1909-01-22

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 1) respecting the administration of Oaths of Office.-Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Prime Minister).

Mr. SPEAKER.: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House did attend His Excellency the Governor General this day in the Senate Chamber, His Excellency was pleased to make a speech to both Houses of parliament. To prevent mistakes I have obtained a copy, which is as follows:	.
Honourable Gentlemen of the Senate :
Gentlemen of the House of Commons [DOT]
In welcoming you to the performance of your duties at the first Session of a new Parliament, I desire to acknowledge with devout thankfulness the abundant harvest with which Divine Providence has again blessed us.
The Quebec Tercentenary festivities in July, which were honoured by the gracious presence of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, as representing His Majesty, marked an epoch in the history of the Dominion. The generous support given to this National Celebration by the Federal Parliament and Provincial Legislatures, and by the peoples of Canada, of the other Dominions and of the United Kingdom, emphasized the community of sympathy which binds the various parts of the British Empire to each other, and to the Throne and Person of His Majesty the King. The presence of representatives from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and! Newfoundland, and from the great and friendly Republics of France and the United States, with the ships of war of the three nations, served not only to add lustre to the occasion, but to provide an assurance of increasing amity and peace.
I have much pleasure in announcing that a Treaty relating to the Great Lakes and other International Waterways has been agreed upon between His Majesty and the Government of the United! States of America and is now awaiting ratification. Both countries are to be congratulated on having arrived at an amicable settlement which I trust will remove during the lifetime of the Treaty many vexed questions from the field of controversy. The
Treaty and papers relating thereto will be laid before you in due course.
A little more than a year ago, the whole civilized world entered into a period of commercial, industrial and financial depression, which may not yet have completely spent its force; signs there are, however, that it is gradually passing array. Whilst it is hardly disputable that owing to the abundance and elasticity of 'her resources Canada has suffered less than other nations, this depression has seriously affected our trade, producing an appreciable shrinkage in the public revenue, and calling for exceptional caution in the administration of our national affairs.
The rapid settlement of the new provinces calls for new lines of transportation. The construction of the Transcontinental Railway ha9 been vigorously pressed forward during, the last year. The line was open for the carrying of the crops from Winnipeg to the Battle river, a distance of 675 miles.
Exploratory surveys for a railway from the wostern wheat fields to Hudson's bay are being, pushed energetically. Four parties have been at work since August last. Upon their report it will be possible to reach a decision as to both the route to be followed and the approximate cost. The provision of the Dominion Lands Act of last session for the sale of pre-emptions and purchased homesteads has created a new source of revenue that will be sufficient to bear the cost of the railway to Hudson's bay without burdening the ordinary revenue. From September 1, when the Act came into force, until January 1, sales of pre-emptions and purchased homesteads have amounted to over two million acres, all subject to homestead settlement conditions.
The total volume of immigration has not reaohed the high figure of previous years, but the number of those seeking homes on our unoccupied lands has been fully maintained during the last season, and, owing to the ever closer supervision of the immigration branch of the public service, the character of these new inhabitants of Canada seems to be of the highest, and promises no small addition to the wealth of the country.
The government of the United Kingdom having expressed its willingness to include a representative of Canada among its delegates to the conference, held at Shanghai, to investigate the opium trade, my Government has been pleased to welcome an offer so significant of Canada's growing importance, and on its recommendation the government of the United Kingdom has accordingly appointed a member of the Dominion Parliament to be a member of the commission.

Representatives of Canada participated lately dn the permanent establishment and organization of the International Institute of Agriculture, with its headquarters at Rome, an event of interest to our country in whose economic system agriculture plays so great a part. It is gratifying to note that among the forty-eight States adhering to the Institute recognition of Canada's agricultural importance was shown by election of our representatives to some of the highest offices of the Institute.
The appalling calamity which has befallen Sicily and Southern Italy and caused a total destruction of life and property absolutely unprecedented and unequalled in the long series of historic disasters, has induced my government to offer assistance for the immediate relief of the hundreds of thousands of sufferers who were helpless against famine and all its consequent horrors. I confidently hope that you will approve its action.
In pursuance of an announcement made during the concluding session of last parliament, a commission was appointed to examine the various lines of railway connected with the Intercolonial Railway and which might become valuable feeders thereto. The report of this commission has been received and will be placed before you.
The commissioner appointed for investigating the conduct of officers in the Department of Marine and Fisheries has concluded his labour, but has not yet reported. His report, however, is expected at an early date and when received will be placed in your hands.
A measure will he submitted to you, based upon similar legislation enacted in 1906 by the parliament of the United Kingdom, aiming at the repression of the payment of secret commissions and gratuities both in public and private business.
You will be asked to consider measures relative to insurance, the civil tservice, immigration, naturalization and other subjects. Gentlemen of the House of Commons :
The accounts of the last year will be laid before you.
The estimates for the coming year will be submitted at an early date; they have been prepared with a due regard for economy consistent with the requirements of the public service.
Honourable Gentlemen of the Senate :
Gentlemen of the House of Commons :
I pray the Divine Providence that it may guide your deliberations, and that they may tend to a further increase in the prosperity of our country and the well-being of our people.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: 


Right Hon.   S@: That the speech of His Excellency the Governor General to both Houses of parliament of the Dominion of Canada, be taken into consideration on Monday next.
He said: It was our intention to proceed to-morrow with the speech, but several members have suggested to me that Monday would be preferable. We are in the hands of the House and if there is no objection I will say Monday.


Mr. FOSTER.: Why delay?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: Very good-tomorrow.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.



SELECT STANDING COMMITTEES.

Wilfrid Laurier: That a special committee be appointed to prepare and report with all convenient speed lists of members to compose the select standing committees of this House under Rule 10, such select committee to be composed of the following members:	Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
Messrs. Borden (Halifax), Paterson, Fielding, Haggart (Lanark), Calvert and Taylor (Leeds), and that the portion of Rule 10 limiting the number of members of said committee be suspended in relation thereto.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Report of the Joint Librarians of Parliament.-Mr. Speaker.
Report of the Auditor General for fiscal year ended March 31, 1908, Vols. 1 and 3; Public Accounts for the year ended March 31, 1908; Trade and Navigation returns for the year ended March 31, 1908; Report of the Department of Inland Revenue for the year ended March 31. 1908, part 1, relating to excise; Report of the Department Inland Revenue for the year ended March 31, 1908, relating to the Inspection of Weights and Measures; Report of the Minister of Justice for the year ended March 31, 1908.-Mr. Paterson.
Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the year ended March 31, 1908, first appendix thereto, being report of the Dairy and Cold Storage Commission.-Mr. Fisher.
Report of the Postmaster General for the year ended March 31, 1908; Report of the Department of Labour for the year ended March 31, 1908.-Mr. Lemieux.
. ADJOURNMENT-GRAND TRUNK HOTEL SITE.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved the adjournment of the House.
Mr.  R. L.@: BORDEN (Halifax.) Mr. Speaker, before the House adjourns I would

like to ask the right hon. Prime Minister <Sir Wilfrid Laurier) if he would be good enough to give to the House at some early opportunity, if he cannot do so to-day, information as to the present condition of the negotiations, if there be any negotiations, for the erection of an hotel on a portion of the grounds of parliament. The Prime Minister will recollect that an order in council was passed some weeks before the commencement of last session by which a portion of Major's Hill park was proposed to be conveyed to the Grand Trunk Railway Company for the purpose of the erection of an hotel thereupon. The matter seemed to be of some urgency because the consent of parliament was not asked in the first instance and a Bill had to be passed afterwards for the purpose of ratifying what the government had done. According to the present conditions there would not seem to have been any great urgency for dealing with the matter before parliament assembled, because, so far as I can see, the only thing since accomplished has been the construction of a fence, no doubt of a very artistic and beautiful design on the land.
I presume that is not intended as the hotel. If it were, I should be inclined to suggest that it should at least be roofed in. I most sincerely hope there will never be a hotel erected there, but inasmuch as the matter was regarded as one of urgency, we should have some explanation why that particular step was taken as nothing whatever has been done since. I am not aware that the conveyance of the property has ever been laid on the table. If any such conveyance has been made, it should be laid on the table at the earliest possible moment together with a statement of all the conditions, if any, imposed by the government on the corporation, whether in the terms of the conveyance itself or otherwise, so that the House should be made acquainted at the earliest possible moment with the actual conditions as the matter now stands.


Wilfrid Laurier: I think I can gratify the curiosity of my hon. friend. Nothing has been done since last session when the Bill was passed.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN.: Where, then, was the urgency?


Wilfrid Laurier: It was the need of a hotel.


Robert Laird Borden: Yet nothing has been done.



THE MINISTER OF INLAND REVENUE.

George Eulas Foster: Is my right hon. friend in a position to give us any information as to when the Minister of Inland Revenue (Mr. Templeman) is likely to take his seat in the House?


Wilfrid Laurier: On this point I cannot gratify the curiosity of my hon. friend. He is much more inquisitive than his neighbour and upon a more delicate subject. The Minister of Inland Revenue has had a misfortune which has happened to other members of former governments to which I think my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) is not a stranger. My hon. friend is not as sympathetic as he should be.


George Eulas Foster: One more question. Would my right hon. friend be able at all to satisfy the laudable curiosity of the House as to whether the commercial negotiations in that regard are progressing favourably?


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not know what my hon. friend means. If he means anything which is in his line of thought, it is not in our line of thought at all.


Robert Laird Borden: More likely in your line of action.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 4 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, January 22, 1909.

James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I have the honour to inform the House that I have received from William Sloan, Esq., his resignation as member for the Electoral District of Comox-Atlin. I accordingly issued my warrant to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery to make out a new writ of election for the said Electoral District.



REPORTS PRESENTED,.

[Stage Direction]
Final Report of the Survey of the Georgian Bay Ship Canal, with plans, estimates of cost and 56 plates.-Hon. Wm. Pugsley.	.
The report was ordered to be printed foithwith.
Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for 1907-8.-Hon.	Frank
Oliver.
Report of the investigation by Mr. Justice Cassels concerning the Department of Marine and Fisheries.-Hon. L. P. Brodeur.
The report was ordered to be printed forthwith.
Report of the Secretary of State for 1907; also, Civil Service List of Canada for 1908.-Hon. Chas. Murphy.

[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of His Excellency's speech at the opening of the session.
Mr WM. F. TODD (Charlotte, N.B.).: ment of Immigration, and learn that there is coming into our further west, our middle west and portions of the east, so fine a class of settlers. Especially are we pleased to see so many coming in from the neighbouring republic, bringing with them the skill and knowledge they have acquired in the pursuit of agriculture in their own country, and the energy and means of their own which they will contribute to the development of the resources of this new country. Each settler brings with him a boundless faith in this new country [DOT]of his adoption, and fairly realizes that he is making of Canada a competitor with all countries in the markets of the world, he is surprised to find when he comes here natural resources of a richness that he never dreamed of in his own country.
Reference is also made in the address to the disastrous earthquake which recently occurred in Sicily and Southern Italy ; and I am sure that all Canadians were glad to hear that the government had made so generous a grant to the sufferers from that great calamity. We do not know why such things happen, we do not know what may be the inscrutable designs of divine Providence in permitting such disasters to take place ; we only know and are happy to see that this great calamity has evoked feelings of sympathy from all nations, which are a credit to human nature itself. Not only Canada but many other countries have contributed many thousands of dollars for the relief of the sufferers from that earthquake.
Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a great pleasure to me to be able to join with hon. members on this side of the House in congratulating ourselves and the country on the magnificent heritage which we possess in this Canada of ours. You may call her My Lady of the Snows, if you will. Though now robed in white, she will soon be clothed in robes of emerald green and a little later cmd in the golden vestments of a bounteous harvest. Certainly we have reason to be proud of this country ; we are glad to feel, as I have said before, that we control the largest fisheries in the world ; we have in our possession millions of acres of arable and fertile soil, and many other resources of wealth which can never be taken from us. We are already reaping the benefits of science in the various arts employed in the development of this country, and we feel how necessary it is that we should not fritter away our natural resources, but husband them to as full an extent as possible, in order to make of Canada as great and as wealthy a country as the republic to the south of us.
Mr. Speaker, I have much pleasure in moving that a humble address be presented to His Excellency the Governor Gen-eial in reply to the speech from the Throne.


William Frederick Todd: 


Mr. JOSEPH P. TTJRCOTTE (Quebec County).: 
Robert Laird Borden: 
Some Hon. MEMBERS.: Hear, hear.


Robert Laird Borden: Will you stand for this? Read and decide for yourself.
I want to say to those gentlemen who have cried, hear, hear


Some Hon. MEMBERS.: Hear, hear.


Robert Laird Borden: That the statement that that was circulated by the Conservative party or by any Conservative organization is an absolute, a malicious and a deliberate, falsehood. That is all I have to say about it, and if any hon. gentleman has any information to the contrary I can only say that I have made the most careful inquiry and I cannot find that that pamphlet was ever circulated in any constituency in Canada by the Conservative party or by any Conservative organization. In my own county of Halifax I believe that pamphlet wrought an effect exactly the opposite of that which was intended.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Robert Laird Borden: Because although the pamphlet was distributed by the Liberal organization in certain portions of the country where it was hoped it would have a certain effect, I believe that I obtained in the last election in the county of Halifax a larger number of the votes of the Roman Catholic electorate than on any previous occasion.


Mr. E. M. MACDONALD.: Would my hon. friend inform me whether he knows that that pamphlet was circulated by Conservatives who did not happen to belong to the official Conservative organization in the county ?


Robert Laird Borden: If any such thing took place I never heard of it, and with all resepect to my hon. friend I may say that I have no reason to believe and do not believe that it was circulated by the Conservative organization of the county or by any person having any official connection with the Conservative party.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I have in my possession copies of the pamphlet entitled ' The Duty of the Hour ' circulated in the county of Pictou by Conservatives in that county.


Mr. CARVEL.: How many did you circulate ?


Robert Laird Borden: What individual Conservatives may have done I do not know. I shall read again this fly-leaf in order that its language may be emphasized and that the false and misleading character of the statement made may again attract the attention of the House :
This is a sample of the literature circulated by the Conservative party in Orange and Protestant settlements.


Mr. DEVLIN.: That is correct.


Robert Laird Borden: My friend from Wright (Mr. Devlin) is usually wrong, so I think we may take it for granted that he does not depart from his accustomed usage on this occasion.


Mr. CONMEE.: The hon. member stated that this was published in a newspaper in Ontario. Would he be good enough to give the name of the paper ?


Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Speaker, may I be permitted for once to take upon myself your functions and to appoint the hon. member a committee of one to give that information to the Rouse.
I desire at this early stage in the session to deal briefly with certain matters of comment in the press of the country during recent weeks respecting the length of sessions of parliament. I have heard and read a great deal of criticism upon the length of sessions, and I am not disposed to disagree that the sessions have some times been perhaps unduly long. It may be that there is a certain misapprehension in the minds of the public that a session is expensive in proportion to its length. As a matter of fact the indemnity of members of the Senate and House of Commons and the salaries of permanent officials of the House do not increase with the length of the session and therefore, so far as they are concerned, the expense to the public is precisely the same whether the session be long or short. Of course in other respects the expense is increased by a lengthy session.
I desire to again point out to my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) in no censorious or partisan spirit, who I think will agree in my statement, that the date at which a government brings down its important measures in any session has a great deal to do with the length of that session, and I pause to express the very sincere hope that this session, called as it is on a very late day, will find the government prepared and that we will have all important government measures down at a very early date.
Let us look at the sessions of the last five years. The session of 1903 opened on the 12th of March and closed on October 23. The Bill respecting the National Transcontinental Railway was introduced on July 30, after the House had been in session 141 days ; the necessary resolution was not moved until the 11th of August after the session had lasted 153 days. The Railway Subsidies were not brought down until October 10, when the House had been in session 212 days and they were not moved until October 22, when the House had been in session 224 days. A very important measure respecting the Quebec bridge was brought to the attention of the House for the first time *Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
on October 21, when the House had been in session 223 days, and moved on October 22, when the House had been in session 224 days.
With regard to these measures and to all the others which I shall venture to bring to the attention of the House, the government is face to face with one of two alternatives, either that they were not ready with these measures and purposely held them back in order that discussion might be restricted in respect to some of them at least, or that the session was not too long for the necessary measures which the government thought it was its duty to bring before the attention of parliament in the interests of the country.
In 1904 the session opened on the 10th of March and closed on August 10. Notice was given of the Customs Act on June 28, after the House had been in session 110 days and the Bill was moved on August 8, after the House had been in session 151 days. The Railway Subsidies were moved on August 8, when the House had been in session 151 days.
In 1905 the session opened on January 11 and closed July 20. The Autonomy Bills were given their first reading on February 21. The House had then been in session 41 days. The second reading of one of these Bills was moved on March 22. when the House had been in session 70 days. The second reading of the other was moved on July 4, when the House had been in session 174 days. It would perhaps be unfair to criticise the late reading of the second of these measures as the whole subject was thoroughly threshed out in the debate on the first Bill.
The session of 1906 opened March 8 and closed July 13. The amendment to the Act respecting ' the National Transcontinental Railway received its first reading June 27. The House had then been in session 110 days. It was given its second reading on July 3 when the House had been in session 116 days. The railway subsidies were brought down on June 25, when the House had been in session 108 days and they were moved on the following day.
In 1907 the session opened on the 2nd of November and closed on the 26th of April. The railway subsidies were brought down on the 19th of April ; the House had then been in session 148 days. They were moved on the 25th of April, when the House had been in session 154 days. The bounties on iron and steel were brought down on the 5th of April, when the House had been in session 134 days. They were moved on the 23rd of April, when the House had been in session 152 days. The bounties on binder twine were brought down on the same dates. The Quebec Bridge and Railway Company loan was brought down on the 17th of April, 146 days after the House had opened, and it was moved on the 19th

of April, 148 days after the session had opened.
Then the session of 1908 opened on the 28th of November and closed on the 20th of July. The Bill to amend the Railway Act had its first reading on the 10th of March, when the House had been in session 102 days, and its second reading on the 16th of June, when the House had been in session 200 days. The Election Act had its first reading on the 9th of March, when the House had been in session 101 days, and its second reading on the 5th of May, when the House had been in session 158 days. The railway subsidies were brought down on the 15th of July, when the House had been in session 229 days, and were moved on the 16th of July, when the House had been 230 days in session. A very important resolution, regarded as such not only by the House, but by the country at large, respecting what is called the All-Red Line, was not moved by the right hon. gentleman until the 9th of July, when the House had been in session 223 days.
I point out to the House the great delays which occurred through the government's own remissness in bringing down important matters, and I express once more the sincere hope that this session will be an exception to the rule. Indeed, I for one would not be unwilling that some rule of the House should be adopted prescribing a date beyond which no railway subsidy, no estimate, no important government measure should be brought down unless with the consent of two-thirds or three-fourths of all the members of this House. It strikes me that that would tend to facilitate and expedite business and conduce as much as any other amendment to the rules to bring about shorter sessions; for I thoroughly agree that we should do everything possible, that would be fair to the government and to the members on this side of the House, to make the sessions shorter in future than they have been in the past; because there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the length of our sessions has a certain tendency to keep out of public life men whom we should be glad to welcome to this parliament, and whose presence here would be of great advantage to both political parties and to the interests of the people of this country as a whole.
Now, there are one or two paragraphs of the Address to which I desire to devote a little attention. The hon. member for Quebec County has referred in very eloquent terms to the celebration of the tercentenary at Quebec. I had the good fortune to be present. I saw there very imposing pageants of great historic interest. I saw many thousands of the sturdy yeomanry of Canada pass in review before some of the greatest soldiers of the world. I saw official representatives of the great republic of France and the United States and many
distinguished men from Great Britain, including the illustrious heir to the Throne, who were present to lend importance and dignity to the occasion. But what perhaps impressed me most of all in connection with that celebration was to see the two great nationalities of the country, the English and French races, vying with each other in generous emulation to make the celebration worthy of the occasion. And it was worthy of the occasion, an event which cannot fail to bring about a better spirit and feeling, if that be possible, between the two great national races of this country.
I thoroughly endorse the proposal of the government with respect to aid to the people of Italy in the very great calamity which has befallen them. This is only a tangible expression of that deep and heartfelt sympathy which is extended by all the people of Canada to the people of Italy in this awful calamity.
Coming for a moment to that portion of the speech which deals with trade conditions, I may be permitted to notice once more how extremely solicitous the government are to point out that the depression which has been felt in Canada during the past twelve or fifteen months is world wide. There is a marked distinction in the language of the hon. gentlemen on the Treasury benches when referring to prosperity or to depression. Let us look at what they said in 1906:
On the opening of the third session of the tenth (parliament of Canada. I avail myself on the opportunity to offer you my congratulations on the unparalleled prosperity prevailing in all parts of the Dominion. The harvest has been abundant, and the trade with both British and foreign nations continues to expand in annually increasing volume, with every prospect of continued growth for many years to come.
There is a somewhat different song sung at the present time, and it is this:
A little more than a year ago, the whole civilized world entered into a period of commercial, industrial and financial depression, which may not yet have completely spent its force; signs there are, however, that it is gradually passing away. Whilst it is hardly disputable that owing to the abundance and elasticity of her resources Canada has suffered less than other nations, this depression has seriously affected our trade, producing an appreciable shrinkage in the public revenue, and calling for exceptional caution in the administration of our national affairs.
You will observe that the prophecy put into the mouth of His Excellency the Governor General two years ago was that 'the trade with both British and foreign nations would continue to expand in annually increasing volume, with every prospect of continued growth for many years to come.' While the prosperity of Canada in 1906 was

apparently confined to Canada alone, the depression in 1908 is world wide. In other words, the prosperity is due apparently- by innuendo at least-to the presence of these gentlemen on the Treasury benches, while the depression is world wide, or, in other words, is due to Providence. Well, I trust that the depression will be of very short continuance, and it may have one very beneficial effect at least. The people of the country have entrusted the administration of affairs to these hon. gentlemen for three or four years more. The government needed some lesson in caution; they needed some pause in the wild career of extravagance, and perhaps worse than extravagance, upon which they had embarked, and they seem to have taken the lesson to heart to some extent, and the depression in Canada will be well worth the price it costs the country if it simply teaches these gentlemen more caution, more economy and better administration of public affairs in the few brief years during which they shall yet continue to sit on the Treasury benches.
I observe that our good old friend the Insurance Bill is to visit us once more. It is two years since the report of the Insurance Commission was received, and during that time the ills which were to be redressed have remained unredressed, and the patient people of this country have been suffering in silence. I trust that this important measure will be brought down at the very earliest opportunity, and that we shall know this session, as we did not know last session, what the mind of the government is with regard to their proposals, and that a measure in the public interest may be passed by parliament and placed on the statute book.
A measure is promised having for its object the repression of the payment of secret commissions and gratuities, both in public and private business. I assume, although I do not know, that this measure is based to some extent upon the evidence, not at present before the House, which has been taken before the Hon. Mr. Justice Cassels in the inquiry which he has been recently carrying on. I have no doubt that it is essential, but how far will it go? We raised the point last session that the inquiry was too restricted, that it dealt with only one paragraph of the report, concerning only one department, and we asked that the inquiry should go further and be extended to every one of the spending departments of the Government. Events have proved that point to have been well taken. There has been, I believe, a fairly thorough inquiry, so far as the officials are Concerned; but when, according to the newspaper reports, the question was put to a certain witness whether or not the percentage of overcharge had any relation whatever to contributions to the political Mr. R, L. BORDEN.
party now dominant, the objection was at once taken that no such inquiry came within the terms of the reference. I am not finding fault with the commissioner in that regard. He was restricted by the terms of his commission; but I say that when that question was put and the actual conditions /revealed, the government should have taken the earliest possible opportunity to pass an order in council extending the scope of the inquiry and giving Mr. Justice Cassels the amplest opportunity of ascertaining whether or not the people of this country have been paying prices far in excess of those which should have been charged, and whether or not that was done in order to swell the political contributions to the Liberal election fund. The system followed is very plain and simple in the light of the revelations which have been made. The ordinary citizen put upon the patronage list will sell his goods to the government at a fair rate. He will perhaps seek to obtain from the Government a little higher price than from his ordinary customers, although I do not know that that will always be the case. But	when	he expects	to	becalled upon for political contributions, when he	knows	that the same	influence which procured for him the patronage	of the	Government	will	afterwards demand from him political contributions out of his private purse, what will be the natural course for him to pursue if	he be	a man not	specially
scrupulous in matters of this kind. He will no doubt put an increased price upon his goods and in that respect reap some personal advantage to himself, the coffers of the Liberal party will also reap an additional and perhaps greater advantage, and both profits will come out of the people of this country. It is they who, out of their taxes, will pay the shot. That is what it amounts to. How far will this Bill which we are promised go? If it should go so far as to make criminally responsible those who see these things being done under their very eyes, who know that this system is being carried on, we may perhaps have, out of this legislation, conditions better than those which have prevailed within recent years. I see no difference in principle, or rather lack of principle, between the system to which I have alluded and that of offering open bribes to a constituency by saying: ' If you support the party now in power, certain public works, which are justly your due, will be constructed in your riding; but if you see fit to support a candidate not in sympathy with the government, no such works will be carried on and you will not receive your due.* Further, 1 can see no difference between that and the bribery of a single elector, except that the bribery by wholesale is tenfold more iniquitous and demoralizing and

deserves tenfold more punishment at the hands of the law than ordinary bribery.
So far as the waterways treaties is concerned, we cannot discuss its terms until it is laid on the table. It is undoubtedly very important and I trust that the interests of Canada will be found adequately safeguarded when that instrument is before the House. We shall give any measure submitted by the government our fair consideration. I trust that the government measures will be brought down promptly, and that we may be able to complete 'the labours of this session at so early a date as to make some compensation for the long session of nearly eight months through which we passed just before the general election.


Right Hon.   S@: My hon. friend who has just addressed the House (Mr. Borden), and who still keeps the seat which he has adorned for some years past, who has been confirmed in it, as I understand, by a recent expression of the confidence-the well-deserved confidence-of his friends, and in which he has been likewise confirmed by the expression of the non-confidence-the well deserved nonconfidence of the people of Canada,-my honourable friend has paid a very grateful compliment to the mover and seconder of the Address, in which I altogether agree. My hon. friend did not travel very far, however, with those whose efforts he thus appreciated. He has something on his mind which came out almost immediately after he began, and that something had to do with the result of the late elections. These hon. members who were here last session-and there are still quite a number, though their ranks have been thinned-will remember that we were frequently taunted by our hon. friend opposite with having lost the confidence of the country and were challenged to appeal to the people. Well, we accepted that challenge, and my hon. friend is not satisfied with the result. He says that if we had a different system of representation, the numbers on both sides would be different, and he argues that we should in consequence bring down a new measure of redistribution. I have heard that before. The present system is, perhaps, not perfect, but at all events, it is the same today as in the old days. My hon. friend said that in the old days, we on this side, complained of the gerrymander. That is very true. We said we thought that the redistribution then was a gerrymander and we complained of it incessantly, in parliament and out of it, and especially during the elections; but I have yet to learn that in the last election there ever was a word of complaint from the hon. gentleman opposite as regards the redistribution.
My hon. friend also brought to the at-2
i
tention of the House the famous pamphlet called 'The Duty of the Hour', and he asked by whom it had been distributed. I am surprised he does not know and will tell him at once. It was distributed surreptitiously and clandestinely by the Conservative party and broadly and openly by the Liberal party. I have not had the pleasure of seeing a copy of the pamphlet, but I understand the injunction upon it was to pass it from neighbour to neighbour, not to do it publicly, but pass it quietly among the people, so that they can see all the iniquities of the Laurier government. When we found that, sir, as I understand, some of our friends openly got a supply of 'The Duty of the Hour' to be circulated, so that friends and foes might know what was contended and what were the appeals that were being made on behalf of hon. gentlemen opposite.
We come back, after accepting the challenge of our friends on the other side, very much as we were during the last session of the last parliament, so far as numerical strength is concerned. In the maritime provinces there has been a displacement of forces, but no change in numbers; we come back as strong from the maritime provinces as during last session. In Quebec, there has been hardly any change whatever. And in Ontario-Ontario upon which such hopes were centred, Ontario in which there was to have been a landslide-we are exactly as we were last session. There is, however, one part of the country where we_ suffered; we suffered in the west-in Manitoba and British Columbia. As to Manitoba, if I may give credence-as I do not doubt I may-to the statements made by my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Sifton,) it is no credit at all to the opposition, and no discredit to the government that we have suffered in the province of Manitoba. My hen. friend who, generally, is well informed, who knows the province of Manitoba as well as any man can know it, whose vision is as clear as that of any man living, and who is generally accurate in his statements, has stated that, if the opposition gained the advantage over us in Manitoba, if there was a reversal of strength in the parties, it was due to the fact that the lists upon which the elections took place had been outrageously made up. I am bound to say that this statement has been denied, and stoutly denied. I am not here to pass any opinion at this moment on the statement or the counter-statement. The matter can he investigated to see whether or not the fact is as stated, and if it be as stated, what measures can be taken to prevent such things in the future. At present, I pass bv the subject.
In British Columbia we suffered. We had the whole province on our side before the last election; this time, we come with diminished numbers. But I say without hesitation, and I say especially to my hon.



friend (R. L. Borden) opposite me, that the causes which led to our defeat in British Columbia are not to the discredit of the government, and still less are they to the credit of the opposition. The province of British Columbia is the only province in which the election was fought upon something like principle. In the other provinces the election was fought upon no principle; the campaign against us was simply^ an appeal to certain prejudices. In British Columbia, we had an open fight. I have no fault to find with that, on the contrary. In British Columbia we were assailed upon cur policy. It was our policy in regard to Asiatic immigration which was in issue. And, now that the battle has been fought, I have to say that the policy brought forward by our opponents against our own policy was a policy very shortsighted, a policy which sacrificed-no, I will not use so strong a word, but imperilled and jeopardized-the best interests not only of Canada but of British Columbia itself. Sir, in British Columbia, the problem of Asiatic immigration is the one question that interests all sections of public opinion; and all classes of the people in British Columbia, to whatever party they may belong, unite in the opinion which is expressed in the words now current in the politics of that province, ' A white British Columbia; a white Canada,' meaning that British Columbia should be preserved as a home of the white race. To this opinion, to this fact, we on this side of the House have no opposition to offer, and to it we take no exception whatever. But, Sir, we differ altogether as to the means by which this end is to be attained. The policy advocated by the opposition in British Columbia, advocated with greater emphasis last election than ever, and forced upon the leader of the party opposed to us and by that leader at last reluctantly accepted, is to prevent the immigration of Asiatics into British Columbia by hostile legislation. The policy which we have adopted, and upon which the issue was fought in British Columbia, was that we should not seek to reach that end by hostile legislation, especially against a friendly nation, but should endeavour to reach that object by negotiation and diplomatic action. There, Sir, is the issue. And new, I ask: what is the policy that is conducive to the best interests of Canada and of the British empire to which we belong? Sir, to put the question is to answer it : our policy is the policy which ought to impress everybody who pretends to be a Canadian or pretends to be British as the one best calculated for the weal of both Canada and the empire. But, before I go further, let me say that I find no fault with the view maintained in British Columbia that that province should be maintained as a country for the white race. I have no hesitation in saying also that I do not attribute the attitude of British Columbia Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
in its passionate desire for a white man's country to anything like prejudice-prejudice of colour or of anything else. No; I recognize that the origin and cause for the feeling which prevails and predominates in British Columbia is to be found in economic laws which would produce the same result in any other place in which the conditions were similar to those of British Columbia. The races of Asia, whether they be Japanese or Chinese, East Indian, have been for many generations, as we know, subjected to despotism which has reduced them to a condition of penury. In their lodgings, in their food, in their garments, they are content with the most simple necessaries of life which can be supplied with only a fraction of the wages necessary to maintain a workingman in respectability in this country. So, when these races come to this country in such large numbers as to compete with white labour, they accept wages so low that they create at once an economic disturbance. And all economic disturbances are far-reaching in their consequences. Sir, if that were the only aspect of the question, it would be easy of solution according to our friends from British Columbia. But there is another aspect of the question which, unfortunately, is too often forgotten, and to this aspect of the question I would especially ask the attention of our friends from British Columbia. Our neighbours on the Pacific coast are next door, so to speak, to those very Asiatics whom we are now asked to treat with so much contempt. The Asiatics have lain dormant for ages in respect to civilization, but they are now awakening from their lethargy and adopting western methods and western modes of living. They offer immense facilities for trade, and we see the greatest commercial nations of the world, England, Germany and the United States, vieing with each other in order to obtain a share of that commercial abundance.
Now, Sir, what should be our attitude in regard to that matter ? Should we not seek to obtain a share of that abundance ? Should we not take every possible advantage that our propinquity gives us over our less favoured competitors ? It is sufficient to put the question for the answer to suggest itself. I may say that in this duty we have not been remiss. Shortly, or immediately, before the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, we took measures to extend it across the continent to the Pacific Ocean in order to reach the Asiatic trade. This parliament acting in conjunction with the mother country, subsidized a line of steamers in order to engage in that trade with Asia. That service has been well performed during the last twenty years by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Their steamers have been ploughing the ocean during all these years between British Columbia and Japan and China, and from those countries back to

British Columbia. Well, Sir, some five years ago Japan invited the nations of the earth to a world's fair. We were urged to take part in that fair, and we did so. Just before the fair was concluded we were deluged with petitions coming from all parts of Canada asking us to make a treaty with Japan in order to obtain, if possible, a share of the immense trade that would develop with that country in the future. We negotiated a treaty and laid it before parliament. It was received in this House without a word of dissent or criticism. Our friends opposite were eager for it. But we knew there was a difficulty, and that difficulty was with respect to Japanese immigration. At that time we had an understanding with the Japanese government, accomplished through the Japanese consulate here, to the effect that the Japanese government themselves would undertake to restrict their own immigrants. Unfortunately after the treaty had been ratified there was an influx of Japanese immigration into British Columbia, as if the treaty had superseded the understanding. We sent one of our colleagues to Japan to protest. He had no difficulty in getting the Japanese authorities to agree that they would respect the understanding we had entered into with them, and that they themselves would restrict immigration from Japan to this country. The matter came up for review in this House. We presented our policy to the House, and it was not accepted by the opposition. The opposition held, on the contrary, that instead of having a treaty we should take the matter into'our own hands and restrict all Asiatic immigration. My hon. friend the leader of tlie opposition moved this resolution :
That this House, whilst expressing its profound appreciation of the friendly intentions and courteous assurance of the Japanese government, and whilst declaring its sincere desire for the most cordial relations with the Japanese people, desires, nevertheless to record its strong protest against a policy under which our wage earning population cannot be protected from destructive invading competition, except by entreating the forbearance and aid of a foreign government.
We did not endorse these views, for the obvious reason that if the object were to restrict Japanese immigration to Canada, and if that could be done either by legislative enactment in this parliament or by friendly action on the part of the Japanese government themselves, we would prefer that it should be done by the voluntary action of the Japanese government. I would ask the leader of the opposition, Why should we-I will not put it on the ground of international comity but on the ground of our own self interest-Why should we hurt the feelings of a friendly nation when that nation was willing to do what we wanted her to do ? Sir, this was the posi-2i
tion we took, and the position was so strong that I was not at all surprised when I saw my hon. friend the leader of the opposition accept that position, both for himself and for his party, at the opening of the last general elections. At that time I was not surprised to see that the^ opposition had come to our way of thinking. In that debate I used these words, speaking of the Japanese government :
If they fail to carry out this understanding that we have with them, then we s'm'-1 have the power ourselves to put an end to the treaty. But that will be done only m the last resort, only when every method of conciliation has been exhausted, only when every other means has been tried and failed.
This was so reasonable a proposition that I was not at all surprised that my hon. friend, at the opening of the campaign, practically accepted it. I do not say that my hon. friend announced his acceptance to the people. But he had an ambassador to the people of British Columbia who spoke for himself and the party to which Ire belongs. One of the candidates in British Columbia was a gentleman whom I am very glad to see in this House-as the constituency has to be represented by a Tory, though I would much prefer to see it represented by a Grit-I mean the constituency of Vancouver. The gentleman who now represents the city of Vancouver, and whom I see before me, accepted the nomination, but accepted it with some compunction, some hesitation. In order to be absolutely sure _ of his ground, and before finally committing himself, he came east to interview the leader of the opposition, and obtain from him certain pledges in respect to this question and another one. In a speech delivered in the city of Vancouver by Mr. Cowan, the Conservative candidate, on the 1st of October last, as I find it reported in the < News-Advertiser,' he used this language :
I went east and have returned, and I speak with the authority, not only of the leader but of that party that will,- after October, control the destinies of Canada.
My hon. friend referred to my own attitude upon the question, with which he could not agree. But still, after having blamed myself and the government for the policy we had pursued in respect to Asiatic immigration, he went on to define what was the policy of the Conservative party :
But I have this message of my leader to impart to you, and it is made not only on his behalf but on behalf of the great Conservative party throughout Canada, that if that modus vivendi spoken by Mr. Lemieux is not lived up to by Japan, that circumstance will oblige that great party to abrogate the Japanese treaty.
Well, I fail to see what difference there is between the policy of my hon. friend and the policy of this government as de-

fined by me in the speech a portion of which I havo read. Let me read again what I said oi. tile floor of the House :
If they fail it carry out this understanding that we ha,*i with them, then we shall have the power [DOT]' jurselves to put an end to the treaty. But U at will be done only in the last resource, cal r when every method of conciliation has l/een exhausted, only when every other mean*; has been tried and failed.
Let me now give the policy of the Conservative party on the 1st October, 1908, not m the very words of my hon. friend, but in the words of his ambassador, as a message to the people of British Columbia
But I have this message from my leader to impart to you, ' said Mr. Cowan/ and it is made not only on his behalf but on behalf of the great Conservative party throughout Can-aua, that if that modus vivendi spoken by Mr. Lemieux is not lived up to by Japan, that circumstance will oblige that great party to abrogate the Japanese treaty.
Well, sir, I cannot but say that I feel flattered and that the government feels flattered that the hon. leader of the opposition has come exactly to the position which he had at last to accept. My hon. friend had some references and protests made to him to which I will refer immediately. He had some references and protests made to him; I do not know what the protests were, but it is quite easy to surmise what they were. There were no votes in the attitude taken by the leader of the opposition. He was told:	Your policy is no better than the
policy of the government, and if that is all you have to fight the government on we cannot win upon that; you must give us something better. And I must say to my hon. friend that he was equal to the mischief that was expected of him. An answer came on the 24th October. On the 24th October my hon. friend sent a telegram which was read in the city of Victoria by my hon. friend the present member for Victoria (Mr. Barnard) to the assembled faithful:
Your message received. The Conservative party stands for -a white Canada, the protection of white labour and the absolute exclusion of Asiatics.


Mr. B. L. BOKDEN.: The right hon. gentleman has taken upon himself to state to this House that I sent that telegram. I beg to state that I did not send that telegram.
read by his friend who has been elected since to support him, by the hon. member for Victoria city, it was published in the 'Colonist' the following day and approved to the echo. Perhaps my hon. friend is not conversant with the history of his own party. I have only this to say, that if he did not send that telegram, then he has obtained and his party has obtained the seat for Victoria city through false pretenses. Here is a fac simile of the telegram published in the ' Daily Colonist ' of the 25th of October. It was a lie, so my hon. friend says. I am sorry, not for myself, but for my hon. friend that that party in British Columbia had to resort to lies in order to carry an election.


Frederick William Borden: If my right hon. friend will permit me; I sent a telegram but the concluding portion of it was not as my hon. friend has read it. I will produce the telegram which I did send.


Wilfrid Laurier: I put upon the table the fac simile of the telegram which was printed in the 'Colonist' on the 25th October.


Frederick William Borden: My right hon. friend may put it on the table or under the table; I am making a personal explanation.
I say I did not send a telegram in those words, and I say it was not addressed to the hon. member for Victoria.


Wilfrid Laurier: I did not say that.


Frederick William Borden: The right hon. gentleman has put it to the House as if that were the case.


Wilfrid Laurier: No, I beg my hon. friend's pardon.


Frederick William Borden: Well, I misunderstood my hon. friend.


Wilfrid Laurier: I said it was read by the hon. member for Victoria.


Frederick William Borden: I will produce the telegram. The right hon. gentleman, if I am not mistaken, knew that 1 did not send a telegram in those words.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not understand what my hon. friend means.


Frederick William Borden: Well, I intimated to one of his late colleagues very much the same thing.


Wilfrid Laurier: I accept altogether the explanation of my hon. friend.


Frederick William Borden: Well, the right hon. gentleman should not have asserted unqualifiedly that I had sent it.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not understand what my hon. friend means, but it was conveyed to me that this telegram had been sent. This is the telegram. It is a fac simile. However, I accept the hon. gentleman's statement.


Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Speaker, if I have done an injustice to my hon. iriend I have good warrant for saying what I have said, because that telegram was Sir WILFRID LAURIER.


Frederick William Borden: I do not know what the right hon. gentleman means by a fac simile; this is a typewritten copy of a telegram.


Wilfrid Laurier: If my hon. friends are satisfied with that I have no fault to find. I found this telegram in the opposition organ, the 'Daily Colonist,' on the 25th October last and everybody can see it there.


Robert Laird Borden: What does my right hon. friend mean by a fac simile?


Wilfrid Laurier: This is not in the ordinary print of the newspaper. This pretends to be a fac simile copy of a telegram as we receive it. That is what I mean by fac simile. But, let me go on. I will give some comment upon my hon. friend by the Victoria 'Colonist' on the 26th October:
Their stand upon Asiatic question.-The standpoint of the Liberals as opposed to that of Conservatives.-Duncan Ross at Victoria Theatre.
This is to be put in juxtaposition with certain words of my hon. friend which I have just quoted.
We are not in favour of abrogating Imperial treaties. We are in favour of restricting immigration.
And next, these are the words attributed to my hon. friend the leader of the opposition :
R. L. Borden's stand.
The Conservative party stands for a white Canada, the protection of white labour, and the absolute exclusion of Asiatics.
And the comment of the newspaper, upon which the electors voted on the following day, was in these words:
These are the latest and most definite statements of the two great political parties on the all-important question of whether we are to have a white or a yellow population in Western Canada. Mr. Borden's telegram was sent on Saturday night, and was being read at the Conservative smoker about the same time that Duncan Ross was making the other announcement on behalf of Mr. Templeman at the Victoria theatre.
The Liberate do not believe in ' abrogating Imperial treaties, although the text of the treaty in question contains a clause expressly providing for abrogation. They believe in restricting immigration by going down on their knees to the Mikado and begging him to keep his people at home until after the general election, when the time will come for the Liberal administration, if returned to pay its debts to the Grand Trunk Pacific.
I have this to say, that the issue has been settled, we have fought the battle, we have won, the treaty is in force, the understanding is being carried out, and we have no debt to pay to the Grand Trunk Pacific. So far upon this subject.
My hon. friend, in the course of his observations, has referred again to the statements which he had made in the last elections on purity. The last elections were
fought upon the purity cry, and one of the worst forms, my hon. friend says, of political corruption is what he calls the bribery of constituencies. I have to say to my hon. friend that in this respect he is the most inveterate sinner in this House. He does not bribe constituencies, but he bribes provinces, and in the last election he attempted to bribe the province of British Columbia. The question is not new; we had it last year, but we had it in a worse form than last year and that was bad enough Heaven knows.
My hon. friend is aware and so informed the House last session, that for years the people of British Columbia have claimed an increased subsidy. That is true, the people of British Columbia have had a claim for an increased subsidy. On that question my hon. friend in 1904 addressed the people of British Columbia in these terms:
Let me say that I have given much thought to the conditions in British Columbia which in your opinion, call for special attention in considering the financial relations between the Dominion and that province. Yon claim not only that these conditions are exceptional and peculiar to the situation and physical character of your province, hut also that they are permanent in theiT nature. In my opinion they are snch as to command immediate inquiry and investigation to the end that any injustice clearly established may he immediately relieved.
That was in 1904. In 1906 a conference of all the provinces was held in order to readjust the subsidies of the provinces. The Premier of British Columbia attended that conference and presented a claim on behalf of British Columbia. That claim was not admitted by the other provincial premiers. After having presented it, Mr. McBride wanted to have an arbitration upon it, but the premiers there assembled declared against the arbitration, passing a resolution in these terms:
That in the opinion of the conference it is unadvisable that the claim in the way of subsidies, of any province be referred to arbitration.
The premiers there assembled, without any consideration of politics and unanimously, except for the Premier of British Columbia, determined that the matter should be then and there decided and in addition to the general subsidies which were adopted in favour of all the provinces, British Columbia was given a special subsidy of $100,000 a year for ten years. This matter was brought before the House; in the session of 1907 an address was passed praying the imperial parliament to so amend the British North America Act as to give these increased subsidies to the provinces. Not one word against that petition was then uttered by my hon. friend. It seems to me that if in 1904 the claim of

British Columbia for an increase of subsidy was to be considered and if it was of such a nature that it should be arbitrated upon in a special manner, the proper time to raise the question was in 1907, when we asked for imperial legislation to give to British Columbia more subsidy. If the treatment which we then gave to British 'Columbia was not sufficiently generous, in the opinion of my hon. friend, that was the time to say: British Columbia does, not receive enough, you should do something more for British Columbia. But my hon. friend did not say a word, he was satisfied with the settlement which had been made and which was accepted by all the premiers assembled in conference.


Robert Laird Borden: May I correct my right hon. friend in one respect? When that motion went through the House in the session to which he has alluded I was not in the House; I was absent through indisposition and I certainly understood and 1 still understand that protest was made on behalf of British Columbia by hon. gentlemen who were present here.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon. friend fnay not have been present when the resolution was finally passed, but he was cognizant of it; it came before the House not once but on two different occasions and on one occasion he certainly was present after I had left for Great Britain, and, as I understand, he never raised a word of protest. That was the time to protest, but if a protest was made it was very mild. I never understood it to take the form of a protest at all. I know that my hon. friend, during the whole session when the question was before us, never raised a word against the settlement we had offered to British Columbia. But he went to British Columbia in the summer following that session and then he fell under the magnetic influence of a very astute politician in the person of Mr. Richard McBride, the premier of British Columbia.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: Sir, I have nothing to say against Mr. McBride; on the *contrary I say he is a very astute politician; I give him every credit for that, but I say to my hon. friend, the tempter came to him in the form of the Hon. Richard McBride. The tempter took him up to the top of a very high mountain and showed him the province of British Columbia and all the glory in it and said to him: If you will fall down and worship me, all this I will give to you. My hon. friend did not say: Get thee behind me Satan. On the contrary, he fell down and worshipped him. He informed Mr. McBride that if he were returned to power he would have the question re-opened. There came on an election-


Wilfrid Laurier: 


Robert Laird Borden: My hon friend has not quoted me correctly, i said that I had made a certain pledge to the people of British Columbia in 1904 and nothing which had since taken place relieved me from the obligation of that promise.


Wilfrid Laurier: What had taken place since that time was a petition adopted unanimously by this House in favour of British Columbia granting her $100,000 more per annum for ten years.


Robert Laird Borden: And without the consent of British Columbia.


Wilfrid Laurier: Without the consent of British Columbia.


Robert Laird Borden: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: But the province has taken the money since and that is all. Then the question came up again during the elections and as I stated a moment ago they had the pledge given by my hon. friend to the people of British Columbia, notwithstanding the legislation passed by this House. Again my friend from Vancouver (Mr. Cowan) was not satisfied with that pledge; he thought he would have something more and in the speech to which I have already alluded, delivered on October 1, 1908, he first spoke of the pledge given by the leader of the opposition and then went on to say:
For my part I had. every reason, when that pledge was given by Mr. Borden, to expect that it would he carried and when the Conservatives of the city honoured me with the nomination I felt I must accept it on conditions. I tell you exactly what was in my mind. I did not think that Mr. Borden would refer it again to the conference of premiers but I felt that it might be referred to a select committee of the House of Commons.
He felt that it might be referred to a
select committee of the House of Commons and that was not suitable to the hon. gentleman who was the Conservative candidate in Vancouver. He went on to say:
I feared the eastern majority that would come on a committee of that kind, biased as they must be by eastern interests, and I wanted to know the mind of that great statesman, the first in Canada, who said he would bestow justice on the west. I went to the east and have returned and I speak with the authority, not only of that leader, but of that party, that will, after October 26, control the destinies of Canada; that the moment that party is returned to power the just claims of British Columbia will be referred to an absolutely impartial tribunal, and the report of that tribunal will be binding on this province only when it ha>s been accepted by this province.
As a matter of fact then this gentleman would not trust a committee of the House of Commons where he would fear there would be eastern interests. Sir, if Tories of one province cannot trust Tories of the

other provinces, it is no wonder that the people at large will not trust them. _
In the same speech Mr. Cowan said:
Our claim is this: We have 'a claim of three-quarters of a million in perpetuity against the Dominion and Mr. Borden authorizes me 'to says: ' Your claim will not be jeferred to a committee of the House of Commons, but to an independent tribunal and its report will not be binding on you till it is accepted by this province.
In other words, the claim will be referred to an impartial tribunal in which both- parties will be represented, the Dominion of Canada and the province of British Columbia, but the report of the tribunal will not be binding upon British Columbia unless British Columbia is fully satisfied with it. You will have it referred to arbitration and you will have everything you want provided you accept it, but if you are not satisfied with the judgment you need not accept it, it shall be binding on us but not binding on you. Sir, this is the policy of the purists, this is the policy of the reformers, this is the policy of the gentlemen who find fault with promises being made to a constituency. My hon. friend has told us he will bring that subject to the attention of the House; he is welcome to do so, and when he does he shall have more to say in defence of himself than in accusation of others. My hon. friend is not altogether sure of the legislation which we are to bring to prevent secret commissions. I have only this to say to my hon. friend, that the Bill which we intend to bring is based altogether upon a similar measure which was passed by the British parliament in 1906. It may be sufficient or it may not be sufficient; but if it is not sufficient, it will be open to my hon. friend to make it as ample and as severe as he thinks it ought to be.
I do not know that I have much more to add. I think I have traversed the whole of the ground covered by my hon. friend's speech. I may say in conclusion that although it is not our good fortune always to agree, I am happy to endorse everything he has said in regard to the Quebec Tercentenary Celebration. It was a very important and happy event in our history. I do not know that I need say anything more about it than this, because everything has been said already. There is one thing, however, which I think I should say, and which will receive the approbation of both sides of this House, that is, to pay this tribute to His Excellency Earl Grey. It was Earl Grey who conceived the idea, and it was largely through his zeal, energy and all-pervading enthusiasm that the idea was carried out on such a grand scale and so successfully and triumphantly.


Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a word of personal explanation. The message which I sent to the
'Colonist' Victoria, B. C.. on the 24th of October, 1908, reads as follows :
Your message received. The Conservative party stands for a white Canada and the absolute protection of white labour.



R. L. BORDEN.

[Stage Direction]
I desire to say that the telegram as it appeared was first brought to my attention by Mr. Templeman, the Minister of Inland Revenue. I asked him for a little delay until I could make inquiries as to how the mistake had been made. I received certain explanations which I may take occasion to give to the House on another day. So far as my friend the member for Victoria is concerned, if he read the telegram, as the Prime Minister says he did, on the evening of the 24th or 25th, I have not the slightest doubt-in fact, he has so informed me- that it was sent to him from the office of the newspaper, and it was not a telegram addressed to himself in any way. That is the whole explanation of the matter so far as I am concerned. I did not know of the mistake at all until after I had returned from the south in the month of December, and upon its being brought to my attention I at once made the inquiries to which I have alluded.
George Eulas Foster: Mr. Speaker, one thing, I think, is quite apparent from the address which has been made by the right hon. gentleman who leads the government, namely, that he is very sore on two points-on the failure of the province of British Columbia to respond to his repeated efforts, and secondly, on the purity question. In devoting a large proportion of his time to these two points he has deftly covered up what he might have developed some of his extraordinary powers upon to a great deal better advantage to the House and to the country; but it is often the case with my right hon. friend that he makes a terrible clatter and noise about something which is of very little importance in order to divert public attention from something that he wants to conceal. That may be good party tactics or it may not. However, I think that was apparent in the excursion, the long and somewhat tedious excursion, which my right hon. friend took this afternoon to the Asiatic coasts, the Asiatic countries and the Asiatic question. I am going to leave the larger part of the Asiatic question and the British Columbia question to be discussed by my hon. friends from British Columbia who are here, and who I have no doubt are well capable of taking care of it. I want, however, to say one or two things with reference to that. The right hon. gentleman beat a retreat from a very bad and very false position which he let himself and his government into in the treaty with Japan by the laboured argument which he made this afternoon. What was the initial error,

what was the lack of care and statesmanship, what was the lack of common prudence and common straight, right representation in the matter, was where my right hon. gentleman failed in the initiation of the proceedings. The opposition in this House stood for the treaty between Japan and Great Britain. True, as my right hon. friend said, they urged that that matter should be taken up, that it should be no longer delayed, and that if there were any commercial possibilities in trade between this country and Japan in that treaty, we should have the benefit of that trade, as the United States have the benefit of trade with Japan from the treaty which they have made with that country. But where the right hon. gentleman made his mistake was in two ways : first, that he absolutely neglected the admonition of the British government, and the mandates of prudence as well, in refusing the lead which the British Government gave him, to have the immigrant rights and position of Canada defined in the treaty itself. Not once or twice or thrice, but repeatedly, the British government, through its high officers, brought to the attention of the right hon. gentleman a way by which Canada could enjoy all the benefits of the trade arrangement with Japan under that treaty by adhering to it and at the same time keep Canada's sovereignty and maintain the position of the white labourer on the Pacific coast of Canada. My right hon. friend refused to take that lead, and by what was not straight representation of himself and his Minister of Agriculture, he induced this House to give its adhesion to the treaty, in the first place, in ignorance of what was really the state of the conditions between Japan and ourselves. My right hon. friend knows the circumstances. He knows that his Minister of Agriculture for three years stood up in the House and declared that he had a letter from the Japanese government itself, which made all these sureties certain, that he himself declared to this House that the Japanese government had an arrangement with this government by which only a few from each of the different provinces of Japan would be allowed to come into this country; and when in the long end we came down to the kernel of the matter, the Minister of Agriculture had to acknowledge in this House that he must have been wrong, that he never had such a letter, and my right hon. friend had to acknowledge that he was mistaken in the position he took. Sir, this Dominion will never give continued adherence to a policy which takes from it the sovereign power of standing at the front door of Canada, either on its Atlantic or its Pacific side, and saying who shall be ad-mited to its home and its home privileges. We do not intend to say to the Emperor of Germany, ' Sir, we are a small people and Mr. FOSTER.
we deprecate treaties; we deal in another way, and if you will pass us your kingly word that you will protect our interests, we will have no treaty obligations between you and us as to German immigration to our country. We will leave it all in your hands.' We do not subscribe to that, but the right hon. gentleman does. We stand on the coast of the Pacific to-day with the key of the front door in the hands of a foreign government, who may open that door when they please, to whom they please and as they please. After all that had been done and my right hon. friend had found out the mistakes which had been made, he said: Well, the thing is done, we believe the Japanese government will carry out their pledge to us, and we will give them an opportunity of doing so. But if they will not, we shall still have the recourse of the abrogation of the treaty. That is all that my hon. friend, the leader of the opposition, said. So much with reference to that treaty, and I shall not say anything more on that point.
Then my hon. friend waxed very eloquent regarding the advantage, and indeed the almost necessity, of trade with China and Japan. Well, we on this side are alive to those advantages and opportunities, and to the nature of the treaty which exists between Japan and the British government, and our duties in that connection. But, at the same time, when there was an open way laid out before the view of my right hon. friend, by which the trade with these countries and the control of immigration to this country could have been secured and maintained at the same time, as was done by the United States, my right hon. friend forgot to take the advantage of that course and consequently was led into the trouble which now confronts him. True, my right hon. friend became reminiscent and spoke of what had been done to open up the trade between Canada and those countries. We have, he said, put transports on the Pacific, and now for ten or fifteen years these transports, some of a very high class, have been plying between the Dominion and those countries. But where was my right hon. friend when the proposal was made to put these steamers on the Pacific Ocean? When I brought down the subsidies necessary to be paid in order to obtain those steamers, where was my right hon. friend and those supporting him? They were fighting these subsidies by every possible objection. They were asserting on every occasion their emphatic disapproval of using the people's money to subsidize transports on the Pacific coast and open up trade with the Orient. Yet my right hon. friend, with that singular lapse of memory which afflicts him at times and causes him to take credit to himself for everything which has been done, even those things he most opposed, rises up in

the dim, misty dawn and really believes that he himself is the first man who ever saw the sun rise. That hallucination is no doubt the cause of the declaration he made some years ago, when on the other side of the Atlantic, that one morning he woke up and discovered Canada. It was that same hallucination which caused him, after the All Red Route had been in existence some ten or twelve years, to become seized with the idea at the Imperial conference that he himself it was who was the minister of destiny and had discovered it. I would advise my right hon. friend to read over once in a while the history of Canada in order that he may not forget that there are in that history other administrations than his own. It is difficult for him no doubt to realize this. The adulation of his followers, constant, indefatigable and fantastic in many cases, takes absolute possession of his mind, and impels him to indulge in all sorts of vainglorious statements.
At Sorel, where he made his first appearance before the people who were such strangers to him, who had not heard the name of Laurier, who did not know that he belonged to their race, who had forgotten his birthplace, and to whom consequently he had to say : ' In my veins, the same blood runs as in yours.' It was absolutely necessary that he should recall that fact to their minds. ' The Duty of the Hour ' was not to be compared to the necessity of informing these people that he was one of themselves. Did my right hon. friend listen to the adulations addressed to him on that occasion? No doubt he did, and became impressed with the conviction that he was the possessor of all earthly power, so far as Canada was concerned. Was it that which caused him to indulge in the ebulitions he did at Sorel, and afterwards at Cornwall, arid to a certain extent at Niagara? What was Canada, he asked, when we came into power? An atmospheric star in the far nebulae, of inferior dimensions. What is it to-day? A sun that rises and sets for the whole world. Where was Canada, he exclaimed, when we came into power? Forgotten by France, which cradled our infancy, unknown to the great metropolis of the empire whose colony we are, ignored by Europe, and a negligible quantity with the United States, our great neighbours. But where is Canada to-day? I, he said, went to the British metropolis and vindicated our rights to autonomy in commerce as well as in politics. And to-day, on the banks of Loire and the Thames, the Neva and the Dneister, the Volga and the Don, the Danube and the Po, the name of Canada is in every home, and the sun of Canada is that to which every inhabitant in these distant countries turns his eyes for peace, progress and prosperity. My right hon. friend should take himself seriously to task once in a
while to prevent these bad attacks of megalomania.
My right hon. friend thought it was his duty to attack the leader of the opposition on the ground of purity. He did that all through the campaign, but during all that time he uttered no strong note with reference to the necessity for a cleaner public life. Not once, however, did he omit the opportunity of holding up my hon. friend (Mr. Borden) to ridicule for his professions regarding a higher moral tone of public life. Down at Niagara, what did the right hon. gentleman say? Mr. Borden, he said, cannot possibly be as virtuous as he looks, and even Mr. Foster cannot be as virtuous as- he talks. Then my right hon. friend raised his face towards heaven, and in front of the assembled thousands at Niagara said : ' Thank God I am no Purist.' And he utters the same thing to-night. And every scalawag who has been taking his ten, twenty or fifty per .cent echoed the sentiment with a very unctious and hearty Amen !
Now, sir, of all the small attempts to turn an argument, that which my right hon. friend has used with reference to the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) in his statement concerning the British Columbia case, is about the smallest I have known him to be driven to in this House. My hon. friend (Mr. Borden) declared, with reference to a province that he was of opinion that their financial grievance was well based, and that, if it were well based, he believed it ought to have a fair and reasonable arbitrament and judgment. Can my right hon. friend say that that was at all comparable with the kinds of bribery and corruption practised by himself and his ministers? Does he mean to say that if a member argues for the rights of a province as he sees them, and declares that he will vindicate them to the extent of seeing to it that they have a fair and reasonable arbitrament he is guilty of bribery? If he does, he will not find one impartial man in this country to share his views. Suppose that a great transportation line is needed to run through this country and that I believe in building it and go out and argue for it before the people, can any man say that I am bribing the constituencies? Is it not a germane and proper thing for a man to establish if he can, and argue for if he will? But my right hon. friend takes a different method. He does it by piecemeal and in detail- although he sometimes takes up large sections. Does he remember when he asserted: The politics of Mr. Mercier are my politics and my politics are the politics of Mr. Mercier? Does he remember when he made that 'compact with Mercier of the province of Quebec:	You give me a majority and
I will give you what you demand? If he did not do so, then the words uttered by Mr. Mercier, and which are on record to-day,

must have been a misrepresentation of the facts-but I do not believe they were. Why, even with reference to British Columbia, since when has the Prime Minister changed faith? Talking about telegrams, does he remember a certain telegram he sent to British Columbia in the crisis of an election in which he stated: What you want I want, so far as British Columbia is concerned; your politics are my politics; your views upon this Oriental question are my views? Another telegram of his was to Maxwell concerning the mint. Maxwell was in extremis; he was fighting a contested election and wanted a mint for Victoria. He was telegraphed to by the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier): You shall have the mint. Is there a parallel between that and the statement made by my hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) the leader of the opposition? This whole campaign, which has been alluded to by the right hon. leader of the government as a great triumph for himself and his friends, was, he stated, not fought out on principle. I agree with him. Leaving for the moment what the right hon.. gentleman said as to British Columbia, certainly, so far as the rest of the country is concerned, the election was not fought out on principle by his party-I agree with the right hon. gentleman there. Since when has the right hon. gentleman had a principle which he has stuck to over night? The election was fought on opportunism, it was fought on the negation of popular rights; it was fought on a system of bribery in detail by himself and those who surround him. What a spectacle it was we saw in Berlin, when the right hon. gentleman stood up a young man before the constituents there, and said to them virtually: I will make this young man a minister if you will elect him. That was not bribery and corruption; that was the work of the man who thanked God that he was not a purist. And what are we to think of his Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) who called the attention of the dear electors in Berlin to the fact that he had been there before and had said something which had come true-he had promised them a clock and they had the clock ; he had promised them postal delivery in the town, and they had postal delivery in the town, or, if it was not quite completed, he would see that it was completed. And what else did he promise? Rural free mail delivery. And then, in insulting fashion, he said, either at Berlin or at Niagara:	Behold the bounty of the
Liberal government to the farmers of Canada. By that we can gauge the principle of hon. gentlemen opposite. My right hon. friend was rather testy last night when I asked him about certain commercial negotiations and how they were progressing. He intimated that if there were any commercial negotiations they might be in my mind, they certainly had never entered his.


George Eulas Foster: 


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


George Eulas Foster: Never in the wide world. And yet, to-day the Speaker read from the chair the culmination of the commercial negotiations.


Wilfrid Laurier: No commercial negotiations there.


George Eulas Foster: Will the right hon. gentleman tell me that he did not say the same thing when the present Senator Derbyshire was got out of the way of the present Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham)? The intimation went through the length and breadth of this country that a senatorship was to be the price, but the right hon. gentleman said that there was no such thing, hurling back the accusation with infinite disdain. And yet, within six weeks, Mr. Derbyshire was a senator.


Wilfrid Laurier: I have told my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) before, and I repeat now, that I made no promise whatever to Mr. Derbyshire. And I say that I made no promise whatever to Mr. Sloan.


George Eulas Foster: My right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) is somewhat of the calibre he ascribes to Hon. Richard McBride-he is astute. He denies such a promise. But I will put one thing to him that he will not deny. In 1896 when the right hon. gentleman wanted to get into power, speaking at Sohmer park, Montreal, on the 25th of April of that year, and dealing with the question of the wholesale bribery of constituencies, he said:
It need hardly be said that the doctrine is not only corrupt hut unjust. The taxes are paid by supporters and opponents of the government alike, and all have a right to share in the expenditure according to the public necessity that may exist. It is an outrage to tell an elector that he must vote as he is told, or abandon his right to the public service for which lie Days.
How many times has the right hon. gentleman told that, not only to electors, but to members of this House ?
There are other questions to be considered, there are other abuses which the Liberal party want to make away with. We want to reduce the publio expenditure. It has increased by over sixty per cent, while the population has only increased by twelve per cent.
Is that a fair proportion? The taxes are altogether to high. Those who say that the taxes are never too high are not the ones who pay them; they are the men who spend your money at Ottawa. There is still another very important and more vital reform which the Liberal party intends to make, and that is to introduce ' honesty 3 in the administration of your publio affairs. I contend that the pnblio treasury is as sacred as any private safe. I believe that the money which is in the public treasury is as sacred as the money which is in your own pocket. If you elect

me to power I promise you to inaugurate an honest and economical administration.
And yet these words were hardly off the tongue of my hon. friend before he sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. Frangois Langelier, in which he sent him a promissory note, guaranteeing either a judgeship or the governorship of Quebec if he would go into the election in support of his party. From that time up to the present the bargain-counter has never been closed, the auction block has never been out of action in this country.
The last great picture presented to us was that deal with Senator Scott. My right hon. friend wanted young blood. I do not blame him. He had two old men in the Senate, he wanted their places for two young men. They were both members of his cabinet. Sir Richard Cartwright was one and Mr. Scott was the other. I understand that my right hon. friend made a proposition to Sir Richard Cartwright, but I understand that he got a tremendous rejoinder from him.


Wilfrid Laurier: Pardon me. I desire to give the most emphatic denial to any statement that I ever asked Sir Richard Cartwright for his portfolio. Quite the reverse. I was glad to have him in the cabinet, and am still glad.


George Eulas Foster: I accept my right hon. friend's word. We cannot get all the correspondence, I suppose it is private. But it would be spicy reading if we could get it.


Wilfrid Laurier: No. My hon. friend will pardon me. He and I are old friends, and I say here upon my woi;d that I never, by correspondence or otherwise, mentioned to Sir Richard Cartwright that I wanted his portfolio, never.


George Eulas Foster: I gladly accept his words. Of course it might have been done in some other way. But will he deny that he entered into negotiations with Mr. Scott? Mr. Scott seems to have been born under a lucky star. At no time in the history of this country, while Mr. Scott has been living and there has been a Liberal party in this country, has he not been an official drawing high emoluments from that government. But the period came when something had to be done, and my hon. friend consummated a deal which is as bad as any that was ever consummated in the time of the Georges. What did he do? He wanted the portfolio of Senator Scott. Senator Scott held two positions, one was a portfolio and the other a Senatorship. He hung on to the Senatorship, and he would not give up the portfolio until-what? A son of Senator Scott, an estimable young man of medium ability, was hoisted into a brand new office at the rate of some $9,000 a year, as vice-president of a commission. Senator Scott keeps the life senator-ship, and his son gets a new office for life.
worth to him on the ordinary expectancy of life not less than $270,000. The country pays the money. The party deal is completed. That is the deal by which he has been able to inject some new blood into his cabinet. I am not finding fault with the new blood, I have nothing to say against the old blood. I say that this transaction swells to Heaven, and reeks with everything which is opposed to good administration in this or any other constitutionally governed country.
Now what else has happened? A gentleman from British Columbia fails to get the support of his constituency, fails to get the support of his province. He remains in office as administrator. We find no fault, for a fair time. But the time comes when parliament has to meet, and when the Minister ought to be in his seat. Then what happens? Then, under pressure from the Prime Minister, a constituency in the province of British Columbia is voided of its trustee, and a seat is purchased for the gentleman who was defeated in his own constituency and in his own province. Well, that may be high politics, but I am dc-ubtful if the country will look upon it as such. But my right hon. friend, from the time when he wrote that letter to Frangois Langelier up to the present time, has never paused in his career of publicly bribing and privately influencing the politics of this country in that peculiar way. I plight mention some other things if I had time. On July 16. 1904, I had the pleasure of moving the following resolution:
That the Bill lie not now Tead a third time, but be referred back to Committee of the Whole House for the purpose of amending the said Bill 00 as to provide punishment by fine or imprisonment for any minister of the Crown or other person who as an inducement to any voters or class of voters in any electoral district to vote for any candidate promises /to procure or threatens to withhold (the expenditure of any public moneys of Canada or the undertaking of any public works within such electoral district.
The right hon. gentleman opposed it, and his party opposed it. They would not accede to it, because it would have been a prohibition to do those things which they wished to do. I have been led into this discursion with reference to the purity side of the question. There are two other points upon which I would like to touch briefly before six o'clock. The right hon. gentleman has suddenly grown cautious. He puts into the mouth of the Governor General a statement that it is now necessary to be exceptionally cautious with reference to the finances of the country. There has been a fall in the revenue, there has been a fall in trade, and we must now be exceptionally cautious. When did this take place? The speech from the Throne says more than a year ago. It seems to me that the time for the right hon. gentleman to have exercised


Mr. G. H. COWAN (Vancouver).: Mr. Speaker, had it not been for the references made^ to me and to my conduct of the election in the city of Vancouver by the right hon. First Minister I would not have ventured to-night, unprepared, to take part in this debate. But some men, like the right hon. the Prime Minister, are born great; some, like the hon. gentleman who has just resigned from Comox-Atlin (Mr. Sloan), achieve greatness, and some, like myself by the references of the right hon. the First Minister, have greatness thrust upon them. Let me say that I have never in my public utterances mentioned the name of the right hon. the Prime Minister without the tribute of praise that I believed to be his due. But, Sir, I had not then heard the right hon. the First Minister in superficial and, may I say, in specious debate; I had not heard him on the question of immigration, on the question of Asiatic exclusion; and like every young heart who believes in the greatness of public men, I was prepared to hear drop from the lips of the First Minister of Canada words and arguments befitting the occasion and befitting this House of Commons. When I heard that First Minister say that in British Columbia and
British Columbia alone, of all the great provinces that form this confederation, the campaign had been conducted on principle and that he could not understand the resets that had been brought about in British Columbia and in my constituency, I felt that it was due to myself and to this House that I should offer some explanation of those results. Sir, I know and you know that it is due to no merits of mine that a majority of 858 for the Liberal party in the constiueney of Vancouver was converted into a majority for myself of 1,582, the largest turnover, let me say it in all humility, because I take no credit to myself, in the whole Dominion of Canada. Let me explain to the right hon. the First Minister what that majority means. That majority means that the people of British Columbia, who are confronted with a condition with which no other part of Canada is confronted, who are face to face with a condition and not with a theory, do not believe in the policy of the government of to-day. _ Why have the people of British Columbia exercised their own individual and inalienable right of judgment in this matter, and converted a solid phalanx of Liberal members into the representation we now see from British Columbia? I shall attempt to tell you why. Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier and his government have entered into a treaty with Japan that does not conserve the interests of the workingmen of Canada and Canadian citizenship. As I said I have never on a public platform used the name of Sir Wilfrid Laurier without at the same time attributing to him the highest qualities of a politician and a statesman.
. Some hon. MEMBERS. Hear, hear, that is right.


George Henry Cowan: Never; but, Sir, that was before I listened to his specious arguments.
I wish from the bottom of my heart I had never heard that speech of Sir Wilfrid Laurier to-day. I wish it because I cannot reconcile myself to the feeling that my idol3 have been shattered. I cannot reconcile myself to the feeling that a leader of public thought in Canada has so far failed to grasp and to understand the feeling and the conditions that will make of Canada a great nation. I say, Sir, that Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the First Minister of Canada, in declaring that we in British Columbia have fought the battle in the recent campaign on principle, has paid, unconsciously no doubt, a compliment to British Columbia. I can see that he is perturbed and cannot understand why when we conducted the campaign on principle the result has been to give me a larger turnover than he dared hope to have in his own constituency. I can tell him the reason to-night. It was because without reason and without any request from Japan he abandoned the sacred duty and transferred to Japan the power to keep Canadian citizenship untainted by Japanese immigration. I can tell him that it was because the hon. the Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) on the floor of this House has declared in so many words that he is^ not in favour of a white British Columbia. I can tell him that it is because the hon. Minister of Agriculture has de-

dared in so many words on the floor of this House that we believe that it would be in the interest of Canada if hundreds of thousands of Asiatics were poured into our country. I can tell him that it is because on the 3rd of December, 1907, he stood on a public platform in this very city of Ottawa and declared that he would not apply the law of exclusion to Asiatics. I can tell him that it is because almost every minister in his Cabinet and every man in his following who speaks with authority has declared in unmistakable terms that he is not in favour of reserving to this country of ours the citzenship of Canadians. I can tell him, and I am delighted to have this opportunity of telling him now and here, that when he said-distinguished and great politician and statesman as he is-that he did not share the sentiments of British Columbia, that we were making a mistake we, as befitted citizens of the great empire to winch we belong, we said in our hearts, thank God, we have our own individual judgment still left to us. I can tell him that it is because he has not studied conditions, but has only studied theories. And, Sir, not only is it a great compliment to us in British Columbia that we conducted our campaign on principle, but Sir, in explanation of the peculiar fact that we have converted a solid following of seven Liberals at the back of Sir Wilfrid Laurier into a majority of five in support of Mr. R. L. Borden, my honoured leader, I can tell him that I stood on a public platform in British Columbia and said that Mr. R. L. Borden had declared that if the modus vivendi alleged-and I use the word advisedly-to have been entered into by the Hon. Mr. Lemieux with the Japanese government were not lived up to, that circumstance would oblige the Conservative party to abrogate that treaty. I can tell him why my word and my message to the people of British Columbia was accepted : it was because it was from Mr. R. L. Borden, my honoured leader. And why, Mr. Speaker, do the people of British Columbia accept the message of Mr. R. L. Borden, and do not accept the message of Sir Wilfrid Laurier ? It is because Sir Wilfrid Laurier and every member of his Cabinet have put themselves on record as saying in precise terms that they do not believe in a white Canada and a white British Columbia. And I want to say here that while we are prepared to stand steadfast to the men and to the government who will protect the sacred interests of Canada-because the interests of Canada are not different from those of British Columbia-we have in British Columbia the power of discrimination ; and while we find that Sir Wilfrid Laurier says that if this modus vivendi is not lived up to, he will abrogate the treaty, we read into that statement the Mr. COWAN.
statement of himself and every member of his Cabinet that he does not believe in protecting the Canadian workingman and thus protecting Canadian citizenship against the importation into British Columbia and into Canada of alien hordes that will always remain aliens. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I enter into this discussion unprepared as I am, in no partisan spirit. I want to say that I enter into this discussion with the highest appreciation of the distinguished qualities that mark the leader of the government of Canada. I want to say that we in British Columbia are not entering into the political life of Canada ; we are not taking this side or that especially because of the general questions that differentiate the two parties in Canada. We take part in this discussion-and I am standing on the floor of the House of Commons to-day at a great sacrifice to myself-not because I am a hidebound partisan, but because I believe that British Columbian interests and Canadian interests-yes, and imperial interests-demand that the blunder of J anuary, 1907, shall be remedied and removed from the treaty laws of Canada. I say this, Sir, in all sincerity ; I believe that I am right, and whether I am right or wrong,
I am acting from conviction. I am acting thus because I believe that the interests of Canada, the interests of the empire, and the interests of British Columbia in particular, demand that the treaty which allows every man-jack of the forty-seven millions of people who make up the citizenship of Japan, whether they be deaf, dumb or blind, whether thev be paupers or criminals, to enter Canada without let or hindrance, shall be amended, at least in accordance with the will of Japan herself. Ever since the 6th of October, 1896, Japan has been willing that Canada should retain to herself the power to control the immigration from Japan into Canada. That is a right which no self-respecting country should relinquish. There has not been a minute of time, since October, 1896, to the present, when Japan has not been perfectly willing that Canada should retain her own self respect and exercise the powers given her under section 95 of the British North America Act. Every speech delivered in this House and on the hustings throughout Canada has been an attempt to justify and palliate the blunder of the government in not reserving to Canada, in our treaty with Japan, the right to control or prohibit, if necessary, the immigration of Japanese labourers and artisans. The whole discussion to-day centres around that blunder in treaty-making committed by this government. There is nothing else in question. In 1895 the government then in power stipulated. as a preliminary to our consenting to any treaty, that Canada should retain -the right to restrict or prohibit the immi-

gration of Japanese labourers and artisans. That was the stand which the Conservative government of that day took. Again, in October of the following year, after the Conservative government had been defeated, the Japanese government agreed that Canada might adhere to the treaty and reserve to herself the right to prohibit or restrict immigration. Yet notwithstanding this fact and notwithstanding the fact that petition after petition was sent from British Columbia and memorials from the British Columbia government, notwithstanding every thing that a sane and intelligent citizenship could represent to the Ottawa government-notwithstanding all this, on the 25th of September, 1906, this government declared:	'We are willing to transfer to an
alien government, whose citizens, when they come to Canada, remain aliens and will continue aliens to the end of time-we are willing to hand over to that alien government the right to say who shall and who shall not enter Canada from Japan.' I have said on the public platform throughout British Columbia that the 25th of September,-1906, when that news was flashed by cable from Ottawa to London, was a black letter day for this Dominion, and I now appeal to the power and majority of the government to reconsider this matter in the interests of Canadian citizenship, and recover to Canada the right she has under her constitution and which she should never have relinquished, namely, the right to control immigration. In saying that I have practically done with this question for the pre-ent, because I know it is the intention of the representatives of British Columbia to go into it on a future occasion with greater particularity and more details than I can hope to do unprepared at this moment. Let rye add that this is not, as the right hon. the First Minister seems to think, a mere economic question. I yield to no man in admiration of the great empire of Japan. Let me take you back to 1852, when Commodore Perry negotiated the first commercial treaty with Japan. Since then that great country has been acquiring with peculiar rapidity and facility and form of western government and the methods of western commerce and civilization. But these people are still exercising the peculiar domestic traditions and habits of their race. I yield to no man in my admiration of the Japanese as a nation and as individuals, but the danger to Canada lies in that very fact that we have to accord them our admiration in many respects. They are aliens and will remain so. In 1894 they entered into commercial treaties with the United States, Great Britain and almost every .western civilized nation. When they entered into that treaty with Great Britain in 1894, the British government in 1895 cabled the government of Canada to ascertain whether Canada wished to become a
party to that treaty. I am delighted to be able to declare that the Conservative government, which was then in power, replied: No, unless Canada shall retain her right to restrict or prohibit the immigration from Japan, not only of Japanese labour, but also of Japanese artisans. These people, you know, can transform themselves from artisans into labourers with the rapidity of lightning artists.
And our government of that day had the wisdom and foresight and prevision of statesmen to say that they must add the words ' and artisans.' The United States did not adopt that precaution, and they are paying the penalty to-day. Now, when that government, in 1895, declared in no unmistakable way the policy of Canada, it was the duty of statesmanship, in the sacred interest of the Canadian workingman, to carry out that policy, whatever government happened to be in power in Canada. You must remember that this great nation, Japan, as I have said, is taking on the form of western government and adopting the methods of western commerce and you must remember that the result will be that these people will produce in the near future a new form of civilization which it will be the duty of Canada and of the United States to cope with, and which, if not coped with, *will affect and taint the citizenship of Canada and therefore . of the great empire to which we belong. Now, I venture to think, that this House, regardless of party affiliations, will give this matter the serious consideration to which it is entitled, and will realize that in this question of immigration we are face to face with a greater problem than any with which Canada has yet been confronted. I take part in the discussion of that problem, and I desire to take part in the solution of that problem, in no partisan spirit. I desire to take part in the discussion and solution of that problem from the standpoint of the interest not only of British Columbia, but of Canada, and of the great and glorious empire of which Canada is so important a part.
Now, leaving that subject as one with which I intended to deal to-night only briefly, I desire to refer to another subject to which the right hon. Prime Minister has seen fit to refer, the subject of better terms for British Columbia. The Prime Minister referred, as it seemed to me, though I hope I am mistaken, in sneering tones to the fact that my leader has said-as he has consistently said since 1904-that British Columbia has such a claim upon the Dominion as ought to be referred to an independent and impartial tribunal. When the right hon. gentleman sneers at that position, he sneers at the very fountain of justice itself. And when any man in Canada lacks the spirit of fair-play and justice to such an extent that he is unwilling to let the claim of British Columbia or any other province

or section or individual be submitted to an independent and impartial tribunal for arbitrament, if he be a man whom I held in lofty appreciation, my ideals concerning him must suffer a serious fall. All we want is justice : dare to give us that justice. If we cannot prove our claim, we will take our medicine with equanimity. The time for expediency in this Canada of ours, has passed ; the time for opportunism has passed. Give us justice and we are satisfied. Dare to submit our claims to an independent and impartial tribunal: dare to be a man. If we are wrong, we will take our medicine; if we are right, like men you will pay us our claim. The Prime Minister has told you that this question of British Columbia's claim has been submitted, if you please, to the representatives of the other provinces. It may be that I would be delighted if the money claims against myself were submitted to me for arbitrament. You can see that if we of British Columbia are right, the other provinces of Canada will foot the bill just as, if my creditors are right, I must foot the bill. Could you, with justice, put me in a position to judge of the claims of my creditors against myself? Be fair. Be just. Be honourable. Submit our claims to an independent and impartial tribunal. You will find that the splendid western spirit of manliness and fair-play 'will take the result and the consequences with equanimity. I have only this further to say, that I think the hon. the First Minister is quite right when he says the campaign in British Columbia was conducted on principle. It was conducted on principle, and I believe that if and when an election campaign is conducted throughout the whole of Canada on principle, men of principle will be elected and will govern this country.


Hon.  L. P. BRODETJR@Minister of Marine and Fisheries: It was not my intention to take part in this debate, but after the extraordinary speech of the member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) and his personal reference to myself, I think it my duty to say a few words in my own defence. I do not intend to follow that hon. gentleman on the ground of personalities in which he has indulged, I do not think that style of debate is calculated to raise or even to maintain the dignity of this House. This country has before it enough weighty problems to discuss without members of this House wasting our time in discussing personal matters. For that reason I cannot follow the hon. gentleman on the ground he has chosen, I will leave him to follow alone that line of debate. But I will say this to the hon. gentleman, that I am not afraid to compare my personal record with his own. So far as integrity and honour are concerned, I think my record will compare _ favourably with his :	consequently if I do not choose to follow Mr. COWAN.
him in personal attacks, it is not because I do not feel quite able to defend myself on that ground. As to my public career as Minister of Marine and Fisheries, I am not afraid, either, to compare my record with the record of the hon. member for North Toronto. He was for a number of years Minister of Marine and Fisheries, and what did he do to reform that department? Let him point to one single action of his when Minister where he tried to reform the department. He did nothing, he let things drag on as they had been doing for years, He allowed the same abuses to continue that had been existing before he took hold of the department, and he never had the courage to effect a single reform in that department, as I have done. Sir, I have effected considerable reforms in that department, and if to-day I am attacked by some of the Tory newspapers and by the hon. member for North Toronto, it is because I have reformed the administration of that department. In the first place, we had a bad system of keeping accounts. That system existed when my hon. friend was Minister of Marine and Fisheries, and what did he do to remove it? Nothing at all. I have reformed that, and to-day the abuses which existed under my hon. friend's administration have disappeared, and we have now a clear and straight administration of that department.
But why are these attacks levelled against me now? We have just passed through a general election contest, and my hon. friend knows the result. He knows what he and his friends essayed to do before the elections. He spent the whole session last year in attacking me, by all means and under all circumstances, by saying the most abusive things against me personally. When the elections came on he gathered together those abuses and reproduced them in pamphlet form and scattered them over Canada. Sir, what has been the result of that campaign of slander inaugurated by the hon. member for North Toronto? jHe and his party were hopelessly defeated, that was the result. There is not a county throughout Canada where my name was not mentioned by the Tory speakers, but it was all to no purpose, and this government has been triumphantly returned. Why, Sir, my opponents were not able to put a candidate against me in my own county, they were not able even to find twenty-five electors to sign a nomination paper for a candidate against me. True, they sent an organizer from Montreal into my county, instructing him by no means to allow me to be elected by acclamation. That gentleman went around the county to get signatures, not in favour of any man who was known in the county, but in favour of a man from Montreal who did not know ten electors in the county. This organizer succeeded in getting 25 names, but just as he was about

to deposit his nomination paper, two of the men who had signed it came up and said, 'We do not want our names on that nomination paper, we want Mr. Brodeur to be elected by acclamation. I was elected by acclamation, and that is my answer to the hon. gentleman and his friends. Not only Liberals of my county, but many Conservatives were in favour of my election by acclamation, as they told me themselves, in order to rebuke the hon. member for North Toronto for his abusive personalities. Let him continue that policy if he likes. Tonight he seems desirous of continuing it. Let him go on. I do not care, I will be reelected as long as he continues that policy.
I shall not be obliged, as my hon. friend was, to desert my own constituency and my own province, but I shall continue to be elected in my own constituency and my own province, because my electors have confidence in me.
The Department of Marine and Fisheries has been attacked. I would have thought that my hon. friend would at least have waited until he had had an opportunity of reading the report of Mr. Justice Cassels. I do not want to discuss that report now because I suppose that my hon. friends opposite have not had the opportunity of reading over the report, but probably we will have occasion later on to discuss it. But, I am glad to see that some of the attacks which have been made by my hon. friends opposite, and especially by the hon. member for North Toronto, have been proved to be absolutely false as far as they concern myself. I will give the House one instance. Hon. gentlemen who were then members of the House will remember the hon. member for North Toronto last session referring time and again to Merwin and Brooks and to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries who, he said, was still doing business with Merwin and Brooks. I was attacked and attacked by the hon. member for North Toronto on that ground. Let him read the report of Mr. Justice Cassels and he will find that the charge which was made against me in that connection is absolutely groundless; in fact, it is stated that the purchases which had been made from Merwin and Brooks were made contrary toi and in disobedience of the instructions that I had given by an officer of the department appointed by my hon. friend for North Toronto. If there is anybody who is at fault it is not myself, but it is the hon. member for North Toronto who has placed^ in the service men who will not fulfil the instructions of their ministers, men who have been disobeying the instructions of their ministers.	I
My aim upon going into the department was to reform that department and put it on a proper basis. Abuses of the worst kind have crept in, I admit, abuses which had existed since confederation, which had 3
existed under the Tory governments and which had existed under the Liberal government. Take the question of purchases for example. You have heard a great deal lately with regard to purchases and how scandalous it was that we had a patronage list or that we were purchasing from some particular personal. Let us read some extracts from' a document which was placed before the House last year, because I do not want to refer to the report of Mr. Justice Cassels. We will discuss that later on. and we will draw from it the arguments which I venture to say will vindicate absolutely what I have done. But, let us quote from a report which was laid before the House last year. Take for example a letter of the 28th March, 1894, addressed by Mr. Art. J. Turcotte, member for Montmorency, to Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, who was then Minister of Marine and Fisheries, and which is as follows:
Hon. Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, K.C.M.G., Minister of Marine and Fisheries,
Ottawa.
Dear Sir,-For the supplies of groceries at the Department of Marine of Quebec, I would much recommend you Napoleon Moffet. Hoping that you will do me that favour.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) ART. J. TURCOTTE.
Then Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper replies as follows:
Dear Mr. Turcotte,-Your letter of the 28th, recommending that groceries be purchased from Mr. Napoleon Moffet, was received by me.
Mr. Moffet has been asked, through the agent at Quebec, for his prices.
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd.) C. H. TUPPER.
Here is a letter dated the 7th June, 1894, addressed to Mr. Gregory:
In reply to your letter of May 2, 1894, informing me that you had no correspondence with the department, regarding the purchase of groceries from Mr. O. A. Larose, I have to request you to inform me whether Mr. O. A. Larose was recommended by any one. Inform -me al9o whether you purchased groceries from any other grocer than Mr. Larose.
The deputy minister writes that to Mr. Gregory.
It appears from the accounts, that nearly oil! the groceries purchased for steamers' use were obtained from Mr. Larose. I have to request you to report whether -this is the case.
No competition was required in any way, shape or form. Here is an extract from a memo.:
January 14, 1905.
Re purchasing of supplies, for lighthouses. Small supplies.
With regard to what are called small supplies, such as towelling, ticking, gray cotton, &o., the agents are allowed to purchase these without tender -at the lowest possible prices for good articles from merchants who have



been recommended by the M. P.'s of the several cities.
Recommending by the M.P.'s, members of the several cities ! That is very clear. Here is another:
. April 5, 1895.
Sir,-Mr. Turcotte, M.P., has written to the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries asking that crockery and smallwares be obtained from Mr. Omer Lecomte, when required, the same as supplied by his predecessor Mr. Bruneau.
I have to request you to report on the matter foT the information of the department.
I am, sir, your obedient servant, (Sgd.) JOHN HARDIE, Acting Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries.
J. U. Gregory, Esq.,
Agent Department of Marine and Fisheries, Quebec
Here is another letter:
Quebec, April 9, 1895.
Sir,-I am in receipt of your letter of the 5th instant (No. 10729), requesting me to report upon the application of Mr. Turcotte, M.P., for crockery and smallwares to he obtained from Mr. O. Lecomte, successor to Mr. Bruneau.
Mr. Louis Bruneau was recommended for this patronage by the late Hon. Jno. Hearn, Sir A. P. Caron and others; it amounted to very little. He has gone entirely out of the business and is succeeded by Mr. Omer Lecomte, who appears to have as many good friends as Mr. Bruneau; and his getting the supplying of the few articles which may he wanted in his line will not injure Mr. Bruneau nor any one else that I know of. Please inform me if approved of.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Sgd.) JOHN U. GREGORY,
Agent Department of Marine and Fisheries. The Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries,
Ottawa.
And it was approved of. These are some of the things which happened in Quebec. Now, take St. John, N.B. I see that during the elections a gentleman in that province went out of his way to work against the Liberal party. This gentleman seemed to be very much scandalized in regard to patronage. What do I find ? -a letter from the Hon. John Douglas Hazen, Premier of New Brunswick, written to Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, as follows:
Dear Sir,-Last year, acting on my recommendation, you decided that the dry goods, required to be obtained at St. John for your department, he purchased from James Hamilton.
No objection there.
I believe the price was thoroughly satisfactory, and I will be obliged if you will give similar instructions to your agent at St. John for this year's supplies. Mr. Hamilton is one of our very best political workers, and Mr. BRODEUR.
his party services entitle him to anything that can fairly be given to him.
Your faithfully,
(Sgd.) J. DOUGLAS HAZEN.
Here is the Premier of New Brunswick who is not asking even that a purchase list be made, that prices be obtained from some friends of the government, but that purchases be made direct from Mr. James Hamilton.
We find on May 8, 1894, another letter from Mr. Hazen reading as follows:
My deaT Sir Charles,-I beg once more to call your attention to my recommendation of some time ago that the dry goods required in your department in St. John be purchased from James Hamilton. I judge from your reply at the time this recommendation would be acted upon and I will feel very much obliged if you will now instruct Mr. Harding to purchase from Hamilton if his prices are satisfactory.
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd.) J. DOUGLAS HAZEN.


Mr. URIAH WILSON.: A little different.


Mr. BRODEUR.: A little different, just to purchase from one man. My hon. friend says it is another thing, but what competition is there?
We have the same thing from Halifax, and there I declare it to be one of the most scandalous matters which has been brought before this parliament. There tenders had been asked for, but before those tenders were passed upon by the Governor in Council they were submitted to outsiders to see whether the tenders would please them or not. I shall read the letter to my hon. friend.
Ottawa, April 19, 1892. The Hen. C. H. Tupper,
Minister of Marine and Fisheries,
Ottawa.
My dear Tupper,-Referring to our conversation yesterday morning respecting tenders for the supplies for the steamers of your department at Halifax, I have to ask that before the contracts are awarded you will kindly allow me an opportunity to call at your office and learn who are likely to receive them.
Your faithfully,
(Sgd.) JOHN F. STAIRS.
Before these tenders were submitted to council, when they should be a matter of secrecy between the members of the government, an outsider comes in and asks to see the tenders. What is the answer? It should have been that the tenders were private and that no one had the right to see them, but that is not what we see under Conservative administration. I have here Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper's letter.
In reply to yours of the 19th instant, requesting an opportunity ito call at my department, and ascertain who is likely to receive the contract for supplying the steamers of the department at Halifax, I may eay that

any time after to-morrow you may call, and information will "be given respecting the tenders.
Yours very truly,
(Sgd.) CHARLES HIBBERT TTJPPER. John E. Stairs, Esq., M.P.,	-
The House of Commons.
Could there be any more scandalous conduct than that of the late ministers in permitting outsiders to inspect the tenders before they were accepted by the Governor in Council? I brand it as most disgraceful conduct. That is one of the evils, with which we had to cope. When I entered the department what did I do?


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh, hear, hear.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I changed entirely the system which had been in existence before. One man was no longer permitted the exclusive right to sell dry goods to the department, as had been done at St. John; we asked prices from a large number of people and lately I have gone further, I have abolished entirely the patronage list and now we are purchasing by calling for public tenders, open to everybody. The other day we had occasion to ask for tenders in Halifax, and I understand that a contract has been given to a person who is not friendly to the government. But I do not care; I want,to reform the system that has been in existence since 1867, I do not wish to have any more of that patronage system. The Liberal party, unlike the Conservative party, believe in doing without that patronage system. The system, does not work to the interest of the Liberal party, for we are not like the Conservative party ; the Conservative party wants to make millionaires or to give favour ; we want to distribute the wealth and to give to every person the advantage of an opportunity of tendering \and of carrying out contracts and we wish in making purchases to obtain substantial goods at reasonable prices. These reforms I understand have not been very well received by my hon. friends opposite; they would like to see continued the same system that existed before. I am not in favour of that policy; I have decided that in my department things shall be done in an upright and honourable way. I do not wish to follow the course of my hon. friends opposite; I want to do better than they have done; I want to institute reforms and those reforms are now being carried out in the best way possible. How are these reforms being carried out? I have told you that we have made investigations, we ordered the civil service investigation, and following that the investigation by Mr. Justice Cassels. That shows that we are not afraid of making investigations.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I am glad to see the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) laughing at that. How did the former government proceed? How did he proceed himself? In 1891 and 1892, when officers were charged with being derelict in their duty, what did he do? Of course he was not Minister of Marine, but he was minister of another department in which some officers were also charged. Did he appoint a judge to investigate the conduct of those officers and of the ministers who might be reproached as to their conduct? No, my hen friend was too cautious for that, he did not do what I did, he simply appointed himself a commission in order to investigate the conduct of those officers.


George Eulas Foster: It would be well done.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: My hon. friend (Mr. Foster) who could be charged with being responsible for the conduct of these officers who were under his control, instead of appointing an independent judge to make the investigation said: I shall appoint myself- that will be better and less dangerous. He appointed himself and afterwards dismissed some of those officers and retained others in the public service. The course we have followed is much more courageous; we were not afraid to have an outsider go into the accounts of the Department of Marine, we were not afraid of investigation and we appointed a judge to conduct the investigation and lawyers to assist him. We have had examined everything connected with the administration of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, and all of the evidence taken during the investigation can be found in the reports which have been laid before parliament. Did my hon. friend bring down to parliament the evidence which he took when he appointed himself a commissioner? No, he kept it for himself, he kept everything for himself, and now because a minister tries to do the right thing he is branded as a stupid and foolish man. I followed the course which I took because I was not afraid; my hon. friend perhaps would not have followed the same course, it might have been stupid on. his part. I made it my duty to have an investigation by an independent judge and the result is as satisfactory as can be expected in the circumstances. For my part I am satisfied with the result of the investigation. I come out clear from that investigation and in spite of the insinuations of my hon. friend, in spite of his calling me stupid, I say that I stand justified before the country, having done my duty fearlessly, having done my duty to my friends, my duty to my party and my duty to the country which I have the honour to serve.


Mr. GEO. H. BARNARD (Victoria, B.C.).: Mr. Speaker, I take it that if the result of the recent elections in British Columbia re-

quires any justification, it has received it at the hands of the right hon. the Prime Minister to-day, for I think I am right in saying that the right hon. gentleman has paid more attention to the needs and wants of that province this afternoon than he has ever done since he has had the honour of leading the government. I do not propose to-night to discuss the questions on which the elections in the province of British Columbia were decided. The British Columbia members will, I think, if opportunity is afforded to them, and if it is not they will try to create it, discuss fairly, fully and freely those questions before thi8 House, and I think the right hon. gentleman will find that the members from the province of British Columbia will be prepared to take up the gauntlet which he has thrown down to-day.
The right hon. gentleman did me the honour to refer with some particularity to the election in Victoria and to a certain telegram which had been sent by the hon. leader of the opposition to the 'Colonist ' newspaper in that city; and, as I hope to stand in the estimation of the members of this House, not only on this side, hut on the other side as well, as a man of honour and integrity, I deem it proper to make a statement with regard to that telegram. As a matter of fact, the telegram was handed to me when I was speaking on a platform at a public meeting in the city of Victoria on the evening of Saturday, the 24th of October, by an emissary of the 'Colonist' newspaper, a man on the reportorial staff of that paper. I read the telegram as it was handed to me, and it appeared the next morning in the 'Colonist' newspaper in the form in which it was handed to me. That is all that I knew about that telegram at that time. I heard afterwards that there was some alteration made in the telegram, but I want to say that so far as my inquiries gave me any information, it was not made either with any knowledge of mine or with the consent or connivance of any of the gentlemen who did me the honour of assisting me in any way in my election in Victoria.
The right hon. gentleman had a good deal to say this afternoon about the reasons for the result of the elections in British Columbia. I think I can fairly tell the right hon. gentleman that he did not lose those British Columbia elections on the 26th of October, 1908, but he lost them when he made a certain speech in the Bussell Theatre in the city of Ottawa on the 3rd of December, 1907. The right hon. gentleman is reported in a paper which I believe is a Liberal paper, the 'Ottawa Free Press', as having on that occasion used the following words:
Japan is an ally of ours, declared Sir Wilfrid, and if there was a war in the Pacific in which Great Britain might be engaged we would have the Japanese fleet by the side of


George Henry Barnard: the British fleet. We would not apply the law of exclusion to the Japanese, but we recognize that there i9 a strong prejudice in the province of British Columbia amongst the white population against all kind's of Oriental population. I say prejudice, and I speak advisedly. I do not want 'to speak offensively. I know my words will be reported in British Columbia, but I speak here the same language I would speak there if it were my privilege to be there. Perhaps my words will be unwelcome there, but I tell them: You may have your views upon the question, and you are hostile to the immigration of the Oriental race. I do not oare for your sentiments, and I believe you are making a mistake.
With regard to the last sentence, I understand that the right hon. gentleman made a correction, stating that it should have read: 'I do not share your sentiments.' That sentence, I may tell the right hon. gentleman, was quoted time and again in the province of British Columbia and was never contradicted, and I assume it to be a correct report. That was one of the inducing causes which made a majority of the electors of British Columbia supporters of the Conservative party. The right hon. gentleman appeared to be especially surprised at the result in the city of Victoria, and seemed to consider it necessary to impute fraud to the party to which I belong in the conduct of the election; but I think he could have found other reasons, if he had gone a little deeper, why the electors of Victoria did not care to return the gentleman who was contesting the seat in his interest. That gentleman had contested the seat four times previously, and had been defeated three times out of the four, and it was only when he came to British Columbia and dazzled the eyes of the electors with a Windsor uniform as a minister of the Crown, and that at a by-election, that he managed to get a seat at all. Now, the right hon. gentleman might, in fairness to a new member of this House at least, have taken the House into his confidence in reading that telegram this afternoon, and might have told Hon. members that it was not addressed to myself, but to the 'Colonist' newspaper and was published in that newspaper. I may say, in conclusion, that I hope my own reputation in my own community is as free as is his in his community from imputations of fraud.


Mr. MARTIN BURRELL (Yale-Cariboo).: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention at this late hour of the night of taking up the time of the House on the motion for the adoption of the address; but the remarks of the right hon. the Prime Minister have made it impossible for any British Columbian member to remain silent. Two questions of supreme importance to the province from which I come entered very largely into the recent campaign, namely, Japanese immigration and better terms. The Prime Min-

ister has referred to the fact that in the province of British Columbia the elections were fought largely on a question of principle, and, if I understand him aright, he expressed his gratification at that fact, a gratification in which we can all share. I do not know whether I can infer from his remarks that in the other provinces the elections were not conducted on questions of principle. If so, I assume that the right hon. gentleman referred to the Liberal conduct of the campaign as well as the Conservative. At one time the right hon. the Prime Minister stated that he would be guided on the great question of Oriental immigration by the sentiments of the west; but, if I remember aright, he said he would be guided by the views of the Liberals of the west. I think that is a rather narrow view He should have said that he would be guided by the views of the people of British Columbia, not the Liberals only.
In regard to the hon. gentlemen who moved and seconded the address, I can join with my leader in complimenting those hon. gentlemen. I admit that I was not able to follow the seconder of the motion, although I recognized his grace and eloquence as a speaker. The mover of the address spoke at great length, and in the course of his speech stated that he was an agriculturist, but having been myself an agriculturist for about a quarter of a century, I may be pardoned for saying that his remarks did not smack very much of the soil.
There are four matters which were prominent in the elections that took place recently. They are essential matters of principle, and 1 propose to touch on them very briefly. In saying that they are essentially questions of principle, I am citing the words of the right hon. the First Minister himself ; and I may add that this description of them has been proved accurate, especially in my own case and in my own constituency, where I had the difficult task of contesting a deferred election with the government well in power. And I think 1 am warranted in saying that the result of that election -was a very clear illustration of the triumph of principle over expediency. The four questions which were chiefly debated in the province of British Columbia-and I refer especially to my own campaign, representing as I do, by far the largest constituency in the whole Dominion-were the so-called Election Act, Bill No. 115, known out west as the Aylesworth Bill ; the question of better terms ; the question of the Oriental or Japanese immigration ; and the administration of public affairs, especially in connection with the civil service.
As regards the Election Bill, which was prominently discussed in our campaign, and which to some extent defeated our opponent because of the attitude he took on
that measure last session-with regard to that Bill I shall not say anything because the members of this House who sat here during months while that measure was under discussion, must have had a surfeit of it. I shall only say that proof has since been given in a very marked way that the election laws of British Columbia are absolutely fair to both Liberals and Conservatives. The attenpt to abolish our provincial franchise excited very strong feeling in our province ; and I am glad to have this opportunity of expressing to my honoured leader and the rest of the Conservative party my appreciation of the gallant fight they put up to retain to the province of British Columbia its own franchise. In connection with this Election Bill, we have had some debate on the question of the deferred elections in Yale and Cariboo and Comox-Atlin and Kootenay. Let me say most emphatically, speaking from personal knowledge of the large constituency of Cariboo, that there was absolutely no justification for the postponement of that election, and that it was generally known, throughout the length and breadth of my constituency, to have been postponed for the sole purpose of getting a seat in this House for a man who had not the slightest chance of obtaining it without the advantage of insidious appeals to public patronage.
The question of better terms has been dealt with to some extent by my hon. friend from Vancouver (Mr. Cowan) and I shall merely touch on it briefly. In 1904 the question of better terms to British Columbia was the subject matter, to a large extent, of the campaign at that time. We were favoured with various expositions of that subject, and one of the most extraordinary was given by a gentleman who,
I believe, is about to speed westward in the hope of representing a constituency which a member of this House has gratefully relinquished. I refer to the Minister of inland Revenue (Mr. Templeman). On one occasion, when speaking on the question of better terms, Mr. Templeman expressed the view that one large sample of better terms would be given British Columbia when a Liberal administration was restored to power. Well, I fear the better terms will come very late in the day if it is to come in that shape.
Referring to the Prime Minister of British Columbia, (Mr. McBride), the right hon. the First Minister said he was a very astute man. Well, he is not only astute but something very much stronger and bigger. On the question of better terms, he took a broad, sane view ; and in handling the matter as he did he impressed his view, not only on the Conservatives, but on the majority of the Liberals of British Columbia. When dealing as I hope to do, at length with this question later on, I propose ' to endeavour to impress on thi3 .

House that, in bringing up this question, we are not impelled by any spirit of antagonism to the other provinces, but simply because we believe that there can be no possible sympathetic co-operation among the different provinces until equal justice is meeted out to all. All we intend ever asking this House and pressing on the government is simply that the contention submitted by my hon. friend from Vancouver (Mr. Cowan) namely, that an impartial tribunal should decide whether we have a case or not. should be acted upon.
Leaving that matter, I propose to say a few words on the Oriental question. Some time ago the right hon. First Minister differentiated between the various races which confront each other on the Pacific coast. He drew broad lines of distinction between the Japanese, the Chinese and the Hindoos. To-night, however, he includes them in the one common expression ; but there is this distinction to be noticed, and it is one which I have always endeavoured to appreciate. I am no hide bound partisan, I am quite ready to acknowledge that we are all working for the good of Canada in our various ways, although we cannot all see alike, and I do not take the ground that nothing hon. gentlemen on the opposite side can do can possibly be otherwise than wrong. We must admit that there must be many measures entitled to approval, no matter from what side they may come. As regards the Hindoo phase of this question, I believe that the action of the government, was the only right and practical one, namely, to send their accredited representative to the imperial authorities in order to arrive at a solution of that question, which was different from the others in this important respect that it affected British subjects. That is a difference which is fundamental, and I trust on some future occasion to try and convince the House, that the only possible solution of this question will be found in convincing thoughtful and earnest men on both sides that the stand we take is not a narrow or provincial one but one eminently just and in the national interest. I know the opinion exists that out in the west we are a little hot tempered and not so judicial as we should be in our discussions on this matter, and we shall have to convince hon. gentlemen by logical appeal to their reason, that the views of the west are sound. You must not think, Mr. Speaker, that because we come from British Columbia and have to face conditions there which are rather acute, we are necessarily local or provincial in our views. We claim-and I think rightly -that we are not only British Columbian to the bottom of our hearts but also Canadians in the broadest sense of the word and Imperialists in the truest significance. May I add that in my own personal experience, speaking to men in the old land- and following the more recent articles in the Mr. BURRELL.
leading papers and reviews of Great Britain, the thoughtful opinions of the mother country have become fundamentally changed on the question of the influx of the Oriental race.
The day is coming, even if it has not come already, when, as it is put by one of their prominent men, it is recognized more and more every day to be the duty of the home government and the imperial authorities, no matter what conditions they have to face in other parts of the world, to stand by even the most distant and smallest portions of the British empire to build up a nation that should be Anglo-Saxon in race and tradition. I would like to add a word, because the Prime Minister seemed to imply that in one riding at least -I do not know whether he intended to include them all-the telegram in reference to the problem of exclusion by the leader of the opposition was one of the reasons why British Columbia had gone Conservative, as it were coming in under a false promise or a piece of hypocrisy. Let me assure him in the most emphatic way that, speaking for myself, not once did I say -though I expressed my sympathy with the exclusion movement as I do now-that the leader of the opposition had pledged himself to that policy, although it may be my view that not only he but other members of the House will come to that opinion. I treated the case on its merits, and the contest resulted, as I knew it would, against the former member for Yale-Cariboo, because he, in common with other members who represented-or rather misrepresented-British Columbian constituencies had ratified that treaty without a word of protest in regard to it. I can quite understand that some hon. members opposed will retort-in fact I knew this retort was made-that our leader and other members of the Conservative party also supported the ratification, of that treaty, and did not lift up their voices in protest against it. I recognize that. It is perfectly true, and it may possibly be that there are two reasons for it. I am not imputing bad motives or casting slurs when I say that it is certain that the Conservative party were misled by hsn. gentlemen opposed as to assurances from Japan with regard to this matter, and also by the exaggerated ideas of the importance of the trade with J apan, which, I believe, is not going to be as large as some people seem to think. Then, again, with regard to the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) and Conservative members generally, I can quite understand that no man who has lived altogether -in the east and has not come into daily contact with the conditions that face the people of the west, can possibly grasp the true significance of this oriental question to the people of the Pacific coast. I am sorry to add also that hon. gentleman opposite, and eastern members, generally do not avail themselves of their

privileges, as they ought to do, to gain a more intimate acquaintance at first hand with the great western country which, after all, is going to be the backbone of Canada. There is this to be said, however, that the leader of the opposition and the Conservative party, when they did begin to realize what the sentiment and feeling in British Columbia was on this great question, adjusted their position to meet the sentiment of British Columbia, which, after all, gentlemen on the opposite side did not do. It is all very well to say that this was done for party purposes, but we have no right to judge people in that way. We have a right to assume, and we may assume, that the leader of the opposition felt from the bottom of his heart that he ought to do as he has done, that he recognized the importance of this question, and, when he understood the sentiment of the people of the west, he adjusted his position and took a different stand, possibly, from that which he took a year or two ago. We recognize that this question has got to be divested of all bitterness, that it has got to be put on the soundest kind of basis. I hope that some time it will be the privilege of British Columbia members on this side to put up an argument on this question, and I hope that it will be an argument of sufficient strength and fairness to practically revolutionize the sentiments with regard to the matter of the members from the east, who, perhaps, have not grasped the importance of the question.
Now, I desire, in closing, to deal for a moment with another question-the character of the administration of public affairs in this country, more especially in relation to the Civil Service. This is a live matter, for it is referred to in the speech from the Throne, and the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Hon. Mr. Brodeur) had occasion to deal with it in a somewhat lengthy way. One of that hon. gentleman's remarks was quite pathetic, it seems to me. He intimated that he would not deal _ with _ the campaign of the opposition on this subject, because these questions formed a very undignified theme. I think that is the way he put it. Well, not referring to the personal aspect of the matter, when charges are brought against individuals or against a government, that corruption and wrongdoing exist, it is certainly extremely undignified for some people to have it found out. But these people have to be dealt with. And here again, I may refer to the remarks of the Prime Minister on the matter of principle, I say that the character of the administration of our public affairs must essentially be a matter of great significance and vital importance to every man who values the welfare of Canada-it must be so for any man who is trying to make Canada a better nation that it is. Charges were made, and I find that the Prime Minister, in his campaign, underwent a series of changes in
his attitude toward these charges as the discussion proceeded. I think I quote him accurately when I say that his first statement was that these matters were of trifling magnitude, and he would dismiss them. His second position was that our charges would be probed to the bottom and the guilty parties punished. And, his third position was that he refused to discuss the matter at all. Well, in regard to his first suggestion, I can only say that any matter! that affects the character of the administration of public affairs in Canada cannot be a matter of trifling moment. As to his second suggestion, that these things would be probed to the bottom and the guilty parties punished, I feel that our experience in the west, so far as we have followed public affairs-and we try to follow them intelligently - is that, the present regime is not very successful in such probing; they have not gone very far. Judging from what they found at the top, if they were to go to the bottom, there would be a bad mess. We felt some distrust as to their probing of these matters. And then, as I say, the Prime Minister de-dared that he would not discuss this subject. But, unfortunately for the Liberal cause, so far as British Columbia is concerned, the people went on discussing it. They thought these were important matters, matters the discussion of which was necessary. I know that in my own campaign I did discuss them. I see one or two gentlemen on the other side who followed me very closely in the campaign amongst whom I may mention the Hon. Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver.).
Now the gentleman who did follow me, whether closely or at a distance, will admit that I was not guilty of making any unfair attacks in regard to the administration of public affairs in the country. My own course was simply this. I left on one side the Liberal and Conservative papers, and I went to the source and took up the report of the Civil Service Commission appointed by the right hon. gentleman's government. I simply showed what this report was, and what it said, and the result was that those people who could not be influenced by the party press were perfectly willing to be influenced by an independent authority such as that commission. I would even go further and say that I can hardly understand how it is that in eastern Canada that report did not have a greater effect than it appears to have had. Of course I can understand that all moral reform is of slow growth. I am glad to have the hon. gentleman's assurance that he is reforming his own department, and although it may take some time, I trust that the reform will ultimately take place. I may add that I believe that if a similar report had been published in Great Britain on any department of the public service there, it would have driven any

government from office in twenty-four hours.
Now, Mr. Speaker, aliow me to refer to one other matter which concerns my own constituency, as I think it has some bearing on the question of principle to which the prime minister has referred. I refer to the question of patronage. I think that political patronage has been one of the great curses of this country, and has done more than anything else to retard the growth of a healthy public sentiment. Some remarks have been made here tonight in connection with the bribery of constituencies. I will not debate that question at any length now, but I may remark that it played a considerable part in my constituency at the last election. It is the opinion of the people in the west that the great natural resources of Canada are being too largely used and disposed of for party and political advantage. The Prime Minister, in his remarks, referred to my late opponent, Mr. Duncan Ross. Well, Mr. Duncan Ross is not regarded in British Columbia as a very high authority on political matters, particularly since November 12. But as some hon. gentlemen opposite seem to regard him as an authority, I will quote a few lines from a speech which he made subsequently to his defeat.
Keeping a seat warm in parliament is a mere incident compared with the. labour and thought required in acting as an agent of the people of Yale-Cariboo, transacting their business with the government in power. Any advice received from the member elected from this district will be immediately treated as hostile advice coming from a man elected to do his utmost to defeat that government, and any advice that will be acceptable to that government must necessarily come from one who fought the battles of the government in this district, and who went down fighting in defence of the policies and the records of the government.
Well, I do not think there is any doubt that the former representative of Yale-Cariboo did go down to defeat, considering the size of the majority against him. Now I would like to ask the right hon. gentleman and the members of his government whether that is the principle which is going to guide them in treating all advice tendered them by opposition members, viz., -as hostile advice to be neglected by the government. I would be sorry to believe, and I will not believe until I am convinced to the contrary, that any minister of this government will take so narrow a view of his responsibilities. For my own part I consider myself as representative, not only of the Conservatives of Yale-Cariboo, but of the Liberals as well. I understand that the duty of a member of parliament is to represent his own constituencv, and a man would be recreant to his duty if he did not, regardless of party ties and affiliations, keep steadily in view the interest of all his Mr. BURRELL.
constituents, whether Liberal or Conservative.
Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX (Postmaster General. I do not intend to detain the Heuse at any length. I merely wish to refer to some remarks made by my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) in his very interesting, and I may say very bitter speech. The hon. gentleman said that when during the last campaign, I was in the city of Berlin, I dangled before the eyes of the electors some promises which I think the hon. gentleman . termed petty bribes. Sir, I resent the statement made by that hon. gentleman, and I do not think that my hon. friend from York will corroborate that statement after the explanations I propose to give.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (S. York).: Your friend from York made no remark.


Mr. LEMIEUX.: Mr. Speaker, what are the facts? During the summer of 1907 I was invited as Minister of Labour to a dinner given by the citizens of Berlin, irrespective of politics, to Mr. Mackenzie King. It was indeed a pretty sight to see the Conservatives of Berlin uniting with the Liberals to testify to the high character and great ability of the young Deputy Minister of Labour. I was present as his chief on that occasion. On that visit I was requested by the mayor of Berlin, whose politics 1 do not know, and by many of the citizens, to complete a work which had been undertaken by a former Conservative government twenty years ago. There was standing in the centre of that very interesting and beautiful city of Berlin, what I would call an eyesore. Under the government of Sir John Macdonald they had erected there a splendid posfr office with a tower, but that tower, as I noticed, was clockless and the citizens of Berlin begged of me to represent their views to the Minister of Public Works at Ottawa so as to secure the completion of that tower by) the addition of a clock. I promised the gentlemen who approached me, Conservatives and Liberals alike, that certainly I would do my best to make their representations to the minister and that I hoped that within a very short time the tower would have its clock. I was asked at the same time to give to the city of Berlin, a very enterprising city of the province of Ontario, the system of free letter delivery within its limits. I said that if the city of Berlin had reached the population fixed by thel regulations of the Post Office Department, that is to say, 12,000, and if the revenue of the city justified it, that is to say $20,000 a year, it would not be a pleasure but it would be a duty for me as Postmaster General to give to the city of Berlin free letter delivery. I came back to Ottawa. I made representations to the then Minister of Public Works. I

think that my hon. friend (Mr. Pugsley), who is now the incumbent of the office, had not yet been sworn in, but at a later period, after he had been sworn in as a cabinet minister and after he had taken charge of the Public Works Department, I approached him with a delegation sent from Berlin to implement the promise I had made in the summer of 1907. My hon. friend yielded to the request of the citizens of Berlin, irrespective of politics, and forthwith the clock was sent to Berlin and the eyesore disappeared. As to the free mail delivery, it was granted at once; in fact, a few days after my visit in June, 1907, it was granted to the citizens of Berlin. When I appeared before the electors a year afterwards, accompanied by a gentleman who was no more the deputy minister of the Department of Labour, I jocularly remarked, up<?n presenting myself before the vast audience that was present, that I had had the pleasure of meeting the citizens of Berlin a year before, that I had been asked two things from them, a clock for the tower and free letter delivery and that these two things had been granted. These could not be offered as an inducement to the electors to vote for my friend Mackenzie King. They had already been granted them. Everybody could see what time it was at the tower and everybody was receiving his letters at his door in the morning. It was simply a jocular remark, it was taken in that spirit by the crowd which listened to me and I believe that my hon. friend from North Toronto who knows the two constituencies of Waterloo in Ontario, who knows the peculiar honesty, thrift and integrity of the inhabitants of these two ridings, will not for a moment believe that for a clock in the tower or a free letter delivery, two things to which the electors of those divisions were entitled, they would be influenced one way or the other, or that they would be influenced on that occasion by the remark I made.	.
Now, I shall not dwell at any length on the question of graft and corruption. That question has been decided by the electors of the Dominion. I for one as a public man do not believe that the hon. gentleman who leads the opposition is a corrupt statesman. I believe he is an honest man and I believe that every man in this country thinks that the hon. leader of the government is also an honest man and one who would not stand for graft or corruption. There was no issue in the last general election but the issue of graft and of corruption, which was not one worthy of the Canadian people. The Canadian people pronounced themselves in favour of the government because they believe that our policy had been wise, honest and truly Canadian.
I have listened with much pleasure and with very great interest indeed to the speeches delivered by the hon. gentlemen
who now represent the fair province of British Columbia. I have listened to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Burrell) who has just snoken, and I must commend the tone of his speech. I will speak only of two features which were specially put forward during the last political campaign in British Columbia. He says that there were four features. I will speak only of two because I happen to know a little more about these. He spoke of the question of better terms and of oriental immigration. As regard better terms, let me say to the hon. gentleman that I had the great honour to sit on the special committee of the Privy Council which listened to the demands made by the united provinces of the Dominion three years ago in the Senate chamber. I listened with great interest to the requests that were made, because, as hon. gentlemen know, as the leader of the opposition fully knows, we in the province of Quebec, since 1887, have taken a very deep interest in the question. In fact, the province of Quebec, under the leadership of the Hon. Mr. Flynn, premier of that province, under the leadership later of the Hon. Mr. Mousseau, and still later under the leadership of the Hon. Mr. Mercier, had been very insistent at Ottawa upon the settlement of the question of the readjustment of the provincial subsidies. Fortunately for the province of Quebec we had won to our cause the great province of Ontario under the leadership of Sir Oliver Mowat, later on under that of Mr. Ross and later on under that of Hon. Mr. Whitney. The question came up before that committee of the Privy Council. It was there stated by the Finance Minister of Canada, by the Prime Minister, by the Minister of Justice-not by myself-I was the junior member of the committee-I simply listened and 1 learned a great deal-but there and then ft was stated and it was stipulated that the agreement to settle the readjustment of the provincial subsidies would be a final-final one. Let me say this to you, Mr. Speaker, that no man fought with more zeal, that no man put up such a sturdy fight for what he considered to be in the best interests of his province, than Mr. McBride, but Mr. McBride was alone in his minority. He was defeated not only by a majority vote, but he was defeated by the unanimous vote at that convention of premiers. The Hon. Mr. Whitney was against Mr. McBride, the Hon. Mr. Roblin was against Mr. McBride, the Hon. Mr. Murray, the Hon. Mr. Pugsley, now the Minister of Public Works, but who then represented the province of New Brunswick, the premier of Prince Edward Island, and the premiers of the two new provinces of the far west were against Mr. McBride. He however obtained some concession. He was not satisfied, but parliament took up the question at the ensuing session and the


resolutions of the conference were embodied in the legislation which was carried, I believe, unanimously, by the House. Our legislation was brought before the imperial authorities and embodied in an instrument, and is there standing forever as the expression of the will of the Canadian people. Mr. McBride went to Great Britain. He repeated his request without success. Sir, I say that the attitude taken by the Liberal party on this particular question in the province of British Columbia was far more patriotic than that taken by the Hon. Mr. McBride and his political friends. I do not blame them, it was their right, but I say that the attitude of the government should not be condemned because it was that of a government representing public opinion, and more especially that of the prime ministers of the several provinces assembled here at Ottawa.
The hon. gentleman has referred to the question of oriental immigration. The great French statesman, M. Thiers, who could coin very happy phrases, once said that on every question he preferred to take ' le juste milieu.' I would translate that freely as the statement that on every question there is a happy medium which should be adopted. He was against extremes. I also am against extremes. Every intelligent citizen is against extremes. I am against any large influx of Japanese into British Columbia; I believe, with the hon. gentleman, that it would not be fair to the labour market of British Columbia that aliens should take the place of our pwn people, but I am also against that' other extreme of total exclusion, of a foreign race indeed but belonging to a friendly power. This government, which has been taken to task by my hon. friends representing British Columbia on this question of Japanese immigration, has nothing to fear, it seems to me, from public opinion in the province which they ably represent. The Liberal government was the first one to deal with the question of oriental immigration some years ago. At that time, there was a capitation tax of only $50 on every Chinese entering Canada. I well remember the able representative of the constituency of Burrard, the late Mr. Maxwell, in a speech which to my mind is a classical speech in our parliamentary records, requesting the government to increase the capitation tax on the Chinese coming to British Columbia. The Liberal government yielded to his request; they were anxious to meet the legitimate demands of that fairest of_ the fair provinces of the Dominion and increased the capitation tax from $50 to $100. The agitation continued in British Columbia, the people wished to have that capitation tax further increased. The government appointed a commission, which made a report recommending that in order to protect labour in British Co-Mr. LEMIETJX.
lumbia, the government should increase the capitation tax from $100 to $500. The government adopted the conclusions of that report.
But Sir, I shall be asked, did not that commission report also on the Japanese question? There were Japanese in large numbers in British Columbia five and ten years ago; indeed the Canadian census return show that at least 4,000 or 5,000 Japanese had settled in some of the valleys of British Columbia. The commissioners, as the right hon. the leader of the government, (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) well said this afternoon, differentiated between the Chinese and the Japanese. We all know that the Chinese are satisfied with menial work while the Japanese are a higher type of men. The commissioners reported that if the Japanese government remained faithful to the pledge that had been given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, through the Japanese consul at Vancouver, they saw no reason why there should be any exclusion against the Japanese coming to Canada provided they would not exceed the number fixed by that agreement. Will my hon. friend who has so eloquently spoken this afternoon deny that there was more than a tacit understanding, that there was a written pledge taken by the Japanese government to restrict the number of Japanese coming to Canada to 600 a year? I read that agreement last year in the House when I came back from Japan. There was, therefore, a written understanding taken by the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs. Time went on and we had more agitation in British Columbia and in other places.	_
I am always surprised to hear fair-minded people speak of the Japanese as an inferior race. I have been in Japan, the hon. gentlemen have not. I know that from the rumours that come from the province of British Columbia, from what we read in the press, that people are sometimes apt to consider the Japanese as an inferior race; but all those who have been students of Japanese history will bear witness to the fact that the Japanese are a rising race, a rising people, indeed the greatest race today in far Asia. Sir, the Japanese are not an inferior race. They have started in their march towards nationhood with the Dominion of Canada. Indeed they had an ancient and valuable civilization 2,000 or 3,000 years old, but in 1867 a revolution took place and the first act of the Japanese Emperor was to grant freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religious belief, not only to the Japanese, but to the foreigners as well. With respect to religion, let me say to those who are so anxious to exclude the Japanese from this country the few there are-because, indeed there are very few- that they are forgetting that from, the United States, from Canada, indeed from the particular province of British Col-

umbia, missionaries are leaving every year to preach the Gospel of Christ to the pagan races of Japan. They pieach a religion of toleration; they preach principles of liberty and principles of charity, and the first thing the Japanese hear on the other side is that those who send missionaries to Japan-missionaries well received, well treated, and highly respected-are demanding their expulsion from the ports of Canada. Let me tell the hon. gentleman that in Japan they have liberty of the press and religious liberty; they have high schools and great universities. Besides they adopted in 1867 the same system of government that we enjoy ourselves, the British system. It was not until the war with China that the name of Japan became great in the civilized world, and soon afterwards the mother country, through the diplomacy of Lord Lansdowne, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, made a treaty of alliance with the empire of Japan. Sir, I am always amazed to find hon. gentlemen opposite opposed to our friendly relations with Japan. I always thought that the Conservative party in Canada was a party of imperialists-in words if not in deeds, Mr. Speaker. Let me say that the hon. gentlemen who are so anxious to break all relations with Japan-


Some hon. MEMBERS: No, no.


Rodolphe Lemieux: -do not represent the view of Canada, not only Liberal Canada, but also Conservative Canada. I remember that just after the riots of Vancouver the leader of the government was invited to address the Manufacturers' Association of Canada in Toronto. Did the hon. gentleman dilly-dally with the question? No; he boldly and resolutely said that on that question, as on every other great question, he would not be panicky, but he would do his duty by Canada and the empire. And, sir, the citizens of Toronto, the citizens of Ontario, the citizens of Canada generally, sided with him on that question. Now, my hon. friend knows that Japan is the ally par excellence of Great Britain in the far east. In a few days, Canada will be invited by my hon. friend from North Toronto to contribute to imperial defence, if I have read rightly the Orders of the Day. Is that the time, Mr. Speaker, for this country to break off all relations with Japan, the great ally of the mother country? Is that the time for us to expel the Japanese from our shores and to get into trouble with that great empire? We know that there exists in Asia to-day a feeling of unrest. It may perhaps appear somewhat vain on my part to speak of British politics at large. I admit that I am not conversant with every detail of British politics; but there are things which even to a simple mind like my own appear very vivid and very true.
Sir, in England to-day, every morning, the press-the * Times,' the ' Standard,' the ' Post,' the ' Chronicle '-repeat dolefully the' sentiments which are moving through that immense continent of Asia. We hear every morning of the unrest in India, and yet we are called upon by some hon. gentlemen to expel the Hindoos from Canada. Well there are Hindu agitators who say to the British authorities; 'What right have you to govern us? We claim to be British citizens, and yet when we go to a British colony, we who have served in the British army and are still clad in British garments, we are threatened with expulsion from that colony.' Is that a proper spirit a true imperial spirit to maintain in this country? Is not the governments policy of the happy medium the better policy? Did not the government do its duty in sending the Deputy Minister of Labour to London last year to discuss with Lord Morley what steps should be taken to prevent that immigration coming to Canada? Do you suppose, Mr. Speaker, that if the government had complied with the request made by hon. gentlemen opposite, it would have served the interests of the British empire? For my part I believe not I think the government pursued a wise policy, a patriotic policy, a truly imperial policy. As regards the Japanese, we are told that we have nothing to lose by excluding them, that they are a danger to white labour in British Columbia. I will explain in a few minutes why they can no longer be a danger to white labour in British Columbia. But I say, from the point of view of our commercial relations with Japan, that the existence of the treaty, without the blot which hon. gentlemen.opposite would like to put upon it, is in the best interests of this Dominion. Why, sir, the right hon. leader of the government explained this afternoon that a natural sequence of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway was the establishment of a line of steamers plying between Vancouver, Victoria, Yokohama and Hong Kong; and we have a right to expect from that direction a large trade for British Columbia and other provinces of the west. According to recent reports, the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, is not satisfied with the steamers that were subsidized for
rnilio -fi ftdon

my hon. friend the member for North Toronto, the ' Empress of China ' and the ' Empress of Japan.' He intends to remove them and to replace them with the * Empress of Britain ' and the ' Empress of Ireland.' But there is something more which should appeal to us in maintaining friendly relations with the empire of Japan. We are in the process of building a great transcontinental railroad. When that railway

reaches Prince Rupert we shall have the shortest route between Asia and Europe. I believe the distance is something like 400 miles shorter from Prince Rupert thhn from Vancouver. At all events the route will be by far the shortest between Europe and Asia. Do you not then believe that the existence of this treaty is an advantage to Canada, and we may perhaps have a more favourable one later on, if we act as civilized people and friends of the empire.
I referred a moment ago to the written understanding given at the time that commission sat in the province of British Col-unbia-I think in the year 1900. I said that the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs had signed that pledge by which he promised to restrict Japanese immigration into Canada to a figure supposed at the time to be 600 a year. Did this government act blindly in 1907 when Japan was negotiating for a treaty with Canada? First of all, let us remember that when Japan revised her treaties in 1893, she was not so much concerned with the commercial advantages that might accrue to her through those treaties as with establishing the fact that she had attained the status of a great power and was anxious that her subjects should be treated in every part of the civilized world on the same level as * white people. Were we not therefore justified in following the example of the mother country, of Germany, of France and of the United States in our dealings with Japan? All these countries agreed that the people of Japan should be treated on a footing of equality with their own people. In 1907, when the treaty was negotiated with Canada, the understanding given in 1900, through the channel of the Japanese consul at Vancouver was supplemented, not by one, but by ten or twenty written understandings by the Japanese Consul General at Ottawa. The agreement thus arrived at was that the Japanese immigration would be restricted to certain figures, and it was subject to that specific condition that the treaty was signed by the Canadian and Japanese representatives jointly. Two years ago riots took place in British Columbia and the contention was made that Japan had broken faith with Canada. But as the result of the investigation which I made m Japan and that made last year by the Deputy Minister of Labour in British Columbia, it was very plainly proven that the influx complained of was not to be assigned to the J apanese authorities, but to some private corporations in the city of Vancouver. The report of that investigation was laid on the table of the House last year. I reported myself the result of my investigation in Japan. I had the assurance of the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs that his government could be trusted to live up to the agreement signed first by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs in the year Mr. LEMIEUX.
1900, and later on by the Japanese consul at Ottawa and that we could depend on the Japanese government living up to the restrictions mentioned in those letters. The result of my investigation dovetailed, so to speak, with that conducted at Vancouver by the Deputy Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackenzie King). There, it was shown that private corporations in British Columbia-perhaps friendly to hon. gentlemen opposite-interested in getting cheap labour, had brought in from Hawaii an influx of Japanese labour. The Japanese authorities, I submit, were not responsible for that sudden large influx of 10,000 to the shores of British Columbia a year or so ago, because it has been clearly shown that they were contract labourers who came from Hawaii and were brought in under false representations made by some private concerns in the province of British Columbia. The agreement arrived at, not last year but many years ago with the Japanese consul has been lived up to, and there is not now in the province of British Columbia any undue influx of Japanese labourers. In fact, no contract labourer can be_ imported or filtered into British Columbia, as in the past, without the written consent of the Canadian government. That is one of the features in the agreement existing between Japan and Canada. So that no fear need be entertained of any influx of undesirables-as hon. gentleman opposite called them-to the shores of British Columbia. The Japanese authorities will respect their agreement. They will not allow the immigration of contract labourers without the consent of the Canadian government; and labourers coming from Hawaii are excluded by the order in council passed last year. We need, therefore, fear no invasion from Hawaii any more than from Japan itself.
I heard my eloquent friend this evening argue that by that treaty we have given a foreign country the key to our door and were bound to admit any alien, whether desirable or undesirable, be they blind, deaf or dumb. I can only say to the hon. gentleman that this is a very rash statement. He did not mean it, I am sure-it was a slip of the tongue. If he will read the immigration law of the Dominion, if he will read the regulations, the very stringent regulations, of the department over which the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) presides, he will see that no blind, no deaf, no dumb, can be admitted to this country. He will see that the department has gone even further and that last year an order in council was passed by which we can prevent any immigrant from coming into this country if he does not come from the country of his birth or citizenship. The effect of that order in council is to prevent immigrants coming from Hawaii. I said a moment ago that contract labour cannot

come from'Japan. What, then, remains? Are hon. gentlemen opposite objecting to students, to tourists, to merchants? If they are, I say their objections are not well founded. I have lived for a few months in Japan, and can assure them that the Japanese are a highly civilized people. They need not be afraid of the merchants, the bankers, and especially of the students in Japan, for these represent the higher class of their own country and the best type of citizenship in this world.
I have already spoken too long, but I wish to repeat, in conclusion, that the Japanese authorities have lived up to the agreement arrived at with this government, that no contract labourers can come from Hawaii, and also that the order in Council passed last year prevents for the future the possibility of undesirable immigration. And let me say that with the declaration made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs last year, there is no fear that there will be any breach of faith on the part of the Japanese government. The Japanese authorities have no interest in promoting the emigration of their people to America. My hon. friend (Mr. Burrell) seems to know too much. Let me make good the statement I have made that the Japanese authorities have no earthly interest in promoting the emigration of their people to America. Last year, when I saw the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Count Hayashi, he stated to me that when this agreement would be divulged he might not long retain a Cabinet position, as it would make him very unpopular. They have no interest in promoting the emigration of Japanese to America, for they have a different civilization, and when their people come back from that country they come with different ideas. In the far east there is a great respect, if not a great reverence, for monarchial institutions, and, when Japanese subjects come back from America, they return with views and ideals different from those of the masses of their people and so they soon become an element that is not desirable in Japan. They have stopped subsidizing any emigration company doing work of transport between Japan and America. And, as the hon. gentleman (Mr. Burrell), who seems to be so conversant with the facts, ought to know, Count Hayashi declared, when giving his explanations in the House of Representatives in Japan, shortly after my return to Canada, and in an interview with the representatives of these large emigration companies which I read to this House last year, that he would stop subsidizing such companies as were sending emigrants to America. I am told that they are now giving subsidies to companies sending emigrants to Korea and Manchuria, which, as we know, are the two new spheres of influence of the empire of Japan.	*


Robert Laird Borden: If the hon. minister will allow me, I would like to ask him a question purely for the purpose of information, and because I want to understand the conditions. The Japanese Foreign Minister, in proposing that policy, believed that it would make him so unpopular that he would cease to be minister. Does not that indicate, on the part of the people of Japan, a very strong desire to come to America, including Canada ?


Rodolphe Lemieux: No.


Robert Laird Borden: Then, I misunderstood the position.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The position was declared in the interview to which I have referred, and which I will find among my papers and send to my hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden). I explained a moment ago that the revision of the treaty of Japan with the foreign powers was not so much to establish commercial relations, though that was the object to a certain extent; but as my hon. friend will see, as a student of modern Japanese history-and we are all students of that wonderful history-the object was to have the Japanese admitted and recognized in the civilized world on a footing of equality with the white races. For, Japan, after the wars with China and Russia, had admittedly become a great power. I may remind my hon. friend that the first nation that gave effect to that treaty-and the treaties with all the nations had practically tne same wording with, perhaps, a slight difference in that signed with the United States-the first nation to sign that treaty was Great Britain herself. And, for the first time in many years, perhaps during a century, Great Britain signed a treaty of alliance with a foreign power and that treaty was with Japan. Is not that an object lesson?


Robert Laird Borden: But what I wanted to understand, and what the minister has not made me understand yet, is this: The Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs expected that his statement in favour of the restrictions of emigration to the United States and Canada would make him so unpopular that he would be obliged to resign. It struck me that that must mean that there must be a popular sentiment in Japan against any such restriction. That is the point on which I desired information.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I am afraid that is a catch question.


Robert Laird Borden: It is not a catch question.


Rodolphe Lemieux: That may be. Public men in Japan,. and especially the statesman to whom I alluded a moment ago, were somewhat afraid of public opinion, because the Japanese have a strong national pride, as is quite natural in a great people; and

ii the people had come to believe that Japanese emigration was restricted, the government would have fallen from grace in the eyes of her own people. But the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that although he would not subscribe to any such written exclusion in a treaty, yet, as he states in his letter to myself:
' Although the existing treaty between Japan and Canada absolutely guarantees Japanese subjects full liberty to enter, travel and reside in any part of the Dominion of Canada, yet it is not the intention of the Imperial government to insist upon the complete enjoyment of the rights and privileges guaranteed by those stipulations when that would involve a disregard of the special conditions which may prevail in Canada from time to time.
And he added:
Acting in this spirit, and having regard to the circumstances of recent occurrence in British Columbia, the Imperial government have decided to take efficient means to restrict emigration to Canada. In carrying out this purpose the Imperial government, in pursuance of the policy I have stated, will g've careful conistidenation to local conditions Pr3~ vailing in Canada, with a view to meeting the desires of the government of the homi-nion so far as compatible with the spirit ot the treaty and the dignity of the state.
There, Mr. Speaker, you have the whole story in that statement supplemented as it is by an agreement arrived at between the two governments, which I must say has been sincerely and faithfully lived up to so far by Japan.
Mr. RALPH SMITH moved the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.


Wilfrid Laurier: I move:
That the order for consideration of the address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, have precedence over all other business except the introduction of Bills, until disposed of.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, House adjourned at 10.50 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monuay, January 25, 1909.