1908-05-08

[Stage Direction]
Report of the Board of Civil Service Examiners for year ending 31st December, 1907.-Hon. Mr. Fisher.
List of shareholders of chartered banks of the Dominion of Canada as of December 31, 1907.-Hon. Mr. Fisher.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Minister of the Interior) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 163) to authorize the exchange Of certain school lands for other Dominion lands.
Mr. FOSTER.: What does this Bill propose to do ?


Mr. OLIVER.: In one case it proposes to exchange a section of school lands to complete the area which was agreed upon in connection with an irrigation proposition, the irrigation works having been completed and it being desirable that they should go into operation.
In the other case the Bill provides to satisfy the claim of a settler who has been on the land for about eighteen years.


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

Mr. J. D. REID.: was required, and will have to be docked again. She is now moored in Customs House pond.	.
I have since heard that the ' Montcalm ' has sunk. In what position is the matter ?


Hon. L. P. BRODEUR (Minister of Marine and Fisheries).: I have not seen the statement which my hon. friend has read and I am unable to say whether everything contained in it is accurate. A report reached the department this morning that there was a collision between the ' Milwaukee ' and the ' Montcalm,' and so far it has not been ascertained which was in fault. When the report reached the department I gave instructions that a preliminary inquiry should be held to-night or to-morrow morning by the wreck commissioner, and if he deemed it necesary to hold a formal investigation that it should be held immedfateiy.


John Dowsley Reid: Have you heard that the ' Montcalm ' has sunk ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I have not received that information.


George Eulas Foster: The minister did not say whether the damage was serious or not.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The damage seems to be rather serious because the statement read by my hon. friend says that the rent in the ' Montcalm's ' side is eight feet, and that apparently is corroborated by the statement which has reached the department.



STANSTEAD ELECTION PAPERS.

Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Carleton).: Has the government any information as to the destruction of the papers connected with the Stanstead by-election of January, 1908. I have a telegram informing me that when the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery was summoned to produce the election papers in order to prove the holding of the election and the status of the petitioners, he declared on oath that the papers in the box labelled ' By-election of Stanstead, January 19, 1908,' were the papers of the general election of 1904, and that apparently the papers of the by-election had been destroyed. Has the government information on the subject ?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: Yes. This matter was called to my attention a week ago last Friday by Mr. Foley, the present Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. Mr. Lamothe, the former Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, died at the end of March and Mr. Foley, the assistant clerk, was appointed to the vacancy about the 20th of April. About a week afterwards he came to my office and informed me that he had been summoned as a witness to appear in the Stanstead election case at Sherbrooke and that he could not find the papers connected with the election. He was accompanied by Mr. Chad-Mr. J, D. REID,
wick, a clerk in the Privy Council, who had been transferred and had been acting as assistant to Mr. Lamonthe in his office. I may say that the office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery is in this building and Mr. Foley was nominally assistant clerk of the Crown in Chancery, but he had his office in the Privy Council Department and acted only when the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery was absent. We appointed Mr. Foley to the office in accordance with the recommendation of the Civil Service Commission, which I think will commend itself to the judgment of the House and which certainly jommmended itself to our judgment. We transferred the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery from the Privy Council to the staff of the House of Commons. When Mr. Foley informed me he could not find the papers I told him the only thing to do was to make further search and if he could not find them to attend the court and state the particulars. I advised him at the same time to report to Mr. Speaker the fact that he could not find these papers. I may say, in justice to Mr. Lamothe, that all those who knew him in his lifetime will bear testimony that he was a most honourable, conscientious and painstaking officer.


Robert Laird Borden: I entirely concur in what the Prime Minister has said about Mr. Lamothe.



THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF MARINE AND FISHERIES.

Robert Laird Borden: I would like to repeat the question which I asked yesterday respecting the resignation or the supposed resignation of the Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The best way to answer the question which my hon. friend put yesterday is to read a letter from Colonel Gourdeau, which is as follows :
Department of Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa, Canada, March 31, 1908.
Dear Mr. Brodeur,-I have worried every moment since the publication of the Civil Ser-vince Commissioners' Report containing accusations against the officials of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, which I feel are both unjust and untrue. I am convinced that a full and complete investigation will establish this and will clear the public mind of all the insinuations and reflections that have been made against them. As my presence in the department as deputy head might in some quarters be considered as prejudicial to the fullest inquiry, I beg to renew for the third time, my application for six months' leave of absence preparatory to superannuation and which you have so loyally hitherto refused to entertain under similar circumstances. I court the most rigid examination of all the department's transactions so far as I am concerned and by placing myself in your hands I hope to assist you in that regard. Again thanking you for the many kindnesses

which you have shown me as Minister of Marine and Fisheries,
Believe me, yours very faithfully, (Sgd.) F. GOURDEAU.


Hon.  L. P.@: Brodeur,
Minister of Marine and Fisheries.
The letter explains itself.



QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE-HON. W.


Hon. W. S. FIELDING.: My attention has been called to a news report in the ' Citizen ' of this morning under this heading :	' Want Route Changed for Financial
Reasons '-' Toronto World ' says Hon. W. S. Fielding called to New York to Discuss Obstacles in Selling of Bonds.' I do not know whether the House will regard the matter as of sufficient gravity to require formal notice to be taken of it. However, to prevent misunderstanding, let me say that the report has not a shadow of foundation. I went to New York on purely personal business, and had no negotiations with reference to the bonds of the Transcontinental Railway or any other financial matter whatever. My right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) has called my attention to another point. Partly associated with this is a question regarding a change of route.	.


Mr. SPEAKER.: I suppose this Is with the leave of the House.


William Stevens Fielding: With the leave of the House. I may say that there have been no negotiations with the government respecting any change of route, and no negotiations of any kind as to the matters referred to in this report.



DOMINION ELECTIONS ACT-AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the motion of Mr. Aylesworth for the second reading of Bill (No. 115) to amend the Dominion Elections Act and the proposed amendment of Mr. Roche (Marquette) thereto.
Mr. JOHN CRAWFORD (Portage la Prairie).: Mr. Speaker, when I moved the ad-jounment of the debate last night, I was referring to the election law which was formerly in operation in the province of Manitoba. I stated that it was nearer to my idea of what an election law should be than possibly any other law that had ever before been on the statute-books of this country. I made that statement because the law at that time was entirely free from partisan control or manipulation. That is the law that was in operation when the lists were revised in 1903, and that was the law that our friends opposite, particularly those from the province of Manitoba, paraded before this House and this country as being a good and proper law. Under that law certain Liberal officials were appointed in
connection with the preparation of the voters' lists. The law to-day is entirely different. Our Conservative friends who are in control of affairs in the province of Manitoba were not prepared to stand by that fair and honest and non-partisan preparation of the voters' lists. They only stood for it in one revision; that was for the list referred to by the Hon. Mr. Mickle as the cleanest list ever made in the province of Manitoba. The preparation of that list was entirely under the judges, and was free from any manipulationn by political partisans. I will read from the official ' Gazette ' of the province of Manitoba a notice to show that the board of judges had entire control of the situation :
Public notice is hereby given that the board of registration constituted to make and revise a new list of electors for the several electoral divisions of the province, has selected D. M. Walker, county court judge as chairman, and for the purposes of registration of electors, divided the several electoral divisions into registration districts, naming a registration clerk for each district. Following are the boundaries and limits of the several registration districts, with the name and post office address of the registration clerk.
That is followed by a proclamation in which practically the same words are used:
Notice is hereby given that the board of registration constituted to make and revise a uew list of electors for the several electoral divisions of the province have made the following additions, alterations and corrections in the boundaries and limits of certain of. the registration districts and in the list of registration clerks.
Further on, there is this notice with regard to the appointment of revising barristers to revise the list:
Whereas, it has been determined to make and revise a new list of electors in and for the several electoral divisions of the province pursuant to the provisions of 'The Manitoba Elections Act.'	. .
And, whereas, pursuant to the profusions of sections 70 and 71 of the said Act, the chairman of >the board of registration has intimated to the provincial secretary the appointment of revising officers for the several electoral divisions.
That is the law about which our hon. friends are pleased to talk and say it is so fair and just. They have tried to mislead the people by these statements, have tried to make them believe that that law is under operation to-day and that the judges still have full control^ over the preparation and revision of the lists.


Mr. SCHAFFNER.: No one ever tried to do any such thing as that.


John Crawford: I beg your pardon, I have seen it in print and I have heard it repeated, not by my hon. friend it is true, but he is not the only man in this country and has not control of everything. What

was done in regard to the preparation of voters' lists, what treatment was meted out to the people of Manitoba at that time by the judges who had control of the situation ?-I shall refer only to a couple of constituencies with which I am personally acquainted. I find that the judges then gave ample time for registration and revision. In the local division from which I come they established sixteen registration places appointing a registration clerk for each of these sixteen registration places. These registration clerks had to receive applications there for one whole week, from Monday morning May 25, until Saturday night May 30, and the hours were from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., giving ample time for the people to register. They were not confined to a couple of hours, as has been the case in the last few years, or to half a day, but they were allowed six days and sixteen registration places in my constituency. Contrast this with the one day afforded by the political partisans who now control the lists in Manitoba.
In Gladstone under the management of the judges there were fifteen registration places which were kept open for one full week from 9 a.m. till 10 p.m., daily. Only one day was appointed for the sitting of the court of revision, but there was no limit on the duration of the sittings by the order in council. It is true the judges did not confine themselves to any particular hour or hours, the time for registration was' not limited by them and they could sit from day to day notwithstanding the fact that the attorney general took the position that they had no right to adjourn the court from day to day. The matter later came up in Winnipeg before the late Judge Kiliam, who decided that the judges had the right to adjourn their courts from time to time until they had finished their work. But the attorney general of the province took the position that they had not and disfranchised a number of people on that account, tearing from the votters' lists a certain number of electors who had registered that year.
I wish to make a comparison between the time allowed under the present law and under the previous law. Whereas in Gladstone in 1893, under the old arrangement we had sixteen registration places and six days for registration in 1893. in 1905. under political manipulation, we had only one day, one place and one registration clerk-and that clerk was only occupied in connection with the registration of voters for the whole territory from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., from
2.30	p.m. to 6 p.m., and from 7.30 p.m. to
9.30	p.m. Then the court of revision that was held following that registration allowed only five hours, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., for revision. For the registration and the revision, the entire time allowed in connection with the compilation of the lists in that year was only twenty-two days. Under the law put in force by the Greenwav gov-


John Crawford: eminent, which has been referred to in this House as an iniquitous lawT, it was provided that not less than seventy days should be allowed in connection with the registration and revision of the lists. Contrast that with the present system by which only twenty-two days are allowed. This year there was even a shorter time than that. In the division from which I come, the whole time allowed for registration and revision is sixteen days. The law now in force in Manitoba is entirely under the control of the executive council of that province, the judges have nothing to say in connection with the preparation of the lists, they have nothing to do except to take evidence as to whether or not a man is entitled to be on the list. This is entirely different from the idea of the election law which hon. gentlemen opposite seek to convey.
I might put this concisely in the form of question and answer. Who limits the time for registration? The executive council of Manitoba. Who decides that there should be, but one registration clerk and one booth in each constituency? The executive council of Manitoba. Who fixes the places for registration booths and the hours during which they are to be open ? The executive council of Manitoba, the political machine. Who appoints the registration clerks who have very considerable discretionary powers The executive council of Manitoba. Who fixes the courts of revision allowing but for a single day or a part of a day or a number of days? Who fixes the time for the sittings of the court of revision and the duration of those sittings, who limits the hours during which the courts of revision can sit? The government of the province of Manitoba have full control over the courts of revision and everything else, in so far as registration and the revision of the voters' lists in the province of Manitoba are concerned. In fact the executive council of that province, the political machine, practically does everything in this matter and I do not hesitate to say that they manipulate and direct things to their own advantage. I have no hesitation in saying that because of the agitation that has been raised, because of the statements that are made in the press, because of the threatened hold-up of this government in this House the whole thing is done for one purpose and one only; they wish to continue every possible manipulation in connection with the preparation of the voters' lists in Manitoba. The government of Manitoba is not prepared to give to the people of that province the protection they are entitled to. We have not been getting that protection, and we are not getting it now. If they had wished to live up to the pledges they made before coming into power, they would have left on the statute-book the law of 1903 when the clean voters' list was prepared. In this connec-

tion, the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) was pleased to refer last night to the Hon. Charles Mickle and to a statement attributed to that gentleman that these were clean voters' lists. I wired to Mr. Mickle asking him what he had to say about the election law and the administering of the same, and this is his answer :
The Act better in 1903. Neiv amendments have largely destroyed best features. Grievous complaints of unfair administration by government in many parts.
(Sgd.) C. J. MICKLE.
This is an entirely different showing of Hon. Mr. Mickle's opinion from that given by the lion member for Marquette, last night. That hon. gentleman tried to lead the House and the country to believe that Mr. Mickle had a high opinion of the present law and its administration. The very contrary is the fact. What Mr. Mickle was talking about, when he said the list was a clean list and the best list ever prepared in Manitoba, was the list proposed in 1903 when everything was under the control and management of the judges and entirely free from party manipulation.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Mr. Mickle has been in the legislature since 1903. Has he ever made any complaint in that House of the present law ?


John Crawford: I have given Mr. Mickle's reply, and I think that is sufficient for the present. For the last few years we have had an agitation over the franchise and the compiling of the voters' lists in the province of Manitoba because the law and the administration of the law have not been what it ought to be. If there is one thing more than another that we should sacredly guard it is the citizens' right to vote. I am sure that my hon. friends opposite are honest enough to admit, in their quiet moments that it is up to us all to stand strongly against any manipulation of the people's franchise. But, owing to the fact that party lines are strictly drawn, party prejudices strong and the desire for party advantage great, many are prepared to do what they themselves cannot justify. We should take a broader view and try to make a law that will be just and fair to all.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Does this Bill do that ?


John Crawford: We have not in Manitoba to-day the conditions which, as I have Just said, we ought to have, but we expect, if this Bill is passed, to have the privilege of creating these conditions. We have heard a great deal about the large number of people disfranchised in Manitoba in the last Dominion election. We had an exhibition here last night by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. W.' J. Roche)
that that hon. gentleman should be ashamed of-or, if not ashamed of his statements of last night, he should be ashamed of his position on the third of August, 1906. On that day, the hon. gentleman attended a banquet in his own district at which Hon. Robert Rogers made the statement that the Liberals had disfranchised 1,395 of the honest electors of Portage la Prairie. The hon. gentleman (Mr. W. J. Roche) sat there and allowed these statements to go unchallenged, to be published broadcast in the press, and last night we had his own statement that, so far as he knew everything was done right in Portage la Prairie. And it was. I defy him or any other man to show that even one man was disfranchised in Portage la Prairie.


Mr. W. J. ROCHE (Marquette).: Did Leach manipulate your lists as he did those of Provencher ?


John Crawford: I am not saying anything about Leach ; I am talking about yourself. I cannot understand an hon. member of this House who takes the position now taken by the hon. gentleman for Marquette, sitting at a banquet in his own division and allowing such statements as I have quoted to go uncontradicted.
No, the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Greenway) referred to statements made by the Montreal ' Gazette,' and there are one or two statements that I wish to quote from that newspaper myself. I must say I am disappointed in the ' Gazette.' I had looked upon it as being the most honest Conservative newspaper in Canada.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is not saying very much.


John Crawford: Well, be that as it may, I can only say I am surprised that any newspaper of such standing would allow itself to be led into making statements that are not supported by any credible evidence. I have always felt that I could believe most of the statements in the columns of the Montreal ' Gazette,' but I find reiterated in those columns the same kind of statements as are published in far less reputable journals. I think the time has arrived when the minds of the people of Canada should be disabused of opinions which some people have sought to cultivate in them concerning the thin red line. I am satisfied that the people of this country have no idea of what the thin red line really meant. They do not know that instead of 9,399 of the honest electors of Manitoba being disfranchised, as stated by Hon. Robert Rogers, and repeated again and again in this country, there were not even 99-to say nothing about the odd 9,300. I cannot understand hon. gentlemen, members of any party, allowing their co-workers in that party to continue reiterating such

statements, knowing all the time that they are false in every particular. The Montreal * Gazette ' repeats what many others repeated, and as it refers to my own division, I certainly think that the representative of the Montreal 'Gazette' here today should ask that paper to take back statements made in their editorial of a short time ago on that subject. I think it is only justice to themselves and justice to the people that they should do so. I find the ' Mail and Empire ' practically in the same position, and X think they should do likewise. They pretend to be fair and honest, and to give honest expressions of opinion, they pretend to do it.


Mr. TALBOT.: But they don't


Mr CRAWFORD.: Well, if they don't, then I take it all back, and there is no use suggesting to them to act fairly. However,
I hope there are some Tories in this country that are fair and reasonable people, but possibly we don't meet them, particularly amongst those who are engaged in active politics. Now to disabuse the minds of the people of a false impression, it might be well to repeat some facts in connection with the election of 1904, and I hope those papers that I have a little respect for will publish the figures that I am going to quote. The Hon. Robert Rogers, who is the mouthpiece of the Tory party in the province of Manitoba, said that the provincial constituency of Hamiota, in the Dominion constituency of my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) said there were 777 Conservatives disfranchised by the red line. Now how does this figure out? In 1903 the judges controlled the lists, an election was run on that list, and 740 votes were polled for the Conservative party in that election. In 1907 the total vote polled for the Conservative candidate was 737, and he won. But the Hon. Robert Rogers makes a statement that in 1904 there were 777 Conservatives disfranchised by the red line in Hamiota, and the highest number they can count for themselves, either in the election of 1903 or in that of 1907, was 740. So we must have found by the red line a few' more votes than they did. I think these figures should disabuse the minds of those who are inclined to be fair, of the impression sought to be conveyed by the Hon. Robert Rogers, the Minister of Public Works in the province of Manitoba. I think such exaggerated statements as he makes here should discredit him in the minds of the people of the whole country. Now take the provincial electoral division of Minnedosa, which is also in the constituency of Marquette. In the provincial election of 1903 the total Tory vote polled was 504; in the Dominion election there w7as polled for my hon. friend 521 votes, in the same territory. In the provincial election of 1907 there were polled 502. Still the Hori. Robert Rogers says Mr. CRAWFORD.
that in 1904 we disfranchised 200 Conservative votes. But even with these 200 disfranchised, there were 521 polled, or 17 more than were ever polled before. I think this proves conclusively that the statements of the Hon. Robert Rogers are not in keeping w'ith the facts. Now take the town of Hamiota. In 1903 there were 317 Conservative votes cast, and in 1904 there were 314 cast, only 3 less than in 1903. Now in 1907, you would think that on account of the Tory candidate having w'on, and on account of the increase in population, there would be many more votes polled, and we find the Conservative candidate winning in 1907. Everything was then under the control of the powers that be in Manitoba, and the hon. gentleman who so severely criticised the red line, only polled 317 votes, just 3 more than were polled by the Conservatives in 1904. Still the Hon. Robert Rogers makes the statement that in the towTn of Hamiota there were 147 Conservatives disfranchised. Now take the Crandall poll. In 1903, 199 votes were polled; in 1904, 203, 4 more Conservative votes polled at the Crandall poll when this red line was used, than there were in the previous year when no red line was used. Still the Hon. Robert Rogers makes the statement that there were 172 Conservative voters disfranchised at that time Take the district of Marquette. In 1903 there w'ere 4,526 Conservative votes polled, and iu the next year there were polled for the hon. member for Marquette 5,115, or 489 more Tory votes polled in 1904 than in 1903; notwithstanding the statement of the Hon. Robert Rogers that in that territory there were, 1,919 Conservative voters disfranchised. F think these figures prove conclusively that the statements of the Hon. Robert Rogers, Minister of Public Works for the province of Manitoba, cannot be relied upon in any shape or form. I think the people of Canada who have been more or less disturbed in connection with this red line, feeling that wrong has been done, will hereafter discredit the statements of the Hon. Robert Rogers and w'ill come to the conclusion that the Liberals are at least as honset, and perhaps a little more so, than our Conservative friends.
Now w'hat do we find further? I have here a document prepared by our Conservative friends opposite in which they make use of the same startling statements. In this document they talk about the red line as one of the scandals that will be referred to in the coming Dominion elections. The heading is
Between 9,000 and 10,000. Additional light is thrown upon this steal bv the statement of the Hon. Robert Rogers, Minister of Public Works, who has made an examination of the red line list, and declared that 9,399 electors were disfranchised by this process
He declares that 9,399 electors were disfranchised by this process. Well, the follow-

ing is the record by constituencies. Marquette, 1,919, I think I have proved by the votes east in Marquette at that time that statement is entirely false and untrue. Proven-cher, 568 ; Portage la Prairie, 1,395. There is positive evidence, admitted by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Roche), that there was no truth in any shape, so far as Portage la Prairie is concerned, in that statement; and that being the case, every statement with regard to the red line by the politicians of Manitoba, backed up by Messrs. Roblin, Rogers and Campbell, fall to the ground entirely.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Will the hon. gentleman read that article all through? We would like to hear it all.


John Crawford: I think it would not be any harm. I will read a portion anyway. It is just a sample of the campaign stuff which our Conservative friends are distributing throughout the country, and I would like to warn the people of Canada of the nature of the statements being put out at this time to discredit the Liberals of this country-statements entirely false and untrue.


William James Roche: Would the hon. gentleman kindly read that portion of my speech, as contained in ' Hansard,' in which I sad that in Portage la Prairie there was no fraud in connection with the lists ?


John Crawford: If the hon. gentleman likes he may read it himself.


Mr.   W.@: J ROCHE I did not say that at all and I challenge the hon. gentleman to point that out in my speech.


John Crawford: In connection with this red line business and the possibility of the people continuing under the present situation, I may say that we have to get away from anything which will keep us in that condition of strife and discussion and of unfair dealings in connection with the preparation of the lists.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Show where it is unfair.


John Crawford: Where what is unfair ?


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: The way we make up our voters' lists.


John Crawford: I have shown that, under the present administration in Manitoba things are manipulated purely for political advantage, and that Is what we want to get away from.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: You make that assertion.


John Crawford: Yes.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: But you have not proved it.


John Crawford: I have proved it to the satisfaction of myself and I think of many more in this country. To show that even at present we cannot afford to go on in the present situation, I have the voters' lists prepared last year and revised, and what is the situation with regard to one poll? Poll No. 13 in the local constituency of South Brandon, part of which is in the constituency of Brandon and part in the federal division of Brandon-in that poll there is .a list of electors, and we have in the 1904 election 63 votes in the lists supplied the returning officer on the Brandon side and 3 on the Portage la Prairie side. In the lists prepared in 1907, we find in that poll 5S names only, one of which belonged to the division of Portage la Prairie and 57 to the division of Brandon.
The next matter I shall deal with in connection with the red line will be with regard to the committee which was appointed by this House and the statements made before that committee by Mr. Knott, who acted on behalf of the province of Manitoba in connection with the prosecutions. Mr. Knott gave evidence before that committee, and you will find, on examining his evidence, that the conclusions he came to were these. Mr. Knott stated positively that, in so far as the adjusting of constituencies and the polling divisions in the province of Manitoba by the returning officers was concerned, they did the only thing they could do. It was the only reasonable way of doing it. That is Mr. Knott's statement under oath before the committee at that time. You will find on page 51 of the evidence that he was asked the question :
Can you tell me any way how he can get a list except in the way in which it has been suggested, as you say, he did here by a red line throughout, as the Manitoba Act says he should do with names that are to be struck off.
I might repeat what was said the other day by the Minister of Justice, namely, that the Manitoba Act provides that when names are being erased or struck off in any way, the means used shall be either a red or a black line. In this case the returning officer used a red line.
Q. He did here by a red line throughout, as the Manitoba Act says he should do, with names that are to be struck off ?-A. IJnder what circumstances?
Q. In the case of overlapping?-A. I have stated my opinion very fairly, I think, what in that case his duty should be.
Q. His duty would be to do what lie did here?-A. There is no doubt about that; of course he might do something else, bnt I think that would be a reasonable thing to do.
That is Mr. Knott's statement before the committee in connection with this red line situation. And, as I have said before, Mr. Knott was the prosecuting attorney in those cases in Manitoba and appeared before the



committee on behalf of the red line situation and the local government, and he made the positive statement that the right thing to do was to do just what was done, and that was draw a red line through the names. Further on Mr. Knott repeats this. The question was asked:
How is ihe to get, except in the way he did-
I am simply speaking about the matter of striking out the names, of using the red lines -how else was he to get a proper list for the polling division of the federal constituency out of the local registration lists. Can you tell me how else he can do that?-A. I said at first, I think the reasonable thing would be to do what was done. I think I stated that two or three times before.
Those are the words of Mr. Knott.
He goes on to say, referring to the overlapping. that if he had the legal right to do it there was no other way of doing it than the way he did it.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Did he say he had the legal right?


John Crawford: Yes, in connection with the overlapping.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Did he say that Mr. Leach had the legal right to draw the red line?


John Crawford: 
Mr. STAPLES.: You had better read it all :


John Crawford: All right:
The Dominion returning officers, the attorney general claims, were not, however, justified in subdividing provincial polling divisions which were entirely within the limits of Dominion constituencies. It is to be borne in mind that at the provincial elections in 1903, there were subdivisions of polling divisions in undoubted contravention of the law, in no less than 17 of the local constituencies. It is an open secret that these subdivisions were made, not by the returning officers but by officials of the government in the legislative buildings on Kennedy street working under the direction of the government.
Then Mr. Hooper says :
Evidently your assertion is made on the same authority as similar statements were given to a committee of the House of Commons in 1906, &c.
Your editorial, if allowed to pass unanswered, would emphasize the impression then attempted to be left on the public mind that the civil .servants of Manitoba are lacking in spirit of honesty and integrity-therefore, I hope you will give space to the following letters received from the returning officers in the provincial elections of 1903.
Now, this is what I want to call particular attention to. This is Mr. Hooper's statement in regard to different returning officers in different electorai districts in the province of Manitoba dividing the polling divisions :
As far as I know these are bhe only returning officers who created new polling divisions that year.
Then he gives the names of these officers as follows : H. Archibald, Melita ; W. G. Hetherington, Souris: S. T. Parr, Neepawa ;

N. O. Carey, Saint Piere; Thomas Coulter, Dominion City ; John Sigvaldason, Icelandic River; Thomas Partington, Selkirk; W. J. Helliwell, Oak Lake; James Fargey, Mani-tou; T. J. Long, Stonewall; C. Marion, St. Boniface ; O. B. Harvey, Plympton. He gives these men as the only ones in connection with the dividing of the polling divisions contrary to the law in Manitoba, and he says that so far as the officials of the parliament buildings in Winnipeg are concerned they are not to blame, and he throws the onus on these returning officers. Well, if it was wrong to do anything of that kind in the federal elections-and I claim it was not wrong; it was what was done by our returning officers-it was worse still to do it in the provincial electious where the elections were held directly under the control of the province. But our'officers were put in jail and the provincial officers were allowed to go scot-free for doing the same thing. I have here another document to which I have made reference on two or three previous occasions, but which I think is worth referring to again; it has reference to the disfranchising of certain electors in the province of Manitoba. I hope that the challenge or bluff that was put up by the ' Telegram,' and that was read to this House last night, will be extended back for a few years at least. The hon. leader of the opposition has said that if we can show that the people anywhere in the province of Manitoba have not had fair treatment in the matter of the franchise, he will assist in passing legislation that will improve the conditions. The hon. member for Prince Edward (Mr. Alcorn), I think, made the same statement.
Now, it is not denied that, with the approval of the Attorney General of Manitoba and of the hon. member for Marquette, 38 electors were disfranchised in the federal district of Selkirk in 1903. If our hon. friends are so anxious to see every elector entitled to vote in the province of Mani-to m granted the franchise, why did they not allow those 38 men to remain on the list of voters ? They were properly put on the list, and they were certified to by Judge Walker in these -words :
I, David Marr Walker, chairman of the board of registration, do hereby certify that th" foregoing is a true copy of the names, residence and occupation of the persons appearing on registration register of registration district No. 2 of the electoral division of Springfield, added at the adjourned meeting of the court of revision, held at Lac du Bonnet on the 24th day of June, 1903.
Some exception has been taken to that form of certificate; hut there was no evidence, in any shape or form, that those 38 names were not just as much entitled to be on the list as any other 38 names in the province of Manitoba; yet the Attorney General of Manitoba approved of tearing out of the list the sheet containing those
names, and depriving those 38 people of their franchise in that year. Yet the certified list sent to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery in Ottawa contained practically all those names-a patched-up list which I am sure the members of the opposition would he astonished at. Those 38 names that were torn off the list with the approval of the Attorney General of Manitoba were sent to Ottawa and were certified to b'7 the clerk of the province of Manitoba as being qualified electors, and they used their franchise in the election of 1904.
I have documents in my possession, which I have had for a considerable length of time, showing that in the year 1905, when election matters were wholly under the control of the executive of Manitoba, numbers of people were prevented from having the use of their franchise by manipulation in connection with the registration and revision of the lists, some 8,000 in all, and I will give you some information along that line. I will read on'y short sketches from different constituencies at Emerson :
Sixty of the Liberals came on an average of twenty-five miles and others drove from fifteen to twenty miles, that only being one way. A number of Galicians walked in twenty miles and one over thirty miles.


Mr. LANCASTER.: Would the hon. gentleman mind telling us whit document he is reading from ?


John Crawford: The Manitoba ' Free Press ' of June 3, 1905.
Mr. LANCASTER, Are the names of the parties who were disfranchised given there?


John Crawford: I will give you some names later on.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Are they given In th j document ?


John Crawford: Not in this particular item that I am reading ; but the hon. gentleman might just take a look at these 38 names for a while. Here is what took place at Alexander ;
About 150 qualified voters are yet unregistered owing to the busy season and the distance they have to travel. The Liberals were refused a eopv of the names registered and also of the protests filed, no doubt on account of the inability of the clerk to comply with the Act, as he had ho idea, when tear o'clock came, how many names were registered, and refused to open up the list of applications.
At Yirden :
Several went away without registering because they had to get home and could not get their names on the list.
At Neepawa :
There were no developments of unusual character at the registration of electors yesterday. nor was the clerk kept very busy. In all, 125 names were registered, but "there

8104:
were probably as many more qualified wbo could not present themselves.
It is not possible for every person to get to the registration district in one day, under the regulations provided by the order in council issued by the Manitoba government. Here is what took place at Brandon :
At 10 o'clock the doors were closed and all those inside at that time qualified to register were allowed to do so, fully sixty being registered after 10 o'clock.
I think there was a wrong impression created last night when the hon. member for Marquette stdtetd that all present were allowed to register at the hour fixed for the closing. In connection with that statement I want to disabuse the minds of the members of this House hy saying that that practically meant nothing, for the Act provides that during the sittings of the registration clerk, there can only be twelve in the room at a time.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Twelve beyond all the officers.


John Crawford: 
Frederick Laurence Schaffner: That might be 20 people.


John Crawford: There cannot possibly be any larger number of people present when that registration booth closes. That is quite different from the impression left on the House by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) last evening. He practically gave the members to understand that all wbo might be within almost any distance of the polls so long as they were in touch with it, would be allowed to register. But that is not the fact. For instance in Brandon the registration clerk locked the door and only those who were inside at the time were allowed to register, even if there Mr. CRAWFORD
had heen a thousand or twenty outside they would not be allowed the privilege of getting on the list.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Will the hon. member give examples of men who were left off.


John Crawford: Yes, hundreds of them.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: That is no answer.


John Crawford: I am going to give them; just wait:
In Brandon at 10 o'clock the doors were closed and all who were inside at the time who were qualified to register were allowed to do so, fully 60 beinv registered after 10 o'clock. The total number placed on the list in this division was 603, which made a heavy day's work. Great interest was taken in the registration by the citizens and the large number placed bn the list shows the growth of the city in the past year.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: There were none outside waiting ?


John Crawford: Many left off.
Russell, Manitoba, June 1

At the sitting of the registration clerk held here to-day for the electoral division of Russell 115 names were added to the list, a majority of them probably Conservative It is safe to say that there are 150 more entitled to be on, largely Liberal. One man from Roblin told me there were ninety in his vicinity who could qualify if they had an opportunity. The feature of the day was the comparatively large number of absentees and sick men put on.
In connection wPh the sick men I know of some cases where many were put on as being sick and I have my doubts as to their being very sick.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: They took the declaration, did they not ?


John Crawford: No, it was the other man who took it, the political operator. I now propose to read the opinion of an hon. gentleman to whom hon. friends opposite will not take exception. The Hon. James Johnson.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: A fine man.


John Crawford: Hon. James Johnson, who was in attendance all day, stated this afternoon that there should have heen at least four places in the constituency for registration for the convenience of everybody.
I have here a report from Portage la Prairie:
206 new names were added to the list, about 45 more than were added in the 6 days of registration last year. In addition 300 applications were received to strike off voters' names from the lists. Both parties had done quite a lot of committee work regarding the lists and so as much as possible was done in adding and striking off names, but quite a

lot more voters would have been added had the time been longer. The matter of registering would have been greatly facilitated if there had been more than one clerk. Some went to register several times and after losing a good deal of time from their work went away without registering. In Lakeside, voters had to go all the way from Clande-boye, Poplar Point, High Bluff and other places to Macdonald to register, so that the clerk was not rushed, only 57 registering out of about 200.
The paper says that the Roblin government should feel very proud of themselves over the successful result of their plot to disfranchise hundreds and even thousands of Manitoba voters.
I might give many further illustrations. I have, for instance, the names in my district. There were 170 in the district of Beautiful Plains who did not register.
In Gladstone, only 45 registered. The paper says :
Mr. Jamieson instances the ease of a man who had to assist his neighbour on that day and therefore on account of the one day registration could not register.
S. B. Olsen, who keeps the post office at Marshland, says of his locality a number of names were left off: also up the Narrows, among the quarries, there are not a few. He places the matter thus: ' It is beyond all reason to expect men working for $1.50 a day to stop work, sail down to Westbourne, the nearest point (if weather was favourable this trip would take three days), thence by train to Gladstone and with this return trip a whole week would elapse, and the expense incurred and loss of time would run up to $25 or more/
Barney Mathews was in town to-day from up the lak:e and reports the same grievance at Siglunes post office as other places. Had there been a registration booth near, four brothers, John, Joe., George and William Bowen, would have been registered, but on account of the great expense are deprived of their votes. At the same place Alex. Monk-man and M. J. Mathews did not register for similar reasons.
If these cases occur in one or two remote places.^ sparsely populated, what must be the ratio in more thickly settled districts?
In this constituency it has been looked upon as a big joke and even the man who first brought the member, Mr. Wilson, before the publio eye says that although written to by his party leaders to look after matters, the trouble of getting them on, six or 'Seven legal voters be knows of in the north pant of the constituency are going to be 'allowed to go unregistered because of the difficulty of rounding them up. So the reports come in from all points."
I have here a letter from a friend of mine in regard to the same matter :
I might say that so far as the Glenboro strike off some 189 electors that were wrongfully on the list at the last election. I have not got the full information at hand, but 1 think _ that the total number of applications to strike off was 250. The registration is a complete farce, but of course we cannot give a
full statement until after the court of revision.
Prom the Glenboro district there were only some five or six that applied to have their names added to the list and they had to travel about 35 miles to add their names at a great expense to themselves.
I might say that so far as the Glenboro district is concerned that we have a very large number of names to add and it all depends on what facilities are given us at the court as to whether we will get the names added or not.
Here is another report from Roblin and the complaint is made that owing to the large distance they have to travel and the expense, it is impossible for them to register.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: In what year was that ?


John Crawford: That was on June 8, 1905. Here is the summing up of the whole situation :
It is probably well within the mark to say that as the result of the Roblin government's one day, one glace, one clerk registration scheme, .at least 8,000 electors of Manitoba, eligible to be enrolled, were deprived on June 1 of an opportunity of registering.
This looks like a stupendous total; but when the figures come to be looked into it is seen to be a very moderate estimate.
Pretty close calculations have been made in some of the country constituencies, and these give a basis for an estimate embracing the whole province. Thus in Norfolk there are 160 names not registered, in Beautiful Plains, 300; in Gilbert Plains, 300; in Emerson, 250; in Dufferin, 150; in Rockwood, 200; in Gladstone, 200.; in Dauphin, 150; in Deloraine, 70; in Virden, 150. This is an average of nearly 200 disfranchised electors for each constituency.; and the same proportion is likely to apply throughout the province.
This all goes to show that under political manipulation and under the management of the government of Manitoba the electors are not safe to-day. Our people expect to get and have not been getting fair treatment in regard to the registration of electors in that province. There is not sufficient time given for that purpose. To prove this we need not do more than take the proclamation issued a few days ago in that regard. The very idea of compiling a list for a constituency 150 miles long, without railway communication, in 16 days ! It is an outrage on the people of the district, it Is something that cannot properly he done.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that the whole electorate is to be registered?


John Crawford: One man is as much entitled to his franchise as a hundred are to theirs. And a man is entitled to his franchise whether he lives a hundred miles away or fifty miles away.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Quite right; but only the additional ones who have become qualified since last year are registered.


John Crawford: That is just one of the abuses that, I am satisfied, hon. gentlemen opposite want to continue in the province of Manitoba. The fact is, we have a stuffed list, a list not compiled according to the law of the province; and yet, without the consent of the opposite party, we cannot get any names off that list. It is because it is a stuffed list that they have continued it for five years. In my own division we have a list on which are six or seven hundred names of Conservatives that should not be there, but, without some arrangement made between the political parties, we can no more get those names off than we can fly to the moon. We have a list stuffed in favour of the Conservatives, and that is why they are fighting this Bill so hard to-day. In summing up my own division I have no hesitation in saying that there are from ten to fifteen Conservatives to be struck off that list for every Liberal, while the proportion to be put on is the other way. I have here a map of the district of Gladstone. This riding covers a great deal of territory; it is about a hundred miles long, and there is no railway communication except through one corner of it. And yet all the time that was allowed to make up and revise the list for that district was seventeen days. For the district of Beautiful Plains, the time was provided by order in council, and under it the preparation of the lists was to take just sixteen days. It was simply impossible for the people in these districts to go to the place of registration and the court of revision within the time allowed. Then, see what we are up against as compared with what used to be in the old days. Nobody knows who is on the list. We tried in the city of Winnipeg to buy from the government some voters' lists to check up the names. But we could not get a list; the provincial authorities have not got them or won't supply them. That is the situation we are up against in Manitoba to-day; and we want to get away from that, and we have got to get away from it. In the division of Gladstone, between the registration and the sittings of the court of revision there were only eight days. And there was no list, but the people who wished to examine the list had to go to the door of the registration booth and read what the registration clerk had posted up there.


William James Roche: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Crawford) is wrong. The registration clerk is compelled, by law, to furnish lists on application.


John Crawford: If you go to him and he has time to give them.


William James Roche: 
John Crawford: You may have to chase him all over the country. For, if you read that order in council, you will see that he is not required to stay at one place, but is to spend an evening at one place, an afternoon at another, and so on, and so it is pretty hard to tell where to find him. He has no fixed residence.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: There are just three days of registration when the clerk does not sit the full number of hours.


John Crawford: Well, here is the proclamation, and you can read it for yourself. For a man to get on the list in Gladstone he will have to travel two hundred miles coming and going. To be registered in Russell, he will have to travel 156 miles; in Emerson, 216 miles ; in Selkirk, 200 miles ; in La Yerandrye, 240 miles.
Some reference has been made to a few names put on the voters' list by special Act of parliament last year. I think I made reference to that myself in speaking on a previous occasion. The hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Greenway) also mentioned it in his speech a day or two ago. As to_ that situation, I have here an article published in Winnipeg a few days ago which I think it would be well to read :
What about the seven put on the Balsam Bay lists, by special Aot the following season for which Mr. Roblin claimed so much credit? Were they the remaining men?
Now, the hon. member for Marquette would have had this House believe that in this case those whose names had not been put on the list by the registration clerk or at the court of revision were put on by special Act of parliament. This article says that that is not the case

Not at all, that matter has been misrepresented.
The Liberals went up and chased over the country to find the men, and the men applied but the registration clerk refused. The Liberals heard about it, and they had to go out into the country to look up these matters. It cost them quite a sum of money to get the particulars of the case.
The fact is, that a number of people were actually disfranchised, who applied. We could not get them all in time and the government never did anything to remedy the injustice.
This is the point that I wish to get this House to understand-that the government of Manitoba did not do anything more than pass this special Act; they did not try to hunt up these people.
The case of the seven you refer to is quite a different matter. These were men who had had their applications accepted by the registration clerk and had signed the interrogatories. hut the clerk through ignorance or neglect had never filled in the questions.
But the only thing that the government did was to pass an Act of the legislature to place these men on the list.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Do I understand the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crawford) to say that these men applied to get on the list?


John Crawford: Yes, they applied


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: And their application was not received?


John Crawford: It was received, but the interrogatories were not filled in.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: The hon. gentleman is wrong. That is true of the twenty-one, but for the seven, no applications were received.


John Crawford: 
Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Can you state how many applied to the registration clerk whom the registration clerk refused to accept on the day of registration ?


John Crawford: I have heard the statement made that there were somewhere about 35.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I think 21 is the right number.


John Crawford: I understand that the registration clerk made use of these words, he said they were all Grits and he would be darned if he would let them on. So they did not get on the list.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: The seven Grits that the special Act was made for.


Mr. S. J. JACKSON.: My information is that every man was a Tory.


John Crawford: The point is as to how the preparation of the voters' list was done in the province of Manitoba. Now here is the list as prepared and sent out by the Manitoba government, just as it appears in the statute, placing those men on the list. Those men have no post office address given, 257
no occupation, no residence, just the name,
and everything else blank.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Who are those ?


John Crawford: That is the voters' list prepared by the Manitoba government, printed by the King's Printer, and distributed throughout the province. The list in no way complies with the conditions surrounding the registration of voters. That is just one more sample of what we are up against in connection with the lists in Manitoba to-day. In my division at the present time there are nearly 3,000 electors, out of 8,000, that have no post office address given. Unless we can notify those electors and prove to the court that we have notified them in some reasonable manner, we cannot get them off the list. I am sure that we have in my own division a stuffed list to the extent of 600 Conservative votes, and I can see no way how we can get these off the list unless we get the consent of our Conservative friends in that division.


William James Roche: What is the court of revision for ?


John Crawford: Why, we could spend all the time we are allowed over one elector, with only fifteen hours for a court of revision. The hon. member can take up that much time himself on one case. The idea of striking off, as we did last year, some 300 votes in Beautiful Plains, and adding 184. And we could not have done that much except by the mutual consent and arrangement between both parties. Here is another glaring case :
In the case of forty names struck off at Alex-der, continued Mr. Walton, the protests were handed in to Keinnay and not to Griswold, as the 'Free Press' stated, and the number of uames affected was forty, not forty-four. The registration clerk did not sit at Alexander but at Kernnay and Griswold. Mr. Hastings tries to make it clear that there was something irregular in the application.
I understand Mr. Hastings is an employee of the government of Manitoba drawing pay from that government, while he is the political organizer of the Conservative party in Manitoba. This man is drawing from the people about $3,000 a year, and still he is the recognized organizer for the Conservative party in the province of Manitoba, and has been for some time.


William James Roche: Will the hon. gentleman permit me to ask him how it is that the Conservatives managed to get Liberals who were not qualified off the list ? Do they get them off ?


John Crawford: A lot of them never got on.


William James Roche: The hon. gentleman was referring a while ago to the names improperly on the list. If he would explain how the Liberals were struck off, he might have a little force in his argument.


John Crawford: Well, a lot of them did not have to come off. In the last election when the provincial government manipulated everything, the Liberals polled a little over 49 per cent of the total vote of the province. So. I think there are a few left yet, even though the Conservatives had full control. Now I am going to read a letter that was addressed to the Conservative party in Manitoba by their organizer, Mr. Hastings, and this organizer is a paid official of the government of Manitoba. The letter is as follows :-
Dear Sir,-You will no doubt have noticed from the public press and particularly from the address delivered by the Hon. Robert Rogers on the evening of the 21st instant, before the French Conservative club of this city, that the Minister of Justice has introduced a Bill in the Dominion parliament to amend the Dominion Elections Act and make provisions for the making up of entirely new lists for Manitoba and British Columbia for Dominion elections. It is unnecessary for me to go into details regarding the proposed amendment further than to say that if that Act becomes law the Liberals will be able to fix the lists in such a shape as will make it impossible for the Conservatives to carry a single seat in this province in the next Dominion election.
Now they must have a fine idea of the working of the voters' lists. I fancy their great trouble is that they know how to do it, and they are afraid they are going to lose it. We know how they have done it.
Our friends at Ottawa will make a determined stand on this Bill, and will if necessary keep the House of Commons in session until it is withdrawn or so amended as to give the electors of this province something like fair-play in the way of an honest voters' list.
Evidently we have not got honest voters' lists now.
In the meantime the work of revising the provincial lists will be proceeded with hy the local government the same as has been done in previous years and I write you on behalf of the party

On behalf of the party

paid out of the funds of the province of Manitoba; drawing money out of the treasury of our country and still working for the party. If we were to do that down at Ottawa, if the government at Ottawa were to act in that manner, we would not hear the end of it for months.
Mr. 8CHAFFNER. Does the hon. gentleman not know that his party have homesteaders and bush rangers and others doing that kind of work all the time?


John Crawford: The writer of this letter goes on to say :
-and I ask you to urge on our friends all through your electoral division the great necessity of revising the provincial lists this year

The government are going to look after the revision of the lists. They will do Mr. W. J. ROCHE
the Conservative end of the campaign. That is what Mr. Hastings says, and he ought to know, because he is employed by the Manitoba government and is working for the party.
I ask you to urge on our friends all through your electoral division the great necessity of looking after the revision of the local lists this year in anticipation of the general Dominion election being held on the local lists as they are revised this year. The dates and places of sittings of the registration clerk and the revising officer for your district will be made public in the very near future and we should* all work upon the revision of the list with just as much ardour as we would do if no amendment had been introduced in the Dominion House. The Liberals of your district will probably endeavour to convey the impression to the people generally that the lists will be useful when they are revised and for that reason no attention will he paid to the revision, hut don't let any such report or statement cause our friends to relax in the slightest dregree in getting a fair, full, complete and honest voters' list in your district, a list that will give every man, Conservative and Liberal alike, the right to vote if he possesses the necessary qualifications.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Hear, hear. I commend that paragraph to the hon. gentleman.
Mr. CRAWFORD, (reading).
A list so revised and corrected as will be a credit to the province and will meet with the approval of all honest men irrespective of party. With such a list prepared and revised, and ready for use by the Dominion authorities, we as a party in this province will feel and know no matter what legislation they may eventually pass at Ottawa

They are going to have things so fixed that they need not fear any legislation we may pass. Things will be all right anyway.	,
We have done our duty and succeeded in preparing honest lists in Manitoba and that the Liberal government endeavoured to pass legislation allowing them to make up special lists because they were afraid of the honest verdict of the newly qualified electors of this province.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: A very good letter.


John Crawford: I am writing this letter to you with the sanction and approval of the leaders of our party and I trust you will personally see or write to every worker of the party in your district, asking them under the circumstances to pay more than usual attention to the coming revision of the provincial lists, and that you will see that the lists, so far as your district is concerned, is properly and correctly revised. I will be pleased to furnish you with all necessary forms and to give you all information regarding the law governing the revision of the lists if you drop me a line telling me what you require.


Mr. PATERSON.: Is that the same letter that you have got, Doctor?


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I may have got that. It is a good letter. I would not be ashamed of it.


John Crawford: On April 2 our Conservative paper in the town from which I come


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Would the hon. gentleman kindly inform the House what appointment Mr. Hastings holds under the provincial government and whether he is paid by salary or in what way?


John Crawford: In discussing the Bill now before the House, this is the conclusion arrived at by this Conservative paper which is, I am quite satisfied, under the control of the Minister of Railways and Canals for Manitoba :
That the Dominion government should revise the lists up to date within reasonable time before the federal election is quite just in view of the fact that provincial revision is done only once a year, no objection \vould be made if the revision were in the hands of the judges for final completion.
That is all we are asking, and there is at least one Conservative paper in the province of Manitoba which agrees that that it is right and proper to have a revision of the lists for federal purposes in the province of Manitoba.
In connection with those voters in the particular case I was going to refer to in Lansdowne last year, here is where an abuse crept in to the extent of 40 voters, owing to the fact that the registration clerk failed to do his duty. Applications were made to strike 40 names off the lists, but when the case came before the judge, owing to the fact that the registration clerk had failed to notify the electors whose names were protested, the judge would not deal with it at all, and those men were allowed to remain on the lists. That is one sample of how things are done in Manitoba. There is just about one more item which I will take up of wrong-doing. It has been referred to before by some of the previous speakers and that is with regard to three names added in the electoral division of Morris last year, and it shows how an important Act improperly carried out affects the election of a candidate. The attorney general of Manitoba only secured a seat in the legislature by the consent and good will of the returning officer. There were three votes allowed to go on the list of men who did not appear and personally register, nor did anybody appear on their behalf and make the necessary sworn declaration. If the law of the province had been followed out to the letter, they would not have been on the lists, and the attorney general of Manitoba would not be holding his seat in the government of Manitoba as he is doing to-day.
That is just a sample of how these things are worked out. As this question no doubt 257}
will be discussed in committee, I shall not detain the House further. But there is just one matter I am not satisfied with in regard to the adoption of the provincial franchises. The hon. member for Lisgar talked about it the other day. I refer to residence qualification. A Canadian citizen who has lived in this country and helped to build it up simply because he steps over the boundary line from one province to another should not be deprived of his vote for 12 months. I think three months is long enough, if not too long.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Please tell me who passed the law making twelve months residence necessary for qualification.


John Crawford: It was passed by parliament.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Under the Conservative regime the residence qualification was six months, but the Liberal parliament of which I think my friend was a member made it twelve months.


John Crawford: I don't care who made the law I want the grievance redressed. Now, Mr. Speaker, this Bill which we are now considering will enable us to get away from the defects which at present exist in our election law, and it will give us in Manitoba a fair and honest preparation of the voters' lists. It will ensure that instead of a court of revision sitting for five hours it will sit the same as any other court as long as there is any work to do.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: At what hours of the day does the court of revision sit?


John Crawford: In Beautiful Plains it sits from one o'clock to six o'clock.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: There are just six places out of forty-one where that is the rule.


John Crawford: I do not care how many places there are, it is a grievance and we want a reasonable time to properly register the electors and we want it done without too much expense which this Bill will give us. Under the Greenway Act which is said to be iniquitous by the Tories the registration clerk cannot close his list within twenty-eight days from the time he receives his instructions, he must keep his registration book open for thirty days after the list is closed and forty-two days must elapse before the court of revision can be held, and the lists are printed during that time and distributed to the leading officials and to the school-houses and post offices all over the country. That is a proper condition and I hope we will get back to it. That is what we are striving for and what I hope we will get. We have heard a good deal about the marked ballot and it seems that there is an attempt to send out the impression that the marked ballot applies to all electors; but the marked ballot only

applies to any person who for some reason or other has his name left off the list and who wishes to cast his vote.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: What clause Is that?


John Crawford: Clause 13, and it reads:
150a. Where any separate voters' list has been prepared by the returning officer under section 25 of this Act and any person applies to vote whose name appears on the general list from which such separate list has been prepared but whose name has been omitted from the separate list, the deputy returning officer, in addition to placing his initials on the back of the ballot paper as provided by this Aot, shall also place on the back thereof a number corresponding to a number j)laced opposite such person's name in the poll book, and such person, having taken the oath in the form X 1 and, if required, the oaths prescribed by this Act, shall thereupon be entitled to receive such numbered ballot paper and to vote.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Will the hon. gentleman read clause 17 which provides no writing or figuring can be made on the ballot.


John Crawford: That is a different point; .you might please wait until I finish the point I am dealing with. Now, I want the true information with regard to this to go out to the country and I hope the press will do the fair thing by us in that regard. It has been represented in the Winnipeg ' Telegram ' and other papers that there is going to be a marked ballot and that we , are going to know how every man votes. That is not the case. It simply applies to any person whose name has been left off the list and who gets a ballot from the returning officer and the returning officer marks it so that it may be discovered afterwards if there is any fraud. This is important for we might have a case like that of the Attorney General of Manitoba who was elected by the vote of the returning officer. If the vote of that man can be traced back it will be known whether he was properly qualified to vote or not, and that is a reasonable and proper precaution to ensure fair-play at the election. I know of elections that have been voided in the west, because of the neglect, wilful or otherwise, of the returning officers in putting illegal marks on the ballot, or not initialing. and I think that the will of the people should be given expression to without the restriction of any technicalities. Now, Mr. Speaker, I approve of this legislation along the lines of the present Bill and I will do all I can to see that it is passed. No matter how our friends opposite may threaten it will make no difference in my stand, and I am afraid that the style of operating which they have adopted will only tend to [DOT]keep us further apart and to prevent us getting together and deciding on what should be the proper form of this legislation.


John Crawford: 


Mr. F. D. MONK (Jacques Cartier).: Mr. Speaker, I have followed with a great deal of Interest the discussion which has taken place upon the second reading of this Bill. Indeed, I think that no subject-matter which has come before the House during the present session has been as interesting as the one now under discussion. For my own part, I say frankly and sincerely that the Bill seemed harmless when I first read it; but after having listened to this discussion, I look upon it as one of the most pernicious, most mischievous and most wicked pieces of legislation that has come under my notice since I have had the honour of a seat in this House. It is so qualified by me unreservedly because its object is to depart in a clandestine manner from the principle which this House adopted in 1898, so far as may be necessary to control the results of the election which is about to take place. This is something new to me at any rate. We have had election frauds of a very grave and serious character-far more serious within the last few years than formerly. Under the old forms of influence the elector at least had knowledge of the manner in which his vote was disposed of through direct means of corruption. But we have had another stage which consisted in influencing an election by spoiling, stealing and switching ballots. I say this because there has been abundant proof of it, irrespective entirely of what side has been guilty. There has been that form of undue influence over the free expression of the will of the people; and we have here a third form, which is perhaps more serious than any of the others, inasmuch as it cannot be guarded against. Without any regard to the will of those who are really the electors of a constituency, it will permit a government which is waning, which is moribund, which is failing, to influence the free expression of the will of a constituency. That is the way in which I understand this legislation, and I am quite open to conviction if my judgment in that regard is too severe. But taking that view of it, the House will understand that I look on it as an extremely serious measure which deserves our careful attention.
We in this country are continually comparing our institutions to those of England, saying that we live under the same regime and that the principles that obtain in England obtain here. That statement is only partially true. If you compare the manner in which subjects of this kind are treated in the mother of parliaments with the manner in which they are treated here, you will find that there are profound differences, which are to our dishonour and disfavour to such an extent that travellers from the old country who visit Canada constantly remark upon them to our detriment. Take the subject of the preparation of the electoral lists. We all know that in England that subject is always amicably discussed

and arranged between tbe parties before tbe law relating to it is enacted. The parties confer and something which is fair, reasonable and just is determined upon, and that becomes the matter of legislation. You will not find in England, during the past century or very nearly so, such a discussion as the one we are having here to-day. The distribution of seats is another matter which is arranged amicably between the parties, the discussion between them leading to something which incorporates British fair-play, and that becomes a matter of statute. Let me go a little further in order to speak of a matter which is uppermost in my mind, and which has been so for several weeks past. Take the question of the audit of the public accounts. Could there be anything more absolutely different in the two countries? Could there be anything more grotesque, more absurd, more unjust, than our way of proceeding with that audit, as compared with what obtains in England?


Mr. JOHNSTON.: Hear, hear.
Mi-. MONK. 1 hear somebody say ' hear, hear,' on the other side of the House, and that is just the hon. gentleman who has contributed perhaps more than anybody else to accentuate those differences which are altogether to our discredit.


Alexander Johnston: My hon. friend did not contribute very much one way or the other.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Well, my hon. friend has evoked from me an admission which is this. When I have been at the Public Accounts Committee, and have seen there my colleagues, to whom I cannot give too much praise, busying themselves with what in England is uncontradicted, untrammelled, unobstructed, and have seen the hon. gentleman and some of his colleagues doing what they were doing, courage has failed me, and I have preferred to give up the job. We all know that in England the public accounts are audited by a small committee of ten or twelve members, to which some others may perhaps be added.


Alexander Johnston: It would be interesting to ascertain from our hon. friend how often he has attended the Public Accounts Committee before he gives any instructions with regard to it.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Let me ask my hon. friend what business he had there at all, because a man who has no subject-matter to be investigated in the Public Accounts Committee in England never thinks of setting his foot there to obstruct those who have. I am speaking of constitutional usage and I say, without fear of contradiction that a member of parliament in England who would go to a committee having any such matter as this before it, in order to object to the questions of others would arouse such public indignation that within 24 hours he would be compelled to resign.


Alexander Johnston: Has my hon. friend tendered his resignation? Because I have seen him often asking questions in matters in which he had no special interest or which he did not bring before the committee himself.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I may have done so in trying to help the investigator, but I think that any sensible man will admit that is a very different thing from sitting there as a counsel, as a lawyer, fed, engaged, paid, one would say-I do not say that was the case, but I say bore the appearance of a court and we were there in the presence of people who were obstructing the investigation.
I do not wish to prolong discussion with my hon. friend upon that subject, but I say it is another example of the difference which we find between British parliamentary institutions and our i interpretation of them here. There the chairman of such a committee is always a member of the opposition, the investigation we know covers the administration, so to speak, of the British empire, compared with which our own investigation must necessarily appear extremely small and puny. Where do you find the difficulty in England ? These 10 or 15 men go through the accounts, every opportunity is given for the fullest investigation, there is no question of proof or the nature of evidence, there are no men there occupying the singular and contradictory position of, being members themselves, having found nothing whatever to investigate and being there for the sole purpose of blocking the investigations of others. Could one imagine anything more abusive than our usage in this respect of what we call the British constitution and British practice? But let us go a step further. When in England, Sir, as happens at least every ten years-and I think it should happen every ten years here, because I am a great admirer of the political institutions of the mother country-a government feels itself falling, as the present imperial government feels itself falling to a certain extent even at this moment, the cabinet, in a quiet and dignified manner, accepts the situation and awaits patiently and calmly the verdict of the people. But in Canada, almost invariably-and here is a flagrant instance of it-there'is an endeavour made, by some crooked wicked mischievous legislation, to prevent the result, to thwart the will of the people, to prevent that free expression of popular will by some hook or crook, as we will see it is intended by this section, and thus to delay the fatal hour. That is the conclusion at which I have arrived in respect of the purpose of this legislation. But I have not by any means lost confidence in my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). He did not prepare this legislation, it is not he who drafted this Act. I have noticed with what care he has attended to and taken notes of the dis-

cussion which has taken place. I do not think the Minister of Justice himself, personally, of his own hand, has drafted that disposition. It comes from that part of the country which it is especially designed to affect and although it may have gone through the hands of the Minister of Justice, I say that he was not the inspirer of it; I know the hon. gentleman and that is my belief. I have confidence in my right hon. friend, I have known him for a long time. We were trained under the same legal master.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: And my right hon. friend will admit that I am right when I say that no man had a keener sense of what is just and what is right, no man was more generous, than that master under whom we both served.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: There is one thing which I found absolutely astonishing, because I do not know, as well as others, the circumstances in Manitoba. I am perfectly within the truth when I say that every one was deeply surprised in this House at the spectacle of last night. Here was my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) who, in a very able speech, giving chapter and verse, and fact and circumstance, denounced and brought to the knowledge of this House what I cannot help calling, because I am one of those good men who live in the east one of the most abominable frauds that could possibly be perpetrated in regard to an election. He did that fully, giving facts, and most of the gentlemen who come from that province were at that time in the House, but there was no sign whatever of indignation on their part. I think some differences arose as to whether Douglas was a bartender or a hotel clerk, it was not decided, I believe, but the balance of testimony was that he was a bartender. Then there was some question with regard to a man with an unpronounceable Polish name, whose defence was assumed, I think by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, but evidence was immediately produced that he had been sent to gaol or had left the country. Barring those two signs of contradiction and indignation, the whole sad, melancholy story told by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) seemed to go without any protest, without any of those visible signs of indignation which I can say to my hon. friend would have been shown by every member from Quebec had he said such things in regard to that province.
The hon. member for Portage la Prairie certainly spoke at length, there is no doubt as to that, but, Sir, I fail to find, I am bound to say frankly and with all due respect, although I do not know all the circumstances of the many facts he gave to Mr. MONK.
this House, I fail to find in his speech two things, an indignant categorical and determined denial of the story told us by the hon. member for Marquette, in respect to the thin red line, the frauds which had been committed and the secret manner in which those names had been taken from the list by the Liberal organizer or under his direction. Of the results of this I know something because one of my old time friends, Mr. La Riviere, who sat for Provencher, was undoubtedly deprived of his seat by means of those practices. There was no denial of those facts, there was not that categorical statement traversing the statement of the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) which I tell you frankly I would have been glad to hear, because I think it is a disgraceful thing that such occurrences as those should happen in this country.
I listened attentively to my hon. friend iu the hope of finding some explanation of another point, and that was in regard to the electoral law respecting the lists as it exists in Manitoba. I do not find anything in the long statement made here by my hon. friend to show me that, under that law, there was any colour of injustice or that things happened under that law that do not happen anywhere else. For you may make an election law as perfect as you like, but there will always be some abuse, there will always be somebody who will ill-use that law. In fact, my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Crawford) began by saying that he did not complain so much of that law in general, nor of the judges who sat under that law, but lie complained that the administration of the law was left to -the executive and that there was abuse in that respect. It seems to me that the answer to that was given by my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) when he stated here in the House-and this, like all his other serious statements, has gone uncontradicted-that no complaint iu the local House in the province itself has been made in regard to the law. I say frankly that all I gathered from the speech of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie was that there was a certain Mr. Rogers there of whom he spoke very often and whom he represented as a very bad man, and there were other bad men in the west. But there was nothing to traverse the statements in regard to the scandal attending the ' thin red line,' and nothing whatever to show to us in what respect the law was defective. Now, allow me to call your attention-for I do not wish to wander from the subject-to the amendment which has been proposed by my hon. friend from Marquette. I will not read that amendment, but, summed up, it says this:	There has been discrimination
against Manitoba and British Columbia, and the object of this Bill is a departure from the principle of the acceptance of pro-
8121	MAY 8, 1908	8122
vincial voters' lists and the measure is invidious and unjustifiable.
My hon. friend from Marquette stated to us last evening that the province of Quebec was mentioned in that law for the sole purpose of a blind, and I think the province of Ontario too, but I am not quite sure of that. If the province of Quebec is brought in as a blind, that will make this measure particularly detestable. It is an insidious enactment. Now, let us look at the Bill so far as it relates to the province of Quebec, and let us see if there is the same truth in that statement of my hon. friend from Marquette as there is," I am sure, in everything else that he told us last evening. The Bill provides:
9a. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein contained, voters' lists for the portions of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec which consist of territory not municipally organized and where there is no regular assessment or valuation roll

-shall be prepared, as further stated, by officers specially named by the Governor in Council. Now, is there in the province of Quebec any territory not organized municipally? For, if there is not, then the statement contained in that enactment is not true, and a great semblance of reason, it seems to me, is given to the statement made here by my hon. friend from Marquette. My right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) has practised law for a long time in a part of the country where municipal cases were frequent. He knows perfectly well that there is not one inch of the province of Quebec that is not organized municipally-not one inch. He shakes his head,' he has doubts on that point. I will, therefore, endeavour to convince him. You know that we have in the province of Quebec cities and towns and villages especially organized-that is, covered by special statutes of the local legislature. WTill my right hon. friend say that these particular places are not municipally organized?


Wilfrid Laurier: No.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: limits of any local municipality? There is no doubt whatever as to that. So that part of the allegation is not true, and there is no ground for any enactment in regard to Quebec so far as its unorganized territory is concerned, because there is no unorganized municipal territory in the province of Quebec. Now let me as briefly as possible point out what obtains in our province as regards the electoral lists. I am quoting from the Quebec Elections Act of 1885, and pointing out how our lists are prepared. From the 1st to the 15th of every month of September, under article 19 of that Act, the secretary treasurer prepares his electoral lists, and gives notice of its publication. If the secretary treasurer fails to prepare the electoral lists within that delay he may be ordered to do so by a judge, or a judge may order another person to do so in his place. After the lists is prepared there are 15 days given for complaints to be made. The secretary treasurer has made his list, he has posted it up and given public notice, and 15 days are given for complaints in writing. Then the complaints are taken up with the electoral lists at a special meeting of the council. The council hears these complaints, revises the list and finally decrees that the list is in force. Then you still have thirty days in which to appeal from the decision of council to a judge of the Superior Court. That is briefly the routine followed in our province. Since I have been in this House I have heard a great deal about electoral lists, the manner of making them, and the procedure, and I doubt if there is a simpler or better way of preparing lists than that. Nobody knows better than a municipal councillor the qualifications of a man to be an elector. As a rule, the councillors are not of the same political colour. Their decisions are sometimes unfair, and appeals are taken; but there is always the appeal from a judge to a judge, and that appeal is generally satisfactory. If there is no organized municipality in any territory, it would be undoubtedly the duty of the secretary treasurer of the county council, which has jurisdiction in that case, to prepare a list and to go through exactly the same formality. He would have to post it up, it would come up for review before the county council this time, not before the local council, and there would be an appeal to a judge. I think that confirms what my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) stated, that the province of Quebec was brought in here as a pretext, because there is no need of this provision in Quebec.


Wilfrid Laurier: Not by way of controverting what my hon. friend has said, because I think that on the whole he has been measurably correct, but by way of getting information from him-he says that in the county of Montcalm for instance, or Labelle, or any territory which is not organized, the warden of the county and the Mr. MONK.
secretary of the county have municipal jurisdiction over that territory. So far so good. But does he believe that there is machinery provided to make electoral lists ? Under our system the assessment roll is the basis of our electoral lists.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I would not have expected that from my right hon. friend, but I think he has been inspired by the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Talbot), and badly inspired. The assessment roll is not alone the guide of the secretary treasurer, that has often been decided in our courts. Let me read the article :
The secretary treasurer of each municipality shall between the first and fifteenth day'of the month of March, in each year, make in duplicate subdivided for each polling subdivision, a list in alphabetical order, of all persons, who according to the valuation roil then dn force in the municipality for municipal purposes, appear to be electors by reason of the real estate possessed or occupied by them in any manner within the municipality, or by reason of being otherwise qualified as set forth in article 9.
The valuation roll is the principal guide which is used in the local municipalities, but in the case mentioned by my right hon. friend, the latter part of that article applies * or by reason of being otherwise qualified as set forth in article 9.' It has been decided by our courts that the valuation roll is to a certain extent the guide as to the qualification of the voter, but it is not the only one. A man may be put on the electoral lists who is not on the valuation roil at all. For instance, a man who earns $300 a year in our province is not on the valuation roll, yet he has the right to be on the voters' list, because in our province any man who earns $300 a year, is a British subject, and of the proper age, has the right to be on the voters' list. Now, there is no doubt whatever that -we have no unorganized municipal territory within our province. My hon. friend from Bellechasse would perhaps be surprised if I told him that, although I have written to a number of people asking for information in regard to this Bill, people residing very far from each other within the limits of my province, and people conversant with the electoral law, they all answer in exactly the same way, and I will place these letters at any time at the disposal of my right hon. friend. The object of this Bill is unfairly to obtain the right of franchise for men engaged on government works; that is the answer which I received from every one of these people.
The object is to use that part of the Act in order to have special officers named and have them make special electoral lists which will enable people, working within the limits of a province, upon the Transcontinental or other public work, to obtain the franchise for the purposes of the next general election. There is no doubt that

is the object, and I consider that the opposition are right in refusing to allow the passage of such a measure. My hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Roche) is quite justified in saying that the province of Quebec Is brought into this enactment under a false pretense. There is no unorganized territory there.


Mr. D. ROSS.: Does my hon. friend know as a matter of fact that the county treasurer does prepare the lists for those unorganized territories even if they are within his county ?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I do not. My hon. friend will understand that there are very few people residing out of the purview of a local municipality.


Duncan Ross: If he does not do it, does my hon. friend argue that these people are not entitled to their franchise?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: They are undoubtedly, but there are very few, if any, who exist. If there are any, they have their recourse. The treasurer should perform his duty as regards those electors. If he does not, the machinery is there and can be brought into requisition in five minutes. The secretary-treasurer may be required to make an elec-, toral list for those voters. That list will' be subject to revision before a county council and there may be an appeal to a judge, but that is a very different thing from coming in on the eve of an election with a returning officer, who may not be very scrupulous-and while there are very honest returning officers there may be some who are not

and going through those outside localities and placing 300 or 400 men on the list, without giving any chance of revision, without notice, without any recourse of appeal to the county council or the judge. That is the opinion entertained in tlie province of Quebec by everybody, Liberal as well as Conservative, who takes the trouble of looking over that enactment and has any knowledge of the working of our electoral law.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
House in committee on Bill (No. 151) respecting the Grand Trunk Pacific Branch Lines Company.-Mr. Crawford.
Mr. LENNOX.: I have an amendment to offer and I would like it to be distinctly understood that it does not touch in any way the construction of the western division. I realize the importance of not hampering the railway company in any way as regards the western portion of that line and
I realize also that inasmuch as the railway company is to a large extent building that portion of the line with their own money, the necessity for my motion does not arise in connection with the western division. I am thoroughly in sympathy with the western members and with the western people who desire to facilitate in every way not only the construction of the western division but the construction of the branches and feeders of that division. On the other hand I feel that inasmuch as the country is furnishing the money for the construction of the eastern division, and as it is quite a possibility that at the end of the fifty years period we may resume the operation of that road, it is of importance that the country should now take a position which will enable it at the end of the fifty year period to have not only control of the main line of the eastern division of the Grand Trunk Pacific, but control also of the feeders of that eastern division which are absolutely essential to it. When in 1904 we were considering the supplemental agreement with the Grand Trunk Pacific Company we incorporated a provision In the agreement enabling us under certain terms to get control of certain of the branch lines, but I intend to show that the provision which we were then able to get from the government was not such a provision as we should have in the interests of the people of Canada. While I have endeavoured as far as possible to work along the lines of least resistance, yet I felt I would not be doing my duty unless I endeavoured to frame a provision whic-h is more in harmony than that is, with the interests of the people who are building the eastern division. We are building this road and letting it to the Grand Trunk Pacific upon easy terms for a period of fifty years, and I contend that should we resume possession we should be in a position to take over upon equitable terms all the branch lines which have been constructed. The enormous importance and extent of these branch lines will be appreciated when we note that the capitalization of this company is $50,000,000 and that it was remarked in 1906 that the aggregate of these branch lines exceeded either of the total length of the Transcontinental Railway or the total length of the eastern or western division ; which it was, I cannot positively say. I propose for the protection of the people of Canada to add the following section to the Bill now before the House :
2. In case the government as defined in the schedule to the National Transcontinental Railway Act, 1903, in pursuance of the terms of the said schedule shall at any time determine to undertake the operation of the eastern division of the National Transcontinental Railway, the government shall thereupon and thereafter have the right to take over all or any of such of the lines of railway authorized by chapter 99 of the Acts of this parliament of 1906 as are connected with or


Mr. KNOWLES.: In what way can we be sure that the interests of these two companies will be the same ? Might not a capitalist invest a large sum of money in the Transcontinental Railway, and nothing in this, or vice versa ?


Haughton Lennox: I am not at all sure that inue to be the same ; hut I am clear that he interests of Canada will continue to be he same to the end of the fifty-year penod. Ve are incorporating this company and giv-ng it large powers of extending railways hrough a territory which must be the eeding ground of the railway we are contracting ; and whether this railway will be ;eparate in interest from the Grand Trunk >acific Railway, which is very unlikelj. not, it is essential to us that we should
ow see to it that we annex such condif whothpr it- (

pass into other hands, we shall have con-

trol of the situation. I will read the provision in regard to the taking over of the Glasgow telephone system by the Post Office Department in England :
On, or as soon as may be after the 31st of December, 1913, the Postmaster General shall buy and the local authority shall sell and convey all such plant as is, at the date aforesaid in use by the local authority for the purpose of supplying the means of telephonic "6om-munieation under these presents, and as is suitable for the actual requirements, at the date aforesaid, of the telephone service of the post office within the licensed area. No plant shall in any case, be considered suitable for the requirements of the telephonic service of the post office, which has been brought into use without the sanction in writing of the Postmaster General, but as aforesaid, if any question arises as to the suitability of any of the plant of the local authority for the requirements of the telephonic service of the post office within the licensed area, such subject shall, in case of difference, be decided by arbitration. The value of all plant purchased by the Postmaster General under the foregoing articles shall be deemed to be its fair market value at the time of purchase, due regard being had to the nature, and the then condition of such plant and to the state of repair thereof and to the circumstance that it is in such a position as to be ready for immediate working and to its suitability for the purposes of a telephonic service and no addition shall be made to such value in respect of compulsory purchase, or of good will, or of any profits which might have been or be made by the local authority from the use of such plant. In the case of difference, such value as aforesaid shall be determined, by arbitration. All matters which in pursuance of the conditions herein contained, are to be determined by arbitration, shall be referred to an arbiter to be mutually agreed upon by the Postmaster General and the local authority and failing such agreement, to be appointed on application of either of them, by the board of trade.
Here is a specific provision, that there shall be no fancy price paid, but only the actual value, without anything for good will or franchise or anything of that kind- only for such things as are absolutetly suitable; and no plant which shall not have the sanction of the Post Office Department before it is used shall be taken into consideration when the purchase is made-a provision which seems eminently reasonable under the circumstances, and would be conspicuously reasonable in regard to a proposition such as we are now dealing with. However, I have not asked to have so far-reaching a provision incorporated in the amendment I propose. I ask only a provision along the lines we adopted in 1904, but differing essentially from the provisions of the Act of 1904 in this respect, that it provides for what I think Canada should certainly have the right to-not the refuse of the lines which the Grand Trunk Pacific Company or the Grand Trunk Pacific Branch Lines Company may desire not to retain, but the absolute right when we
assume possession and control of this public undertaking, to take with it ail those portions of railway which are essential parts of it, namely, the feeders constructed by this subsidiary company connected with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: It occurs to me that this amendment is not in order. Under the British North America Act it is provided that:
It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address or Bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue or of any tax or impost to any purpose that is not recommended to that House by message of the Governor General in the session in which such vote, resolution, address or Bill is passed.
I take it that the real meaning and construction of these words is that no charge shall be imposed on the public revenue without a Bill or resolution for the purpose being first recommended by His Excellency the Governor General. By this Bill it is declared, in the first place, that the Governor General in Council shall have the power to take over all the branch lines of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. I think there can be no question that if the resolution stopped there it would be clearly out of order, because that would enable the Governor in Council to take over these roads, no matter what they might cost, and, of course, appropriate the moneys of the country for that purpose. It is very clear that*a Bill of that kind could not be proposed to parliament except upon the recommendation of the Governor General in Council. Then it is also provided by the first part of the resolution that the government shall have power to proceed to a valuation of the company's property, take all necessary steps for that purpose, and, therefore necessarily incur any expense which might be necessary for the purpose of having an arbitration. That clearly would be also a charge upon the revenue. The amount, therefore, which, if this amendment passed the country would have to pay for these branch lines, would be fixed and determined by arbitration in the manner which this amendment suggests. There you have by the first part of the amendment authority given to the Governor General in Council to take over all these branches and also provision to take the necessary steps for arbitration and necessarily incident to that power, to incur whatever expenses would be necessary in order to take those proceedings. You have also a provision as to the mode in which the valuation shall be arrived at, that is to say from the valuation shall be deducted any subsidies which may have been paid. The only question to my mind is whether the proviso at the close nrevents the prin-

ciple which I am invoking from applying. The proviso is :
That nothing in this Act contained shall authorize the government to take over the said lines of railway or any of them without the consent of parliament, previously obtained, to the exercise of the said right of taking over as aforesaid.
It might be said that perhaps when the time arrived when the government would be in a position to exercise the powers conferred by this Act tile government would still have to go to parliament and get its authority, 'but it seems to me that does not remove the objection because, by the previous provisions of the Act, the government would be powerless, it would have to take over the lines upon the valuation fixed under the provisions of the previous part of the section or not take them at all. Therefore, this seems to me to be an amendment which would be clearly within the prohibition of section 54 of the British North America Act, and which could only be brought before parliament by a message from His Excellency the Governor General.


Haughton Lennox: The minister has become very astute as to the manner in which we can vote supplies ; no doubt he has reason for that. But let me remind him that we have a very distinguished precedent for this, not yet four weeks old, in the case of the Shuswap and Thompson River Boom Company. In that case two amendments were moved, one by myself and another by a gentleman opposite. The Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Finance were present on that occasion and the House then incorporated in that Act this provision that we should not take the company's works over without the consent of parliament being first obtained. That was done not on the ground that it was necessary that the matter should be submitted to the Governor in Council for his sanction as being an appropriation of money, but on the ground that it would not be proper that we should impliedly authorize the Governor in Council or the government to take over a large undertaking without first submitting it to parliament. No such question as has been suggested arises. There is here no such thing as an appropriation of money. I Realize as fully as the hon. gentleman the difficulty that any gentleman on this side of the House would have iu bringing forward a measure of this kind.


William Pugsley: How would you pay for the railroads unless you pay for them?


Haughton Lennox: We will not pay for them until we take them, and we will not take them until parliament votes that we shall do so ; parliament will not so vote until the proposition Is submitted to parliament, and It will not be submitted until the proper steps are taken by the govern-Mr. PUGSLEY.
ment in power and the matter has been submitted to His Excellency. If my hon. friend looks at the supplementary agreement of the National Transcontinental Railway, 1904, he will probably not find that any sanction was obtained from His Excellency the Governor General on that occasion. The principle is the same, we get the option to take over the works, but whether we shall exercise that option or not is for us to determine when the 50 year period has expired. We are not committing ourselves by securing this option in the interest of the people to the extent of one cent. I am not asking the appropriation of one cent in this matter. I am asking parliament and the government, who should be the guardians of the people, to avail themselves of the opportunity they now have of securing the necessary condition to the granting of this extension of time, a condition which costs this parliament and the people of Canada not one cent, which appropriates not one cent out of the revenues, but which secures for the people something they ought to have, the possibility of not only obtaining these branch lines but of obtaining them on something like reasonable terms when the time arrives. I would like to ask the members of the government: when that provision was inserted in the Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Bill, a provision similar to the one we have here-not worded in the same way, but providing that parliament may ^alce over that work-did we get the sanction of His Excellency the Governor General on that occasion ? No : we did not think of such a thing. And that emanated from the government themselves, it was a provision introduced by the Minister of Railways and Canals, as I assume. It is perfectly idle, I submit, to raise this objection. I am surprised that my distinguished and learned friend the Minister of Public Works, astute lawyer and able counsel as he is, should suggest for a moment that this is a question of the appropriation of money. You have only to read the statute on one hand and the provision of this amendment on the other to see instantly that this is not a question of appropriating money. But, granted that he is right in saying that before we can complete this option we should obtain the sanction of His Excellency the Governor General, still, as a first step, it would be submittetd to parliament, and it would be so submittted only after His Excellency had given his approval for the taking over of the lines. I submit that this is only an option at the most; there is no pretense of appropriating one dollar of the revenues of Canada by reason of the condition which, I submit, should be annexed to the granting of this extension of time to this railway company.


William Pugsley: If no other gentleman wishes to speak, I desire to say just a

word. Before dealing with the question itself, I may perhaps not improperly remark that I think it is a pity that my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox), called upon as he was simply to discuss a constitutional question, should have thought it worth while to go far out of his way to suggest that there was some impropriety in the fact of my taking this objection. I exercised my right as a member of the committee to raise what seemed to me a good and substantial point of order.
Now, with regard to the original agreement between the government and the Grand Trunk Pacific, the hon. gentleman suggests that he doubts whether that agreement was submitted to parliament with the approval of His Excellency. I cannot imagine that he is correct in that. I take it for granted that the agreement had received the consent of His Excellency and was so submitted to parliament. I have no doubt whatever that that was the case and I think anybody would say that it was necessary before parliament could properly consider it.
Now, I do not know that the case of the Shuswap Boom Company could be any precedent for action by you on this occasion because the provision in that Bill was altogether different from the provision here. This Bill proposes that the government shall take certain steps before coming to parliament, that it shall proceed to value all these properties, that it shall incur the obligation of having an arbitration and with power to appeal, and that all that shall be done


George Eulas Foster: Not necessarily.


William Pugsley: Yes, before coming to parliament. And then, if the consent of parliament was given, it would go through. But all these things have to be done before coming to parliament; and I submit that this imposes a money obligation on the country which can only be imposed by parliament upon tluj initiation of the government and the consent of the Governor General.


Mr. BARKER.: I wish only to say a few' words


William Pugsley: X am sorry-if I had known the hon. gentleman (Mr. Barker) was going to speak, I would not have closed-


Haughton Lennox: We are in committee and can speak as often as we like.


Samuel Barker: In 1904, parliament, in its wisdom, thought of protecting the future interests of the people of Canada by reserving certain rights in branch lines which might be built by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. After full consideration, that protection was passed by this parliament under the guidance of the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid
Laurier) and his ministers. We have now a palpable attempt to evade the protection that was then given to the people of this country and to enable the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company to get rid of the right then reserved to the people by putting up a mere fiction company belonging to themselves-virtually the same company -which will build the branches and set the people of Canada at defiance. And this is being done with the knowledge of the right hon. gentleman and his cabinet. There is no concealing the fact; the truth is apparent on the face of it.


William Pugsley: I rise to a point of order. It seems to me that it is very irregular for an hon. gentleman, in discussing a point of order, to travel outside and to attribute motives.


Samuel Barker: We are discussing the amendment.


William Pugsley: No, a point of order has been raised.


Samuel Barker: Unless the clause is passed, I will discuss the point itself.


William Pugsley: The point of order has not been ruled upon.
Mr. FOSTER I can hardly yet think that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) can be serious in raising this as a point of order


William Pugsley: He is, very serious.


George Eulas Foster: It certainly was surprising to me to hear the hon. gentleman. I have had quite a long experience in this House, and it surprises me to hear it argued that we cannot give advice and embody that advice, in a resolution or even in an Act, with reference to precautions that should be taken to safeguard the public interest. This is what is authorized:
' The Governor shall thereupon and thereafter have the right to take over

.'
That is all that this amendment proposes to ask. Then, at the last, we have the words:
Provided that nothing in this Act contained shall authorize the government to take over the.said lines of railway or any of them without the consent of parliament, previously obtained.
Consent obtained for what? To the exercise of such rights. But before doing that we should get the authority of parliament to exercise that right. So I take it they will have no authority at all, even on that point. You go to work and make valuations, spend money, do anything at all until you have asked parliament and until parliament has exercised that right.


William Pugsley: Then what is the object?


George Eulas Foster: The object is to preserve the right of the people to do that if they

please, and so to preserve the public interest.


William Pugsley: Parliament can do that at any time.


George Eulas Foster: But parliament, sitting now and giving this extension to this peculiar company, thinks it is better, and haviag a perfect right to think so, to put that proviso in and so safeguard what they consider to be in the public interest.


Haughton Lennox: I think it is my duty to endeavour to get the leader of the government to take some definite attitude with reference to this matter. I would like to see the government realize what their duty is, and I would like to see the right hon. gentleman realize his duty, because he is more than anybody else responsible for what we should now do. He is an old parliamentarian; he realizes the gravity of a proposition of this kind. Because a private member of this House! wants to submit something that he believes is in the public interest, something which will never cost the country a dollar unless parliament sees fit to exercise the rights and privileges there secured, to say that a private" member in the discharge of his duty cannot bring in a constitutional amendment to safeguard the rights of the people, because if that right is exercised by the government, it win cost money; to say that no private member has a right to submit an amendment which will give the country the right to acquire the property if parliament says so at the end of fifty years-I say that is a startling proposition. I appeal with confidence to the right hon. gentleman on account of his great experience. I always feel that I can with a good deal more confidence appeal to him than I can to some other members of the cabinet. I am sorry that the Minister of Public Works thinks I said something that was not complimentary.


William Pugsley: I think you were not discussing the constitutional point.


Haughton Lennox: I will admit that. But I doubt whether my hon. friend relied much on the objection he takes. Astute lawyer as he is, always actuated by honest motives as lawyers are, I feel that he put it forward for what it was worth, and realized at the time that it wasn't worth very much. Now, in order to impress this matter upon the leader of the government, I wish to refer to the Act from which I take this clause.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: Let us dispose of the point of order. I intend to refer the matter to the Speaker in consequence of its importance. If there was no proviso I would declare the point of order well taken.
Progress reported.


Robert Franklin Sutherland: I have had the opportunity of listening to the discussion and Mr. FOSTER.
am inclined to rule that the point is not well taken. The amendment proceeds in the first place to state :
In case the government, as defined in the schedule to the National Transcontinental Railway Act, 1903, in pursuance of the terms of the said schedule, shall at any time determine to underbake the operation of the eastern division of the National Transcontinental Railway, the government shall thereupon and thereafter have the right to take over

And so on. The amendment down to the word 1 provided ' is unquestionably within the rule, and the point would be well taken. But the words following the word ' provided ' :
That nothing in this Act contained shall authorize the government to take over the said lines of railway or any of them without the consent of parliament, previously obtained.
Modify the earlier portion and would preclude, as I view it, the possibility of the expenditure of any money for the purpose without the consent of parliament being first obtained, and then would be the time to procure the consent of the Governor General and submit the matter by resolution to the House.


Samuel Barker: I regret that I was interrupted in the few remarks I was about to make by the astute Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley). Having heard so much about his astuteness, I would beat-most inclined to think he had directed that astuteness to-night to raising a point of order in order that it might prevent the completion of the discussion before nine o'clock. I suppose that- the Bill, under the order of the House, will now have to stand over; but being so very astute, it may be difficult to know in what particular direction he was displaying that astuteness. I was saying that in the Act of 1904, this government, at the instance of hon. members on this side, had made provision to protect the interests of the people in years to come. When the provinces were so progressing that no man could at that time foresee what might be the general public interest in the future, we thought it absolutely essential, looking forward to that future to provide that, should the leased property be surrendered, we should have the right to take over branches that might be absolutely essential to the main property. In all fairness, honesty and statesmanlike prevision, we consider that we were entitled to provide proper protection. Therefore we did provide that, in certain eventuality, we should have the right to take over certain branches, if parliament saw fit. Now, what is being done, palpably done, to evade that provision and done-if the right hon. gentleman and his cabinet did not see it. they know it now-with the apparent and almost positive intention of evading the

condition parliament imposed in 1904? We have the right by act of parliament to take over certain branch lines, should it be in the interests of the country to take them over. The hon. member for West Assiniboia (Mr. Knowles) asked how do we know that the people then interested in these branch lines companies will be the same as the Grand Trunk Pacific to-day? What a wonderfully shrewd motion that is. We know who are interested in that company to-day. We know that the effect of the Acts they are trying to get through this House will be to evade a condition imposed upon the Grand Trunk Pacific in the public interest. And if they bring in a Bill here, under their own auspices, a Bill in which, beyond all doubt or question, nobody else to-day is interested -if they bring in a Bill to enable them to take out of that contract what may be most valuable property, why should we not put on record in the Acts of parliament that the company they form are bound by the original contract, so that those who become associated with them may know the terms upon which they come in and will be bound as the Grand Trunk Pacific would be and as they ought to be.


Mr. GRAHAM.: Do I understand my hon. friend to say that the clause proposed is identical with the one in the original Act referring to the Grand Trunk Pacific itself? I think it is far different.


Samuel Barker: Will my hon. friend bring in the original clause?


George Perry Graham: That would not be an answer to my question.	*


Samuel Barker: It is a very common and ancient custom to answer one question by asking another. But are we to go on year after year and never get more enlightened? The hon. gentleman himself has had an opportunity of knowing what was thought right in 1904. But he is going backward. Are we not therefore to go forward? If we find a weakness, if there be a weakness in what was then proposed, why should we not correct it? Or shall we do as the Minister of Railways and Canals proposes, cut away our protection altogether? Surely there can be no question as to what we should do. What possible excuse has this company to come here and say that the branch lines which, in the original contract, were to be built by the company, subject to certain rights on the part of the people of Canada, shall, by our own acts and concurrence, be allowed to be built by somebody else who will not be bound by those conditions. Why, talk to any business man on such a subject and he will say that the proposition is one of pure idiocy. Does the hon. gentleman suppose that if, as an individual, he were making a bargain and were a shareholder or proprietor or interested in the contract, he would be taken in by such a palpable evasion. I give him
credit for too much common sense to believe it. But of course he is only dealing for the people of Canada, and we know what, the late Mr. Vanderbilt is supposed to have said about the public.


Alexander Johnston: What did he say ?
Progress reported.



DOMINION ELECTIONS ACT-AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
The hour for private Bills having expired, the House resumed consideration of the second reading of Bill (No. 115) to amend the Dominion Elections Act and the proposed amendment of Mr. W. J. Roche thereto.
Frederick Debartzch Monk: As I said, Mr. Speaker, before you rose at six o'clock, what impressed me most, during this discussion regarding what took place in Manitoba, is the failure by hon. gentlemen opposite to deny that what is called ' the thin red line ' was perpetrated either by Leach himself or under his direction. Surely if any alterations had to be made in the electoral lists, they came naturally under the purview of the returning officer in each constituency. Although there may not be any provision especially in the Act, under the circumstances in which those alterations were made, the returning officer was called upon, in common fairness and justice, to notify the candidates before making any changes. Did he notify those with regard to whom he intended altering the lists? No, the alterations were made by a person or persons having an authority; and once made, whatever might have been their effect-whether they cancelled entirely the names of the voters or transferred them to distant polls is a matter of no importance although one as to which there has been a great deal of quibbling-those alterations should have been brought to the knowledge of those who were affected. But we have no excuse whatever offered in that regard. The whole discussion has impressed me with the absolute certainty that what was perpetrated that time was the result of a preconceived scheme which successfully worked the disastrous results that have been subsequently condemned on all sides.
My hon. friend from Portage la Prairie spoke at great length of defects in the present Manitoba law, but to my mind none of these defects were of a really grave character and none confuted the crowning principle that finally this making of the lists in Manitoba comes under the view of the judge, as it does in the province of Quebec. There are defects in the electoral law of the province of Quebec but that does not mean that our electoral law is not a singularly satisfactory one. Even admitting that defects do exist in Manitoba that is no ground for the sweeping change this Bill contemplates. When in 1898 we decided to adopt the provincial

lists iu principle did we not know that defects would be found in the provincial laws exactly as defects were found under our own Dominion Franchise Act ? It is the merest flimsy pretext to say that because in some particular respect the electoral law of a province is deficient we will sweep aside the principle we adopted in 1898 and on the eve of an election and after the issue of the writs, that the government will take unto itself the entire preparation of the voters' lists. The amendment of the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Roche) after laying down the truism that this Bill discriminates against Manitoba and British Columbia compared with the other provinces, declares:
That this law is a radical departure from the principle of accepting provincial voters' lists and is invidious and unjustifiable.
I stated this afternoon that there is no unorganized territory within the limits of the province of Quebec and that therefore there is no justification for this enactment in reference to Quebec, because the whole province is organized municipally and under the provincial law every man who has the right to vote can be placed upon the list by the proper officer. My right hon. friend may ask : if such be the same, why do I fear the passage of this enactment.


Mr. DEVLIN.: There is unorganized territory in Quebec.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Where?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: In the county of Wright which I represent there are 572,397 acres of unorganized territory.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend was not here this afternoon when I placed before the House what I think was an unanswerable argument. Let me repeat for his benefit that every piece of territory in the province of Quebec is under the control of a municipal council and it is therefore organized.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: It comes under the municipal code in as much as it may be under the control of the county council, but it may not necessarily be organized into a municipality and the residents of a township which has no municipal organization would not have the right to vote unless they have property in an adjoining township.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend is mistaken. Let him look at article 32 of the municipal code, which says: That if there is no local municipality in any given place within the limits of the county-and all parts of the province of Quebec are within the limits of a county-then the county council replaces the local municipality, and so the secretary is obliged to prepare a list of electors for these 500,000 acres my hon. friend refers to, exactly as would the secre-Mr. MONK.
tary treasurer of a local council. There can be no doubt whatever about that, and I will not discuss the point further. True, there is no local council and there are no local councillors, but, if there are not the very small number of people required by our municipal code to form a municipal council, in that case the administration is by the county council.


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: Does the county council make electoral lists?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Our electoral law prescribes that the secretary treasurer of the council, whatever council it may be, must make an electoral list, and if he has under his control territory which belongs properly to the county council where there is no local municipal organization, he should make an electoral list for that part of his territory. There is no question about that whatever. My hon. friend from Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Duncan Ross) asked me had I any knowledge of a case where a county secretary treasurer had made such a list and my reply to him is that I have not, and the reason is because there are not many places where there is no local council. But if there were such a place the duty of the officer would be perfectly plain, and if he did not fulfil his duty under the provisions of our election law any party interested could apply to a judge for a remedy, and the judge could order the secretary treasurer to prepare the electoral lists.


Duncan Ross: What control has this parliament over such an officer ?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: We have no more control over him than over any other municipal officer, but parliament has adopted the principle that we shall take out lists from these municipal officers. We receive the electoral lists from the registrars who receive them from the secretary treasurer and the registrar is a municipal officer. It is true they grumble about it but nevertheless they forward copies of these lists to Ottawa and so far no difficulty has been experienced. In fact when this franchise question was discussed in this parliament in 1908, I spoke of it in my own county, and knowing that generally speaking our provincial lists are well made, I took the ground that I was not opposed to the change, and I think our experience in the province of Quebec has justified me in that. That being the case, and I know it is a fair subject for discussion, and it is because it is a fair subject for discussion that I have most fear. Here are already two hon. gentlemen from the province of Quebec who mention large areas in that province where there is no possibility of having an electoral list. That is what my hon. friend from Wright (Mr. Devlin) has stated.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: There will be every possibility under this Bill.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend takes the ground at the present moment that there is no possibility. If that were the case, then I would have to admit that there is a large desolate area iu the province of Quebec where there are very few people, where it is very easy to send people, and where people might spring up suddenly like Cadmus' soldiers, and those people would have to be provided with the electoral franchise.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: In the county of Wright they all vote honestly.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I have no doubt about that. There was an old French Canadian In my county who said that he believed everybody was perfectly honest, but that he had misgivings about everybody. What would happen in the province of Quebec would be that this enabling enactment would enable the government on the eve of an election, after the Issue of the writ, to send out persons to make electoral lists. I know of ten or twelve or fifteen constituencies in the province of Quebec which would be liable to this kind of invasion. How do I know that in my own constituency, almost an urban constituency, portions of which are densely populated, some gentlemen oil the eve of the election would not find some spot unorganzed municipality in his opinion. where he would have to make a list ? I say this is a most dangerous enactment so far as the province of Quebec .is concerned. The Transcontinental Railway is at present under construction through several of those constituencies-through parts where there is no municipal organization. If the idea propounded bv the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Talbot) and the hon. member for Wright (Mr. Devlin), and sustained by the hon. member for Yale and Cariboo (Mr. Ross), be correct, there will be th? opportunity to send in an officer to prepare a list, conforming himself, says the Bill, as far as possible to the law. Well, there is only one law, and it is perfectly clear, that is, that you can only make an electoral list between the 1st and the loth of September. IIow can a man go in there and make a list at any time, and how can he, between the issue of the writ and the final event, conform even in the slightest degree to those dispositions of our Electoral Act, which require two stages-a revision by a council of men, jurymen, so to speak, with a right of final appeal to a judge thirty days after? And what will be the position of a candidate who does not happen to be a friend of the parties carrying out this scheme ? Will he run up into those far northern latitudes in order to find out whether lists are being prepared, and leave the rest of the constituency, where are the legally qualified electors ? The truth is that in 258
these cases he will have to trust to chance, and wait patiently until some time after the election, when these parties have returned to the proper seat of the election, and reported as to the results. That is the position, and I say that it places in doubt a considerable proportion of the electoral districts of the province of Quebec. What we are asked to do this evening is to sanction that principle, which is really a return, under a slightly varied form, to the old rotten borough system as it existed in England before the Reform Bill. It is nothing else. We know from past experience that these things are possible. The men who would be suddenly brought into constituencies would be the legitimate successors of what used to be called the pot-wallopers

people brought into a constituency at the last minute in order to change the free expression of the will of the people. Our hon. friends may argue that this is to sujipose that the government would abuse its powers. Governments do abuse their powers as much now as they did before the Reform Bill, and to ask us to allow that latitude is to expose us to the danger of the intolerable oppression that existed before the passage of that same Reform Bill. Under these circumstances what is our duty ? It seems to me that our duty is very clear-it is to resist the granting of such power, to resist the possibility of a renewal of those abuses. I speak only for myself. We have in our hands a remedy, which is the old remedy which enabled the people of England to secure the redress of the great grievances from which they suffered during centuries, that is, to refuse supply to the government until they have abandoned this unjust and unfair pretension ; and I tell you, Mr. Speaker, and this House, that as far as I am concerned, that being the only remedy in our hands, I will avail myself of it to the fullest extent. This is not the case of an ordinary grievance. It is not the case of applying under ordinary circumstances the old adage that redress goetn before supply. This is not a question of policy ; it is not a question of a grievance which at a later date can be cured ; it is not a question of a grievance as to which there can be any doubt ; it is a question of an imminent danger of opnression. That is the way I view it. We are more or less on the eve of an election, and the government ask this House for power to control the franchise in the constituencies, under circumstances which are but th'nly veiled in this enactment-the old abuse by which the Crown prevented the free expression of the will of the people during such a long time in England.
It is for us at the present moment, for those of us at least who do not feel disposed to grant that exorbitant power, to resist it by all the means at our command and the means to my mind are very plain. They are to refuse the grant of supplies. The



government asks us to give them this power that will enable them, under the circumstances detailed in this enactment, to go into the constituencies and prepare their own lists contrary to the existing law, con-tary to the understanding, contrary to what at present is our best and only guarantee, and at the same time they ask us to vote supply, to give them money. The proposition seems to me to be one absolutely untenable and I would not hesitate, fearless of what would be the consequence, to say that I would never consent to such a thing as that. We must follow the very celebrated example of some of our ancestors of old. The Commons of England mustered in the monastery of Westminster, they knew how to close the doors of the refectory and the cloister, shut themselves up and refused to be moved for supply or scutage or aid to the King unless he would come down and cure their grievances, and this they did at the very peril of their lives. We stand in no such peril. Speaker Seymour, I think it was, was committed to the Temple by the King because, speaking in the name of the Commons, he had complained of the cost of the maintenance of the King's mistresses. This is a far more serious grievance, this is a question of the relinquishment unto the government, the giving to the government in its own discretion, of the preparation of the electoral lists and to my mind nothing having any weight whatever has been laid before us to show that this very sweeping change is necessary. Under these circumstances X for one would be faithful to the old principle and I would refuse supply until this grave grievance has been swept away.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I am sorry I had not the opportunity of being in my seat this afternoon when the hon. member for .Tacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) began his speech. I always admire the hon. member when he speaks in the House for his courtesy and for the soundness, as a rule, of his arguments. But this afternoon, in listening to him, I felt that he made certain statements which cannot be borne out by the law as it exists in Quebec. His statement that there is very little or practically no unorganized territory in the province of Quebec, is certainly not borne out by the facts. I have not had occasion to look up the exact extent of the unorganized territory in that province, but I have already cited that in the county of Wright we have 572,397 acres of land. In the county of Pontiac we have 11,577,618 acres of unorganized territory with a population of 1,339 people. I feel that if this Bill will give to the people living in that portion of the province which is unorganized territory the right to vote, then it certainly overcomes a difficulty which we have felt in that province for a very long time and will be an excellent measure of justice to those people.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: 


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Has the hon. member read section 17 of the Electoral Act, which provides that the secretary-treasurer of each municipality must prepare the lists of that municipality ?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Is the hon. member quoting from the statute of 1903?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: The Act of 1893 as amended up to 1903.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Section 9a of this Bill provides :	.
9a. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein contained, voters' lists for the portions of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec which consist of territory not municipally organized and where there is no regular assessment or valuation roll

Those are the words that I would like to point out:
-upon which the voters' lists are based

-&c. The first section which deals with elections in this country and which applies naturally to the province of Quebec is section 6 of the Dominion Elections Act, Revised Statutes of Canada, chapter 6, which reads.
For the purposes of any Dominion election held within the limits of a province, the voters' lists shall, except as herein otherwise provided, be those prepared for the several polling divisions established, 'find which, on the sixtieth day next preceding the day fixed for the nomination of candidates for such Dominion election.
Again section 10 reads.
The qualifications necessary to entitle any person to vote at a Dominion election in any province shall, except as herein otherwise provided, be those established by the laws of that province as necessary to entitle such person to vote in the same part of the province at a provincial election.
Again section 21:
So long as and whenever, for any reason, a certified" copy of any list of voters as finally revised has not been transmitted to or received by the clerk of the Crown in Chancery, pursuant to the provisions of this Act, the original and legal list for Dominion elections shall he the same as that for provincial elections.
Referring to the old law of the province of Quebec to be found In the Revised Statutes of Quebec, the law then practically was, as pointed out by the bon. gentleman:
The secretary-treasurer of each municipality shall, between the first and fifteenth days of the month of September, in each year, make in duplicate, subdivided before each polling subdivision, a list, in alphabetical order, of all persons who, according to the valuation roll

I again point out the word * valuation.'
-then in force in the municipality for municipal purposes, appear to be electors by rea-

son of the immovable property possessed or occupied by them in any manner within the municipality or by reason of being otherwise qualified as set forth in article 9.
There were subsequent amendments to that law and we Und in the statutes of Quebec, 3 Edward VII, chapter 9, this provision :
Section 9. The following persons, and no other, being males, and who, at the time of the deposit of the list under articles 25 and 26 of this Act, are of the full age of twenty-one years, subjects of His Majesty by birth or naturalization and not otherwise legally disqualified, shall be entered upon the list of electors :
1. Owners or occupants, in good faith, of immovable property estimated, according to the valuation roll in force, at a sum of at least three hundred dollars in real value, in any city, municipality entitled to return one or more members to the legislative assembly, or $200 in real value or $20 in annual value in any other municipality.
It goes on to speak of tenants, teachers and so on. Then, we find in this law the meaning of the word ' municipality ' as follows :
The word municipality means every municipality of a parish or part of a parish, of a township or part of a township, or united township, of a village, of a town existing under the operation of the Municipal Code, and every town or city municipality incorporated by charter or special Act.
Now, I see what the hon. member (Mr. Monk) had in mind. He quoted, as I understand, section 32 of the Municipal Code. It is perfectly true that that section brings such unorganized territory under the county council for municipal purposes, but it does not bring it under the county council for the purposes of voting at provincial or federal elections:
The county council may, by a resolution, after public notice to that effect has been duly given, previous to the passing thereof, amd approved and published in the manner prescribed, by article 41, erect into a parish municipality, under the name which belongs to it, according to the rules prescribed, any territory included in one or more townships or part of townships, whether or not erected into municipalities, and which has been constituted into a civil parish, provided that such parish contains a population of three hundred souls and is wholly situated in the county.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I did not quote that section. I quoted section 28.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Yes, that provides for municipal government for municipal purposes, but it does not bring the unorganized territory under the provisions of the statute governing elections.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: ' Why not?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Because, to begin with, there is no valuation roll upon which the voters' list may be founded.
258J


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Does the hon. gentleman pretend that one must be on the valuation roll in order to have his name entered on the electoral list?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: The lists are prepared from the valuation roll.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: But the hon. gentleman surely knows that the man who earns $300 a year is not entered on the valuation roll, but his name must be put on the voters' list. It has been held, time and again, in our province that it Is not necessary to be on the valuation roll in order to be on the voters' list.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I know that. But my hon. friend (Mr. Monk) is speaking of the preparation of voters' lists. Now, in the general preparation, the voters' list is taken from the valuation roll. My hon. friend has surely mistaken the purpose of section 28 of the Municipal Code. I had not previously looked at that in this argument, but, of course, I knew about It.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I do not think the hon. gentleman has looked very much into this question.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I certainly have had reason to, because I am more affected by it than is the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk). I have had experience.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I have no doubt that this proposed enactment Is very useful to my hon. friend (Mr. Devlin). [DOT]


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: It Is very useful because it will bring into existence as voters at the election people who should have the right to vote, but who have no right to vote today. I certainly have not gone to these people to ask them whether they will vote for a Liberal or a Conservative condidate.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I am surprised that my hon. friend has not had them put on the list already. They should be there.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: No, I have never put men on the list who had not the right to vote.


Mr. HENDERSON.: You mean, men who would not vote right.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: But, going on with the legal argument, I would point out that section 32 provides that unorganized territory may be erected into a municipality provided it has a population of 300 souls and is wholly situated within the county. But, what about the parish that does not contain 300 souls? As a lawyer of the province of Quebec, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Monk knows it cannot be.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I did not refer to that article, but I quoted the article I did refer to.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: The hon. gentleman referred to section 32.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If I did so, it was by mistake.	i	,


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Article 32 covers the point the hon. gentleman wanted to make-shows how this territory is brought under the authority of the county council. But I will point out that there is no provision in the law of the province of Quebec to-day which gives the people living in this unorganized territory the right to vote. The hon. gentleman savs it would be only in very remote parts of the province where such cases might be found. I would point out that in the township of Denholme, I think it is, within a very few miles of the city of Ottawa, the residents there, unless they possess property in adjoining parishes municipally erected, have no right to vote. Above the village of Maniwaki or the village of Montcerf, which is only about 117 miles from Ottawa, there is a very large population of farmers who have not the right to vote.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Why not?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Simply' because the law of the province does not allow it, and we have not those the hon. gentleman suggests we should have to put them on the list.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Are they qualified ?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: They are property holders and otherwise qualified, but they have not the right to vote.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: They must have.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Not under the law.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If my hon. friend will allow me, the Electoral Act specifically imposes upon the secretary-treasurer of the municipality which controls these people the duty of making a list and entering their names in it.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Where does the hon. gentleman (Mr. Monk) find that?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: The hon. gentleman quoted from it a few minutes ago-it is section 17, which provides that the secretary-treasurer of each municipality must between the 1st and 15th of September make the list and put upon that list the names of those who, by the assessment roll, have the right to vote, ' or who, by reason of being otherwise qualified, as set forth in article 9 ' and so on -providing for the case exactly where there is no assessment roll.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: What particular part of section 9 gives that right?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: There is a large enumeration in that article. There are, for instance, those who earn a total of $300 a year-say those who work on the Transcontinental Railway.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Let me read section 17 :
_ The secretary-treasurer of each municipality shall, between the first and fifteenth days of the month of September, in each year, make in duplicate, subdivided for each pol-Mr. MONK.
ling subdivision, a list, in alphabetical order, of all persons who, according to the valuation roll then in force in the municipality for municipal purposes, appear to be electors by reason of the immovable property possessed or occupied by them in any manner within the municipality or by reason of being otherwise qualified as set forth in article 9.
Now I will read to the hon. gentleman article 9, subsection 1 :
Owners or occupants in good faith, or immovable property estimated, according to the valuation roll in force, at a sum of at least three hundred dollars in real value, in any city municipality entitled to return one or more members to the legislative assembly, or two hundred dollars in real value or twenty dollars in annual value in any other municipality.
But if they are not organized municipally how are they going to possess the right?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Read subsection 11.


Mr. DEVLIN (reading) :: Persons who are domiciled in the electoral district, and who draw, from their salary or wages, in money or in effects, or from some business, employment, trade or profession, or from some investment, a revenue of at least three hundred dollars per annum, or persons who work by the piece in factories and who derive at least three hundred dollars per annum therefrom.-
Does that cover the son of a farmer who gets a salary from his father on the farm?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: What about the $300 a year men?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I am now speaking of farmers in the province of Quebec. We are not providing for transients, people that may pass through a town and that no honest man will attempt to put upon the list. I think the hon. gentleman ought to be satisfied by this time that there is a large portion of the population in the province of Quebec who have, under the existing law, no right to vote at a Dominion election. But by section 9a of this Bill these people will have a right to vote and therefore justice will he done to them. I have no hesitation in saying that this Bill will meet with the universal approval of the people of the province of Quebec, and that it will cover a long felt want. The only reason I have heard hon. gentlemen adduce against this Bill is the fear that they may have dishonest officials to operate it. That is a very foolish argument. If every time we wished to pass a law in this House we were deterred bv the fear that it would not be efficiently enforced, or. that some dishonest officials might put it into operation, why, we would pass no law whatever in this House. When I first glanced at this Bill I immediately thought of the poor people residing in the county which I represent, people who have said to me time and again: It is a shame that your parliament does

not pass a law which will give us the right to vote. Merchants have come to me, farmers have come to me and have asked why their names should not be put upon the voters' list.


Mr. WM. WEIGHT.: Has the hon. gentleman ever appealed to the legislature of Quebec to remedy that defect he complains of?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I leave to the legislature of Quebec to deal with matters coming within the sphere of their jurisdiction. At the present time I am considering what laws this House is called upon to pass.


George Eulas Foster: Does this Bill propose to fix a basis of representation ?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: No, but this Bill will bring into force in unorganized territories the xjrovisions of the law as they exist in organized territories.


George Eulas Foster: If this Bill becomes law will it empower you to place on the revised list any man anywhere who has not, under the province in which he lives already, the property qualification for a voter?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Speaking for the province of Quebec, provided he has under the provincial law the necessary qualifications of an elector, and tnose qualifications are laid down in section 9.


George Eulas Foster: If he has those necessary qualifications now?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: But he has not. [DOT]


George Eulas Foster: This Bill does not propose to amend the qualification.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Not at all.


George Eulas Foster: Then how will he have the right to vote under this Bill?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Because this Bill will bring him under the operation of section 9a I have just read.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein contained, voters' lists for the portions of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec which consist of territory not municipally organized and where there is no regular assessment or valuation roll upon which voters' lits are based.
The moment a man lives in unorganized territory he has at present no right to vote, but the moment we pass this Bill then he will be brought under the operation of the provisions as. we have them to-day. As the Minister of Justice remarks, the new lists which will be prepared under this Bill will be prepared according to the laws of the province as they now exist, and, therefore people who have the necessary qualifications to vote in organized territory will then have the right to vote in unorganized territory. That is the whole point. Therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that I
will give this Bill my entire support. I cannot speak with any personal knowledge of the operation of the election laws in the province of Manitoba, but I have no hesitation in saying from a study of the Bill and from what I have heard in this House that this Bill is going to cover a great many irregularities. Surely the people of Manitoba are not as dishonest as hon. gentlemen opposite wish to make them out. Surely if hon. gentlemen opposite have had amongst their organizers certain dishonest people who have given wrong affidavits or who have taken from the proper, authorities the seal of the court and placed it in their headquarters, if hon. gentlemen have had that experience with their organizers, there is no reason to suppose that if Jhey come into the Liberal camp they will not find men who are prepared to act honestly and to put this law into proper execution.


Mr. ARMSTRONG.: Would the hon. gentleman be good enough to name some of the irregularities in the Manitoba Election Act?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I am speaking, not of irregularities in the law itself, but in the operation of the law.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Some of Mr. Leach's work possibly.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: No, I was referring to some of the affidavits that were fraudulently obtained, according to newspaper reports.


Mr. W. WRIGHT.: Might I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Is there a provision in this Act that an enumerator can take it upon himself to be the assessor of property in unorganized territory in the province of Quebec, so as to put values on farms in order to find out whether the owners are qualified to vote in that province?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: We have a provision which gives a man the right to vote according to valuation. The hon. gentleman's objection is well taken, but it has no basis in fact, because the municipal councils, under the working of the provincial Act, will find out what is the valuation of that property before the owner is allowed to vote. There will be absolutely no difficulty on that score. I have no hesitation in giving my cordial support to this Bill, as I believe it is one of the best ever submitted to this House.


Mir. R. S. LAKE (Qu'Appelle).: Mr. Speaker, I am not a lawyer but the arguments which have been advanced by the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat seem to me to have been most extraordinarily mixed-so much so that I could not help coming to the conclusion that he must have a very poor notion of the pro-J visions of this measure. .Of the two argu-

ments which have been advanced from the province of Quebec up to the present, I could certainly have no hesitation whatever in giving the preference to that submitted by my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk).
'Mr. DEVLIN. If I were in your place, I would have no hesitation either.


Richard Stuart Lake: I am aware of that, but I am not speaking from a party point or view. I am speaking from the point of view of clearness, and I should certainly say that in that respect the hon. gentleman who has just spoken has been a lamentable failure. Let me call attention first of all to the fact that there has not been one argument put forward so far to justify the application of this measure to the province of British Columbia. We have not had a British Columbian declare that the working of the Dominion election law in that province is unsatisfactory, and that such a radical alteration in the law of the Dominion is required as regards that province. The only reason, it seems to me, which has induced the government to apply this Bill to that province is that the administration of the provincial law with regard to elections is honest and satisfactory and that is what this government is anxious to avoid.


Duncan Ross: Admitting for the sake of argument that we have an honest voters' list in British Columbia, does my hon. friend pretend that when that list is not adapted for federal purposes we should not pass a law to adapt it for those purposes ?


Richard Stuart Lake: No argument has been laid before the House to show that it is not adapted for federal purposes and no complaints have been raised.


Duncan Ross: Surely my hon. friend is aware, if he knows anything about the lists in British Columbia, that in several instances provincial districts and federal districts do not coincide and consequently the lists are not adapted for federal purposes.


Richard Stuart Lake: I am willing to admit that I know but little about the law of British Columbia, but what I say is that we have not heard any member from that province argue that there is any reason or necessity for auy change. If there were no other circumstances, those in which the Bill was introduced are sufficient to create grave suspicion as to the honesty of the government. This measure is one which is bound to have most far-reaching effects. It is perhaps the most important Bill with regard to elections which has ever been brought before the people. It changes our election law in three important particulars, In this short Bill of eight pages, we find three great principals embodied. First, a complete abandonment of the secrecy of the 'ballot. That is a matter which de-Mr. LAKE
serves a Bill for itself and the long and earnest consideration of this House. The second is the abandonment of the principle of provincial franchises, which was adopted by this House, after very long and careful discussion, some years ago.] Third, iit adopts the principle that a company or an association incorporated for political purposes may collect and distribute without restriction an election fund of any size and thus evade all the provisions with regard to individuals. This is the Bill which was promised in the speech from the Throne at the opening of this session. The government allowed four or five months of this session to pass before bringing it down. The ordinary explanation of this delay would be that the government had been spending a great part of that time in considering the details ; but if we are to believe the Minister of Justice, that was not the case at all. According to him, its chief provisions were put on paper some four or five months before the beginning of the session and had then received the consideration of the government. Let me recall to the House words he used in moving the first reading, after we had been in session some four or five mouths. He said:
The measure I am now introducing is one I committed to paper some four or five months before the present session, and with the exception of one or two details which re-maioed for further consideration, these provinces had therefore that consideration at my hands and the hands of the government.
It would therefore seem that the government has decided upon the details of this Bill, except in one or two minor points, months and months ago and yet they wait until near the close of the session, when the members are weary with their parliamentary duties, to place this important measure before the House. The Minister of Justice explained some unimportant details of the Bill and then proceeded to say :
The other amendments in this Bill "are of possibly minor character altogether.
But let us see what the Minister of Justice describes as being of a minor character. First of all there is this section 1 which the Minister of Justice himself now admits to be the main feature of the measure. He was speaking of that which occurred in Manitoba last election when large numbers of persons had been disfranchised by the thin red line outrage, and he said :
I am confident that the omission of such names were few in number and that there was nothing of intentional wrong-doing. However that may be, it is of interest that provision should be made in the Elections Act which will authorize and permit the officers of the law to make that redistribution of names.
That is all he said about that matter, and he goes on to explain why he considers even that necessary :

A riding for Dominion purposes may contain portions of a dozen different polling subdivisions established for provincial purposes and the officials conducting the Dominion elections, have of necessity to transcribe from the general list to a special list for the purpose 6f that poll, the names of the voters who properly ought to be assigned to the particular poll. I am proposing, in 'the Bill I have prepared, a clause which will authorize that to be done.
That is all the explanation that was given by the Minister of Justice of this most important portion of the Bill, this portion of the Bill which completely abrogates the adoption of the provincial franchise In so far as it relates to two great provinces. This want of candour, this want of honesty in the explanation of the Bill by the Minister of Justice, makes one naturally very suspicions of the intentions of the government in introducing such a measure. Another of these minor details which the Minister of Justice referred to Involves the secrecy of the ballot and. this is what he said about it:
I do not seek to conceal from the House the fact that to remedy this, to permit such numbered ballot or ballots containing marks of identification to be counted, is a radical departure from the whole principle of the Dominion Elections Act. It has been said liy learned judges, and no. doubt correctly said, that tlie ruling principle of the Dominion Elections Act is secrecy at all costs, secrecy even at the cost of defeating the will of the people by preventing the counting of ballots which are perfectly good when they leave the hands of the electors, but which may afterwards be vitiated by the deputy returning officer or some other officials. If it is a question whether that over-riding principle of secrecy is or is not to be encroacbed upon foi the sake of preserving the individual vote and securing a true expression of the will of the voter and of the people, then, in my judgment, the principle of secrecy ought to give way, and not the principle of giving to the voter the means of expressing his true wish at the polls and carrying out that wish in the counting of the ballots.
How could any intelligent man say that this was a minor detail of this franchise Bill ? Now, in addition to this want of candour of the Minister of Justice when he introduced the Bill, it has occurred to me that when he moved the second reading he made statements which were calculated to mislead the House and which were only partially the truth. Speaking of the thin red line outrage he said it was the returning officers who had used the thin red line, but every member of the House must have known perfectly well that that statement was a suppression of the whole truth, and that in most cases these alterations on the voters' lists were made by Mr. Leach, the organizer of the Liberal party in Manitoba. Again, the Minister of Justice^ stated that these alterations were authorized by the provincial law, only, that a black line was
to be used, and he said that these alterations were made by officials of the provincial government, keeping back the fact that the authorization in the provincial law is only given to judges who are of course officers of the federal government. In other particulars I noticed time and again that the Minister of Justice was suppressing the true facts and was not candid with the House. Nothing could be more calculated to arouse suspicion than the statements made by that hon. gentleman both on the first reading and the second reading of the Bill. Now, the very first feature of this Bill involves a departure from the principle of adopting provincial lists for Dominion elections. I have frequently been asked on the public platform if this government had not failed to carry out all the promises it made the people before it came to power, and I have always answered that the only one promise they kept was the adoption of the provincial franchise. I regret to say that I shall have to abandon even that moderate praise for the government as to carrying out Its preelection promises, for it seems that now they have abandoned that pledge with all the rest.	.
All of the arguments which were made by the Minister of Justice in urging that the first clause of this Bill should be adopted were directed to the necessity for a proper and thorough revision of the lists drawn up by the provincial authorities, on the ground that no opportunity was given for such revision ; and yet we find that the provision he is making is simply for the drawing up of lists by the officials of this government, and for no revision whatever, either by the officials this government may appoint or by the judges who should be appointed under the provincial law. The Bill states that after the writs of election have been issued the government shall have the lists prepared, and, as my hon. friend from Prince Edward (Mr. Alcorn) pointed out, the time occupied in carrying out the provision of the provincial Act is so long that it would make it absolutely impossible in almost every case for any revision of these lists to take place. So that the Minister of Justice could not have been sincere in arguing that there was a necessity for the revision of the provincial lists. What he desires, and what hon. gentlemen opposite desire, is simply that they shall draw up their own lists subject to no revision whatever, and, in drawing up improper lists, shall be in a position to capture the country at the next general election.
The hon. Minister of Justice spoke of the administration and preparation of the lists by the provincial authorities as being an engine of tyranny and oppression. To my mind there has been nothing whatever proved in this House against the honourable, careful manner in which the provincial lists in the province of Manitoba have been prepared. Bat I think we had very full

and very complete proof of the tyranny and oppression which we are to expect from the officials of this government, if they are to draw up these lists, in the speech delivered here the other day by the hon. member for West Algoma (Mr. Boyce), who showed the abominable manner in which an attempt had been made to steal his constituency from him at the last election by stuffing the list with the names of persons who had never existed or had left the country or had died before the list was drawn up. To the charge that there has been tyranny and oppression in the preparation and administration of the lists in Manitoba, the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. W. J. Roche) gave a most exhaustive reply last night. To my mind that reply was absolutely unanswerable ; it has not been answered yet, and I do not believe any attempt will be made to answer it. ' For everv statement he made he gave chapter and text, and I am convinced that the Prime Minister sitting in his seat in the House, was more than half persuaded that he had been forced into a most improper measure by false representations on the part fo his followers.' What evidence has been offered to us on the other side of fraud and oppression? We have had assertions, but the only proof we have had has been innumerable extracts from newspapers, mostly from the Manitoba ' Free Press,' which we nil know is a paper with an extreme party bin*, which receives an enormous amount of pecuniary assistance every year from this government. Let me instance the case of the hon. member for Ins-gar (Mr. Greenway), who stood up in this House with a list in his hand and told us that he had lived for nearly thirty years in his present constituency, that he knew almost every man in it. and that he was prepared to say that there were a large number of names on that list which should not be there, and that a number of names had been omitted from it which should be there. He was promptly challenged to mention a name on the list that should not be there. He stated that he could give the names in his own neighbourhood, and that he would write them down and send them to the leader of the opposition if he so desired ; but the fact remains that after making the boast that he did. he was not able to mention one name when called upon to to do. Then we had the proofs uttered by the hon. member for Winnipeg (Mr. Bole), who went sponsor for the affidayits of criminals, which were drawn up nearly a year ago, and which, although there has been a session of the legislature of Manitoba since, and although those affidavits had reference entirely to the provincial elections in Manitoba, had never yet been placed before the public or been mentioned in the Manitoba legislature. No member of that House had the hardihood to stand as godfather of such an extraordinary lot of < Mr. LAKE.
misstatements as were contained in those affidavits. I believe that the telegram which the hon. member for Marquette read in reference to those affidavits has absolutely discredited them, and has put the government in a very bad position indeed. 1 do not know that I have ever read of a more discreditable incident than the reading those affidavits before this House, in view of the fact that they had been purchased from a criminal wlio is even now a refugee from justice.
In the earlier part of this debate it was charged that the members of the opposition had nothing more to say in regard to the thin red line outrage, that there was nothing in it, and that we had got tired of repeating it. I think the government must be enirely without shame in regard to elections in this country, and I was not surprised to hear my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) call attention to the astounding nature of the facts which had been brought out in regard to tlie thin red line outrage in Manitoba, and yet members oil tlie other side of tlie House seem to think nothing of it. They think it is a perfectly natural and proper thing to appoint returning officers who have so little regard for tlie duties of their office that they will hand over the lists to the organizer of one political partv and allow him to mutilate them as he will.


Duncan Ross: How could the hon. gentleman arrange those lists without a repetition of the thin red line episode in some form or other ?


Richard Stuart Lake: The law provides that tlie returning officer himself shall make those changes. That has been already pointed out.


Duncan Ross: Will the hon. gentleman be good enough to point out again ?


Richard Stuart Lake: If tlie bon. gentleman likes to wait, I will look it up. but it has been pointed out over and over again in this House, as lie knows perfectly well. He thought he would put up a bluff that I had not looked into the election law.


Duncan Ross: I do no know what the hon. gentleman means by bluff.


Richard Stuart Lake: If the hon. gentleman considers his own character, he will have a pretty good idea of it. Returning officers should be men pf high standing. It sepms to me that since this government have been in power they have considered the appointment of returning officer to be a matter of political patronage ; they have certainly used it as such in my part of the world. That is certainly one office which should be entirely removed from political patronage, that of the man who has to stand between the two great parties of this country and see that there is fair-play between them. There is no provision whatever in this Bill

for a penalty upon any returning officer who is so recreant to his duty as to do what was done by the Manitoba returning officers, who handed over the lists to an organizer of one of the great political parties.
The test case which was taken in the matter in the district of Provencher showed the extraordinary way in which the returning officer worked in with one of the political parties. It showed that the poll books were stored in the Liberal committee rooms. It showed also that aftr they were collected they were again placed in the Liberal committee rooms. Is that any ,,iacc for ballot boxes before or after an exciting election, to be manipulated, handled or tampered with? I ask the Prime Minister if he considers that a right or proper thing. In my own constituency the Liberal committee room was in the same building as the office of the returning officer, one was on the upper floor and the other on the lower floor, and after the election the ballot boxes were all stored in the Liberal committee rooms. I know that, as people could see them through the windows. Further than that, I know that the election clerk who, as the right hon. gentleman knows, acts for the returning officer in certain questions, was content with holding that one office of election clerk, but also held office as secretary of the Central Liberal committee. I myself have in my possession a letter which he addressed on the day before the election to one of the deputy returning officers telling him he was to accept the votes of certain threshers who were working in that vicinity and signing himself 'Secretary Central Committee.' The ease is perfectly clear, here is a man supposed to have some authority with the returning officers writing to them the day before the election, telling them what voters they were to accept and what voters not to accept. I consider there should be some provision for a severe penalty upon an election official who behaves in a pariioan manner and who does not withdraw himself from all communication with one party or the other.
In reference to the thin red line scandal let me point out that after one of the constituencies had been stolen from the Conservative party and a Liberal had been elected by means of the outrage perpetrated by R. E. A. Leach, the organizer of the Lib

"*al party, he and others who acted with k' * in this matter were rewarded for winning it seat for the government by being appoint to seats under the Dominion government. I. mch himself was appointed inspector of la: 1 agencies in the Northwest. This I consider vas simply an outrage on public decency when you consider all the talk there was over the illegal way in which Leach had manipulated these lists, thereby changing the results of the elections. I believe it is intended to encourage the corruption, I cannot see it in any other way. I believe that if persons who were corrupt in these elections in the interests of the Liberal party are to be rewarded by this government for such acts, we shall find many others who are ready to be similarly corrupt expecting like rewards. Let me say the appointment of the man who does these things to a position in the civil service is in itself an inducement to corruption in the civil service, and it certainly is a direct inducement to civil servants to take part in elections in spite of the fact that this House has declared that a civil servant shall not take part in elections either Dominion or local. All the debates in regard to the Interior Department at any rate, which have taken place in the House for the last session or two, have gone to show that no punishment will be meted out to officials of that department if they do take part in elections. In fact, I will go further and say that the statements of the minister of that department have always been more or less of an incentive to officials to help on his own party in the elections.
In regard to Mr. Leach's appointment as head of the Land Department of the Department of the Interior in the Northwest, let me read a letter from a gentleman who was a supporter of hon. gentlemen opposite in the old days, who was a member of the Liberal party when he wrote this letter, although at the time he did not agree with them as to their treatment of the Liberals in the west and ran as a candidate for the provincial rights party, still calling himself a Liberal. I refer to Mr. R. L. Chisholm, who ran for the district of Battleford. Mr. Chisholm wrote:
lit is true that never before was the civil service machinery employed so extensively in this western country ias during this last contest. Some officials practically abandoned their official duties during the last few weeks and worked very hard against us, particularly perhaps in this constituency. It has always been known that the civil service exerts an overpowering influence in this locality. In this contest the service, almost to a man, was disposed to stand back and see an even fight between my opponent and myself. Some were disposed at first to help me.
Mr. Chisholm had been an official iu that office and naturally his brother officials were ratherTriendly with him than the reverse.


But R.  E. A.@: Leach made two or three trips here at brief intervals, and Talbot came frequently and a man named Perry, an organizer, w'ho gets credit for our northern polls outrages, came several times, and the servants fell in one by one until at the finish they were working a~ they never did before. I feel a little reluctance in formulating specific charges against the civil servants here because I know that each and every one who went into the battle against me was pushed in much against his inclination and under various forms of duress.

Further on he says in reference to Leach:
I am satisfied that he is the individual that we may thank for nearly all the activity of his fellow servants here and to a large extent elsewhere in the province. I have it on very good authority that Leach is now persecuting the agent of Dominion lands here because the latter refused to act as a party tool. The agent of Dominion lands will not discuss the matter at all.
That shows how Leach immediately got to work for the party as soon as he was put in a position to do so as a reward for his services in regard to the lists in Manitoba.


William Erskine Knowles: Nobody, of course, will challenge the statements made, but I think it is only fair to state that the reason the statements are not questioned is that the gentleman who wrote that letter is dead. Of course we will not question the statements under the circumstances.


Richard Stuart Lake: I am not sure but I think I had this on record before Mr. Chisholm died. I am very sorry that Mr. Chisholm, who was a most estimable gentleman, unfortunately died since that time.


Frank Oliver: Might I say a word in regard to the persecution of the land agent at Battleford because of his lack of partisanship in that election? It might interest the House to know that he has been persecuted by having his salary raised since that time.


Richard Stuart Lake: 
Richard Stuart Lake: This gentleman, as I have said, is a candidate of the Liberal party, and, at that time, always called himself a good Liberal :
In many cases they held ont as bribes the patent to a homestead, and in some oases the bribe was paid.
With all the authority that that gentleman possesses, he made that statement.
In others it was never handed over. He knew of many instances in the Souris electoral district where the government homestead inspector held out concessions as a bribe to some electors.
Mr. Scott. You are aware of the statement made bv the Hon. Frank Oliver that officials are liable to' dismissal if they are reported.
Mr. Brown bad read the statement of the Minister of the Interior, and he expected that Mr. Oliver would be given a chance to make good Ms promise in that respect. It was only by the Minister of the Interior taking the matter up that the desired results would be attained.
Mr. Brown had read the statement of the Minister of the Interior and expected that that hon. gentleman would be given a chance to make good his promise.


William Erskine Knowles: I would like to ask the hon. gentleman (Mr. Lake) what he is reading from ?


Richard Stuart Lake: From the report of the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly.


William Erskine Knowles: An official or a newspaper report ?


Richard Stuart Lake: When I was in the assembly no official report was taken. This is the report which appeared in two local newspapers-or, later, three-and nasted in a book and considered a ' Hansard ' of the proceedings. I do not think that the method has been changed since, although I have often wished to get a full account of the proceedings.


William Erskine Knowles: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Lake) has misunderstood. From which newspaper is he quoting ?


Richard Stuart Lake: I am not quite certain, but I think it is the Regina ' Sun.' I may add that I have had the list of officials who were working in Mr. Brown's constituency, with some statements in connection with the constituency which Mr. Brown contested at that time. I was given names of the officials but, in addition to that, I was able to lay before the House, almost immediately after the statement was made by Mr. Brown, a number of affidavits-nine or ten, I think-proving that officials of the Department of the Interior had acted as scrutineers and in other partisan ways in the elections that had just taken place. The Minister of the Interior had the opportunity, as Mr. Brown suggested, of making good what he had said, but I have yet to hear of one single dismissal of an official for taking

part in these elections and breaking the rule which had been laid down in this House against officials taking an active partisan part in the elections of members for the provincial House. I have another letter, which I shall not be able to read, from another Liberal, who was a candidate of the provincial rights party in that election. He says the same thing as the others regarding the officials in his district, and the Minister of the Interior knows that we placed ease after case before him and he refused to take action. He himself has appeared on the platfoiim with an official of his department acting, as chairman in addressing a party political meeting.


Frank Oliver: Pernaps I may be allowed to explain, in order to prevent misapprehension of the case. The person alluded to by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Lake) was a subland agent. And I would like to say, as I said before-and I have always taken the same position-that, inasmuch as we do not pay the sub-land agent for the whole of his time, nor do we pay him enough salary to give him a living-and do not pretend to ; we only pay him part of his living-in the other part of his time he is as free to exercise his political rights as if we did not pay for any part of his time.


Richard Stuart Lake: That is the explanation the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) gives. But let me point out that this man had a regular monthly salary, $30 a month at that time. The minister knows that such an official exercises a most powerful influence in that country as being the sub-agent of the department and this gives him a considerable amount of patronage as well. I do not think it wnatters whether an official is high-paid or low-paid ; he is an official of the whole country and is paid by the people of both political parties. The government has no right to use him for party purposes and for the advancement of the interests of one narty over that of the other. I do not care if he only receives $5 a month, the position is the same; the government has no right to use him for party work as it has done practically with so many. The sub-land agents in the Northwest often get a larger salary than $30 a month. In several of the cases that were brought to the attention of the minister, the salary was ample to remunerate the official for the whole of his titme ; yet, as I said, I do not think the minister has taken action in any case. The resolution was passed in this House to which I have referred, and it seems to me it is the height of


William Erskine Knowles: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. gentleman (Mr. Lake); but I would like your ruling on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think the hon. gentleman has wandered from the motion before you in his discussion of the resolutino to which he has referred, of the cases of sub-land
agents, and so on. I submit that this is not properly within the scope of a discussion on a motion for the second reading.


Richard Stuart Lake: I am pointing out that there should be a provision in this Bill to prevent civil servants from taking part in elections. We have referred to the fact that there are omissions in the Bill. This is a Bill for the amendment of the Elections Act, and' this was promised to the country ever so long ago, and I consider it perfectly in order that I should discuss such an amendment as this. I was working up to that point that, although this House has decided by resolution that officials should not take part in elections, yet, when the government bring in an Election Bill they will not put that into the Bill, and this shows simply that the government do not intend to have that carried out.


Mr. E. M. MACDONALD.: Are you in favour of disfranchising civil servants ?


Richard Stuart Lake: No, but I am not in favour of permitting them to take an active part in elections.
Mr. e. m. Macdonald, how would you do that ?


Richard Stuart Lake: Certainly I would not dis-rrancnise civil servants. I nave seen a
little of the working of the Civil Service Act in the old country. Usually men enter the service at a pretty early age, they can enter from the age of sixteen upwards. I myself was a little more than sixteen when I entered the civil service, and one of the first things I was told was that while I had the privilege of exercising the right to vote, I must carefully abstain from active partisan work. That is the only way in which you can get a really good civil service in this country. The way in which pressure has been put upon civil servants in this country to induce them to take an active [DOT]part in elections puts them in a very awkward position. One thing the government should provide in their proposed Civil Service Act is to make it absolutely clear that while the civil servant may exercise his right to vote as the expression of an individual opinion, he must not exert any political influence. To my mind this Election Bill should provide severe penalties against any man who is in the pay of the Dominion government, canvassing, addressing meetings, acting as scrutineer, or taking an active part in any other way in Dominion elections. The right hon. leader of this government has laid down the principle in forcible language that there should be no interference by civil servants either in provincial or Dominion elections. While I am upon that point, let me call his attention to the opinion of Mr. Mackenzie in regard to this question. In 1873, Mr. Mackenzie placed this resolution on the Order Paper.
81(53

That it is highly criminal in any minister or ministers or other servants under the Crown, directly or indirectly, to use the powers of office in the election of representatives to serve in parliament, and any attempt at such influence will at all times be resented by this House as aimed at its own dignity, honour and independence.
Let me submit that expression of opinion of one of the first men in this country, a man whose memory is held in the highest respect by both parties, let ime submit it as worthy of adoption. Let me urge the government to put into force the principle which this House has adopted, that civil servants shall be punished who take an active part In elections.
Another matter which I have already referred to as being one of supreme importance is the abolition of the secrecy of the ballot which is involved in the Bill before the House. I read the statement of the Minister of Justice in regard to that provision. He says clearly that this measure does away with the secrecy of the ballot, and that where it comes to be a question, by the inadvertence of the returning officer in placing a mark upon the ballot, whether the ballot should be rejected or counted, it is better to have it counted. This provision means then, as pointed out by the leader of the opposition, that every ballot may he legally numbered, and that the natme of the voter may he placed upon the back of it by the returning officer. Therefore every ballot which is cast in the coming elections may be legally marked by the deputy returning officer, and every voter may be identified. It seems to me that nothing should so disturb the old Liberals of this country as a sign of degeneracy in the present Liberal party, and that the government, without any compunction, introduce an amendment which does away with what used to be one of the great principles of Lib-eralisim, the secrecy of the ballot. This measure is one providing for open voting, and there are many people in this country who believe that open voting is the better system, that it is right and proper that a man should go up to the poll in a manly way and mark his vote in the open. This measure does not provide for open voting, but it does provide that the deputy returning officer may make a mark on the ballot so that he may tell how every man votes. Of course the object of this provision is clear enough to every member of this House, but I think it is a change that the people will resent as an infringement upon their privilege of voting for whom they like. They claim the privilege of voting without any pressure being placed upon them by their employers or others upon whom they are dependent. I mistake very much the opinion of the honest people in the Northwest if they do not resent in the most vigorous tnanner this invasion of their rights. Large numbers of people Mr. LAKE.
are coming into the country from abroad, and are becoming citizens of Canada, and it will be possible, under this new provision, to put pressure upon them to vote for the government candidate. In many instances these people are dependent upon the good-will of government officials in the matter of homesteading. In this connection I would like to mention a circumstance that came to my notice the other day. An officer of this government who took an active part in the election in Prince Albert had to flee the country for having been guilty of a criminal act in holding bogus polls and making bogus voters' lists. He and two others had to flee from justice into the Uuited States, and one of the three who was not an official at the time but who fled into the United States, was a homesteader, and this government gave him an extension of time while he was residing in the United States in order that no one else should co'me in and cancel his homestead. Is it not an outrage that a fugitive from justice should be allowed an extension of time in which to perform his residence duties, simply because he was fleeing from justice after having committed this outrage in the provincial elections which were being held ? Furthermore, with regard to this matter of the marked ballots, iet me point out how it will affect those cases in which bribery is being practised. We have seen the evidence in connection with the London election trial and other trials. We are seeing the expense and trouble that the Liberal organizers are put to in getting fcnen to instruct deputy returning officers how to mutilate the ballots and how to have them marked so that they can be identified. And this provision of the Bill seems devised to save the Liberal party any further expense in this connection and to enable the deputy returning officers to know how every man voted so as to ensure that those who* had been bribed delivered the goods.
The hon. member for Rainy River (Mr. Conmee) said a few words the other day on this subject. He glossed it over. All you would have to do, he said, is to provide a penalty for the retruning officer who would he guilty of such practices. But what struck me was how significant it was that the Minister of Justice should have inserted this provision without at the sa'.ne time providing a severe penalty for the returning officer who would mark ballots so that they could he identified. Either the hon. minister, was careless or else it was his intention to facilitate the marking of these ballots. I think it would have been very much better if, instead of providing for the marking of ballots .by the deputy returning officer, he should have provided a penalty to be inflicted upon those who wilfully marked ballots in that way, and thus put a stop to some of the briber^ and corruption which is now being practised.

I do not intend to discuss at length the extraordinary provision which legalizes corruption by a company incorporated for party purposes. That provision and all the other provisions of this measure will no doubt be most thoroughly discussed in committee and we then hope to have some sweeping amendments accepted. But what occurs to me as perfectly evident is that if we accept this clause as it stands, it will allow any company to commit any of those acts of corruption which are severely forbidden to individuals.
As I said a short time ago when the First Minister was not in his seat, in my opinion the right lion, gentleman was almost persuaded by the cogent and eloquent arguments put forward by my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Roche) last night. I believe that in his heart, my right hon. friend knows that my hon. friend from Marquette was justified in the statements he made. My hon. friend (Mr. Roche) certainly proved every statement by chapter and text. I believe that the right hon. gentleman was convinced last night that the Manitoba law is fair, equitable, and just, and that he has not been truly informed as to it by the hon. gentlemen from that province who sit behind him.
What struck me just now when my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) was speaking, is, that he was perfectly willing to allow the provisions of the existing law with regard to the province of Quebec to stand as they were. He had no complaint whatever and yet the province of Quebec is in the hands of the Liberal party. My hon. friend (Mr. Monk) had no objection to that, but on the other hand we find that the main reason to allowing the lists to be drawn up by the provincial authorities in Manitoba and British Columbia is the fact that the local governments of these provinces are in the hands of the opponents of the Dominion government. But we have had no suggestion made that there is anything wrong with the lists in British Columbia. I do not think that the right hon. gentleman realizes the bitterness of the feeling which exists in certain parts of this country with regard to the provisions of this Bill. Should this Bill go through, I would warn him that the people who are deprived of this most sacred right of the franchise by wholesale are likely to take the law into their own hands and commit illegal acts.


Duncan Ross: Will my hon. friend find out one clause in the Act which deprived anybody of his franchise?


Richard Stuart Lake: Of course there is no clause which directly deprives anybody of his franchise, but it has been clearly proved by my hon. friend from Algoma (Mr. Boyce) that it is quite possible people will be deprived of the franchise by the thousand. In my opinion, should this clause be carried into effect, that is bound to happen. Even if the officials appointed by the government desire to be honest, they have only a short time between the issue of a wyit for the election and the election itself, to draw up all those lists, and under the Manitoba Act it would be impossible to have the lists revised. So that even if the officials desired to be honest, there can be no guarantee of their having proper lists. And further, we may expect that some dishonest men will be appointed to prepare those lists, and we shall then find people deprived of their franchise, which will cause intense bitterness of feeling. We bad the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Roche) pointing out last night that in the polling division of Beausejour, a certain number of men, who had been deprived by this thin red line outrage of their votes, entered the polls and threatened to destroy the ballot boxes. I can well imagine people from the old country, where no such interference with the rights of the electorate would be tolerated, being strongly inclined to make trouble when such outrages are committed.
The right hon. gentleman who leads this House and who holds the fate of this Bill in the hollow of his hand, will himself be personally responsible to a very large extent if this Bill goes through in its present form, if there should be such unfortunate occurrences as I have mentioned or if there should be bloodshed. After all the Prime Minister is the principal beneficiary if this Bill works out as I believe it will, to return his party to power, and he is the man who should be held mainly responsible for it. I appeal to him.' He has held a foremost position in this great country of Canada for the last twelve years; he has held a foremost position before the whole world. Is he going to stultify the last few years of his prime ministership by allowing legislation to pass which in British Columbia, Manitoba and the unorganized territories of Ontario and Quebec is a violation of the principles with regard to the franchise which prevail in the other parts of Canada? Is the right hon. gentleman going to stultify his great record-for he has a record-by countenancing such an outrage? I believe the people of this country have changed their mind about the right hon. gentleman and that they will not continue him in power, but is he going to let it be said that one of the last acts of his administration was the doing away with the secrecy of the ballot? I don't believe the Prime Minister will allow such a thing to take place. I believe he will look to his future reputation and that he will step in and withdraw the obnoxious clauses of this Bill.


Duncan Ross: I think the few of us here have been sufficiently punished by listening to the long and rather discursive speech of the hon.

*8163
gentleman who has just taken his seat, and I therefore move the adjournment of the debate.


George Eulas Foster: When shall we have the next punishment?


Duncan Ross: You will get It soon enough.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved the adjournment of the House.
George Eulas Foster: What comes on Monday?


Wilfrid Laurier: The next punishment.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 11.10 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, May 11, 1908.