1909-05-18

[Stage Direction]
Hon. CLIFFORD SIFTON (Brandon) moved that the third and final report of the Select Standing Committee on Forests, Waterways and Water-Powers presented on the 17th instant be concurred in.
Hon. GEO. E. FOSTER (North Toronto).: What is the purport of that report?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER (Prime Minister).: It relates chiefly to the enlargement of forest reserves and to precautions against fire.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr.  F. T.@: CONGDON (Yukon) moved that the third report of the Select Committeee on Mines and Minerals, presented this day, be concurred in.


George Eulas Foster: Presented this day?


Mr. SPEAKER.: Yes. I think it would be better that the motion should stand over until the next sitting that hon. members may have an opportunity to look at the report.



INQUIRY FOR RETURNS.

George Eulas Foster: Before the orders of the day are called, I would like to ask the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) if he has been able to get the missing portion of that return from the National Transcontinental Railway Commission.


Hon. GEO. P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals).: I laid the additional information on the table some days ago.


George Eulas Foster: I am surprised, and gratified.



MISSION RIVER PIERS.

Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).: I desire to ask the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Mr. FIELDING.
Pugsley) what is intended by an advertisement for tenders for pier3 at the mouth of the Mission river, which is said to be the terminus of the Lake Superior section of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. To what does this action point and what is the purpose of the works which are to be thus constructed? I make the inquiry by reason of a letter I have received from the Board of Trade at Port Arthur.


Hon. WM. PUGSLEY (Minister of Public Works).: These works are upon the Mission river in connection with the terminus of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. The tenders which are now asked for are for the building of a revetment wall, extending along the shore of the channel which is being dredged out. I may say that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, which owns the land, has agreed to execute a deed to the Crown, free of charge, of the frontage upon which this revetment wall will be built. The object is to provide necessary accommodation for the steamers which will frequent the port. In taking the deed of the land from the company and agreeing to build this revetment wall, one very important object which we have in view is that it will enable the government to control the port charges, and, in that way, I think it will be very greatly to the public benefit. I cannot say exactly what is the length of the revetment wall, but I think probably it will be 1,500 feet or perhaps more.


George Eulas Foster: What will be the cost?


William Pugsley: The cost of the work we propose undertaking this year is estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of $350,000.



SUPPLY - FLORENCE MINING COMPANY'S CASE.

[Stage Direction]
Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved that the House go into Committee of Supply.
["Well, the minister might do something about getting it.\nAt six o'clock, House took recess.\nAfter Recess.\nHouse resumed at eight o'clock."]
Mr. HAUGHTON LENNOX (South Sim-eoe).: Mr. Speaker, before you leave the Chair I desire to call the attention of the House to the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the Florence Mining Company case. The action of the Ontario government in connection with this matter was very severely reflected upon by the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. A. H. Clarke), and even more severely and characteristically commented upon by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Aylesworth). In order that the circumstances of the case may be appreciated both as to the position taken by the hon. members to whom I have referred, and as to the ultimate judgment of the Court of Appeal in reference to the position of the Ontario govern-

ment, I wish, in the first place, to refer to some of the words spoken by the Minister of Justice on 1st March last, which will be found reported in the Unrevised 'Hansard' at page 1754.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: AVill the hon. member, in that case, be referring to a previous debate?


Haughton Lennox: No, Mr. Speaker, I am


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: In view of what the hon. member (Mr. Lennox) said, I thought it might be


Haughton Lennox: I recognize the rule that we must not discuss anything which has been discussed during the session. But I have the right, I submit, to quote the language of any hon. member for the purpose of illustrating anything that I have otherwise the right to deal with. All I propose to do is to put on record the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the Florence Mining Company case, and I propose to bring to the attention of the House the very strong language used by the Minister of Justice when this matter was incidentally referred to on the occasion when the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. A. H. Clarke) moved for a return of the papers. At that time the hon. member for South Essex launched out and dealt very fully with the attitude of the Ontario government; he assailed the position taken by the Ontario government, and in that he was supported by the Minister of Justice. I wish to place before the House some of the expressions used by the Minister of Justice, which have gone broadcast throughout Canada and beyond the limits of Canada, reflecting upon the honesty, the integrity, and, incidentally, the financial credit of the province of Ontario.
SiT WILFRID LAURIER. Order.


Haughton Lennox: I am, of course, prepared to take the ruling of the chair.


Wilfrid Laurier: I submit that if the hon. gentleman goes into this matter he is inviting a new discussion on the same subject. I think this comes within the technical rule which prevents reference to a past debate.


George Eulas Foster: It seems to me that the hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) would not be allowed to take up the question by moving for papers or information with reference to the Florence Mining Company and the negotiations and transactions in connection therewith. That was a motion before the House, which was debated and decided. The member for South Simcoe would not be in order to move another motion to call for those same papers, and to traverse the discussion again in that respect. In course of the discussion of that motion certain expressions were
used by the Minister of Justice directed to that resolution. Now, observations used in that way may take a very wide range. What my hon. friend wishes to discuss is not the motion which was discussed and decided, and has passed beyond our competence. What he is going to bring before, the House is the position that the province of Ontario and its government were placed in, the position in which its credit was placed by certain remarks which were made incidental to that discussion, but not at all necessary in that discussion. I think it is entirely proper to do that. There is every difference between taking up a question which was decided upon and which has passed beyond our competency this session, and taking up an entirely new matter and quoting remarks which were made by any hon. gentleman whilst that was under discussion. Otherwise we would be entirely restricted in the course of debate. On the budget, for instance, you may have a thousand incidental questions raised, and do you mean to say that no person has a right, after the budget has been declared, to take up any question, any remarks which have been made in this House in that di-cussion? I think there is a line of distinction between the two.


Mr. SUTHERLAND.: Any reply to the views expressed by the Minister of Justice or the member for South Essex in that debate should have been made at the time. This appears to be an attempt now to reply to observations made by those two members at that time, and which will have the effect of reviving the discussion.


Robert Laird Borden: I always supposed that by way of illustration one had the right to refer to a past debate, although not to answer arguments which would bring on the same debate once more during the same session. I think any hon. member certainly has the Tight to address the Chair upon the importance of preserving the public credit, not only of Canada but of all the provinces of Canada, and in connection with that he has ample right to refer to any judicial decisions in which the public credit of Canada, which has apparently been attacked outside this House, has been sustained and maintained by the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction.


Wilfrid Laurier: Nobody disputes that. My hon. friend wants to quote a judicial decision, and in order to do that, which there is no necessity of doing, he wants to bring up a past debate, and what has been done in a past debate. This is the Tule laid down by Bourinot, page 479 of the last edition:
No member in speaking can refer to anything said or done in a previous debate during the same session-.a rule necessary to economize the time of the House. Neither is

it regular to refer to arguments used in Committee of the Whole; nor to an amendment proposed in the same.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not think it is necessary, for the purpose my hon. friend has in view, to make any reference to a past debate. If the hon. gentleman desires to do so, I would advise him to take tne method adopted by the Minister of Railways and Canals and to say that some one said something somewhere, and then give the purport of the remarks he desires to quote. That has been accepted as within the rules of the House, it has never been called in question by the Speaker or by the Prime Minister, and therefore must be thoroughly in order. For that reason, if my hon. friend desire to bring up a past debate, I would suggest to him to pursue that course.


Wilfrid Laurier: If the hon. member for South Sirncoe will walk in the path of the Minister of Railway and Canals he will always be right.


Mr. SPROULE.: I think the Prime Minister is giving too wide an interpretation to that rule. The practice of this House does not sustain it, and never has during my time. In the opening of every session we usually have a lengthy debate on the Address, which travels over every conceivable subject that can engage the attention of parliament. When we come to the financial statement or budget speech can we not go back and lefer to those things that have been said in a previous debate and to refute them? Of necessity we have to refer to them. We cannot take up those subjects and debate them, but we can and do refer to them every session. Whether the exact words of Bourinot apply in that limited way, or were intended so to apply, I can ouly say that the practice of parliament has not been in consonance with such a limited interpretation of the rules.


Haughton Lennox: I will make this matter as brief as I can:
I take it that no one would dispute the Power of a provincial legislature to repeal the Habeas Corpus Act or any other charter of liberty which Englishmen possess; and in precisely the same view I take the ground that the rights of property are subject only to the control of provincial legislatures within Canada. Having that view it seemed to me in considering this legislation that I was not as advising His Excellency in Council.


Wilfrid Laurier: Order.


Haughton Lennox: I understood the Prime Minister had abandoned the position he took.	L


Wilfrid Laurier: 


Wilfrid Laurier: No, I said that if you followed in the path of the Minister of Railways you would be right.


George Perry Graham: The Minister of Railways did not read.


Haughton Lennox: Then I will abandon that method, and try to conform to the wishes of my hon. friends opposite. The only difference there will be is that I will be a little less exact in referring to the Minister of Justice, and I will admit that probably a modification of the language will result in closer conformity to the actual facts of the case. At all events it will be interesting to the House and the country to know exactly the true facts in reference to the Florence Mining Company investigation. That matter went to the Court of Appeal and I propose to read the judgment of the Court of Appeal. I would be glad to abbreviate that judgment, but I believe that it is fairer to the House and to the people that I should read the judgment in full as delivered by the judge without comment, and then I shall add such references as I may think necessary under the circumstances. The judgment is as follows:	:
The Florence Mining Company v.
The Cobalt Lake Mining Company.
Copy of judgment of Court of Appeal, delivered April 5, 1909, by Moss, C. J. 0. The first matter for consideration on this appeal is the constitution and frame of the action and the nature and extent of the relief which, assuming them to be entitled to any, the plaintiffs can he awarded on the present record.
By letters patent under the great seal of the province dated the 15th day of January, 1907, the Crown in consideration of the payment of $1,085,000, granted to the defendants in fee a parcel of land covered with water situate in the township of Coleman, containing 55 acres, more or less, described as being composed of Cobalt Lake Mining Location, being land covered with the water of part of Cobalt lake, together with the mines, minerals and mining rights thereon and thereunder, and being all that part of the land covered with the water of Cobalt lake lying southerly, easterly and southwesterly of' the southeasterly limit of the right-of-way and Cobalt station grounds of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, excepting that portion of land covered with water of the lake designated as Mining Location J. S. 55, containing 4 acres, more or less, granted by letters patent dated 31st July, 1905, ' to certain named persons.
The plaintiffs claiming as the assignees of one W. J. Green, allege that on the 7th of March, 1906, the said Green while engaged in exploration under the waters of the lake, made a discovery of valuable ore or mineral in place under part of the lake, and thereupon staked out a mining claim Jn accordance with the Mining Act, embracing 20 acres or thereabouts of the lands covered

with the waters of the lake, thereby _becoming, as they alleged entitled to the said mining claim and the materials thereunder, and afterwards and within due time sought to procure the due filing of all claims in the office of the recorder of mining claims in the proper mining district, but he was unsuccessful owing to the refusal of the recorder to receive and record his claim and the refusal of the Bureau of Mines or the minister of the department to entertain or consider his claim,- that notwithstanding the existence of the said claim, the Crown assumed to sell and grant to the defendants the lands described in the letters patent, including therein the portion embraced in the said mining claim; that such sale was without any legislative authority and the letters patent were issued erroneously and by mistake and improvidently, and that notwithstanding the said sale and issue of letters patent, the plaintiffs are entitled to the parcel of land described in the claim of the said W. J. Green. The plaintiffs claim (1) a declaration that the letters patent were issued erroneously by mistake and improvidently, and are utterly void as against the plaintiffs, and that the plaintiffs are entitled to the lands and minerals; (2) a declaration that the defendants' rights, if any, under the letters patent, are subject to the plaintiffs' said rights; (3) an injunction restraining the defendants, their servants, workmen or agents, from extracting or removing ore or minerals from the claim or interfering with the plaintiffs' exclusive right of possession; (4) an account of all ore or minerals that may be extracted or removed from the claim;	(5) a judgment
setting aside as ultra vires and void the letters patent in favour of the defendants as against the plaintiffs, or in the alternative confining the operation thereof to the lands therein described other than those claimed by the plaintiffs; (6) costs; (7) further and other relief.
The Crown is not a party to the action. True the attorney general was represented at the trial and the argument of appeal, but that was by reason of a notice under the Judicature Act, section 60, because of the plaintiffs having called into question the constitutional validity of certain Acts of the legislature to which further reference will be made.
The presence of the Attorney General or his
representative under this provision does not of course enlarge the jurisdiction of the court in respect of any substantial relief sought in this action. In that respect the action must still be regarded as one to which the Crown is not a party. It is obvious, therefore, that the interposition of the court must be confined to such relief as may be awarded in the absence of the Crown as a party to the record.
A long line of decisions has settled that an action to declare void a patent for land on the ground that it was issued through fraud or in error or improvidence, may be maintained and that measure of relief granted, at the suit of an individual aggrieved by the issue of such patent and to such an action the Attorney General as representing the Crown is not a necessary party; Martyn vs. Kennedy (1853), 4 Gr. 61; Steven vs. Cook (1864), 10 Gr. 410. See also Farch vs. Glen Lake Mining Company (1908), 17, O.L.R. I.
But in such cases the relief is limited to declaring the patent void, leaving the parties to stand to one another as if the patent had never issued, their final rights in respect of the land being left to be determined and settled by the Crown, to which the lands are restored by the avoidance of the patent.
The court is not called upon, and in the absence of the Crown as a party to the record cannot be called upon, to exercise the jurisdiction which is vested in it by section 26 (7) of the Judicature Act to decree the issue of letters patent from the Crown to rightful claimants. It is not necessary to enter upon a discussion as to the powers possessed by the court under this provision or to consider whether it applies to letters patent granting Crown lands for in this case the record is not so framed or constituted as to parties as to enable such relief to be granted. Nor, in the absence of the Crown, can the court undertake to make any declaration as to the ultimate title or right of the plantiffs for the reason that no such declaration could have any binding effect upon the Crown's right in the premises. The utmost to which the court should go in this direction is to inquire into the plaintiffs' claim to the extent necessary to ascertain whether they have a reasonable ground for invoking the jurisdiction of the court to declare the patent void in whole or in part as having issued through error or improvidence; Farmer v. Livingstone (1883), 8, S.C.E., 140. Fraud is not alleged or proved in this case.
The court being satisfied that the plaintiffs have shown an interest in the land existing before and at the time of the issue of the letters patent (Mutchmore v. Davis, 1868, 14 Gr. 346 in the court of Error and Appeal) wdiich prima facie appears to entitle him to obtain a grant thereof from the Crown and that the defendants' patent issued, either through error or improvidence, may sweep it out of the way and restore the statu quo.
But it cannot be expected that on this record the court will go further and adjudge as to the respective titles of the Crown, the plaintiffs or the defendants.
The next question then is, has it been made to appear that at the date of the issue of the letters patent to the defendants, the plaintiffs were possessed of or entitled to such an interest in the portion of the patented lands claimed by them as entitled them to ask the interposition of the court in their favour? The learned trial judge did not pass upon this question. The defendants dispute the plaintiffs' status and present a number of objections, isome of which are formidable if not insurmountable. They point out that the plaintiffs' interest, if any, is that claimed by their assignor, W. J. Green, as a prospector and explorer holding a miner's license by virtue of an alleged discovery of valuable ore or mineral in place under the waters of Cobalt lake, and they say that at the time of the alleged discovery neither Green nor any one working for him held a miner's license, and that Cobalt lake was withdrawn by the Lieutenant Governor in Council from sale, location or exploration, under the provisions of the Mines Act, and that Green and those associated with him were aware of that fact or could have ascertained the fact if they had made proper inquiries, but they

deliberately refrained from doing so; that whatever may have been done in that way of exploration or discovery was done without t he ^ authority of a miner's license and was in direct contravention of the prohibition of the Mines Act against exploration on lands of the Crown withdrawn from sale, location or exploration, and any supposed discovery made under such circumstances conferred no right to a mining claim under the Act. The defendants say further that no discovery of valuable ore or mineral in place was actually made, and that the provisions of the Mines Act, the regulations made thereunder with regard to discovery, staking, proof of claim and inspection, were not complied with and the claim was never presented, recorded, or inspected in such manner as to entitle Green to assert under the Act any title to a mining claim situate under the waters of Cobalt lake, or to confer on him any right thereto. The defendants further say that upon presentation of the claim for record in the office of the mining recorder it was justly rejected by the recorder because it purported to be a claim of discovery in Cobalt lake which was not open for exploration, and because he was under instruction not to receive claims in respect of it, that this action was confirmed by the officers of the Bureau of Mines, and that the Minister of Lands, Forests and Mines rejected the claim for the same reasons.
Now in order to obtain recognition by the Crown of a right in respect of a mining claim it was incumbent on the claimant to place himself in the position of one who had fully or substantially fulfilled all the requirements of the Mines Act and the regulations thereunder.
The primary requisites at the date of the alleged discovery were the possesion of a miner's license and discovery made on Crown lands _ not withdrawn from location or exploration; Mines Act, 'Revised Statutes of Ontario, chapter 36, section 9, and sections 45, 46, and 47, as amended by the Act 61 Victoria, chapter 11, sections 1 and 2. Section 9 reads that any person may explore for minerals on any Crown lands except such as may have been withdrawn from sale, location or exploration, but a reference to the other sections shows that the person spoken of is a person holding a license. See also the regulations approved by order in council of April 5, 1905 clauses 1, 12, 13, 15 and 16.
It is plain that the explorations leading to the alleged discovery were all made before Green or any one assisting in the work had procured a miner's license, and it was not until they believed themselves to be on the eve of a discovery of valuable mineral that the withdrawal of a core from the diamond drill was suspended until a miner's license was hurriedly obtained. Then when the withdrawal was actually made no inspector was present to verify the core as one bona fide taken from the place, though probably the omission to ha^-e an inspector there might have been remedied later on by the withdrawal of another core in the presence of an inspector. But asuming the regularity of these proceedings, they could he of no avail to create rights if the land was withdrawn from location of exploration, section 47. Whether it was or not depends on the true construction of


Haughton Lennox: three orders in council of the 14th and 21st of August and the 30th of October, 1905, as reflected in the light of an Act of the legislature 6 Edw'ard VII., chapter 12.
Section 33 of the Mines Act (Revised Statutes of Ontario, chapter 36) provided that where a part of section of the province was shown or reported to be rich in mines or minerals the Lieutenant Governor in Council might withdraw the whole or a portion thereof from sale or lease of the prospecting of veins, lodes or other deposits or ores or minerals therein by the use of a diamond drill or otherwise, under the direction of the Commission of Crown Lands (now the Minister of Lands, Forests and Mines) and might fix or offer the same for sale by public auction.
The order in council of the 14th of August, 1905, directed that together with other specified property of the Crown 'the lakes known as Cobalt and Kerr lakes situated in the township of Coleman, be withdrawn from exploration for mines and minerals and from sale, lease or location.' This treatment of Cobalt lake as well as previous dealings in regard to portions of it seems to import the view that the provisions of the Act and of the regulations with regard to discovery, stating proof or claim recording, &c., where applicable to lands covered by a large body of water, and were not confined to surface lands. Unquestionably such provisions as those relating to the planting and maintenance of discovery and marking posts cannot be satisfactorily complied with so as to insure permanance where deep water covers the land upon which the discovery is said to have been made. Where, as in this instance, the posts were merely planted in the ice all traces of the point or discovery and of the supposed boundaries of the claim are obliterated with the breaking up of the ice.
The order in council, however, left no doubt .as to the intention of the Crown with regard to the lakes mentioned, viz., that they were not to be subject to exploration for mines or minerals. By means of it at all events they were made prohibited territory for explorer and prospectors and were also removed from the list of lands open for location, lease or sale. While that prohibition existed it was not open to any person to make a discovery upon which he could validly maintain a claim under sections 26-33 having regard to sections 9, 33, 46, 47 and 48 of the Mines Act. And this quite apart from the difficulties some of which have already been alluded to, surrounding the marking of the place of discovery, the placing of permanent posts showing the boundaries of the claim and the proof thereof for purposes of recording.
The order in council of the 28th of August 1905, after setting forth that the townships of Coleman and Burk, Lorrain and Hudson, in the district of Nipissing, were shown to be rich in ores and minerals, directed that such parts of the said townships as had not already been leased or sold be 'withdrawn from sale and lease,' under the Mines Act, iand be set apart under section 33, not interfering with the rights of any one who had therefore made applications for mining lands in the said townships. No specific mention is made of Cobalt and Kerr lakes which has been specially dealt with by the order in council of the 14th of August.

There is nothing in the order in council of the 28th of August to indicate an intention to supersede the prior order as regards the withdrawal of these lakes from 'exploration for mines and minerals/ To that extent at all events the first order was left to its operation on these lakes, and while the unsold and unleased parts of the townships were placed under section 33, the lakes still remain withdrawn from exploration and so under the prohibition contained in sections 9 and 47.
The order in council of the 30th of October, 1905, dealt only with the effect of the order in council of the 28th of August. Its purpose was to enable licensed miners to do what was requisite in order to acquire a mining claim upon any of the open lands in the township and to record it subject to the specified conditions and restrictions.
But it did not authorize or assume to authorize the receiving or recording of a mining claim in respect of a part of the township which was withdrawn from exploration and was therefore still under the prohibition of sections 9 and 47. The testimony of Mr. G. T. Smith, the mining inspector and recorder for the district, supports the view that this was the intention. He showed that he received his instructions from the Department of Bureau of Mines that the lakes were withdrawn from exploration accompanied by a copy of the order in council on or about the 18th of August, 1905, and those instructions were never afterwards countermanded, that no claim was thereafter presented to him for record until the 8th of March, 1908, when Green's was presented and he declined to receive or record it because Cobalt lake was withdrawn from exploration.
As to this the learned trial judge says:
' It is plain that the inspeotor considered that Cobalt lake was not open for prospecting and that the same opinion was shared by the officers of the department including the minister ' and this appears to be a fair and proper inference from the facts and circumstances in evidence.
Strengthening this view is the Act of the legislature 6 Edward vii, chapter v'ii, by section 1, of which it is enacted that the order in council of the 14th of August, 1905, is confirmed and declared to have been and now to be binding and effectual for the purposes therein mentioned. This Act received the assent of the Lieutenant Governor on the 14th of May, 1906, rather more than two months after the refusal to record the claim on which the plaintiff's reply, and it is argued that effect should not be given to it to their prejudice. In view however, of the actual situation before and at the time when Green and those associated with him assumed to make explorations on Cobalt lake their course of conduct is difficult to understand, assuming that it was the intention that Cobalt lake should continue and remain withdrawn from exploration, and inquiry from the Department of the Bureau of Mines or from the inspector and recorder of the district whether that was the case would have elicited an affirmative answer. But according to Green's testimony, he appears to have deliberately refrained from addressing the question to any one. He is described in the statement of claim as a broker, but from his testimony it appears that for some time he practised
law and had acquired a good deal of experience in mining law. In January, 1906, he consulted a legal gentleman practising law in Toronto about forming a syndicate to prospect at Cobalt. He was introduced to a Major Gordon and there was a discussion about the chances of finding mineral on Cobalt lake and Gordon said he was certain that he could find a vein of mineral in the lake. Green then went to the Bureau of Mines and inquired for information relating to the Cobalt district. He saw one of the clerks, a young woman, and was given several pamphlets one or two mining reports and the rules and regulations. He told the clerk that he wanted all the information they could give him relating to the Cobalt district.
She handed him the pamphlets and told him that everything was contained there except a map of what claims or sections were open for location, but that he would find the map probably at the recorder's office at Haileybury. He then went to Haileybury to the mining recorder's office and saw a young woman clerk- in charge of the office. He asked for a map showing what claims were open for location and was handed a map of claims showing sections marked. On the map appeared sections marked with a capital ' A.' The clerk told him the sections so marked indicated the sections applied for. From the rules and regulations and the map, he says he came to the conclusion that Cobalt lake was open for exploration. He and Major Gordon then set up a diamond drill on Cobalt lake and worked there for some weeks. Neither of them had a miner's license. On cross examination he said that when he went to the Bureau of Mines he didn't see the minister or his deputy. He did not think it was necessary to see anybody who was appointed to give out information. He did not make any inquiry at that time as to whether or not Cobalt lake was open. He made no special inquiry about Cobalt lake; simply asked for the literature and all information. He made no inquiry about orders in council. He made no special inquiries at Haileybury about Cobalt lake. He asked the clerk at Haileybury if the map was up to date, and she replied ' yes.' She said it was made up every two or three days. He merely asked her the question ' Is this up to date ' ? and she said ' yes.' He did not direct her attention to Cobalt lake nor mention any special place where he was going to prospect. Then without more the diamond drill was placed on the ice, and operations were begun in Cobalt lake. Now if Green was misled he had only himself to blame. A plain direct question either at the Bureau of Mines or Haileybury would have undoubtedly elicited the information that Cobalt lake was not open for prospecting. But evidently to suit his own purposes, he did not desire to put the direct question.
There was nothing misleading in the information he did obtain. The regulations were of course applicable to all mining districts. The first clause directs attention to the fact that no exploring is to be done on lands withdrawn from sale location or ' exploration.' And clause 16 repeats verbatim the proviso of section 47 of the Act against marking or staking a mining claim on Crown lands withdrawn from location or exploration. The map

693-J
furnished him showed a condition entirely consistent with the intention and practical working of the order in council of the ltth of August and the 30th of October.
The sections or lots actually applied for out of the parts of the townsnip m rnsjject of which the order in council of the 30th of October authorized the recorder to record claims were marked on the office map from day to day as they came in, and it is not suggested that the map was inaccurate. A frank question would have led to a full explanation, but for some mysterious reason it was not asked. In these circumstances the plaintiffs have nothing to blame the department of Bureau of Mines for. They present no valid ground or reason for saying that effect should not be given to the intention of the Crown with regard to Cobalt lake. It follows that what was assumed to be done by Green and his associates by way of exploration and alleged discovery, marking and staking, did not create a right to a mining claim under the Mines Act. That being so, it is hardly necessary to say that what is shown to have been afterwards done or attempted So be done by them in the way of insisting upon recognition of the claim is immaterial and need not be considered. The Crown never receded from the position which was taken on its behalf the moment Green's claim was presented, that Cobalt lake being withdrawn there was no claim to be considered. And afterwards, acting under the authority of section 33 of the Mines Act a sale was made to the defendants. The result is that the plaintiff's have no status to impeach the sale or the letters patent issued in pursuance thereof.
On these grounds the judgment appealed from should be upheld. But if these grounds should not prevail there still remains the question of the defendants' position as purchasers for value, and the effect of the Act of the legislature 7, Edward vii, chapter 15.
That the defendants became purchasers in good faith and for value the evidence leaves no doubt. Apparently they had no notice of the plaintiffs' claim until after the acceptance of the tender and payment of the deposit, but before the payment of the balance of the purcnase money and the issue of the letters patent they were aware that the plaintiffs were claiming the portion of Cobalt lake in respect of which this action is brought.
And assuming that the plaintiffs were able to establish a status entitling them to impeach the sale, the defendants would derive no protection from the plea of purchasers for value without notice.
But they would still be entitled to the benefit of the Act, 7 Edw. VII., cap. 15.
Many objections have been urged with much force and ability against the constitutional validity and the legal effect of this Act.
It is impossible, however, to conclude that it is a private and not a general Act, and that it was not intended to validate and confirm the sale and grant of the lands comprised in the letters patent and of all the mines and minerals being and lying in and under the lands and all mining rights therein, and thereto,and to vest the property therein and thereto in the defendants as and from Mr. LENNOX.
the date of the sale, absolutely freed from all claims and demands of every nature whatsoever in respect of or arising from any discovery, location or staking. Having regard to what is known to have transpired before and up to the time of the passing of the Act, it is not possible to ignore the significance of the enactment, or to seek to treat it as inapplicable to the plaintiffs' asserted claim to impeach the grant to the defendants.
And unless the enactment was beyond the legislative authority of the legislature, it must be taken as absolutely concluding any claim to the lands to which the plaintiffs assert title in this action.
It was urged that the legislation was ultra vires and incompetent because it was enacted during the pendency of this action and its effect if valid is to usurp the functions of the courts and to declare the rights of individuals in property in derogation of the ordinary law of the province.
But the subject-matter of the enactment falls clearly within the category of property and civil rights. The right claimed by the plaintiffs is, if anything, a right in property within the province. So the right to bring an action is a civil right. And both have by section 92 of the British North America Act been made subject to the legislative authority of the provincial legislature. And where there is jurisdiction over the subject-matter, arguments founded on alleged hardship or injustice can have no weight. As said by Lord Herschell in the Attorney General of Canada v. the Attorney General of the provinces (1898) A. C. 700, when discussing the question of the relative legislative powers and authority of the parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the provinces under the British North America Act (P 713), ' the suggestion that the power might be abused so as to amount to a practical confiscation of property does not warrant the imposition by the courts of any limits upon the absolute power of legislation conferred. The supreme legislative power in relation to any subject-matter is always capable of abuse, but it is not to be assumed that it will be improperly used, if it is the only remedy in an appeal to those by whom the legislature is elected.'
Lord Herschell added, ' If, however, the legislature purports to oonfer upon others proprietary rights where it possesses none itself, that in their lordships' opinion is not an exercise of the legislative jurisdiction conferred by section 91.'
But this latter remark was made in relation to the respective' powers and property rights of the Dominion and the provinces, and has no application to a case like the present where the lands were Crown lands, the property of the province.
Even supposing the opinion of the court to be that the letters patent issued in error and improvidently, the Act must still remain as a legislative declaration of the validity of the sale. And in that respect the Act would form a bar to the plaintiffs' alleged rights.
Another point, not however raised by the pleadings or argued in the courts below, was suggested in argument of the appeal. It was contended that the grant to the defendants did not comprise or carry writh it a grant of

the precious or ' royal ' metals. The grant is of the land covered with water composed of Cobalt lake mining location together with the mines, minerals and mining rights, thereon and thereunder.
The Mines Act, R.S.C., chapter 36, section 2 (6) defines mining rights as meaning ores, mines, and minerals on or under any land where the same are dealt with separately from the surface of the land; see also the Mines Act, 1906, section 2 (9), (10) and (12). Here the letters patent are issued subject to the provisions of sections 188 to 221, inclusive, of the Mines Act, 1906, and there is a grant both of the land and of the mining rights as well as of the mines and minerals thereon and thereunder; words which, having regard to the nature of the territory and the purpose of the grant, seem broad and comprehensive enough, one might suppose, to justify a construction that would include metals and minerals of every description. Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Mines Act. R.S.C., chapter 36, and sections 2 (16) and 3 (1) and (5) of the Mines Act, 1906, seem to indicate an intention to withdraw from the Crown any right under its prerogative title to the precious metal. But if this be not so. the plaintiffs' case is not' thereby advanced, for their claim, if any, is under the Mines Act, R.S.C., chapter 36, and any grant to them would not be more extensive in terms or effect than the grant made to the defendants. However, the point is not properly open to the plaintiffs on this appeal.
There may be a question whether the plaintiffs are entitled to maintain this action as assignees of Green. Section 47 of the Mines Act, R.S.C., chapter 36, enables a licensee who has discovered a vein or other deposit or ore or mineral to mark or stake out a mining claim, providing that it is on Crown lands, not withdrawn from location or exploration, and ' to transfer his interest therein to another licensee.'
This appears to be the only provision in force when the transfer was made to the plaintiffs enabling a discoverer to transfer his interest to another. He does not appear to be authorized to make a transfer of a mining claim arising in respect of Crown lands withdrawn from exploration. The question whether, assuming that Green did acquire mining rights in or under Cobalt lake, notwithstanding that it was withdrawn from exploration, he could make a valid transfer of such rights so as to enable his transferee to maintain an action in respect of them, was not raised or discussed, and it is not necessary to the disposal of the appeal that it should be considered. The appeal must be dismissed.
This is the unanimous judgment of the Court of Appeal. The judgment, upon every phase of this transaction, is in favour of the action of the administration of the province of Ontario. There is not one claim set up or suggested by the argument that is not covered by the unanimous judgment of the court as delivered by Chief Justice Moss and not one has been alleged in the Liberal press of Canada, founded upon statements made by men whose prominence in Canadian life should
have made them reasonably careful as to their statements, which is not absolutely refuted by the judgment of this court. The violent and unjustifiable attacks made by public men upon the Ontario government in reference to this matter and the attempt to draw it into the arena of politics and to discredit the Conservative administration of Ontario have received a well-deserved condemnation by the unanimous judgment of the court. Public men are justified in reasonably criticising, upon any public platform or elsewhere, the acts of governments and of other public men, but I would regret it if it became the duty or the right of anv public man, whether a member of the Dominion or of the other government to go out of his way and for political purposes to attack the credit of any one of our provinces. Whether that has been done by men who should be regarded as responsible public men, whether the example has been followed with unfair effect by the Liberal press of Canada, is known to every hon. gentleman in this House. Every charge, every insinuation, has been refuted and the whole transaction, instead of being discreditable to the province of Ontario, is in every respect creditable to the province. It was said by one prominent Liberal that this $1,085,000 was dangled before the people of Ontario in order to bribe them in effect by being able to say: 'We have enriched the province to this exent.' It was said by this same prominent gentleman that this was a sorry spectacle in the public life of Ontario. He said that he hoped the time would never come when these same men who voted upon that question and sustained the Whitney government would find their own lands confiscated by that government. But the hon. gentleman who made those utterances will have to acknowledge, and ought _ to acknowledge if he is in reach of my voice now, that he unjustifiably attacked the rights of the province of Ontario and the public life of that province as administered by the Whitney government, the best and cleanest government that the province of Ontario has ever had. My hon. friend from Essex does not like that.


Mr. A. H. CLARKE.: Oh, it does not bother me.


Haughton Lennox: He ought not to like it, but he likes it better than the people of Canada will like the statement which he made on a certain occasion with reference to the action of the Ontario government when the Court of Appeal has shown that every act of the administration of the province of Ontario was in the interests of the people of Ontario. The course of that government was contrary to the practice under the previous government, when the public revenues were exploited to enrich favourites. The principle upon which the Whitney

government acts is that the public resources must be administered in the interests of the province and in its interests alone. And no exploiter who comes in and defies the law, knowingly defies the law, should take advantage of it to the detriment of the people of the province. Summed up, the judgment of the Court of Appeal is: that there was no foundation for the claim put forward by the plaintiffs; that they had no reason to complain of any act of the Department of Lands, Forests and Mines, and that the legislation complained of was proper, sound and valid legislation.


Hon. A. B. AYLESWOETH (Minister of Justice).: As the subject under discussion is one in which I have taken some part, 1 want to say a word or two about it. I do not know that I have anything to add to what I said on a previous occasion. I am quite certain that I have nothing to withdraw or to recede from. I have read the reasons for their decision given by the judges of the Ontario Court of Appeal, and certainly there is nothing in what was said by any of these judges on that occasion which should cause me to modify in the least degree anything I have said, either officially as Minister of Justice, or on my feet in this House, with reference to the legislation in question. Neither would there have been if the conclusions reached by the judges of the Court of Appeal had been the opposite and if they had felt compelled to reverse the decision of the court below and, instead of dismissing the appeal that -was brought before the court, had allowed it and entered judgment for the opposite party. Nor, if the unsuccessful litigant should carry his case to the Supreme Court of this country or to the judicial committee of the Privy Council, and there succeed in reversing the decisions against him which have been pronounced in the court of first instance and in the Court of Appeal for Ontario, would there be anything in that result which would, to my mind, in the least degree affect the propriety of the course which was taken in this matter by His Excellency's advisers and by myself in reporting on this legislation to my colleagues. The question upon which I had to come to a conclusion, as best I might be able, in making my report upon the legislation, was, as I consider, solely whether or not the legislature of the province of Ontario had constitutional power to pass it. I did not enter into any other inquiry. Thoroughly imbued, as I am, with the feeling that the true working out of our constitution in the best interests of all parties in this country is that the provincial legislatures should be, within the scope of their constitutional authority, supreme and not under control, I reported in regard to this legislation that I considered it to be within the constitutional pow-Mr. LENNOX
er of the legislative assembly, because it concerned a question of property or of civil rights. Nothing which has been said in the judgment of the Court of Appeal, or which has been previously said in the judgment of the court of first instance, has in any degree affected that question. I took the view- I still hold the view-that the legislatures of the provinces have constitutional power to do wrong if they see fit, and that neither His Excellencv the Governor General in Council nor this parliament of Canada has any business to review the propriety of their legislation so long as it is within their constitutional powers. They are amenable, as the members of this House are amenable, to the people who elected them, and to the electors must be the ultimate appeal. But, while I took that view of this legislation and of its constitutional propriety acting as Minister of Justice and as a member of the government, I have the right to mv own individual opinion in regard to the justice of that legislation when it is legislation passed by the representatives of the people of Ontario and when I am one of those people. And, when I had the honour of addressing this House on this subject, a little over two months ago, I took very great care to separate, as completely as words could separate, the expressions of opinion to which I then gave utterance in my capacity of Minister of Justice from what I said speaking as a humble elector of the province of Ontario. If this legislation had not been legislation of the assembly of Ontario, but of one of the other provinces of this Dominion, I should feel that, with regard to the propriety of it, I had nothing to say, unless it might be as a citizen of the Dominion But it was legislation of the province of Ontario; I am a taxpayer and a voter in that province; and, speaking in that capacity, and in that capacity alone, speaking as one of those who send their representatives in the provincial legislature to Toronto and to whom those legislators are directly responsible, I spoke my mind in regard' to this legislation in exactly the same terms in which I would speak it if I had it to do over again No one will find, no matter how anxiously he may search, in any expression of judicial opinion which has been given by the judges of the Court of Appeal of Ontario since my remarks were made, the slightest indication of the entertaining on their part of any different views with regard to the propriety of this legislation than those which I expressed on the occasion to which I am referring. The whole question as to the propriety of the legislation, was whether or not it became a parliament or legislature, when it possessed the power to deal with property which was then the subject of litigation between two parties urging

adverse claims to it, by Act of parliament to declare that that property should be taken from one of the claimants, transferred to the other, vested in that other and the claimant from whom it was taken denied the right to present his claim before the courts.


Robert Laird Borden: May I ask the minister in what respect the condition which he now cites differs from what was involved in the passage of the Canada Life Bill when the right of action was taken away from 30,000 policy-holders?


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: If my hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) has done me the honour to read the remarks I made in connection with the Canada Life Bill, he cannot fail to see the very plain distinction between the two. I do not know whether the remarks I then made, if my hon. friend has read them or heard them, influenced his mind at all; but I put the whole case, so far as I was concerned, in connection with the Canada Life Bill, upon the fact that it was claimed-and I assumed had been proven before the committee which inquired into that legislation-that a mistake had been made in the previous legislation which that Bill was designed to correct. In regard to this measure, the whole question in respect of the property was whether or not a piece of property which was claimed by two parties before the courts could properly be taken charge of by the legislature, given to one of these claimants and the opposing claimant denied access to the courts to establish his claim to the property if he could. The result of this litigation, so far a.3 the Court of Appeal is concerned, is to confirm the decision of the judge of first instance, to confirm it in part upon the same grounds as those taken by the judge of first instance, namely, that no matter what the merits of the dispute might be, the legislation in question was a bar to the courts entertaining any question of its merits or deciding that litigation in any manner in which hut, for this legislation, they would have decided it. I have likened this legislation on a former occasion to the confiscation of a man's farm. I can see no difference in principle, and that, without regard in the least degree to the merits of this dispute, or to the question of which one of these two claimants in in honesty entitled to the property in litigation. I have at no time expressed any opinion, I have not even formed any, as to the merits of the dispute between these two parties. I do not know the facts. No court has yet been in a position where it could, with free and untrammelled hand, pronounce upon those facts, or decide this litigation upon its merits. I have never assumed even to express an opinion as to which of these two claimants is entitled to the property. That is something that seems to me entirely beside the far larger questions which arose for consideration here, and which involved, in the first place, the propriety of His Excellency in Council interfering with the legislative action of the constituted authorities of the province. And on that point I have expressed my opinion. His Excellency has taken action, and so far as I have heard, not even the hon. gentleman who has just occupied the time of this House takes exception to the course which was taken by His Excellency's advisers in that connection. Upon the larger question I have expressed my opinion as a voter of the province, and that opinion I still adhere to; and I can find no words in the English language too strong to use to denounce the iniquity of legislation of this character.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not rise for the purpose of discussing this subject, but another matter. I may, however, be permitted to say that every word of the denunciation which the Minister of Justice has uttered against this legislation, rebounds with tenfold effect against himself, his colleagues and supporters, in respect to the Canada Life Bill. What was the case there? One of the policyholders of that company had actually a case in court at the time that legislation was passed by the House, and he had instituted that litigation, not only on his own behalf, but on behalf of the 30,000 or
40,000	policy-holders of that company. No court, to use the language of the Minister of Justice, had been able to pronounce upon that question with free and untrammelled hand. No inquiry by a court had been made into the case; and my hon. friend the Minister of Justice in his somewhat floundering attempt to distinguish the one case from the other, says that he does so because, in the case of the Canada Life legislation, he assumes that there had been a mistake. Well, I suppose if that assumption is open to the Minister of Justice, it was equally open to the legislature of Ontario whom he denounced with respect to the Florence Mining Company. If that 'is an open road to legislation of the character which was passed in the one case, it is an open road to legislation in the other case. I venture to say that you could take the remarks of the Minister of Justice to-day in his denunciation of this Bill, and apply them absolutely to his own conduct in supporting the Bill of the Canada Life- although there is a more or less unconfirmed rumour around the corridors that if he had spoken his full mind about the Canada Life Bill he would have used very much the same language that he did with regard to this act of the legislature of Ontario. However, I did not rise for the purpose of discussing that matter, and

if any other hon. gentleman desires to discuss it, I will take my seat, with the privilege of speaking upon another matter later on.


Alfred Henry Clarke: I desire to speak upon it.


Robert Laird Borden: Very well, I will yield the floor.


Alfred Henry Clarke: It is only in reference to what has been said by the leader of the opposition that I wish to say a few words as to the difference between the position of the Florence Mining Company and that of the Canada	Life
Bill.	To my mind the difference is
quite plain. In the case of the Florence Mining Act, the court was the only tribunal which could give relief. It was suggested with regard to that matter that it was one which it was never necessary for either party to come to the legislature to obtain relief. But the position of the Canada Life is entirely different, because in that case the courts could not give relief; the error, if it was an error, being one made by the parliament of Canada, and therefore it was to the parliament of Canada alone that the parties could come to correct that mistake.


Robert Laird Borden: How was any error of the parliament of Canada established?


Alfred Henry Clarke: It was established by evidence which was given before the committee.


Robert Laird Borden: In what way?


Alfred Henry Clarke: By the evidence of parties who were present in the parliament of 1879.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Can the hon. member [DOT] say who gave that evidence before the committee, because we had absolutely no evidence?


Alfred Henry Clarke: Evidence before that committee was given by Mr. McCarthy; he had there the declaration of Mr. Ramsay who was the president of the company, as to the way he understood it, and as to what the practice had been ever since.


Robert Laird Borden: Was Mr. Ramsay a member of the parliament of Canada at the time, and if so, could he speak for every other member?	.


Alfred Henry Clarke: He had promoted the Bill.


Robert Laird Borden: It is an error of the parliament of Canada, according to my hon. friend's contention.


Alfred Henry Clarke: I am not here to discuss whether the evidence was strong or weak. But I have to say that the evi-


Robert Laird Borden: dence was sufficient to satisfy the committee that that error had been made, and they passed upon it accordingly, and reported to this House that the Bill ought
to pass.


Robert Laird Borden: There was not a scintilla of evidence pointing to any such conclusion.


Alfred Henry Clarke: It is strange then that my hon. friend did not come here and vote against it when it was going through. Those on this side of the House were satisfied that a case had been made out, that the mistake had been made, and it was necessary to come here to correct the error, and that was the only justification for passing the Bill. If hon. gentlemen believed that no mistake had been made, they were certainly remiss in their duty when they did not come and record their votes against the Bill. But let me point out another difference between the two cases. In the Cobalt Lake case my opinion was that it was not proper legislation. My hon. friends opposite say the principle in the Canada Life is just the same as in the Cobalt Lake case. Well, if it was just the same, they approved the Cobalt Lake case and they approved the objection to that legislation by objecting to this legislation here. They say it is the same thing. They objected to the Canada Life Bill, and by their very act they condemned the Ontario legislature in passing the Cobalt Lake Bill. If one is wrong, if they are both the same, and they say they are, therefore, they condemned Mr. Whitney more strongly than anything I can say.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Mr. Whitney was representing the Crown. The property was the property of the Crown. The right to legislate belonged to that body and even the Minister of Justice does not deny, when we call attention to it, their right in legislating as they have done. It -was their duty to look after the interests of the Crown, but it is entirely different where the other case exists between private individuals. The right of contract gives the right to each party to claim to establish what was the contract and in no way could that be determined except in the courts. But, by the action of the federal government the men who were either to benefit or to lose by the fulfilment of the contract or the non-fulfilment of it were not allowed to prosecute their claims in the courts so that they might determine whether they were good or bad. They were legislated out of court entirely.
With reference to some observations of the Minister of Justice I have only to say that he seems to draw a distinction between what he says as Minister of Justice and what he says as a private

citizen and ratepayer of Ontario. But he almost in the same breath mixes up the two and therefore whatever observations he made as a citizen and a ratepayer of Ontario were made in connection with the discussion of a subject where he is giving the dicta of the Minister of Justice representing Cdnada. Therefore, very few will distinguish the difference, if there is any difference, between the two. We will be obliged to attach much more importance to his words than if they were the words of any private citizen or than we would to the same observations from the same man if he were on a political platform as a ratepayer of Ontario discussing a question of politics relative to the conduct of the Ontario government. I thought at the time that it was very wrong, and why?-because he said that it was absolute confiscation and if it was confiscation what did it mean? It meant that he attacked not only the honesty of the government of Ontario but the industrial credit of Ontario, because, if the government were prepared, to step in and, take property away from a party who had invested his money in the development of that property, then those men who might be induced to bring money into Canada to invest it in these lines would be very cautious in the future, if the observations of the Minister of Justice were correct. These observations carried with them all the authority and power of the Minister of Justice of Canada. They were not the same as the utterances of a private citizen. If a private citizen had said the same thing his observations would not have been taken in the same sense. The Minister of Justice said: 'I am not concerned about whether the province of Ontario had or had not the right to pass that legislation; I am not concerned as to the reasoning out of the case at all.' Well, I heard the Hon. Edward Blake make an observation in this House upon one occasion that I thought there was a great deal of force in, and it was to the effect that no member occupying the position of Minister of Justice should ever be content to make a statement of that kind without giving reasoned judgment or the reason why he reached the conclusion which he was placing before the House. I think that was where the minister's logic was entirely at fault because he did not give a reasoned judgment why he reached that conclusion. If he had done so his conclusion might have been much more valuable. But, the hon. gentleman, after saying that he is not concerned at all as to the reasoning by which he reached that conclusion makes the bald statement that they were within their rights when they did it and then follows that up as a private citizen of Ontario at the same time in the same breath by saying that their conduct was absolute confiscation and that it was unjustifiable, unreasonable and improper.



Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Speaker, before you leave the Chair, I would like to make an inquiry of the government as to what action they propose to take in view of the resolution which passed on the 29th March with respect to the participation of Canada in some scheme of naval defence. I will not read the whole of the resolution, but my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) will remember that one portion of it was framed in these words:
The House will cordially approve of any necessary expenditure designed to promote the speedy organization of a Canadian naval service in co-operation with and in close relation to the imperial navy.
We perhaps may be entitled to some declaration from the Prime Minister as to what is to be done in that regard. I think there has been some rumour in the press- perhaps there has been some statement in the House, but I am not sure of it-as to a visit to Great Britain at the conclusion of this session by two members of the government for the purpose of a conference with 'the imperial authorities and more especially, I suppose, with the naval authorities. We have also had some rumours in the press of action by the imperial government itself. It has been said that an imperial naval conference has been called, and that invitations have been sent, to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other great self-governing dominions of the empire. Perhaps the Prime Minister would be good enough to intimate whether or not any invitation has been sent to Canada in that regard, and if so, whether it is to be accepted, and generally if he would be good enough to give to the House and to the country a statement of what the policy of the government is with respect to its method of carrying out this resolution and what is to be done in the immediate future. I think it would be of advantage to the House and the country to have that information. It is for that purpose I ask this question.


Wilfrid Laurier: Since the resolution of the 29th March was adopted in this House there has been some correspondence between the imperial authorities and the government on this very subject. It is not very voluminous; I think I can have it ready for to-mororw morning and that will indicate the course we intend to take.


MANITOBA FISHERIES.
Mr. G. H. BRADBURY (Selkirk).: Mr. Speaker, before the House goes into Supply, I wish to call the attention of the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Brodeur) to an editorial in one of the Win-

nipeg papers on the statement he made in the House in reply to some remarks I had the honour to make in this House on the 13th of the month. I stated at that time that Lake Winnipeg was being depleted. The minister, in reply, said that the reports showed that Lake Winnipeg was not being depleted. I am going to quote just a few sentences from the Winnipeg 'Tribune ' of the 14th instant. This is a paper that has been in touch with this question during the last fifteen or sixteen years and is thoroughly competent to speak upon the subject:


DEPLETION OF FISHERIES.
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Mr. Brodeur said tlie reports showed that there was no depletion of the fisheries of Manitoba.	.
At the moment when he spoke those foolish words, witnesses were giving evidence before his own fisheries commission at Gimle, the headquarters for many of the fishermen on the lake. The report says :-
The majority were in favour of the lake being dosed for whitefish in the southern portion until the fish increased sufficiently in numbers to make it profitable and that the closed season for domestic fishing licenses should commence on August 15 for summer fishing.
A few years ago in the southern portion of the lake, the waters fairly teemed with white-fish; fishery stations were in operation, and remained in operation until the devastation was almost complete. Then they were closed. And yet the Minister of Fisheries stands up in parliament and says:
The reports showed that there was no depletion of the fisheries of Manitoba.
- Take further testimony given before the fishery commission yesterday:
Rev.  J. P.@: Solmundson, secretary of the fisherman's union, was the last speaker. He claimed that United States capital was the direct cause of the depletion of the whitefish in Lake Winnipeg, and while he was in favour of fishermen being allowed longer nets and Canadian-financed firms doing business in the uorthern part of the lake where whitefish were still quite plentiful, he objected strongly to American capital under Canadian names securing the product for the American market.
The fact is that the American capitalists have in the majority of instances, been in league with friends of the government. The old, rotten system of placing the country's resources at the disposal of friends, is at the bottom of the depletion of Lake Winnipeg and other western inland waters. Friends, as they are called of the government have had a tremendous rake-off in this business, and the protests of the whole people have been ignored.
This is from the 'Tribune' of May 14, the morning after I had the honour of addressing this House. Now, for the purpose of convincing, if posible, the hon. minister that Lake Winnipeg is in a depleted condition, I wish to read from another important report, made by a man who is entirely impartial, taken from the report of the Royal Mr. BRADBURY.
Northwest Mounted Police for 1907. This is an extract from the report of Inspector E. A. Pelletier, of a patrol from Regina to Churchill and return, in the winter of 1906-7. It is as follows:
Regina, March 11, 1907.
With regard to fishing companies:-
I take the liberty of suggesting that by what I heard and what I believe some restrictions should be made in the extent of their operations.
The fish caught, I hear, is mostly all exported to the United States market, and it is foreseen that soon there will be hardly fish enough left to feed the natives and their dogs. If some law could be passed to forbid the exportation of fish caught in the Kee-watin district, outside of Canada, it would benefit the country a great deal, for at this rate the fish will soon become extinct or praotically so. Something like it is in Lake Superior, Lake of Woods, and is getting in regard to Lake Winnipeg, which is getting fished out.
Fishing companies are operating as far as Lake Tipiwesh. The new railway coming in from the Pass will come through a country of good fishing lakes.
Fishing companies find it even profitable to haul fish some 100 or 150 miles from railway transportation with horses. One can easily imagine if a railway ever comes through to Fort Churchill to what extent the country will be exploited by these fishing companies, and as these lakes are of comparatively small size it will take very few years indeed to drain them of all their fish, and then the natives will lie left starving if a poor year of fish comes. As it is now, they can always fall back on fish after everything else fails.
Even then this country is growing now at such a rate that if no restrictions on the export of fish are made at an early date there will be no fish left for our own consumption.
Evidence of this kind, coming from a man who is entirely impartial, who has no other interest to serve than the public interest, ought to impress the minister that there is something wrong. The hon. gentleman seemed to take exception to the statement I made regarding the laxity of the officials of his department.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman cannot refer to a previous debate.


George Henry Bradbury: I am very sorry I cannot. However, there seems to be some difference between the hon. minister and myself regarding the position these gentlemen occupy. Either the officials of the department have been derelict in their duties regarding the fisheries of Lake Winnipeg or the minister of the department has counteracted their recommendations. If the officials have been honest, and have notified the government from time to time of the facts, then the government must take the full responsibility for the ..destruction of these great fisheries. There is no question that Lake Winnipeg is in a depleted condition to-day.

The hon. minister quoted from the report of one of his officials, who, as I pointed out, has from time to time made reports which were contradictory and therefore not reliable. However, I am going to read for the minister's information an extract from the report of 1906 of the inspector at Selkirk, the gentleman whom the hon. minister quoted the other night.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


George Henry Bradbury: I do not like to irritate the hon. gentleman, but I wish to place this report on record, in the hope that it may open the eyes of the hon. minister to the fact that reports made by the inspector at Selkirk are not altogether reliable. In this report for 1906, the inspector states:
I would just say in conclusion, that the year 1904 has been, on the whole, a very successful one, considering that the weather throughout the year, was very unfavourable, for the carrying on of fishing operations. In some cases nets were set from four days to a week without being lifted and fish taken therefrom. This of course had a very bad effect on the fishing as a good many of the fish deteriorated before the nets could be lifted and in consequence were unfit for the market. It is a hard proposition to overcome this loss as long as gill nets are used for the capturing of fish in our waters.
Eish of all kinds are very plentiful except sturgeon and whitefish, both these valuable fish seem to be getting scarcer every year. The setting apart as a breeding ground the waters of the Winnipeg river was a move in the right direction, and will be a benefit to the fisheries of our province as long as it is kept closed to commercial fishing. The waters of the Winnipeg river are teeming with young sturgeon.
The common whitefish in our waters seem to be getting scarcer every year at any rate they are harder to locate during the fishing season than they were a few years ago.
I wish to draw the attention of the minister and employee to the fact that his own inspector as late as 1906 pointed out that Lake Winnipeg was in a depleted condition and that the fish were getting scarcer every year. I do not intend to take up the time of the House further than to say that I hope the minister *will be guided by the reports which I have tried to lay before him, honestly and fairly, without any political bias, and will see that they are looked into by the Fish Commission. I fear very much that that commission is not going to accomplish the work for which it was appointed, because I have noticed in the reports of the papers that one of the managers of the fish companies against which I have been protesting, is following that commission up from place to place giving his evidence at different places and no doubt influencing the men who come before the commission,. There is no doubt that the evidence given before that commis-220
sion is being secured to a very large extent by this man. All I ask is that the people have a fair chance to put their case before that commission. As I pointed out to the minister this morning in private conversation, unless the witnesses are subpoenaed by the commission, the evidence will not be properly secured from the standpoint of the people. The companies will take good care to have their evidence placed before the commission, but there is no one looking after the interests of the people, and consequently I am afraid that if the commission do not subpoena witnesses and crossexamine them direct, the inquiry will not be a fair one, and will not accomplish the result which it was designed to accomplish.
At one o'clock the House took recess.
House resumed at three o'clock.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House went into Committee of Supply.
Marine hospitals, $70,000.
Mr. WEIGHT.: What is the reason for this increase?


Hon. L. P. BEODEUE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries).: Different hospitals have represented that the per diem allowance which we make for patents is not sufficient. We have been paying them about $1.30 per day and they are .asking $1.50 or $1.75 a day.


Mr. JAMESON.: Is it intended to construct any new marine hospitals this year?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No.
Fish breeding establishments, $322,300.


Clarence Jameson: Will there be any additional buildings this year.-'


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, it is expected that with this sum of money we may provide some new hatcheries.


Clarence Jameson: What is the cost of maintaining those at present m use?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The estimated cost of the hatcheries for the different provinces will be: Ontario, $67,300; Quebec, $25,500; New Brunswick, $27,000; Nova Scotia, $41,500; Prince Edward Island, $11,000; Manitoba, $22,000; British Columbia, $115,000.


Clarence Jameson: What sum does that leave for new work?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: That will include the new work. There will be two new hatcheries Sn Ontario, one in Quebec, four in Nova Scotia. The locations have not yet been, decided on.


Clarence Jameson: What information is the minister getting with regard to the best places to put them?


'.REVISED EDITION COMMONS
Mr.   BKODETJR@: The hatcheries are located on a report by Mr. Cunningham, the fish breeding inspector,


Clarence Jameson: Has he made his inspections yet for that purpose?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: In soane places he has made investigations.
To provide for the construction of a fisheries protection cruiser for the Pacific coast, $220,500


Mr. WRIGHT.: What is the total cost of this boat to be?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The tenders have not yet been decided upon. Tenders were called for, but at the request of Canadian builders the plans have been somewhat modified. With the consent of the committee I would add after the word 'construction' the words 'or purchase.'


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Clarence Jameson: What is the proposed speed of this cruiser? I understand there has been some difficulty in the protection of the fisheries simply because the cruisers employed have not sufficient speed.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: That is unfortunately true. Formerly all the fishing vessels were sailing vessels, but with the introduction of steam fishing vessels greater speed is required in the cruisers. It is provided that this vessel shall have a speed of from 171 to 18 knots.


William Wright: If the minister purchases a boat will he buy it in Canada if possible?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: If it is possible to get it in Canada that is our intention.


Mr. J. A. CURRIE.: In examining the tenders will the minister consider the duties and the additional wages that will have to be paid in the case of a vessel built in Canada? I think the House would justify him in paying more for a Canadian built boat because every one knows that wages are higher and that the duty has to be paid on the material which is imported. I would ask him to bear that in mind when the tenders are being passed upon.


Mr. CROSBY.: We had some discussion the other night in regard to the construction of ships in Canada and I understand from the Minister of Marine and Fisheries that he had made an effort in connection with the construction of this boat, which is now being built in Scotland, to have the work done in Canada. I had talked with the manager of the Dry Docks Company in Halifax, Mr. Brookfield with regard to the construction of steamers and I understood from him that he had made every effort to get an opportunity to construct a boat for the government and had failed. I was in-Mr. JAMESON.
formed the other night that the department had made every effort to have a ship built in Canada. I sent a telegram to Mr. Brookfield and have a telegram under my hand in which he states that he had communicated with the Marine Department and had endeavoured in every way to get an opportunity to build a boat for the Marine Department. He states that they are now in a position to construct a boat any time 300 feet long and up to 45 feet wide. I think that the boat required is about 276 feet long and 30 feet wide, and it will be well to endeavour, even though it should cost a little more to build such a boat in Canada rather than on the other side, so as to give some encouragement to our own people. In his telegram Mr. Brookfield said that he had been trying hard to get a little encouragement but without success. It is, I know, difficult to buy steamers to suit the work. I could take some of those that have been bought by the department and criticise them severely. I may, however, be told that it is difficult to buy anything better, that may be true.
I realize the difficulty of buying a boat to suit the purposes of the department, and therefore it may be necessary to build; but even if we should have to import some men to build, that would be a trifling matter. I am not speaking particularly for Halifax, but I say that in eastern Canada we have a lot of men who have been ship builders for years who can turn out ships that cannot be excelled.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I am just as anxious as the hon. gentleman to have these boats constructed in this country and we have advertised for tenders. We have not notified any British company as to our intention to call for tenders, but we have had advertisements in the Halifax papers, and have not received any tenders.


Adam Brown Crosby: I have a telegram here from Mr. Brookfield who apparently has not seen it.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: That advertisement was published in the Halifax 'Reporter' and 'Chronicle.*


Adam Brown Crosby: You neglected the 'Herald whose circulation in one issue is larger than that of the other two in a week. Is that advertisement published now?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It is, and we did not get any tender from Mr. Brookfield.


John Allister Currie: I may say that the experience of the Collingwood Ship Building Company is that when they tender for government works the tenders invariably go to the old country firms who seem to tender away down low for that class of work. Of private work, this company gets its share. It tendered for the Northern

Navigation Company and built for that company a very large ship, 365 feet long, 50 feet wide, 75 feet deep 7,000 horse-power, with a speed of 20 knots an hour, and succeeded in getting that contract in competition with Swan & Hunter, a very large English concern. The ship went into commission last week, and on her trial trip she exceeded 20 knots an hour with four-fifths of her boiler capacity. Everything in connection with the vessel, with the exception of some fittings, was built in Canada. I am strongly of the opinion that the ship builders in the old country tender very low for government work, and then skimp their work expecting to make up on extras. But the fact remains that Canada can produce just as good steel as any other country in the world, and we find that every country of any importance is building its own ships. The Japanese, the Germans and even Italy and Spain are now building their own war vessels. It would be advisable that in a country which provides such an enormous amount of freight as Canada, the government should do everything possible to encourage Canadian ship building.
Oyster culture, $7,000.


Clarence Jameson: Will the minister please tell us what is being done in connection with the expenditure of that money? A similar amount was voted last year, but, so far as we are able to find out from the person who came before the committee, there was not a great deal of new work done.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This amount includes the salary of the oyster expert, and the expenditure in connection with the vote is at his disposal to go around the islands.


Clarence Jameson: Will the hon. minister give particulars of that? I want to know how much went to the good of the oyster culture and how much to the good of the officer.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The report shows that part of the season of 1908 was spent at Shediac Bay marking off areas for qua-haug fishermen. He then went to Car-aquet and spent the season there clearing the beds, coming down to Shediac in October for the oversight of the oyster fishing there.


Clarence Jameson: Where is it proposed to have the work in the coming year? The evidence given by the oyster expert before the committee on fisheries, the minister may remember, showed that some years ago he had planted oysters in Annapolis Basin, and had left them in charge of an official there, but no reports have been received, and he did not know the condition of those beds. I should think if expenditure is to be made on oyster 2204
culture, the work should be looked after and proper reports made, so that we may be able to judge, after the experiments, whether it is possible to cultivate oysters in those waters.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Next summer, it is proposed to send the oyster expert to Guys-borough county, to ascertain if there are areas there which can be used for oyster culture. I will see to it that a report is made with regard to the Annapolis Basin beds.
To assist in the establishment, maintenance and inspection of cold storage for bait and the conservation and development of the deep sea fisheries, $40,000.


Mr. FRASER.: Has this anything to do with the herring drifter, No. 33? A large sum of money has been devoted to that for many years and I do not think that any very adequate results have been shown.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This money is to carry out the policy of bait freezers established some years ago. We contribute toward the establishment of small bait freezers put up by private parties, when these are constructed according tp the plans and specifications approved by the department. We also have two large bait freezers, one at Canso and one at Halifax toward which for five years-I think this year is the last- certain contributions are made according to the quantity of bait they store.


Austin Levi Fraser: It has nothing to do with the sum of money paid to Mr. J. J. Cowie, for the steam herring drifter?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Nothing at all.
To provide for the maintenance of experimental works for the reduction of dog-fish, $53,000.


William Wright: We spent in this work last year, I think, $75,000. Are the dogfish being got rid of?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The results have been somewhat satisfactory. I do not say that it is due to the two dog-fish reduction plants that we operated last year, but the number of dog-fish infesting the coast is certainly reduced. We pay the fishermen a certain sum for each dog-fish brought to the reduction works, which is an encouragement to the fishermen to kill as many dog-fish as possible.


Mr. GEO. TAYLOR.: What are the proceeds of the sale?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: At first, we disposed of the fertilizer reduced to the farmers at $25 a ton. When the demand was supplied, we called for tenders and have realized the following sums:-1906-7,	$1,675;	1907-8,
$15,970.28; 1908-9, $346. We have not yet disposed of the fertilizer for this year.


Clarence Jameson: Is that the output of more than one plant?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Of two plants. We should have an additional plant this year at Clark's harbour.


Clarence Jameson: Have these works passed the experimental stage? Is it the intention of the minister to continue them? Will they he increased in number?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: They have not passed the experimental stage. We expect that the works at Clark's harbour will give better results than the other. We have not been absolutely successful with the machinery we have in removing from the fertilizer all the oil necessary to make it first-class. We expect that the improvements made at Clark's harbour will enable us to meet the situation.


Clarence Jameson: I was pleased when I heard the minister say that these plants were doing good work, and that they were a benefit to the fishermen by leading them to destroy the dog-fish. But when he says, in the face of that, that it is not the intention to extend them, he is discriminating against the fishermen in those districts where they have not been established. I believe that the idea of reduction plants of this character was first promoted at a fishing port on the Bay of Fundy, and that representations were first made from there to the department on the subject. I had hoped that the first plant established would be established there. However, as that had not been done, I hoped that the minister, after three or four years experience, would have been able to say that it was the policy of the department to go on and complete a chain of plants around the ooast. Now the department was commercialized and has gone into the field, entering into competition with commercial interests which would have been willing to erect these plants. The department having done that, and having prevented private capital from being invested, it is only fair that it should go further than it has gone, and afford that degree of relief to the fishermen generally, which plants of that character, according to the minister himself, have shown themselves capable of giving. I think the minister should in all fairness to the fishermen of the Bay of Fundy have a plant erected somewhere on that bay where, it would be available for the fishermen. If he does not do that, he is certainly discriminating against the large number of fishermen there. These works, which he says himself have not proved a commercial success, but have done some good, are being paid for by the country at large, and the cost of operating them is being taxed on the people generally. That being the case, there is no reason why the principle should not be extended, and why the fishermen Mr. BRODEUR.
throughout the entire maritime provinces should not have the relief which these works give, if, as the minister believes, they are beneficial and if their operation at all is warranted.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: As to extending the system, I would be glad to encourage any private company that is willing to go into that business. In fact it is the aim of the department to encourage private concerns to undertake these reduction works. I do not think that should be adopted as a general policy of the department, and I do not understand that the hon. gentleman has suggested that we should ourselves establish such reduction works on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. But we are undertaking . this expenditure to show the people that dogfish can be reduced, and in what condition it can be sold. After we have shown the results of these experiments, we expect that private concerns will take up the business, and I shall be glad to aid them. I have not given much consideration yet as to the policy which should be adopted, whether we should grant a subsidy or not to these companies. But at present I am willing to encourage any who will go into that business.


Clarence Jameson: The minister has given us sound information as to the incomes of these plants. Would he tell us what the cost has been in order that the commercial interests may see it fo.r themselves?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The cost of construction has been as follows:
Canso, $32,820; Shippigan, $25,298; Clark's Harbour, $36,062.
Cost of maintenance each year:
Clark's
Yoara Canso. Shippigan. BarBour.
1905-	6	
$17,887	$3,7371906-	7	
14,985	9,9411907-	8	
10,863	6,4821908-	9	
16,566	9,357	$681Amount realized for soap and oil; 1905-6, $30;	1906-7, $1,675;	1907-8, $15,976;	1908-9,


Clarence Jameson: What price is paid for dog-fish?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: $4 per ton.
To provide for the maintenance and expenses of a government educational fish-curing establishment, the proceeds of sale to revert to the appropriation, $12,000.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The result of* this experiment has been very satisfactory, and we are contemplating leasing the establishment -to some private individual. We have now conducted it beyond the experimental stage, and expect that some one else will take it up.


Austin Levi Fraser: Did I understand the minister to say that it was the intention of his department to lease that this year?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes.


Austin Levi Fraser: The department intends to hand it over to a private lessee?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It is not yet decided, but it will he decided in a few lays. Tenders have been called for, and are now engaging the consideration of the department.


Austin Levi Fraser: The intention of the government may have been good in establishing this business, but I can assure the minister that as an educational fish curing establishment it has been a failure. This was started some years ago, and every year since there has been quite a large deficit. During the three years that it has been operated it has cost the government over $24,000.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: According to the figures I have this year, the expenditure has been for 1907-8, $8,572, and the receipts, $8,826 leaving a small surplus.


Austin Levi Fraser: According to the Auditor General's Report, 0-224, the last issued, the expenditure was $1,954, and the receipts for the sale of fish amounted to $11,000, leaving a deficit of $8,572 in one year.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The figures I have just given were for the last fiscal year. The figures which my hon. friend has quoted were for the previous year.


Austin Levi Fraser: That institution has been so managed that it has been an absolute failure as an educational institution and it has been a loss to the government. During the time it existed it was only doing what any private firm would do-buying fish, even cured fish, and selling it in competition with those who had been in the trade for years. If it is the intention of the government to let it out on lease I think it would be better for the department. May I ask the minister how many tenders have been received?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Two.


Austin Levi Fraser: Who were the tenderers?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: They are still under consideration.
Te provide for the construction and maintenance of marine biological stations and investigations, $15,000.


George Eulas Foster: Are these new?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No, this is the same vote as last year. This is for the purpose of looking after the construction and maintenance of these stations. We have one on the Atlantic, one on Georgian bay and one in British Columbia.


George Eulas Foster: What are you doing at these biological stations?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Studies are being carried on by university professors.


George Eulas Foster: What do we get as a result of it?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We get reports of the results of their studies.


George Eulas Foster: What use do we make of these?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The officers of the department make their recommendations based upon the reports that we get from these persons.


George Eulas Foster: Will the minister give us an instance or two of what good has come out of it and how it has been carried out practically?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: For instance, they ma<ke a study of the cod, its food and habits and they make reports to us giving the results of their observations.


George Eulas Foster: Then, do we gather up the food and feed the cod?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No.


George Eulas Foster: Then what do we do?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We get the scientific [DOT] reports from which the officers of the department obtain information upon which to base the recommendations that they make to the department.


George Eulas Foster: If the minister has any instances will he give the committee information as to what benefit we have got in the matter of the cod study? The professors study and they give the results of their study of the different kinds of food that the cod eat. What do we do with that information?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The question of fisheries is a complicated one and the best way to deal with it is to find out the habits of the fish, what they do, how they dispose of their spawn and how they feed. How can we get that information? We can get that information by scientific observation. These gentlemen are jrrofessors in the different universities and they take a deep interest in that branch of natural history. They are willing to lend their services to the department in order to study the habits of the fish.


George Taylor: Do they lend their services or do they get paid?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: They do not get any pay. They lend their services gratuitously to the department and we have been establishing these stations for the purpose of facilitating their studies. When they gain information as to the habits and food of the fish they make reports to us on which the officers of the department later on base their recommendations.


George Eulas Foster: What I want to get at is what recommendations the department has carried out in the particular instance that the minister cites as to the cod and its food.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Let us take, for example, the question of clams.


George Eulas Foster: We are not talking clams; we are talking cod. I want the minister to stick to his text. Let him tell us what recommendations his officers have given him and which have been put into practice as the result of the reports of these gentlemen.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I did not speak specially as to cod.


George Eulas Foster: Then the minister gives it
up.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No, but I was only giving my hon. friend an illustration of the work which they carry out as to cod.


George Eulas Foster: Now, take clams, and see if the minister can do any better.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: My hon. friend may laugh. This is a very laughable subject.


George Eulas Foster: No, the laugh is not on me.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: That is all right; I do not mind it.


George Eulas Foster: Has the minister received any recommendations from his officers as a result of these reports?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, I may say that they made recommendations as to the clams and quahaugs.


George Eulas Foster: What?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Quahaugs.


George Eulas Foster: Are we talking about codfish or 'wogs'?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Quahaugs.


George Eulas Foster: Well, I will take it all back. What has the minister done with reference to quahaugs and clams? Let us have the practical result.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We established a close season which was based on the scientific information reported to us by these people. The close season for quahaugs is May, June and September.


George Eulas Foster: Where do these people live?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: On the coast of New Brunswick and the maritime provinces.


George Eulas Foster: Are they fish, or what?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: They are little neck clams.


George Eulas Foster: So that it has resulted in a close season for clams?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes.
Towards the encouragement of better transportation and conservation of fresh fish, $25,000.
Mr. FOSTER


George Eulas Foster: Does that take the form of subsidies to the railways?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes. In order to encourage the transportation of fresh fish from the maritime provinces to the western provinces, we have adopted the system of paying a certain part of the cost of transportation from the centre of production to the centre of consumption. For instance, on the Maritime Express from Halifax to Montreal the regular express rate was $1.50 per cwt., and we have made an agreement with the railways for the rate of $1 per cwt. The result has been satisfactory so far. The consumption of fish in the centres of consumption has been increased, as people know they can rely upon a certain quantity of fresh fish coming up on certain days every week.


George Eulas Foster: This is divided between the Intercolonial and the Canadian Pacific Railway?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes.


George Eulas Foster: What were the sums paid last year?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: In the year 1907-8 the Intercolonial was the only line that received any money. It was paid $224.41, but the system was then in existence only a short time. To the 10th of May, 1909, the total amount paid was $4,232.


George Taylor: Do you extend the service further west than Montreal?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, to any point in Ontario; and in the west we are establishing a similar service from Vancouver to points in Alberta and Saskatchewan.


George Eulas Foster: How does the system work out in practice?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: In the case of freight rates we undertake to pay two-thirds of the car rate. If a ear is full or two-thirds full, we have nothing to pay; but if it is less than two-thirds full, we pay the difference.


Clarence Jameson: After the car is loaded at the shipping point, does it take on no more freight until it reaches its destination; or does it go on collecting at each point where there is freight? And is the rate a flat rate-for instance, the same from Halifax and St. John?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: If the car is not full, it may collect freight on its way, and the rate charged to the shipper will be the rate charged from the place where the fish is put on the car until it reaches its destination.


Adam Brown Crosby: There are special cars provided for carrying fish?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes.


Adam Brown Crosby: I would like the minister to notify the committee in charge of the parliamentary restaurant that there is such a car, as they evidently do not know anything about this way of obtaining fish.
To provide for the expenses of fishery commissions, $15,000.


George Eulas Foster: What do you propose to do with that?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This is for the purpose of meeting the expenses of a committee of inquiry. We have just had a shad commission, but its work is finished, and now we have a commission on the fisheries of Manitoba and the Northwest. Then there is going to be a commission on the lobster.


Clarence Jameson: Who were the members of the Shad commission?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Prof. Prince, Mr. Morrison from Nova Scotia, and Mr. Melanson from New Brunswick


William Wright: What is the difference between this item for fishery commissions and the item for the International Fishery Commission?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The $15,000 is for the commission which are appointed in this country to study Canadian fish. The $10,000 is to provide for the expenditure of the International Fishery Commission, constituted under the treaty of 1908.


Clarence Jameson: Has the report of the Shad Commission been printed and distributed?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No, it is in the printer's hands.


Clarence Jameson: Is it the intention of the minister to have it printed and circulated?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, to bring it before the House.


Clarence Jameson: There is a great interest in this subject and the people are at a loss to know why the said fishery has declined so seriously. It would be well to have the report circulated as soon as possible, so that they might understand the situation and do what they can to improve it.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It will be laid before parliament at the opening of the next session.


George Eulas Foster: There is no occasion to wait until then; if it is a valuable report, it should be circulated sooner.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: There is no objection to that. Generally we bring down these reports at the opening of the session, but if it is the wish of the House I will see that it is submitted to members.


Adam Brown Crosby: Referring to the discussion of last night, I wish to say that I will move for the papers in connection with the Johnston matter at the next session, as it is too late to do it now. The hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. A. K. Maclean) will have an opportunity before that time of posting himself so that when we discuss this again he will be equipped with all the information which he now lacks.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN.: I furnished some information to my hon. friend.
To cover the expenses of inquiries respecting the relative rights of the Federal and provincial governments in regard to the fisheries, under the Privy Council decision of 189C, $10,000.


George Eulas Foster: Who has charge of that now?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No one at present, but it is intended to have some one. It is intended to refer this matter to the courts. We had a conference some time ago with representatives of British Columbia and it was agreed that questions should be prepared for reference to the Supreme Court and thence to the Privy Council. The questions are now being prepared.
Ti pay customs officers for services in connection with the issuing of licenses to United States fishing vessels during 1909, $700.


Clarence Jameson: This, I presume, is for licenses issued under the modus vivendi.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes.


Clarence Jameson: Is there any likelihood of that treaty being abrogated or the conditions under it improved? It has been discussed here more than once. The hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. A. K. Maclean) delivered an illuminating speech on it some time ago, and I would ask if the minister has done anything in consequence of that speech?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This is not a question of treaty. A treaty was made between the British and American authorities, but the treaty was not approved by the United States Senate. At the same time a modus vivendi was provided in that treaty and action was then taken by the government of that day in order to put the modus vivendi in force. There has been a continuation of this modus vivendi, but we might at any time repeal the law and the provisions of that statute would be at an end. This is not a matter entirely in the hands of the government, any member might move in the matter.


Clarence Jameson: Does the minister say that the position which has grown up is satisfactory and justifies the renewal of the modus vivendi from year to year?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It appears to me that most of the interests in the maritime provinces are in favour of the continuation of this modus vivendi. That is the impression I gather although it is not my own personal view.


Clarence Jameson: It was not the view expressed by the commercial fishing interests at Halifax when the Tariff Commission was there. I think the minister is under a misapprehension if the view which he has taken is that advocated by the ' Coast Guard.' The ' Coast Guard ' is a very ably conducted journal and takes the view that the modus vivendi is beneficial, but I do not know that it speaks for any considerable portion of the people. I think there is a large majority of people in Nova Scotia who would favour at least a very careful inquiry into the conditions which have developed under the modus vivendi in order to determine whether it should or should not be terminated.


Adam Brown Crosby: This is a very important matter and I agree with the very able speech of the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. A. K. Maclean). I do not think the hon. member has followed that speech up and pressed the matter on the government as thoroughly as he might


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I do not think that is fair. My hon. friend is not stating exactly the case. The hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. A. K. Maclean) has constantly pressed this same idea upon the government and the department.


Adam Brown Crosby: I may be mistaken. I am mistaken in the man if he starts to press a thing and does not get it through. I have no hesitation in saying that I believe it is an injury to the maritime provinces, and I believe that is the sentiment of the great majority of the people of the maritime provinces.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I think it very unfortunate that most of the fisheries in maritime province waters are carried on by Americans. I am extremely sorry to find that is the case, but my hon. friend knows that a large number of the Americans are carrying on the fish business there. We knowalsothat a large quantity of our fish, instead of going to the Canadian market goes to the United States. By the vote just passed it is my intention to divert that trade as far as possible to Canadian channels. I thought that by encouraging the transportation of fish from the maritime provinces to the centres of consumption we would increase the consumption of our fish by Canadians and increase the business to be done by Canadians in the maritime provinces. That is the object I had in view. Unfortunately there is a great deal of difference of opinion on the matter, and I have not . been able to come to the conclusion that we should revoke this modus vivendi.


Clarence Jameson: 


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I agree heartity with the hon. member for Digby (Mr. Jameson) and the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Crosby). I think that to_ permit any statute or order in council to remain in force, which assists the United States in prosecuting the fishery business, is very prejudicial to Canadians. Further than that I feel that our national dignity suffers by the continuance of the modus vivendi. I never could understand why it was inaugurated and why. it has been permitted to continue on so long. Of course I have no desire to provoke any discussion this afternoon, but I feel it my duty to say that the Minister of Marine and the government should at an early date take this matter into consideration. If they do they will find a great many people in the maritime provinces very strongly opposed to the continuance of the modus vivendi.
To provide for the expenses of the International Fishery Commission under treaty for joint fishery regulations to waters contiguous to boundary line, $10,000.


George Eulas Foster: How is that to be expended?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We have to provide for the salary of officials who will be called on to discharge duties in connection with the execution of the regulations. These regulations are being prepared, and we shall have to come before parliament for the necessary power to put them in force.


George Eulas Foster: Is it going to cost $10,000 to get the regulations made?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No.


George Eulas Foster: And when they are made what will happen?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We shall have to come before parliament to get the necessary power to carry them out.


George Eulas Foster: Then you do not want any money for that now?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We must have money to appoint the officers to carry out those regulations.


George Eulas Foster: Have you the authority?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Not yet, but we shall require it at the next session of parliament.


George Eulas Foster: How are you going to spend $10,000 in the meantime?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: In providing for the salary of Prof. Prince and also for the expenses connected with the preparation of those regulations.


George Eulas Foster: What is Prof. Prince's salary?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: $4,000. Then there are his travelling expenses and those of an officer or two of the Department of Justice whom he takes to prepare those regulations.


Clarence Jameson: I would ask whether Dr. Jordan, the American commissioner, has signed the regulations which were framed by this international fishery commission?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The regulations are still under preparation. Dr Jordan and Prof. Prince are going to have another conference with regard to the drafting of them.


Clarence Jameson: Within what time must the commissioner come to an agreement under the terms of the treaty?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Within six months, which expire the 1st of June next.


Clarence Jameson: That is very soon now. No draft of these regulations have been laid on the table or given to the people, with the authority of the minister?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Except that I had conferences with some of the provincial ministers and gave them a synopsis of our own draft. But the regulations have never been given to anybody else.


Clarence Jameson: Has Dr. Jordan signed a set of regulations?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I do not know. I heard that there was a document signed by Dr. Jordan which was marked 'confidential,' yet which was published. I do not know whether it was published with the consent of Dr. Jordan or not, but the document we had in the department was marked 'confidential,' and that same document has been published, under the imprint of the King's Printer of Ontario, as being the regulations adopted by the International Fisheries Commission.


Clarence Jameson: As I understand it, there was a preliminary or a tentative set of regulations prepared by Dr. Jordan or under his direction, but there has been since that a set of regulations drafted as the result of a conference between Dr. Jordan and Professor Prince, and I ask the minister if these latter have; been signed by either Dr. Jordan or Professor Prince, or is the matter still under consideration?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It is still under consideration.


Clarence Jameson: This matter was brought to the attention of the minister earlier in the session. It was brought to his notice first during a meeting of the Committee on Fisheries, and he was then asked whether or
not the proposed regulations would be printed and distributed for the information of those concerned. It was contended that it would be most unfair to allow them to become law without giving the interests most vitally affected an opportunity to know something about them. It was also pointed out that a tentative set of regulations, three sets in fact, had been drafted by the American authorities and circulated broadcast throughout the United States. That American fishermen and others interested had therefore the most ample opportunity of examining into them and offering suggestions. Why, under these circumstances, was not the same privilege given the fishermen of this country? The minister declined to have the regulations proposed by the Canadian Commission published. The American regulations were no doubt circulated in the United States for two reasons at least. First, to let the fishermen know what was going on, and secondly to get the advice of fishermen and others concerned. Why were not the Canadian fishermen given the same treatment by the minister? Is it because they are supposed to be inferior to^ the fishermen of the United States? Is it because they are not supposed to be able to furnish information which would be of value? I take it, that is a great mistake. The fishermen of this country are equal m intelligence to those of the United States. The other interests connected with the fisheries in Canada are intellectually the equal of those in similar business on the other side of the line and quite as capable of giving advice. There is an impression in this country that American diplomacy has been superior to that of the Canadian authorities. I do not think that such is the case because the Americans are brighter, shrewder or smarter men than Canadians. If there is anything in it, it is because the Americans, before they go into negotiations, have always taken the precaution to be thoroughly informed, to be armed to all points, to leave nothing to chance. Amongst business men, when a proposition is made and declined, the other party should be able to promptly make a counter proposition. That can be done by one who has the information. That is the advantage that the Canadian commissioner, Professor Prince, would have had, if he had received from all parts of the country information and suggestions which would have been offered had the draft regulations been distributed throughout the country as they should have been. Now that these regulations are in course of being agreed to, 1 suppose that it is too late to do what should have been done at an earlier date. Once made they will be the law for at least a term of five years under the treaty. If they prove unsatisfactory and unworkable, it will mean that there must be a cancellation of

the regulations. That would tend to injure us in the eye3 of our American neighbours, with whom we desire, as far as we can, consistently and while retaining our own self respect, and keeping what belongs to us to live in peace and harmony. But it is most unfortunate that the fishing interests 9f this country, have not had the same privilege extended to them that was extended to the American fishery interest. It is too late now, I suppose, for the minister to retreat from any position he has taken. But I feel that a protest should be entered against the policy pursued in this instance. There may be a future occasion when	regulations must be made.
When that time comes, I hope the then minister will extend to the people of Canada, and to the fishing interests and fishermen of Canada, the same courtesy that was this year extended to the fishing interests and fishermen of the United States.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: My hon. friend began by asking whether certain regulations had been made by Professor Jordan and signed by him, and whether they have been placed before the public. I speak with some reluctance on this question, because it is still the subject of negotiations between the two countries, and I would not like to say anything which would hamper those negotiations. I may, however, be permitted to inform the House to this effect: We received in the department some time ago the first draft of the regulations coming from Professor Jordan. It seems that this draft was also sent to different parts of the United States. I learn from a statement made in the press the other day by the Minister of Public Works of Ontario that three of these draft copies found their way into his department. That draft is marked '-confidential; not to be made public.' and also bore a heading showing that the documents had been prepared for the purposes of the Fishery Commission which was then preparing regulations. This document has been published under the imprint of the Ontario government as being the regulations adopted under the treaty of 1908. This seems to have created the impression throughout the country that this document is different from what it really is. I may, therefore, be permitted to state that this document has not -been accepted, nor will it necessarily be accepted by the commission.	'


George Eulas Foster: It had not been signed by Professor Prince?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No.


Clarence Jameson: It had been signed by Professor Jordan?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Nor was it signed by Professor Jordan. But I understand that it was prepared by him and was sent to the department here as his draft proposal


Clarence Jameson: of the regulations. I do not want to say anything more on the subject, though I exceedingly regret that the Ontario government thought fit to publish that document as the regulations adopted by the International Fisheries Commission. Now, my hon. friend (Mr. Jameson) says that Professor Jordan consulted the fishermen in the United States, but that we have not seen fit to consult the fishermen here. I may say that before proceeding with this commission, I invited the representatives of the provincial government interested in this treaty to -come and confer with Professor Prince and -myself as to the best regulations to be adopted in the interests of our fisheries. The provinces have some proprietary rights in the fisheries, as determined by the judgment of the Privy Council. They have no absolute right, but I thought they ought to be consulted as to tlm draft of these regulations. These regulations, as hon. members know, are wholly within federal control. But I thought that as the provinces had some proprietary right, they would receive with gratitude the invitation to come and confer as to the regulations drafted. Besides that, I have, time and again, asked members of this House interested in these boundary treaty fisheries, to give their views as to how these regulations should be made.


Clarence Jameson: Did the minister ever extend such invitation to myself as a member from the maritime provinces?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The hon. member is not interested in the boundary waters. He must be aware that the boundary waters, so far as the maritime provinces are concerned are Passamaquoddy bay and the St. John river, in neither of which is he interested. I did not extend any invitation to anybody else, but I asked the members of this House who took an interest in the question of fisheries to give their views to Professor Prince. Now, my hon. friend seeks to make some political capital against the government by saying that we have not consulted the fishermen, that we considered them too Unimportant. My hon. friend is mistaken in that respect. We did consult the fishermen, they came here by delegation, and gave their views and representations. We considered their representations, more than that, I gave instructions to Professor Prince that when he was in the west he should particularly consult the fishermen on the Fraser river and on the Strait of Georgia. This government are the friends of the fishermen. My hon. friend cannot prove that the fishermen have been badly treated by the Department of Marine and Fisheries. We have given them every possible consideration.


George Eulas Foster: An invitation was given to the provincial ministers or representatives of the provinces to come up and dis-

cuss the regulations. Was a copy of the regulations signed or drafted by Dr. Jordan before these gentlemen so that they had an opportunity of seeing what they were discussing?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes.


George Eulas Foster: Is it a fact that the draft by Dr. Jordan was circulated for the benefit of the fishermen on the United States side in order to get their views upon the matter?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I do not know about that. The only document which I saw, and which came into our hands, was a document marked 1 confidential.' Whether this document found its way to some of the companies, or fishermen, I do not know. Perhaps it was communicated to the state governments, as I think that in the United States the regulations concerning fisheries are under control of the state governments, and it may be that Prof. Jordan did send a copy of the regulations to the different state governments; but as to that I am not sure. I suppose it would be only a matter of courtesy for him to do so. Now, my hon. friend says that we should have brought those regulations down before the House, or that we should have apprised the House of the nature of the regulations. My hon. friend knows very well that when negotiations are going on between two governments it is not permissible to publish them; they must be kept confidential as long as the negotiations are going on, otherwise it would be utterly impossible to arrive at any arrangement. To do so would have been contrary to all the rules of diplomacy.


Clarence Jameson: I think the minister misunderstood me. What I said was that a set of the regulations should have been laid before the people who were interested, or before their representatives in parliament. Again, these regulations are not, as I understand it, in themselves a treaty; they are to be framed under a treaty, and consequently there would have been no departure from international courtesy in making them public.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Certainly not. But if my hon. friend thinks we should have produced before parliament a draft of the regulations which we intended to submit to the American authorities, I have only to say that such a proposal could not be entertained for a moment. If the negotiations were made public it would be absolutely impossible to agree upon a treaty.


Clarence Jameson: The United States did not find it so.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: They might have consulted some interests privately, but they did not publish the negotiations broadcast.


George Eulas Foster: The only allusion to the regulations in the treaty was, I suppose, a clause or clauses under which the regulations were to be framed by a certain tribunal, or certain officers. But the regulations themselves were no part of the negotiations. The treaty negotiations proceeded, and as a result, authority was given to have the regulations for the fisheries prepared by commissioners who were to be appointed afterwards. There is no secret, there is no law of diplomacy, there is no rule of negotiation of treaties that would have been broken by the minister giving to the House, or to the fishery officers, or to the fishermen, a copy of the proposed draft and regulations in order to obtain the best knowledge he could, so that when Prof. Prince went he could be armed at all points with sufficient knowledge to make his agreement with the other commissioners. My hon. friend (Mr. Jameson) is absolutely right when he says that the regulations themselves had nothing at all to do with the treaty negotiations, or with the secrecy and courtesy which should surround treaty negotiations.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I do not agree with my hon. friend. The treaty which was made between the United States and Canada was twofold. At first, a treaty was made providing for the framing of regulations by a commission; that was a treaty by itself. Now, the second treaty was the regulations themselves.


George Eulas Foster: Is that a treaty?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, that is a treaty by itself, because it required negotiations to be carried on between the two commissioners as to the way those regulations were to be framed. Those two commissioners were carrying on negotiations between them as to the best regulations to be adopted.


George Eulas Foster: The negotiations were not going on between the two^ governments, but between the two commissioners.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: They were between representatives of the two governments. Those gentlemen had to frame regulations which, after they were agreed upon, would be considered as a treaty between those two commissioners and between representatives of the two governments. My hon. friend will see that if, on the American side as well as on the Canadian side, the negotiations were published broadcast which were being carried out, we would never have been able to reach an agreement as to the regulations. I say it would have been absolutely impossible to have come to an agreement. What should have been done, in view of the fact that the agreement or the understanding was not absolutely a treaty? Did we not require at least that these negotiations should be

carried on secretly, negotiations which were going to bring as their result these regulations? I would certainly say yes. If we were to have proper regulations it was necessary that the negotiations should be carried on privately and secretly. When I approached the provincial authorities to discuss the regulations I put in their hands a draft which was private, with the formal understanding that this document should be kept absolutely secret. If we had proceeded in any other way we never would have been able to have reached any agreement. The most serious difficulties have sprung up as a result of some indiscretion which has been committed. I expect we will be able to reach a conclusion, because this treaty is of the greatest interest to Canada, and is in the interest of the fisheries, not only of Canada, but of the United States. I think it is in the interest of the two countries that these fisheries .should be regulated. They were not regulated before, and I think it is of the utmost importance that we should have uniform regulations. The only way to reach a conclusion was to have the commission sitting secretly upon the preparation of these regulations.


Mr. J. D. TAYLOR.: At this late stage of the session I did not intend to again refer to this fishery matter, although perhaps the riding of New Westminster _ is more interested in it than any other riding in Canada. But, since the discussion has come up again, I wish to dissent most emphatically from the theory laid down by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries that it is a proper proceeding to dispose of the control of our fisheries for a period of five years certainly, and probably for nine years, without a word of reference to parliament or without giving parliament a chance to pronounce upon the proposed regulations. I do not think it adds to the value of this discussion to constantly import into it the statement that the govern-men of Ontario had committed a breach of some sort of etiquette in making public information placed in their hands. For my part I do not think it becomes his to discuss the conduct of the government of Ontario and I think we might very well abide by the doctrine laid down here this morning that in their House they are supreme, as we are in our House, and that we should therefore let them conduct their business in their own way.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Will my hon. friend say that they were justified in publishing a confidential document first and afterwards giving that document as being the regulations when the regulations had never been agreed upon?


James Davis Taylor: I do not think I am called upon to answer a hypothetical question as to whether or not they were justi-Mr. BRODEUR.
fled in publishing a confidential document, but I will say this that the Ontario government were more than justified in giving this information to the public. When they found that the proposition of the American commissioner had been placed in the hands of fishermen from one end of the United States to the other, so that the commissioner might have the benefit of the advice of the fishery experts of the United States, it became the bounden duty of the government of Ontario, having become possessed of information which had been spread broadcast through the United States to have it printed so that the fishermen on the Canadian side of the boundary might be made aware of what was going on.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Will my hon. friend state that they were justified in giving that document as being the regulations themselves?


George Taylor: Does the minister know that they ever had the document? They might have taken it from the newspapers. It was published in all the papers.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The hon. member for New Westminster brought before the House the other day a document purporting to contain the regulations adopted under the treaty of 1908 which was published under the authority of the Ontario government, and it appears that this document was a confidential document which had been prepared by Mr. Jordan as his first proposal.


George Taylor: How does the minister know that the Ontario government ever saw the document that the hon. member for New Westminster had?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It bears the imprint of the Ontario government.


George Eulas Foster: There is a statement from Dr. Reaume himself, and now that the matter is up, perhaps it would be well to have it read. It is as follows:


The Hon.   L@: Biodeur Minister of Marine and Fisheries, is reported in yesterday's papers as making certain comments regarding myself. The minister's purpose is obvious. By doing this he hopes to turn attention from the real issue.
Well, let him explain how it occurred that every commercial fishing company in the province of Ontario had in its possession a copy of the draft of the treaty months before one came to the Department of Fisheries of Ontario. The first copy to reach here from Ottawa came on January 29, after repeated written and verbal requests had been made.
Certain Amercian newspapers and one Toronto paper had published the text of the treaty some days before this.
When the copy of the treaty from Ottawa did reach here there were no less than three copies that had come here through various persons.

Mr. Brodeur will recall that I directed his attention to this while in Ottawa a fortnight later at the conference.
The province of Ontario would have no apologies to offer had it given out this information. It was Ontario property which was being sacrificed by the treaty-makers.
The depleted fishing grounds of Lake Michigan had been accepted in exchange for the world's richest fresh water fishing grounds in the Georgian bay.
Americans were given the privilege of taking fish and spawn from our spawning grounds at Pelee and Long Point for the restocking of inland streams in the United States.
Another of those give and take-we give and the Americans take-clauses permitted Americans to fish in treaty waters on a permit issued by the United States Commission, and from which the people of Canada derive no financial benefit.
Lastly, the federal government's action involved the control by the federal authorities of Ontario's great lakes fisheries, a property, the ownership of which has been pronounced to rest in the province of Ontario by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of England.
The draft sent by the Ottawa departmentwhich has since undergone certain qualifications-has never been given out.
That is the statement made by Dr. Reaume.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Dr. Reaume is speaking of the treaty?


George Eulas Foster: Yes.


Mr BRODEUR.: The treaty was made in 1908. He 'Certainly makes a mistake when he speaks of the treaty. What he is speaking of are the regulations.


George Eulas Foster: You called it the treaty. You faced me down on that.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, but I want it made absolutely clear before the committee in order that there will not be any misunderstanding. When he speaks of the treaty I suppose he means the regulations?


Robert Laird Borden: I would think so.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I have just received the following telegram from Dr. Rheaume:
I regret that it seems necessary for me to repeat that no document, or statement or paper of any description received from you, or from any department of the Dominion government, referring to the proposed waterways treaty or any other subject, was published by me or by my directions, or ,b.y or through any member of the Ontario government or any official thereof, and I ask you to read the denial in the House of Commons.
Be says that he has not published any document or statement coming from me. What I stated was that he had published a document issued by Dr. Jordan which was marked 'confidential', not a document which had come from me and that he had published that document as being the regulation adopted by the International Fisheries Commission. My bon. friend from New Westminster (Mr. J. D. Taylor) has the hook in his possession and he knows that the document bears the imprint of the Ontario government. Dr. Rheaume says that he has not published any statement or paper of any description received from me or any department of this government. That is true. He has not published a document coming from me, but what I said was that he had published a document coming from Dr. Jordan which was marked 'confidential' and at the same time he had published that document as being a document containing the regulations adopted by the commission.


George Eulas Foster: How does the minister know that? I


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: By the document which has been read by the hon. member for New Westminster. The document is in the hands of that! hon. gentleman, bearing the imprint of the Ontario government and of the King's Printer and bearing the arms of the province of Ontario. I do not know how he got it.


George Eulas Foster: What is the document?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It is the confidential first draft proposal made by Dr. Jordan to the government here.


George Taylor: And that was published in the papers of the United States and Dr. Rheaume says he copied it.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Admitting that it was published in the United States, does that justify the publication of a confidential document by Dr. Rheaume, and, secondly, was he justified in publishing that document as the regulations adopted by the Fisheries Commission? That is what I complain of, because it places the government before the country as having adopted regulations which I for my part would not concur in.


Robert Laird Borden: Does the minister say that Dr. Jordan sent to Dr. Rheaume a document under the seal of confidence, and that Dr. Rheaume violated that confidence by publishing it?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No, he says it came from a different source. But the document was marked confidential.


George Eulas Foster: How does the minister know?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Because the document we have ourselves is marked confidential. He does not deny that in his telegram. What he does deny is that he ever published any document coming from me or my department. That is true; but what I complain of is that he published that draft proposal which was marked confidential, and

that he gave out that document as being the regulations adopted by the two commissioners when such a document had never been adopted by them.


Robert Laird Borden: Does the minister mean that if Dr. Jordan prepared a document and caused it to be published in all the newspapers of the United States, it cannot be published in the press of this country or by the Ontario government simply because it is marked confidential?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Perhaps the Ontario gov-enment thought they were justified in publishing it because they had seen it in the public press of the United States; but they had no right to put forth that document as being the regulations adopted by the commission.


Robert Laird Borden: Then it seems we have got rid of everything except the minister's statement that the Ontario government published the document as purporting to be something which it did not turn out to be. In what way did they do that?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The document which was published under the authority of the government of Ontario, and had the imprint of the King's Printer of Ontario, contained regulations which were given out as being the regulations adopted by the commission.


Robert Laird Borden: It may have been published with the imprint of the King's Printer and still contained no such representations as the minister declares. The very fact that it had the imprint of the King's printer amounts to nothing. We seem to have got rid of the question of. breach of confidence. The only point is, was there any untrue representation in this document? I ask, in what terms was that untrue representation contained?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The terms in which there was an untrue representation were that this document was sent to the country as being the regulations made pursuant to the convention between the United States and Canada on the 11th of April, 1908.


George Eulas Foster: That is all right.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No, that is not all right. The Ontario government has published this document as being the regulation.


George Eulas Foster: What did they say that made it appear to be the regulation?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Let my hon. friend see the document for himself. I invite the hon. member for Westminster to hand it over to the hon. member for North Toronto, and I am sure that he will be satisfied that this document, which was simply the draft proposal of Dr. Jordan, the American commissioner, was given out to the public as


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: the regulations adopted by the two commissioners.


Robert Laird Borden: Did the Ontario government, in publishing that document, make any change in the document which was published in the press of the United
States?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I do not know whether they made any changes or not, but I know that they represented that these were the regulations of the commission when the commissioners had never decided that.


James Davis Taylor: It seems to me that we are getting into the debating society habit of discussing the crossing of the ' t's ' and the dotting of the ' i ' and the grammar of the official documents put before us, instead of paying attention to what is much more important, the principles involved in the documents. The minister has had a copy of the regulations issued by Dr. Starr Jordan, and marked confidential. He has not told us whether or not they were identical with those which I had the pleasure of showing him the other day, or whether the only difference between that document and the other was that the word confidential was omitted. It occurs to me that that might-very well be the case, and that when the Ontario government reprinted that, thev might have adopted the heading at which the minister takes offence as well as the body of the matter, which so far as I can learn is identical in all respects with what was issued by Dr. Jordan. It appears to me that the headingcouldnotdeceive any person, because nobody would bother with the pamphlet who did not know that the regulations were still in course of negotiation, and that therefore the document which was issued for their consideration and advice could not possibly be the completed regulations. The moment they were the completed regulations, no person on earth could have any object in putting them out for the sake of getting advice, because, as I have pointed out over and over again, whenever they are finally agreed upon by the commissioners, it is entirely beyond our power to do anything with them no matter how fatal they may be to any Canadian interest.
I would recall to the minister how this matter first became public, because it was a subject of communication with his department as far back as last December, when I learned from the press of the United States of the nature of the regulations proposed by Professor Starr Jordan and submitted by him to the Canadian Commissioner. The press of Canada had at that time no information as to the attitude of the then Canadian Commissioner, Mr. Bastedo. We in British Columbia had no reason to have confidence in Mr. Bastedo's judgment because we knew nothing about him; he might be an excellent man but he had

no local knowledge of our questions. When we saw in British Columbia that these regulations had been drafted and had been given to the authorities on the American side, I wrote to the Minister of Marine and asked him if it would not be the part of wisdom to take the advice of some person *cognizant of the fisheries of British Columbia before the regulations were made finally. I was particularly anxious on this point because I knew that in the past the department had made grevious error because of 'the lack of information as to local conditions. I received a reply that the department had all the information they wanted and did not propose to consult any one else in British Columbia.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The hon. gentleman is absolutely mistaken in that respect.


James Davis Taylor: If the hon. minister will permit me, I think I can anticipate what he would like to say. I have that letter in my possession. About two weeks after receiving that letter, I received from the department another communication of very different tenor, to the effect that they then intended to consult the fishery interests in British Columbia, that Professor Prince would be out there to take the advice of persons in our vicinity who were interested, and the department were good enough then to send me a confidential draft of the proposed regulations. The reason I say that parliament should discuss a matter of this kind is because it is part of my duty as a member of parliament to do the best I can for the fishermen on the Fraser. It is a local grievance in the constituency of New Westminster that our fisheries have been mismanaged for many years past and it is very largely because I have been prominent in urging certain reforms in connection with the fisheries that, I am haPPy to say, I received so generous a support as I did from the fishermen on the Fraser river. I came here with the honest desire to serve them by securing the best conditions I could for the fishermen. I did not want to make political capital as was shown by my letter to the minister in which I suggested a course which they might take to avoid mistakes. But when I come to the House of Commons to see what I can do by explaining local conditions I am confronted by the fact made known for the first time that this treaty adopted last year and never discussed or explained in this House, by its terms absolutely ties up our fisheries the moment those two commissioners set their seal on any set of regulations, placing it beyond our power for the whole term of this parliament to make any alteration in the regulations governing the fisheries in the international waters and as proposed
by these regulations also in the waters of the Fraser river. I submit that is not a proper position in which to place any member from a fishery riding. I come here and tmd that one of the most important matters which it is my duty to discuss in this House has been taken out of the hands of parliament, and handed over to whom? To an American so astute as Professor David Starr Jordan of whose record we are so well aware in connection with the seal industry on the Pacific coast, resulting so disastrously to the Canadian seal industry on that coast. When we see such a condition it is sufficient to cause us to take every step possible to ascertain what is being done and to ensure that there should be the fullest discussion, and that if we are to pay the penalty for allowing these regulations to be drawn up by an astute American with the advice of every fishery expert m the United States we shall make it so clear, by our protests in this House, that this is contrary to the spirit of the Canadian people, and so that we will not be confronted with a similar injustice in the future.
Three provisions of these draft regulations fire absolutely fatal to the fishery interests on the Fraser. The first of these propositions is that for all time the close season on the Fraser shall be 24 hours longer than at the gulf, a provision which would absolutely shut out the white fishermen of the Fraser river from the benefit of the sockeye industry there.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Where does my hon. friend find that there is a longer close season there than elsewhere?


James Davis Taylor: It certainly is in the regulations, as I read to the House the other night, where it is set out there is a 24 hour extension of the close season from the New Westminster bridge to Mission.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Which document is that?
Mr, J- D. TAYLOR. The proposition to which I take exception, the proposed American regulations.
Mr- BRODEUR. The regulations proposed by the Americans. Why does he say it is the regulations?


James Davis Taylor: If the minister will permit me, I am not now making an exposition of the most expert use of the English language, but I do not think any one in the House can possibly misunderstand my meaning. I am referring to only one set of regulations, and I say there is no point in the minister's objection, because it has been the policy of his department to adopt the same principle in his regulations. That

was enforced last year and this year there is a discrimination, not of 24 hours, but I believe of 6 hours, although those who are experts on the subject say there is no reason for any discrimination. The minister fails to grasp the essential fact that there are two directly conflicting interests there, the interest of the trap-owners, that is the moneyed interests, the European and American capital invested in British Columbia fisheries, which employs Japanese and Chinese labour almost exclusively. On the other hand there is the interest which I say should be paramount in this direction, the interest of the resident white fishermen of the Fraser, who fish in the stretch of the Fraser from New Westminister to Mission. Unfortunately, for many years past the whole trend of the regulations issued by the department at Ottawa has been in favour of the moneyed interest, the Japanese and Chinese, the Japanese more particularly, as against the white fishermen.^ That is a matter of protest with us,^ that is an injustice, which these regulations as drafted by the Americans and drafted on the lines of the departmental policy of years past would have continued for five years or perhaps nine or perhaps for ever, because by that time you would have extinguished the race of white fishermen on the Fraser.
There is another point vital to us to which the minister has made no reference in any of his addresses, that is the matter of trap fishing as to which it is_ not yet too late .for him to take some action. I know that for many years it was contrary to the policy of this government to permit the use of traps and that they were allowed finally with the greatest reluctance and on the statement that only by the use of traps could we protect ourselves against the ravages of the Americans, who, without regard to the damage these traps cause, established them in the waters of Puget Sound to take the sockeyes on their way to the Fraser river. When two governments enter into a treaty for the conservation of international fisheries and when one government, the American government, has. a special clause inserted in the treaty itself binding the government of Great Britain to take special steps to conserve the food fishes of the Fraser river, I say that it becomes our duty to have a counterbalancing clause in the treaty; and if not in the treaty, from which it was _ omitted, I presume, because of the ignorance of the parties making it of local conditions, then in the regulations. Our commissioner should be induced to say to the Americans, that since they are bent on the conservation of the fisheries of the Fraser, and this is the main idea of including this stream in their regulations, then they must agree to abandon the disastrous Mr. J. D. TAYLOR.
method of catching these fish which they have adopted, and which from the first has been a subject of protest on our part.
I would recall to the minister that he had ample precedent in connection with the sealing industry, where the Americans made our seal hunters abandon a most profitable livelihood on the_ pretense that their methods were destructive to the life of the seal. We listened to their counsel and were virtually forced by the British government to yield to their demand. If our government had gone before the British authorities with a statement of the facts respecting the sealing industry and asked them to apply the doctrine laid down by the Americans in that connection to the sock-eye salmon industry, we could have forced the Americans to consent to our view and abandon the use of their traps. That is a point which might well receive the consideration of the minister and is much more wrorthy the consideration of this House than the question as to whether or not the Ontario government were guilty of some breach of etiquette.
I would again urge upon the minister, as I did the other night, that it is not yet too late to instruct our commissioner to insist that no treaty respecting salmon on the Pacific coast shall be made, or no regulations, unless the Americans agree to abandon the methods they now pursue.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This treaty should certainly be of great benefit to the fishermen on the Fraser river because the fish, after spawning in the Fraser river, go into the sea and come back through the straits of San Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound and Washington Inlet, to the Fraser river. The Americans were using traps on their side and took a very large quantity of fish which otherwise would have gone up the Fraser, and we tried to get the State authorities of Washington Territory to pass regulations in order to stop that practice, but unfortunately were not successful. The best thing we could do was to try and get a treaty with the United States by which regulations would be made on both sides that would prevent the destruction of the fish. We made a treaty by which those waters were put under the control of the commission, and that commission was to prepare uniform regulations for both sides. My hon. friend finds fault with that. I say that the government ought to be commended for having succeeded in getting a treaty which is going to be of great benefit to the fishermen on the Fraser, as otherwise the Fraser river fisheries would have been destroyed by the Americans who had practically no regulations. We have had criticisms based on what? On that famous document which has been spread over the

whole country as being the regulations adopted by the commission. Let us wait until the regulations are brought before parliament. Then will be the time to criticise, and I am sure there will then not be many to find fault.


Mr. HENDERSON.: The minister asks us to wait until the regulations come before parliament, but will not that be too late? We will be told that we have no right to alter but only to approve or reject.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The government will have to take the responsibility of these regulations.


David Henderson: But the unfortunate thing is that the minister, though he may know his duties well in ordinary matters, cannot be familiar with this. So technical is this question that I am told by a fisherman in my county, of 38 years'_ experience, with regard to sisco fish, that if the mesh be increased by one-eighth of an inch that would mean starvation to the fishermen. It is important that the government should be thoroughly informed, and that is the reason why these regulations should be made public as the negotiations go on.
I do not believe in all this secrecy about a matter that means life and death to my constituents. I want to be able to point out where their interests are interfered with, but how can I do that if kept in the dark until the thing is done. I care nothing of what may have been the custom in vogue years ago, we have to make new precedents in dealing with new matters, and it would be far better if the proposed regulations were made known in Canada, as well as in the United States, and keep our peoDle informed of what is being done, so that they may find fault with the regulations if there is any fault to be found, and approve of them if they think they are right.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: They have not been submitted to any legislature in the United States.


David Henderson: No, but I believe from what we have heard of the matter here that they have been practically submitted to the people. These regulations, no doubt, have gone broadcast over the United States. The}- have been published in the newspapers, and the people generally have become aware of what the propositions are. This document may have been marked 'confidential/ but I think it was a wise thing to have these proposed regulations made known to the people as a whole. I think it was a mistake that regulations proposed on our side were not given to the people before being crystallized into legislation. I have great confidence in Prof.
Prince, and I know that on certain points he has excellent information, but, on the whole, I think that nothing would be lost and a great deal gained by making the regulations public before they are adopted.


George Taylor: I desire to ask the minister if, in this treaty which is about to be made, if not made, any attention has been paid to the treaty or arrangement that was come to between the two governments some years ago. I do not know that it ever was reduced to writing, but it certainly has been put in practice. Some years ago, when the Conservatives were in power, representatives from the state of New York and from the general government of the United States came to Ottawa and waited on the Minister of Marine and Fisheries of that day, and proposed setting apart the Thousand Islands district from Kingston to Prescott on the Canadian side, and from Cape Vincent to Ogdensburg on the American side for the creation of an international park, with free fishing for the people of the United States in Canadian waters and for Canadians in American waters. The state of New York and the Dominion were to set aside large sums of money to purchase islands, build docks and erect pavilions at suitable places on either side of the line. These things have been done, the islands have been set apart and the docks and pavilions provided. Another point was that the American government were to suspend the enforcement of the alien labour law against Canadians rowing tourists in American waters. The state government had no power to control the alien labour law, but the federal government gave instructions to their officers not to enforce the law. And it has never been enforced in that section since that time. Some years ago, when the complete control of fisheries was taken from the Dominion government and in part handed over to the provinces an attempt was made by the government of Ontario, then led by Hon. Mr. Ross, to withdraw these privileges. But when it was shown that a bargain had been made between the Dominion government and the state of New York and the general government of the United States, Mr. Ross withdrew the orders he had given to enforce the fishery regulations in these waters. Since then, free fishing has been allowed uninterruptedly. But now regulations have been put out by the Ontario government as follows:
Toronto, Canada, April 23, 1909.
Regulations as to guides and non-residents licenses.
Canadian and American guides must take out a license. Fee two dollars ($2.00).
Non-residents must take out a rod license. Fee two dollars ($2.00).
{REVISED EDITION

American guides fishing from yachts or their own skiffs are considered as non-residents and must take out a rod license; fee two dollars ($2.00) over and above the guide license fee of $2.00.
Non-residents fishing from yachts, or boats brought over by yachts, must pay a rod license of five dollars ($5.00) whether they employ American guides or not. If they employ American guides the license fee is the same, viz., five dollars ($5.00).
Non-residents using Canadian boats with or without Canadian guides pay a rod license of two dollars ($2.00).
(Sgd.) E. TINSLEY,
Superintendent.
This is certainly a violation of the pact entered into; though it was never reduced to writing, though the terms of it are on record in the Marine and Fisheries Department, and they have been carried out in good faith since it was made.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The regulations are not issued by us.


George Taylor: No, hut by the Ontario government. But they affect these waters. I certainly think that the international commission should take cognizance of this and have this idea of an international park carried on as it has been. The government of the state of New York has spent large amounts of money on the strength of the arrangement that was made. I think the attention of the international commission should be drawn to the matter and the bargain thus made should be lived up to to the letter.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This matter has already received the consideration of Professor Prince. I shall be glad to bring to his attention the suggestions that have just been made. However, it is a very big question, as my hon. friend (Mr. Geo. Taylor) will see. The Ontario government have proprietary rights in the fisheries, and if they do not wish to carry out the arrangement I do not see how we can force them to do it. I would urge my hon. friend to see the authorities in Ontario and try to cause them to recede from the position they have taken. I certainly should hesitate, considering the feeling in favour of provincial rights, about suggesting to the commission that they should wipe out the regulations of the Ontario government.


George Taylor: The Dominion government ought to carry out its arrangement even if it has to pay the Ontario government the small amount that it would gain from these licenses.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I know the hon. member is friendly to the Ontario government and would have more chance than I would have to impress upon them the advisability of carrying out this arrangement made before the judgment of the Privy Council. I


George Taylor: quite agree with my hon. friend that it should be carried out. But, unfortunately, by the judgment of the Privy Council the province of Ontario received rights in the fisheries and, judging by what they have said, they do not seem willing to carry out this international agreement.


George Taylor: It was the Dominion government that made the bargain when they thought they had control. Now that they find that this other government has a proprietary right, they should settle with the Ontario government for the amount of these license fees and so be free to carry out the agreement. We must keep faith with the Americans. They have not enforced the alien labour law against our people. At first, they undertook to introduce a law withdrawing the alien labour law so far as this section is concerned, but they did not want to raise again the labour trouble all over the United States, and so they simply agreed not to enforce it. Consequently, our oarsmen are engaged constantly in rowing visitors at their summer resorts. But if this regulation is put in effect by the Ontario government, I am satisfied the Americans will enforce the alien labour law. I sincerely trust that this government will say to the Ontario government: We made this bargain, we are responsible for it, and if you are going to suffer the loss of a few dollars, we will make it right.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I will draw the attention of the Ontario government to that fact, as I have on a previous occasion when my hon. friend called my attention to it.
Contingencies, $14,950.


Mr. EDWARDS.: I desire to draw the attention of the minister to a subject which perhaps has escaped his attention. In the eastern part of the province of Ontario we have a great many fresh water lakes. In recent years a great many people have been coming across to these lakes in summer to fish, and as they spend money freely this means quite a source of profit to the people in the vicinity. I think that many of those lakes should be re-stocked with fish. I dare say that the minister has received, and will receive, applications for fry for several of those lakes, and I would impress upon him the need of giving due attention to such requests. If these lakes are re-stocked it means a source of revenue to the people. The lakes are for the most part in regions which are rough and where the wood has been taken off, and the people have come to look upon the lakes as their most valuable asset. Many of my constituents in the northern part of the county of Frontenac are greatly interested in the re-stocking of these lakes. I think it would be a proper move to increase the number of fish hatcheries in the province of Ontario.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Will the hon. gentleman give me the names of the lakes, and the kind of fish that frequent them?


William Cameron Edwards: I will be glad to do so.
I think it would be a move in the right direction to establish another fish hatchery in eastern Ontario, and I would suggest the village of Sydenham, near the centre of the county of Frontenac, as it has good railway communication.
Lighthouse and coast service-salaries and allowances to lightkeepers, $233,433.


William Cameron Edwards: In connection with lighthouses, I would like to call the attention of the minister to the fact that there is a shoal in the neighbourhood of Howe island which ought to be protected. Dne of the lake captains himself for the past two or three years has placed a buoy on that shoal. It is on the Bay of Quinte near Howe island.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: In the main channel or on a side channel?


William Cameron Edwards: I will get the information.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: On this item I have a request to make of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. It appears that the Newfoundland government makes a charge for light dues on Canadian vessels frequenting their ports of so much per ton, while Canada makes no charge for Newfoundland vessels coming to Canadian ports. Besides that, Canada spends a considerable sum of money in erecting and maintaining lights on the Newfoundland coast; last year I believe there was expended for that purpose $35,000 or $40,000. I think the government of Newfoundland should abolish the exaction of light dues as against Canadian vessels, and I would like the minister to take this matter up with the Newfoundland government.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I will do so.
West coast trail on Vancouver island, $25,000.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This west coast trail was begun some two years ago after the accident to the 'Valentia'. We were requested by the people of Victoria to erect that trail on the west coast, it is an unsettled part of the country, and there is no way of communicating with the interior. The people at public meetings and the provincial authorities have requested us to build that trail.
For the settlement of the claim made by Mrs. A. G. Clarke for the death of her son, who was killed in 1906, $2,000.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The reason of the delay is that action was taken against us and 221 i
some difficulties arose between the heirs and some of the legatees. I understand those difficulties have been settled and we wish this sum of money to be put at out disposal to settle the claim if possible. I do not know whether they will accept it.
Meteorological service-amount required to remunerate L. F. Gorman for his services as meteorological observer at Ottawa, $300.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: This service used to be performed by Mr. Bond. It is being carried on by a person going out there at night, and early in the morning, and on Sundays, and taking observations. It has been suggested that Mr. Gorman should carry out this work.
' Amount required to pay W. S. Young for services in collecting whitefish eggs in Lake Winnipeg during the fall of 1908, $100.


George Eulas Foster: How does that come?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: He is our inspector in the west. I am sorry to say that the man in the hatchery did not have sufficient experience to collect these eggs and Mr. Young was instructed to collect them. He had to be away from his place.
Civil government-department of agriculture-to provide for one additional appointment in subdivision ' B ' of the first division, $2,100.


George Eulas Foster: What is this for?


Hon. SYDNEY FISHER (Minister of Agriculture).: This is for a new officer at the experimental farm. Dr. Fletcher died not very long ago. He was the entomologist and botanist. Dr. Saunders recommended that there should be two officers instead of one. The main estimates provided for Dr. Fletcher's salary and now I am asking for a second vote.


George Eulas Foster: Are you going to have two bug men?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: One entomologist and one botanist.
To provide for one additional appointment in subdivision ' B * of the second division, $800.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What is that for?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: That is an additional assistant. I think he is to do work under Dr. Charles Saunders, whose work has been enlarging very much lately.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: In what line?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Dr. Saunders is the cereal-ist and is carrying on experiments in the hybridizing of plants.


Mr. BLAIN.: Does the minister propose to improve the appearance of the experimental farm during the coming summer? There is rather a general complaint that

the appearance of the farm is hardly equal to. what it should be and that it does not compare favourably with experimental farms in some of the provinces, for example, the experimental farm at Guelph. I know my hon. friend is disposed to be economical but I rather think that the people of Canada would be willing that an expenditure should be made that would make the farm look more inviting. This is a matter that should receive some personal attention from the minister.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I shall be very glad to look into the matter and see if anything can be done to make the farm more attractive.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Is there any permanent arrangement between the government and the Ottawa Street Railway Company to have the street cars running to the farm
soon ?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: They have been running for six months.
Arts, agriculture and statistics-to provide *^P^r 1 men t s ip cold storage for fruit, -p/,(XK).


George Eulas Foster: Is this a new thing?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes, somewhat. We have been very strongly urged to try some experiments in packing fruit in cold storage for transportation. I hope to be able to make arrangements by which the officers of my department will supervise the handling of fruit in the same way that they supervise tne handling of cheese in cool curing stations. There has been a very general demand for this work and I have in process an arrangement between the commissioner who is in charge of the work and some of the fruit growing associations in Ontario to provide for experiments in putting fruit into cold storage.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The cold storage that we have been using seems to be extremely defective and the amount of perishable products carried in cold storage has been very small. If cold storage is of any value at all it should be able to keep the fruit in good condition during the process of transportation and yet it does not do that. Evidently those who handle fruit have no confidence in it because there is very little fruit sent in cold storage to-day. We seem to be quite unsuccessful in our efforts in giving to the people of this country food protected by cold storage, or cooled air, or whatever system of refrigeration is employed by other countries.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: It is to try to show the value of cold storage that these experiments are to be undertaken.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: You have been doing that for thirteen or fourteen years but without result.
Mr. BLAIN


Sydney Arthur Fisher: The people have not taken advantage of cold storage facilities in Ontario to the extent that they might have. We want to be able to prove their value by a series of experiments.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: But every time an effort is made to show what can be done with this process the people get discouraged and abandon it.


Adam Brown Crosby: Is the minister also in correspondence with fruit growers associations in Nova Scotia with reference to these experiments?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: The associations I spoke of are fruit growers co-operative organizations; which are not the same as fruit growers' associations, which discuss matters relating to fruit growing, but organizations which handle the trade themselves. There does not happen to be any of these organizations in Nova Scotia at the present time, but I hope there will be some formed soon.
Arts, agriculture and statistics-to provide for expense of commission to investigate the swine industry of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Denmark, and the cost of publication of their report, $10,01)0.


Richard Blain: How many will comprise this deputation and how will they be selected?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I think that I shall have to send five. I would like to be content with three but I think that Ontario will supply two, Quebec one, the maritime provinces one, and the west one. Then, I will have to send a secretary, or an officer of the department, to make up the report, keep the notes and attend to everything of that kind. If I can manage to do with three I will be^ glad to do so.


Richard Blain: What will be their duties?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: To investigate everything in connection with the pork production and marketing in these countries.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Will they go outside the country?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: They will visit Ireland and Denmark for the purpose of investigating the business in those countries, to see if they can get any hints for the improvement of our industry.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would suggest that they extend their inquiry to Chicago and the west_ where the industry appears to he quite up to date, in fact very much ahead of ours in handling animal products. They might get information there which they could not get anywhere else.


Richard Blain: Will this be the total cost of the commission?

698G


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I hope so, I expect so.


David Henderson: To my mind the most important thing the minister can do in connection with the hog industry is to find out where we can sell more products.
I think the people of this country know pretty well how to slaughter hogs and how to pack them. I do not know that we can learn much on these matters from Ireland or Denmark. What we want is a greater market.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: We do not supply the British market to anything like the extent we might.


David Henderson: Well, the minister might do something about getting it.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


PRIVATE BILLS.
[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 194) for the relief of Annie Bowden.-Mr. Wallace.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee of Supply.
Working expenses-Intercolonial Railway, $9,400,000.
['The commission have had a small press set up for the purpose of printing the examination papers confidentially. They desire a person who will be able to work in both French and English, and who, when not otherwise engaged, will do clerical work in the office.\nSome resolutions reported.']
George Perry Graham: This is an apparent increase of $400,000. As a matter of fact the expenditure last year was nearly $9,200,000.
I move to reduce this item by $150,000.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
National Transcontinental Railway-surveys and constructions, $20,000,000.
['This is an apparent increase of $400,000. As a matter of fact the expenditure last year was nearly $9,200,000.\nI move to reduce this item by $150,000.']
George Perry Graham: We discussed this at great length on the Grand Trunk Pacific loan resolution. I placed on the table earlier in the session, an interim report for the nine months ending January 1, giving the details and progress of the work to December 31. Since that date two contracts have been given after public tenders were invited, and in each case to the lowest tenderer; one for stations, buildings, section and tool houses along, the line from Superior Junction to Winnipeg. This was given to J. J. Vopni & Co., of Winnipeg, for $118,743.63. There were four tenderers.


George Henry Bradbury: Were any changes made in the contract after it was let?


George Perry Graham: No. The other was for building of shops at Winnipeg, let to Heney, Roberts & Quinlan for $869,000. There were nine tenderers. The estimate of the chief engineer was $857,349.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: When are the contracts to be finished?


George Perry Graham: September 1, 1910. Tin; stations are to be completed this fall for the traffic.


Richard Blain: I asked the hon. the Finance Minister who are the directors of the Grand Trunk Pacific Construction Company, and he sent me a memo stating that the names of the directors are Charles M. Hays, F. W. Morse, W. J. Biggar and D'Arcy Tait. I understand that there is a construction company, which may have another name, whose directors are the same as these mentioned.


George Perry Graham: I think there is no Grand Trunk Pacific Construction Company.


Richard Blain: I asked who are the directors of the Grand Trunk Pacific Construction Company, and the answer was that there is no such company under that name. But is there not a company for some portion of the eastern branch?


George Perry Graham: I am under the impression that it is the Grand Trunk Pacific itself which is constructing that.


Haughton Lennox: With reference to the arbitration proceedings between the Grand Trunk Pacific and the government, it was expected that considerable progress would be made by April 1, and it was thought at one time that they would be able to report as to the differences arising on the question of classification. In what position is the matter now?


George Perry Graham: Mr. Schreiber starts tomorrow to enter on that work.
Mr. FOSTER I would like to ask a question with reference to one of the preceding items. I do not think the minister has given any information yet, in any extended way, as to what this new commission, which has .been placed in charge of the Intercolonial Railway,, has to do. Will he give us an idea of what its powers are?


George Perry Graham: I may say that it is largely an experiment, and I hope it will be successful. I did lay on the table a few days ago a copy of the order in council, but will place it on 'Hansard' now. The essential provisions of the order in council are these:
A board to be constituted under the name of ' The Government Managing Board.' The said board to consist of four persons, namely:-	.


Mr.  M. J.@: Butler, deputy minister and chief engineer of the Department of Railways and Canals, who shall be chairman of the board; Mr. David Pottinger, I.S.O.; Mr. E. Tiffin, the present traffic manager, he retaining that position; Mr. F. T. Brady, of Montreal.
The said board to supervise and direct all departments of the railway owned or oper-' ated by the government-of Canada.

The duties and powers of the said board to be as hereunder defined, namely:-
They shall have the powers usually vested in the executive of railway corporations.
They shall prepare, subject to the Government Railway Act and the Provident Fund Act, and, with the approval thereto of the Governor in Council first obtained, carry out rules and regulations, as follows:-
(a)	For the organization of the staff and officials of the railway.
(b)	For the conditions of employment in the railway service.
(o) For the purchasing of supplies and the sale of materials.
(d)	For the ascertaining and collection of the railway tolls, dues and revenues.
(e)	Those to be observed by the conductors, engine-drivers, other officers and servants, and by all companies and persons using such railways.
(f)	Those relating to the rolling stock to be used in the trains on such railway.
They shall meet for the transaction of business at least once a month and shall keep regular minutes of each meeting.
They shall report to the Minister of Railways and Canals monthly, and shall also make a special and comprehensive report at the end of the fiscal year on the expenditures and receipts of the government roads.
. And on all occurrences and transactions of importance, and shall further furnish such reports as may be from time to time required of them by the Department of Railways and Canals.
The salaries to be paid are $6,000 each, with the exception of the chairman who gets no extra remuneration. These salaries are the same as those received by Mr. Pottinger and Mr. Tiffin. The only new appointee is Mr. Brady, who gets the same salary as the others. Regulations, as provided for in one of these clauses, have been drafted providing in a large and comprehensive way for the management of the road by the board. They cover matters of detail, they are along the lines suggested by the board themselves, and I may say that I have not found occasion to change a single item in them from beginning to end. They have been approved by order in council.


George Eulas Foster: These are, practically speaking, the working rules of the road.


George Perry Graham: Yes, and the organization of the staff.


George Eulas Foster: They have the power of the executive of a railway corporation?


George Perry Graham: That is one of the rules, as I read them.


George Eulas Foster: Then, as I understand it, you abolish the present general managership and substitute these four gentlemen, the deputy minister being chairman. I suppose that means that meetings will take place in Ottawa?


George Perry Graham: Montreal, I think, would be more convenient.


George Perry Graham: 


George Eulas Foster: Has the Intercolonial offices there, with clerks, records and so on?


George Perry Graham: Yes, we have offices in the Board of Trade Building.


George Eulas Foster: The duties of the present deputy will be practically the same as they are now. He will be nominal chairman of the board, I suppose; the minister quite thinks as regards the real operating of the road, he will have no more to do with it than he has now, except that he will consult with and help the other members of the_ board. Then comes the question of their powers, and that is the main question. You have selected four, three of whom are road-runners and the other an engineer and deputy minister. To this board you are giving the powers of ' the executive of a railway corporation.' Now, the executive of a railway corporation are elected by the shareholders, who then go home and have no more to do with it until they receive a report a year afterward from the executive, the executive, meanwhile, having absolute power to control and carry on the work. If you have really given these men the powers of the executive of a railway corporation, you have given them power to run the road, subject, of course, to the laws of the land. But if that be so, why do you put them under the supervision and control of the Minister of Railways and Canals as though the shareholders of the corporation having elected their executive (if it were possible) united themselves as one big man and virtually said: Though you have these powers, do not dare to do anything without first getting my approval. It seems to me there is a clash there. If the minister had said: I have given these men powers of an executive of a railway corporation, and they are responsible; they need not come to me for milk every time they get faint-hearted, they have to make their own course; and at the end of the year, we will have an accounting, and if the service has been good, while we cannot say: 'Go up higher,' we will say :
' You have done well ; make a stunt at it for another year.' But is that really the position? Is it true that, let us say, the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil), the hon. member for L'Islet (Mr. Paquet), the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe), the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Rhodes)-no, he would have nothing to say about it-the hon. member for Pic-tou (Mr. E. M. Macdonald) and all the others and sundry have had the door banged shut against patronage-mongering, against interference with officials, against telling an official to put on Tom Jones to shovel gravel at a given rate per day- is all that passed away? Do we see the dawn of a new'day on the Intercolonial ? Have this executive really been given executive power? Will they be put upon their mettle to do the work as well as they can

and stand or fall by their record? I should like a general answer.


George Perry Graham: I can hardly make it 'clearer than I have endeavoured to express it in the order in council which I have read. If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) will ask any of the members particularly interested in the Intercolonial, either on one side or on the other of this House, I think he will be told that I received gladly all suggestions.


George Eulas Foster: From this side they would write as without hope.


George Perry Graham: I think if you ask them you will find that I have tried to meet their wishes since the formation of the board. I have invariably answered a request, whether coming from a member or anybody else, by saying :	The management of the Intercolonial is now in the hands of a board, and I shall have great pleasure in submitting to them what is your request.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Do you accompany that with a recommendation?


George Perry Graham: The records will show. If I thought the suggestion a good one fox the road, I would not hesitate to recommend it to the careful consideration of the board-I think that would be only my duty. As I said, this is largely an experiment. It is a wrench from the existing conditions. I hope it will be successful. My own idea is that this board should be responsible in the full sense for the running of this road.	The difference between a commission spoken of and this board, I think is in this-I think a minister of the Crown ought to be in a position to be absolutely responsible to parliament for the success or failure of this or any other project. It is because I felt this 'that I insisted that this board should report every thirty days; not that I would dictate, but because I want to keep in constant touch with the road, so that I may judge of the progress they are making and see whether this is a better form of management than the other and whether it i a success. I think that while we all have our weaknesses, my aim is to have the intercolonial Railway conducted absolutely by this board to give them a free hand so far as I can as responsible minister, ,and to make a success of this new departure.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What power have they with regard to rates?


Mr GRAHAM.: Full power except in this regard, tnat if they made a change of rates, the change has to be submitted to the Governor in Council instead of to the Railway Board.


George Eulas Foster: I can say to the minister that if I understand him right-and he has
been quite frank in telling us where he stands-if he has well chosen his men, he proposes to say to these gentlemen: Now, what you are to do is to manage that road in a businesslike way, as business men; he gives up the power of patronage, this board does not have anything to do in the way of forwarding the merely patronage aims or the aspirations of any member of parliament or candidate; that the condition of the road, its necessities, its best interests, are the first and only consideration; that he does not want the road _ overmanned or undermanned, if it is over-manned these gentlemen are held responsible for reducing it to its proper limits ; if it is under-manned, they are responsible for adding to it such men as will be suitable for the work, and will get their pay for it, and know that they ard not serving a political master, but are serving the interests of the country; that when these gentlemen want supplies they will be allowed to get supplies as a business man or a corporation gets them, they will not be given a list and told: You must deal only with those and not with others; they will recognize that there are other newspapers in the world except Grit newspapers, or, as we would say, government newspapers, and that if they want toi appeal to the public for supplies or anything e.lse, they will appeal to public journals generally, and recognize that there is quite a number of people in this country who read Conservative newspapers and get information from those newspapers. Now if all that takes place, I will watch the operation with great interest, and with unbounded hope that the Intercolonial will pay every one of its bills, that it will pay interest on the investment, and might lay up money, and not put any undue burden on the traffic, or the people of the country through which it passes. I am not anxious that it shall make money, but I think it ought to have a chance to prove that it can pay its way and keep itself in good condition, catering to its patrons as perhaps no other road in Canada can, in the way of facilities and cheapness, and at the same time, keep out of the slough of deficits and increased debt.	It	will be a happy	timeif that comes	during	the	first	twoor three years	of	the	work of	those'gentleman, and	it	will	be a	very big
and well painted feather in the cap of the Minister of Railways if he will allow all that to be done under his regime. I am entirely with him in this respect, that he would not be fit for his position unless he wanted to see every day what these gentlemen were doing, and just how the work was going on. I will look with a groat deal of interest to see if these gentlemen make good.


Mr SPROULE.: What line does Mr. Brady represent?


George Perry Graham: He is a man of large experience. He has risen from the station of operator to be superintendent of the division between Winnipeg and the east of the Canadian Pacific Railway. I have followed his record very closely. Since he started out he has never had what you may call a set back, with advancement at every stage.


George Eulas Foster: Is he a very healthy man?


George Perry Graham: He looks to be.


George Eulas Foster: Moderately good muscle?


George Perry Graham: He looks like a commissioner.
To provide for expenses connected with the park reservation, including revote of $80,000, $120,000.


Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Minister of the Interior):: Owing to the late date of this vote being brought forward, it will be necessary to make a change in it, and say that instead of the revote being $80,000, it will be only $30,000, as $50,000 has recently been paid out or set apart for the purpose of purchasing the remainder of the herd of buffalo for which we have been negotiating for some time, and which we expect to use within the next month.


George Eulas Foster: Tell us about the buffalo.


Frank Oliver: The hon. gentleman .is aware that some two years ago we entered into negotiations for the purchase of a large herd of buffalo from Montana. The price was $200 per head for every head delivered, and an allowance of $45 per head for transportation. Under the agreement there have been delivered 403 head.


George Eulas Foster: Was there any limit to the number?


Frank Oliver: We wished to buy the whole herd, and as the herd were running in the mountains there was very great difficulty in counting them. We estimated that there were 350 or 400, but when we came to round them up, we found that there were more than that. We have had delivered over 400 head and there are said to be 200 more. We cannot tell how many there are nor how many we will be able to get until it is put to the proof. We made an effort last summer to get the balance of the herd.


George Eulas Foster: There might be a thousand.


Frank Oliver: No, there is no probability of that. It was not possible to have an accurate count of the herd and we felt that it would add considerably to the commercial value of the purchase if we were the proprietors of the whole herd.


George Eulas Foster: Does that mean that there and no other buffalos south of the line?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: 


Frank Oliver: There is no other considerable herd. This is the only considerable herd that there is anywhere. We arranged with the owner that we would take them all except that he was to keep eight. We have to pay for them at the rate of $245 a head.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: That amounts to $98,735.


George Eulas Foster: What proportion are cows?


Frank Oliver: I could not answer that off-hand, but I think there is about an equal proportion. There is a fair proportion of cows, but the proportion is not as it would be in a domestic herd, because the males have not been disposed of separately.


George Eulas Foster: What does the minister propose to do with them?


Frank Oliver: The proposal is to retain them and have them increase the same as in the case of any ordinary herd of cattle. We believe that, in the first place, they are [DOT]of value as a natural curiosity and, in the next place, the experiment of undertaking to secure practically an unlimited increase of the herd is well worthy of the consideration of the country, because of the actual economic value of the animal and particularly of its hide.


George Eulas Foster: What extent of country is to be set apart as sufficient for them?


Frank Oliver: For those we have already secured we have an inclosure four miles square which is called Elk Park, about 15 miles from Fort Saskatchewan. This park was not fenced originally with the expectation of inclosing a herd of buffalo. The fence was erected with the expectation of inclosing a herd of elk and of securing the increase of the herd in the natural course. But about the time the fence was completed we were successful in our negotiation for the buffalo and we utilized that inclosure as the temporary home of the buffalo. But, we recognized that an area of four miles square was not sufficient for the large number of buffalo that we hoped to secure, nor was it in that part of the country that was most suited for the grazing of buffalo. We therefore selected an area equal to four townships in extent and which lay immediately by settlers and which lay immediately east of the Battle river at a point where the Battle river runs almost due north. The general course of the Battle river is east and west, but at one part of its course it runs almost due north and it is on that part that the Buffalo park lies. It lies between the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Wetaskawin branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway, immediately east of the Battle river, the area being approximately that of four townships. It is substantially fenced and is now ready to have the buffalo turned in. The remainder of the herd that we

are now attempting to secure will be brought directly to this park and inclosed there, and nearly all the buffalo that are now in the Elk park will be brought to the Buffalo park. This area of four townships is particularly well adapted to buffalo grazing and there will be ample room for the buffalo to propagate and live in their natural condition. We hope that they will increase satisfactorily and that the experiment will be a success.


George Eulas Foster: Do the buffalo feed themselves all the year round?


Frank Oliver: Not in the park where they are now.


George Eulas Foster: Will they in the other?


Frank Oliver: We expect that under ordinary circumstances they will, but we will always keep a supply of hay on hand in case of an extremely unfavourable season. It is in a part of the country, where, under ordinary conditions, the buffalo would graze satisfactorily without feed.


George Eulas Foster: What will be the yearly cost of feeding them?


Frank Oliver: I might mention that in that park there is certain low ground that produces hay. We do not expect that we will have to import or buy hay. We will be able to cut hay in the park itself.


George Eulas Foster: Is it an iron fence?


Frank Oliver: A wire fence.


George Eulas Foster: Will that keep them?


Frank Oliver: Yes, wire webbed double width and with tamarack posts. Except in the case of having to cut hay the cost will be merely the cost of two caretakers. There will be two entrances to the park, one from the Grand Trunk Pacific and one from the Canadian Pacific Railway, and there will be a caretaker at each entrance.


George Eulas Foster: Is it supposed that any revenue will later be derived from it.


Frank Oliver: It would be rather premature to discuss that matter at the present time. There has been no plan arrived at pending the securing of the whole herd. Once we have secured the whole herd, or all we can get of it we will lay our plans as to the disposition that is to be made of it as a source of profit. The hide alone at the present value is worth what the animals have cost us. So that I do not think we stand to lose on the transaction. Of course, if we slaughtered the whole or a large portion of the herd and put their hides on the market at once, it might break the price somewhat; but so far from the herd being a source of expense, I think there is no doubt it can be made a considerable source of revenue.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Does the hon. gentleman pretend to say that buffalo hides are now worth $240 apiece?


Frank Oliver: Yes, the hide and the head. A good bull head is worth almost anything if it is properly mounted.


Mr. LAKE.: I presume the minister has had an application from the province of Saskatchewan asking that an area of land be set aside for a park and game preservation. If he has, I hope he will take it into his best consideration. The suggestion is made that a portion of this herd of buffalo might be placed in that park; and as Saskatchewan, like Alberta, was the original home of the buffalo, and as we have in Saskatchewan no land at present reserved for park purposes as in the other provinces of the Dominion, I hope the minister will take the matter into his early consideration.


Frank Oliver: There are two park reservations in the province, of Saskatchewan which would be quite suitable as locations for parks for buffalo herds. Until we get the whole herd in our hands, we do not wish to make any disposition of it. Once we get the whole herd, we shall be prepared to consider the question of their disposition. A good many requests have come to us for some share of the herd, and it will be a mere matter of providing accommodation and the expense of caretaking. That is a matter we shall probably be able to consider at the next session of parliament.
Immigration-Salaries of agents and employees in Canada, Great Britain and foreign countries, $200,000.


Mr. URIAH WILSON.: Every session I have been disappointed at the estimates for immigration being brought down in such large sums and with no details given. This vote covers the agents in Great Britain, on the continent, in the United States and in Canada. At this late date in the session it is impossible to go into the general question of immigration at all; but I want to call attention to a particular matter. We have in Ontario about 150 local agents. One of these is in the county of Lennox, and I wish to call the attention of the minister and the committee to his actions. Every agent when appointed is furnished with instructions as to his duties. Clause 5 of those instructions is as follows;
The commission allowed agents for placing immigrants is $2 per capita on persons (men women and children) placed at farm work, and the same amount on women placed in domestic service; no commission will be allowed on immigrants placed in any other occupation than farm help or domestic service.
Clause 7 distinctly forbids the agents to assist in locating immigrants for any other employment than farm work and domestic

service. A man by the name of N. B. Miller was appointed by this government to locate immigrants in the county of Lennox. I have known Mr. Miller for a great many years. He seems to have gone very much astray. I will just read his first report, and will make some explanations which I think will show the minister that he has entirely forgotten that he is responsible to the government for his actions and that he might be called on at some time to give an account for the reports he has been making to the government:
Claim for Commission.
May 29, 1907.
This is to certify that I have this day placed Wm. Spinks, wife and children Aleck, Walter, George, Arthur, Albert, Mabel, Nellie, who landed at the port of Quebec, on the 25th day of May, 1908, ex-ss. ' Canada/ as a farm labourer (farm labourer or domestic) with Mr. C. Dennison, of Napanee P.O., province of Ontario to work on his farm.
The following are the terms of engagement: $25 per month for five months.
Commission claimed $18.
(Sgd.) NATHAN B. MILLER, Superintendent of Immigration.


Napanee P.O.: I call the minister's attention to the fact that Mr. Miller states that he located this man as a farm labourer, because he knew he could not get the commission if he did not, which shows that he was familiar with the instructions. Mr. Scott, the Commissioner of Immigration, sent a circular letter to all the men who was reported to him as having received immigrants to work on their farms. I believe Mr. Scott did this for the reason he gave in the committee, that he was anxious t-o find out how the immigrants were getting along with the farmers with whom they were placed. This is the letter :
Immigration branch,
Department of the Interior,
Ottawa, February 26, 1908.
Sir,-.It has been reported to me that Alfred Sandell, wife and four children, an immigrant who arrived in Canada some time ago, engaged with you as a farm labourer. I would be pleased if you would let me know if such is the case, stating if he is still with you, what kind of satisfaction he is^ giving and what wages he is receiving. I desire this information in order to form a fair opinion as to the satisfaction immigrants are giving to Ontario farmers. Please reply on space underneath and use inclosed envelope (upon which no postage is required) in mailing your answer to me.
Your obedient servant,



[Stage Direction]
Superintendent of Immigration.
I want the minister to take particular notice to what Mr. Denison says. He is the man with whom Mr. MilleT states he lo-Mr. U. WILSON.
cated Mr. Spinks, and with whom he states that he made a bargain that Spinks was to get $25 per month for five months as a farm labourer on Mr. Denison's farm. This is Mr. Denison's letter, written nearly a year after Mr. Miller reported that he had located this man as a farm labourer:
Napanee, February 29, 1908.
Dear Sir,-I received this note from you today. I am in the grocery business and not a farmer. In regard to Wm. Spinks and family I just happened to meet him at station the day he arrived here with his family and helped him to find a house to move in, he is a carpenter by trade, he is a clever fellow and is doing well. The older boys are at work learning trades and the smaller ones are going to school. He and family like it here very much and from what I have heard him say he has no desire to go back to England. In my opinion such families as Mr. Spinks are welcome here.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) S. CASEY DENISON,
Box 167, Napanee, Ontario
I know Mr. Denison well, he is a very respectable man belonging to one of the old Liberal families of that riding, who never gave a Conservative vote. Mr. Denison told me precisely the same thing as he states in this letter before I used the letter in my last campaign, for I used it and said stronger things in my riding than I am saying here to-night.
Mr. Miller did not appear on any platform to combat my statements. It looks to me as if Mr. Miller thought to himself that he was a government agent, here was a newcomer to the town, an Englishman settling in our midst with his wife and children and that he might just as well report these people to the department and get $18 without any person being the wiser. He drew the money and it was not discovered for a year because it was a year from the time he reported that he had located this man before this circular was sent to Mr. Denison.
I have here another case. The report being:
This is to certify that I have this day placed Arthur Wood and wife, who landed at the port of Halifax on the 28th day of April, 1907, by steamship 'Ottawa,' as a farm labourer and domestio with Mr. G. Deshane, of Napanee post office, province of Ontario, to work on his farm. The following are the terms of engagement:	Seven months at $25
per month; commission claimed, $4.
I shall not read Mr. Scott's circular as it is in the same words as the other one. Mr. Deschane is section boss on the Grand Trunk Railway in the town of Napanee. I have known him for years as a hardworking honest man. He answers Mr. Scott's letter on February 14 as follows:
Dear Sir,-The person who reported to you that Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wood came out

here from England as immigrants notified you wrongly; they came here last May hut came out on their own hook, that is paid their own wav independent of everybody. When they landed here at the depot the night operator, Mr. Geroux, informed him that 1 (foreman of the Grand Trunk Railway) was in need of a man, so he came to me and I hired him and he lias been in my service ever since with the exception of a few months, and I find him to be an honest, upright, and industrious man, and he is not working for a farmer nor hasn't been.
(Sgd.) JOSEPH DESHANE.
I had a talk with Mr. Deshane about this man. Mr. Deshane says that Mr. Miller had nothing to do with him and you can see by his letter that Mr. Wood met Mr. Geroux the night operator of the Grand Trunk and Mr. Geroux told him that Mr. Deshane, the section boss on the railway wanted a man and he went to Mr. Deshane himself and made the arrangement, Mr. Miller having nothing to do with him. But Mr. Miller reported to the department that he had located this man on a farm and went so far as to give the terms of his engagement. Would any man suppose that was a mistake, that he did not know what he was doing? Do you think he did not know the difference between a section boss on a railway and a farmer? Do you not think that he knew whether Deshane wanted the man to work on the farm or the railway? In fact Mr. Miller had nothing whatever to do with this man, but apparently, as in the other case, he felt he could make that report to the department and as he was an official of the government and probably would not be questioned he could make $4 more and make it easily. I have another case. Here is a report dated July 1, 1907:
This is to certify that I have this day placed Alfred Sandell and wife and children, Emily, Annie, Flora and Alfred who landed at the port of Quebeo on the 29th day of June, 1907, by the steamship ' Canada,' as a farm labourer and domestic with Mr. M. Jones. Napanee post office, to work on his farm. The following are the terms of engagement, $20 per month; commission claimed, $12.
We will now see what Mr. Jones says. Mr. Jones has been a member of the township council oh Richmond for many years. He is a very respectable man, not very decided in his politics. He rather votes for the man who suits him than for the party. His reply to Mr. Scott's letter is:
You have been misinformed, I know nothing of the above named persons.
I know very well that Mr. Miller has been dismissed, and also that he has had to refund the money that he wrongfully obtained, but what I would like to know from the minister is whether he thinks that is adequate punishment for a man who will deliberately misrepresent to the department his actions and in that way obtain money? I would ask why the minister will not act
in this case as he did with Mr. Waugh, of Chatham. I understand that Mr. Waugh who was a defaulter in a similar way was arrested and tried in the criminal courts. What reason is there why Mr. Miller should be allowed to go scot free while Mr. Waugh had to stand his trial before a criminal court? I think this is a case which cannot be disputed.
I would go into this question at greater length were it not that we are approaching the end of the session. It is true that I am not to blame for these estimates coming on at this late stage, and I felt that the proper time to discuss the subject was upon the immigration estimates although I could have brought it up on a motion to go into Supply. I do not ask that this man should be prosecuted, all I ask is that he should be dealt with fairly and should be called on to give an account of his actions. If he cannot give such reasons as would satisfy a court then he should be punished.
I have another report dated August 5, 1907:
This is to certify that I have this day placed Thomas Sewedani, who landed at the port of Montreal on the 2nd day of August, 1907, as a farm labourer with D. A. Roblin, Adolphustown post office, Ontario, to work on his farm. The following are the terms of the engagement: $12 per month.
Again he was particular to give the terms of the arrangement. He got $2 for settling that immigrant. I have good reason to know Mr. Roblin because I have not a stronger opponent in the township of Adolphustown than he, but I have not the slightest feeling against him or fault to find with him. Mr. Roblin says:
Thos. Sewedani has not been working for me. He stayed with my hired man, B. Zanoli. He was a baker by trade and was offered a situation at $10 per week but would not take less than $25, so could get no employment about here at this figure. The fact of the matter was he would not work. He returned to England last autumn.
That is another clear case where Mr. Miller drew the commission for placing a man he did not place at all. He said he had made an arrangement for him to work at $12, but Mr. Roblin says he refused $25 per week. Here is another certificate:
July 1, 1907.
This is to certify that I have this day placed Benjamin Hodge and wife and children, Violet, Harold, Joy. who landed at the port of Quebec on the 29th of June, 1907, ex. ss. * Canada,' as a farm labourer and domestic with Mr. A. Briscoe, of Hawley, Ontario, to work on his farm, at $12 per month.
And the commission was $10. Mr. Briscoe wrote to the department, in reply to its circular:
Said man never reached us. Altogether likely some person had hired him before he reached us.
[Stage Direction]
I could give many more, such cases, but it would take too much time. It does look to me as though Mr. Miller had made up his mind that he was the government agent, that he had sole control, and could report such cases as he liked to the government, and no questions would be asked and he would get the commission. Here is another case:
April 20, 1907.
This is to certify that I have this day placed Fred. Stockwell and wife and children, Elizabeth, Catherine, Edward, William and Beatrice, who landed at the port of Portland on the 14th of April, 1907, ex. ss. ' Kensington,' as a farm labourer and domestic with Mr. George Clement, of Deseronto, Ontario, to work on his farm at $20 per month.
The commission claimed was $14. Mr. Clement, in reply to the circular, wrote:
Deseronto, February 9, 1908.
Be Fred. Stockwell, he worked for me about three months after his arrival here, hut not at farming. I am in the contracting and building. Stockwell gave me excellent satisfaction and is a sober, honest and industrious man. I paid him $9 per week as helper; he has worked the balance of the season for Wm. H. Harvey, a cement contractor of this town, and received from $1.75 to $2 per day.
The only parties on whom the department pays commission are farm labourers and domestics, but here is a case in which Mr. Miller reported having placed a man on a farm and did not do so. Still he reported to the government that he had, and drew the commission. Mr. Miller, as a matter of course, wrote a letter during the campaign, but when that came to the knowledge of Mr. Scott, he wrote Mr. Miller. I forget exactly what Mr. Scott said, but I presume he wanted Mr. Miller to explain why he reported this man as being located on a farm. Thereupon, one would suppose that Mr. Miller replied, but I cannot find any answer to that letter until the 24th of October, 1908, just two days before the polling, when he denied that he owed the government a cent and said that the government always held back enough to cover any mistakes or indebtedness of the agent. I will be able to show that that is not true. Here is the letter he wrote just two days before the polling:
Napanee, October 24, 1968.
In my reply to your statement of March 25, 1908, I withdrew claims No. 1976 and 8328 as they had been sent through mistake. If these claims are not deducted, kindly deduct amount from my next cheque.
When I came here I spoke to the minister about this matter. All I wanted was that this man should be dealt with as one honest man should deal with another. I wanted Mr. Miller to account for his acts. It would be a great mistake on the part of the minister to allow this to be added to all Mr. U. WILSON.
the other troubles we have had with reference to these frauds and dishonest acts of government officials. I asked for a return showing how matters stood, and this is the return furnished me by Mr. Scott, dated 22nd January, 1909. Mr. Scott claims that Miller owes him $72, the refund asked for on 36 persons who did not come within the regulations. What is the minister going to do about it? I have evidence given by Mr. Scott himself, which I shall not read at present, but I can prove what I have said from Mr. Scott and other witnesses.
Frank Oliver: The matter brought up is one of serious importance'and very well worthy the attention given _ it. There are circumstances connected with this transaction that I think should be in the possession of the House before we reach a conclusion. Everybody is aware that, during the past several years, there was a very serious shortage of farm help in the province of Ontario, and it seemed only reasonable that when we were securing immigrants, we should make some effort to turn the stream of immigration to Ontario to meet this demand for farm labour. In order	that	this might be	done, severalplans	were	attempted, the	last	of thembeing the appointment of agents in different .counties in Ontario who were to be paid a commission as my hon. friend has read, for the location of immigrants with farmers as farm labourers. The earnings of one of these men for a season might be nothing at	all; it might be	$2	or $10 or$100.	That	being the case,	we	could notreasonably expect the same attention to business, the same skill and energy or the same absolute responsibility that we should expect of men working on a fixed salary. But the circumstances did not permit, as we understood it, the employment of men at fixed salaries. It seemed that the only possible expedient to meet the case was the employment of these men on commission. In the case my hon. friend has brought up, I have nothing to say to excuse the gentleman whose name has been mentioned. No person in the House or out of it is quite so much interested in securing correct returns from these agents as the minister himself. I do not wish to shield any man in wrong-doing in his connection with the Interior Department, being well aware that his wrong-doing must reflect upon the department and upon the government as a whole. But, when the hon. member suggests that we prosecute this man; in my own defence for not having prosecuted him, I may put this condition of affairs before the House:	In
the first place, my hon. friend has said that we did prosecute a man who had committed practically the same offence the

year before. In that case, we took proceedings against the man because he would not make a refund of what we demanded of him.


Charles Avila Wilson: That is awfully weak.


Frank Oliver: Weak or strong, it is the fact. The man had billed us improperly for placing immigrants, and we had paid him money which he declined to refund. We took proceedings to compel him to refund and he did. In the case referred to by my hon. friend, the man refunded on demand. It is quite possible that proceedings against him might be taken; I have not gone into the question; it did not seem to me that, under present circumstances, it would be the best policy to do so. We have difficulty in getting anybody to take the position of commission agent in locating immigrants.


Charles Avila Wilson: Why did the minister cut down the appropriation? Under the old svstem he paid for every man, woman and child; now he only pays on such as are located.


Frank Oliver: In beginning of this system we paid upon man, woman and child, making that an inducement to special effort on the part of the commission agent to locate large families. We found by experience, that, while it had a certain effect, it worked out in some ways as an abuse, and we decided to confine the payment to those for persons actually located. The cutting down of the immigration estimate compelled us to consider reductions whomever possible. We are not absolutely our own masters in the amount of money we can afford to pay As the situation now is, we think it is desirable in the public interest that men should be appointed to do this work if they do it honestly. In this case, as particularly glaring evils have been shown, as the public interest actually suffered a loss, as it was likely to do from the case of the gentleman at Chatham, we have thought it better-


Charles Avila Wilson: Did this man pursue the same practice?


Frank Oliver: Yes. We have thought it better, as a matter of public policy to accept the assertion that there has been an error or misunderstanding rather than to regard the action as criminal and to engage in a prosecution.


Mr. LANCASTER.: Does not that fact cause dishonest men to apply?


Frank Oliver: No, I think the fact that they make no profit and that they have been seriously exposed before the public will have a deterrent effect. However, if this does not have its effect, prosecutions will be in order. But I think that, instead of prosecutions it would be necessary for us to adopt some other system. If we cannot find enough honest men scattered through Ontario to prosecute this business honestly, I think that rather than bring to bear the criminal law, it is better to give up the attempt or change the system of doing it. That is the reason this government has not taken proceedings beyond what we have done. The country has suffered no loss.


Charles Avila Wilson: So far as you know.


Frank Oliver: So far as we know. We do not feel that we would be acting in the best interests of supplying labour to Ontario farmers if we took drastic or criminal proceedings against one of th^se agents, when there may be some ground for the claim that there was a mistake. We are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.


George Taylor: How did it come that, at the point of landing, these men registered as farmers, when one was a carpenter, another a brickmaker and another a baker?


Frank Oliver: I understand that they registered as men who intended to engage in farming.


Charles Avila Wilson: Is it any wonder, after the speech we have listened to tonight, that Mr. Miller is telling many of his friends that he is going to be reappointed ? I have read from the reports furnished me from his own office, showing that this man deliberately misrepresented facts. If he were an ignorant man, I could understand there might be room for doubt, but a man who is intelligent enough to be the clerk of a municipality in an old part of the country must have known what he was doing. He was dishonest and deliberately dishonest, taking these commissions when he knew he was not entitled to them. I used as strong language as this on the platform, and I have not been served with any writ, and if I were I would not wait for the minister to make an excuse for the gentleman. I would bring him before the courts. The superintendent of immigration says: Mr. Wilson, if you will write a letter to me I will lay it before the minister. Well, judging from the speech the minister has made to-night, it would be of little use. He wants to make excuses for a man who, deliberately, with malice aforethought, has defrauded the public revenue, and because he refunds the money the minister lets him go. Is that not condoning a felony? Is that straight business? Is that the policy of a man who prides himself on being

honest? Now, the Minister of the Interior has a good reputation, people generally think he is honest, and I have no reason to think anything else of him, except the speech he has made to-night. I think he has done himself a great injustice when he comes forward as the defender of a man who has deliberately defrauded his own department, and he has evidence of it.


Frank Oliver: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon, I am not defending Miller at all. I was explaining the reason why the department has not prosecuted him. I was defending myself, not Miller.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: The hon. gentleman said he thought the man should be given the benefit of the doubt. I would like to know what doubt there is of this man's criminality. Will the hon. gentleman explain what the doubt consists of? It is a pure case of theft under the code, it is without possible defence, that I can see. Now, what doubt is there of his guilt that the hon. gentleman is giving him the benefit of?


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend knows that until a man has been given a fair trial and has been convicted, there is always a doubt. No man is ever considered guilty until he is proven guilty. That is the doubt I am giving him the benefit of.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: If the Crown does not prosecute men, of course no one will ever be prosecuted. The Crown which is defrauded is creating the doubt for the benefit of the criminal. If every thief in this country is to be told: You must not rob an individual, but you can rob the government at Ottawa, if you will give back the money stolen as soon as you are found out-then we will have a most terrible state of criminality going on every day. I think, the minister ought to consult the Minister of Justice and make an example of this man.


An hon. MEMBER.: He is a Liberal.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I do not think the minister is necessarily letting this man go because he votes Liberal. I hope not, I think the hon. gentleman is bigger than that. But I do protest against a minister of the Crown saying that because a man gives back the money, he does not think it wise to prosecute because he might not be able to get other people to work in the same line this man did. Perhaps he would not get any honest man to do it, but he could get all the scoundrels he wants to work in his department if they understand that they can defraud the government with impunity.


Mr. MONK.: There is a ray of hope certainly in what the minister said this even-.


Mr. U. WILSON.: ing in answer to my hon. friend from Lennox (Mr. Wilson), and that is that it is probable the system of placing men will be abolished. It was evident to those who attended the examination before the committee of the Superintendent of Immigration, that that system has been most unsuccessful, and I have no doubt in my mind that it has led to a great deal of fraud which does not happen to have been brought out. If the minister undertook to prosecute all the cases that present analogies to the case of the man particularly referred to this evening, I think he would perhaps be giving employment to a great many lawyers in the province of Ontario. There is no more delicate task than the placing of immigrants in this country, and to entrust that task to new men who have never been busy about anything else but party politics, and give it over to them as a reward for their work in elections, is the worst possible employment you can make of this immigration money.
Now, we are called upon to-night, on the eve of prorogation to vote a sum which ultimately will amount to considerably more than a million dollars for immigration purposes, and that sum is divided up in the estimates contrary to the protests which I and other members of the House have made year after year, against the manner of subdividing these credit votes. I leave it to my hon. friend himself to say whether it would be fair or just to the House, at this stage, with few opportunities, and when we are hurrying through the last items of the estimates, to enter upon such a criticism as a vote of this amount calls for. It has been an invariable rule since I have been a member of this House for the government to introduce important measures too late^ to allow of their being criticised. The thing is not done through neglect, it has been done by this government systematically, as part of a scheme. Take the minister's Bill on immigration, which was announced, I think, in the speech from the Throne. We have had numberless opportunities of discussing it. I think the minister himself regrets that we have not passed this Bill. It is a Bill to improve the. conditions which, up to two or three years ago, were absolutely intolerable. The minister himself, I think, desired to see that Bill passed, we all did, with certain amendments. He has had to give it up, and we are called upon here, a few hours before prorogation, to make a criticism of the whole of this expenditure.	.
My hon. friend from Lennox (Mr. Wilson) has referred to that phase of the expenditure. We are going to receive this year from the United States, according to what everybody expects, over 75,000 immigrants. Why should we expend for that branch of the immigration service a sum

which, as the minister doubtless knows, will not be less than $60,000 or $70,000 ? Why have we immigration agents, most of them doing nothing, relatives of ministers, friends, brothers-in-law, ex-candidates placed all over the United States to bring in immigration when it is a serious question to any thinking man whether it is not too large a number to rush into our own Northwest from the United States. Why should we make that expenditure this year? The immigration from the western states into the Northwest has developed in a wonderful degree. Why should we pursue the course of keeping a large number of agents who are doing very little and whom we are supporting merely because of their influence and who are spending large amounts in advertising? This is a question that has some reference to the one raised by my hon. friend from Lennox. There are some other questions in connection with these estimates that I would like to raise, because I intended to submit to the House this session that the precautions we take with incoming immigrants from Europe are not sufficient, and from the testimony of the minister's own Superintendent of Immigration there is nothing to prevent us taking further precautions and obliging those immigrants to bring us testimonials from the old country whereby we would be saved the expenditure of deportation. We must admit a very undesirable class of immigrants with a great number of goods ones who are received every year. It is impossible to discuss that reform at this time of the session. I believe that we are spending in advertising in Europe quite an exaggerated sum. My hon. friend, I know, has made great progress. There was a time when his predecessor was in office when the whole system was tainted with the vices which have been indicated by my hon. friend from Lennox this evening. There have been reform and progress, but the way of reform is a difficult one, and in that connection I want to urge upon my hon. friend a complete reformation in the system of immigration agents in France. Everybody knows that the present organization of the immigration system in France is absolutely faulty. The few agents _we have there are all quarrelling. It is impossible to obtain any collective or united action. My hon. friend must have received the echo of all that has been said in that regard. We all know it in the province of Quebec. The system is absolutely faulty in Belgium too. Our agent there, Mr. De-Coeli, is a very respectable man, but it is evident that he is not up to the requirements of the situation at the present moment. Everybody says so and my hon. friend surely must have heard it. I think it is unfair to members of this House to *bring in these important items at this stage because it obliges us to allow them to
pass without special comment or inquiry. My hon. friend must know that this year we are going to receive into this country, I believe, on a moderate estimate, about
200,000	people. The year began with the appearance of a smaller number, but last month, I think, 10,000 arrived. I do not think my hon. friend can doubt that during this season we are going to receive 200,000 people. Under these circumstances, being called upon to vote an amount, which, with the supplementaries, covers more than $1,000,000, I think it is very late indeed for us to enter into a detailed examination of these votes. With these few observations I will not delay any longer the advance of the estimates, because we know it would delay completely the arrangements made by the government, with our consent, for prorogation.


Mr. TURBIFF.: The hon. member said that we would possibly be getting in 75,000 people from the United States and that we were getting in too many. That is what I understood my hon. friend to say.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I said the question was whether that was not rather too great a number. It is a question that I do not attempt to solve. It is a very large number and I do not think that we should have to advertise or keep agents there doing nothing.


John Gillanders Turriff: It seems to me that it carried possibly to the minds of some a reflection upon the class of immigrants who are coming in from the United States.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: By no means.


John Gillanders Turriff: Well, I am very glad to hear that statement from the hon. gentleman.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I think they are very good immigrants.


John Gillanders Turriff: As far as the immigrants we are getting from the United States are concerned I do not think we could go to any country in the world and get a finer class of people than those who have come in the past from the United States. I have in my constituency several thousands of people from there-Norwegians, Swedes and Germans-who now speak English and you could not find a finer class of settlers from any country in the world. They are just as much at home with us in Canada as they were in the United States. When they come over they fall in with our laws, establish schools and become good citizens. The moment they can get their naturalization papers out they take an active part in the conduct of affairs, educational, municipal and governmental. We could not get a better class of people and I only hope that in any retrenchment which may be made the government will not curtail

the expenditures made in the United States in bringing people of that class into the country.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I would like to say at once that if my hon. friend (Mr. Turriff) understood that I was making any reflection on that class of immigrants he is mistaken. They are excellent immigrants in every respect. But, we are a very small people.
I do not believe that the population of this country is more than 6,000,000, whatever may be said to the contrary.


Mr. FIELDING.: 6,000,000?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I know that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, in a moment of enthusiasm, said that he thought it would exceed 7,000,000.


Mr. HUGHES.: He said that some one said so.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I differ from my hon. friend very respectfully, and I know that at the period when the census was taken the population did not amount to more than 6,300,000. But even that was exaggerated. If we take the census in a sensible way we will know how many we have. But, we are a small people. The sense in which I spoke was that if the natural influx from the United States brings us
200,000	American settlers to the Northwest well and good. It will be a very large proportion. I consider that we are a young people. Fifty, sixty or seventy years in the life of a people is not very much, and if we got in 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 aliens this year, even if they were the very best immigrants in the world, I don't think it would be the best thing possible for Canada. I think we must keep the strong dominating influence in our own country in the hands of native Canadians. _ That is a matter for discussion but that^ is my opinion anyway. What I do say is that we are receiving this influx from the United States through the natural action of the people themselves. They are a sensible people, they are not brought in by representations of those whom we have there as agents. They come in because land in the United States has become valuable and exhausted agriculturally, and they know that they can get here land ten times as rich, virgin soil, extremely fertile, at almost nothing. They sell what they have in the United States, come in here, and establish themselves. I have heard-and I will be glad to hear my hon. friend who lives in the locality contradict it-that having obtained these lands, settled them, opened them up and improved them, many of them return to the United States. I would be very glad to hear that that was not the case. Probably my hon. friend knows. But what I lay down as a principle is this. 75,000 a year is a large enough Mr. TURRIFF.
increment to our population. If that current is started which may bring us next year 150,000, I do not see the necessity of keeping the brother-in-law, the unfortunate candidates, the sons, nephews, and other hangers-on of the government established as agents in the United States, spending each one in his office from $4,000 to $7,000 a year, besides a large amount in advertising. My hon. friend knows that I do not believe in advertising Canada except indirectly. The idea of our going about Europe and the United States advertising our country -just as a merchant would advertise his wares does not commend itself to my mind. So I say that if that current is started and is increasing every year, we should suppress that useless expenditure.


Frank Oliver: We are all of course very anxious to get these estimates through; but my hon. friend was hardly entitled to take advantage of the situation to make the statements he has made to-night. He has given the House to understand that these estimates have been delayed by the government for the purpose of avoiding criticism. I want to say that these estimates have been ready to come before the House ever since the first very few weeks of the session, and if they have not been brought forward, it has not been the fault of the government, but it has been because other discussions were put forward by my hon. friend and his friends that were not, 1 humbly submit, of as much use or necessity to the government of the country. The hon. srentleman took occasion to say that tne Immigration Bill had been delayed, or had been dropped by the government because ol delay. I would like to remind my hon. friend that the Immigration Bill was placed upon the order paper and. was ready tor discussion very shortly after the session opened.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: That is what is done every year.


Frank Oliver: And when it was brought forward for a second reading at a moderately early stage in the session, my hon. friend opposed the Bill in a speech.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I asked that the second reading be postponed until we had heard in committee, Mr. Scott, the Superintendent of Immigration.


Frank Oliver: Precisely. I say my hon. friend opposed the Bill in a speech. The Bill then went over, and when it came up the next time, my hon. friend asked that its consideration be postponed. It went over again, and the third time when it came up my hon. friend asked that it be postponed.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend is mistaken I must deny what he says.


Frank Oliver: The records of the House will show that what I have stated is absolutely correct. And when the Bill came up the fourth time, it was criticised obstructively by my hon. friend and his friends, so much so that they kept the Bill from passing. The House might as well be made aware of these facts. I think my hon. friend is entitled to special consideration for his daring to place before the House such a statement as he has done in regard to the Immigration Bill. He is also to be 'congratulated on his courage in his view of the question of immigration generally. He objects to immigration from the United States in large volume, and objects to immigration effort in the United States as being useless, because we have a large volume of immigration from that country. May I ask him by what process of reasoning he arrives at the conclusion that because immigration effort has been well directed and successful, therefore it is discredited. If we have a large immigration movement from the United States, it is because of the efforts that have been made by the Immigration Department of this government in times past; and if my hon. friend is afraid of injurious consequences from that immigration, there are many other people in this country who are not afraid. Let me say further that the welfare and the prosperity of this country, right here in eastern Canada, absolutely depends on the continuance of immigration into the Northwest, and on the continuance of the increase of production in that Northwest resulting from the flow of immigration. The enterprises of transportation have been mortgaged to the future development of that country. Canada cannot affordl to let the development of the west stand still. We have built and planned and prepared for more immigration, for a greater development in that country, and unless that development takes place, we shall find that we have notes to meet and bills to pay and nothing to pay them with. If we have a satisfactory immigration from the United States, it is because of the successful and well-directed efforts of the Immigration Department of this government; and if we have immigration from the British Islands it is unquestionably the direct result of the efforts made by the Immigration Department of this government. My hon. friend scorns the idea of advertising Canada as a merchant would advertise his wares. Well, my hon. friend's scorn is not shared, I fancy, by the large majority of the people of this country. We are glad to see our country progress, and any honourable means that will promote that progress is good enough for the majority of the people of this country.


George Eulas Foster: Now, does not the minister think he had better let some estimates go through?


Frank Oliver: We want these estimates to go through, but we do not propose to allow statements such as those made by my hon. friend to go>
unoontradicted, even at the risk of the estimates not going through.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I want to set my hon. friend right on one point, even if it does cost the House a little time, that is, in regard to his immigration Bill. He is* absolutely at fault in that respect, because I favoured that Bill, as I think we generally did on this side of the House. It is a complete change from the old system under which we attempted to fill up the country, never mind how and never mind with whom; and if that is the theory of my hon. friend, he does not agree with many on this subject. That was the system that prevailed from 1867 until my hon. friend came to office, or, to put it better, until the moment when the American authorities called the attention of this government to the kind of immigration we were getting. At the time the Immigration Bili came for a second reading, I began to speak and six o'clock was called, and so the Bill went over. When it came up the second time I asked that it be postponed until we heard Mr. Scott, because I wanted to ask him if it was possible to secure more immigrants of a certain class from the other side of the Atlantic, which would save us the cost and I may add the horrors of deportation such as we had last year. Apart from that, I have never been in any way obstructive of that Bill, and I repeat that what my hon. friend says in regard to that Bill applies to most government measures that are important and that require to be discussed at length. I shall maintain that attitude until another system of proceeding is adopted in this House. Bills are introduced and then other matters are taken up. I do not know who is to blame for it, but for a large portion of the session these Bills remain dormant, these important estimates are not touched and at the end of the session we are in the position in which I find myself to-night. As to immigrants from the United States, if I believed as my hon. friend has stated to-night, that the 75,000 immigrants we are receiving this year from the United States have been moved to come here by any effort of these immigration agents, I would be prepared to admit that they are of some use. I deny that and I set up as proof to my hon. friend that over 1,200,000 immigrants come in every year to the United States when every law in the United States forbids advertising absolutely, even to navigation companies. How then do they get five times as many



immigrants as we get? How is it that with the advertising we have done and the agents we have _ employed, wo do not account for the immigrants we are getting, for the flow that will come in now? I say that from this time forward we are going to have a large inflow of immigrants whether we advertise and employ agents or not. The country and its immense resources are known, nor do I object to their being made known in a general way, but I say that to spend this immense amount in advertising and paying agents now has only one effect, that is to bring to us the large number of bad immigrants to wham we object. My hon. friend says that these estimates have been ready since the beginning of the session; why were they not brought up before?


Frank Oliver: Because you and your friends would not allow them to be taken up.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Oh, no. I know that my hon. friend (Mr. Oliver) has made some reforms in his department. They were badly needed not only in respect to immigration but in many other respects. I am surprised to hear him say that because my hon. friend has been in the House as long as I have, and it has been the invariable system every year. What prevailed before 1896 I do not know but every year we find ourselves in this'position at the end of the session and it is not possible to give sufficient attention to these matters that interest us vitally. Surely an addition of 250,000 new people to our own nation numbering, scarcely 6,000,000, is a matter of importance. Surely the methods by which we obtain these men, the scrutiny to which we subject them before admitting them to the national family, is an important matter and here we are, a few hours before prorogation, voting this amount when we feel that every word we say is taking up the time of the few members who are in the House, to their very natural dissatisfaction.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What foundation is there for the statement of the Minister of Finance that there were 70,000 immigrants coming from the United States who brought in $70,000,000? Looking up the returns 1 find that last year $12,000,000 was the sum total of settlers' effects brought in. I do not know if that includes cash or not. I cannot find anything that justifies such a statement nor do I think it correct.


Frank Oliver: I think the estimate to which my hon. friend alludes was an estimate in prospect and not in fact; that is to say he estimated that there probably would come this year 70,000 people and that they would bring so much in effects.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I understood differently.


Frank Oliver: Last year there were some fifty odd thousand and I think they brought Mr. MONK.	;
about $6,000,000 of effects. Our agent at Winnipeg, reviewing the situation early this spring, estimated that 70,000 people would come in with a larger amount of effects and money.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If 60,000 people brought only $6,000,000 would 70,000 bring $70,000,000?


William Stevens Fielding: The statement I made was quoted from an officer of the Immigration Department in Winnipeg, who estimated from his observation and knowledge of the movement that we would have 70,000 immigrants, that they would average $1,000 each, not merely in effects but in the means they brought into the country. It was an estimate of the probabilities of the year.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It is an estimate which it seems to me was neither founded on good judgment nor on the figures, and I may say frankly, after looking into the matter that I regard it as wholly absurd.


Charles Avila Wilson: Would the minister say where he got the figures showing the population of Canada to be about
7,000,000?


William Stevens Fielding: I gave the information from statistics prepared by the Census office of the Department of Agriculture. We only take the census once in ten years but we make estimates on a scientific basis which enable us to obtain a reasonably accurate knowledge of the population from year to year. We have the ordinary statistics as to the increase of population and then we have the statistics of immigration. Taking these two sources of increase and making a computation in accordance with the methods of the past, the census office furnished me with the estimate. They figured that the population of Canada at the date I made the budget speech was something over 7,000,000.


Charles Avila Wilson: Dr. Bryce, the chief medical inspector in his report says that the population in 1900 was 5,371,315, and the increase between 1900 and 1908 was estimated at 1,666,684, making a total of 6,437,998 persons. Estimates of increase of population based on immigration are very deceptive. The immigration into the United States for 1908 was 924,695 persons but the number of persons who left the United States was 714,828, leaving a net increase of 209,867. If the same influences operate in Canada, then our population is hardly yet 6,000,000.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: When the census is taken the number of immigrants reported to have been settled in the Northwest cannot be found there. Your own census shows conclusively that the statement of immigration is not reliable.


George Eulas Foster: What is Mr. Copp doing in the Immigration Department? He is one

of the numerous ones who have been taken care of.


Frank Oliver: Mr. Copp is employed in Boston. There are many people from the maritime provinces settled in the New England States, centred at Boston, and we have had an agency there for some time under the supervision of Mr. Hetherington who was a resident of New Brunswick. We have also placed an agent from Nova Scotia in the person of Mr. Copp so as to further assist in inducing the immigration of maritime provinces people resident in the United States to the Northwest.


George Eulas Foster: How much does he get?


Frank Oliver: $1,200 and travelling expenses.


George Eulas Foster: What does he do?
Mr. OLIVER, When Mr. Hetherington and Mr. Copp are both employed, one will be at the office to supervise the correspondence and attend to people calling. We have secured an office in Boston very well situated. There are many from the maritime provinces located in Boston and vicinity, and the duty of our agents is to visit these people and put the advantages of the Northwest before them, and both these agents are maritime province men, well acquainted with a large portion of these people.


George Eulas Foster: What have you got from it?


Frank Oliver: We can judge by the certificates issued by our agents for reduced rates of transportation. Last year Mr. Hetherington issued over 600 of these special tickets.


George Eulas Foster: Does my hon. friend believe that Mr. Hetherington was the cause of these 600 getting these tickets?


Frank Oliver: He was very largely the cause. In view of the general sentiment in the state against immigration to our Northwest, as compared with the southwestern and western states, it is necessary there should be some one there to direct the attention of their people to the Northwest.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: On the agent issuing a certificate, do the American railways give reduced transportation?


Frank Oliver: No, but the Canadian railways give transportation at a reduced rate for parties carrying a certificate issued by our agent in the United States. The passenger will pay the ordinary rate to the Canadian boundary, and then the Canadian railways will carry him at a cent a mile throughout the Northwest, if he has a certificate from our agent.
Mr. FOSTER, I am afraid that my horn friend did not give the chief reason why Mr. Copp was sent there? Mr. Copp had: to be provided for as a defeated candidate^


Samuel Hughes: What are his qualifications?


George Eulas Foster: He is a defeated candidate


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Has he sent in any report?


Frank Oliver: Weekly reports, but he has only recently been appointed.


Richard Blain: I want to call attention to an article from the London (England)
' Weekly Times,' of April the 18th:
Recompense for Deportation.
George Pierce, who went to Canada two years ago on the recommendation of the Woolwich Distress Committee, after a stay of only a few months at Chatham, Ontario, was deported by the government authorities as an alleged undesirable. As Pierce had been in employment during the whole time he was in Canada, and had previously worked for twenty-one years in Woolwich arsenal, friends in England, convinced there had been a mistake, took up the matter, with the result that Pieree has been awarded $700 recompense.
Is that statement correct:


Frank Oliver: I am advised it is a mistake to say that this government has given any recompense.


Richard Blain: Does the minister know anything about the case?


Frank Oliver: Nothing, except that he was deported because he would not work and became a public charge.


Samuel Hughes: It is generally understood that American settlers buy horses and other live stock much cheaper in the United States than Canada and are in the habit of bringing in much more than the usual quantity. In many cases they can supply their neighbours at fair prices. What is the rule regarding the importation of such stock?


Frank Oliver: This is a matter for the Customs Department. Any one who brings in settlers effects must settle with that department. Settlers are allowed to bring in 16 head of cattle for each 160 acres. A man who takes up a homestead is allowed to bring in that number, but he has to take an oath that they were in his possession six months before he crossed the boundary ; and if he disposes of such stock within six months after he has been in the country, he is liable to penalty.
Contingencies in Canadian, British and foreign agencies and general immigration expenses, $790,000.


George Eulas Foster: What are the details?


Frank Oliver: The details are as follows: Advertising and pamphlets, $175,000; King's Printer, $5,000; bonuses, $45,000; continental bonuses, $8,000; commissions on settlers from the United States, $5,000; commissions on farm and domestic servants, $10,000; British bonuses, $45,000; continental bonuses, $8,000 ; bonus on children, $4,000; commissions on settlers from the United States, $5,000; commissions for locating farm help and domestic servants, $10,000; seaport expenses-St. John, Sydney, Halifax, Quebec and Montreal, $12,000; contingencies and general expenses of United States, $65,000; contingencies and general expenses in Canada, $10,000; contingencies and general expenses of officials re inspection and deportation of undesirable immigrants, $10,000; contingencies and general expenses of agencies in Great Britain and Ireland, including the London office, $75,000; contingencies and general expenses of agencies on the continent, $21,000; grant to hospitals in the west, not including Winnipeg and St. Boniface, $5,000; immigration hospital, Winnipeg, $3,000; medical services and supplies, $2,000; detention hospitals,-St. John, Halifax, Quebec, Mont-I'eal, Victoria and Vancouver, $20,000; Quebec and Lake St. John Railway, $8,000; Quebec Repatriation and Colonization Society, $4,000; Ottawa Valley Immigration society, $2,500; Union Nationale Frangaise, $1,000; Women's Welcome Hostel, Toronto, $1,000; Canada West Publicity office, $5,000; Women's National Immigration Society of Montreal, $1,500; Calgary Women's Hostel, $500; Salvation Army, $11,-[DOT] 516.67; uniforms for officials and employees in Canada, $5,000; locating settlers in the west, $80,000; collection of exhibits, $16,000; telegrams, freight and express charges at head office, $6,000; duty on literature, $1,-d)00; postage on literature, head office, $6,1100; farm delegates, $25,000; boundary inspection, $30,000; transportation of deports, $12,000; salaries of extra clerks at head office, $2,500; miscellaneous and unforeseen expenditures, $5,983.33. These make up the total of $700,000.


George Eulas Foster: I call the attention of the minister to the fact that this is a most outrageous way of bringing down estimates. Here you have a lump sum of $700,000, and we are dependent upon what we may pick up from the minister-and at this period of the session we can pick up little-for our knowledge of the details. The whole is put in a lump sum so it is possible that $690,000 may go to one of these objects,being taken from all the others. It depends entirely on the whim of the minister. I give the minister fair warning; I ask him to make a detailed statement of these lump sums for next session, and if he does not

this is not given in the way of a threat- he will find it difficult to get his estimates Mr. FOSTER.
through. He knows as well as I do that this is not a fair way to treat the committee, that it is not publicity, but that it is covering up the acts of the department in a way in which that they ought not to be covered up. It means that this sum of money can be spent as the minister chooses; parliament has no chance to arrange it or limit it. These sums should be voted by parliament, so that they cannot to be juggled with, they cannot be changed in the department. As it is, this is the blindest kind of a way of making estimates. I do not know how much sympathy I shall receive, but my conscience is severely tried at the way in which we do not perform our duties to the country as members of parliament in the way we put through these estimates. It is not fair to ourselves or to the government, and it is absolutely unfair to the country. We are called upon, in the last few hours of the session, to put through these votes. We talk sometimes about the beauties of closure; this is a kind of closure-it is absolutely forced upon parliament. You expect Black Rod to come and make his taps some time about twelve o'clock tomorrow. And to-night we are asked for $18,000,000 for the Transcontinental, other millions for the Intercolonial; the whole estimates of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries practically are kept back from the very beginning of the session to the last few hours before they are even broached to the House in the way of investigation; and besides, there 'are these estimates that we are going, through. If I can find sufficient help next year, this sort of thing should not be continued. We will insist that these estimates should be brought down and put before the House in time to give us a fair chance to go through with them and criticise them, or, when it comes to the last, there will be a sufficient number here who will take exactly the same deliberation and more, and the same time and more, to them, and we will sacrifice ourselves, if necessary, in order that these things may be fairly criticised and fairly explained to the House. There is not a man sitting here who does not know that that is what ought to be. If there is to be anything like an attempt at deliberation on the question how the moneys of the country should be expended, we ought to have fair opportunity to criticise the estimates. We all know that our present method is wrong, that it is child's play and worse, and yet we have it every year. Now, the government is charged with the direction of legislation. It can put its measures on in good time if it wants to; it can put its estimates in good time if it wants to. It is folly for the minister to get up and say: He wanted to, but you would not let us". That is an old gag; we have had it often, and I suppose

701&
we should have it often again. But the government ought to govern, and it can arrange its legislation; it can, if it wishes, give us the larger Bills and give us also these more important estimates at an earlier period of the session than during the last twenty-four hours. Of course, the estimates now before us must go through. But do you mean to say that we are making any criticism of them? My hon. friend from Lennox (Mr. Wilson) simply touched the fringe of what might have been dealt with by gentlemen like himself and the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) who made a study of this question of immigration. But even in this slight review he brought out a very ill-smelling thing- that officers of the minister designedly robbed the government by fraud, and, when they were found out, the minister was pleasant enough to say to the guilty party: 'Well, give up the money and no more will be said about it.' I cannot see the point of view of the Minister of Interior in allowing officials to deliberately defraud the government of the people's money and then let them off in this way.
Now, is that the system which the government is going to adopt? Does the Minister of Finance think that is the way that public officials ought to be dealt with? What would become of the country if its laws were allowed to be administered in that way? Thieves would be in a very paradise if, when they were found out in their thievery, the authorities just said: Give it back to us, and we will say no more about it. The officials of the government ought to be made to tread up to the line, and ought to be punished for thievery. It is not only in the Department of the Minister of the Interior that the same laxness exists. It is in the inside service, as well as in the outside service that we see that laxness, that condonation of offences, that readiness to step forward and make excuses, which is doing great harm to the public life of this country, and breaking down more effectively the honour and honesty of the country than we can well imagine. You will see in a police court a poor devil given a fair chance, and perhaps let go; but when you bring the case into the white light of parliament and see the public affairs at Ottawa conducted in this manner-36 instances, was it not, in this case-men deliberately stealing the money of the government, lying about it, and yet not a single thing done in the way of reprimand; the deputy minister and the minister simply say: Oh, well, if he gives up the money it is all right. Now, if that mere fringe was touched by my hon. friend from Lennox of the way this is going on, there must be huge abuses, crying abuses that we have no chance to bring up, and we are met by this appeal. We have to go home to-morrow, and these things must
be put through. Now, I have read my lecture to the government, I have freed my heart of this matter. But the Finance Minister knows that I am right. He knows that if he was on this side of the House and we were on that side, and we were going on as they are going on, he would raise Ned about it. That is what we are doing now, and we will do it more strenuously another year unless the ministry do better.


William Stevens Fielding: There is one part of my hon. friend's remarks to which I must take exception, and that is where he implies that there has been any delay on the part of the government, either in presenting its estimates or in bringing them forward for consideration. I cannot think that there has been any ground whatever to justify that portion of his remarks. The estimates were brought down, as they usually have been in late years, at a very early stage, immediately after the opening of parliament. If, as my hon. friend says, some have been brought forward and others have not, it is because other business which was deemed important interposed. He may think that some business was not important, and I may think that much time was wasted by hon. gentlemen opposite in bringing up trivial matters, but it was their right to bring them up. I may think much time was wasted in foolish amendments in going into Supply. The hon. gentlemen are rightly their own best judges of that. But they have no right to occupy time with these things, and then come in late in the session and complain that there has been delay in the business of the House. So far as the consideration of the estimates is concerned, there has been every effort on the part of the government to press them. Again and again when the government desired to press the estimates late at night, the hon. member from North Toronto has been one of the first to rise and say: Well, we have had a pretty long day, we are getting tired, and we had better adjourn-and he would be quite right, I would not say he was wrong. But if, as a result of the discussion from time to time of these unimportant matters, if from the discussion of other matters which hon. gentlemen deemed to be important, some of the estimates are delayed until the last day of the session, surely it is not fair for hon. gentlemen to complain of the action of the government in that respect. There is no justification for it. It is true that some important estimates are left to the last moment. But the government have no undue desire to close the session. Hon. gentlemen on both sides have agreed that it was desirable to close the session, and by common consent a date was fixed. But we are no more responsible for that than hon. gentlemen opposite. If they

thought there was not sufficient time to discuss the remaining public business, then they should have protested against the proposed prorogation. They have not done so; I do not complain of their action in that respect. We are not alone responsible for the understanding that was come to that business should be hastened and that prorogation should take place to-morrow. But surely when we are both responsible for that, it is not fair for our hon. friends opposite to rise now and try to make it appear that this condition of affairs is due to any neglect of the government.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: This state of affairs has existed since 1896 when the Finance Minister and myself came into this House. I do not pretend to say who is to blame for it. I remember many years ago when Mr. Charlton made a motion to revise the rules of the House, he pointed out what my hon. friend from North Toronto has pointed out, a condition of affairs which he sought to remedy by his motion. That condition was admitted by the Prime Minister, who said that it had existed for all time in this House. But the impression of the Prime Minister at that time was that the evil would cure itself. It has not cured itself. I believe myself there is only one cure for that evil, and that is a change in our rules.
In connection with this item, I wish to move that item 52 of the main estimates be reduced by $175,000, the item being for advertising. A part of that large sum of $700,000, which is going to be devoted to advertising, I think is unnecessary. W'e take nothing off the other items. My hon. friend has an item of $12,000 for the cost of deportation, which can be avoided, I think, by careful examination, of immigrants. The other items I have not touched by this motion. I do not think so large a sum is necessary for advertising. We have the certainty this year of an immigration which I think can be moderately fixed at
200,000	people. There are many reasons which it is needless to dilate upon, why this item should be cut down. We have a great many unoccupied people in this country, and in view of the incoming tide of immigration, we do not require to spend this large sum.


Frank Oliver: I do not want the House to vote on this motion until I say something against it. I take it that the meaning of his motion is that he is opposed to immigration effort. I take no other meaning out of it and I assume that the committee will vote for or against his proposition as it is for or against immigration effort. I think that the members on this side of the House are for reasonable and legitimate immigration effort. We are Mr. FIELDING.
for reasonable means of bringing the advantages and resources of Canada before the people of the British Islands, the United States, France and Belgium, which are the only countries in which we advertise. If we do not want progress, or if we do not want rapid progress then we do not need immigration, and we do not need advertising. But I take it that this country has had quite a sufficient experience of lack of progress and is now very well content with the condition of active progress. The fact that our progress is active, that our progress is satisfactory, is surely a reason for our maintaining the action which brought about that condition rather than ceasing that action. My hon. friend compares the condition of the United States with that of Canada. What is there in the condition of the two countries that makes a fair or adequate comparison? What is the comparison between a country with
80.000.	000 and a country-my hon. friend would not allow us to say-of 8,000,000? There is the attraction of the larger as against the smaller. If we were not situated immediately alongside of the United States there would be less reason for putting forth the immigration effort that we find necessary, but with that stupendous nation right alongside of us, with its natural attraction, with its population of
80.000.	000 and its still stupendous undeveloped area and resources, increased effort is necessary on our part.


Samuel Hughes: Where are the efforts being made this coming year in Great Britain and the United States?


Frank Oliver: Yes.


Samuel Hughes: Or are they for the ordinary crowd having obtained nothing at all from this North Atlantic Trading Company gang?


Frank Oliver: I have said that the only expenditures that are being made are in Great Britain, France and Belgium. We are making no expenditure anywhere else on agencies or advertising. It is frue that we are paying bonuses in other countries- in the countries along the North Sea on farmers, labourers and domestics.


Samuel Hughes: What does that include?


Frank Oliver: France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.


Samuel Hughes: There is no immigration from Germany.


Frank Oliver: Unfortunately there is not. We would be glad to get immigration from Germany but their laws are so restrictive that we do not get it.


Samuel Hughes: No, that is not the reason. Germany has adopted a protective policy for a number of years and her work-

shops are so busy that she is importing men. She is in the immigration business herself.


Frank Oliver: We are only asking for the payment of bonuses on continental immigration, $8,000.


Samuel Hughes: The rest is all from the United States?


Frank Oliver: 
Charles Avila Wilson: I would like to ask the minister how he arrived at the sum of $12,000 for the deportation of immigrants. For the ten months from March 31, 1908 to January 31, 1909, according to an answer given by the minister it cost $27,284.36. I do not know why the minister is cutting that down to $12,000 unless he is going to he much more careful in the inspection.
I think there is great need of it and I would be delighted to know if that is the reason it is cut down. I hope there will not be any time during the coming year when there will be 7,000 immigrants turned in to be examined at one station in one day, because I think it is utterly impossible to make a careful examination of that number in one day. At Ellis Island they will only receive in one day 5,000 and I think they are better qualified to make these examinations that we can be.


Frank Oliver: The reason is that in the year 1907, when we had our largest rush of immigration there was a great demand for labour. Every industry was crying out for labour and we were perhaps not as stringent in our examination of passengers as we should have been or as we are to-day. Charitable associations in Great Britain had been the means of sending out a large proportion of the less desirable class of immigration for which we were not responsible in any degree. The large number of deportations of the past year have been particularly the result of that year's condition. We have made a clean-up and under the conditions of last year's immigration and in consideration of the more careful supervision we do not expect that the expenses of deportation will run nearly as high as they did in the past year.


William Wright: In last year's estimates I find that $2,000 appears for deporting undesirable immigrants. Was that the amount that was set apart for that particular purpose last year?


Frank Oliver: We are asking for $12,000 this year.


George Eulas Foster: But it does not appear in the estimates.


Frank Oliver: No, it is part of thi3 $700,000.


William Wright: Was there something set apart last year in your vote of $760,000 for deportation or did this $2,000 provide for your whole work last year?


Frank Oliver: The $2,000 that was asked for was expended,- but the remainder that was required was taken out of the bulk vote. The total amount was about $27,000, This shows the necessity of the bulk vote as against the individual item, because, having the bulk vote, we were able to take the measures w-hich were necessary, and which we would not have been able to take had we been restricted to the $2,000 actually voted.


Mr. SCHAFFNER.: It shows what we have been saying on this side of the House for some time, that the inspection of immigrants is to a great extent a farce; and the best proof of that is the statement of the minister that it required $27,000 last year to deport them to the countries from which they came.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Are there going to be any special agents sent over this year? There were twenty-eight or thirty last year.


Frank Oliver: We think of sending some.


Samuel Hughes: Why are these immigrants deported? Is it because they are criminals, or simply because they are poverty-stricken ?


Frank Oliver: There are many causes, which are set out in the Immigration Act, such as being found physically unfit or the subjects of disease.


Samuel Hughes: Both of these could be ascertained before they come here.


Frank Oliver: Not in all cases. It is not always possible to diagnose a disease before it is developed. Besides, what caused the deportations in such large numbers last year was the fact that there were sent out by the charitable associations in England in 1907 a number of people who, though physically fit, turned out to be unsuitable to our country and to the employment available, and became public charges.


Charles Avila Wilson: I see that in 1907-8 there were twenty-eight special agents sent to the old country at a cost of $100 each and expenses. These gentlemen cost for salaries $10,900, and for other expenses $11,778, making a total of $22,678. Two years ago I moved for a return to show what these gentlemen had done for their money. I have a copy of one of these reports, from which I find that a gentleman was handed over to a Mr. Murray, in England, and visited about eighteen places and delivered lectures, and he gave Mr. Murray a list of between 300 and 400 names and

their addresses, and Mr. Murray said that he would send them literature. He was away four months, and he got $400 for salary and $488 for expenses, a total of $888, and I fail to see what the result is. I have a list of these gentlemen, and among them all I do not find a single report written by the gentlemen sent. The reports were written by Mr. Walker, Assistant Superintendent of Immigration in London. We paid for bonuses $140,657, for salaries in Great Britain $32,600, for salaries in the continent $8,700, and for salaries in the United States $35,420. If we include the special agents, who cost $22,678, we find that salaries and bonuses for immigration in 1907-8 amounted to a total of $230,256.19. That seems to me a very large amount of money to spend in that particular line. In my opinion, the bonuses ought to be curtailed. We remember how, as a result of the government's mistake, a great many immigrants were in the city of Toronto and other parts of the country who had to be fed on charity.


Samuel Hughes: Has the minister ever considered the advisability of taking some of the money now wasted on the North Atlantic Trading Company and on bonuses and spending it to break up twenty or thirty acres on a number of homesteads in the Northwest, erecting a comfortable little, shack on each, furnishing each settler with a cow, a yoke of oxen and a wagon, taking a lien on the land for them, and bringing out a lot of respectable British families to put on these homesteads? If the minister would do that, I am satisfied that in ten or twenty years from to-day the country would be infinitely better off than it is now. I do not believe that the money spent on advertising has ever brought out a single immigrant. People who are brought out as labourers get work on farms for two or three months in the summer, and they have to beg, borrow, steal or get money from the old country, to keep themselves from starvation during the winter.
I am satisfied that if he adopted that plan, if these people were placed on a little land where they could plant enough vegetables to keep them over the winter and where they would have a house over their heads, then in two or three years' time, the country would be better off than it is with this large expenditure. I repeat that all this bonusing business does not bring a solitary immigrant to the shores of Canada, and the minister and the Commissioner of Immigration know it or ought to know it. It is a deal purely and simply, put ,up by the steamship agents in the old country and the money is absolutely wasted.
Mr. OL1VEK. The plan suggested of providing farms in the west and taking liens was tried a number of years ago and was a failure.


Uriah Wilson: 


Samuel Hughes: Where?


Frank Oliver: In the Crofter settlements near Saltcoats, in Southern Manitoba and in other places, but it did not work satisfactorily and I do not think it would again.


Samuel Hughes: A great many of these crofters turned out to be fine settlers.


Frank Oliver: But it was not a satisfactory experiment. It did not redound to the credit of the country or give satisfaction to the Crofters. The only people who were satisfied were the loan companies who advanced money to these people, and on their failure acquired the land at trifling figures. The policy of this government in regard to immigration from the beginning until now, and I hope in time to come, is entirely opposed to pauper immigration, to the idea of helping people to emigrate. What we do is to spend money to attract the attention of people who are able to emigrate. These are the people we want and that is the policy of the government. It is not the policy of the government to help people either to come here or to help them after they have come.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: It is done on a very extensive scale.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend has suggested that the bonus system was in some way responsible for the large immigration of undesirables of two or three years ago.


Samuel Hughes: I did not say that.


Frank Oliver: I so understood my hon. friend.


Samuel Hughes: I do not think the bonus system ever brought an immigrant here.


Frank Oliver: It certainly did not bring, so far as we know, an undesirable immigrant, but we do believe that it has been the means of inducing a very large number of desirable immigrants to come here. My hon. friend suggests that the steamship companies put up a job together to distribute immigrants as they please.


Samuel Hughes: To all lands.


Frank Oliver: What we do is to put up a job with the booking agent. We say: Send the immigrants to Canada and you will get twice as much commission as if you did not send them to Canada.


Samuel Hughes: The consequence is that they dump those here who will not go elsewhere.


Frank Oliver: If the immigrant does not pass our requirements the "agent does not get the bonus. Therefore, as a business proposition, if he sees a desirable

prospective immigrant then it is worth the amount of the bonus to send him here instead of to some other place. That is the principle of the bonus; it is a useful and valuable system, and has worked out advantageously when administered as it is to-day for the purpose of assisting in the selection of immigrants and not simply as a means of inducing a large number of immigrants.


David Henderson: How much of this is intended to pay bonuses on immigrants coming to this country?


Frank Oliver: $45,000 is estimated for British Bonuses, $8,000 for Continental bonuses, $4,000 on children and $5,000 on settlers from the United States.


David Henderson: I feel that I voice the sentiments of my own constituents and of many people in the country when I say that the minister is appropriating just $62,000 too much for this purpose. This country is big enough and rich enough to attract a good class of settlers without paying booking agents to induce them to come here or steamship companies to bring them. If we do not get Immigration as rapidly without bonuses as by giving bonuses I shall not lament over it. I think we are getting immigration quite fast enough, in fact, we are getting it just a little faster than we can take care of it. Immigrants have to be taken care of when they come to this country. Look at the burden you are imposing on the people of Canada apart from government agencies. Look at the burdens imposed on the churches, in connection with the care of those people. Go to Winnipeg and see the large expense involved in the care of delicate, sickly children. It is really lamentable that we should bring to this country that class of people in such large numbers. When Sir Richard Cartwright was in opposition he moved to reduce by $50,000 an item of $120,000 which the Conservative government asked in a very modest way to promote immigration, showing the difficulties the government of that day encountered in getting a little money for that purpose. I repeat that there is plenty of time in which to settle this country. If we are more careful in the selection of our immigrants now I am sure that those who follow us will be thankful. I am so strongly opposed to the bonus system that I am compelled at this stage to submit a motion to the committee and test the feeling of the House on this question. It was a live question during my contest and I know that 1 was strongly supported in any declaration I made against the bounsing system. Without waiting further, and in OTder to give expression to my opinion, I beg to move;
That all sums in item 62 for bonuses to booking agents be struck out and the item reduced accordingly.
If the minister accepts that motion, he will receive the approval ot the people. We are spending money very rapidly, and this is a direction in which we can well afford to economize. This country offers sufficient inducements to settlers without spending the hard earned money of the taxpayers to bring in people to compete with Canadian labour.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend the Minister of the Interior must not forget that the Labour Congress of Canada has asked for this since many years, and the labouring classes in Montreal are entirely opposed to bonuses. Under the order in council granting bonuses to agents on navvies, there is practically no restriction, and our agents can get bonuses on any one they bring out. Let us save this money and do something to satisfy the working classes. I do not believe that bonuses ever got us an immigrant.


Mr. MARSHALL.: I think that if the minister would encourage young women, to come to this country that would be a move in the right direction. The business I am connected with is very much handicapped for lack of that class of labour. We cannot go to the other side for help of that kind, because that is against the law. There is a good deal said about immigration, but the trouble is we are bringing in people that are no use to the country, but here is a special class which it is very desirable to bring in, and if the minister would do something to encourage that immigration, he would help the canning industry. Any good girl in a factory can earn $1 to $1.60 per day. And we could increase our business if we were sure of getting women help. There is no trouble in getting men to help, but it is women help we want.


Mr. BARR.: I hope the Minister of the Interior will be more careful than he has been in the past with regard to the class of immigration we are getting. We are getting a large number of undesirables. Our immigration agent, Mr. Scott, had to admit in the Agricultural Committee that the medical examination was not sufficiently effective and consequently there are people coming to this country who are an injury to its morals and health. If we look through the records of our jails, we will find that during the last three years a large amount of the criminals are immigrants. The Toronto 'Star', an organ supporting the government, said in an editorial the other day, that a large number of immigrants were thrown upon the city of Toronto and had to be maintained by the charitable institutions. It is in the interest

of the country that the Northwest should not be filled up with foreigners who do not make good citizens, and we would be pursuing a much better course if we would keep our prairie fields for the sons t>f Canada or the United States and Britain. We all know that, as far as the Americans are concerned, a large number who come in are good citizens. Canadians can settle along side of them and they become good neighbours. But I think that these undesirables who are brought into the country are most injurious. I believe a. more thorough system of inspection should be adopted, and that none should be allowed to settle in this country who are not desirable. It has been said that the bonus will induce the booking agents to send us immigrants. But these men have only one object and that is to get the money, and if they can load more people on Canadian soil they accomplish their object. But we know that, so far as the United States are concerned, they are very careful, for it is almost impossible for an undesirable immigrant to land in that country. The result is that the undesirables are sent to Canada, very much to the injury of this country.	i


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK.: I intervene in this debate with great reluctance, particularly at this advanced period of the session. And that reluctance may not be wholly irrespective of the consideration that, as a recent immigrant, I may be looked upon as an undesirable and possible contaminator of the morals of the hon. member (Mr. Barr) who has just resumed his seat. I intervene in the debate, however, for one definite purpose, that of expressing the hope that the minister will turn a very deaf ear indeed to the expressions of opinion to which I have listened for the last three-quarters of an hour. If he does not, whatever may be the opinion held of him in eastern Canada, I am perfectly sure that western Canada will readily form the opinion that a remarkably sane brain has, for the moment, been turned by opinion as opposed to argument, fact and experience. It is said that an ounce of fact is worth a pound of theory. Yes, and an ounce of experience is worth ia ton of opinion. I may say that I went, two years ago, a3 an immigrant agent to the old country under appointment from my hon. friend the Minister of Interior (Mr. Oliver). I suppose my expenses for the three months' trip amounted to $800 or $900. It is an invidious and distasteful thing to me to mention any results of my own work, but when one hears statements made in this House composed only of opinion, unbacked by one single actual fact, I feel bound, in the defence of the minister and his policy, to say that, as the result of my own efforts people have come and Mr. MARSHALL.
settled in my own neighbourhood who were worth thousands not of dollars but of pounds. Will any hon. member say, when a delegate goes from western Canada to Great Britain, and as a result of his efforts he has the felicity of bringing in such families, as clean morally and physically, and every one as clear intellectually and perhaps a shade clearer than some of those whom we have listened to in this House, will any one say that the $800 or $900 spent in the expense of that delegate is something to be begrudged?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Would the hon. member (Mr. Clark) have any objection to giving the name of the family to which he refers? Because, in spite of all our attempts, we have never been able to get any names.


Michael Clark: I am Tather surprised to have a question like that addressed to me by the hon. member for Jacques-Cartier (Mr. Monk). I said that to give names and facts would be invidious and distasteful. I meant that it would be invidious and distasteful, not* to myself but to the people to whom I felt it necessary to refer. But I will meet my hon. friend, whom, in private and in public, I have found always a most courteous gentleman, by saying that I shall be glad to give him privately immediately after this debate, or before the evening closes, the name and address of the particular immigrant whom I had in mind when I spoke of thousands of pounds. I will give him facts to the hilt to justify my statement; I have never made a statement in this House which I am not prepared to back up so far as my knowledge carries me. I hope I have said sufficient to indicate that, whatever may be the view, backed by opinion and opinion only, in eastern Canada, we hold very different views in western Canada, backed by facts as opposed to opinion, backed by experience, backed by knowledge of the conditions of that western country. I do not want to go any further. But it would be extremely easy to compare the results of immigration twelve years ago with the results of immigration to-day. I do not wonder that Sir Richard Cartwright, in those days wanted to withdraw any sums spent on immigration, because when the immigrants, so far from increasing, are decreasing, when the policy adopted does not settle the land, and does not bring people, but is reducing the country to stagnation, the sooner the expending of money in that way is cut off the better for the country. But no one can contend that that is the condition to-day. Stop immigration! Yes. And stop your railway building. Stop the cultivation of the soil; stop your factories. It is the west that takes the product of these factories. I wonder gentlemen in the east do not see how mistaken is the thinking that divides this

country into east and West. The interests of the east and west are one. I say for this government that, so far as their immigration policy is concerned, so far as their land policy is concerned, the east and west are one and that this policy, so far as my experience goes, has been a great success.


David Henderson: I would like to put one question to the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) to find out whether his address has any bearing on the amendment I have moved. I have wondered if the gentleman he has referred to as coming to this country and bringing so much money was brought out by means of a bonus. If not, then the hon. member's speech has nothing to do with the question.
I would like to ask him whether this gentleman was a bonus immigrant or not.


Michael Clark: I could not say that the immigrant was the direct result of a bonus, though I did say, I hope with becoming modestv. that he had come here as the result of my own efforts. I hope the hon. member (Mr. Henderson) will not think he can catch me in such a hole, even at this advanced hour of the night and of the session. I wish I had time to discuss this question. This, I suppose, is the night before prorogation. But I wish I had time to take members on the Conservative side and tell them the simple facts of what I did. I know, as a matter of fact, that the bonus system has led to many good immigrants coming to Canada, if that will satisfy my hon. friend. In the remarks I have just addressed to the House I was dealing with a number of speeches which had been made and not alone with the motion technically before the committee. I say that I know as a matter of fact that bonuses have brought numbers of people to this country. The shipping agents work for this bonus. They talk these immigration matters over with the farm delegates who are sent to the old country. A wise farm delegate tells many more people not to come out to Canada than he tells to come. He addresses, it may be, fifty or sixty people at one time, and at others he interviews single individuals, and I can assure the committee that again -and again I advised them by no means to come near Canada. They were better fitted for where they were. A wise choice is made by the shipping agent in co-operation with the farm delegate. With regard to the bonus system, I feel perfectly certain that it is part of the machinery which has worked well as compared with the immigration results as they were before this government came into power.


Mr. DOHERTY.: I should be sorry indeed to contribute anything in addition to what has been said by the hon. member for Hal-ton (Mr. Henderson) and those of the hon.
member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk), which the hon. member for Red Deer might apprehend as producing the sad effect of deafening the ears of the Minister of the Interior or the far more disastrous result of turning his powerful brain.
I should be very sorry indeed to take any part in those terrible operations. But I would like to add my word in support of this motion, which constitutes an objection and a condemnation of a particular form of encouragement to immigration, and not by any means an attack upon any system of encouragement. It seems to me that this bonusing system, this paying of something to the man who sends an immigrant, is a system which exposes us to have sent to this country undesirable people. What means does the minister indicate that he has at his disposal to control the class of immigrants that come here? He says they have to pass our examination; and we had some figures given this evening to show us what it costs to get rid of people who pass our examination. But more than that. I understand these bonuses are paid to persons who are supposed to follow particular avocations, and to devote themselves to particular occupations. Now, I am curious to know what means the minister has to control the truth of the statements that persons coming here do engage in those occupations. Can he show to us that the persons who come here as being immigrants of those different classes for which bonuses are paid, turn out, when they get into this country, to be persons who are actually engaged in those occupations? I think if the minister would go into the centres of population, among the working men of Montreal, he would find there a considerable number of recently arrived immigrants in full competition with the men who are engaged in other occupations than those which the minister says he has in view in paying these bonuses. He will find there is a very prevalent belief among those working men who associate with these immigrants, that the bonus has a considerable effect in bringing into this country people who are not of the classes who are mentioned in the law, but people who compete with the working men in our cities, when work is none too plentiful, and who compete with them often in such a manner as to reduce the value of their wage and earning power. It does seem to me that the Trade and Labour Council organizations who have objected to this bonusing system make out a strong case against it, and that they are well within their rights in complaining that the public moneys of this country, to which they contribute as well as others, are used in a way which makes it possible to bring into the cities among our workingmen persons who compete with them in a field that is already more than

full. I desire to say that I give my hearty support to the motion of my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk). I would be glad to flatter myself that any word of mine might induce the minister to reconsider his policy in this regard. I fancy that even in the western country there could be no objections to doing away with a system which to a great extent creates for the working men of this country a strong reason for believing that the system works prejudicially to their interests.


Frank Oliver: I have no doubt that the working men do believe what my hon. friend has said, because he and his friends take every means to make them believe it. But it is not true.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have learned it from them, I never tried to teach it to them.


Frank Oliver: I want to say that we give bonuses and we employ agents for the purposes set out in the documents which are before the House, and the evidence that we are successful is found in the records of the takings of land in the west. We are endeavouring to get settlers on the land, and we are getting settlers, on the land as they were never got before. During the past year 40,000 homesteads were taken in the three prairie provinces.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Were those homesteaders bonused?


Frank Oliver: Some of them no doubt were. I have not got the record, but it is the class of people who take homesteads who are entitled to the bonus, or the shipping agents who send them here are entitled to the bonus, and they are not entitled to a bnous on people who come into competition with the hon. gentleman's constituents.


Charles Avila Wilson: How many of these were from the older provinces?


Frank Oliver: I cannot tell. It matters not how many were from the older provinces. The point is that a great many of them were people who were attracted to Canada by the efforts of the Immigration Department, and that it is because of those efforts that we find so many homesteads being taken up. The result to the constituents of my hon. friend is not to bring men into competition with them, but it gives them employment for their labour, and if there are to-day 100,000 people more in Montreal than there were 10 years ago, and if these people are getting better wages than they did 10 or 12 years ago, and my hon. friend from St. Anne knows they do, it is because the Immigration Department has brought in and settled such great numbers of people on the land.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Is the hon. gentleman justified in connecting as cause and effect his bonuses and people taking up these Mr. DOHERTY.
lands, any more than the working man is justified in connecting as cause and effect the bonuses and people who come and settle in cities?


Frank Oliver: Undoubtedly. The government is paying bonuses on people who ostensibly go on the land, and it is refusing bonuses to people who ostensibly are going into competition with his constituents. On a fair basis it is reasonable to suppose that the government, to some reasonable extent, has attained the purpose that it has in view. It is unquestionably not paying a bonus on those who are ostensibly coming into competition with his constituents, and it is not paying bonus on any man, whom it may have found out has gone or is going into competition with his constituents.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Why does the minister not find out before he pays the bonus?


Frank Oliver: The minister does find out on many occasions.


Samuel Hughes: On what class is the bonus paid?


Frank Oliver: On farmers, farm labourers, domestic servants and railway navvies.


Mr. SEXSMITH.: I would like to ask the minister if the government bonuses any of the young men of the older provinces. We have thousands of young men in this country and I think it is only fair to compensate them for settling the west.


William Stevens Fielding: As a representative of one of the older provinces I do not want the Dominion government to offer inducements to take people away from that province.


Adam Brown Crosby: If I understand the amendment right it does not propose to take away any assistance from immigration at all. It only takes away the bonus from the agent. If there has ever been a year when we could afford to do away with bonusing it is this year. When the bonuses amount to about $62,000. I would suggest to the Minister of Finance, as a member from one of the older provinces, taking that $62,000 and passing it over to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries in order to help us to build a ship in Nova Scotia for the Department of Marine and Fisheries. It would help .us down there. The Minister of the Interior said a moment ago that the people had plenty of work. As a member from one of the older provinces I may say that there is not a factory in the maritime provinces that is employing over half its complement of men or doing half the amount of work that it was doing a few years ago. Whether the same condition prevails all over Canada I am not prepared to say, but I am prepared to speak with reference to the factories in the maritime provinces. If that

be the case why should we be sending agents out and bonusing men to come to this country. What would you think of a manufacturer who was selling all the goods he could possibly manufacture sending out a horde of agents to get orders for him? If he was selling all the goods he could manufacture what reason would he have for employing agents to get orders? Yet, that is the very thing that we are doing. We have not work for th.e people that we now have in Canada. It is well understood that the miners in the eastern provinces are not going to be able to get nearly the amount of work they had last year or the year before. The mines have not made sales up to the present time equal to those of the past year and there is a strong indication that there are going to be less opportunities of employment for the men in the mines. That is the case in connection with every industry in the east. I am not speaking against anybody coming to this country who desires to come. We are still giving assistance to immigration and people who have a thousand dollars or a thousand pounds will be able to come in just as well as they ever have been able to come in. But I think we should do away with the bonuses. If we are going to spend this $62,000 let it be spent in such a way as will give work to men in the east. Instead of paying bonuses on immigrants let us use it to help to build a ship for the Minister of Marine and Fisheries in order to protect our coast and it will be better spent than if it is given for the bonusing of agents on the other side.
Amendment (Mr. Henderson) negatived.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I regret to see that the minister has not accepted the amendment suggested by my hon. friend from Halton (Mr. Henderson). I would propose that the bonusing of immigrants as provided for in item 62 be restricted to farmers, farm hands and female help. I think that when the workmen have suffered _ in this country from the undue competition of foreign labourers it is due to them that we should return to the old conditions. My hon. friend knows that there was a time when we paid bonuses on farmers, farm hands and female help. That order in council was altered, but I think we should make that restriction for this year at any rate. The present motion comprises gentlemen, like my hon. friend from Bed Deer (Mr. Clark) who, I believe, has boasted in this House that he was a farmer. Certainly we cannot have too many immigrants of the type of the hon. member for Bed Deer in this country. Nevertheless, we must not forget that he is in the category of those who were employed temporarily to act as immigration agents. His case is peculiar in my experience because generally such employment is given to gentlemen who have been defeated. But I can tell my hon. friend that although we are very glad to see in this country gentlemen like himself coming from the British Islands we, who have for generations, lived in Canada, whose forefathers have discovered it, have settled it, have defended it, we who regard it as our native country look at it in a somewhat different light from my hon. friend. We consider that we should settle this country but we are going to take our time about it. It is not necessary to crowd it, to fill it up absolutely at any cost and any price. We are a young people, we can take our time to choose suitable people and we believe that the older provinces should reserve a part of the rich territory, which we paid for with our own money, which we settled with our own people, and that we should not fill it up at any price as my hon. friend from Bed Deer thinks we should do.


Frank Oliver: I might point out that at the present time we are paying bonus only on farmers, farm labourers and domestic servants. We did pay a bonus on navvies and people in any ordinary outdoor employment up to a year ago this last spring. With the falling off- of railway work it was found necessary to cut off the navvies and since then we have only been paying on farmers, farm labourers and domestic servants.


Charles Avila Wilson: Would the minister tell us the date at which this was done?


Frank Oliver: I could not off-hand give the date, but I think that the circular which was sent out a year ago in April made the difference.


Charles Avila Wilson: Would the minister lay it on the table?
An hon. MEMBEB. Was it an order in council?


Frank Oliver: It was a departmental order.	,


Frederick Debartzch Monk: The order in council mentioned navvies, gardeners, stable men and some others. It permitted every body to come in.


Frank Oliver: That was not an order in council; it was a departmental order.
Amendment negatived.


Adam Brown Crosby: Why vote it down?


Frank Oliver: Because the government does not want to be prevented from employing it if occasion should arise.
Winnipeg and St. Boniface hospital, $15,000.


Samuel Hughes: I thought these came under provincial jurisdiction.


Frank Oliver: This is a special vote which has been given by parliament for a number of years in connection with immigration. Winnipeg is the point to which all over-seas immigrants come, and from which they are distributed over the prairies; and arriving after their ocean voyage, there are often among them cases of sickness,, which have to be attended to in the local hospitals, and the government pays on each patient the difference between the amount of the provincial grant and $1 per day.


William Wright: The minister is practically doubling the grant this year. If he has adopted measures to restrict the immigration of undesirable immigrants, one would naturally expect that this grant would be reduced. But the fact that it is nearly doubled would seem to indicate that we are going to have more epileptic and other people of the classes for whom hospitals are required than we have had in the past.


Frank Oliver: The classes of diseases treated in the hospitals are not those for which undesirable immigrants are excluded.


Samuel Hughes: Does the province of Manitoba pay so much per head for every immigrant sent to the hospital in Winnipeg or St. Boniface?


Frank Oliver: Yes. The provincial government pays 27 cents for every patient treated, and the government supplements that in the case of immigrants by paying the difference between 27 cents and $1.


Mr HUGHES.: Has the minister any check to satisfy him that this money has been paid out for patients who were actually immigrants?


Frank Oliver: When a patient who claims to be an immigrant is taken into a hospital, the hospital is required to notify our agent, and the officer goes and verifies the statement. We pay for any immigrant who goes to a hospital within a year after landing.


Samuel Hughes: How many hospitals are on the list?


Frank Oliver: There are only two which get the special vote; but in many parts of the Northwest we assist the charitable efforts of the local people in their public hospitals.


John Barr: According to this statement, there must have been treated in the hospitals during the year 19,000 patients.
British Columbia Penitentiary, $56,500.


James Davis Taylor: I wish to say a few words with respect to the condition of affairs at the British Columbia penitentiary. This is a matter which I brought up some time ago but we were then forced to sus-Mr. HUGHES.
pend the discussion because we had not the return moved for giving information as to the incidents connected with the escape of one Bill Miner. Since that time the return has come down, and it seems to me to abundantly justify the suggestion I then made that we should have a thorough inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the escape of that noted desperado. Shortly after the return was brought down, I notified the government that I intended to offer a resolution on this matter on the motion to go into Supply, but on account of the fact that the opportunity was not offered so soon as I expected and that on one or two occasions when I had intended to bring it up, I was asked by the hon. the Solicitor General (Mr. Bureau) not to do so at that particular moment, I deferred the matter until now, when it is out of the question to offer a resolution or take up time at such length as its importance would justify. Therefore without any attempt to offer a resolution or divide the committee, I wish to call attention to some facts brought out by that return. I mention this delay because an hon. gentleman opposite saw fit, a couple of weeks ago, to charge me with having been delinquent in my duty because I had not carried out the promise he said I made it at an early- stage of the session, to make certain charges against the government but as to which he said I had backed down. That assertion was entirely unwarranted, and I am sure it was made by that hon. gentleman in ignorance of the facts. As a matter of fact, ever since the return was laid on the table, I was willing, not to make charges-because at no time did I threaten or promise to make any- but to enter upon a discussion of the subject. My remarks are not directed against the Department of Justice or the Minister of Justice or the Solicitor General or the service generally. I wish to be very specific, as I think I was before; and to avoid any misunderstanding, I wish to say that the point I propose to make is that whereas we are paying money for an inspection service' in connection with the Department of Justice, we are not getting any adequate inspection for the money, especially in connection with the inspection of the penitentiary in New Westminster. In order to establish that, I wish to call attention to some of the facts brought out by this return. But before taking up the return gen-erallyrl would like to advert to the explanation made by the Minister of Justice when the matter was first before the House. His explanation was that the delay in the institution of this inquiry was caused by the extraordinary action of the deputy warden in addressing his telegram to Inspector Dawson personally instead of to "The Inspectors," thereby causing a long delay. The House will remember what great emphasis was laid on this fact, and how the unfortunate deputy warden was held up as hav-

ing been derelict in his duty in giving an incorrect address to liis despatch. That is a trifling incident in itself, but the very fact that the minister was prompted to make so misleading a statement to the House is evidence to me of a disposition on the part of some one-whom it is not my duty to name but who was the prompter of the minister on that occasion-to give the House an impression not warranted by the fact and which would not have been in the mind of the minister had he himself perused the return which now I have before me. From this return I find that, so far from that telegram having been incorrectly addressed, it was correctly addressed. I find that it was addressed to the inspectors at Ottawa, but telephoned from the telegraph office here to the residence of Inspector Dawson. And that, from his residence in Ottawa, the telegraph office got instructions to forward the message to Kingston, when for the first time, the address was changed to Mr. Dawson at Kingston. I find also that the circumstance explained in detail to the Department of Justice by the local manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph Company about ten days after the occurrence and is the subject of two or three - letters included m this return, showing that the department was aware of the fact that the telegram was correctly addressed at the beginning and fully seized of the circumstance under which the address was changed when it was forwarded to Kingston.
Now, at the outset, we were told by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Aylesworth) that because of the state of disorganization at New Westminster penitentiary as indicated by_ the numerous escapes and other disquieting circumstances there, he received with great misgiving the announcement on August 8, that four prisoners had escaped. One would think that the inspector of penitentiaries, whose duty it was to visit the institution and keep tab on what was going on there, would share the misgivings of the minister himself. But instead of his lying awake at night, or even going to the expense of sending a telegram, to learn the extent of the disaster, we find from the record that, on the morning - of the 9th, the inspector left Ottawa and went to Kingston. He did not go by express train on which he could have been reached at any station along the line; he did not go by any ordinary mode of travel such as any of us would use if we wished to go from Ottawa to Kingston, but, according to his own statement, he went by boat on the morning of the 9th and arrived in Kingston at six o'clock on the 10th. And it was not until 10 p.m. on the 11th, or three days after the disquieting news from New Westminster had reached Ottawa that he got to his brother-in-law's residence, where, it is presumed, he had ordered his mail delivered,
and got this telegram which was despatched to him on the 9th. I say this shows that, from the very outset, this matter at New Westminster was treated in so casual a fashion as to indicate that the inspector who had charge had no proper appreciation of the gravity of his duty, and was not a fit man to be engaged in an emergency of that kind. With this preface I take up the story from New Westminster. I find that the first reason afforded by the papers that something serious was going on was contained in this official report of Deputy Warden Bourke:
The hole under the fence gives clear evidence of the outside part, having been dug from the outside. As no one would go there during the day, this part of the work must have been done at night. This and other circumstances lead me to believe that Miner has had outside assistance in getting away. I shall forward you another report when' we abandon the search.
There is the direct statement of the deputy warden that there had been a plot, for, of course, outside assistance involves a plot. Upon receipt of this the department, of course, rose to the occasion. Inspector Dawson had not come back from Kingston because of the condition of affairs at New Westminster-a condition which the minister says he recognized and which it is to be presumed the inspector should have recognized-but taking no notice of it, proceeded leisurely from Kingston, where he seems to have arrived by canal boat, to Dorchester at the other extreme of the country. And there he was written to by Inspector Stewart:
Ottawa, August 21, 1907.
Dear Mr. Dawson,-The minister has had under consideration the reports which have been received in connection with the recent escape at British Columbia, and is of opinion that a thorough investigation should be made on the spot. He suggests that you should, if possible, shorten your visit of' inspection at Dorchester and that probably you may be able to return without visiting St. Vincent de Paul this trip. I think that it is his intention to ask you to conduct this investigation, which in his opinion should not be delayed in view of the comments and criticism which the incident has evoked, especially in the west. Perhaps you will be good enough to telegraph me as to the date on which you may be able to reach Ottawa.
In due course, Mr. Dawson reached New Westminster and commenced the investigation. The record of that investigation takes up about 150 pages of this return. I shall read only that part which goes to show that there was a plot engineered from the outside to get this man out of the penitentiary otherwise than by the ordinary method of a pardon from the Governor General. This evidence is contained in the sworn statement of Instructor George McKenzie. As I have personal knowledge of Mr. McKenzie, I desire to say that this


Mr.  J. D.@: were, and he would then know just how to negotiate with the detective.
11.	At this point I told Miner to stop. I said to him I was too old in the service to he caught in a trap like that. I would he as guilty as he is if I failed to give up the bonds to the rightful owners when I found them.
I advised him to go at once to the warden and tell him all about it. If the warden sent me I would go. I told him he would he safer to trust to the warden to do what is right than to make any bargain with detectives.
I then went to the warden and told him what Miner had said about the detectives offering to secure his pardon if he would tell them where the bonds were. The warden said he knew about it, so I said no more.
Now, I ask the committee to consider what possible object Miner could have in making such a statement as this to Instructor McKenzie. This House was informed on a previous occasion, that there was no foundation for the bond story, that it was merely a shadowy figment worked up by another desperado in order to secure attention to Miner. These men were both old men, they had been working together on the shoemaker's bench for nearly a year. Miner was not an ordinary desperado. Apart from his weakness in robbing the rich to benefit the poor, as he says, he was a man that an instructor would likely hold iu some regard. We must remember the fact that Miner was not so depraved that he could not win the confidence of the instructor, who was in a position to know whether any credence was to be placed on his words. Now, we find him making a statement to this man and asking him to take up a map and go to a place only 28 miles from the prison gates, and see whether there were hid there three rifles, arid nearby a sack containing bonds. If the instructor had taken his suggestion and found nothing, Miner would have been thoroughly discredited, and he would have had nothing to gain whatever. The story seems to have a certain element of credibility on its face, it seems to have been accepted by the inspector who investigated the occurrence as having a certain amount of reliability. At all events, we find no attempt made throughout this investigation to discount Miner's story by any other inquiry on the part of the inspector. We find it is not followed up at all, except that we have the deputy warden called and asked About Miner's statement that he had this interview with three persons unknown in the warden's office. Here is an essential paragraph which I overlooked:
Miner said he was alone with the lawyer and detective. He said nobody was present but the lawyer and detective. He said they were to he hack in a week.
The only other reference we have to that interview is in the evidence of the deputy

warden Bourke, on page 100 of the return, where he says:
There is no record of the visit of McIntyre, Bullock and another man.
I would like to say here a few words about Mr. McIntyre. That gentleman has lately repudiated any connection with this interview, and has instituted and prosecuted successfully a suit for criminal libel against Deputy Warden Bourke for having *stated in a place where he was not privileged, that Mr. McIntyre was present at that interview Mr. McIntyre has written to the bon. member for Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) asking that he be set right before the House in this connection, and since his name is so often mentioned in this connection I wish to make it plain, before reading these references, that Mr. McIntyre has established that the use of his name was unwarranted. I will proceed to read Bourke's statement:
There is no record of the visit of A. McIntyre, Detective Bullick and another man. One day last fall or late summer, the guard in the hall told me three men had come to see Miner, that they were in the warden's office, and that Miner was with them. The warden was theii in the accountant's office.
I did not see the men. I know nothing about them except what the guard told me. I. cannot recollect who was on duty in the hall that day.
Inspector Dawson, in his report to the department, makes this reference to that incident, page 46 of the evidence:
I think, without doubt, the convicts were aided by confederates outside. I think the hole was dug from the outside. I cannot account for the total disappearance of all four convicts if they were not skillfully aided when they got out. (See convict Campbell's statement, page 57.) Warden Whyte is very ill. I am forbidden to speak to him respecting any matter that might agitate him. I cannot examine him respecting the visit of McIntyre, Bullick and another man, with whom Miner is said to have been closeted unaccompanied by an officer (pages 49 and 51).
The impression that was made upon the department when they received this report from Inspector Dawson, is shown by this extract I will read from a letter addressed by Inspector Stewart to Inspector Dawson, on the 11th of October, page 127:
Miner was visited by men that had no authority to enter the prison, _ and there is evidence that some of these visits were not recorded. His solicitor had authority to interview him, but only in the presence of the warden, or other officer named by the warden, and there is evidence to show that even this precaution was not enforced. There was no authority whatever for admitting the other visitors named, and the fact that they were admitted and permitted to interview convicts was assuming a responsibility that no officer of the penitentiary possessed. There is ground for the suspicion that the escape was facilitated by these irregularities. Further information regarding the visit and visitors referred to by Instructor McKenzie should be obtained, if it be possible to do so.
223	revised
At page 131 Mr. Stewart returns to the subject, and thus addresses Mr. Dawson:
The minister is anxious to have more information with reference to the mysterious visit of McIntyre, Bullick and the unknown, who were allowed, apparently, to interview the convict without supervision eight or nine months ago. It is not likely that McIntyre will give any information, but, perhaps, if you can obtain the address of Bullock it will be possible to have on file his statement of what their business was, and also whether they were allowed to interview the convict without official supervision. The matter was quite fully referred to in Instructor McKenzie's evidence. If yon desire the file. I will forward it.
We see from that letter that not only Inspector Dawson but also Inspector Stewart and the minister himself attach the greatest importance to Instructor McKenzie's evidence. On one point they were desirous of being informed and that was as to what passed at this private interview between a man supposed to be Mr. McIntyre, Detective Bullick, the outlaw Terry and Miner. It struck me as singular that if so thorough an investigation were made by the inspector, if he were investigating this matter up to the hilt so that there should not be a shred of a doubt as to whether any responsibility could be fixed or could not be fixed, that he should, when he came to a lead like that, abandon it and have to take up the trail two or three weeks after upon the receipt of a letter from the inspector or the minister at Ottawa. It would seem to me that the inspector, if he were capable of making an investigation into a charge like that, being sent to New Westminister to find out whether it was true as stated in the report of the deputy warden upon which this investigation was started, that Miner's escape was facilitated by assistance from the outside, that he would have been keen to follow up the clue given to him by the report of the interview. If he had followed it up one would have felt that the very first man he would have appealed to would have been Mr. McIntyre, although as indicated in this return, it might have been expected that Mr. McIntyre would have refused to have given him any information because if he were there at all it would be in the capacity of counsel for the prisoner and as such anything that passed between them would be privileged. Under these circumstances	it was only natural	to
suppose that he would have Tefused to give any information as to the occurrence. But, if the inspector had inquired of Mr. McIntyre he would have been able at the outset to have ascertained that the statement was untrue, that Mr. McIntyre was not there at all and then he would have been face to face with the -problem of who it was who entered the penitentiary and was described by


EDITION
[Stage Direction]
Miner as his lawyer from up-country, because the' committee will notice that Miner does not mention the name of McIntyre, that the name is gratuitously added by some person, but that Miner said that his lawyer from uP-c°untry was there with Bullich and the unknown. It seems to me essential that any inquiry worthy of the name into this circumstance would have gone off on that lead, would first have inquired if Mr. McIntyre were there, and, finding that he was not there, would have set itself to answer the question: Who was it that was described by this man as his lawyer from up-country? Was this a man masquerading as McIntyre, and if so, who was he? Let us find out from Bullick who it was. We would suppose also that the inspector would have turned to Mr. Bullick of the Canadian Pacific Railway who also was well known. It is not hard to find the address of a man like him with the Canadian Pacific Railway office only a few miles from the penitentiary and telephonic communication between the warden's office and the office of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Well we find this extraordinary sequence of events. It would appear that the minister was most desirous that further information should be secured, under three heads set out in a letter to which the answering letter of Inspector Dawson is as follows :-
New Westminster, B.C.,
October 22, 1907.
Dear Mr. Stewart,-I have your letter of the 15th instant regarding (1) Piggery Gate, (2) the ladders used in ascending to the guard stands, and (3) the visit of McIntyre, Bullick and another to convict Miner.
Then this letter goes on to give a half page on the Piggery Gate, a page and a third to the ladder and two lines to the essence of the whole business, as follows:
If I can obtain Mr. Bullick's address I 6hall ask him to inform me regarding the visit referred to in McKenzie's evidence.
I ask the committee to consider this in the light of the statement we have had that Inspector Dawson conducted a most thorough investigation into the escape of this man. We find that so far from having an investigation of the statement that three men went into the warden's office and had a private interview with Miner at which it was supposed the plot for his escape was hatched, this inspector took so little interest in it that he did not ask who Bullick was, did not ask what Bullick's address was, knew nothing whatever about him, and even when questioned by his minister made no reference to him beyond saying casually in closing his letter that:
If I can obtain Mr. Bullick's address 1 shall ask him to inform me regarding the ' visit referred to in McKenzie's evidence.
James Davis Taylor: We find a reply to that as follows:
Ottawa, October 29, 1907.
Dear Mr. Dawson,-The minister was much pleased with your supplementary report of the 22nd instant, with reference to the action you have taken to secure the Piggery Gate.
I would ask if we are to understand from that that Mr. Dawson was sent out to New Westminster and there to spend several months, only to secure the Piggery Gate. If the minister had no reason to be pleased with the reply to his long communication of the 22nd instant, in which Mr. _ Stewart intimates that if he could obtain Bullick's address he should ask him regarding the visit referred to, he apparently had reason to be pleased that his astute inspector had been able to secure the Piggery Gate.


Samuel Hughes: What is the Piggery Gate?


James Davis Taylor: The Piggery Gate, I will say, for the information of my hon. and inquisitive friend, is a gate that was kept wide open by the penitentiary officials, according to the evidence contained in this return, and upon which the eyes of a sentinel who was supposed to watch it the afternoon that Miner made his escape were focussed on this fatal occasion and whose explanation of why he could not watch the bole through which Miner crawled was that he was watching the Piggery Gate and that he could not see two ways at once. I would ask the committee to say, with all due deference to the Minister of Justice, whether, at this stage of the investigation, if the minister were really responsible for this letter written in his name, he had not lost his grasp of the situation when he said that he was pleased with the action to secure the Piggery Gate and said nothing of the failure to acquire information regarding the plot to liberate Bill Miner. At page 135 of the return we have the sole result of the investigation which the minister so promptly requested, and which Mr. Dawson did not carry out. - Here is a letter of the inspector addressed to - Bullick. By some extraordinary stealth, I do not know how, the address of Bullick was discovered, but it was run down, and as a result we find this letter addressed - Bullick, Esq., special agent, Canadian Pacific Railway offices, Vancouver, British Columbia:
Dear Sir,-Nine or ten months ago a Mr. McIntyre, another man and you visited convict Edwards alias Bill Miner in this penitentiary. I am directed by the Minister of Justice to say that he will be much obliged if you will be good enough to state, for his information, the nature of the business discussed with convict Edwards at that interview, and also whether the warden or any other officer of the penitentiary was present during

tie whole time the interview lasted. Thanking you in anticipation.
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd.) G. W. DAWSON,
Inspector in Control.
It seems to me that there was a superfluity of politeness in that request and not enough of sternness to have brought the answer which might be expected to come from a detective who was under suspicion in the minds of the other inspector and of the minister. There should have been an element of sternness in the demand upon him for a true account of what happened, and to assist "the Department of Justice to fathom a plot by which that man got out of the penitentiary. Instead of that, wre find the inspector writing to this detective that he is directed by the Minister of Justice to ask him if he ' will be good enough to state for his information,' and so forth. In the light of that it is not surprising that we find a very casual reply made by this detective, after seven days of deliberation, although he is only a few miles from the pentitentiary. He says:
Vancouver, B.C., November 5, 1907.
G. W. Dawson, Esq.,
Inspector in Control,
New Westminster Penitentiary.
Dear Sir,-1 am in receipt of your letter of the 29th ult. I think you have been wrongly informed as to me visiting convict Edwards at the penitentiary in company with Mr. McIntyre.
_ I might say the only time I visited Edwards in the penitentiary was on the 9th day of February last in company with Jake Terry. The late Colonel Whyte, was present all the time. The visit was merely to see if Terry and Edwards knew each other, as they were both in the San Quentin penitentiary together. There was a short conversation between Terry and Edwards in reference to the Mission holdup, September 1904.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) R. E. BULLICK,
Inspector.
And there this most thorough investigation ended.


Robert Franklin Sutherland: Carried.


James Davis Taylor: Surely it is not the hon. member for North Essex that says carried. I ask if it is not hopeless for any one to expect to impress this House with any misdemeanour by any official of the government when an hon. member of the standing of the member for North Essex can see no other reply to be made in a matter of this kind than to cry carried when the salient facts are being laid before the House. I must say that before I came to this parliament I had a higher estimate of the dignity and the sense of responsibility of the Canadian parliament.
I have known this parliament at a time when a recital such as that contained in this return would not have been met by one of the leading members supporting the government with the cry of carried. I am sincerely sorry if the standard of this parliament has degenerated from the time when I first knew it, if a matter like this is not met with more gravity by the members supporting the government. At this period of the session it would not be seemly to enter upon a discussion which would have been justified at the time I gave the minister notice that I would bring this matter forward; but I have ventured to occupy your time to-night in justice to myself, because I felt it my duty early in the session to raise this question, not on my own initiative, but in consequence of statements made in the public press without any reference to me or without any knowdedge on my part, but based on the annual report of the Minister of Justice. That was the way in which this Miner episode originated in this House. I thought it my duty to take notice of these statements, and I told the Department of Justice that it was due to the credit of this government that when an occasion of this kind did occur, there should be a more thorough investigation than has taken place on this occasion. I am free to repeat that this return bears out to the uttermost my suggestion that the circumstances were very suspicious. I am free to say here that in the light of all the events that have been disclosed, it is not established in my mind whether Miner escaped from that penitentiary in consequence of a plot or whether he escaped by pure accident; but it does seem to me to be established that there was a plot on foot to get that convict out of the penitentiary, and until it is set beyond the shadow of a doubt that no such plot exists, it is the duty of the Department of Justice to follow up this case and to make it clear to all parties concerned that it cannot be tolerated that they can enter upon any mission of this kind-that the Department of Justice will be ruthless in the pursuit of any person who presumes to use the expression I used before, to unlock with a golden key the door of any penitentiary in Canada.


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: There is one point at any rate on which the hon. gentleman who has revived the discussion of this question and myself can be well agreed, and that is, in satisfaction that the papers relating to this matter have been brought down, and are open to inspection by every member of the House. He thinks, according to what he has said, that these papers justify what he has done in this matter, and therefore I have no doubt he must feel gratification that they are before the House. I

turn discloses exactly the position of the matter and verifies absolutely every piece of information given by me or by the Solicitor General, the circumstance that Inspector Bourke's telegram notifying the department of the escape was delivered in Ottawa in a different condition from that of the original, as handed in at New Westminster, is referred to as though there were something suspicious or improper in it. It is important in this connection that I should *correct the dates given by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Taylor). The escape took place, not on the 4th of August, but on Thursday, the 8th of August, 1907. On the same afternoon there came to Ottawa a telegram from the deputy warden, Mr. Bourke, in these words:
COIlvicts escaped from the brickyard this afternoon.
The telegram did not say who those con victs were and we had no suspicion that Miner was one of them until a subsequent telegram came, to which I am about to refer. That telegram of the 8th of August was addressed, as su%h telegrams should be addressed, simply ' Inspector of Penitentiaries, Ottawa.' On the following day, Mr. Bourke sent a further message, despatched on Friday the 9th of August, from New Westminster, and addressed, he says, when he handed it in to the telegraph company, in similar fashion. That telegram asked if he would offer a reward and stated that Bill Miner was among those who escaped. Now, that telegram came to Ottawa on Friday night, the 9th of August, but the telegraph night clerk here, instead of copying it as it was received and sending it out to be delivered to Mr. Stewart, Mr. Dawson's senior inspector, who was here in town, telephoned to Mr. Dawson's house, and was told by some member of Mr. DawAon's family that he was in Kingston. On receiving that information, the operator in Ottawa changed the address or added to the address Mr. Dawson's name. The telegram which Mr. Bourke had despatched was addressed simply to the inspector of penitentiaries. The telegram delivered at this end of the line was addressed ' G. W. Dawson, Inspector of Penitentiaries,' and the result was the telegram was sent to Mr. Dawson at Kingston and never came to the knowledge of the office in Ottawa until the following Monday, the 12th of August. Investigation was then made. Mr. Bourke was taken to task for having addressed his telegram in that way, and he asserted that he did not put Mr. Dawson's name on it. The company here put the blame where it belongs. They put it upon a possibly too zealous clerk, who, instead of taking the telegram exactly as it came to him, improved it, as he thought, by putting Mr. Dawson's name on it, and sent it around the country hunting for Mr. Dawson instead of delivering * Mr. AYLESWORTH.
I	'
it to Mr. Dawson's colleague who was here in Ottawa all the time. How any one could suppose that that was evidence of some fraudulent conduct on the part of the Canadian Pacific Railway, conniving at Miner's escape, and deliberately done to give him further time before effort for his recapture could be made, passes my understanding. I hope the hon. gentleman means to be fair, and meaning to be fair, if he would reflect that he is making-not a charge, it is true-but an insinuation, a suggestion of a most serious character against men whose reputations are dear to them, who are under oath of office, who are in responsible official positions, I think he should hesitate before, without one particle of proof, without one reason on the facts of the case as shown by the sworn evidence and the papers before every member for inspection, venturing to say that there is ground for thinking the inspectors have been false to their oaths of office, untrue to their duty, disloyal to the department, and disloyal to the country..
Why, Sir, if any inspector connived at this man's escape, if any inspector did the things insinuated against Mr. Inspector Dawson here, he is not only unworthy to continue for one moment in the office of responsibility and trust which he holds, but he is a man who ought to be where Miner was and ought to serve there for a long period of imprisonment, the penalty of doing that which it is insinuated here was done by these inspectors or by one of them without reason or motive or any cause which can be suggested. I have simply to say that, after some three years' experience with our two inspectors of penitentiaries, I believe that each one of these men is faithful to his duty. I have not been misled by either of them. I should like the hon. gentleman (Mr. J. D. Taylor) or any member of this House to point out to me any respect in which information has been kept back from me by either of these inspectors. I regard each one of them as a trustworthy, honourable and honest official. I make no distinction between them; there is no more reason for imputing dishonour and dishonesty in this matter to Mr. Inspector Dawson than there is for imputing it to Mr. Inspector Stewart. Mr. Stewart remained here with me while Mr. Dawson went out to British Columbia to take charge of the penitentiary and conduct that investigation. It was but the accident of the occasion that Mr. Dawson was chosen for that duty. Mr. Stewart was equally competent; he might equally well have been sent. But Mr. Dawson went; he conducted that inquiry, so far as I can see, so far as anyone can see by examining the papers here, with impartiality, with thoroughness, with care; he reported fully not only his conclusions in this matter, but all the evidence on which those

conclusions had been reached. And I have yet to learn, in connection with all the discussion which has taken place this session about this affair, one piece of news or information that is not disclosed in the papers now before the House, ot that was not at once communicated to me by Mr. Dawson or Mr. Stewart upon that information coming to their knowledge. I think, Sir, the imputations cast upon these gentlemen, or upon either of them, have been most undeserved, have been most unfair, to men who have been doing their duty, and who I say in all earnestness and sincerity, are, in my humble judgment, no more deserving to be treated in this way than I myself. I am not able to understand any respect in which Mr. Inspector Dawson has been remiss in connection with this matter. He was in Dorchester some ten days after the news of Miner's escape had reached Ottawa. He had gone to Dorchester upon his official duty as inspector of penitentiaries. As soon as the written and detailed account of the escape reached Ottawa, and on the 21st of August, 1907, and after a conference with me in regard to it, Mr. Stewart, the inspector who was here, wrote to Mr. Dawson that I thought that he (Mr. Dawson) ought to proceed to British Columbia at once, that he ought to shorten his official investigation at Dorchester penitentiary and return to Ottawa on the first day possible. That letter is among the papers copied and brought down with the others in the return. Mr. Dawson received that letter on the 23rd of August, on Friday, two weeks after the escape. Mr. Dawson immediately telegraphed Mr. Stewart.
Letter received. Leave to-night. See yon at office two o'clock Sunday afternoon.
And post haste Mr. Dawson comes from Dorchester, passes through Ottawa on Sunday, continues his journey to the Pacific, reaches New Westminster on 3rd of September, takes charge of the penitentiary and forthwith enters upon this investigation. Let it be remembered that Mr. Warden Whyte, of the pentitenitary, was at this time upon his death-bed; nobody could even speak to him upon matters of business. He lived for some weeks longer, but during all the time that Mr. Dawson was in charge as inspector, and during all the time this investigation was going on, Mr. Dawson was not able to refer to Col. Whyte at all or have the benefit of a word with him. Now, it has been said, and I understand the hon. gentleman who has addressed the committee said he did not doubt that Miner's escape was plotted in the presence of Warden Whyte in an interview with Bullick in the February before the escape took place.


James Davis Taylor: I do not like to interrupt the minister (Mr. Aylesworth), but I would like to correct that statement.
I do not know anything I said that is capable of bearing that construction.


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: I accept the hon. member's statement, if he did not mean to say that, but I understood that the hon. gentleman had said that he felt no doubt that Miner's escape was plotted in the interview with Bullick. That interview took place in the presence of Warden Whyte. That interview taking place in the presence of Warden Whyte, the whole gravamen of the charge or the suspicion that is involved in what has been said with regard to that interview is in the circumstance that Warden Whyte was present. Bullick and Miner plotting escape would not mean that any official of the penitentiary was involved. Warden Whyte is gone; he is not here to defend his own good name. Usually we do not speak ill of the dead, and in the absence of any, the least, hint of evidence in these papers with regard to Warden Whyte, or connecting him in any way with this matter, I am astonished that any one should even think he could have participated in such a crime against the public and against this country as to have connived at the escape of a man like Miner or of any other convict.
Now, in regard to this escape, Inspector Dawson, after he had examined every person connected with the penitentiary who could know anything about it, was cf opinion, and reported at the time that he believed, that these escaping convicts had outside assistance. I must say that I share in that opinion. The hole under the fence through which they crawled would have taken some little time to dig, it was one that could not have been dug in the broad glare of daylight, and with officers and guards supposed to be in charge of the men at work in this brickyard. It had not the appearance of being freshly dug, and from all the surrounding circumstances the conclusion which Mr. Dawson reached was that this hole had been, in part at all events, excavated from the outside, that the earth had been disposed of, and that there had been a great deal of patience and care in the effort to conceal the fact that any such hole existed. It was a theory of some of the newspapers which discussed this matter that the prisoners never had gone through the hole, that the hole was merely a blind to the authorities ; though what advantage there would have been, after the prisoners had got away, in blinding the authorities with regard to the circumstance whether the escape had been under the fence or over the fence, I am not able to say. But one of these four prisoners has been recaptured within the last few days. He was tried for the escape, he gave his own evidence and according to the newspaper reports he has affirmed categorically that they did escape through the hole. And not only has

he so stated, but he has stated, whatever his evidence may be worth, that there was, so far as he was aware, no kind of previous plot that they should escape. He saw the hole, he thought there was a chance to go, he took advantage of the opportunity, and he crawled through the hole, and found himself on the outside of the fence, and finding himself there, he found himself in Miner's company. According to his statement, two of the four had preceded Miner and he and Miner followed where the other two had led. They had another wall to scale, they found a ladder which, by some one's misconduct, I think I may say, though I am not able to put my finger on the specific misconduct, had been placed in a position of insecurity, a ladder which was necessary for mounting to the guard tower upon the fence an^d which had not been carried inside the inclosure when it was not actually wanted for use. But it was left, locked it is true with a padlock, but in a position where these men, desperate in their extremity, were able to break the lock and to use the ladder to go over the second wall and so make good their escape, but the whole circumstances of the escape, as suspected and as believed in the evidence. of the men on the investigation before the inspector, are fully established and corroborated by the statement now made of the convict who has been recaptured, and the theory of the manner in which they got away which Mr. Dawson formed at the time and reported to me, has been to the fullest extent borne out by the sworn statement of this recaptured convict.
Now, criticism has been applied to this department that no further investigation was made into the matter. I cannot understand what possible thing remains to be investigated. The men fgot away; every effort was made to recapture them; it failed; one of them has since been recaptured. Under the Penitentiary Act the inspectors, either or both, are the men appointed by law to make investigation into matters of this kind. They are empowered to administer oaths, to summon witnesses before them, and to punish witnesses who refuse to testify; and those inspectors being clothed with that power, it was manifestly a proper thing that one of them should be sent to make this investigation. One of them was sent, he made this investigation, and made it in the most thorough manner possible. I am not able to suggest to myself now, in the light of all the discussions which have taken place about this matter during the present session, any particular in which Mr. Dawson could have made that investigation more thorough, or any circumstance in regard to which we could have obtained any more light than is already thrown upon it by the evidence already given. It was said: ' Why was there not a further investigation made in regard Mr. AYLESWORTH.
to these bonds? ' I do not know what further investigation could be made in regard to something which I do not believe ever existed. We have, if it is important, the testimony now of the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the letter I have read to the committee to-night. It seems that ^ there was ever anything in the theory that bonds to this enormous amount were stolen on the occasion of the first train robbery, it is entirely dissipated by the letter of Sir Thomas Shaughnessy I have referred to.
I desire to say one thing further, which is in a sense but justice to this legal gentleman, Mr. McIntyre, who defended the prisoners, and whose name was, not in this House, but in some of the newspapers of the west reporting the proceedings which had taken place in this House, coupled with Miner's as though he were responsible for Miner's escape. Mr. McIntyre took vigorous proceedings at once. He telegraphed me immediately on seeing these newspaper reports, and asked me to make his telegram public. He wrote me also on the matter, utterly repudiating the insinuation or charge that he had anything to do with Miner's escape, or had ever seen Miner after the original interview I have already referred to. I think it is no more than justice to him to state that publicly here in this House. I see also by the newspapers of the coast that he has taken proceedings, either of a criminal or civil character, as upon a charge of libel in connection with these same statements; that proceedings have been taken against Bourke aud Bourke has apologized. Proceedings have been threatened against the newspaper called the ' Columbian ; ' that newspaper has apologized and withdrawn any imputations against Mr. McIntyre's character. In these circumstances I do not suppose that any one can think for a moment that Mr. McIntyre acted otherwise than as a reputable and honourable, legal practitioner when, after defending these men, and defending them unsuccessfully, he went to the penitentiary and interviewed them, having this conference with them in the presence of the penitentiary officials, when they being unable to raise the money necessary to carry on the appeal, the intended appeal from the conviction fell to the ground, and they remained under the original sentence. From that date forward Mr. McIntyre has not been at the penitentiary at all, has not seen this man, and no ground, in my belief, exists for supposing that he had anything to do with the escape.


George Taylor: I want to ask the minister one or two questions in reference to the Kingston penitentiary. How many skeis were manufactured last year in the Kingston penitentiary, to whom were they sold, and at what price?


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: 240 pairs. They were sold to an association called the C. S. Athletic Association of Ottawa at $2.


George Taylor: My information
is that there were 300 pairs made.
Mr.AYLESWORTH. 240 I am told.


George Taylor: Was there a quantity of furniture manufactured at Kingston and sold to parties in Ottawa?


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: I am told that some tables were manufactured and possibly other articles of furniture at the Kingston Penitentiary but not sold to anybody except officials to whom they were charged.	[DOT]


George Taylor: My information is that there was a number of chairs, tables and other articles of furniture manufactured for citizens of Ottawa.


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: The articles were sold to officials only. Mr. Adams, architect, is one, Mr. Stewart, the inspector, is another. Mr. Dawson does not remember the names of the others. There were two other parties besides Mr. Adams and Mr. Stewart.


George Taylor: Some of the labouring men are complaining that the penitentiary should manufacture and ship out goods to compete with outside labor.


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: This is the old question about which there is the very greatest difficulty in administering the penitentiaries. There is nothing you can put your convicts at, unless it is breaking stone, that you do not tread on some person's corns. If you make furniture the cabinet makers object. Even if you break stone and sell it for the purposes of concrete you have the quarry men objecting. We have to get some kind of work for the convicts to do. We cannot keep them in idleness and we do the best we can. I am rather pleased if I can see any opportunity, such as the furnishing of church pews which was discussed when the estimates were up before, in which we can properly turn to good account the labour of the convicts in the penitentiaries.
Miscellaneous-to provide for expenses connected with arbitration before the Hague tribunal, $50,000.


George Eulas Foster: Will the minister give an explanation of this?


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: Hon. gentlemen are aware that on the 3rd March last a treaty was entered into between the United States and Great Britain for the submission of the fisheries disputes with regard to the Newfoundland coast and the treaty coasts of Canada. The treaty of 18X8 conferred upon
the inhabitants of the United States the privilege of fishing not only about certain defined coasts of Newfoundland but also upon the shores of Magdalen Islands and upon the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the southern end of the Straits of Belle Isle westward to a point approximately opposite the east end of Anticosti. The treaty, which was ratified on the 3rd of March, is a treaty for the submission of the various questions which have arisen in regard to the interpretation of the Treaty of 1818 to a body of five members of the Hague tribunal. The cases for Great Britain and the United States respectively are to be, prepared and delivered by the 1st of October next, and counter cases, with written arguments, prepared and afterwards exchanged, and oral argument to take place before the same tribunal, probably beginning about the' 1st of April next year. This vote is intended to cover, so far as it will go, the expenses attendant upon that reference to arbitration. I am intending to leave here next week, if possible, to proceed to England to take charge of the research and investigation which will complete the getting together of the material which will necessarily be involved in the preparation of the case of Great Britain. Newfoundland is interested in this dispute to an even greater extent, pecuniarily, than Canada, and the British government is interested for the two dominions in the general charge of the litigation. This amount may not be sufficient to cover the whole expenses of the proceedings, but it will, it is thought, cover at least what will be expended up to the end of the fiscal year.


George Eulas Foster: Who will be associated with the minister?


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: No definite arrangements have yet been made, owing no doubt to the political conditions in Newfoundland. Ever since this treaty was negotiated there has been great difficulty to get any understanding with those in charge there. But I have arranged with the Attorney General of Newfoundland that Sir Robert Finlay .shall be the leading counsel for us and for them in the presentation of the oral argument before the tribunal. No other counsel for the oral argument has yet been directly retained. I have not felt in a position to make any arrangements in that respect, because I do not know how many counsel the tribunal will be prepared to hear on either side. I do not know what the wishes of Newfoundland will be. I have no doubt they will wish to have one of their own men appear in their interest, and it is possible that the imperial government may think there ought to be a second British counsel along with Sir Robert Finlay. So fat as

this government is concerned, the matter of investigating the whole situation was, some months ago, before the treaty was finally arrived at, but at a stage of the negotiations when it became reasonably evident that an agreement as to the terms of submission would be reached, placed in the hands of Mr. John S. Ewart of this city, and he has been engaged in the work of research, collecting material and putting it into shape where it can be utilized, for eight or nine months. He tells me that he has substantially exhausted all the material to which he has access in this country, and that he wants to pursue his work of investigation at headquarters, and therefore he intends to go to London, no doubt next week, for that purpose.


George Eulas Foster: Mr. Ewart, then, is associated with the minister and intends to go to England with him. There is a point which I think may very well be made here. Mr. Ewart is associated with the minister and with the government. He goes to England as a leading Canadian. I am not saying anything against or in favour ,of Mr. Ewart as a lawyer. He mingles in London with other people in this case, and with dignitaries of various kinds, and he is supposed to represent Canadian opinion. Mr. Ewart has been airing his opinions in a way which is not agreeable to a good many people in Canada, and it becomes a question whether a gentleman who is forward in airing such opinions as these is a proper person to represent the Dominion government. I find, for instance, in a communication that Mr. Ewart has sent to the press, that he has overhauled the diplomacy of Great Britain for a series of years, and has expressed opinions which, although he has a perfect right to hold them and to express them as a private individual, do not qualify him very much to be a representative of Canada in connection with the British case at the Hague. I think it is not improper for me to refer to some of these. He seems to have a mania for putting Great Britain in the fault in every case that he possibly can. Here is something that he has said. He takes exception to the idea that a sense of gratitude requires that we send to Great Britain money sufficient to build a Dreadnought, and says:
By all means let us do it, and do it at once. But let us be sure that we have something to be ' grateful ' for. What is there?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' because the Dnited Kingdom foolishly got us into the American war of independence, with the result (besides our war losses) of establishing forever a hostile nation on our southern boundary - of establishing a permanent source of trouble for us?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' because the United Kingdom foolishly brought that nation-down upon us in 1812-14 ?
Ought we to be ' grateful' because of the Mr. AYLESWORTH.
Fenian raid? or the Trent affair? or the Crimean war? or the Egyptian war? or the Boer war ?-' grateful ' for the assistance we gave upon each of these occasions?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' for the British soldiers and sailors who have bled in Canadian quarrels? If we send the price of a Dreadnought for every drop of such blood, we shall not remit a 'first red cent.'
Ought we to be ' grateful ' for British diplomacy? Ought we to be 'grateful' because Shelburne and Oswald took from the loyal colony of Canada (then Quebec) and gave it to the rebellious colonies in the south, all the territory that now constitutes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and half of Minnesota, besides one-half of Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron and Superior and the whole of Michigan? Ought we to be grateful because the same two negotiators gave to those rebellious colonies access to the fisheries which formed part of the territory of the loyal colonies, with right even to land on their shores? We have been in trouble ever since about that. Ought we to be 'grateful' for Lord Alverstone?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' because in the European grab for valuable colonial possessions, the United Kingdom attained ownership of the territory which we now have? Did she make it what it is? Was it the Britishers who came here and who fought with forest and famine and disease and Indians who made Canada? or was it the Britishers who stayed at home?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' because those who stayed at home imposed upon us their trade laws and their navigation laws, framed for their own benefit? Ought we to be ' grateful ' because the United Kigdom has attained wealth and power through her colonies ?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' because when the United Kingdom changed her trade policy and, suddenly throwing our trade and commerce out of its only channels, announced that we were of no more service to her; that we had better go; that we were a ' millstone ' round her neck ?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' for our years of struggle for the attainment of those same political liberties which the British people themselves had and valued, and which they denied to us because we were a ' colony ' ?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' because, having now grown to certain importance, the United Kingdom wishes to treat us as a source of military supply?-not as having any voice in the making of war, but merely as feudal retainers who are to go with their lord to such wars as he may choose to undertake?
Ought we to be ' grateful ' because the United Kingdom protects us? We are in no danger, except such as she brings upon us. Which of us would owe the ' gratitude' if Canada's commerce were attacked by German cruisers? if Canadian coasts were assailed because of perturbations in European balance of power ? if Canada spent five times the price of a transcontinental railway in suppressing the Germany that (during the same war that gave Canada to the United Kingdom) British soldiers did so much 'to establish? Ought we to be 'grateful' for every opportunity of working at that balance of power-elevating this nation and depressing that?

Ought we to he 'grateful' because Japan has been established as a first-class fighting power? Is not the United Kingdom already sorry that she-did it? Her sad rebuff of the other day was due to Russia's defeat.
The United Kingdom does not protect us, and is in no position to do it. The question is: Shall we borrow money from the wealthiest nation in the world, send it back to her, and keep paying her interest upon it, under the ridiculous idea that she is in a state of desperate financial difficulty ?
If that is Mr. Foster's suggestion, I quite agree that ' no Canadian likes it to be put up to him,' for it suggests some dereliction from duty, as well as not a little stupidity. Canada was extremely patient under her long struggle for political liberties; under the engrossment and restraint of her trade and commerce; under the contempt of her uselessness between the 1810's and the 1880's. Canada has survived all that, thanks to herself. Let her rise to full maturity and nationhood. She is too big, and ought to be too proud, to be a mere source of military supply.


JOHN S. EWART.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Ewart has a perfect right to have his own opinion on every subject and to air his opinions as he pleases, but that does not particularly point him out as a person who had better be associated as a representative of Canada and of the Dominion government in these matters, where he comes in contact with British people- he even may have to meet Lord Alverstone -and his presence might lead to some almost international breakout, such is the aversion that Mr. Ewart seems to have to Lord Alverstone. For my own part as a taxpayer I do not feel that any part of my taxes ought to be paid out to such a representative of the Dominion 'government. I am taking no exception to what he says at the present time, I believe it to be historically untrue, to be most unfair and to be altogether un-British.
Allen Bristol Aylesworth: I think I can assure the hon. gentleman that Mr. Ewart was at all events not selected by reason of his writing or saying the things to which the hon. gentleman has referred. My answer to a formal question the other day was in entire accordance with the facts. Mr. Ewart was engaged for this work by reason of his legal attainments, of the position he occupies in the legal profession and of his well known industry and ability in precisely that kind of research which he was wanted to do. There certainly was not in my mind in that connection any thought of the opinions which he may ox may not hold on such matters as have been adverted to. If they had been in my mind at all it is possible they would have influenced me. Certainly I can say that I do not in the least degree share the opinions which have been referred to and which he, as I understand from newspaper reports, has expressed on more
than one occasion with reference to the relations between Canada and Great Britain So far from sharing these opinions myself, I think I am credited among my friends with being almost, if not quite, a3 violent a jin'go as the hon. member for Victoria and Haliburton (Mr. Hughes). I personally entertain exactly opposite opinions to those expressed by Mr. Ewart. With regard to Mr. Ewart's opinions on Canadian politics I really have no idea. I do not think he has ever taken any part in Canadian party politics on one side or the other. Certainly so far as I am aware he is not a member of the political party to which I belong, and his engagement for this service was something which proceeded entirely without reference to any ideas he may have upon political subjects.


George Eulas Foster: It is satisfactory to know at least that the Dominion government did not select him on account of those particular opinions which he expressed. It would also be a great source of satisfaction to us to know that the Minister of Justice, who will probably be near him, does not share in his views, and will be a sort of counterweight, a balance wheel to the singular opinions and the singular desire to flash those opinions which Mr. Ewart seems to have. Probably, too, the Minister of Justice, after having repudiated as far as he can for the government any sympathy with such opinions, will advise this 'gentleman if he must go that he had better put these opinions of his under cover whilst he is in Great Britain or over on the continent. If the Minister of Agriculture goes along they might conveniently be put in cold storage with particular care during that time. _ I would impress on the Minister of Justice that he should not allow this gentleman to have any secret dealings with the Kaiser who might perhaps share in those opinions and together they might hatch trouble for the British Dominions.


William Stevens Fielding: Are we quite sure
about Sir Robert Finlay's opinions? He is to be in the business top. The minister announced it.


George Eulas Foster: Is he to be selected on account of holding opinions similar to the opinions of Mr. Ewart?


William Stevens Fielding: I rather think that hon. gentleman is known to hold some opinions in which my hon. friend opposite does not concur.


George Eulas Foster: He is not a Canadian representin'g Canada.


William Stevens Fielding: He will be.
Mines branch-investigation of ore deposits and economio minerals; of fuel values of coals and peat of Canada; examination and delimitation of peat bogs, $25,125.


Mr. TEMPLEMAN.: This is for the purpose of preparing monographs on the various mineral ore.


George Eulas Foster: What fuels are you testing outside of peat?


William Templeman: There has been going on in McGill university for a year or more a complete investigation of all the coals in Canada. The investigation will be continued in a plant to be estab'ished in Ottawa in connection with the Department of Mines. A site has been obtained up the canal near the Experimental Farm.


George Eulas Foster: Who prepares these monographs?


William Templeman: They are prepared
generally by men outside the department. We have not nearly enough men and have to engage temporary assistants.
Maintainance of assay office, Vancouver, Eritish Columbia, $13,500.


George Eulas Foster: Does that bring us in any revenue?


William Templeman: No.
To pay for specimens for Victoria Memorial Museum, $8,COO.


William Templeman: This year we are purchasing a good many specimens of the ores of British Columbia for exhibition at Seattle. These will be deposited afterwards in the Victoria Memorial Museum.


Robert Laird Borden: Has the department
ever undertaken the work of making an estimate of the mineral resources of Canada, so far as they are known at present, and capable of being computed? AVe hear of computations in other countries-the amount of coal and iron and other natural resources.


William Templeman: No such estimate has been made. The Department of Mines has issued a very large volume this year giving a description of the working mines of Canada. But that does not exactly answer the question. No estimate has been made of the mineral wealth of Canada. I think that would hardly be possible. An approximate estimate has been made of the area and quantity of coal.


George Taylor: Has the book referred to been distributed?


William Templeman: The volume is a very large and valuable one. I supposed that every member of the House had received a copy.' If not, he can receive it in the Department of Mines. For the purpose of limiting the distribution, we are making a small charge. We have sent copies to every library in Canada and to many others interested in mining.


George Eulas Foster: If the minister says it includes all working mines, he is mistaken.


William Stevens Fielding: I know of an important working mine which was not included, and I was asked to draw his attention to it.


William Templeman: I have only heard of one instance of that kind, a coal mine in the vicinity of Edmonton. We took occasion to correct the omission as rapidly as possible and made an explanation to the operator of the mine which was entirely satisfactory to him.


George Eulas Foster: The mine I refer to was a coal mine, and this may be the one.
Six hundred copies ' Parliamentary Companion/ $1,200.


George Eulas Foster: Who gets that out now?


William Stevens Fielding: Formerly it was Mr. Magurn. Now, I believe it is issued by Capt. Chambers of the Senate. I think it is called now ' The Parliamentary Guide.' It is the same volume that has been issued for some years.


George Eulas Foster: Does this include payment for anything except, printing?


William Stevens Fielding: It is a contribution toward the publication, and we get this number of copies.
Conservation commission, $12,400.


George Eulas Foster: Who are to be appointed?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: There has been no choice of officers yet. The only one I hope to see appointed is the secretary. I would like to see Mr. Young of the Department of the Interior appointed if he will accept it, although I do not know that he will. I should like to see him in the position because he is familiar with the work. As to the others, no choice has been made.
Department of External Affairs-
Deputy head	$ 5,000
First division, subdivision A-1 at.. 2,800 First division, subdivision B-1 at..	2,100
Second division, subdivision A-1 at	1,650
Thiid division, subdivision A-1 at..	900
Contingencies-
Printing and stationery	 1,500
Sundries	 1,000


George Eulas Foster: These are high-class clerks. Who are being appointed to these positions? Who is the father of that vote?


Mr. MURPHY.: My recollection is that the Prime Minister, when he explained the scope of the department to the House, gave an outline of these positions, and mentioned, I think, the gentleman who was to be the deputy head. But no selection has been made with reference to any of the other positions.


George Eulas Foster: My recollection is that the Secretary of State told the House that whilst

there would be a deputy head, as regards others, they would be taken from other departments. For instance, we had Mr. Mackenzie appointed last year for that special purpose, looking after external correspondence in the Privy Council Department. Is he not to be transferred to this external department, and form one of the staff?


Charles Murphy: The Secretary of State stated that outside the deputy head there would be three or four other clerks. These estimates are in strict conformity with that statement.


George Eulas Foster: But I understood the Secretary of State to say they would be clerks now in the service.


Charles Murphy: That is still the intention, but the selections have not yet been made.
Civil service commission-amount required to pay salary of a printer to take charge of the printing of examination papers and other confidential work, $1,000.


George Eulas Foster: What does this mean?


Charles Murphy: The commission have had a small press set up for the purpose of printing the examination papers confidentially. They desire a person who will be able to work in both French and English, and who, when not otherwise engaged, will do clerical work in the office.
Some resolutions reported.



MESSAGE FROM THE GOVERNOR GENERAL-SUPPLY ESTIMATES.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. FIELDING delivered a message from the Governor General.
Mr. SPEAKER read the message, as follows :
Gkey :
The Governor General transmits to the House of Commons further supplementary estimates of sum® required for the service of the Dominion for the year ending on 31st of March, 1910, and in accordance with the provisions of the British North America Act, 1667. the Governor General recommends these estimates to the House of Commons.
Government House,
Ottawa, May 19, 1909.
Mr. FIELDING moved that the message, together with the estimates, be referred to Committee of Supply.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee of Supply.
Legislation of the Senate, $6,150.
['No. I have ascertained that there will be objections to the Bill and that it would not be possible for it to get through. I informed the parties interested that in these circumstances the Bill would not be called.']
William Stevens Fielding: There are two items, one for the Senate and one for the House of
Commons, to provide for an indemnity to members who have been absent through illness or official business.


George Eulas Foster: Supposing I have been absent myself for a day or two through illness, do I get a piece of this?


William Stevens Fielding: You have a right to. Each member lias a right to it if his absence is due to illness.


David Henderson: I thought that was in the law as it stands at present?


William Stevens Fielding: No, illness at Ottawa is allowed for by law, but illness out of Ottawa is not taken into account.


David Henderson: I came to Ottawa on the 19th of January, and I have never been out of Ottawa since. I get no credit for my diligence, but a man who has been gallivanting up and down the country, going to England, to Ireland, and to Japan, fares just as well as I do.


George Eulas Foster: I supposed this was an amount to cover special cases, but that it was not meant to cover a whole lot,, every member who has been in attendance here during the session; otherwise we might just as well have the statute rearranged. I have no objection at all to the special cases.


William Stevens Fielding: It was found unsatisfactory to deal with cases by mentioning individuals. It is almost impossible to draw the line between A and B. The conclusion reached was that if any member was absent by reason of illness, that should not count against him. If he was absent by reason of official public business, that should not count against him. But if he was absent on his own private business he would not get the benefit of this vote.


Mr. CAMPBELL.: I would like to know the names of those who are to get the benefit of this special legislation. I think it is absolutely wrong. If any gentleman was employed on official business, I presume the government paid him for the time he was absent. If any one was absent in the old country or anywhere else, through presumed sickness, why, it is the country's loss if he was not here. It ought to be his loss if he is not here. When members of this House who have been under disability, who have to take an affidavit and who cannot afford to lose $15 a day have to suffer this deduction it is a great hardship that men who are away the whole session should be indemnified the same as if they were present.


William Stevens Fielding: I am afraid that I have been under a wrong impression. These items were inserted by reason of what I had supposed to be an understanding. If there is any objection to their going in I do not wish to press them.


Robert Laird Borden: The Minister of Finance himself was absent a considerable time during the early part of the session on public business. I do not know that it would be fair to make a deduction from his sessicpial indemnity on that account.


William Stevens Fielding: If I lose any days, they are very few.


Robert Laird Borden: I just mention this as an illustration. The same thing has happened with reference to the Minister of Agriculture in the past.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: But I did not receive anything.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not think it is quite fair that if a minister is away on public business he should be deprived of his sessional indemnity. There were two other cases, one where an hon. member had been away on public business and another -where an hon. gentleman had been obliged to go abroad on account of illness. Then, I think there was the case of one gentleman in the Senate who through illness had not been able to attend. I believe it has been the practice over there in the past, where a senator has been detained by illness, to grant him his indemnity in full. It is very much on the same principle, which has been acted upon over and over again in this House where a man has unfortunately died early in the session, sometimes within a week or ten days of the beginning of the session. In such eases, it has always been the practice to grant the indemnity in full to his legal representative or widow. I suppose the idea of this resolution is very much in the same line. I would be prepared to support any proper case coming within the principle I have mentioned; but at the same time it might be better perhaps to consider whether or not that particular clause in the statute should not be amended. There is a provision in the statute which declares that if a member is ill in Ottawa his nonattendance in the House involves no penalty, whereas, if he is ill elsewhere his indemnity is deducted for non-attendance. I suppose the idea of that was to prevent any possible abuse that might arise, but as we have a very formal affidavit it might be better, rather than to pass special votes in this House, to make some amendment in the general statute.


William Stevens Fielding: I think the reason for the discrimination as between illness in Ottawa and beyond Ottawa is somewhat different. It is based upon the theory that it is not a compensation but an indemnity, and that if a member does not leave home there is nothing to indemnify him against, whereas, if he leaves home, comes to Ottawa and is laid aside in an hotel he is under all the expense that he would be under if he were able to attend the House. It is always difficult to manage these things Mr. FIELDING.
where the personal element comes into them.


Robert Laird Borden: The difficulty about that theory is this : A member from British Columbia might be taken ill in Montreal and remain there for two months; in such case his indemnity is deducted, whereas, if he is fortunate enough to be taken ill here in Ottawa instead of Montreal, his indemnity is not deducted. I do not think that the theory that the Minister of Finance mentions would quite coinside with that application of the statute.
Resolution reported.



[Stage Direction]
Consideration of amendment made by the Senate to Bill (No. 187) to authorize
certain increases of salary to members of the Civil Service, inside service.
Sydney Arthur Fisher: When this Bill was examined in the Senate it was thought that the wording did not make clear that the clerks of the House and the Senate and the librarians of parliament, for the purpose of this Act are deputy heads, that the heads of the department did not include the speakers of both Houses and that the Act might possibly be read as not to include, the officers, employees and clerks of the House and the Senate. Therefore, this amendment is inserted and as it is merely to make clear that which is the intention of the Act I move that it be concurred in.


Robert Laird Borden: Yes, I think the Act probably means that. However, it is desirable to make it clear.
Amendment read the second time and concurred in.


RAILWAY ACT AMENDMENT.
[Stage Direction]
Consideration of amendment made by Senate to Bill (No. 106) to amend, the Railway Act.
George Perry Graham: The amendment deals with the payment of insurance as between railway companies and parties who _ recover damages from them. I will read it :
9. Subsection 1 of section 298 of the said Act is amended by striking out the words ' crops, lands, fences, plantations, or buildings and their contents,' in the first and second lines thereof, and substituting therefor the words ' any property,' and by inserting after the word ' recoverable ' in the ninth line thereof, the words ' under this section.'
Provided further that the company shall, to the extent of the compensation recoverable he entitled* to the benefit of any insurance effected upon the property by the owner thereof. Such insurance shall, if paid before the amount of compensation has been determined, be deducted therefrom; if not so paid the policy or policies shall be assigned to the company, and the company may maintain an action thereon.

Amendment read the second time and agreed to.
Mr. FIELDING moved the adjournment of the House.


George Eulas Foster: Does the Finance Ministei know if any progress has been made with the Insurance Bill which was passed by this House and sent to the Senate?


William Stevens Fielding: I understood that at the desire of some senators it was referred to the Committee on Banking and Commerce. That being the case, of course it cannot become law this session.


George Taylor: I understood that the point was taken that it was not printed in French.


William Stevens Fielding: The Bill was printed in French, but I understand that the amendments were not.


Mr. LEMIEUX.: This is the first time that I have heard that that point was raised.


Robert Laird Borden: Does the hon. minister expect to take up the Carriers' Bill?


William Stevens Fielding: No. I have ascertained that there will be objections to the Bill and that it would not be possible for it to get through. I informed the parties interested that in these circumstances the Bill would not be called.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at three a.m. Wednesday.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 19, 1909