorandum, Mr. N. O. Cats.
Would you please let me know how many oases you have of names given to you by which there were former powers of attorney or assignment. I am to advise you that no cases are to

be dealt with except those whose names have been given to you or which have been dealt with.
Wliicli have been dealt with by Mr. McKenna. That was the only class of cases that was covered by the Order in Council. But it appears here that the names of cases have been given in some instances, and that therefore we have two classes of cases with which Mr. Cote was told to deal.
I am to advise you that no cases are to he dealt with except those whose names have been given to you or which have been dealt with. On consideration there appears to be no reason why documentary evidence should not be accepted quite as readily as any oral evidence, as the investigation for a'few names means a very enormous expense.
Now what I want to know from the department is what were those other names, other cases than those rejected by Mr. McKenna, which were covered by the Order in Council and with which he was to deal. I want to know who gave him those names and I want a list of them. I have made a memorandum of that and I will ask the minister to be kind enough to give it to me.
On December 9, a letter goes from the department again to Macdonald, and they send to Mr. Macdonald a very urgent and I must say a very friendly letter indeed.
I think it worth while to read some of it :
Ottawa, December 9, 1904. With reference to the several orders for the delivery of half-breed scrip which you have filed in this department from persons who appeared before tbe half-breed commission' and whose claims were rejected upon preliminary hearing,
I am directed to inform you that before any of such claims may be reconsidered under the Order in Council of 13th August, 1904, it will be necessary to furnish the department with the usual evidence in support of such claims.
See the date, December 9. Before the 9th of December some fifty of the assignments had been actually put in the pocket of Mr. Macdonald himself.
A supply of 200 forms of applications is being forwarded to your address by express, and great care should be taken in getting all the questions therein accurately answered by the applicant in each case before a person duly qualified to take solemn declarations or sworn statements. .	.	. The same kind of evidence will
also be required in respect to the claims of the brothers or sisters of persons who appeared before Mr. McKenna

Both of these latter were actually shut out by the Order in Council.
-but in addition it should be explained in these cases why the claimants did not appear before him at the sittings of the commission for the purpose of submitting their evidence.
As it is desirable that all these edaims should be finally disposed of without unnecessary delay, I am to request that the necessary evidence may be obtained and filed here as soon as possible.	1	* i 1
To say the least that is a friendly letter ; no such letter was sent to Mr. Chalfey or any other one of the dozen others deeply involved and monetarily involved in the prosecution of these same claims on behalf of the half-breeds of whose interest the department had absolute knowledge and had had for months and in some cases for years.
On January 11, the competitors of Mr. Macdonald began to waken up. Short, Cross and Biggar sent in from Edmonton, a locality not unknown, to the present Minister of the Interior. Messrs. Short, Cross and Bigger want to know what is up. They are answered and a copy of the Order in Council is sent to them. On January 14, Chaffey again writes and up to that date he doe-s not know who the commissioner is before whom to prosecute his claims. On January 14, 1905, Chaffey asks for the name of the acting commissioner and is given it. On March 2, Mr. Chaffey comes to the front. He has got his information, he has found out that he is far behind in the raca and lie goes to the commissioner, very commendably, not in a rage, but putting it just fairly before the department that he expects that they have some principle upon which they act and that they recognize fair play; his is a plea for fair-play.
On March 2nd, he sends in another letter. I shall not read it all, but shall give briefly the points in it. Mr. Chaffey states that Mr. R. C. Macdonald and himself among others were purchasing scrip in the year 1901 and bought claims from halfbreeds who had been resident in tbe Territories but fled to the United States in 1885, after the rebellion. Both they and others were on the same track. He says :
I filed assignments of some of these claims in the early part of 1901 in the department, and received an acknojvledgment of same. As the claims had not been proved they,were left on file. They were not refused. Mr. R. C. Macdonald and myself exchanged lists of the halfbreed scrips we had bought, so that we should not conflict or meddle with the claims each had bought.
And thereby hangs, later on, a tale.
I do not know the date, but I believe It was in the forepart of the year 1901 that Mr. Commissioner McKenna refused to accept these assignments. . . . We simply accommodated ourselves to the new practice. .	.	. The assignments I now refer to were obtained under the old practice.
And he claimed that the practice was that the assigments were recognized by the department and that the prior assignment was the assignment each had recourse to.
In tbe case of those half-breeds who had gone to the United States ... I was the first to dispute the legality of such decision1, and as far as I know the only one. In or about the end of 1903, I prepared an appeal to the minister from this decision, as I recollect in the case of J. I-. Faquant as a test case on this point. I spent much time upon it, and went into the law and

cases bearing on it pretty thoroughly. I informed Mr. R. C. Macdonald of what I was doing an'd he urged me on in the matter. I received a reply that the minister was impressed by my argument, but could not see his way to reverse the decision of Mr. McKenna. Near the time of the last Dominion election I heard that an Order in Council had been passed dealing with the matter. I wrote for a copy of same November 3rd last making some of the statements made here. ... I received from the department a copy of the Order in Council of 13th August, 1904, reversing Mr. McKenna's decision.
The language and statements in it were so familiar that it would appear to have been drawn from the appeal presented by me, before referred to.
Xlie letter gives the Order in Council abandoning the original practice and recognizing an assignment of half-breed claims when filed in the department.
In December last, I presented my claims to the department under assignments of halfbreeds, that had been filed in the early part of 1901 and under others which I then filed. The assignments were returned as not recognized by the department, and in many cases the scrip had been issued and consigned to the care of Mr. R. C.' Macdonald.
He then filed a caution and made his point skilfully. He advanced five grounds and presented the whole thing asking that the notice of the claims be made effectual in the department and added :
And that a stay in those cases be granted until I may be advised what legal proceedings are necessary.
Well, Mr. Chaffey thought that that being a moderately reasonable letter, it would open the eyes of the department and his appeal to them for fair-play would be promptly acted upon, but it does not appear to have had that effect on the department. To make matters sure Mr. Chaffey sent in a new list of all his assignments from halfbreeds so that at that time Ihey got'all of them from him, as they had the most of them before. On the 21st of March comes another very important letter from the department to the same Macdonald-no copy to any one else :	,	'
Ottawa, 21st March, 1905.
Gentlemen,-I am directed to inform you that it has been decided to allow scrip granted to half-breed residents of the United States under the Order in Council of the 13th August, 1904, to be located in the name of the grantee thereof by the holder of such scrip without requiring the grantee to appear personally at the land agency to make his entry, but it will be necessary before presenting the scrip for location to have it endorsed by the department as having been issued under the said Order in Council. f"cl1 scrlP should therefore be sent back to the department for endorsement, and after this has been done it will be returned to the person oi persons by whom it may have been forward-6	'?re' [DOT] an<1 tlle Asents of Dominion Lands
will he instructed in regard to its location.


George Eulas Foster: The point to which I wish to draw the attention of the government and the House is that the regulation, invariable as a rule, in the department for the protection of the half-breed when he gets his land scrip, provides that he and he alone shall make the location, and that it shall not be made by any one who has or asserts that he has an assignment or power of attorney from him. That was a regulation of the department made by Order in Council, and that regulation is absolutely nullified. By another Order in Council ? No, Sir ; by a simple letter from the department issued on the 10th of March to all the land agents, telling them what ? That as a general policy they should allow the assignees to locate ? No, but telling them, so far as this ear-marked scrip was concerned which Macdonald had sent to the department and got endorsed, that they were to locate that through the assignee and without the presence of the grantee in the case. Now, I said that this was the invariable rule, I have it In numbers of Orders in Council ; and, to show that it is so, here is a case in point. In 1897, in the case of certain halfbreed children's claims which had all been fixed up with the exception of may be two or three, the minister comes down witii an Order in Council, and he says in effect this : Our invariable rule is, and by Order in Council, that the locator must be the half-breed who is the grantee ; but if that were insisted upon in these few cases which are now under review, it would make it almost impossible to have them arranged for and this matter cleared up. Therefore he recommends, with reference to these cases, that the assignee under certain precautions shall be allowed to locate for the original grantee. Under that recommendation-and I asked for the return-exactly two cases have been dealt with, showing that it was to clean up the fag end of a transaction, and that when the minister wanted to do that, he had to get tlio authority of an Order in Council, and was not allowed to do it by departmental authority. On March 29. 1905. another competitor turns up, and in an inquiring telegram wants to know if there is any change in the process of locating half-breed claims. He is told. On the 27th of March Macdonald sends in scrip notes for endorsement, according to the announcement which had been made to him, for 13,080 acres, and the department immediately endorses them and sends them back to Macdonald. On March 10 a circular to agents re this location is sent out, and I think I had better read that :
I am directed to inform you that it has been decided to allow scrip granted to half-breed residents of the United States under the Order in Council of the 13th August, 1904, to be located in the name of the grantee thereof by the holder of such scrip without requiring the grantee to appear personally at the land agency to make his entry.
This concession on the part of the department applies to the scrip issued under the said Order in Council of the 13th August, 1904, only, and
care should therefore be taken by you when application is made for the location of a scrip note by any other than the grantee himself, that such note bears on the back thereof the following endorsation in red ink:
Issued under Order in Council of 13th August, 1904.
Accountant of the Department of the Interior. The endorsation will be signed by the accountant of the department if the note itself was signed by him, or by the acting accountant -if it was signed by the latter, in order to enable you .to compare the signature affixed to the endorsation with that on the note.
The applicant for location should make the application over his own signature, on behalf of the person named in the scrip note and subscribe to the usual declaration as to the land applied for being unoccupied and unimproved and in all respects comply with the rules and regulations governing the location of halfbreed land scrip.
As heretofore, assignments of these locations executed prior to the date on which the land was entered for in the manner above indicated, *will not he recognized by the department.
Macdonald has his assignment, and on the 10th of November he goes to a land office and puts it down, and says, I have this assignment from a certain half-breed. He makes the location. Any assignment made by thal half-breed up to that very date is null and void under these instructions. Some one has to get behind Macdonald the red-hot moment he makes the location and gets the assignment. or no person can get an assignment. Weil, that completely barred the way to further assignment, and put the land virtually into the hands of Macdonald himself. About this time Mr. Ohaffey gets on his war paint and comes to the front in a very interesting way. He now pins his faith to Mr. Oory, and on ' April 15 writes to him this interesting letter, to which I bespeak the attention of the government:	.
Winnipeg, Man. April 15th, 1905. gjrj_With reference to a few minutes conversation with you when I pointed out to you that the statement that half-breed-assignments were never recognized is unfounded, as for *ten vears I received half-breed scrip up to the year 1901 or 1902 on assignments forwarded by ine to the department, of which letter No. 2 herewith, is a proof.
Most of such case were money scrip, but at that time there was no distinction, as land scrip could also be transferred to the assignee.
It was an instance of land scrip so assigned to him, but I am inclined to tbink it was an isolated occurrence, and not a general rule.
The late regulation allowing the holder to locate, is similarly made for, or is in effect in the interest of Macdonald, as the half-breeds dealing wth him relied upon his statement that he would take them to locate, and such fact was an additional security to them.
What is the charge made by Mr. Chaffey? He says that Macdonald was enabled to get these assignments because he assured the half-breeds : You will be protected; I will 243
take you to the land agent's office and have you select your own land.
There is also the fact that I first represented that the decision by Mr. McKenna in regard to the American cases was had in law. I stated the matter at large, as a test case upon the point, but was turned down upon it.
That was in December, 1903. Six months later the whole thing was reversed :
I wrote the secretary on the 8th April last, referring to the declaration of Maxime Marion filed in his case, to the effect that Macdonald claimed to he the government commissioner for taking applications, that the papers signed were so signed on that assumption, and that they were applications, which is evidence of sufficient fraud to make them avoid.
Why ? Because the half-breeds declared these turned out, not to be applications at all, but assignments of their scrip to Macdonald, and they so state over their own signatures and with affidavits.
I also then filed in his case the declaration of Genard Lallement to the effect that he was asked by Macdonald to make application hut that he refused to sign anything or have anything to do with him whatever, and that he had dealt with me in the matter of his scrip, notwithstanding which this scrip is in the possession of Macdonald. This instance is still more glearing fraud on the party than the former case.
Neither of these letters is in these files. If they are in the department, they have not been brought down.
I instance the fact that Macdonald was on the ground on the 14th and 15-th August last.
This Order in Council was passed on the 13th August.
At Turtle Mountain carrying on this work before it was possible for the half-breed or the public to have any knowledge of the policy of the department. You will thus see that every move of the department in this matter, whether premeditated or not makes no difference, has been in effect playing into the hands of Macdonald and to _ the detriment of all other parties connected with the matter.
All other parties. Small sympathy for a lot of brokers who are after scrip and trying to get it for the least they can-small sympathy for them if one gets ahead of the other ; hut the ' other parties ' includes the half-breeds themselves. Why m the name of fair-play, if the government had come to a decision to allow those half-breeds to be reconsidered, was not notice given the half-breeds themselves ? Why was no notice given to any friends of the half-breeds l Wny was notice given only to Macdonald who went down there, as alleged by Mr. Chaffey, under those conditions and get these claims ?
I am, to-day, sending a further declaration in the case of Ambroise Ouellette.
That is not brought down.
I hope in the course of a day or two to send a representative half-breed from Turtle



Mountain to the department to state the matter personally.
Does the minister know whether the halfbreed ever turned up or will he kindly make a note of that and inquire of the department ? It would be interesting to know if he is over there in one of the pigeon holes so that we may have him for examination.
I am sending, and have sent in the end of March, authorities from these various halfbreeds instructing me to take such legal action as may he required to recover their scrip, copies of which have been sent to the department.
None of these has been brought down. I want to get hold of these.
I maintain this is sufficient ground on which to hold up these cases until such action be taken, or the matter be further examined by yourself.
Now follows an Important sentence :
Over and above all, you are possessed with a knowledge of fraud on the part of Macdonald in reference to these and all cases, and you are the only head I know of at present of that department, and are therefore responsible for their action.
It is assumed that the department acts on principles of justice desiring to do justice to every one, and where temporary regulations stand in the way of justice, they should be put aside, by proceeding having this knowledge, the department aids a fraud.
I ask, then, that my request that nothing furthur be done in regard to the scrips or lands represented by them in question, be given effect to.
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) B. E. CHAPFEY.
This ig Mr. Ckaffey's letter of April 15. I do not know Mr. Chaffey, and I take his communications for what they are worth on the face of them. I presume, however, that he is a responsible man. Anyway he was ready on April 15 ; and he then charged absolute fraud and misrepresentation to the detriment of the half-breeds. The department have the charge. There is not a scintilla of evidence to show that they have ever concerned themselves in the least with reference to that charge on behalf of the half-breed-s or gave any ear at all to the representations made by the half-breeds with reference to Macdonald's misrepresentations and alleged fraud. Air. Chaffey says he spent thousands of dollars on these claims which he paid out to the half-breeds and that the department knew all about it. He filed his assignments there. Mr. Chaffey wanted his money as well as fair-play. He wanted to take all the profits to which
was entitled. He was determined to have them. This was on April 15. Then an intervention takes place and on April 20, an interesting telegram appears from the member from Winnipeg (Mr. Bole) :
Issue no more scrip to Macdonald and hold transfer of lands to him until I return


George Eulas Foster: What the department did I do not know. 1 imagine they Issued no more ; I imagine they held the transfers-but I cannot tell. Mr. Chaffey, on April 15, was determined to have his rights, and charged fraud and worse, but on the 25th Mr. Bole intervened and asked that proceedings be stayed until he could come to Ottawa, he then, being in Winnipeg. On May 22, after negotiations and correspondence, I find an assignment of all of Chaffey's rights, claims and interest to Macdonald. Some one told me when I heard that Chaffey was up in arms : No, this is off ; they are settling with, them. There is at "least evidence that they have settled with him. Who else if any one has ? However, there are the facts. Mr. Chaffey assigned all his rights, title and claim in that half-breed scrip to Macdonald and performed the vanishing act. That is not the end of it. A question arises here which I shall take up however, a little later. By this time the half-breeds themselves came to know something about it and so about the latter part of May the following petition comes in. In the meantime Mr. Macdonald went on and sent down scrip notes for endorsation for
15,000	acres more which he got, making in all 25,000 acres for which he had scrip. But about the 30th May-because the answer by the department Is made on the 31st May and in It they say they have just received this-the following petition was received :
We, the undersigned half blood, Indian, formerly of the Northwest Territories, Canada, now of the county of Rolette, North Dakota, United States of America.
That one R. C. Macdonald from the year 1903 and subsequent thereto came among your petitioners and others induced your petitioners and others to believe that they had been harshly treated by Mr. McKenna's scrip commission, and that he the said Macdonald would on behalf of your petitioners and others bring suit against the Canadian government to compel the issuance by the government of the scrip to which your petitioners were entitled.
Subsequent thereto and from time to time, in person and by his agents, the said Macdonald induced the undersigned and others to believe that he had instituted such suit against the government and had been successful therein ; that he, the said Macdonald, pretended that he was an officer of the Interior Department of the Dominion of Canada and that be was the only officer before whom your petitioners could appear and make application of the issuance of scrip to them, and that unless your petitioners and others appeared before the said Macdonald and executed and signed such papers as he requested they could not obtain t'he same. Relying upon and believing such statements and representations, and believing that we were applying for scrip to be issued and delivered to your petitioners and not otherwise, your petitioners, and others, signed all papers presented to them by the said Macdonald, which papers were represented to be only application papers, and to be used in procuring such scrip.
Further your petitioners sayeth that on or about the 26th day of April, A.D. 1905, the said
^>61 JUNE 19, 1903 7662	
Macdonald again came among your petitioners, and others, and upon said day and subsequent thereto and for the first time informed your petitioners that said papers, believed by them as represented by him, to be only application papers, were in fact papers selling and assigning to the said Macdonald such scrip, and that your petitioners had no right, title or interest therein, that as the said Macdonald had expended thousands of dollars in such suit against the government, he was entitled to reimburse himself out of the value of such scrip, and that he would not pay your petitions and others more than about $200. That those who refused to accept such sum for their scrip the said Macdonald threatened to have imprisoned, instituted suit in the lower courts of the said county of Rolettell, Dakota, United States of America, and threatened to deprive your petitioners of their scrip without any pay therefor, and further threatened to call upca the sheriff of said county to take those so refusing into custody, your petitioners being ignorant of the true facts and believing that the said Macdonald would do as he stated, and being placed in great fear, more particularly a great number ,of other half-blood Indians, surrendered their scrip to the said Macdonald, and received therefor only about $200. Further your petitioners say that the said Macdonald has taken advantage of the uneducated condition of the undersigned and others and imposed upon them to their detriment and great irreparable loss in obtaining their signatures and getting in his possession iiis scrip, and that the said Macdonald refuses to pay more therefor than about $200, when your petitioners can sell the same on the open market for mot less than $600. Your petitioners further say that the said Macdonald first by pretense of affection and friendship for your petitioners and others ; Second by deception and fraud ; Lastly by threats and intimidating, has deceived and defrauded your petitioners and a great number of others out of their scrip, or is about to so defraud your petitioners and others out of their said scrip, as hereinbefore recited. Wherefore, your petitioners pray that all such scrip obtained in the manner hereinbefore recited by the said Macdonald, in which your petitioners are interested may be withheld and not issued or delivered to the said Macdonald, but be sent to us to our address, and that which has been delivered, that patent may not issue thereon, until we are paid market price. And further, pray that your petitioners may be permitted to prove at such time and place as the hon. Minister of the Interior Department may fix, the allegations and statements obalned in this petition, and thus we shall ever pray. This petition was signed by fifty or more half-breeds in North Dakota. * There was an answer to it, and I want to call the particular attention of the Prime 'Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) to that answer. It was written by the secretary of the department and is dated May 31st. Remember that we have seen that in the first place, on March 10th a letter was sent out by the department to the land agents saying that with reference to that scrip it was unnecessary for the grantees to appear in person, that the assignees could locate the land. Well, on May 31st, the 243J	secretary of the department, replying to the petition I have just read, sajcs :- Department of the Interior, Ottawa, 31at May, 1905. Sir, I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of a petition signed by you and others, which has just been received in the department' respecting the recent issue of scrip, and to say that such scrip was delivered in accordance with the claimants' written requests which had been previously filed in this department. I am to add that half-breed land scrip can only be located in the grantees' own names, and that assignments of the land upon which the scrip has been placed, executed prior to the date of the location's, are not recognized by the department ; but after location has been entered at the office of the Dominion lands, the half-breed m whose name t'he 'location was made, may, if of the full age of twenty-one years, assign such land, and (upon the assignment being filed in this department together with an abstract of title showing that the land is unencumbered a certiflicate from the registrar that there are no judgments or executions against the assignor and the usual registration fee of $2 being remitted, if found satisfactory, such assignment may be registered in the department, in which case the patemt would be issued in the assignee's name, otherwise the patent Jor the land entered for would be issued in the name of the person to whom the scrip was issued. Your obedient servant, (Sgd.) P. G. KEYES, Mr. Michel Desmarais, Secretary. St. John, North Dakota, United States of America. Now, Sir, I am fairly well educated, and I am accustomed to reading the English language-I suppose I have a little advantage in that respect over the half-breeds to whom that letter was sent. To me reading it over for the first, the second, the third time, it seemed to say to these half-breeds : None of your scrip land can be located unless you are there to locate it, and after it is located, then you may assign it under certain conditions. If it does not mean that, what does it mean ? Yet, after reading it for the fourth or fifth time, I can see that an argument could be made that that is not its meaning. At the same time, I do not think that one man out of five hundred would take any other meaning out of it than the one that I have given. Then, there is the petition from the mixed blood. Indians not exactly in the same language, but of the same tenor, except that it says that they had been robbed of their scrip receiving only $200, while they would be able to get $1,000 if they had the scrip themselves. And the same answer is given to them that is given to the others. And here endeth these papers, so far. Now I have a word or two to say concerning what I have found in these papers. It may be that I should present some deductions with which some hon. gentlemen will not agree. In the first place, I note the remarkable change made by Mr. Smart, the deputy minister, in taking away from

the direct control of the minister that which the order of the minister had reserved to his direct control-that these should he examined by Mr. Cote and should be returned to him, the minister. The deputy said : Mr. CotS, examine these where you have the evidence, issue the scrip and send it at once. And the scrip, presumably, never entered the minister's office. I call the attention also to the admitted variation of the terms of the Order in Council confining it to the scrip which had been refused Mr. McKenna on account of residence and disallowed by him. The deputy minister, in the later communication I have read to the House says :	You are only to
look into two classes of scrip, one in which the name is given you, and the other the scrip which has been dealt with by Mr. McKenna. What does that mean 1 At least it has a look of confusion ; and it does seem as if the work of the department was not in accordance with the Order in Council or the direct instructions of the minister. I will next call attention to the fact that Mr. Cote has not made any report as to how he dealt with that scrip or what evidence he took. Mr. McKenna disallowed two clauses-or two kinds In one class. He disallowed all those who had gone to the United States, disallowing them partly on preliminary objection without evidence, and partly on evidence. That evidence the department might be presumed to have. But on what evidence- did Mr. Cote adjudicate on the claims [DOT]which had been disallowed on preliminary objections ? The widest limit is given to Mr. Cot6-evidence under oath would be superior to documentary evidence ; still you need not go to the Northwest to hold an Investigation, but take what you find, take what is given you. '
You need not go to the Northwest to hold an investigation. Take what is given to you. What did he find ? By whom was it given ? We have no report from Mr. Cote. This country to-day has actually disposed of 25,000 acres of its choice lands to Mr. McDonald by the aid of this government, nor has the House any report from Mr. Cote as to the principle upon which he has made these issuances of scrip, neither has the government, nor the House, nor the country. Well, I say that Mr. Cote should have reported, and that report should have gone to his minister, and before the property was given away that minister should have taken that report to the Council, and his colleagues in the Council should have known what was going on, and the reason why 55 of those scrip, though the Order in Council is only issued on the 13th of August, and although it was promulgated in the ' Gazette ' only on the 6th of October, 55 of this scrip were in the hands of McDonald before November, 1904, had passed away, and 93 of them were in his hands before the end of the year, and about 120 were in his hands before Mr. Chaffey, and Mr. Shortcross, and Mr. Big-Mr. FOSTER.
ger, or any one else interested had the least knowedge that the thing was going on, and before the half-breeds had the least intimation from the department whose wards they were, that there was any change made in their legal status in reference to these claims. The judgment falls, and falls rightly on the head of my right hon. friend. He invited his camp followers to loot the half-breeds. He shed tears over them in sympathy many years ago, he deified a rebel on their behalf, he condoned rebellion on their behalf ; yet he allows scrip ta be issued broad and wide, giving this parliament and this country as his reason for it, when it is brought to his mind, that It is simple robbery of the rights of the halfbreeds, by his go-betweens and followers, he says : We know that has taken place, but then we did our duty to the half-breeds. What invitation could be broader or more pressing to all his camp followers to camp on the trail of the half-breeds ; and when this benevolent government made what was supposed to he a payment for the rights of the half-breeds, they allowed their followers to steal it or buy it, or juggle it from them.
One thing more. Where does the member for Winnipeg (Mr. Bole) stand, if this version is correct ? Where does the government stand, if this version is correct ? The government was informed by Mr. Chaffey that the half-breeds were being robbed by fraud. Mr. Chaffey informed the member for Winnipeg that they were being robbed. Why should there be any compromise ? In the name of just dealing, if the government had a charge from a responsible man that this was being done by fraud, it should have held up the process until it had investigated the charge ; and I think the member for Winnipeg, if he busied himself, simply to get Mr. Chaffey a money consideration, with the allegation of fraud before him, was not a wise mediator. Above all things else, for a government to compromise a fraud is a wrong and unstatesmanlike thing. How much less is it than if. when they have responsible parties making a charge of fraud, they still go on and carry out the process and never investigate the charge as to whether there is fraud or not. How does the government stand with reference to fair-play ? Did Mr. Chaffey spend money in getting assignments of these claims' ? Did other gentlemen, may hie scores of them, of whom the department has knowledge-did they spend money in getting assignments of these claims thinking that the prior assignments should carry ? Was it a fact that five per cent, yes, three per cent of the officials thought the Order in Council was revoked, that the prior assignment stood. But that was revoked, and the whole thing was shovelled over into the lap of McDonald by virtue of the reversal, the taking away of that Order in Council as to the prior assignments. But more than that. What stood like a great rock in

the way of McDonald ? The fact that the half-breed himself had to go and locate. How con Id he get around that . The 13th dav of August, 1904, the government was firm as a rock, the half-breed himself must locate it was for his own protection. Six mouths afterwards, without any notice to anv of these men interested, that was taken away by departmental letter and not by Order in Council, and it was so made that McDonald got it all, and got it without there being the personal location which ai time previously had been required.
Now as to the half-breeds themselves, in all this correspondence there is not one single line or letter of sympathy or help towards the half-breeds. Nobody in the department seems to care about the halt breeds; many in the department seem to be running their legs off to make Me-Donald privy to what was going on. It is to the credit of the government that v\ lien thev sent these half-breed commissions throughout the Northwest they made it an invariable rule that the commissioners should, in the case of money scrip, see th i nobody got that money scrip from the halt-breed'who was the grantee unless he got the market price. If John Jones followed a half-breed and got his scrip, which was worth S20O for $50, folio-wed him up to the commission until the time that the commission issued the money scrip, when the commissioner held that scrip in his hand he said to John Jones : What have you given this half-breed for his scrip ?-$50-You cannot get it, Sir, the current price is $lo0. and before that scrip goes out of my hands, under instructions from the government,
I will see that this half-breed gets the current price-and John Jones had to come up and pay the current price. That was done in scores and hundreds of cases. t\hen these 200 or more half-breeds applied they had no case, they were bowled out ot court in spite of their petitions. Then, six months after the latest declaration of the policy ot the government to Cliaffey, the whole thing is reversed. But from the time it was reversed until every scrip had gone into McDonald's hands the department did not busy themselves in sympathy or in action to find what the half-breed had got for his scrip. It is alleged that McDonald went there and persuaded the half-breeds that they were signing papers to authorize him to institute a suit, when they were really signing the assignment of their scrip, and it is alleged in some quarters that he really got a quit claim signed in blank. Whether that be so or not I do not know, but there is the allegation of the half-breeds and up to that time no one in this department and no one in the right hon. gentleman's government had the least sympathy with the halfbreed or the least thought as to whether the half-breed should be jilted or not. For whose benefit ? I have here the list. There it is There is the list. There are all the
scrip that are issued and out of the whole of it there are 126 which have gone to Mr. McDonald. He holds them all. How many has he located ? Three up to the date of this. There is a point I want to know something about. Every land agent received authority to locate Mr. McDonald s scrip if it is endorsed. Mr. McDonald has had the endorsed scrip for months. Is that location going on now at the land offices, or has it been forbidden by the minister ? I think I would like to ask the hon. minister a question. Is that still going on ?


Frank Oliver: I will answer the hon. gentleman presently.


George Eulas Foster: If the hon. minister will answer me now and say that the department has issued orders to prevent the location


Frank Oliver: I will have to make an answer to the hon. member and I will answer him in the proper time.


George Eulas Foster: It is simply as the hon. minister says. I do not know why the answer should not be given. What in the world is the reason which would induce the hon. minister to keep it for ten minutes or half an hour ? We will get it out. It has to come. However, Mr. Macdonald has the scrip, orders have been given to the agents to locate scrip but to locate no other halt-breed scrip without the endorsement. ^ Tins presumably is going on now in the Territories. What does it mean ? Twenty-five thousand acres of land for which Mr. Macdonald has paid not more than 80 cents an acre located, no doubt, in the most valuable parts of the country-25,000 acres of land in Macdonald's hands, put in his hands at 80 cents an acre, worth at least from $8 to $10 an acre. How much of it does the halt-breed get ? He gets 80 cents an acre. How much does Macdonald get? He gets all over the SO cents an acre less his expenses. W hy this everlasting anxiety to help Macdonald . Who is he ? What has he done ? Does this government in its administration of halfbreed scrip exist for a man like Macdonald, or does it exist for the half-breed t In Heaven's name why should there be $150,000 or $200,000 placed in the hands of Macdonald and only 80 cents per acre of that go into the hands of the half-breed whose it was and whose rights are tremblingly described by hon. gentlemen opposite as blood rights. Blood rights are not in it except to tlie extent of 80 cents an acre compared with Macdonald rights and with the difference between 80 cents and what he sells the land for in the end. That is wheie it is There is no need to elaborate on it. I could say more than I have but I shall not sav any more. I now leave this with the government and I want the government as fooii as thev possibly can and within reasonable time tell the House what they intend to do I think something ought to be done. I think something ought to have been done


George Eulas Foster: Well that is a good way to answer it if you think it is the right way.


Frank Oliver: 
George Eulas Foster: I would like to keep my hon. friend right as far as I can. I never met Mr. Cbaffey, I do not know him, I never wrote to him. I never received a letter from him. The minister may call him his friend if he likes, hut he has no right to call him mine.


Frank Oliver: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon. I must confess that I was misled, for whereas in his former speech he took up the time of the House and the country in deprecating the granting of the scrip to the half-breeds as an in.justice to the public, on this occasion the greater part of his speech has been occupied with a discussion of the woes of Mr. Cbaffey.


George Eulas Foster: The reason being because I knew nothing of Mr. Chaffey's transaction or connection with the transaction until the minister brought down the papers. I found his case there, and finding it there I have a right to take it up.
half-breeds and teaching them to be farmers, &c., but I never argued as my hon. friend said.


Frank Oliver: I have some difficulty, I must admit, in following the hon. gentleman.


George Eulas Foster: The hon. gentleman should not follow me at such a distance ; that is the trouble.


Frank Oliver: I think the suddenness with which my hon. friend rises is evidence that I am following him too closely. I would ask the hon. gentleman and the House what we are doing in this case unless it is giving the land to the half-breed. Every acre of land which my hon. friend has spoken of as belonging to Mr. Macdonald, 25,000 acres of land as he says, is located in the name of the half-breed.


George Eulas Foster: If you are satisfied with the argument I am.


Frank Oliver: The hon. member has a right and he certainly made the most of his right in regard to Mr. Cliaffey.


George Eulas Foster: Thank you.
Mr. OLIVER, I say in the first instance there has been no change in policy on the part of the department in regard to the issuing of scrip. The policy is to give the half-breed everything that is coming to him and there has been no change in the matter of assignments of scrip, so that practically all the trouble that is in the mind of my hon. friend in that regard does not exist. The right of these halfbreeds to scrip was dealt with in the previous discussion. I think it is admitted that the half-breeds have a right to scrip and the demand has been made that the government should see that they get their right ; the eomplaint that my hon. friend has made here that the government while making a pretense of giving them their rights is not going on and further protecting them and insuring that they shall get the full value of the scrip as issued is I think a complaint that comes with very ill grace from my hon. friend or his friends on that side of the House especially in view of the arguments advanced by him during, the first discussion that the half-breed should not get the scrip at all, that it was gross injustice to the public at large and practically a robbery of the rights of the public that the rights of the half-breed should be recognized.


George Eulas Foster: I have no recollection of arguing in that way. I argued that tl^e half-breed should get what was coming to him in the way that would most benefit himself, and I pointed out to the Prime Minister that it was not given to him in the best manner if it were done in the way of scrip. I advocated the giving of the actual land to him, the gathering in of the


Frank Oliver: The hon. gentleman thinks the half-breed is being defrauded by our insisting that the land shall be located as it has been in the name of the half-breed and that Mr. Macdonald or whoever he may be must get his transfer from the half-breed as the owner of the land and not from him as the owner of the scrip. I would like to know by what piece of legislation my hon. friend would provide that the half-breeds should never have the right to sell the land once he had located it. I am sure my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) understands the matter as I have stated it to the House, but I think the House at large did not gather that fact from the tenor of his remarks. In regard to Mr. Chaft'ey and Mr. Chaffey's plea on behalf of the half-breeds and his complaint that the government did not take action to protect the interest of the half-breeds on the representation of Mr. Ohaffey let me read the last paragraph in Mr. Chaffey's letter to the department and then the House can judge what credit is due to the representations of Mr. Chaffey. He says :
I therefore withdraw all claims whatever under and by virtue of said orders sent by me a,nd withdraw all protests lodged by me against scrip being issued under orders filed with the department by said Macdonald to which he now has -aDy claim or order.
He withdraws all protest against scrip being issued or orders filed by the department to Mr. Macdonald. Mr. Chattey is certainly a very desirable man upon whose word the department and the government should base its policy, a gentleman who in his previous letters specifically alleged fraud, alleges robbery, makes all the allegations which mv hon. friend has used with such effect to-day, and then withdraws them all as he does withdraw them. He is not the man upon whose representation this

government or this department could carry were disallowed,which have been allowed by on its administration.	CSte, but which still stand as reserved cases.


George Eulas Foster: Hear, hear.


Frank Oliver: We have to take the representations of others than Mr. Chaffey or others like Mr. Chaffey. The hon. gentleman has read a representation placed before the department by certain half-breeds resident in the Turtle Mountain district of the United States and these gentlemen allege fraud and misrepresentation against this man Macdonald. I may draw attention to the fact that from the day upon which this petition was received here, I would think that it is as fair to take the supposition which I take the opportunity of placing before the House as it is to accept the supposition which my hon. friend has placed before the House to-day, and that is that since the first discussion of the question in the House, when he very gingerly charged fraud and was told a specific charge would have to be made before action could be taken, that then, somebody, whether a friend or otherwise, hied himself to Turtle Mountain and got up this petition from the half-breeds and sent it in here.


George Eulas Foster: What does my hon. friend draw from that ?


Frank Oliver: I draw this that my hon. friend is very much more anxious to make an attack upon the government than he is to protect the interests of anybody, even the half-breeds or Mr. Chaffey.


George Eulas Foster: How do you prove that ?


Frank Oliver: I do not think we will discuss it any more. I think it is a case which only proves itself. However, I will just draw attention to this fact, that the friend of my hon. friend who gathered these names and prepared these petitions was not altogether careful in the signatures. An analysis of the signatures will show just how they stand. I find, on examination in trie department, that one petition signed in the beginning by Michel Demarais, Frank Delorme and others is signed by 39 names, almost ail of which are signed by a mark, - nd in the 39 only 4 are the names of those whose claims have been allowed. So that it comes to this, that a petition comes into the department in the terms read by the hon. member, with the names of 39 persons attached, all of whom by their signatures have stated that they are interested parties, whereas on examination it is found that only four out of the 39 are interested parties.


George Eulas Foster: Might I draw my hon friend's attention to the fact that you may divide those into two classes ? There is here in a memorandum the statement that a certain number of these claims have been allowed by Cote, a certain number disallowed, and a certain number reserved for further evidence. It may quite be that some I of those claims are amongst those which


Frank Oliver: 


Frank Oliver: The case is at any rate that we have received statements from halfbreeds. We have not taken any notice of the representations made by Mr. Chaffee, and Mr. Chaffee's letter, I think, is a sufficient justification to the department for not doing so. But when these half-breeds, whose interests are not considered by the department, but whose interests the Prime Minister has .given authority to his friends throughout the country to loot-when these gentlemen come to the department, even by the road by which they have come, and even in the small numbers in which they have come, then certainly it is necessary that action should be taken ; and I can answer the hon. member's question by stating that as soon as I returned from that little tour to which he alluded a few days ago, I found certain papers in the department, and took action upon those papers at once. Authorization has been given for the holding of a commission of inquiry into those cases on behalf of the half-breeds, and notification has been issued to the different iand offices throughout the country to suspend action in regard to those cases until that investigation shall have been held. As the hon. member said, there is nothing in this to conceal. This department and this government have no interest but to see that the half-breeds get what is coming to them -that they get their blood right. Although it may cost some part of the public domain to give them their rights, we stand prepared to justify ourselves before the country, even against the very clever and I think somewhat doubtful arguments of my hon. friend, who would have us condemned in one part of the country for giving the land, and in another part of the country for not giving the half-breeds their rights. We stand prepared to give the half-breeds their rights, even at the expense of the public domain ; and we do not stand to protect any man, be bib name R. C. Macdonald or anything else, in any trespass upon those rights. The action taken, the papers before the House, and further papers which will be brought down if the hon. gentleman desires them, are evidence I think sufficient on that point.


Hon. JOHN HAGGART (South La'nark).: Mr. Speaker, the statement which my hon. friend has made in reference to this transaction has had one good effect, at any rate.
I called it a fraud before. The right hon. ieader of the government took exception to that term, but I think it has been fully justified by the papers which have been brought down. What was tbs charge made by my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) ? It was this : that some time ago a commission made certain inquiries into half-breed claims in the Northwest, and reported that certain half-breeds who resided in the United States and had become wards of that country, and

were receiving sums of money and land from it, were not entitled to the same benefits from this government as those who remained in Canada. The government, however, decided, on further consideration, that that policy perhaps ought not to he carried out; and an Order in Council was passed, changing it, and providing for granting to those half-breeds certain lands to which they would not otherwise he entitled. My hon. friend did not object to that change of policv ; he simply stated the fact of the change. What he found fault with was that the promise of the government had not been carried out. That promise, which was made in this House, and on which the Order in Council was based, was this, that no half-breed would have the right to transfer his scrip to any other person whatever- that when he was granted the right to certain lands in the Northwest, he must locate those lands himself, after which he would have the right to transfer them or sell them to any other person. The half-breeds were not altogether in the position of wards of the government, otherwise the government might have prohibited them from transferring their lands for a certain number of years. I think perhaps that would have been a better course for the government to have taken. What my bon. friend objected to was that the change made by the Order in Council, although not known even to the half-breeds who were the beneficiaries under it, nor to others in the country, became known to a man in the Northwest of the name of Macdonald, who took advantage of it for the purpose, as is alleged by the halfbreeds themselves, of obtaining by fraud their right to their locations. My hon. friend complains that there was no inquiry into that; and when the papers come down, they prove conclusively that an Order in Council was set dside by a departmental order to the different agents throughout the Northwest. In a letter to one David Phillip, Esq., Main St., Winnipeg, who asked if any change had been made in the rules regarding the locating of half-breed scrip, the secretary of the department said :
I am directed to inform you that it has recently been decided to allow scrip granted to half-breed residents of the United States, under the Order in Council of the lUth August, 1904, to be located in the name of the grantee thereof by the holder of such scrip without requiring ' the grantee to appear personally before the land agent to make his entry.
What power had the department to give any such instruction ? There is an Order in Council which requires the half-breed to appear personally in order to locate his claim. By what authority could the department vary that order ? I am glad to hear the right hon. gentleman, upon the cases being brought before him, issued instructions not to carry out this departmental order.
(Mr. OLIVER. It was suspended pending investigation.


John Graham Haggart: I understood that a commission was to be appointed to make inquiry, and that no action would be taken with reference to the half-breed scrip until the commission had reported. What does that mean, if not that the order is reversed ?


Frank Oliver: The order will be continued after the investigation, if no charge is found to stand. Let me just state the reason for the issuing of the order-not. that I issued it or am personally responsible. The halfbreeds covered by this Order in Council of August 13th are residents in the United States. Some of them, if not all of them, had become the wards of the American government, and were therefore not absolutely free agents in their movements; and in order that they might receive value for their scrip, it was necessary that they should be free to locate by agents instead of being required to locate personally. As the hon. member for Toronto (Mr. Foster) has pointed out, the direction is absolutely restricted to that particular scrip. And the reason is the one I have given. To insist that these half-breeds should locate that scrip in person would simply be an additional tax on the value of their scrip which they would have to pay, even if they could make the trip into Canada to locate. And if they could uot, they could not get any value at all for the scrip. That instruction was given therefore in the interests of the halfbreeds.


John Graham Haggart: Then the order is suspended until the commission of inquiry ascertains whether or not there has been fraud committed, and the Minister of the Interior says that the order will only be suspended until such time as that inquiry is made. But the objection I make is a more serious one. What authority had the department to issue any such order ? None whatever. Any party who would act under such an order is liable to punishment. It is a fraud upon the people. There is an Order in Council which says you shall not do such a thing. By what power does the Minister of the Interior vest himself with authority to set aside that Order in Council without the sanction of the Governor General ? My opinion is that if it were not for the action of my hon. friend beside me (Mr. Foster), all the scrip would have been issued and located. There seems to have been some authority which is not brought down in these papers, some counteracting authority to the different agencies throughout the Northwest, since that departmental order was issued. Why are we not in possession of that 1 I do not see in the papers brought down that the departmental order in reference to this scrip has been acted on at all. We ought to have that information. This transaction looks at the first blush like a very disgraceful one, but we shall await until all the papers are brought down and we see what the action of the department is.


Frank Oliver: If the non. gentlemen will state in so many words, in a written memorandum, exactly what papers they want, we will try to procure them to the best of our ability, but it is very hard to cover all the points on a mere cursory inquiry.


George Eulas Foster: I shall not hold the minister responsible for any papers not brought down which are not covered by the memorandum I sent to him. This memorandum calls for the missing parts of this correspondence. My hon. friend reiterated that in one part of the country I want to be understood as being opposed to the half-breeds getting their lauds and that in another part of the country I take the opposite position. For his first statement he cannot find any words of mine. There is no rason -why he should misrepresent the facts, and he ought to be furnished with the proof before making a statement. It is easy to make a charge of inconsistency, but it is another thing to establish it. I am not at all satisfied with the statement of the hon. minister that he pioposes to send somebody to investigate the matter. That does not fill the bill. It will not be filled until we get an opportunity, before some commission or somebody competent to take evidence, of examining the parties under oath

both the parties in and those out of the department. This matter cannot be hushed up by any little device of appointing a commission and sending it out to the half-breeds. That is only a small part ol the whole question raised. The question raised is as to what has taken place in the department and between the department and friends of these gentlemen, and we must have some opportunity somewhere and somehow of getting evidence under oath. I want the government to seriously consider whether or not they cannot give a subcommittee with power to examine under oath ; but if we come to the conclusion that we cannot stay here all year just for this matter, I am not unreasonable. We may leave the thing as it is now, and let the committee or commission be granted another year. We do not wish to keep the House unreasonably. But the case is not made at all by the minister saying he is going to send somebody down there to make investigations as to whether these half-breeds have told the truth or not. The matter goes far deeper than that, and T hope that the government will look at it in that way.
Sir WILFRID LAUR1ER. My hon. friend (Mr. Foster) should remember one point- and I am sure he will agree with me on re flection. The government must not hold an investigation simply upon hearsay or insinuation. but upon charges preferred. But the government will be bound to hold an investi-tio-u w^eu there is substantial cause for it. My hon. friend has made different state-"edtf	had ?ot ^tended to take part
m the debate, but his later remarks make it necessary for me to say a word. We have Mr. HAGGART.
in the department a direct allegation of fraud made against this man Macdonald by the half-breeds who declare that their signature to certain papers was secured by false representations, and that the papers were really of a different character from that represented to them. When this allegation was brought to the attention of the Minister of the Interior he at once took steps to have an investigation made. Now, my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) to-day made a different statement. He did not make a direct allegation, but only an insinuation. Perhaps it is premature for him to make up his mind on the matter ; perhaps, as time goes on and he gets further information he will be prepared to make a direct statement. To that statement we shall be bound to listen. He made a statement the other day which, it seems to me, he ought not to have made unless he is prepared to substantiate it. He said a moment ago, in his first remarks of to-day upon this subject that there was a rumour that papers in the Interior Department had been tampered with, and that it was said there were even ex-employees who either abstracted, or did away with, or destroyed, papers which might be compromising to them. He did not state that of his own authority, but said that there was a rumour to that effect. That is a very grave statement


George Eulas Foster: No doubt.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER-too grave a statement, to be made in the way my hon. friend has made it. It is not sufficient for a gentleman occupying the high position that my hon. friend does in this House merely to say that there are rumours afloat. They are always afloat ; some may be true, but many are false. When he has reason to think that these statements are true and that such acts have been committed, then I can tell him that I am as much interested as he is-more interested than anybody else-in learning the truth. The moment charges are made which necessitate an investigation, we shall have an investigation. But I think my hon. friend had better wait until he has all the facts before him, when he can make what charges he has to make. He has asked to have the papers brought down, and the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) has been most diligent in preparing them.


George Eulas Foster: I have no fault to find in that respect.


Wilfrid Laurier: It appears that all the papers are not yet down. It will be for the Minister of the Interior to see to it that they are brought down. If the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) finds that there are papers missing that ought to be there, he can make his statement, and we will be bound to give it our best consideration.


George Eulas Foster: May I ask the Minister of the Interior what steps have been taken to

hold the investigation ? What kind of investigation does he propose to make ?
Sir WILFRID LAUItlER. We have decided to have the matter come before a judge-County Judge Myers, of Winnipeg. That gentleman will hold an investigation into this assertion of the half-breeds.



PROPOSED EXPERIMENTAL STATION, NIAGARA DISTRICT.

Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton).: Before the Orders of the Day are called, I wish to ask if the government will be good enough to lay on the table the correspondence from the Niagara fruit district in southern Ontario, with reference to the establishment of an experimental station in that district ?


Wilfrid Laurier: I will refer the matter to the minister in charge.



GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC RAILWAY.

[Stage Direction]
The House went into committee on Bill (No. 115) respecting the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company.-Mr. L. G. McCarthy.
On section 1 :	mortgage in schedule A
confirmed.
John Graham Haggart: Would the gentleman in charge of this Bill be good enough to explain what the effect of this change in regard to mortgage is on the mortgage already authorized ?


William Stevens Fielding: So fur as the mortgage is concerned to secure the government's guarantee, the matter was placed by my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) in the hands of Mr. Shepley, of Toronto, to advise, and his report has been printed and distributed. The mortgage is necessarily a very elaborate document, and we have to rely on the advice of legal gentlemen with regard to it. It was under consideration for a long time, a good many point's being discussed, sometimes between Mr. Shepley and myself, sometimes the Minister of Justice and Mr. Shepley. But the sum and substance is set forth by Mr. Shepley in his report which certifies that the mortgage conforms to the Act.


John Graham Haggart: I have only this moment received a copy of Mr. Shepley's explanations. But the explanations seem just a little more difficult to understand than the document itself. Mr. Shepley says :
The first article gives extended definitions to certain compendious expressions made use of in the mortgage for purposes of convenience.


William Stevens Fielding: This report is on the form of the mortgage.


Hon. CHARLES FITZPATRICK (Minister of Justice).: There are three schedules attached to this Bill. The first schedule is the trust deed which is necessary to carry out the provisions of the original contract
made between the government and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company by which the government undertake to guarantee certain bonds which are to be issued by the Grand Trunk Pacific Company to enable them to finance the undertaking so far as the portion of the line is concerned between Winnipeg and the Pacific ocean. My hon. friend (Mr. Haggart) will remember that on that portion of the line the company is authorized by its charter to issue bonds not exceeding practically $20,000 a mile with respect to the prairie section and, I think, somewhere about $50,000 a mile with respect to the mountain section. The undertaking of the government is to guarantee that issue of bonds to the extent of 75 per cent of the cost of construction with respect to the prairie section limited to $13,000 a mile, and on the mountain section bonds to the extent of 75 per cent of the cost whatever it may be.
Then my hon. friend will remember that there is an obligation on the part of the government, or rather an assumed obligation, to exempt the company from the payment of interest on these bonds for the first seven years with respect to the mountain section ; and in so far as that section is concerned, if the interest on the bonds is not paid for the three years succeeding the first seven years, then that is to be a deferred payment. It is intended to give effect to that provision of the agreement. My hon. friend will notice that the only two departures from the original contract in this trust deed are, first, with respect to the prairie section, the government obligation to guarantee to the extent of $13,000 a mile remains * intact ; but under the provisions of the company's Act of incorporation their power to issue bonds is limited to $20,000 a mile with respect to the prairie section, and under the provisions of the trust deed, it having been ascertained that $20,000 a mile was not sufficient for the prairie section the trust deed provides that the company may issue bonds to the extent of $21,500. That is in accordance with the terms of the agreement between the government and the company, by which agreement it is provided that the company must find the money, whatever it may be. So our obligation to endorse is limited to $13,000 a mile, but the company will, under this schedule. get power to issue to the extent of $21,500.


John Graham Haggart: It must be more, that would only be $1,500 more a mile.


Charles Fitzpatrick: That is all, it is the provision of the agreement.


George Eulas Foster: The company assumes no further obligation.


Charles Fitzpatrick: No. Then I draw attention to this further provision which constitutes a departure from the agreement as contemplated at the time the Bill went through the House. My hon. friend

will remember that provision was made respecting the issue of bonds, pending construction. The company was authorized to issue what we call interim bonds, and when the construction was completed it was made obligatory on the company to surrender these interim bonds which were to be endorsed t\p-. the government, so that they might be replaced by a permanent issue. It was found impossible, practically, to finance the scheme in that respect, because these bonds could not be floated ; bonds of that character which were practically interim bonds issued for six or seven years could not be floated. I understand there were financial difficulties In connection with the matter, and the result is that we have made provision under this section for a present issue of permanent bonds extending over the whole period ; so that instead of having an issue of bonds, as it was originally intended, of a temporary character which should be superseded by a permanent issue at the end of construction, the issue now is of a permanent character applicable to the whole period of construction, which is estimated at seven years.


George Eulas Foster: In what part of the schedule does that appear ?


William Stevens Fielding: The change respecting the bonds is set forth toy Mr. Shepley in his report. He says :
The guarantee of interim bonds during the period of construction to be compulsorily convertible into the guaranteed permanent bonds on the completion of the work of construction, which was the scheme for interim aid contemplated by the agreement of 1903. During the negotiations it was found impracticable to devise a workable scheme on the precise lines of the agreement, and there were found to be formidable market objections to bonds issued on the terms contemplated. The method adopted in the mortgage submitted is to provide for the immediate issue of permanent bonds, adding to the fifty-year period of currency of such permanent bonds, which period was under the agreement to begin on the completion of the division, the seven years limited by the agreement of 1904 for such completion, making the bonds at once fifty-seven year bonds.
The objection from a finance point of view was that making two issues of bonds, one at seven years and then another of fifty years, that is making two separate transactions, involved two separate market charges, which would amount, to a very large sum on a huge transaction of this character. There was no objection from the government point of view to making the one issue of bonds for fifty-seven years rather than making one issue for seven years and another for fifty years. The net result, so far as the government is concerned, is the same, and there is a large saving of expense by having one issue instead of two.
Mr. FOSTER, What was the object of the interim bonds at first ?


Charles Fitzpatrick: [DOT]


William Stevens Fielding: To assist the company during construction. In a first draft of the agreement it was provided that the company should receive aid on the completion of the line. As the matter progressed it became clear that the road could not be built on those terms, so we had to provide for the issue of interim bonds which at the close of construction, would be compulsorily convertible into more permanent bonds. And in that conversion there were these market charges which, on a large transaction, would amount t'o a great deal of money.


John Graham Haggart: These are the only two changes ?


William Stevens Fielding: Yes, as respects the issue of bonds, and the liability of the government.


John Graham Haggart: Then as regards the prairie section it is to allow them to increase their issue of bonds above $17,500.


Charles Fitzpatrick: If my hon. friend will look at the original agreement he will find that authority is given to issue bonds with respect to the prairie section to the extent of $20,000 per mile, and on that $20,000 per mile the government guarantee $13,000 per mile. But it has been ascertained that so far as this section is concerned the financing of the enterprise would entail an issue of bonds to the extent of $21,500, and under schedule * B ' they are authorized to issue to that extent. But our obligation remains unchanged.


John Graham Haggart: $13,000 was 75 per cent of the total amount, that would be $17,500. But you increase that amount to $21,500, without any other obligation on the part of the government than exists at present.


William Stevens Fielding: That is correct.


George Eulas Foster: So much as regards the financial part, and that is all that is referred to ?


Charles Fitzpatrick: The only change, though it is not strictly a change, is with respect to the character of the undertaking instead of having the western extension as security for the bonds we take in addition the leasehold interest in the eastern section so as to cover at once the whole transaction.
On section 2,


Charles Fitzpatrick: Section 2 confirms the mortgage in schedule b. It has reference to the transaction between the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company and the Grand Trunk Railway Company in regard to the second mortgage bonds. It is a condition of their agreement with the government that they shall get the second mortgage bonds guaranteed by the old Grand Trunk Railway Company, and schedule b provides for that mortgage.

On section 3,


Charles Fitzpatrick: Section 3 provides for their own issue for branch lines, with which the government is not concerned.
On section 4,


George Eulas Foster: What does Mr. Shepley mean in paragraph b, on page 4, when he
says :
There has been some amplification of detail in the definition of cost of construction given by the fifteenth paragraph of the agreement of 1903.
What is that amplification ?


Charles Fitzpatrick: The paragraph to which that refers is to be found at the end or page 10 of the Bill which we are now considering. It is the schedule, article 1, section 5. My hon. friend will see that the expression ' construction work ' is practically intended to cover the work during the process of construction and is intended to enable advances to be made on materials which have been delivered in the country, which would not be covered by the original section 15 of the first agreement.


John Graham Haggart: If they have the material for the construction of the work in the country you can make advances to them, even if it
i.'. not on the ground where the work is proceeding ?


William Stevens Fielding: It was thought that probably the words in the existing Act would permit that, but to prevent any doubt it was made clear that on goods delivered in Canada, although not actually delivered on the railway, advances may be made. For example, if a ship load of rails were landed in Montreal-that is not a very good illustration, because we expect to make the rans i:i Canada-these rails will have to be paid for. and the moment they art delivered the lien of the government applies to the property ancl wg can make advances on tnem, so long as they are to be used in the construction of the work.


John Graham Haggart: Does the lien of the government apply ?


William Stevens Fielding: Yes.


John Graham Haggart: How is it made to apply


William Stevens Fielding: That matter was special-1 * discussed with counsel, and it was agreed that the Act covered it. My hon. friend will see that Mr. Shepley says on page 4 of his report that:
Upon such delivery in Canada they become at once a parcel of the property covered by the mortgage.


George Eulas Foster: I suppose we will have to take Mr. Shepley's opinion of it.
Bill reported.



RELIEF OF ARTHUR HOWE HERSEY.

[Stage Direction]
On the order,
House in committee on Bill (No. 167) for the relief of Arthur Howe Hersey.-Mr. T. G. Johnston.
Mr. HENDERSON.: On Friday last I asked that this Bill stand over until to-day. I will again state the reasons why I shall ask a postponement of the Bill at the present. It appears that when this Bill came before the Private Bills Committee of the House of Commons the promoter was not present.- Neither was the respondent represented, inasmuch as the notice to her solicitor had failed to reach him. The respondent is anxious yet to be represented before the committee in this case. I have not read the evidence myself, my copy having been mislaid, but I am informed that this is a somewhat peculiar case ; noi, at any rate, an ordinary case, inasmuch as there is no direct evidence of actual adultery. The respondent is anxious to be represented, and owing to the fact that the notice failed to reach her solicitor she was not represented.
I think it would be a very reasonable thing on the part of the House to grant the request. A very short delay will certainly take place by meeting the views of the respondent in this case. I therefore beg to move :
That order No. 2 be discharged, and that Bill No 167 (letter E of the Senate) be referred back to the Committee on Private Bills for further consideration.


Mr FIELDING.: Has it been tbe practice for our committee to take evidence on these subjects ?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes ; we have done so.


Mr FIELDING.: It has been the practice for a committee of this House to take evidence as well as the committee of the other House ?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes ; I remember distinctly when it was done.


Mr. A. JOHNSTON.: Just oue word in answer to my hon. friend from Halton (Ml. Henderson). ' When this question was up on Friday evening last my hon. friend from Middlesex (Mr. Calvert), who is in charge or this Bill in the absence of my hon. friend from Lambton (Mr. T. G. Johnston), in whose name the Bill stands, made tbe statement that he would prefer that no action should he taken in regard to this Bill until such time as the promoter should be able to be here. It may well happen that my hon. friend from Lambton may be abie to be here within a day or two, and it might not be unwise to defer any further action until such time as he is in the House. I therefore l-eg to move that the debate be adjourned.


David Henderson: I did not so understand tbe request made by my hon, friend

from Middlesex on that occasion. I understood him to say that the hon. member for Lambton (Mr. T. G. Johnston), who is in charge of this Bill, was absent. It appears that the hon. member for Lambton is ill. It is quite uncertain when he will be here. He may not be here for a week, or perhaps weeks. I do not see that the case would bt prejudiced in any way by the fact that he is not present. I presume he has simply lent his name to those who are putting through the Bill and that he does not feel any direct interest in the matter. I fail to see that anything would be gained by throwing it over until the hon. member for Lamb-ton shall be here. I have no desire to delay the matter further than to simply allow the Bill to go back again before the committee, and allow the Private Bills Committee to deal with it and give it such further consideration, after hearing the solicitor for the respondent, as they think advisable, and then to again report to the House, when the matter can be disposed of. I have no desire to delay the matter, and I would prefer to go back direct to the committee at as early a date as possible and have it dealt with by that committee.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Why not allow it to go to the committee and then allow Dr. Johnston's convenience to be suited as to wheu the committee should be called ?


William Stevens Fielding: I think that if the
This is nonsense ; the Bill had better stand.
Order allowed to stand.



QUESTIONS.


Mr. AMES asked :: Is it the intention of the government, during the present session, to introduce legislation with a view of abolishing what are known as trading stamps ?


Wilfrid Laurier: It is the intention of the government to introduce legislation this session dealing with trading stamps.


SALVATION ARMY AND IMMIGRATION.
Mr. MONK asked :: 1.	Has the government had any correspondence with the Salvation Army in regard to immigration to Canada ?
2.	Will said correspondence be laid upon the table of the House before the immigration estimates are further discussed ?


Wilfrid Laurier: The government has had correspondence not with the Salvation Army, but with Mr. Rider Haggard with regard to immigration to Canada. The correspondence will be brought down.


ELECTORS IN NORTHWEST.
[Stage Direction]
course adopted Is pursued and the convenience of the hon. member for Lambton (Mr. Johnston) Is consulted as to the time when the committee shall be called, all the interests would be served.
Motion agreed to, and Bill referred to Private Bills Committee.
NORTHWEST TELEPHONE COMPANY. On the order :
Consideration of amendment made by the Senate to Bill (No. 28) An Act to incorporate the Northwest Telephone Company.-Mr. Turriff.
Charles Fitzpatrick: 
Mr. LAKE asked :: 1.	How many names of qualified electors appear upon each of the lists used at the eleetiou on 3rd of November, 1904, for the electoral districts of Saskatchewan, Mackenzie, Humboldt, Qu'Appelle, East Assiniboia and West Assini-boia ?
2.	What was the total number of votes 'cast in each of the above mentioned electoral districts at the said election ?


Wilfrid Laurier: No. 1. Saskatchewan	6,442
Qu'Appelle	! 8,087
Mackenzie	 3,260
East Assiniboia	 9,613
Humboldt	 3,617
West Assiniboia	 8,569
No. 2. Saskatchewan	3,530
Qu'Appelle	 5,332
McKenzie	 2,495
East Assiniboia	 6,786
Humboldt	 1,799
West Assiniboia	 6^512



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee of Supply.
At six o'clock, committee took recess.
After Recess.
Committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Immigration-salaries of agents and employees in Canada, Great Britain and foreign countries, $157,200.
['It is understood that the Autonomy Bill will be taken up, the clause in relation to the boundaries of the constituencies.']
Frederick Debartzch Monk: It is our intention to present a motion, of which I will give notice to my hon. friend, in regard to the general policy of the government respecting immigration. I scarcely think it would meet the views of my hon. friend were we to present that motion this evening, as there are very few members in the House, and I would venture to suggest to my hon. friend that he take up some other items and keep the most important ones for that discussion at a future date.


Frank Oliver: I am sure it is the wish of all members to expedite the business of the House, and, without wishing to detract from the freedom of debate or to stop the presentation of any line of policy that may be thought well, I would say that if it would suit the hon. gentleman as well, it would suit us very much better, to proceed with this main estimate in regard to immigration, and take up the question of policy on a supplementary vote which will have to be asked for later on.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If this is the usual vote for immigration, we might proceed with it, and reserve the other votes for another day.


Frank Oliver: The information that would be elicited in the discussion of this vote will be available for the presentation of the main question on a future day.


Mr. TAYLOR.: Surely my hon. friend does not intend to come down with any supplementary estimates in addition to this large sum of $767,200.


Frank Oliver: I am given to understand that there will be a supplementary vote of about $30,000.


Mr. URIAH WILSON.: This Is a very considerable vote, and I think it is presented in a very objectionable form. In the estimates of the Public Works Department, for a very much smaller amount, you will find eight or ten items. In the committee, we elicited from the superintendent of immigration a considerable amount of information in regard to the money spent and the directions in which it was spent. 1 think there should be special items for printing, the salaries of agents and their expenses. We ought to have a good deal more detail in the estimates than we have, and I think it is up to the minister to give a pretty full explanation of what he has done, and what he intends to do with this vote of $157,200. The next item of $610,000 shows an increase of $74,000. The vote for the present year was exceptionally large. The minister, in explaining the supplementary estimates, stated that it was due to overlapping. But it seems to me that expenditure on immigration is altogether too large for the results we are getting. Last year the report showed that the items were divided as follows : for continental Europe, $78,000; for Great Britain and Ireland,
$236,000 ; for the United States, $205,000 ; total for these three items, $519,000, leaving to be spent in Canada for 1903-4 $225,788.
I cannot understand why such a large sum of money should be required in Canada to take care of the immigrants after they arrive. The minister may be able to give some satisfactory explanation of that. I hope he will, because our only object is to have the money well spent and to get good value for it. Then, for the present year the main estimates were $672,276, with a sup-plemetary vote which was passed the other day of $300,150, making in all $972,426. That certainly is a very large vote for immigration. My hon. friend, while he was a private member of this House, took very serious objection to very much smaller amounts. I quite understand that he was not a minister of the Crown when these estimates were put through and while this money was spent ; at the same time, having taken office, I presume that he is prepared to take full responsibility, as he has to do. whether he is personally responsible or not. We find expended in continental Europe for the present year $133,786, in Great Britain and Ireland $239,000. in the United States $318,000 and in Canada $282,150, making a total of $972,936. I think the minister ought to be able to give us a detailed statement of what he has done with this money and why he requires so much. It is a well known fact that the United States has never had an immigration agent abroad soliciting immigrants, and at the present time it is a criminal offence for any person to do that. They are spending, I presume, about as much money to keep undesirable people out of the country as we are spending to get all kinds of people into the country. I will not at the present time go into the general question of immigration until I hear the explanation of the minister on the first item.
Mfi. (OLIVER. I did not understand definitely from the hon. member for Jacques Cartier whether he was willing to go on with these estimates to-night or not ?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I am perfectly willing.


Frank Oliver: In regard to the general remark that the expenditure is very large, and that it is increasing, that is certainly something to be considered carefully, and to be justified by the results. The position taken by the hon. member is that inasmuch as the United States does not assist immigration, Canada should not do so.


Uriah Wilson: I did not just say that, but you may put it that way if you like.


Frank Oliver: What I understood from the hon. gentleman was that inasmuch as the United States did not solicit immigration, it was a questionable policy for Canada to do so. But as a matter of fact immigrants have gone into the United States

by tbe million while the population of Canada practically stood still In so far as the influx of new population was concerned. For a generation or two, while our population was increasing By thousands, theirs was increasing by the million. Not only were we not getting immigration but we were losing our own people to the United States, and this condition continued many years even after we had the Northwest opened up by railway communication. While therefore there was no necessity for the United States to solicit immigrants since they were coming in without solicitation, the reverse was the case in this country, and we had to exert ourselves to secure new population to settle our waste lands or we would be permanently left behind in the race. The reverse of the policy advocated by the hon. gentleman was therefore adopted. The policy of securing immigration was entered upon vigorously with the most happy results. True the expenditure has been large, but the results have been more than proportionate. From a material point of view, they have been eminently satisfactory. The mere fact therefore that our expenditure on immigration is increasing is not necessarily an evidence of unwise policy or administration. As long as the results of that expenditure are satisfactory, there is no particular ground for condemnation. Of course it is none the less necessary that the expenditures should he carefully looked after, money should not be wasted and every criticism that will tend towards a better direction or a reduction of tbe expenditures without lessening the result will cei'tainly be welcome. With regard to the criticism as to the large amount of the vote in bulk, while a vote in bulk has its objectionable side it 'has also a very useful side. The immigration service is one which, in the nature of things, cannot be absolutely controlled. If for one reason or another, there should come a special stream of immigration or a special urgency should arise in a certain direction, it is absolutely necessary that tbe urgency should be met at once ; and when we vote the amount in bulk, the funds are available anywhere within the limits of that vote, as they would not be if the vote were confined to a number of different items. We can get a better service for less money, so long as tbe money is properly handled, by giving a vote in bulk than by subdividing it. So far there has not been any great objection to tbe handling of money in that way. I fancy that every expenditure on immigration has met with probably as little objection from tbe Auditor General as any expenditure in any of tbe other branches of the government. So long as we do not mishandle the money, it is a very great advantage to the department to have this money voted in hulk.


Uriah Wilson: What other changes are there in the policy of the department in the last three years ?


Frank Oliver: 


Frank Oliver: I cannot say that I know of any. Our policy is of course to secure as many desirable immigrants as possible with as little expenditure as possible. Of course as conditions change, there will have to be changes in our system to meet them, but there has been no change in our general policy from the start to the finish. That policy has been to get as many settlers as possible with as little expenditure as possible.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I think it would be useful if my hon. friend would give us an idea of what changes he proposes to make, if any, in the policy followed by his predecessors ever since this government came into power. Did the hon. gentleman say that there is no material change in that policy ? A moment ago in reply to my hon. friend from Lennox (Mr. Uriah Wilson), he said that the fact that the United States had received a very considerable influx of immigrants without any expenditure, and that during the same period we had received but few immigrants, proved that Canada required to spend considerable money in order to equalize the conditions. I do not think that that follows as a matter of logic. In the United States they have never encouraged Immigration. They have never spent a dollar for that purpose on which we are spending millions every year. The money they have expended has been spent for' the purpose of guarding against strangers and undesirable immigration. And, in spite of that, they have had, during the last twenty-five years, an unprecedented flow of immigrants into that country. As my hon. friend from Lennox (iMr. Uriah Wilson) stated, the immigration law forbids any person to induce immigrants to come to that country. Shipping agents may advertise tbe time of departure of steamers end conditions for transportation, but anything more is forbidden. And we all know bow extremely stringent the law is in tbe United States as to tbe admission of immigrants and bow these conditions, stringent as they are, are enforced, one might almost say, to perfection. One reading tbe report of tbe United States Commissioner of Immigration setting forth tbe results obtained by tbe preventive officers of tbe immigration staff of that country can easily see that their policy is absolutely the opposite of our own. And yet, what is the result V We know that hundreds of thousands of people go into the United States every year. We know that the best of the immigrants to he had in the o4d world go to the United States. Last year, I believe, over
830,000	immigrants arrived at American ports. And all this without inducements held out. without canvassing, without any single item of this immense expenditure which we make every year for immigration purposes. Far from following such a course r.s ours, immigrants are charged upon en-

ti ring the American republic a tax of $2 a bead. And this gives a revenue which exceeds by several hundred thousand dollars what they expend-a very large sum-for purposes of immigrant inspection. I think I am within the mark when I say that in 1896 Canada was spending about $200,000 for purposes of immigration. Of course, the system was the same as that of to-day-the pi omotion of immigration-but on a very much more moderate scale. I think that last year all the expenses, direct and indirect, connected with immigration would make a total of considerably more than $1,000,000-though the expenditure may not appear in the Auditor General's Report as connected with immigration. I think that the number of immigrants who came to Canada last year was about 130,000. I do not know that our system of inspection and control of that immigration is at all what it ought to be. It will be necessary to refer to that later on. But my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior, some three or four years ago, stated in the House that we must proceed with extreme caution with respect to immigration. I have often read these remarks of my hon. friend, and I have lio doubt that he remembers them also. He was of opinion then, and quoted authority for his contention, that desirable immigrants should be carefully selected, and that, after they reached this country, they should be carefully followed in order to make sure that they realised the expectations formed of them, and became bona fide settlers in this country under favourable conditions. He stated also, in substance, that it was time to call a halt in regard to indiscriminate immigration at any rate, and that if we continued to import people at the rate we had done for some time past, we would be- to use his own words-laying the foundation in the Northwest, whither most of these immigrants go, of most difficult problems for the Dominion government and the local authorities to solve. Is not my hon. friend (Mr. Oliver) disposed to carry out the views he expressed on that occasion ? I regret that I have not his speech here, but I would assume from what he said on that occasion that he intended to make very serious modifications in the system of indiscriminate immigration which we follow at the present time. Does he not consider that some change is necessary ? Or is he in favour of continuing, without reservation or restriction, the policy of his predecessor ?
As regards the grouping of the expenditure, I agree with my hon. friend from Lennox (Mr. Uriah Wilson), not only with regard to these items, but with regard to most of the items of the estimates, that discussion would be much shorter if more details were given. But this is particularly tiue in regard to the items respecting immigration. Here is a proposed expenditure of $767,000 grouped under two headings only. This arrangement obliges us to ask many 244
questions which might be avoided were the items properly divided.


Frank Oliver: As to the form of the vote, I may say that these sums have been divided for purposes of statement to the House, so that, I think, we shall be able to answer any questions that may arise quite as well as if the division were made in the estimates. And this form of vote does not prevent us from increasing one expenditure and decreasing another, as the urgency of the case requires. If money is voted for a certain service, and even if a balance remains unexpended, no part of the vote can be used for another service, no matter how badly it may be needed. But this difficulty has been avoided in the past, the result being actual economy in 'the service.
With regard to my own view and with regard to questions of policy, I have nothing whatever to take back of what I said on the occasion referred to by the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk). I have always looked upon the question of immigration as one of the most important that the country had to deal with. There is no doubt that immigration brings problems of more or liss difficulty to the part of the country affected ; and I think now, as I thought before, that it is not wise to shut our eyes to these problems. At the same time we all recognize the necessity of increasing the population ; we all recognize the necessity of encouraging immigration. As I said, the 1 olicy of the government has been to induce immigration, and, so far as I am concerned, the policy of the government will be to induce immigration. I think it has never been a part of the settled policy of the government to induce indiscriminate immigration, and it will not he the policy of the government to induce indiscriminate immigration or to deal with immigration indiscriminately.
As I said a few minutes ago, changed conditions will require to be met by changed methods. It is impossible for me, having only recently entered the department, and not having had an opportunity to familiarize myself with this matter, to say at the present time what may be done in one regard more than is being done, or what may be done in another regard less than is being done. I think my hon. friends will not be so unfair as to demand such a statement from me at this time. To put the case shortly, my view is, as it always has been, that the country requires a vigorous immigration policy, and that that policy should be acted upon with due regard to the ultimate effect upon our country of the people whom we induce to settle in it ; and that while no money is too much to spend to secure an immigration of the right kind of people, any monev is too much to spend on an immigration of the wrong kind. I do not think there is any disagreement between the two sides of the House, or between any two members of the House on that point. We are all agreed in



that respect, and it is only a question of how best to carry out that policy. On the one hand we want the people, we want them quickly, and we want as many of them as ' we can get ; on the other hand we want to ; procure as desirable a class as possible ; and the effort of the department will be to attain both objects so far as possible.


Uriah Wilson: I had hoped for a change in the policy of immigration when my hon. friend the present minister took office, because we know he has made some vigorous speeches in this House upon that very question. I do not see how we can reconcile his position that there should he no change in the policy of the government with his previous utterances on this subject. Now X bave a lot of quotations liere of bis speeches, I am not going to quote any of them to-night, because we expect another discussion ; but there is one that fits in so well here that I cannot refrain from reading it. It will be found on page 3740 of the ' Hansard ' of 1902. Mr. Oliver spoke as follows :
I am given to understand that a new system is being adopted in regard to immigration from the British Isles. I am not familiar with the details of that system, but I will say that there is no possibility of adopting any system which could be less effective than which has prevailed during the past year. I am satisfied that any system that is adopted will be an improvement.
pick up hundreds of pamphlets on the street that had been thrown away broadcast. A few years ago my bon. friend was with me in
opposition to the policy of paying $5 bonus. But if we have to give bonuses let us give them to our own people. I am not at all in favour of bonuses, I want that understood ; but if we have to give a bonus to any man, let us give it to the Englishman, the Irishman or the Scotchman, then we will have one of our own people amongst us. The ether day I came across a good Scotchman, a very intelligent man, and he said, I think if you dealt as well by the Scotch people as you do by the Doukhobors you would have very little trouble in getting a large number of them. We not only gave $5 per bead for the Doukhobors, but we gave them assistance besides when they had hard luck in the winter time. I do not object to that, but as they are a very prosperous people I think we ought to get that money back. Now the minister has not given) us one bit of information as to the first part of this vote : * Salaries of agents and employees in Canada. Creat Britain and foreign countries. That item is of a wide scope, and I think we ought to have some information about it. I do not feel disposed to be unduly severe on the minister, knowing that be has only recently taken office ; but I think he ought to give us at least some information about that vote of $157,200.
Now I might almost say that I agree pretty well with the minister. I do not think we have got very good results from the money we have been spending on immigration. We have had many agents drawing salaries, and who have not given good value in return. There is another system to which I am even more strongly opposed than to the salaried agents, and that is the commissioned agent. It seemed to be the opinion that no matter who an agent induced to come into this country, it was all right and he could get a commission. Then there is another thing. The superintendent of immigration told us the other day that for certain immigrants we gave $5 a head commission to the steamboat agents. I believe these are continental immigrants, farmers and labourers. Well, we only pay 7 shillings per head for British immigrants. Now it seems to me that policy should-be reversed. I know'' what the answer will be, namely, that the steamboat agents or, the (parties taking charge of that kind of immigration, pay their own advertising and that sort of thing. Well, we pay for the advertisements in Great Britain and Ireland, as well as in other countries. Now the fact of the matter is that a great deal of this money, in my judgment, is wasted. Besides that, a great deal of the literature is wasted that w'e send out in such great quantities. I have been told by one man in particular who lectured in the old country that they had agents at the door giving away literature, and after the lecture was over you could


Frank Oliver: I shall be pleased to give all the information in my power.


Uriah Wilson: In the first place, why do you want so much money for agents in Canada ?


Frank Oliver: There is required $102,230 for the service in Canada ; $31,530 for the United States ; $19,700 for Great Britain ; $3,700 for the continent. There is an increase of $20,000 over last year. This is to pay the salaries of several new appointments, some increases of salaries, and to pay the salaries of several officials whose services in the past have been paid from the vote for contingencies and general expenses ; that is to say, we are meeting to a certain extent the criticism the hon. member made in the beginning that a certain amount, $7,500, which was formerly paid out of the lump sum of contingencies, is now paid out of this specific sum voted for salaries.


Uriah Wilson: Give us the amounts for salaries.


Frank Oliver: Yes. The new appointments, salaries, amount to $12,980.25, an increase of $1,000. There was transferred from the general vote $7,500 ; that makes a total of $21,486.25 and there is a decrease of $1,500, making a net increase of $19,980. The new appointments are as follows :	Dr. A. C. Hawkins, medical officer.
Halifax. $1,000 ; Dr. J. C. Howe, medical officer, Quebec, $1,000 ; Dr. A. Potvin, medical officer, Quebec, $1,000, and Dr. A. T.


Frank Oliver: Stewart, medical officer, Montreal, $1,000, making $4,000 for medical inspection at ports of landing rendered necessary by the increased stringency of the efforts which are being made to prevent the landing of undesirable persons.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: What would be the duty of the medical officer in Montreal ?


Frank Oliver: The duty of the medical officer is to inspect people, who come to Montreal through New York and Boston.


Mr. BLAIN.: I brought to the attention of the bon. minister, when the immigration item was before the committee last, the case of some immigrants who had come over to Canada and who had been stopped at Prescott, Ont., on their way to the United States.
I understood them to be immigrants from the old country who had crossed our border, who had come up to Prescott and then desired to cross over to Ogdensburg, but were stopped by the United States officials. I asked the hon. minister if he would be good enough to investigate the matter and be prepared to give us a statement in regard to it. Perhaps the hon. gentleman could give it now.


Frank Oliver: We have not the correspondence in hand but we will be prepared to place it before the committee.


George Taylor: I would like to ask the hon. minister if he approves of and if it is his intention to carry out the policy of his predecessor in regard to the expenditure of the money of the people which is voted for the purposes of immigration ? I find by reading the Auditor General's Report that last year the great bulk of this money was paid to political friends of the government for services that I think added very little to the bringing in of immigrants. At page L-15 of the Auditor General's Report I find that the salaries at Ottawa were $17,978.06. But, that is only a bagatelle, because I find that F. C. Blair, who is a salaried officer was paid the following amounts : Board and lodging, $99.65 ; cabs, $4.55 fares, $16.11 ; livery, $224.10 ; pullmans, $14.50 ; street cars, $4.20 ; stage fares, $1.40 ; tips, $2 ; sundries, $2.61 ; making a total of $369.12, that this gentleman has disbursed. But, this is only a small matter. Take the case of Mr. H. Charlebois. He receives pay for services, 33 days at $5, 27 days at $4, and although he is not a permanent officer at all, the government furnish him with a uniform cap costing $5. Then, for board and lodgings he receives $123.20 and for pullmans, $88 ; making a total of $489.20.	,T. Edgar is paid for services 52
days at $5, and he received a uniform cap costing $6.50. board and lodging, $109.40 ; pullmans, $06 ; cabs, 1 ; street cars. $2 ; tips. $2.25 ; making a total of $447.15. He' puts his hand into the chest, takes out money belonging to the people of the country. and expends it in tips although he is
244*
simply working by the day receiving $5 a day and expenses. But, that is not the worst. Take the case of J. Franklin, services, 193 days at $5, 9 days at $4, board and lodging, $425.55 ; cabs, $3.75 ; pull-maps, $276.50 ; street cars, $8.45 ; tips, $6 ; sundries, $4.25 ; making a total of $1,651.80. This gentleman takes $6 of the people's money with which to tip waiters, &c. Next we have R. W. Hillyard, services 147 days at $5 ; 6 days at $4 ; 4 22-30 m. at $1,000; board and lodging, $425.50; bus, $4.40 ; coal oil. $2.24 ; fares, $44.55 ; hand basins, $8.03 ; livery, $135.55; provisions for immigrants, $5.85 ; pullmans, $235 ; street cars, $11.45 ; telegrams, $2.70 ; tips $27.70 ; transfers, $4.20; sundries, $2.03, making a total of $2,074.87. This gentleman spends $27.70 for tips, but that is not the worst Geo. A. Johnston receives pay for services 125 days at $5 ; 1 day at $4 ; 4 22-30 m. at $1,000 ; board and lodging, $481.80 ; cabs, $2.25 ; fares, $27 ; pullmans, $305.50 ; provisions for immigrants, $3.55 ; telegrams, $2.80 ; tips, $11 ; wash basins, $1.50 ; sundries, $4.04 ; making a total of $1,875.11. L. Kelioe receives pay for services 18 days at $5 ; 19 days at $4 ; board and lodging, $71 ; pullmans, $56 ; street cars, 70 cents ; uniform cap, $5 or in all $298.70. Mr. W. D. Scott receives for board and lodging, $532.50; baggage transfer, $7.75; cabs, $14.75; map, $1; pullmans, $68.75 ; street cars, $9.25 ; tips, $5.25 ; making a total of $639.25. The next is Mr. G. B. Smart. Mr. Smart is set down as a salaried officer at $1,400 looking after pauper children, and here are his expenses : Board and lodging, $465.38 ; baggage transfers, $8.50; cab and bus fares, $56.40 ; cigars, $7. The government have to furnish him with cigars. He charged them up to the government. He took the people's money bought cigars and smoked them with his heels up on the seat of a pullman because he is allowed $107.85 for pullmans. Fares, $48.78 ; livery, $264.75 ; postage; $3.76 ; printing cards, $2.60 ; pullmans, $107.85; street cars, $19.20 ; telegrams, $11.55 ; telephones, $4.10; tips, $23.95; sundries, $1.87 ; making, a .total of $1,025.69. lie takes $23 of the people's money with which to tip waiters and others and this added to $7 for cigars, makes $30. of the people's money expended in this way, yet, this vote is supposed to be for immigration purposes. Of what assistance is it towards bringing immigrants into this country to pay $7 to Mr. Smart to buy cigars and $23 to give in tips to waiters ? Is it the intention of the hon. Minister of the Interior to continue this policy under his management of the department ? Is he going to allow the people's money to be frittered away in this shape ? If so, we had better say we will give up importing immigrants at all.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.
* Mr. COCHRANE. My friends opposite approve of it and say it is all right for a

civil servant to put his hand into the treasury and take out $7 and buy cigars and give $23.50 in tips to waiters. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are frittered away in that way. Every servant in connection with this department at Halifax, Montreal or Quebec is allowed three uniform suits during the season, and two or three caps, running into $100 a year besides salary and liberal expenses. Surely the minister will reform the policy of the government unless he approves, which as an honest man he cannot do, of the conduct of the department. No wonder he is asking an increased amount, adding to the civil service list and appointing friends. I could point out agencies in the United States where some of these officials receive $6,000 and $7,000 between salary and expenses, holding office at Detroit, Milwaukee, &c. It is all detailed in the Auditor General's Report. Surely the minister can run the department and get as efficient service for one quarter the money that is spent here as is shown by the Auditor General's Report for last year. Let the minister look at the item of pullman car fares. Most members of parliament, or at least a great many of them, in travelling from Ottawa to Toronto do not occupy pullman cars, but here a civil servant if he travels must have a pullman car charged to the people of this country. I think it is time the minister would call a halt and ask these gentlemen to pay for their own cigars and tips to waiters out of their own pockets, instead of out of the pockets of the people. I trust the minister, before the vote passes, will cut down the item as it can be cut down, and still have a better service than we have had in the past for the money voted.


Frank Oliver: I have not had the time or opportunity to go over the actual working of the department since taking hold, but I can quite accept the criticism made, which is perfectly in order, and I shall certainly accept the duty laid on me when I ha've the opportunity to go into the administration of the department, and do the best I can to secure reasonable economy, accompanied of course by efficiency. I am not able to say just how it comes that these expenditures have been made and all that astonishes me is that the books show these accounts have been paid after having passed the lynx-eyed Auditor General.


George Taylor: Because they are certified by some officer of your department and the Auditor General is obliged to pay.


Mr. COCHRANE.: I expect you know well enough.


Frank Oliver: I only wish he would be as good with some accounts I know to be perfectly honest but which he is not willing to pass.


Edward Cochrane: Never mind the Auditor General. Let us know what the minister is going to do himself.


Edward Cochrane: 


Frank Oliver: On inquiry of the officer of the department here in regard to one or two of those expenditures, I find that Mr. Blair is employed as an inspector of the immigrant children and this expense of inspection is paid by the imperial government. There is an arrangement whereby when children come out under official supervision they have to be officially inspected every year and for this inspection, except the first inspection, the imperial government pay, so that the expense, as I am given to understand, is a mere form ; although appearing in our report as charged upon our department it really represents a payment to us by the imperial government. The same is true in regard to a Mr. Hiliyard, whose name is mentioned there in regard to the same employment. In reference to the use of pullman cars I understand that this use has mostly taken place in returning from the conduct of immigrants out west. We start the immigrants from Montreal or Ottawa in charge of a guide so to speak, who accompanies the party to Winnipeg and sees to their distribution over the branch lines there and then comes back. The trip from Winnipeg to Ottawa occupies two days and nights, and any one travelling on the train must either use a pullman or sit up, and I think it is generally considered it is necessary for even a government official to sleep ; it is upon that ground I believe that these pullman expenses are paid. As to the use of pulhnans between here and Toronto we pay, as the hon. member for South Leeds (Mr. Taylor) has said, about $5 a day. I take it as cheaper to pay the cost of a pullman from here to Toronto and have the officer travel at night than have him lose $5 worth of daylight in making the same trip so that while I do not at all care for extra luxuries-and certainly some of these expenses will bear very careful inquiry-I think there is sometimes an appearance of economy that is not economy and an appearance of extravagance that is not extravagance.


Uriah Wilson: Will the minister tell how many children these three inspectors inspected ?


Frank Oliver: The number on the inspection list at present is about 1,100.


Edward Cochrane: Where are the homes situated that these children are furnished to and distributed from ?


Frank Oliver: They are mostly distributed amongst the farmers.


Edward Cochrane: The minister must know-if he does not he ought to-that they come to homes at first in Belleville, Peterborough and so forth and then are distributed to the farmers from the homes.


Frank Oliver: There are 13 receiving homes in this country and they come from about 115 in the old country.

Mr, COCHRANE. Are there any in central Ontario, Belleville, Peterborough, &c., that distribute the children that these gentlemen inspect ? My opinion is that that inspectro"n is a perfect fraud on the country. The hon. gentleman says there is something to be said ; there was a good deal to be said in connection with such an expenditure when the Conservative party was in power.


An hon. MEMBER.: Hear, hear.


Edward Cochrane: The hon. gentleman says ' hear, hear.' if he would mind what he is doing and not be so quick with his ' hear, hear,' and his simple grin and pay-more attention to the conduct of public affairs it would be better for him.


Mr. D. D. McKENZIE.: Hear, hear.


Edward Cochrane: There is another gentleman with his ' hear, hear.' I did not expect to see the hon. gentleman in the House; he said he would resign, but I knew that he would not be very resigning if he could get out of it.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: How are you on the question of skimmed milk ?


Mr. OOCHRANE.: How are you ? 1 will let you know if you repeat that to me outside" the House. If you had any manhood about you, you would not do it. You come outside the House and say that to me, and I will let you know. I was saying to the minister that when the administration that I used to support was making economical expenditures, there were men then on this side of the House who would keep us all night talking over a few dollars of expenditure. It is all very well for hon. gentlemen to say ' hear, hear,' and smile, but they do not realize that they are spending the people's money for tips and cigars. East year or the year before Walker's whisky was furnished to the Minister of Agriculture. The poor people of the country are earning by the sweat of their brow the money to pay the taxes which hon. gentlemen opposite are spending. I do not object to any expenditure for the good of the country, but 1 object to officials travelling in special cars. When we were in power hon. gentlemen opposite talked from morning till night about the iniquity of Sir John Macdonald travelling in a special car; yet I have heard on good authority that the late Minister of the Interior travelled about the Northwest with his father and brother in a private car, for which, I suppose, the country is paying, in the section of country where I live I venture to say that not one of these gentlemen ever inspected one of the homes that the hon. Minister of the Interior speaks of. They have been inspected by ladies ; but so far as these gentlemen are concerned, unless more has been done in other sections of the country than in that section, the inspection of these children is a perfect fraud
on the people, and the money is worse than uselessly expended.


Frank Oliver: I can only say that the officers of the department reiterate that the inspection has been made every year.


Edward Cochrane: I emphatically contradict the statement.


Uriah Wilson: Would the minister tell us when the two assistant inspectors vv ere appointed ?


Frank Oliver: Mr. Blair is not now employed. Mr. Smart is, and has been a permanent inspector, and he is assisted at the present time by Mr. Hillyard.


Uriah Wilson: Mr. Scott, the Commissioner of Immigration, told us in the committee that there were three-Mr. Smart, Mr. Hillyard and Mr. Corry.


Frank Oliver: Mr. Corry was appointed quite recently in Manitoba.


Uriah Wilson: Last year, according to the report, there were 2,204 children, of whom 1,188 were in four of Dr. Barnar-co's homes. This year we have only 1,142 children, yet there are one or two additional inspectors. Under these circumstances, I do not think that increase can be very well justified. Even if the inspection has to be paid for in the old country, that is no justification for wasting the money, because it gives us a bad name.


Frank Oliver: The difference in the number of children does not make very much difference in the work of inspection, inasmuch as they are scattered widely all over the country from ocean to ocean. It would be easy to show that it would not cost so much to inspect half a dozen children located in one school section as two separated in different counties.


Uriah Wilson: But you had twice the number last year and only one inspector.
Mr. OLIVER, No ; there were two. Mr. Hillyard was acting as inspector last year.


Uriah Wilson: Here is an item of some considerable importance on which I would like to have a fe\V more details : Commissioner Smith, expenses for land guides, interpreters, temporary agents, clerks, travelling expenses, ma-ttresses, provisions, and all expenses connected with locating immigrants on land, $130,000.


Mr. LAKE.: I understand from the minister that while we spend on immigration from the United States some $30,000 on salaries we spend only $18,000 in Great Britain and Ireland.


Frank Oliver: In the United States $31,000 and in Great Britain and Ireland $19,000.


Richard Stuart Lake: Although I realize that the class of immigrants from the United States is a very good class, still I think it would be better to put forth greater efforts in the mother country. I do not think any class could equal the small tenant farmer class, the men who work their own farms in the mother country. We are not getting enough of them. If a larger amount were spent to get that particular class, we would get better results than we do from the expenditure in the United States.


Mr. OS  LEU@: The efforts of the department in the past have been, as they will be in the future, very strongly directed towards the object the hon. gentleman mentions. But the difficulty in securing the immigration of tenant farmers from the old country is that they are wanted in the old country just as much as they are here. I can assure him that no effort will be spared, but they are a class of people very conservative in their habits, if not in their politics, and will require to be attacked apparently from as yet an undiscovered point in order to secure them.


Uriah Wilson: Does the hon. minister intend to continue the payment of $o per head to agents who bring in immigrants from the continent ?


Frank Oliver: I am given to understand that there is a contract for ten years. I cannot give the date at the moment, but it was entered into and the department would be bound by it.


Uriah Wilson: A very bad contract.


Frank Oliver: Possibly. Of course the question of policy would always have to be considered.


Uriah Wilson: Will you bring down that contract ?


Frank Oliver: I have it here but there are reasons why it should not be generally published. I shall be glad, however, to place it at the disposal of my hon. friend, on the understanding that it will not be made public.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I think it would be well if my hon. friend would give us the different contracts by virtue of which we are bound to pay a bonus to steamship companies or other tranportation companies on the carriage of immigrants.


Frank Oliver: There is only the one.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I think the House is entitled to see that contact unless there be grave reasons of state why we should not. I assume that my hon. friend himself did not make that contract binding us for ten years to pay $5 a head on every immigrant from the continent. That is certainly a very con-demnable policy indeed.


Frank Oliver: 


David Henderson: My hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) says the country is bound for ten years. He is a lawyer and I am not, and I presume he means that we may be bound to make good a contract entered into by the government. I however, do not think that we are either morally or legally bound. The ex-M inis ter of Interior (Mr. Sifton) knew perfectly well that he had no authority to make any such contract. This parliament never authorized it. Beyond the period of one year for which money is voted, no minister can make a contract binding parliament. The thing would be monstrous. What is the use of parliament meeting once every twelve months if a minister, at his own whim, may appropriate the public money for ten years to come ? Hie present minister would be only doing his duty if he would cancel that contract and take care not to enter into any contract in the future beyond the period for which the money is voted I trust we shall have no more revelations of this kind. I trust that the present minister will have too much self-respect to enter into any other such contract. There is no use saying that we are bound by it for ten years. As a matter of fact we are not bound either legally or morally, and I trust that the hon. minister will see that the contract is cancelled at once. We can do very well without getting immigrants from the continent except from one or two special countries. The time has come when we can get all the immigrants we want without paying anything per head and we will get a better- class. The poorest kind o'f immigrant is the one you have to pay for. The man who will make a good citizen is the one whose only inducement to settle in this country is what the government offers in the way of land and what the country offers in the way of a fertile soil and healthy climate. And I trust that there will be no more of this bonus system, but that whatever obligation has been undertaken by the previous minister will be forthwith cancelled, and let men come to this country of their own free will. I do not see the need for filling up this country so hastily. Immigration, 1 think, is coming in with sufficient rapidity. Perhaps, even if it were not coming in so fast, we could take better care of those who do come, and the immigration would inure more to the benefit of the country. But, by all means let us cease giving bonuses to bring in a class of immigrants that have never proved as acceptable as those that have come in without government aid.


Mr.  A. A.@: McLEaN. Is there any lawT on the statute-book which authorizes the Minister of the Interior to enter into this contract, or has he entered into it by virtue of his position ?


Frank Oliver: I presume that the Minister of the Interior made the contract in

the belief tliat it was sound public policy and by virtue of bis authority as Minister of the Interior and as officer charged with the duty of inducing immigration.


Uriah Wilson: Perhaps the minister has found the details of that expenditure of $130,000 ?


Frank Oliver: The amount directly expended under the authority of Mr. Smith, of the Winnipeg office, is $80,000. There are ether amounts that make up this total of $130,000.


Uriah Wilson: There must be a lot of details.


Frank Oliver: I can give the details for the $80,000. It will be observed we have been considering one end of this service, the inducing of settlers, but this has to do with the location of settlers.


Uriah Wilson: Does the explanation the minister is about to give cover the current year to the end of this month or the coming year ?


Frank Oliver: The particulars I have are for the year ending June 30th, 1904.


Uriah Wilson: But later on the minister will be able to give us the expenditure for the current year ?


Frank Oliver: I think so. The expenditure during the year ending June 30th, 1904, was $76,087, which is about equal to the estimate we have made for the coming year $80,000. But the expenditure for the current year was larger than usual because items were paid that had been carried over-. That expenditure is covered by the supplementary vote for the current year, which has already passed the House. But expenditures in the ordinary way, have remained about the same. This expenditure was divided into these classes :
Miscellaneous, $333.
Interpreters-services and expenses, $2,066.


Uriah Wilson: Cannot the hon. minister state the number of these ?


Frank Oliver: We have such details for the past years, but not for the coming year.


Uriah Wilson: But it is on past experience, I presume, that you have based your present estimate ?


Frank Oliver: Yes. Travelling and living expenses of officials in the west for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1904, $8,401. There is another item, transportation and location of immigrants, $7,673. Some of these officials might possibly be included in some other items of expenditure in this service. The hon. member asked me for the salaries of the western officials for the coming year, but we are not able to give the item'for contingencies for the coming year.
I -was giving the particulars of the expenses for contingencies last year, $80,000. Miscellaneous, $333; interpreters' services and expenses, $2,566; land guides, $11,274 ; sundry services, carpenters, clerical assistance, temporary agents, $12,202 ; delegates expenses, $125; travelling and living expenses of officials in west, $8,401 ; uniforms, $2,099 ; advertising, $478 ; collection of exhibits, $8,309 ; equipment, bedding, utensils, &c., $5,013 ; provisions, $3,563 ; laundry, cleaning office, &c., $1,629 ; medical services, expenses, supplies, &c., $4,466 ; transportation and location of immigrants, $7,673 ; contingencies, Winnipeg agency, $4,371 ; contingencies outside service, agencies in west, $3,579 ; total, $76,081.


Mr. HERRON.: How is it that some of the interpreters are getting $600 a year and other $1,200 ?


Mr OLIVER.: It depends somewhat on the length of service of the interpreter, and somewhat on the importance of the service.


Uriah Wilson: Are the officers whose names the hon. gentleman read engaged the whole year round ?


Frank Oliver: Yes, on fixed salaries. The item for interpreters and land guides includes other people than the salaried officers whose names I read. The land guides are employed temporarily, by the day.


Frank Oliver: The officials whose salaries will come out of the $80,000 are those in the west who are engaged in the work of locating settlers.


Uriah Wilson: I suppose their expenses also were paid ? Can the minister give the expenditure under that head ?


Frank Oliver: The expenses are paid out of the vote for contingencies and general expenditure, and it cannot well be given for the different individuals.


Uriah Wilson: Each man would have to make a return to the department of his expenses, and I should think the figures would be there showing each man's account with all the details.


Uriah Wilson: There is another matter that seems strange, to which I wish some explanation. The Report of the Minister of Interior, page 166, gives the deportations at 270, the same report on page 169 gives the deportations at 85, in the same year [DOT] while Mr. Scott, in his evidence before the committee the other day, gave the numbers at 157. To my question at a pre-1 vious period of the session, the Prune Mm-i ister stated that there had bee* deported | '559 There seems to be a great deal of I confusion in the figures. I would like the ! minister to explain the discrepancies.
i Mr. OLIVER. I am informed that the ! figures do not cover the same periods, nor 'do thev relate to the same matters.


Uriah Wilson: I will read the question and answer :
1.	How many immigrants were deported from this country during the fiscal year 1904, and up to the 1st of February. 1905 ?
2.	What were the nationalities ?
3.	What was the cause of their being deported ?
4.	How many were deported for disease, and for what disease ?
5.	How many because they were liable to become paupers ?


Wilfrid Laurier: 1. During the fiscal year, 1903-4, 359.
That is a straight answer to a straight question. Now I would like some explanation of these divergent figures. I think our public documents ought to be reliable, and a man could quote either of these three figures and say he was quoting official documents.


Frank Oliver: It is impossible to give an answer off-hand. I am informed that the figures do not cover the same periods.


Uriah Wilson: It covered the fiscal year 1903-4. That is what the annual report covers.
Mr. OLIVER, l understand the hon. member to say that the question was : \Vhat were the deportations for the fiscal year and up to the end of February, and that the answer was as to the number for the fiscal year.


Uriah Wilson: I have the two answers here. I only read one of them, but I have the other as well : .
From the 1st July, 1904, to the 1st February 1905, 387 were deported.
I will send it over to my hon. friend.


Frank Oliver: What was the question which the hon. gentleman said was answered differently from this ?


Uriah Wilson: I have your report. If you will turn to page 106 you will find that in table 9 the number of persons deported is given as 270.


Frank Oliver: During what period ?


Uriah Wilson: I suppose during the fiscal year 1903-4, because that is the period covered by the report. Then, look at page 109. I might as well send over the evidence taken at the committee if you want it.


Frank Oliver: There is an evident disci epancy between the answer read by the premier and the statement in the blue-book, it is impossible at the moment to say where the error was, but we will take measures to verify the one statement or the other, and see which is correct.


John Herron: The hon. minister has given us a statement this evening about large expenditures in the way of interpreters Mr. OLIVER.
and agents locating settlers. I cannot understand how that applies to one part of the country differently from another part. In the locality where I live the country is practically. settled for a radius of twenty-five miles. I never saw one of tfie gentlemen that the hon. minister has spoken of locating settlers. I do not think there ever was one in that locality, and I do not see why this is necessary in one part of the country and not in another.


Frank Oliver: As the hon. member knows, the locality in which he lives is sufficiently attractive to bring settlers without any special advertisement or effort, but where the attractions are not so great it is necessary to employ the services of agents to bring the settler and the country together.


John Herron: I have reference to locating settlers after they come into the country. According to what I understand from the reports, these gentlemen are paid for locating settlers and for showing them around the country. They hire teams to take them out and see the land so as to get a location. I am positive that there never were any of these gentlemen in the locality where I live.


Edward Cochrane: I understood from one of the gentlemen who was before the committee that these locating gentlemen who are such an expensive luxury got $2 a day from the government in cash, and that if a mail wanted one of them to show him the land so as to enable him to locate he would have to pay from $4 to $0 a day extra for a team. I' should think these gentlemen who are paid by the government should not be receiving that much from a poor man who goes out there to locate his home, and that he would not be called upon to pay for a team to go around the country. What benefit are these agents if they have to be paid every day for their travelling expenses ?
I should think that when the government paid them they would not be extorting money from people who employ them to assist them in locating land. Do* they have to have tips, too ?


Frank Oliver: A team is necessary for the travelling of a person who is looking for land, and he gets the benefit of the transportation by means of the team as well as of the services of the land guide in finding the lines and looking them up in his location. It seems to me a very satisfactory method ot dealing with the question. I have heard no complaints either as to hardship towards intending settlers or dissatisfaction on their part. Any one who lias ever had occasion to go out to look for land in a new country will know that it is of the very greatest advantage to the new pioneer who does not understand the lines and stakes or the lay of the land to have an experienced and reliable man with him. They are certainly

all willing, as far as I know, to pay for their services.


John Herron: There are two or three men in my locality who make a living by that sort of business. When a man is looking for land he goes and hires with these men and also hires his team. He drives them over the country, and the man who is looking for land pays him about $5 a day for the use of his team and his own services. That has been paid in every case by every settler who comes into the district where I live.


Richard Blain: What amount was paid last year under the ten years' contract referred to a few moments ago ?


Frank Oliver: Under the arrangement during the past three years the total sum paid has been $87,000 1 am informed roughly. That has been paid to the North Atlantic Trading Company, the organization with which the arrangement is made.


Richard Blain: Is the amount on the increase ?


Mir OLIVER.: It was a little less last year and it is expected to be less next year; it is rather on the decrease.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Has the minister any information to give in regard to the North Atlantic Trading Company. Who are the parties interested? It owns no ships and is not a regular shipping company. At the time the Doukhobors came to this country I tlfink $48,000 was paid to that same company. Does my hon. friend know anything about the company, who constitute it and what is its character generally ?


Frank Oliver: I believe that it is an organization of steamship companies and it is quite possible to place at the disposal of my hon. friend all the information in regard to it. There is no Canadian reason why it should not be entirely public, but if the company is to continue its operations there are reasons why the facts should not be published outside of Canada. If the members will be satisfied with an opportunity of examining the question for themselves individually, we will be very glad to place all information at their disposal and if they insist it will have to be made a public document and open to the world, but our policy would be, if it is intended to continue the operation of the company, that is should not at the present time be made public.


Richard Blain: I think it is a strong reason why the items should be more in detail for immigration purposes as pointed out by the members for Lennox (Mr. Uriah Wilson) and Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk). Here the government enters into a ten years' contract without any consultation with the House at all. If an item had been placed in the estimates for payment to steamship companies, or rather steamship agents, for inducing farmers to come to Canada, a fixed amount in a separate column, then the minister would be entitled to give the House some information as to how that money is expended, but here a contract has been entered into and the House has no opportunity of discussing that item. It seems to me to be a pretty general policy and a policy that I think ought to be looked into.
I agrfce with the statement of the member for Lennox, that the details should be given in order that the House should be better informed on these items, as the money is being voted from time to time.


Mr. ALCORN.: A good deal of the criticism which has come from this side of the House with regard to this item has been directed towards the expense, alleged to be unnecessary, in many instances, of providing salaries and expenses for the numerous agents of the department; and towards the classes of immigrants being brought to this country. As bearing upon those two points and generally upon the subject of immigration of farm labour into Canada, I ask the attention of the minister for a moment in regard to a private immigration scheme which is in operation in my own county of Prince Edward, Ont., with very beneficial results. A Mr. R. J. Crothers, a farmer in my county, having had correspondence with certain British immigration agencies,
I think in the first instance with one, of which Lord Aberdeen is the head, was joined by his neighbours, with a view of continuing the immigration of that class of immigrants. They formed an association amongst themselves-farmers who required farm help-and upon .payment of a nominal fee each farmer becomes a member of that association. As he requires farm help he makes application to the secretary stating the class of help he requires, the wages he is prepared to pay, whether or not he will advance the passage money, and it is understood in all cases that he is hiring for one year. These particulars are sent to the old country with a statement as to whether a married man is required or not. Then the associations in the old country with whom Mr. Crothers has communication send out the man, guaranteeing that he is a decent man and of the best class. In this way, since this private scheme has been in operation in Prince Edward county and in Hastings, an adjoining county, some 350 men have been brought out, chieffy from the north of England and south of Scotland. I have met many of these men and I am quite certain they are of the very best class, especially adapted to agricultural labour because that was their calling before coming here and they are especially selected In regard to qualification by the home associations. These men and their families amount to about 600 souls, that this private association has already brought out and placed

with the farmers of those two counties. When the man is sent out he is met at the station by Mr. Crothers and immediately taken to the farm of the farmer whose employ he is to enter. He knows before he leaves the old country to whom he is going, by what route, he is met on his arrival and taken to the farmer and knows especialy exactly what he is to get, and in ail cases he is engaged for at least a year. It appears to me that if the government would see fit to appoint such men as 'Mr. Crothers, men of substance with a reputation in their own locality and having the confidence of the people amongst whom they live, being-farmers themselves and not adventurers, not people seeking a job, but people responsible to the farmers with whom these men are placed, immensely satisfactory results might be expected. If there is one difficulty facing the farmers of Ontario today it is the problem of farm labour, and I think this, one very excellent method by which that growing need may be very largely, very effectually and very satisfactorily supplied, if the government would accord to people in the position of Mr. Crothers, something in the nature of official recognition by appointing him as an agent, the proper sort of men would be obtained. Of course the success of the scheme would lie absolutely in the class of men who would act as agents and none but the best men should be employed. I bring this matter to the attention of the minister with the view of having it receive his best consideration, and that he may decide whether such a policy as that could not with good effect be adopted. Here is an instance in which to my personal knowledge it has worked excellently. I know of no other means by which that body of men could have been brought into that locality.


Frank Oliver: 
Uriah Wilson: I regard this as a very important matter. The report, at page 1C8, gives a classification of the detained immigrants who came to this country : British immigrants detained, 1 in 1,325; Italians, 1 in 40 ; Russians and Russian *lews, 1 in ll'G ; Syrians and allied races,
1 in 3-4. Why should any effort be used to bring to Canada a class of immigrants of whom 1 in every 3 or 4 is diseased. 1 think tiie lion, minister will agree with me that they should not be induced to come to our country at all. Last year the United States agents at Naples refused to take Jo,000 people ; the steamship agpnts would not sell tickets to them, because they were satisfied that they would not pass examination in the United States. Last year the united States practically refused admission to 8,000 people-4,800 paupers, 1.G00 diseased, 1,500 under contract to labour, and 35 criminals. According to that statement 7,035 were rejected. Of these, 2,928 were rejected on our border. What became of these ? As those deported are put at 359 I take for granted that the rest must be in this country. It does seem to me that a large percentage of those in this country will not make desirable settlers ; and if tbe United States rejected them, I think we should. We certainly do not want paupers or criminals, or people liable to become paupers, or people suffering from contagious diseases. The United States last year practically refused to allow 11,000 people who came to tlieir country to enter.
I am strongly of opinion that it is to the

best interest of tbis country to have a strict medical examination of intending emigrants in the old country before they are allowed to embark for this country. It is true, that will entail a little expense, but we could easily curtail the expense of payments to shipping agents sufficiently to cover it. If a steamship company brings an immigrant who is diseased into the United States, and the disease might have been detected by a medical examination before the immigrant embarked, the company is liable to a fine of $100, and in addition to pay all the expenses incurred by the immigrant while in the United States, and to take him back to the country from which he came. Great Britain is feeling perhaps more keenly than any other country the effects of this bad immigration ; because many of the immigrants, no matter from what European country they come, go to Great Britain and are embarked at British ports ; so that if they are rejected, they go back to Great Britain. There is a Bill now before the British parliament to prevent that. I am more anxious about the class of immigrants we get than about the money we spend on immigration, and I think the minister is exactly of the same opinion, and I have great hope that in the future he will exercise his good judgment in that direction.


Frank Oliver: It is hoped, by the increased stringency of the medical inspection at the ocean ports, to put the shipping companies dealing with Canada in the same position as those coming to the United States. When an immigrant is detained in Canada for medical reasons, the shipping company has to pay the expenses of the treatment, and, if the immigrant is deported, the expenses of the deportation. By the increased stringency of the regulations and their stricter enforcement, the burden on the companies will be increased, as it has been in the United States and they will be just as careful about bringing immigrants to Canada as they are about bringing them to the United States.


Uriah Wilson: The United States is contemplating putting a medical man in each port where the immigrants come from and having a rigid examination there.
annual report, he gave what they cost. The estimate ought to be divided, namely, so much for publication in the way of pamphlets, so much for advertising in newspapers, so much for maps, so much for salaries, so much for contingencies and so on. You ought at least to have ten Items.


Air BLAIN.: Will the hon. minister explain this item of $4,750 for the Winnipeg ' Free Press ' ?


Frank Oliver: That was to assist in the publication of the harvest number of the ' Free Press ' last year. It was a special illustrated edition, giving the results of the harvest and a general write-up of the country. There could not be a more desirable or more effective advertisement.


Richard Blain: How was it circulated and where ?


Frank Oliver: Chiefly (throughout the United States by means of government agents both salaried and commission.


Richard Blain: Did some of the employees of the government prepare the articles ?


Frank Oliver: No, they were written by the ' Free Press ' staff.


Mr URIAH WILSON.: You published a book called Canada. How many did you publish and what did they cost ? They were very beautifully done.


Air OLLVER.: I understand the arrangement' is to print 10,000. The price is not fixed, but it is to be arranged with the King s Printer.


Uriah Wilson: How will they be distributed 1
Air OLIArER. No arrangement has yet been made. The publication, as my lion friend has said, is a very handsome one. It is printed as a presentation book, and copies will be distributed where they will do the most good. No plan has yet been defined as the work has not yet been done, but any suggestion will be gladly received.


Uriah Wilson: I understand the matter has been referred to the King s Printer to fix the price. Can the minister otvp the nrice asked ?


Frank Oliver: Possibly we may do the same, but for the present the object which the hon. member has in view is the same as the government have in view. The means he suggests are being taken up to a certain point, and if found insufficient will be ex-


Frank Oliver: 
Uriah Wilson: The publisher must have asked a price.
tended along the same lines.
Contingencies in Canada, British and foreign agencies and general immigration expenses, including salaries of extra clerks at head office, $610,000.


Air. URIAH  AVILSON@: Before the committee Air. Scott gave us a list of the publications, and they are also published in the
Air. OLIArER. Possibly he intends doing o* but there is no contract, and he is subset to the decision of the King's Printer as i the actual value.


George Taylor: What was the total amount spent last year on printing and advertising in connection with immigration .


Uriah Wilson: And will the minister give us at the same time the amount spent in each different country ?


Frank Oliver: I can give the details of the estimate we are asking the House to vote.
They are as follows :
Advertising, copies of papers, pamphlets,
6cc., ior uanaaa.. .. Advertising, printing, United States		pamphlets,	&c.,
Advertising, printing, pamphlets, Great Britain and Ireland			&c.,
Advertising, printing, Iceland		pamphlets,	&c.,
185,000


Uriah Wilson: I asked for the amount spent in each country in which the printing was done.
Mr. OLIVER, I will bring that down later when we are in suppiementaries.


George Taylor: I see by the Auditor General s Report of the year before last that in that year we spent $39,628 in Canada for pnntmg and advertising; $112,717 in the United States for the same service, and $05 -,x>0 in England for the same service-a total of $217,895, or nearly a quarter of a million dollars. And if you go through these items, you will find them much the same as those for travelling expenses tips and cigars for officials. For instance, 463 western newspapers were given advertisements for farm labour-little newspapers scattered throughout Manitoba and the Northwest, not one of which is seen in the country from which these labourers are to bo drawn. The Winnipeg ' Nor'-Wester ' was paid $4,691 for four columns and 1,000 copies of the weekly for seventeen months and 28,000 copies of a special edition at five cents a copy. This, it seems to me, is simply throwing away money.
Mr. DERBYSHIRE, illustrated edition.
This was a special
the head heeler of the Patrons of Industry, who had to be bought up by this government, was sent to the United States and established in Wisconsin, and $4,017 was paid to him


Mr. DERBYSHIRE.: But see the immense number that came from there


George Taylor: My hou. friend (Mr. Derbyshire) can make a speech and boom this expenditure all he likes, but here is over $4,000 spent on Mr. Currie, and I defy Mr. Currie to show that he ever sent a dozen immigrants into tills country. Then there is Mr. Grieve, another kicker, who used to be a member of this House-he was sent over there and $4,699 was spent on him.


Daniel Derbyshire: But the people are coming in from the United States and driving their cattle with them.


George Taylor: Not because of this expenditure, but because the Canadian Pacific Railway ran through that country and open-*',1 it up, and the country has advertised itself by its splendid crops. The government might recall every heeler it has out ii. the name of this immigration service, it might stop every dollar of this expenditure on printing and advertising, and still ihe people would come in. The government is simply throwing away the people's money. The idea of spending thousands of dollars on this 'Nor'-Wester,' with its special editions at five cents a copy. It is something like the special issue of my hon. friend's (Mr. Derbyshire's) paper at Brockville at five cents a copy.


Daniel Derbyshire: But the ' Brockville ' is an old established family journal. Every body reads it.


George Taylor: But old ns it is, it has to feed at the government crib. It is simply an outrage upon the people to take $217,000 of their money and distribute it amongst these papers in printing and advertising.


George Taylor: It was the regular weekh edition. But my hon. friend (Mr. Derby sbjre) would back it up just the same if th< price was fifteen cents a copy. We ar< throwing away a quarter of a million dol lars


Daniel Derbyshire: But we get the results the people are coming, the very best class.


George Taylor: Not as a result of the money spent on officials and advertising, but because that country has been opened up by railways, has yielded immense crops, and so has become known abroad.
Through these same
Mr. DERBYSHIRE, papers.
j'aYEOR. No ; but through the gen eial press, which reports the facts and does not receive a cent for it. Why, T. O. Currie, Mr. TAYLOR.


David Henderson: This is certainly a very large amount to go through in one vote-$610,000. I notice that altogether we are voting for immigration for the- coming year $767,200. Last year we voted in the main estimates $672,276. And, if I remember correctly, we afterwards had a vote of $300,000 in the supplementary estimates making a total of $972,276 for immigration in the year 1904-5. The minister is now asking for $767,200 for the coming year, 1805-0. Does he contemplate adding to this by a supplementary estimate ? I think it would be as well if the minister would squarely tell the House and the country how much he intends to spend on immigration for the coming year, instead of dividing it up into two sums, one to be voted now and the other possibly a year from now, after a very considerable expenditure has been made without the authority of parliament.


Frank Oliver: It is expected that we shall have to ask the House this session for a supplementary vote of $30,000. As to a supplementary vote for the coming year to be asked next session, not being Providence itself, I cannot give any information on the subject. But I can assure the hon. member that there will be economy of administration so far as is consistent with efficiency. But, as I was compelled to say on a previous occasion, if the urgency of the case demands it, the Department of Immigration will have to take the responsibility, on behalf of the government, of meeting the requirements, and trusting to the judgment of the House afterwards to support us in doing so. The necessities of the immigration service must be met if immigration is to be maintained.


David Henderson: I think I understand the hon. minister. He is asking for an appropriation of $767,200 to be expended on immigration during the coming fiscal year and says that a supplementary estimate may bd brought down for $30,000, a total of about $800,000. He will ask the authority of parliament for the expenditure of this money. But he says that if the Immigration Department think fit. they are going to spend more. Now, I think the minister has been long enough in this House


Frank Oliver: I did not say if the Immigration Department thinks fit ; I said if circumstances compelled a larger expenditure, it would have to be made.


David Henderson: ' If circumstances compel.' Who is to be the judge whether circumstances compel a further expenditure or not ? Certainly this House is the only institution that should say what amounts should be expended. Beyond the amounts voted by this House, the minister has no right to spend one dollar, even if he thought a further expenditure might bring more immigrants into this country. This House is to be the judge, not the minister, and the sooner the minister comes to the conclusion that he is merely a servant of parliament the better it will be for this country. It is absolutely impossible for this House to control the expenditure of the country if a minister, without the assent of parliament, without parliament knowing anything of it, is going to spend money simply because he, the minister, thinks it may be desirable to do it. What right has Jae to think ? He has no right whatever to think anything beyond the rights that parliament give him. No man making a statement like that can say for one moment that he is a constitutional administrator. I hope and trust that the minister, starting out now in his career as a minister of the Crown, will give some attention to the ordinary decencies, shall I say ? [DOT]-of the administration of a department, and that he will limit himself to the appropriation that parliament has authorized him to expend. Now, beyond the $010,000 and the $30,000
which he says he is going to ask for in a supplementary vote, the minister will have no power whatever to expend another dollar. Parliament has a right to control this matter. If parliament thinks $800,000 is sufficient to expend on immigration in one year, that is the limit of the minister's operations. I trust we will not have a repetition of what we have had this last year, of a minister coming down towards the end of the year and asking another supplementary vote of $300,000, after one-half of it, and possibly two-thirds of it has actually been expended without the consent of parliament. Now then I hope I have made myself clear on that point. 'May I ask the minister how much of this appropriation has he estimated to pay steamship companies for bringing immigrants into this country ? I understand him to say that a contract exists to pay at the rate of $5 a head ..certain steamship companies for bringing immigrants to this country. I would like to know what amount of this $610,000 is estimated for that purpose.


Frank Oliver: It is estimated that $40,000 will be required to pay bonuses to agents of steamship companies for bringing iiri migrants from Great Britain, and $50,000 to agents of the North Atlantic Trading Company for immigrants brought from the continent of Europe.


David Henderson: And this contract, as I understand it, has been made for ten years, and it is a contract that no minister of the Crown had any right to make.


Frank Oliver: Not to pay a bulk sum.


David Henderson: Not to pay one dollar of it, because no minister has power to bind this-parliament beyond twelve months, unless he comes down to parliament and gets an assent to it. The Minister of Trade and Commerce comes down annually and asks for steamship subsidies, but he does not ask for subsidy to be paid for five or ten years, or rather he does not enter into a contract himself for five years to pay a steamship company a large subsidy for carrying the mails or otherwise, and then come down and tell parliament that they have got to vote the money. Now this policy, if it can be called a policy, must at once be dropped ; and so far as I am concerned, if the minister does not take the very first opportunity of cancelling this contract, and should I have the privilege of being a member of this House again when an estimate of this kind comes down, I shall move and urge in the strongest language that so much of the appropriation as is intended for that purpose be struck out of the estimate. Now I hope and trust that the minister is not going to override parliament and usurp all its functions. Leave a little for the members of parliament to do. My hon. friend at his right (Mr. Derbyshire) smiles. He is one of those men in the House who say, carried, for everything. You cannot propose a resolution but

be will say, carried. It does not require any consideration from him as to whether a resolution is right or wrong so long as lie gets it disposed of ; and he smiles at the idea of members of parliament controlling the expenditure of this country. Doubtless he never dreamed till he came here that he had anything to do with the expenditure of the country, he thought that was something the ministers had to attend to. But I tell him that is not what his constituents expect him to do. They sent him here to watch and criticise closely the expenditure of the country, and to take ins share of the responsibility for all expenditures that are made. Now I find no fault with the minister with regard to this contract, because I admit it was not a contract of his making. But he must understand that he has a duty to perform with respect to this contract, lie lias the right to cancel it, and he must take the first opportunity of having this contract cancelled, no matter who is hurt, unless he comes down to parliament and gets that contract ratified before he makes any expenditure. Let the members of this House say whether that contract is to be validated or not, whether that money is to be expended. I say without hesitation that I do not think we are called upon, nor that it is in the interest of the country that we should hold out inducements of this kind to bring immigrants from European countries. There are certain European countries from which we are delighted to receive immigrants, but there are others from which we do not want to get-immigrants at all.
I am afraid that the most desirable immigrants from the continent of Europe come to us in the smaller numbers. There is a larger immigration, I believe, from countries where the immigrants are less desirable. I have made my statement as plain as I possibly couid make it and I am going to look for a better administration in the future of this department than we have had in the past. I am going to look for economy, I am going to look for a fair, honest administration, and I am going to hope that the department of immigration will not presume as much as they have done in the past, that they will not imagine that they are the masters of the country when they are simply doing the work that parliament pays them for doing. I say this in no disrepectful sense at all. I do not wish to reflect upon the department, but I say that members of parliament are entitled to some consideration and that they should not be ignored whilst their constituents throughout the country hold them responsible for the public expenditures. I shall not make that proposition this year hut if we should be fortunate enough to meet in another year I will bring this whole matter up. and if in the future another request of this kind comes before us. and I shall be in the House, I will deem it my duty to test the House on that question.


David Henderson: Government of the Yukon Territory-salaries and expenses in connection with the administration of the territory, $175,000.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I see there is a decrease of $60,000. We will have to have an explanation of that.


Frank Oliver: There is a decrease of $60,000 in the sum required for the current year which is made up as follows :
Salaries	$ 85,010
Living allowances	 51,000
Travelling expenses to and from
Dawson	 12,000
Printing and stationery	 8,000
Fuel	,	 6,000
Freight, express and	cartage. 5,000
Telegrams and telephone service	 3,000
Commission of five per cent to the Northwest Mounted Police officers on collections, postage and miscellaneous expenses	 4,960
Total	$175,000


George Taylor: Who are living expenses allowed to now ? I understand that judges and several others were to be put oil salary and that no living allowance was to be made.


Frank Oliver: This department has nothing to do with the judges at all. This is in regard to the administration of the mining branch and of the local government.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The system was changed last year considerably in the Yukon, was it not ? You have appointed a new governor in the Yukon. What changes are contemplated in the arrangements for carrying out the government there ?


Frank Oliver: I am not aware that there is any change contemplated in the general administration. There has been a reduction in the staff administering the mining branch. A number of officials were disposed of last fall and by that means a reduction of about $60,000 was made in the vote.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: This reduction is on account of that ?


Frank Oliver: Yes, but I am not aware of any definite arrangement as to a change in regard to the administration. Of course the government has been administered by an acting commissioner for some time. Now. there will be a commissioner with full powers but as far as I know there is no change.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Who is the present commissioner ?


Frank Oliver: The officers dispensed with were arrived at by the process of' closing up certain outside offices which it was thought are not as necessary now as they have been in former days. The creeks having been so fully located there was not

nearly the same requirement for facilities for the transaction of such business.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Who is the gold commissioner now ?


Mr. SPROULE E. C.@: Senkler, who has been the gold commissioner for seven or eight years.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What capacity is Mr. Congdon engaged in now ?	1 see by the
papers that his position has been changed ?


Frank Oliver: He has the position of legal adviser to the local government.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Something like the position of Minister of Justice ?


Frank Oliver: Well, scarcely. He is not a member of the local government. He would be like the Minister of Justice if he were a member of the cabinet or of parliament.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: They are expected to take his advice in all legal matters ?


Frank Oliver: Yes, that is the idea.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: There seems to be ail opinion outside that so long as he retained that position the amendment which was anticipated from the change of governor was not likely to take place, that the hanging on of the parties who had control iu the past in some official capacity would have a controlling influence and it is expected that there will not be that improvement that there might be hoped for from the changes


George Taylor: They have to keep him living at the public crib some way or he would squeeze them.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Then the same system is to continue in the future as that which prevailed in the past ?


Frank Oliver: I do not know of any change of policy that is in view except that with the change of conditions there and the change of commissioner probably changes will take place just as a change took place last fall, loooking towards economy. I am not aware of any large or definite change of policy that is immediately in contemplation.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I thought the defeat the government sustained out there would likely result in radical changes in some lines.


Frank Oliver: I cannot say that will be done until the new commissioner takels office and undertakes his work there. It is the same commissioner you have had for some years the gold commissioner. I thought my bon friend was speaking of the commissioner or governor. He is I believe only a governor by courtesy., but there is a new governor of the Territory, a new representative of the government in the Yukon and we hope to have a satisfactory degree of efficiency in the administration of affairs
there that will probably meet all requirements. The gold commissioner, Mr. Senk-ler, has held the position for a number of years through evil and good report, and I am not aware that there is at present any demand for a change of that official.


Richard Blain: I suppose this office is not to be a training school for politicians. The governors seem to have become reform candidates in that constituency. The minister might state whether he proposes to have these governors while in- office or after leaving office become reform candidates.


Frank Oliver: Judging from the success of the last one I would say not.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What was done about the Treadgold concession ?


Frank Oliver: That lease has been cancelled ; Mr. Treadgold relinquished the lease and has no connection with it whatever.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Was he paid any consideration for the money he had expended 7


Frank Oliver: He received no consideration from the government.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: He did not put in a claim for it ?


Frank Oliver: He relinquished the claim as I understand he was unable to finance it and could not carry it on.
Grant to local Council, $126,000


Thomas Simpson Sproule: How is that money expended ? Is it for roads, bridges and other local improvements 1


Frank Oliver: It is simply for carrying on the local government.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: How was it expended last year ?


Frank Oliver: That sum goes into the control of the local council, an elective and appointed council and is added to by the revenues raised by the local imposts of the council and the double sum is then expended in travelling expenses of the council, maintenance and equipment of public schools, hospitals, &c., printing and stationery, fire department, Whitehorse, preventive service, grants to reading rooms, libraries, bonus to assist in quartz mining and the city of Dawson. The city was incorporated hut gave up its charter and is now administered by the Yukon Council.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What expenditures have you for schools out there ?


Frank Oliver: 


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What system of education have you in the Yukon ? I see different reports in the papers, but do not know whe-tner they are correct.


Frank Oliver: I would ask the member for tiie Yukon to give the information.


Mr. THOMPSON.: We have separate schools ; the Roman Catholics have a school of their own and there is also a public school both of which are supported by the government grant. The public school is composed of several departments and the teachers for that school are imported from ail over the Dominion, but mostly from the west. The principal or superintendent of our schools is from the Territories. The Roman Catholic school is taught by the Sisters. but all the teachers there have to have a normal school certificate whether in the Roman Catholic school or in the public school. The separate school is in a separate building and is supported as I say from the public fund.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Under what law or authority is the system established out there ?


Frederick Pemberton Thompson: It is by a local ordinance passed by the Yukon Council, I think, during the time that Mr. Ogilvie was commissioner.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Would the local council have the authority to pass an ordinance and adopt a system without getting some authority from a federal Act ? They must have done it under some Federal Act.


Frederick Pemberton Thompson: I presume that the Act of the council could have been vetoed by the federal government ; but I presume that they have power themselves to pass the Act. I know that we make a grant yearly for the schools in the Yukon, and it is never questioned ; but I believe that any legislation we pass there has to be sanctioned by the federal government.
Construction of roads, bridle paths and other necessary works in connection with the Yoho park reserve and immediate vicinity, $12,000.


Frank Oliver: This is on the west side of the summit of the mountains in British Columbia. Field station on the Canadian Pacific Railway is the railway point, as Banff station is for the park on the east side of the mountains. The attractions at Yoho park are somewhat different from those at the Banff park. They offer greater opportunities for mountain climbingT The mountains are very much more rugged than those on the prairie side, and big game is more plentiful. Of late years Yoho park has attracted a proportionately larger number of tourists than Banff park, and it seems to have possibilities that are not found in the latter.
Cost of investigations and demarcations and other astronomical works of the Department of the Interior, including cost of instruments, $126,000.
, Mr. TAYLOR. What is the cause of this $33,000 increase ?


Frank Oliver: It is largely made up of new matters, such as surveys of the 141st meridian, the boundary between Alaska and Mr. OLIVER.
the Yukon, the eclipse expedition and the purchase of instruments for the observatory; also increased estimates for surveys on the 49th parallel and on the Alaska coast. These surveys are being made jointly with the United States. Our estimate is $82,000 for the Canadian share of the work, for which the United States has provided $200,000.


John Herron: Where is the survey to be made on the international boundary line ?


Frank Oliver: It is a renewal survey from Manitoba to the Rocky mountains. An arrangement for it was entered into last year.


John Herron: The old marks are plain enough.


Frank Oliver: The United States government is of opinion that such a survey is necessary. I presume that this will cover also the line in British Columbia.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Is the purchase of more instruments for the astronomical branch here or for the observation of the eclipse :


Frank Oliver: It is for the observatory built on the Experimental Farm. The item for the purchase of instruments is $7,500. The chief item is for a meridian circuit, estimated to cost $5,000. The balance will provide for various optical and other instruments.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What is the diameter of the lens in the telescope there ?


Frank Oliver: I am not able to say offhand, but I am informed 15 inches.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It lias always seemed to me that we did not show the highest wisdom in not getting a larger and better instrument when we were getting one at all.
Costs of litigation, $11,000.


Frank Oliver: This is the same as last year. It is to provide for miscellaneous items of litigation that will happen in the best regulated families.


George Taylor: It was understood that when we got a Solicitor General there would be no money paid for outside lawyers. Was the whole amount spent last year ?


Frank Oliver: In 1901-2, $2,938 were spent ; in 1902-3, $7,336 ; in 1903-4, $11,000.
Keewatin-maintenance of lunatics, $2,000.


Uriah Wilson: Why does the Dominion government support these lunatics 7


Frank Oliver: Because Keewatin is not in the same position as a province, and the Dominion is responsible. These lunatics are accommodated in the asylum at Manitoba and the Dominion pays.
Maintenance of assay office, Vancouver, $11,000.


Frederick Pemberton Thompson: What revenue does the government get ?


Frank Oliver: We realized from siftings and findings $1,091.02, and from special assays $7.50, making a total of $1,098.52. This made a net expenditure for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1904, of $10,582.75.


Frederick Pemberton Thompson: How much gold did they melt ?


Frank Oliver: The following is the statement :
Deposits. Ounces.	Value.^
1901-	02	
671	69,925	$1,153,014.501902-	03	
509	36,295	568,888.191903-	04	
389	24,516	385,152.00
During 1904-5 the business done from the 1st July to the 15th May last shows gold i alued at $426,000 was assayed.


Frederick Pemberton Thompson: 
George Taylor: Here is an increase of $5,000. Why is that ?


Frank Oliver: This is an expenditure entered upon a year or two ago for getting out a standard topographic map of the Dominion in sheets. The standard topographic map is intended to cover the southern portion of the Dominion, the west coast and part of the Yukon.


George Taylor: Has there been a distribution of those already issued ?


Frank Oliver: The work is in progress. Some of the sheets have been completed.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I have seen one or two of these sheets, but I do not understand the system or design. A map is made of a section, but not divided according to ordinary requirements, as into provinces and so on. I cannot see what the usefulness of it is unless the maps are completed in some way, and I have not been able to get any information as to when the whole will be completed, or even when a province or any particular section will be ready.


Frank Oliver: As I understand, the plans were entered upon some time ago. The country is divided up into sections, and for each section one of these standard maps is made. By using these separate sheets the map of any district can be made up. A map of the whole country upon the scale chosen would be useless, as it would be too large to be displayed, but maps of portions of the country can be made up by using these sections.



[Stage Direction]
yjr. SPROULE. But what I point out is that the work is not completed, nor are we told when it will he completed, or when any portion of it will be completed. And the maps of sections seem to be made without any relation to each other. There should be some design in the matter, and it should be known when the work will probably be completed either wholly or in certain parts.
Frank Oliver: ' There is a uniform design and the parts are being brought out in regard to such portions of the country that happen to be at the moment the most interesting. And, when complete, that part can be fitted in with the other parts whenever they are ready.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: At what age of the world's history will it be completed ?


Frank Oliver: That will depend on the generosity of iiarliament in providing money.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Who is doing the work ?


Frank Oliver: The geographical staff of the Interior Department, and they are doing it gradually according to their capacity. To order the completion of such an immense map in a short time would involve a much larger expenditure, possibly, than parliament would feel inclined to authorize. Besides, it might not be possible to find the necessary number of men with the particular qualifications required.	.


George Taylor: This seems to be simply to find employment for an unnecessarily large staff.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: But the work should not be carried on in a merely aimless desultory fashion and with no idea when it is to be completed. This seems a merely childish arrangement from a business standpoint. For instance there is a map of part of the oil district-hut only a part. When will the rest be completed ? I tried to get that information, and could not learn whether it would he completed next year, or ten years hence or ever. Yet we are asked to vote money for this service. It seems like frittering away money.


Frank Oliver: I cannot give the information as to when it is expected to finish the map, but I can give information which will partly answer the hon. gentleman's question. Up to a few years ago the mapping of the Domiuon proceeded in a desultory fashion. For instance the (peninsula of Ontario, the most densely populated part of the Dominion had not been mapped as it should have been. The section from Windsor to London has now been mapped and the sheet issued. The Hamilton sheet will he ready in a week or two and the Guelph sheet is more than half prepared. Another sheet will cover the portion of the peninsula west of the line from Oakville on Lake Ontario to ColUngwood on Georgian bay. Another sheet includes nearly the whole of


EDITION
[Stage Direction]
New Brunswick. Another covers that portion of Ontario immediately east of the Manitoba boundary which will be traversed by the National Transcontinental Railway- this is practically finished. Another sheet covers that portion of Quebec from the Island of Orleans to Montreal, and Ontario and Quebec are well advanced.
George Taylor: Where ate they printed?


Frank Oliver: The drawings are made here, and the Toronto Lithographing Company prepare the copperplates and do the printing.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Have these been distributed to members ?


Frank Oliver: I am not aware what arrangement has been made for distribution. But I may say that those that are published, if they have not been already distributed to members, will be distributed.
Some resolutions reported.
Mr. FIELDING moved the adjournment of the House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What business will be taken up to-morrow ?


William Stevens Fielding: It is understood that the Autonomy Bill will be taken up, the clause in relation to the boundaries of the constituencies.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 11.40 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, June 20, 1905.