1909-04-26

Hon.  A. B.@: AYLESWORTH (Minister of Justice) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 156) to amend the Yukon Act, Revised Statutes, 1906, chapter 63. He said:	The
object of this Bill is simply to permit a member of the bar of the Yukon territory to be appointed as a judge in the territorial court, in case there may be any vacancy.
Motion agreed, and Bill read the first time.



HECATE STRAIT.

Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).: I desire to ask the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) whether his attention has been directed to a statement in the press, that the government of the United States have repeatedly applied to this government for a statement of its position with regard to Hecate strait, British Columbia. I have observed it in several journals lately. If the right hon. gentleman will refer to the [DOT] Toronto ' Globe ' for April 23, he will see that to which I allude. I will read only a portion which is material to my inquiry.
It was said by the department-
That is, the State Department of the United States.
-at that time that this government had on three occasions within the last few years asked the British ambassador at Washington to obtain from his government a definition of the status of Hecate Strait. No reply was ever received by the State Department.
Within the past three or four weeks, that statement has appeared in the press of the country on several occasions-that is, that the United States government have asked for a reply on at least three occasions from the British ambassador-and I assume that the British ambassador would consult with this government-and has been unable up to the present time to obtain any reply whatever. The matter is of some interest to British Columbia, as I understand from members from that province, therefore I thought it well to bring it to the attention of the Prime Minister.


Rt.   H@: There is some correspondence going on at this moment on this subject, but what is the nature of it I am unable to state now.



DISALLOWANCE OF ACT OF THE ONTARIO LEGISLATURE.

Robert Laird Borden: Saturday's issue of the Canada ' Gazette,' con-

tains a statement, I understand, of disallowance of an Act of the Ontario legislature. Would the premier (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) have any objection to bring down the order in council?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER (Prime Minister).: Not at all.



NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY. PUSHER GRADES.

Robert Laird Borden: May I ask the Minister of Railways and Canals, (Mr. Graham) whether he would be good enough, when the debate comes up on the Grand Trunk Pacific Loan Bill, to give me information with regard to the pusher grades on the National Transcontinental Railway between Quebec and Moncton? In speaking on this subject, as the hon. gentleman will remember, I allowed to the National Transcontinental Railway a saving, I think, of twenty-nine miles over the Intercolonial Railway between these two points. It has been represented to me that I rather understated the case from my point of view, that although there had been this saving in distance, it is accomplished only by means of heavier grades, and that for heavy traffic, certain portions of the road will have to be operated by what are called 'pushers.' It is in connection with that that I would like the hon. gentleman to give the information when the subject comes up again.


Hon. GEO. P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals).: I will get it.



LETTERS PATENT OF F. M. GREY.

[Stage Direction]
House in committee on Bill (No. 132) respecting certain letters patent of Franklin Montgomery Grey.-Mr. Rankin.
On section 1,
Mr. LENNOX.: What has the Minister of Agriculture to say with reference to this Bill?


Mr. FISHER.: This seems to be one of the ordinary Bills for the extension of a patent which has lapsed through negligence.


Haughton Lennox: How long is the lapse?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I cannot say. The gentleman in charge of the Bill or the chairman of the Private Bills Committee may be able to.


Haughton Lennox: We should know something about it. The other night we had a Bill where the lapse has extended three years and a satisfactory explanation was forthcoming. There may be a satisfactory explanation of this Bill or there may not.


Mr. RANKIN.: I understand that this patent lapsed through a misapprehension on the part of the patentee. After getting his patent some six years ago he had a reissue, there having been some changes or Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
improvements; and thinking his six years dated from the reissue he did not apply for the patent in time. The patent thus lapsed through a misunderstanding.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I have no objection to it going through.


Haughton Lennox: Is that a sufficient excuse in the estimation of the minister?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I have only to say, as I have said before to the committee, that I accept the report of the Private Bills Committee. The Private Bills Committee look into the details of the reasons for each of these Bills. I have not myself examined them and consequently I can only accept the report of the Private Bills Committee.


Robert Laird Borden: I do think that when Bills involving the renewal of a patent that has lapsed come before the attention of the Private Bills Committee, they should be submitted to the department which has charge of such matters, and that the department should have some supervision over these applications. Otherwise we may eventually drift into this position that whenever negligence of the slightest character can be alleged the person whose patent has lapsed can come to parliament and have it renewed. I have urged before when these matters have come to the attention of the Committee of the Whole House that some fixed principle should be adopted according to which these patents should be renewed or not renewed as the case may be. I do not think it will do to continue the system of letting any negligence, however slight, or any circumstance, however trivial, be regarded as sufficient. It seems to me that if no principle has yet been laid down (and I am not aware of any), it is about time that some principle should be adopted so that persons who obtain patents and permit them to lapse will know exactly what they will have to face when they come here asking for legislation.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: The other night, when I presume the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) was not present, we had a case of this kind, and I then said that I have personally always objected to the renewal of these patents. At the same time the Private Bills Committee and parliament for ten years back have been accepting this principle of the renewal of patents which have lapsed in this way. The Private Bills Committee is charged with the examination of details in each particular case. The deputy commissioner of patents always attends that committee and looks into the matter on the part of the department. I am not a member of the committee and so am not in the habit of attending its meetings. The deputy commissioner always reports to me if there is anything in connection with a Bill contrary to the workings of the department. When he has not so re-

ported I have taken it for granted that the Private Bills Committee have acted in accordance with these principles, and have satisfied themselves with regard to the details. If the deputy commissioner reports to me that there is anything in connection with the Bill contrary to the practice of the department, I inform myself in regard to the Bill and am prepared to discuss it when the report of the Private Bills Committee comes before the House.


Mr. E. M. MACDONALD.: I had occasion lately to look into this question as to the practice and the law with regard to patents in Canada, more particularly in reference to this question of the renewal of patents where through some inadvertence on the part of their owners the conditions of the Patent Act have not been complied with, and I submit to the minister that the present position of the law in this respect is very unsatisfactory. I do not think a committee of this House is a proper tribunal to inquire into these questions. I think the practice adopted in England under the Act of 1907 is much better. By that Act, under carefully drawn legislation, powers are conferred on the commissioner of patents to make full inquiries as to the circumstances of alleged inadvertence after due notice not only to those who might be affected directly or might have filed caveats, but also to the public generally through advertisements. As it is, quite frequently, we find, in reference to these Bills, that the patentees who have not complied with the provisions of the law with regard to the manufacture of their articles within the time provided by the statute are also in default with regard to the rules and, upon some specious plea as to the carelessness of their clerk, or counsel, or something of that kind, they impose upon the good nature of the committee, or perhaps the committee has not had its attention fully called by the private interests that are affected, as to the full effect of the Bill submitted, and the renewal goes through. We are reaching a stage in Canada where we should have more attention paid to the matter of our patents. The course adopted by the imperial parliament of stringently enforcing the law with regard to the manufacturing clause is one which has created a great deal of satisfaction in that country and has obtained the approval of business men in this country as well. I think that the minister ought to take the power which has been given to the commissioner of patents in England to make an inquiry into all the circumstances to ascertain whether there has been any inadvertence or overlooking of the conditions in reference to the payment of the fees or otherwise. That power is one which should be exercised by the commissioner after full investigation and not one which should be left to a committee of this House.


Haughton Lennox: I do not know that I can quite agree with the hon. gentleman who has just spoken (Mr. Macdonald) as to increasing the quantity of machinery. I think is is more a matter of getting the machinery we have at work.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I do not propose to increase the machinery, but I suppose that the provisions of the law which exist in England should be applied in this country.


Haughton Lennox: I understand that the hon. gentleman proposed that the people who had charge of this matter should be given a power they do not possess at the present time. I submit to the minister that there is a duty cast upon him, not merely of bringing this kind of negative evidence before the committee from time to time that he has not heard of any objection, but as the Minister cannot probably attend the meetings of the committee and has to send a deputy or subordinate to watch the interests of the public, it is absolutely necessary for the minister to see to it that from time to time he has a report of the actual circumstances attending the proposed renewal and that he should inquire into these circumstances and see if they are such as commend themselves to his judgement, so that he can come before this committee and tell it that his opinion is that the renewal should or should not be sanctioned by this committee. It is not sufficient to my mind, for the minister to come before us and plead that he has heard no objection, non constat, the deputy may have forgotten all about it, or he may have very little judgment in regard to the matter. But, we are getting away from the principle of responsible government when the Minister does not take this matter in hand and gradually formulate a rule which shall guide him in all cases, so that, as each case arises, he will have precedents to go by or analogies to consult and be able to say that it is right that this should be granted or that it should not be granted. The minister has said that he is opposed to this indiscriminate renewal, but it goes on all the same. We have no knowledge of whether this patent has been put into actual use or not, whether the parties have been exercising their rights or not, and we have just this mistake of law put forward as a reason why the renewal was not obtained at the proper time. Does the minister think that a mistake of law is a proper ground upon which a renewal should be granted? It is very doubtful whether such a reason should be accepted. I do not think a private Bills committee is the best possible tribunal to decide a question of that kind. I think the minister should have a policy upon the matter. He has

legal officers in his department and he should be prepared to say that he has come to the conclusion that he should or should not consent to a renewal of the patent on the mere excuse that the patentee has misunderstood the law. Generally speaking, courts of justice have found that there is a no more dangerous kind of excuse than the excuse of misunderstanding the law. Every man is bound to know the law. It is pretty hard to know it sometimes, I admit, but that is the principle we adopt in the courts of justice. In this case the minister does not take any responsibility in regard to it, and on the ground of misunderstanding what the law was the plea is put forward that the party allowed his time to lapse. I do not want to advance any unnecessary criticism of the minister, but I think from this time on, at all events, assuming that this government is going to control the affairs of Canada for a little while longer, we ought to have the minister take the responsibility of his position in connection with these matters and see that in each case he has some knowledge of the circumstances attending it before it comes before the committee and be able to advise the committee as to what is the proper course to pursue.


Mr. ETHIER.: I may say as chairman of the Private Bills Committee, in answer to the question asked by the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden), that the committee, for nearly ten years has pursued its present policy in regard to the revival of expired patents. Where good grounds were presented a failure to comply with the law for one year has not been regarded as a bar to the renewal of the patent. This principle has been applied to the special case now before us. This company had their patent for six years ; less than one year has been allowed to elapse since the time at which the patent should be renewed. Good grounds have been advanced for the neglect to renew the patent. They gave good reasons why the licensee did not renew his patent in time and they showed that the right which had been acquired by other parties had in the meantime been protected. Three applications came before the committee this year in regard to which it was obvious that there had been negligence on the part of the patentee in failing to renew his patent and they were refused. But in the case of Montgomery Grey, the first six year period during which the license was in force expired on October 28, 1908. The patent is granted for eighteen years and it is necessary for the licensee to renew his patent every six years. By an inadvertence the lawyer of this patentee Montgomery Grey, overlooked the 28th of October which was the last day for renewing Mr. LENNOX.
the patent for the next six years. These parties have taken steps to protect the acquired rights of other parties. The commissioner of patents has always attended the meetings of the Private Bills Committee when Bills relating to patents have come before that committee. But, in answer to the hon. member for South Sim-coe (Mr. Lennox), I would say that I think the law should be amended. As it is now, the only way to protect the licensee who may have good grounds to ask for a renewal of his patent is to come before the House and obtain it by means of a private Bill. I think the general law with regard to patents should be amended giving the necessary powers to the commissioner to inquire into these cases. This would save a great deal of trouble, and the department and the government could attend to these cases in a more careful and satisfactory manner than is at present possible.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: There are two matters of general interest, apart from this Bill, which have been brought up, and I would like to say a word or two upon them. The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) has suggested that the power of renewing expired or lapsed patents should be vested in the commissioner of patents and that private Bills should not necessarily be brought before parliament for that purpose. I may say to my hon. friend-I am not sure whether he was in the House at the time or not-that some years ago, when I was making several amendments to the Patent Act, that point was thoroughly discussed, and parliament objected to divesting itself of the power to deal with these lapsed patents and objected to giving that power to the commissioner of patents. I am not anxious to have that power. I would be willing to assume it if parliament desired to impose it upon the department, but I do not desire it at all and I would much prefer that it should not be imposed upon me, because it would involve the exercise of judicial functions of the greatest importance and in some cases it would involve millions of dollars of value in the reinstatement of patents. If that had been the intention of parliament when it amended the Patent Act I would have accepted the responsibility, but parliament decided that should not be done.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Two years ago that principle was adopted in England.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: When this parliament disposed of the matter in 19U0 that regulation had not been passed by the English parliament. It is possible that if it had been the parliament of Canada might have come to a different decision from that which it did. As to a rule in dealing with the renewal of these patents, shortly after I became Minister of Agriculture I discussed

the question before the Private Bills Committee and the committee then laid down the rule that where the omission of the payment of fees appeared to be due to inadvertence or negligence on the part of the attorney rather than on the part^ of the owner of the patent, the patent might be renewed, provided always that the term during which the patent had lapsed was not too long. I do not think any definite rule as to the length of time was laid down, but the practice has been one year. In this case the patent was taken out on the 28th of October, 1902, and the fees were paid for six years which lapsed on the 28th of October, 1908, only a few months ago. That date passed probably through the inadvertence of the attorney, and the Private Bills Committee having examined the matter reported to this House in favour of the Bill. There does not seem to be anything contrary to the practice of parliament in that, and under the curcumstances I feel justified in supporting the recommendation of the Private Bills Committee. In most cases the recommendation of the Private Bills Committee has been accepted by parliament, but a good many cases no doubt have occurred in which the committee have rejected applications of this kind. The rights which have accrued during the lapsed period of the patent have always been protected by a clause similar to that which appears at the end of this Bill. I give this explanation because the impression has been conveyed that the department has been negligent of its duty in dealing with these patent bills. That is not a fair imputation on the department. I do not think it is necessary, as suggested by the hon. member for Simcoe, that a special report should be presented to parliament from the Deputy Commissioner of Patents in connection with each of these Bills; but I am quite ready to follow any expression of opinion by the House in that matter.


Mr. CARVELL.: Notwithstanding the clear statement of the case made by the minister, I am inclined to agree with my hon. friend (Mr. E. M. Macdonald) that such matters as this should be dealt with by the commissioner of patents rather than by parliament. I am not a member of the Private Bills Committee, and therefore do not know what evidence may have been given as to whether this patent as a matter of law did, or did not expire on the 28th of October, 1908, but from a cursory reading of this Bill it would appear that the latter part of section 2 actually cures any defects which may have existed in this patent down to 1908. Under the Patent Act if a man fails to commence manufacture within two years from the granting of the patent his patent is void or if he has imported the patented article after one year after the granting of the patent it is also void or if he has refused the right to any person to manufacture under certain conditions prescribed by the Act, his patent is also void. I suspect that many of the Bills brought before this parliament for renewal of patents are brought because the patent has. become void under the law and so that they may be renewed by a special Act, rather than because of any neglect to pay the fees. There is something very suspicious in this very Bill we are now considering. Section 2 provides that any person who has commenced the manufacture of this article since October, 1908, may continue to do so, but that exemption is not to extend to any person who, without the consent of the holder of the patent, has commenced to use, construct, or manufacture such invention before the expiry of the letters patent. It seems to me that this Bill would rehabilitate the patent and override certain provisions in the General Patent Act with regard to the rights of others. If a person commenced to manufacture before October 28, 1908, he would have a perfect right to do so under the Patent Act, but it seems to me that the latter part of this clause takes away from him the protection which the law gave him and under it the patentee would have a right to bring an action foT infringement. I do not know enough of the particular conditions connected with this Bill to vote against it, but it seems to me there is a great deal in what the hon. member (Mr. Macdonald) says, that this matter should be dealt with by the department, and that the department should have positive proof that the patent has been kept alive, and that the patentee has complied with all the conditions of the Patent Act. I believe that the Commissioner of Patents and not a committee of this House should be the judge in such a case. I suggest that the minister take this matter into serious consideration and^ before another session introduce legislation making the law more clear than it is at present regarding these extensions of patents. I suspect that in this very case there is something wrong with the patent, and that we are curing the defect by the legislation we are passing to-day.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I would say to my hon. friend who has drawn attention to the last clause of the last section, that these words have not generally appeared in the clause to which I referred as being usual in the Patent Acts, and I do not think they are necessary here to safeguard any person who has commenced the manufacture or the use of the article during the lapsed period, unless there is some such object in view as my hon. friend suggests. Although the deputy minister has not reported to me that there is anything objectionable in the Bill, I think perhaps it would be as well to let it stand until we look into this matter.
Progress reported.



SECOND READING.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 135) for the relief of Hannah Ella Tomkins.-Mr. J. D. Reid.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 134) to incorporate the Canadian Medical Association.-Mr. Roche.
Bill (No. 143) for the relief of Mildred Gwendolyn Platt Patterson.-Mr. Harris.
Bill (No. 144) for the relief of Charles Bowerbank Lowndes.-Mr. Wallace.
Bill (No. 145) for the relief of Isaac Moore. -Mr. Wallace.


[Stage Direction]
Mr. GIRARD-By Mr. Ethier-asked :
1.	Is it true that the Pulp Company of Chicoutimi has tried to sell to the government the booms which belong to it for the sum of $30,000?
2.	What has been the valuation placed on these booms by the Department of Public Works?
3.	Who are they that, on behalf of the comPany. have approached the government for the purpose of obtaining $30,000. and in what years ?
Hon. WM. PUGSLEY (Minister of Public Works):: 1.	The pulp company made a proposal to sell its booms to the government for the sum of $30,000.
2.	The chief engineer's valuation was $6,-
000.
3.	Mr. J. E. A. Dubuc.


THE ROSS RIFLE.
Mr. J. A. CURRIE asked :: 1.	What is the weight of the Ross rifle, marks I., II., and III., respectively, without bayonet ?
2.	What is the weight of the Lee-Enfield issued to the Canadian militia without bayonet ?
3.	What is the length of the barrel of the Ross rifle?
4.	What is the system of rifling in the Ross i me, the calibre, number of lands or grooves and the number of turns in the length of the barrel ?
5.	What is the outside diameter of the barrel of the Ross Rifle at the muzzle ?
G. What is the outside diameter of the barrel or the Lee-Enfield at the muzzle?
7. What is the initial velocity of the bullet with service cartridge, (a) fired from the Ross rifle, and (b) fired from the Lee-Enfield?


Hon. Sir FREDERICK BORDEN (Minister of Militia and Defence):: 1.	Weight of Ross rifle, Mark I, approximately 75 pounds; Mark II, approximately 81 pounds; Mark II**, approximately 95 pcunds. There is no Mark III Ross rifle. I Mr. FISHER.
2.	The weight of Lee-Enfield rifle is approximately 9i pounds.
3.	Length of barrel of Ross rifle, Mark II, 28 inches; Mark II**, 305 inches.
4.	System of rifling, Ross rifle, Mark II, uniform right handed; Mark II**, uniform left handed. Calibre, Ross rifle, designed for [DOT]303 service cartridge; Number of lands or grooves, 4; Number of turns in length of barrel, Ross rifle, Mark II, 25; Mark II**, 2}.
5.	Outside diameter of barrel, Ross rifle, Mark II, at muzzle, 0-556; Mark II**, at muzzle, 0 650.
6.	Outside diameter of barrel, Lee-Enfield rifle, 0 -651.
7.	The muzzle velocity of both Tifles with service ammunition is approximately 2,000 feet per second.


PORT HOOD BREAKWATER.
Mr. GEO. TAYLOR asked:: 1.	Has the government spent any moneys during the last year, or are they now spending any moneys, on a breakwater at Port Hood, county of Inverness, Cape Breton?
2.	If so, how much money has been spent in the last six years, respectively, on said breakwater ?
3.	What is the purpose of said breakwater?
4.	What is the government engineer's original estimate for the full completion of this work ?
5.	What is the completion of the work now estimated to cost?


Hon. WM. PUGSLEY (Minister of Public Works):: 1.	Yes.
2.	In 1903-4	$ 2,968 851904-	5	
19,942	431905-	6	
9,999	911906-	7	
14,885	131907-	8	
14,999	371908-	9	
15,000	98Total	$77,796 673.	To increase the area of safe anchorage in Port Hood harbour at present inadequate and to render the east or mainland side safe for landing and for the shipment of coal. The breakwater will also prevent the further movement of sand to the southward and westward and the consequent shoaling of the harbour.
4 and 5. Several estimates were given, varying from $165,000 to $482,000, and depending upon character and height of work. These plans, however, were not adopted, and the chief engineer recommended loose brush and stone work, the total estimated cost of which is $215,000.
36th REGIMENT BAND.


Mr. BARR asked:: 1.	Has the band of the 36th Regiment been
paid the $75 band allowance for 1908? If not why not?	'
2.	If paid, to whom, and when?


Hon. Sir FREDERICK BORDEN (Minister of Militia):: 1.	Yes.
2.	Cheque issued in favour of Captain G. F. Gabriel on 22nd January, 1909, forwarded to officer commanding the regiment, Lt.-Col. Wallace, under registered cover on same date.


Mr. BARR.: When this question was put on the Order Paper the money was not paid. How is it payment was held back so long?


Sir FREDERICK BORDEN.: I am sorry I was not here to give the answer before.
CAPTAIN GABRIEL, 36th REGIMENT.


Mr. BARR asked:: 1.	Has Captain Gabriel, commanding No. 7 Company of the 36th Regiment, been paid for recruiting in the year 1908? If so, how much was he paid?
2.	If not paid for this service, why not?


Hon. Sir FREDERICK BORDEN (Minister of Militia) :: 1.	The allowance referred to is command pay and drill instruction which was paid to Captain Gabriel on April 14, 1909, the amount of same being $39.
2.	Answered by reply to No. 1.


ST. POLYCARPE POST OFFICE.
Mr. LORTIE asked:: 1. What are the names of the persons who laid complaints against the administration
and officials of the post office in the village of St. Polycarpe?
2.	In what year were the complaints first made; and by whom?
3.	Is it the present intention of the Post-d.aster General to have that post office changed to other quarters?
4.	If so, who has been recommended for the postmaster.ship of the village of St. Polycarpe; and by whom has he been recommended?


Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX (Postmaster General).: Recently representations were made to the Postmaster General as to unsatisfactory management of the St. Polycarpe post office, with the result that an inspector was instructed to make a report, but his report has not yet reached the department, and in the absence of which it is not possible to state what action the department may require to take.
36th REGIMENT-STORAGE OF ARMS.


Mr. BARR asked:: 1.	Has the rent for storage of the arms of Company No. 7 of the 36th Regiment been paid for the years 1907 and 1908? If not, why not?
2.	If paid, how much, when paid, and to whom?


Hon. Sir FREDERICK BORDEN (Minister of Militia):: 1.	The Militia Department does not pay the rent for storage of arms, but the allowances authorized by regulations for care of aims, &c., have been paid as follows :
Period.	Amount.	Less deficiencies.	Net payment.	Date of payment.	Paid to.Nine months ending March 31, 1907 	$ cts. 37 50	$ cts. 3 30	$ cts. 34 20	Feb. 16, '08	Capt. G. F. Gabriel.Two years from April 1, 1907 to	100 00	2 25	97 75	April 14, '09	tl M
2.	Answered by reply to No. 1.


INLAND REVENUE-BELLEVILLE AND CORBYVILLE.
Mr. PORTER asked:: 1.	Have any changes, retirements, removals or superannuations been made in the officials of Inland Revenue Department at Belleville end Corbyville? If so, what, and for what reasons ?
2 Who is deputy collector at these ports ? When was he appointed and at what salary ?
3.	What were the qualifications of the present deputy collector, so far as concerns previous service in the department, and was he required to pass any qualifying examination for his present or former position? If so, what?
4 Were there any officials of the department at those ports who were eligible to the position of deputy collector at those ports at the time of appointment or promotion of the
present deputy collector ? If so, whom . What is the length of their service, respectively, what is their respective salaries, and why was not some one of these promoted?


Hon. WM. TEMPLEMAN (Minister of Inland Revenue):: 1.	Yes. C. W. Pole, deputy collector of inland revenue (Class 'A') Belleville, was superannuated-age and failing health.
2.	W. J. Cook-1st February, 1909-$1,500. Length of service, two years and one month.
3.	Passed Civil Service qualifying examination in 1907 and under the provisions of the Civil Service Act no examination is necessary for the position of deputy collector of inland revenue.
4.	Yes. Wm. McCoy, special class exciseman, $1,400. Length of service 24 years and 9 months A. F. McCuaig, deputy collector of inland revenue (Class 'B') $1,000. Length of service 22 years and 6

months. A. C. McFee, 1st class excise officer, $1,200. Length of service 12 years and 8 months. W. J. Brown, 1st class excise officer, $1,200. Length of service 8 years and 8 months. H. R. Wilson, 2nd class excise officer $935. Length of service 4 years. F. W. Sprague, 3rd class excise officer, $600. Length of service 2 years and 29 days. J. E. Lally, 3rd class excise officer, $600. Length of service 2 years and 1 month.


SS. 'SCOTIA.'
Mr. CROSBY asked:: 1.	What are the existing terms of the contract with the ss. ' Scotia ' plying between Halifax and ports east of Halifax?
2.	What subsidy does she receive?
3.	Has she been receiving her full yearly subsidy?
4.	Did she receive the full proportional part for calling at Moshers river last year?
5.	Did she call there every trip? If not, how many calls did she make?
6.	If the terms of the contract call for her calling there every trip, why has she not fulfilled that part?


Right Hon. Sir WILFRID LATJRIER (for the Minister of Trade and Commerce):: 1.	The terms of the contract are of very considerable length and can hardly be given in the form of a reply to a question.
2.	$4,000 per annum.
3.	Yes.
4.	Yes.
5.	No. 13 calls.
6.	Terms of contract require calls at Moshers river in January and February only, only three calls were missed by reason of the boat being off route undergoing repairs. This is permitted under the contract.


SPRY BAY GOVERNMENT WHARF.
Mr. CROSBY asked:: 1.	What amount of money was spent on the government wharf at Spry bay in 1908?
2.	How was it spent; and if by day's work, what number of men were employed, at what pay, and what time were they employed during the year 1908?


Hon. WM. PUGSLEY (Minister of Public Works):: 1.	There was no work done during the calendar year of 1908; work was done, however, from 10th August to 26th September, 1907, and charged to account of fiscal year 1907-1908, to the amount of $269.42.
2.	(a) Compensation for shore privileges, $100, and day's labour, (b) Five men. (c) Foreman, $2.50 per day; others $1.50 per day. (d) 10th August to 26th September as above.


Mr. TEMPLEMAN.: 


POST OFFICE DEPOSITS AND INTEREST.
Mr. MACDONELL asked:: Is the government crediting up in the passbooks of the depositors in the Post Office Savings Banks, the interest on their accounts, and to which they are entitled? If not, why not?


Rodolphe Lemieux: Interest to 31st March, 1909, has been calculated on all depositors' accounts and has been made principal. This interest is being entered in depositors' pass-books as they are received for examination in accordance with the regulations.


FRENCH TREATY.
Angus Claude Macdonell: What is the present condition of affairs with regard to the commercial treaty with France, and what is the cause of the delay in reference to the matter?


Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance).: The treaty of 1907 was approved in due course by the parliament of Canada and also by the Chamber of Deputies of France, but when it reached the French Senate there was very considerable delay owing to the strong opposition among the French senators who claimed that the treaty was too favourable to Canada. After considerable delay and negotiation, a supplementary treaty was entered into, which has been laid before this House. That, as well as the original treaty, has been approved by the French Senate, but it requires yet to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies. We have delayed bringing forward a resolution to confirm the supplementary treaty because we desire to await the action of the French Chamber of Deputies. That body adjourned for several weeks, but I anticipate that at an early date the treaty will receive its approval, and at the same time steps will be taken to present to this parliament a measure for the approval of the new treaty.


POSTMASTER AT BLACK LAKE, QDEBEC.
Mr. GEO. TAYLOR asked:: 1.	Have any complaints been made against the postmaster at Black Lake post office, in the province of Quebec?
2.	Was an inquiry held by Mr. Larue, post
office inspector? If so, has he made a report?	.
3.	If a report has been made, will the Postmaster General lay the same on the table of the House?
4.	Did the postmaster at said post office, Mr. Ouellette, present a petition to the Postmaster General since the inquiry by the post office inspector, praying that no change be made in the postmaster at Black Lake?


Hon. R. LEMIEUX (Postmaster General):: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.

3.	Yes, if papers are moved fox in the ordinary way.
4.	Yes.


POST OFFICE AND DOMINION GOVERNMENT SAVINGS BANKS.
Mr. S. SHARPE asked:: 1.	Is the post office savings hank distinct from the Dominion government savings bank?
2.	Wherein do they differ, and why are the accounts kept separate?
3.	What are the total deposits in both accounts at the present time?
4.	In regard to the expense connected with
the management of the post office- savings bank deposits, which was given in the return brought down March 23, 1909, as amounting to $72,885.57 for the year ending March 31, 1908, dees this mean merely the cost of the officials at headquarters who have charge of the management of the fund, or is there included in that item a proportion of the expenees from all outlying points of collecting and transmitting the deposits to headquarters?	[DOT]


Rodolphe Lemieux: -
1.	Yes.
2.	There is no substantial difference. What axe known as Dominion Government Savings Banks are the remains of an old system which began in some provinces prior to confederation. This system is being gradually abolished. Whenever vacancies occur in the management of Dominion Government Savings Banks through death, resignation or other cause, the business is transferred to the Post Office Department, it being the policy of the government that the whole savings system be managed by that department. Since the 1st June, 1888, thirty-two agencies of the Dominion Government Savings Bank have been abolished and the business transferred to the Post Office Department.
3.	Post Office Savings Bank-28th February, 1909, $44,447,567.21. Dominion Government Savings Bank-31st March, 1909, $14,748,436.12.
4.	The figures referred to include all salaries at head office, commissions to postmasters, and cost of printing and stationery.


WESTMORELAND COUNTY COURT JUDGE.
Mr. McALLISTER asked :: 1.	When was W. W. Wells apnointed judge of the Westmoreland county court?
2.	On what occasions, for what reasons and for what length of time has leave of absence been granted by the Department of Justice to W. W. Wells?
3.	Has the government or the Department of Justice knowledge of W. W. Wells, judge of Westmoreland county court, being absent from the province without leave? If so, when?
. 4- What judges have acted for W. W. Wells, judge of the Westmoreland county court,
when on leave of absence or when absent without leave?
5.	Is there an application for leave of absence on file in the Department of Justice from W. W. Wells, judge of Westmoreland county court, at the present time? If so, for what length of time, and on what grounds is the application made?


Hon. A. B. AYLESWORTH (Minister of Justice):: 1.	21st October, 1893.
2.	In 1894 for six months, ill health; in 1902, for 3 months, ill health; in 1903, for three weeks, ill health; in 1907, for six months, ill health; in 1908, one month, ill health; in 1909, for 5 weeks, ill health.
3.	The department is aware that in 1906
the judge was, for a few weeks, absent without leave.	j
4.	Judge Wedderburn of Hampton and Judge Forbes, of St. John.
5.	No.


INTEREST ON TEMPORARY LOANS.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. AMES-by Mr. Perley-asked:
1.	What was the total amount paid by way of interest upon the temporary loans, amounting to $101,000,000, made during the last twelve and three-quarter years ?
2.	What was the total amount paid for the same on the amount of $136,500,000 for the previous corresponding period? (See unrevised 'Hansard,' 4786).
Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance) :: 1.	$1,698,006.91.
2.	$1,717,648.08.
The periods for which the loans are made vary from time to time.


GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC-LABOURERS FROM SIBERIA.
Mr. J. D. TAYLOR asked:: 1.	Has the government taken any steps to investigate the report that labourers from Siberia are being brought into Canada under contract to work on the Grand Trunk Pacifio Railway ?
2.	If so, by whom is the investigation being conducted, and have precautions been taken to prevent the entry of further consignments of these labourers?
Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX (Minister of Labour.) The Department of Labour has received no report as described by the hon. gentleman (Mr. J. D. Taylor) in this question. The only notice we have had of the matter is the mention that was made of it in the House.


CONVICT BILL MINER.
Mr. J. D. TAYLOR asked:: 1.	Was a sum of money received by mail at the New Westminster penitentiary for the convict Bill Miner shortly before his escape?
2.	If so, what was the nature and amount of the remittance, by whom was it sent, and in whose care was it addressed?


Hon. A. B. AYLESWORTH (Minister of Justice):: 1.	Yes, on 28th March, 1907.
2.	Postal order, for $100. Sent by J. C. Budd of Princeton, B.C. Received by Deputy Warden Bourke. Deposited in Bank of Montreal, New Westminster, in Savings Bank Account.
3.	Yes, $49.10, and interest from the time it was deposited. From Miner when received into the penitentiary.
4.	No.
5.	Yes.
The following memo, appears on page 36 of the return made in compliance with an order of the House of Commons dated February 17, 1909.
New Westminster, September 6, 1907. Memo for inspector Stewart, re convict Edwards (Bill Miner).
His effects consist of cash $149.10, a gold watch, chain and charm. The statement that he had $500 here is incorrect.
(Sgd.) G. W. DAWSON.


NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY-QUESTION OP CLASSIFICATION.
Mr. LENNOX asked:: 1.	Has the government contemplated or decided that a reference shonld be had to determine differences as to classification and other matters between the Grand Trunk Pacific and the railway commission, which would probably be proceeded with the 1st of April instant? If so, has the reference been proceeded with, has it been concluded or what progress has been made, and what is the result ?
2.	If not, when will it be proceeded with, and what is the cause of delay ?
3.	What are the terms of the reference, if any?
4.	What matters were referred?
5.	Will the minister bring down the formal instrument of reference?


Hon. GEO. P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals):: 1.	The government has decided on a reference. The reference has not been proceeded with.
2.	It will be proceeded with as soon as the chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway is able to give the matter attention. The causes of delay are, that early in April the conditions were not favourable to an intelligent investigation on the ground, and latterly the chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company has been absent in British Columbia and the Northwest on other business.


Mr. J. D. TAYLOR.: 3.	The matters in dispute are left to the award of the chief engineer of the Transcontinental Railway Commission and of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company and a third arbitrator to be chosen by them, Mr. Schreiber having been agreed upon by them and he having accepted the duty under the clause of the schedule attached to the Act of 1903, chapter 71.
4.	No statement of the matters has been drawn up at present and placed before the arbitrators.
5.	The minister has no objection to bring down the instrument of reference. It is as follows:
Ottawa, March 1G, 1909.
Collingwood Schreiber, Esq.,
General consulting engineer to the government. Ottawa, Out.
Dear Sir,-By clause 7 of the agreement between the government of Canada and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, dated July 29, 1903, being schedule to 3 Edward VII., chapter 71, in regard to the construction of the eastern division, it is provided that the work shall be done according to the specifications approved of by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, and shall be subject to the joint supervision, inspection and acceptance of the chief engineeer appointed by the government and the chief engineer of the railway company, and in the event of differences as to the specifications, or in case the said engineers shall differ as to the work, the questions in dispute shall be determined by the said engineers and a third arbitrator to be chosen by them.
Some such differences having arisen as a result of objections filed by the, company, we hereby beg to choose you as third arbitrator for the determination of the questions now in dispute, and on which we have failed to agree after visiting the work, and shall be pleased if you are agreeable to accept the office. In the event of your acceptance, a formal submission will be prepared and handed to you later.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) HUGH D. LUMSDEN,
Chief Engineer, Trancontinental Railway.
(Sgd.) B. B. KELLIHER,
Chief Engineer, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.
I hereby accept the above appointment.
(Sgd.) COLLINGWOOD SCHREIBER. Ottawa, March 22, 1909.


PATENTS FOR LANDS.
Mr. STAPLES asked:: 1.	In respect of sections 16, 20, 22, the west half section 28, and the northern quarter section 21, in township 28, range 31, west 1st meridian, have patents been issued for these lands? If so, to whom?
2.	If patents are not issued, by whom are they occupied, and under what title ?
3.	Who is responsible for payment of municipal ischool taxes on these lands?
4.	If taxes are not paid, can the lands be seized by the proper authorities for such nonpayment?


Hon. CHARLES MURPHY (for the Minister of the Interior) :: 1.	No, except the north east \ of section 21, which was patented to the Winnipeg Western Land Corporation, Limited, on the 4th November, 1902.
2.	Reserved during the pleasure of the government for Doukhobor communities, village of Wozsiennie, by order in council of the 7th December, 1907.
3.	The title to these lands being vested in the Crown they are not liable to taxation.
4.	Answered by No. 3.



WAYS AND MEANS-THE BUDGET.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Mr. Fielding, that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of the Whole to consider the Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to His Majesty.
["I know that after Mr. Foster left the province, it was reported outside that he had promised the tunnel at a cost of $150,000,000. But I never heard him make that statement; it was never reported in any paper in our prov ince that he had said such a thing. The Finance Minister tells us that there is 'no information.' We in that province want the tunnel; it is the most vital thing affecting our prosperity. We made a bargain with the Dominion of Canada when we entered confederation, and one of the conditions of that bargain was that the Dominion should maintain continuous communication with the mainland. That part of the bargain has not been kept. We thought we were to become part of the great Dominion and to share in its prosperity, and we depended upon this continued communication with the mainland for a very large share of that prosperity. But thirty years have elapsed, and this part of the bargain is not carried out. It is true this government has already had to pay some damages on account of the breach of that contract, and likely they will have to pay more. Two provinces, any more than two individuals, should not make a solemn bargain, signed and sealed, and then break it. Now, we want the information which the Minister of Finance says is necessary in order to justify him in promising or not promising the tunnel. We want a sum put in the estimates to make a survey to ascertain whether or not a tunnel can be built. We are not unreasonable; we will not ask for the tunnel if it is to cost $150,000,000, or half that much. We will only ask what is reasonable. In the meantime, we want to know what is possible. And we cannot get that information becausj Mr. FIELDING.\nthis government does not see fit to spend a few thousand dollars, or a few hundred thousand dollars if necessary, to find out whether or not this tunnel can be built. Did the Conservative administration behave in this manner? No; they started to make a survey of the Strait and spent some money on it. But the survey required some time, and the government went out of power before the work was completed. And, since this administration came into power in 1896, it has not spent a dollar in getting the information referred to by the Minister of Finance. I have quoted what the Minister of Finance said when he was in Prince Edward Island. I would like now to refer to another very prominent man on that side. In 1891, the right hon. leader of this government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) visited Prince Edward Island, and he is reported-and has never denied it- reported by a prominent Liberal politician -as reported in the papers at that time and published all over the island-as saying:\nEvery man who has given attention to the condition of things and the interests involved by the entering of the island into confederation must admit that such a tunnel must be constructed if the thing is reasonably practical.\nComing to the province before an election, the right hon. gentleman made this promise. Yet he has been in power for twelve years, and has never made a step to find out whether or not the work is reasonably practicable. I urge the government, with all the strength I have, to place a sum of money in the estimates and have a proper survey made of the straits so as to have this question settled, whether or not this tunnel is practicable. That is all we ask-' only this and nothing more,' or less. But I regret that this tunnel matter is not taken up properly even by all. There is a class-a small class of people in our own province who look upon it with apathy; they say they do not think we can get it, that it will cost a very large sum of money. These people do not know that about which they are speaking. No man knows whether the tunnel will cost $100,000,000 or $10,000,000. Any man who makes a statement as to the amount of money it will cost simply shows that he does not know anything about it. We shall never know what the tunnel will cost until a survey is made of the strait. I urge the government not to allow these promises that it has made and the hopes it has held out to go into the already overcrowded graveyard of their broken promises. When the Prime Minister 'finishes his work,' I hope he will not forget to finish this survey which was commenced under the Conservatives, and which has been neglected from that day to this.\n\nNow, as to the expenditure of money, a great deal depends not alone on the amount of money expended, but the way in which it is spent. This is a young and growing country, and necessarily will require large expenditures on public works and means of transportation ana works of that kind. Nobody will condemn the government for spending this money on useful works. But what the government should be condemned for is spending money on works that are not useful and not required. This government can afford to spend a million dollars on what is called the Aylesworth ditch.\nThis expenditure will serve the interests only of a certain township and perhaps serve the interests of [DOT] the government in securing more support in that township. It is, however, a questionable expenditure and while the government should not be condemned for expending money usefully, it should bfe condemned when it undertakes such large expenditures which cannot be better defended than this undertaking.\nThere is another expenditure of a questionable character, the building of that section of the Transcontinental Railway from Quebec to Moncton. This was condemned in the House by the most prominent railroad authority of that time, the then Minister of Railroads, the late Hon. Mr. Blair. Mr. Blair said that it was an unnecessary work, that it was parallelling the Intercolonial Railway and that the construction of that road would eventually turn the Intercolonial Railway into scrap iron. Yet this government has gone on with the construction of that road at a great cost and we will have the spectacle of two government roads parallelling one another from Quebec to Moncton, when one good road would amply serve the purpose and afford railway facilities for the people in that country. At the same time other sections of the country are languishing and starving for railroads, but the government in its wisdom or unwisdom has seen fit to build this unnecessary and unjustifiable section of the National Transcontinental Railway.\nThe expenditure on the Militia Department is open to criticism. This is the only department whose expenditure has not been reduced this year. The department costs the country about $7,000,000 a year. To keep up what? A standing army? We have read of an army where they were all officers and no men. There is a feeling in this country that a great deal of this money is going to the officers, and yet when the time comes, if ever it should come, when there will have to be fighting by the people of this country, it will be found as it has been before, that the fighting will be done not by the men who are living in luxury and enjoying large salaries with all this fuss and feathers as the hon. member\nfor Nanaimo says about them, the fighting will be done by the hard working men from the country and the towns. There is a feeling of distrust with reference to this militia expenditure. I have no doubt there are many good men in the Militia Department, I have no reason for saying otherwise, but there is a feeling that there is much more spent in that department than the returns justify, and I think that perhaps a certain amount of that money might be more profitably spent in other directions.\t_\nMuch as has been said about making a gift of a Dreadnought to Great Britain. If the government and the people saw fit to do this, I do not think any fault could be found. I think it would be better to make some such gift as that than to waste any money on the Militia Department. I am not saying all the money has been wasted, but there is a feeling that this department is doing as it likes without any check and I am not surprised that a government supporter should come out and state that there is too much fuss and feathers in that department. I firmly believe that of the $7,000,000 spent on the militia at least some has not been spent in a profitable and useful way.\nOn motion of Mr. E. M. Macdonald, the debate was adjourned.\nOn motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 12.30 a. m., Tuesday.", 'Tuesday, April 27, 1909.']
Mr. M. Y. McLEAN (South Huron).: In resuming this debate, I find that the discussion has been tolerably exhaustive on both sides. Consequently, it may be somewhat difficult for me to find anything novel or new to say. However, I think it is an accepted fact that no two individuals deduce exactly the same conclusions on any question, and I presume that that rule will hold good in the present instance, and that I may be enabled to say something that has not already been said. Before referring to any of the arguments or statements of our friends opposite, I wish to congratulate the Finance Minister on the very admirable and satisfactory budget deliverance which we heard on Tuesday last. I know that, in view of the falling revenue, and in view of the financial and commercial depression which has existed for some time, it was the general impression in the country that the Finance Minister would have to announce a very considerable deficit. It was also feared that he might have to announce an increase in the taxation. But we find that, instead of a deficit, there is a very substantial surplus, and that there is no increase in the taxation to be made, but, on the contrary, the government have wisely, I think, decided to decrease the expenditures and to practice the most rigid economy in order that the revenues may be sufficient to meet the requirements. It is probable that some of us may be a little disappointed because appropriations were not made for some improvements that we might consider were desirable and necessary in our several constituencies. It is probable also, that the people may be somewhat disappointed in this respect, but I am sure that, when they understand the circumstances, they will give the government credit for their good intentions. I am also sure that the country will endorse the course taken by the government in reducing the expenditure with
a view to keeping it within the revenue. I must also congratulate the Minister of Finance on his determination to continue to the manufacturers of beet-root sugar the advantages that they have enjoyed for the last few years. This is an infant industry which promises to be of very great importance and value to the people of this country and this is a species of protection, if I may use that expression, which is advantageous to both consumer and producer. It is advantageous to the consumer because it supplies additional competition in the finished product and consequently enables him to purchase that product more cheaply than he otherwise could. It is of advantage to the producer or the farmer because it creates a ready market for a new and what promises to be a profitable farm product, for it has been established beyond perad-venture that the sugar beet can be grown in Canada to very great perfection and at a very considerable profit. It has been established by experience thus far that it i3 a profitable crop for the farmer to grow. Not only that but it works in very well with other crops, and its cultivation and harvesting can be carried on at seasons of the year when other work on the farm is comparatively slack and labour is more plentiful; and as a result the root can be
groduced at a comparatively trifling cost.
eing a profitable crop it adds in this way to the net return of the farmer and the return from the beet crop is in fact practically found money to the farmer, going to enrich him and to add to the wealth of the country.
Mr. Speaker, I shall not discuss the broad question of protection, but let me say that the claim that the farming interests of the country are benefited by imposing a high protection upon their products, more particularly upon products of which they have a surplus for export, is simply a sham and a delusion, because we all know it is an established fact, and I do not think any person will dispute it, that in the case of any product of which we have a surplus for export, the price in the local market is entirely regulated and fixed by the demand and the price at the point of consumption.


Mr. SPROULE.: Then how does the hon. member account for the fact that year before last the price of wheat was higheT in Canada than it was in England-


Murdo Young McLean: It was not due to any protection on wheat.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: -if the export price regulated the price here?

 -.	j-uere are many
ways in which the government can and do benefit the farming industry, but I shall simply give one or two instances. In the first place the farming interest can be great-


Murdo Young McLean: the expenditure is not a criminal offence i providing we have the revenue to meet that expenditure and providing the expenditure has been fairly economical and honest. As to whether this expenditure has been honest or economical we can perhaps judge better by a comparison than in any other way. We have a government in Ontario which our good friends opposite say is honest and economical. I am not going to dispute that point because I believe it is honest and possibly fairly economical. But the expenditure under that government during the past five years has nearly doubled. I am not going to say that it has been dishonest or that the government has been recklessly extravagant because the province has enlarged. If the province has increased we must expect an additional expenditure there the same as here in the Dominion. But there is another province which I might mention and some of our friends swear by the government of that province. I refer to the government of Manitoba. They say that it is honest and economical and possibly they are right I have no figures for the province of Manitoba but I think I am correct in saying that the expenditure has a good deal more than doubled since the present government came into power. If that is the case in connection vith these other governments why should this government be blamed for an increase in the expenditure. It should not be forgotten that the expenditure has increased by $1,000,000 for the purpose of assisting the provinces of the Dominion in the form of an increased indemnity. The statement has been made and repeated several times during this discussion by our friends opposite that the taxation of the people has been doubled; or possibly that is not just the way to put it, but they say that the people have been required to pay double the taxation under the present government that they did under the late government. I am quite willing to admit that is the case. But, Sir, the rate of taxation has not been increased. The rate of taxation has been very considerably lowered. If the people, by reason of their increased prosperity, are enabled to buy double the amount of taxable goods under the present government that they were able to buy under the late government, surely no person will say that it is a cause of complaint against the present government. If, by reason of the increased prosperity of the country, due to the policy of the government, to take as an example what, I dare say, has been given many times before, I am enabled, owing to the increased wages which I receive, owing to increased prosperity in my business, or in my affairs, to purchase two suits of clothes in a year and add to my other luxuries and comforts in life, instead of one suit a year, as I 155



[Stage Direction]
formerly did under the late government, surely I have reason for thankfulness and have no reason for complaint against the present government. If anything, I should have reason for complaint against those who preceded the present government and who kept me in such a position that I was only able to buy one suit of clothes.
Another complaint is that the public debt has been largely increased. We all know that that is the case but before I go on to discuss that point I want to dissent entirely from the principle which was laid down the other day by the hon. member for Ar-gentueuil (Mr. Perley) that every generation should pay the liabilities of that particular generation and should present a clean slate to the succeeding generation. Most of this money which has caused the public debt has been expended in permanent improvements-improvements that are not only good for the present day but will be advantageous to the people of many generations after this. That being the ease, why should the people of the present day be burdened in order to provide comforts and conveniences and necessities for the next two generations? If that principle were adopted and carried out it would be the means of blocking many useful and profitable enterpises. But let us see in what manner the public debt has been increased and I will just give you one instance. I could give you many. In 1896, which was the last year of the government of our friends opposite, there was an expenditure made on railways and canals of 2,699,669. In 1908 the present government expended $28,363,758. In view of these facts is it any wonder that the debt has been increased, and will any person deny that we have received value for that increase in the public debt. Why, Sir, as a result of the improvement of our water highways this country has already become the envy of our great neighbours to the south because we are carrying the trade from their doors and, to-day, trade which was formerly done through American channels is being done through Canadian channels. My hon. friend from Halton (Mr. Henderson) in the course of his very able address stated that one of the great reasons for the increase of the debt under the Conservative government was that they purchased the Northwest Territories, that the purchase price had been added to the public debt, and that it was not all yet paid for. That is quite true, but my hon. friend might have gone a little bit further and he might have told this House and the people of the country that of that territory which was purchased and paid for by the money of the people no less than 25,000,000 acres of the very best land in it was given away. And not only that, but an agreement was entered into by the government with the recipients that that land should be free

[Stage Direction]
from municipal taxation for a long period of years.
Mr. BRADBURY.: When the hon. gentleman states that 25,000,000 acres was given away he does not mean that there was no return obtained for that land? What was that land worth at the time the contract was made with the Canadian Pacific Railway?


Murdo Young McLean: There certainly was a return but I think I am safe in saying that a good many multi-millionaires have been made out of that land. And I wish to say further, that if the hon. gentleman who interrupted me, or if any others of his friends on that side of the House consider that this giving away of that land was an evidence of superior foresight or superior statesmanship, then, most people will disagree with them as to the meaning of these terms. Our friends on the other side admit that we have had very prosperous times during the regime of the present government, but they claim that all this prosperity is due to the policy which they inaugurated. Well, they had 18 long years in which to work out this great policy of theirs and year after year under their policy the country became worse and worse and the condition of the people poorer and poorer. Especially during the last three or four years of the Conservative government we had scarcity of employment, low wages, and soup kitchens in every city; we had depression in its worst form and the movement of population was from this country to the United States instead of the reverse of that as at present. In these days of the Conservative government we were losing the best blood of our country, our promising young men were leaving for the United States and we were building up the wealth and the population of a foreign nation.


Mr. ARMSTRONG.: Would the hon. gentleman be good enough to tell us what legislation the present government has placed upon the Statute-books which has brought about this prosperity he speaks of?


Murdo Young McLean: Yes, I will tell the hon. gentleman that this government has used the legislation that is on the Statute-books to such better advantage than the Conservative government as to bring about these results. And further, there have been many changes made in the tariff which have tended to the better and more progressive conditions which obtain to-day. Now, during the last nine or ten years work has been abundant, wages have been high, business has been prosperous, the country has been booming. I think, and I believe the people of this country think, that if that policy can be carried out so much more to the interests of the people by the present government than by the previous government they would be foolish indeed Mr. M. Y. McLEAN.
to make any change in their Tulers. In view of these facts which I have related and many more that I could Telate, is it surprising that the people of Canada have expressed their entire satisfaction with the government and with the manner in which they have administered public affairs, not only once but twice-and they will do it a third time I believe when they have the opportunity.
I want to turn aside a little from the beaten path to say a few words on a subject which was not referred to in the admirable address of the Minister of Finance, and which I should have liked to have heard mentioned by him. I believe it is the duty of this parliament and of the government to do everything legitimately within their power to suppress, or to smash if you will, all trade combines and trusts in this country. I know of no more expeditious or more efficient way of doing this than by hewing a good big gap out of the tariff wall which surrounds them so as to permit of a liberal influx of outside or foreign competition. It may be said that this has been provided for already, and that is true to a limited extent, but only to a limited extent. We have been provided with the machine, but the motive power to operate the machine has been withheld. There is a clause in the Customs Act which says that when it is proven to the satisfaction of some legal tribunal that a combine exists, the government have the power to reduce or to entirely remove the customs duties on the products of any such combine. But the duty of hunting up evidence and of conducting the prosecution is left to a private individual. I maintain that parliament, at the instance of the government of course, having enacted the tariff law, it is their duty to protect the public from all abuses which may arise under that law. While the exactions of these combines or trusts are very large in the aggregate, they are comparatively small to the individual, and hence it is not worth the while of the individual to go to the expense of seeking evidence and conducting a prosecution against them. The result is that the combines are allowed to go on from day to day, growing in strength and power, and, if I might be allowed to use the expression, in impudence. As an illustration, I am just as sure as I am standing here at this moment that a combine exists among the paper manufacturers of this country. You may apply to a dozen different paper manufacturers and you will get precisely the same quotation from each; you will receive from any one only such advantages or privileges as others will grant; you have to pay your money and take what you get, good or bad, and be thankful for it. I have seen the statement made, and not refuted, that the paper manu-

facturers of this country arc selling paper in the United States at a lower price than they are selling it at to their customers in this country. I am also informed on excellent - authority that you can import paper, what is known as news print, from Chicago laid down in Toronto, plus the freight and the duty, at just about the same price that you have to pay to the manufacturers of this [DOT] country, showing that the whole of the duty goes into the pockets of the manufacturers instead of any portion of it going into the treasury of the country. Now, although I am perfectly convinced of this, and although the exactions of this so-called combine are very large in the aggregate, yet it is not worth my while, for all it amounts to me, to search for the evidence and conduct a prosecution in order to prove the existence of that combine. What I say is that this law should be treated just as are other laws-the customs law and the excise law, for example. Officers should be appointed under the government whose duty it would be to ascertain where any combine existed and look up the evidence and conduct the prosecution. If a man attempts to bring foreign goods into this country, though it may be only a silk handkerchief, without paying duty, he is met at the frontier by a customs officer; his goods are confiscated, and possibly he is fined and punished. The same is true with regard to the excise law, and properly so. This is necessary in order to protect the revenue of this country. But surely it is as important to protect the interests of the great consuming masses of this country as it is to protect the public revenues. I use the case of the paper manufacturers, not as implying that theirs is the only combination that exists in this country, because I believe there are many such. I use this case as an illustration simply because I am more acquainted with that line of business than any other.
It has been said that we could take advantage of the Criminal Code in order to stamp out these combinations in trade. Well, that has been tried in this country in three or four instances, and I am sorry to say that it has proved a disappointment, a miserable failure, largely because of the apparent indifference of the legal authorities and the long delays that are possible under the law. I may also say that there is: a very strong feeling in the minds of a great many peoDle that the springs of justice are tempered with very great mercy towards these combines.
In conclusion, I wish, as a friend and supporter of this government, to urge them with all the earnestness that I can command, to take this matter in hand, and at once; and if the remedy I suggest is not the best remedy, then let them apply what may in their wisdom be considered the 1551
best remedy in order to stamp out this evil;
because every day these combines are allowed to continue they are growing in strength and influence. We have had an example of that in the neighbouring republic, where the combination have grown so strong that they really master the people and set parliament and the governmnet at defiance, and even the courts are afraid to touch them very strongly. If such a state of things should every unfortunately occur in this country, God help the people of the country. Again I urge upon my friends to use their utmost endeavours to free the people of this country from the tentacles of such an octupus as these combines.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a good deal of interest to the speech of the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McLean), which is a severe criticism of several of the departments of the government. I can heartily endorse what he says with regard to the combines; and if these combines exist in this country, it is certainly up to the government to take some definite action with regard to them. The hon. member gave us a great many excuses for the enormous expenditure of this country; but he did not tell us of some expenditures which have been going on in his own riding under his very nose and encouraged by him, such as the expenditure on a wharf at a place called St. Joseph's, where the whole town was sold last year for $700 of taxes.


Murdo Young McLean: I have had nothing to do with that expenditure. It has been supported by every representative of that constituency, including the late representative. .


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I am glad to hear the hon. member say that he has had nothing to do with the expenditure on that wharf; but why did he allow the government to gd on spending money there year after year, even within the last year, since he has been a member of this House? If he will turn up 'Hansard', he will find that the Minister of Public Works, in reply to questions I asked, distinctly stated the amounts of money expended on that wharf during the last few years. I know that the previous representative of that riding condemned the expenditure on St. Joseph's wharf.


Murdo Young McLean: There has been no expenditure authorized since I became member. There was some expenditure authorized shortly before that, and any work done since has been to complete.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The hon. gentleman has just substantiated the statement which I made. He says that the government have

been spending money there merely to complete the work started years ago. I do not want to go into details, but the hon. gentleman knows that the original contract was practically closed and the wharf partly swept away.


Murdo Young McLean: I saw the wharf last year and not a foot of it was swept away. There is not a more substantial, better constructed work in Canada.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: If the hon. gentleman only saw the wharf last year, he does not know the portion swept away. I have visited that wharf myself and have seen portions scattered down along the shores of Lake Huron. The hon. member knows well that large parts of the wharf were swept away.


Murdo Young McLean: I do not.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Some years back. If he is satisfied with this work at a cost of $20,000 of the people's money, he is prepared to support this government in anything they may do. Let me call his attention to another wharf, a wharf built at the corner of his own riding, at Grand Bend That wharf cost $25,000, and has to be kept continually in repairs. Years ago, the government thought they had completed it, but they built it on top of the sand, and the waters of Lake Huron undermined it, and the government have been spending hundreds and thousands of dollars to repair the top part.


Murdo Young McLean: There never was $100,000 spent on that wharf altogether.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: at the position in which he is in regard to the export of his products to the markets of the world. Great Britain is our best market. We may be glad and proud that we are sending such an enormous amount to Great Britain. But, if we had not Great Britain, where should we send these goods? As I have already said, you cannot sead them to the United States or to Russia. You may send a little to Japan and China,
but you have to educate the people there to consume the products we produce in this country before you can export to them in _ any great quantity. Now, take the British market and see the position we are in. I have here figures showing the total imports into Britain and the position that Canada occupies in that market in relation to all the other countries of the world that export to the same market.
Products.	Imports into Great Britain.	Canada's Exports to Great Britain.	Canada's Exports to all other Countries.Wheat	
Wheat flour... 	97,000,000 cwt.	47,000,000 bus.	1,619 bus.Oats	
...	831,498 bus. $ 118,009Pease... 	
Apples	 Cheese		2,521,179 brls.	1,490,311 brls.	8 35,109
			
It must be remembered that all other countries have like privileges on the British market.


Mr. PATERSON.: One is struck with the enormous quantity of products that Great Britain has taken from us and the very small proportion of our exports that went to Germany. Yet if I understand the hon. gentleman his position is that we are to withdraw the preference from that country which is taking 60 per cent of our great agricultural productions in order to conciliate Germany which imports $2,000,000,000 worth and put us upon its maximum tariff because we gave the preference to Great Britain. Does the hon. member want the British preference repealed?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: This is an old question, a hardy annual; you can expect it every year. I asked the hon. minister a question. Does he not realize that we are practically compelled to send the goods that we send to Great Britain there because we cannot send them anywhere else? Can we send them to the United States, a country that exported $250,000,000 worth of just such products as we are exporting to Great Britain? Can we send them to Russia?


William Paterson: The hon. member asks me a question, I answer yes. He says we have sent 60 per cent to Great Britain. There is 40 per cent more of that market, we can work on that. .


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: If the hon. gentleman will look back a few years, he will find that we were sending these goods there long before he took the office he now holds.
Mr. ARMSTRONG


William Paterson: Not in such quantities.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: If the hon. gentleman remembers his own statements he will recall that he said distinctly on the platforms of this country that he was going to give to the people of Canada the market to the south of us, a market of 85,000,000. He told us he was going to open up the markets of the world to the farmers of Canada. Has he done it? No, he has done the opposite, he has practically sealed the second best market in the world and now he is hiding behind the preference. I would like him to tell the people of one advantage that the preference has been to the farmers or people of Canada. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) stated the other day that the preference was a far-sighted policy, as regards the development of Canada, in that it affords us access into the best market of the world, the British market for our ever-increasing agricultural products. He knows full well that we have access into the British market on exactly the same footing as any other nation.


William Paterson: Better.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The hon. gentleman last session tried to make us believe that the Canadian farmer was receiving more for the product of his farm on the British market because of the preference. I defy him now and have defied him time and again to show where the British consumer pays one cent more for the products of Canada than he pays for the products of Australia, New Zealand, Russia or any other country. The hon. gentleman knows full well tnat the preference does not bring us

back one penny in increased value of the products of the farm.


William Paterson: I hope the hon. gentleman does not assume that I am assenting to that?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: He knows that by granting the preference to Great Britain he has driven us out of the German market and where are we going to be in a few years' time? The late member for Lisgar stated that the little province of Manitoba, with 73,000 square miles, was capable of producing 500,000,000 bushels of grain. When the other two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan with 250,000 square miles of land come to produce 500,000,000 bushels where are you going to send it? _ How much is Great Britain taking? How is her consumption increasing? If you examine the figures for the last five years you will find that her consumption is diminishing. That may seem a strange statement but hon. gentlemen will find that it is true. Instead of the consumption in the British market of the products of the farms of the Dominion of Canada increasing it is decreasing. Great Britain only takes 93,000,000 cwts. of wheat from all countries. Where will we be with the markets of the world closed to us	as they will be? I
would ask the minister how we are going to get rid of our products? The Minister of Customs knows full well that if we continue in the blundering mismanagement of our treaties and our trade relations with some of these countries, we will he placed in one of the most humiliating positions you can imagine any nation to be in. The hon. minister says we have 60 per cent of the British market now, what better do you want, why do you. not get the other 40 per cent? The hon. gentleman knows that if the Argentine Republic which sent $106,000,000 worth of farm products to Germany last year could sell these goods on the British market to greater advantage than on the German market she would send them to Britain. When the minister argues that having control of 60 per cent of any market we should go on and get control of 100 per cent before getting into any other market, I claim that he is not fair to the Canadian producer. The hon. gentleman knows that the ships that are going out carrying the products of Great Britain to these foreign lands must bring back loads and he may depend on it that the goods which they bring back from foreign countris are sold on the British market in competition with our goods and that you cannot, it is not reasonable to expect to get 90 per cent of any market.


William Paterson: When the hon. member quoted the German returns he gave the quantities and values of grain; had he figured out how much per bushel these different grains would bring?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I have not reduced it to prices per bushel. I was most careful in gathering these statistics to have them accurate. I spent some time with the Deputy Minister of Trade and Commerce, and I am indebted to him for a great deal of assistance in compiling them.	.


William Paterson: In making a mental calculation as the hon. member proceeded, it appeared to me that the barley, for instance, would bring about 40 cents a bushel laid down in Germany. That would not be considered a large price to the Canadian, after he had paid thte freight and the duty, and so the German market would not appear to be a valuable one for him. I would like to know what it would be worth a bushel.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: It would be worth more than forty cents a bushel.


William Paterson: About that.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I have not figured the price per bushel.


William Paterson: Would it be any bonanza for the farmer to sell his barley for forty cents a bushel, pay his freight across the ocean and pay the duty to get into the German market? Can he not do better than that?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: That is a very poor argument for the hon. gentleman to advance.


William Paterson: No, I think it is a good one. I want to know what the value of the market is.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Germany is a large consumer of barley. She imported 96,000,000 bushels of barley and paid for it $67,000,000. Does the hon. gentleman seem to think that it was a good argument to say that we should not have access to the German market? He says that barley is forty cents a bushel. I have seen the time, when, on the farms of Ontario, we were glad enough to get forty cents a bushel.


William Paterson: But that is less the freight-


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: That cannot amount to very much.
Mr. PATERSON

and the minimum
tariff.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Do I understand from the Minister of Customs that he is not anxious that we should get into the German market at all?


William Paterson: I want to know what the value of it is, to see if it is worth our while to sacrifice the British preference for it.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I have tried to show the Minister of Customs that Germany imported $56,000,000 worth of horses, 96,000,000 bushels of barley, 41,000,000 bushels of oats, 25,000,000 bushels of rye, 73,000,000 bushels of wheat, and I might go on down through the list. The trouble in gathering these figures is that they are given in kilos, marks and pesos; so that it requires a great deal of figuring to ascertain quantities and values. I have chosen a number of the most prominent products of the farm and I am trying to show that Germany imported last year over $300,000,000 worth of agricultural products, such as we are producing, and that we were only able to get into the German market $500,000 worth owing to the mismanagement of our trade relations with Germany by the present government.


William Paterson: My hon. friend has not demonstrated that we have done anything that excludes us from that market.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The Minister of Customs knows full well what he has done. No man knows better, and I venture to say that if the minister investigates these figures he will satisfy himself that it is time we opened up our trade relations with Germany.


William Paterson: What did we do to Germany?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: There are a number of new members in this House and I have no objection to stating what the hon. gentleman did do to Germany. I will tell it in just as few words as I can. We were a favoured nation in the eyes of Germany in 1896. Our goods were going into Germany under the most favoured nation clause, or under the lowest possible tariff. The government came into power and in the first budget that he brought down the Finance Minister granted a preference to Great Britain of 12i per cent. When that 12i per cent preference was granted Sir Charles Tupper rose and stated distinctly that they would have to include Germany in the treaty. The Finance Minister rather pooh-poohed that proposition. But before a year elapsed we found him asking Great Britain to denounce the treaty between Great Britain and Germany. Great Britain did denounce the treaty between Great Britain and Germany as it then was as far as Canada was concerned, but Great Britain took mighty good care to see that she looked after herself and all the other colonies, because I want to tell you that Great Britain and all the other colonies are to-day sending their goods into Germany under the most favoured nation clause, while Canada not only has the maximum tariff against her to-day, but she has the surtax placed on top of it. What else did these hon. gentlemen do? In 1898 they increased the preference to 25 per cent. Germany said:	If.


William Paterson: that is the way Canada is going to treat us, if he is going to slap us in the face, we will put her under the maximum tariff. The Tesult is that to-day Canada comes under the maximum tariff. In 1900 this government raised the preference to Great Britain to 33.1 per cent. Germany said: They are determined to still slap us in the face and we will place the surtax upon Canadian goods coming into our country. Germany placed upon her statute-book a provision for the collection of the surtax, but she did not apply that surtax until one or two years afterwards and then this government applied the surtax to German goods coming into this country. The agricultural products that were going into Germany from Canada continued to go into Germany under the favoured nation clause until the last year or two, and it is only quite recently to some of these products that Germany has applied the surtax. There is the whole position, and yet hon. gentlemen opposite will tell us that the British preference that they granted to Great Britain has been the means of giving to the farmers of this country a wonderful advantage. I have not the time to go into the question to-day, but the hon. gentleman knows full well that a large portion of the goods coming into this country under the British preference comes through the middlemen to Great Britain, and that these goods are the product of foreign countries. No one knows that better than the minister himself. I would like to show the position that this government occupies with regard to the preferential tariff, but I have not the time. I want to impress upon this House the importance of getting into the German market with the products of the farms of this country, and the sooner we get in there the better it will be for the Dominion. You can depend upon it that it will take years to develop a market in Germany even after we get in there. If you look into the figures relating to the products that other countries are sending into Germany you cannot help but feel humiliated to find that Canada is sending so little.


Mr. BLAIN.: The Minister of Customs interrupted my hon. friend from East Lamb-ton by saying that the 96,000,000 bushels of barley imported by Germany were valued at only forty cents a bushel.


William Paterson: Well, Toughly.


Richard Blain: If my hon. friend will make the calculation he will find that this barley was valued at sixty cents a bushel instead of forty cents. That makes a considerable difference.


William Paterson: At sixty cents a bushel for Canadian barley, paying freight across the ocean and paying the minimum duty in Germany, will the hon. gentleman tell me

how much that will bring you? Will it bring 35 cents a bushel net?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: That is similar to the statement made by the minister a short time ago. He then said it was forty cents a bushel, and now he admits that it was sixty cents a bushel.


William Paterson: You agreed with that.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I could not stop to figure it out.


William Paterson: Neither could I.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: been existing; how much longer is the irritation going to last? The tariff war which this government has been waging for the last 13 years has been most damaging to our trade and at this eleventh hour I appeal to the government to put an end to it. In conclusion I urge upon the government the necessity in the near future, of bringing about some satisfactory understanding with Germany which will be beneficial to the agriculturists and the manufacturers of Canada.


Mr. ALEXANDER B. WARBURTON (Queens, Prince Edward Island).: Mr. Speaker; even though the debate on the budget has been continued for some considerable time, I think its importance justifies every member of this House in expressing his views on the financial and industrial condition of the country. As a new member of this House and one who takes anj earnest interest in the prosperity of Canada, I should not feel satisfied with myself were I to allow this debate to end without letting my views be known in as brief a form as possible. In conjunction with other members of the House who hold the same political views as I do, I have the utmost pleasure in congratulating the Minister of Finance on the financial statement which he has been able! to present. We have become so used to the announcement of surpluses by the present Minister of Finance that I hardly know how we would feel were he compelled to make a budget speech declaring a deficit. But from our long and intimate knowledge of the business and financial ability of the hon. gentlemen we do not look to see any such misfortune attend the country while he remains in office. But I suppose it will be unreasonable to expect all members of this House to take the same view of this matter. That would indicate a tendency towards perfection, and I am not sure that we are yet ripe for that.
The hon. gentleman who last spoke waxed warm over the advantages of the German market. I suppose we all agree that it would be desirable to get access to that market on fair and honourable terms; but I think hon. members on both sides of this House will also agree that unless we can trade with the German people on fair and honourable terms, we are not going to be coerced into taking down our walls while they shake the whip over us. The German government undertook to dictate to Canada the position she should take in regard to the British preference. They practically told us that if we dared to give a preference to the old motherland which we did not also give to Germany, Germany would punish us; and she at once put us under her maximum tariff. I frankly say that much as I would like to see the Ger-Mr. ARMSTRONG.
man trade with Canada restored, I would not, as one member of this House, consent to the surtax being withdrawn so long as Germany continues her present attitude towards this cuontry. I look on Canada as a great and growing nation that should maintain her dignity in her dealings with Germany or any other nation. What does the hon. member want to do? We know the result he aims at; we would like to have the same result ourselves; but does he wish us to knuckle down to Germany, to take our licking lying down?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Is there no other way?


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: It would appear that there is no other way. I was not brought up in that school of politics. My people and their people before them belonged to the old Liberal school; we have always been willing to make friends where perhaps we had not friends before; and I do not wish to depart from that principle. But I hope never to see the day when I shall consent to get any advantage for my country by dragging her honour in the dust. The market of Germany may have been lost to our farmers temporarily; I do not believe that it is permanently lost. The German people, I believe, possess a fair amount of common sense. I believe the mercantile community of Germany and the people of Germany generally are possessed of much more common sense than their rulers; and I have seen it stated in the press in different times in recent years that the mercantile community of Germany are getting together in regard to the falling off in their trade with Canada, feeling that it was an unwise action on the part of Germany to enter into a tariff war with this country. It was not Canada that began that tariff war, but Germany; and so long as Germany continues that war, so long I think should the surtax continue. I think that is a matter that will cure itself. It appears to me that there is a certain amount of inconsistency on the part of the hon. gentleman and his friends in the strong grounds they take on this question. His friends applauded what he said, and therefore I presume they entirely agreed with him. This is a tariff war, they tell us, and report has had it lately that we are threatened with another kind of war with Germany. I have not seen any indications on either side of this House of a disposition to lie down and take a licking from Germany. Our hon. friends of the opposition are loyal and patriotic, and they were going to do great things in a physical war with Germany if the occasion arose, and I would be heartily with them. They were prepared to throw Dreadnoughts costing millions of dollars into the fray, if neces-

sary they would shake the red rag before the eyes of the German bull. Yet when Germany threatened what was supposed to be a small and helpless colony with a tariff war, these hon. gentlemen say that Canada should not resent that, but should give way.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Mr. Speaker, I must correct the hon. gentleman when he says that I suggested that Canada should give way or anything of that kind. The hon. gentleman knows full well that he is telling something that is not true.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: I am quite prepared to accept the correction of the hon. member; but I do not think it is quite in order for him to tell me that I am making statements which I know are not true. If I have not correctly understood the hon. gentleman, it is due to my ignorance of the English language.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I rise to a point of order. I have distinctly said tha the hon. gentleman's statement with regard to me is an untrue statement, and he should withdraw it.


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: The hon. gentleman said that the statement which I made was untrue. If I have made an untrue state-men, I will withdraw it with pleasure. I would be very sorry to make an untrue statement with regard to the hon. member or any one else. But the meaning I drew from his remark was, I venture to say, the meaning drawn from it by many other hon. members. If I was mistaken why were the Minister of Customs and the government generally asked repeatedly to get busy and come to some arrangement with the German government in this matter?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Is there any harm in that?


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: I do not say there is any harm in that; but the inference to be drawn from that suggestion, in view of the stand taken by Germany, is, in my mind at least, that we have to go to Germany, which has been threatening and trying to bulldoze us, and say: Here we are, prepared to take back water if you will let us get into your market.


William Paterson: And do away with the preference.


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: Yes. The hon. member did not answer the question whether or not he was willing to do away with the preference-because I take it that must be in his mind, otherwise what would be the use of going to Germany and asking
her to remove the maximum tariff against Canada? The reason Germany adopted a hostile tariff against Canada was because we enacted the preference.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: At six o'clock I was discussing the question of our trade relations with Germany; and in that connection it seemed to me that the ground taken by the hon. gentleman who last addressed the House (Mr. Armstrong) was not consistent with the position taken by the financial expert of the Conservative party (Mr. Foster). In his speech on the budget the other evening, the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster), referring to the position _ taken by the United States in _ its negotiations with foreign powers, pointed out that it always avoided entang-ing alliances, so that it was always in a position, in dealing with any foreign country, to deal with that country alone regardless of others. For instance, in negotiating with Spain, the United States had only to look to what was beneficial between Spain and the United States. Going on in that strain, the hon. member for North Toronto spoke as follows:
I am decidedly of opinion that the old method' of most favoured nation treaties is entangling and embarrassing, and that it is constantly leading ns into difficulties. With .'ur largely increasing trade in Canada, I be-Leve we cannot go on any longer without very carefully considering and making up our minds on this matter. There is another reason why I would plead with the government to hold its hand for at least a time in making these arrangements with different foreign countries. I am one of the men who believes that if we can get a proper arrangement between ourselves and Great Britain and the British empire, that there is an opening field for the richest, the best, and the most secure trade in the world. I look over this great British empire and I find that there is no variety of climate which it does not possess, there is no possible thing that grows which is not grown in more or less abundance within the borders of the empire. It is in that respect absolutely self-contained with reference to powers of production and facilities for trade.
I feel very much inclined to agree with the hon. member for North Toronto in the remarks I have just read, but these remarks do not appear consistent with the argument made by the last speaker (Mr. Armstrong). If the principle laid down by the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) holds good, that hon. gentleman would be opposed to our entering into negotiations with any other country for the establishment of special trade relations. I commend these very pregnant remarks of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. COMMONS
Foster) to the consideration of my hon. friends in the opposition, because if those remarks are pondered, and pondered carefully, they will be found to run counter to a good many that have fallen from the last speaker (Mr. Armstrong), and others who think with him.
I listened with a great deal of interest, and a certain amount of amusement, to the speech made by the hon. member for Dauphin the other evening (Mr. Glen Campbell). That hon. gentleman is a genial and pleasant speaker to whom we always like to listen, but it did appear to me that, in some of his remarks, he did what I am sure my hon. friend, who is a manly man, wall on reflection regret hav-in done. He struck below the belt. He spoke of bouquets having been given hon. gentlemen who had been taking part in late election campaigns in widely separated parts of this country. Bouquets were put on their desks to welcome them on their return from these elections, but, he said, there were none laid on the desk of the Minister of Mines (Mr. Templeman) when he took his seat. True, there was no bouquet laid on his desk when he took his seat, nor was any sent to him, when he lost his election in Victoria, but I would far rather be in the position of the Minister of Mines (Mr. Templeman), when he went down to defeat like a man in Victoria, than be in the position of the victor in that contest, who won it by the means he did. The hon. minister will, I hope, pardon my referring to him for a moment or two, and I do so because I think that the references made to him the other evening were not those which should be made to a gallant opponent who went down in unfair fight, as the hon. minister did. It is not necessary to revive the discussion which has already taken place in this House regarding the methods employed in order to secure the defeat of the Minister of Inland Revenue (Mr. Templeman) in Victoria. And I wish to say emphatically that the remarks I am about to make are not intended to apply to any member of this House. But I do say that outside of this House, there seems to be some sort of conspiracy on the part of the worst elements of the Conservative party to bring that party into disrepute, and I feel sure that the leaders of that party, and every hon. member belonging to it in this House, personally regrets that sort of conduct. Nevertheless, such conduct has prevailed and continues to prevail; and no doubt some one or other, acting in the supposed interests of the Conservative party, resorted not only to the ordinary means of political warfare in order to bring about the defeat of the minister, but went further and added criminality to these methods. And I do say that when hon. gentlemen criticise the Minister of Mines (Mr. Templeman) because he lost Mr. WARBURTON.
his seat, I do not think they are acting a manly part. If they had seen fit to attack any other hon. gentlemen who had come to grief in the last election, and who came to grief in fair fight, there would be something to justify their remarks, but I am quite sure there was nothing to justify them in the case of the Minister of Mines. That hon. minister nailed his colours to the mast. When he went into that fight in Victoria, he knew that he was going into a very difficult one because of the strong feeling which had been worked up over the Asiatic question ; and when he gave his adhesion to the policy which this government had adopted, he knew that he was likely jon that account to alienate a lot of votes. But he went into the contest, knowing he had that handicap against him, and if he went down, he went down like a man.
A good many hon. gentlemen have spoken on the balance of trade. I should have thought that the balance of trade question had been pretty well threshed out in this House and in this country on many a previous occasion, and even that it had been pretty well threshed out during the present discussion. I certainly do not propose to go into the merits of the balance of trade theory, because I think those who have preceded me have done that quite as fully as there is any occasion for. But when I hear hon. members talking of this terrible thing, this balance of trade against us of $118,000, 000 or thereabouts, and of the evil effects it must have upon the welfare of Canada, I cannot but ask myself how it is that almost every nation of which we have knowledge which has a balance of trade against it is a prosperous nation, and almost every nation which has a favourable balance of trade is not a prosperous nation. If my memory serves me well, Russia is a country with the balance of trade decidedly in her favour. On the other hand, Great Britain, as we all know, for many years-I do not remember how many-has had the balance of trade enormously against her. Canada has usually had the balance of trade against her; but can any man look around this Dominion to-day and not be compelled to admit that Canada is going on prospering and to prosper? Never in her history has Canada been in a more prosperous state than to-day. In every part of the Dominion from the small province from which I come, the other maritime provinces, the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the great west and the Pacific coast, the Canadian people are better off than they have ever been before. How can we reconcile this prosperity, which is evident on every side, with the opinions of our theoretical friends that an adverse balance of trade is ruinous ? It seems to me that in calculating the balance of trade our friends of the other side overlook a great deal. I

am not aware that in making up the balance of trade in personal and other effects any part of the $70,000,000 or more of wealth brought into this country from the United States by the immigrants that are pouring into Canada, is taken into the calculation. I am not aware that large sums in cash brought in by the immigrants coming into Canada are counted in making up the balance of trade. I am not aware that the most valuable asset of all, the men and women who come into the country, have been calculated in making up this balance. Again, if this unfavourable balance of trade 1 is such a terrible thing, and if it is so bad as hon. members tell us and that the duties are all against the Canadian farmer and in favour of the United States farmer-and, of course, it is quite possible these hon. gentlemen may be right-how is it that thousands and tens of thousands of farmers in that tax-blessed land are shaking the dust of their own country from their feet and are coming across to dwell in the Northwest of Canada seeking for homes where the taxes are not so great and, light as they are, according to our friends opposite are very much less favourable to the farmer than are those of the United States?
I listened with considerable curiosity-I think that is the word that best describes my feeling-to the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Cowan) who spoke in reply to the hon. member or Nanaimo (Mr. Ralph Smith). He said that at some meeting which he addressed, and which had been referred to by the hon. member for Nanaimo, he "had grown reminiscent. I thought we might all grow reminiscent in a case such as that brought before the House by these two hon. members. Judging from the hon. member's remarks there is what looks to me like a conspiracy of the worst elements of the Conservative party to bring the members of this House belonging to that fine old party into disrepute. We find that the hon. member for Vancouver has been the victim of that awful typographical enor microbe which seems to be spreading far and wide amongst the Conservative constituencies and people. The hon. member (Mr. Cowan) waxed bold at the conclusion of his speech and threw out challenges to the members of the government, to the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) and to every member of the government. These challenges were far flung like 1 Kipling's ' far flung battle line,' and seemed to take in every member who professes to be a follower of -the right hon. gentleman who is now Prime Minister of Canada. It struck me that challenges of this kind do not indicate prudence or wisdom on the part of the person who issues them. I fought my own way and carried a constituency along with my hon. friend (Mr. Prowse), and I think I could do it again. But I had enough trouble in that campaign to cause me not
to flash challenges round and to keep out of the fight until, by the effluxion of time, I have to go into it again. And I fancy my hon. friend who is looking at me (Mr. Staples) feels as I do. I do not think it an evidence of wisdom on the part of any hon. member to throw these challenges loosely around. I have said that the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Cowan) grew reminiscent. I should like to be allowed to be reminiscent too. I had not the honour of a seat in the -last parliament, but I occasionally sat in the gallery and listened to the discussions that took place on the floor. I remember that in the last parliament there were two members sitting on the opposition side who seemed to be very fond of throwing out challenges. I am satisfied that hon. members who sat in the last parliament will remember hearing these challenges. They were thrown out to the Prime Minister, to every minister in his cabinet, and to every man who took up arms in behalf of this terrible government. I must say that no one seemed to regard them very seriously. An hon. member whom I may call a knight errant of politics went into that warfare from which those of us who are now in the House returned victorious while some fell in the melee. This hon. gentleman (Mr. Chew) had never had a seat in this House, but he went out to test his prowess in the riding of East Simcoe against a member of the last parliament who had issued these challenges and about whom I do not wish to say anything more than that he is no longer here. In the province of New Brunswick, there was another gentleman who often threw out challenges and talked in very loud tones of voice about the members of the government side of the House. But a friend of mine, a gentleman in the medical profession, a very clever and able man, who had not had a seat in parliament before, applied, I presume, to the political life some of the arts he had learned in the management of our physical bodies, and the hon. gentleman who had been heard so often giving forth his challenges died the death, politically. The honourable and learned member (Mr. McAllister) who succeeded him seems to have added the duties of undertaker to those of the politician, for he buried the gentleman below a cairn of some 350 of a majority. So, Mr. Speaker, I think you will agree with me that challenges of this kind are not wisely made.
The hon. member for Argenteuil (Mr. Per-ley) spoke on financial matters fully and clearly, and I think very well, although I did not agree with all he had to say. He asked us if we knew where the surpluses came from, and said that if these surpluses had not been taken from the pockets of the people the money would -still be in their pockets. I do not always agree with him, but in that case I do, that is unless the money was spent for some other purpose.


Richard Blain: Would my hon. friend explain how it comes that the best sale of bonds ever made in the history of Canada was made a year after this government came into power?


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: The hon. gentleman is asking me a question that, I think, has been explained before. The reason is that in the money markets of the world at that time money was cheap and there was no difficulty in floating first-class bonds. Money was much cheaper then than it is now. The same remark applies to more than bonds. A farmer who wanted to borrow money on mortgage on his farm four or five years ago could borrow it at a cheaper rate of interest than he can obtain to-day. I happen to know something about this because I do some business for loan companies. Within a couple of years they have increased their rate of interest even on gilt-edged farm land mortgage loans. I cannot explain what the causes were which led to cheap money in 1896, but we do know that money was cheaper in all the money markets of the world at that time. What the cause was I leave to financiers to explain I have no doubt the time will come when money will again be cheap. But, to revert to what I was saying, times have improved in this country and the people have become better off. It does not require a great array of figures to prove that the people were better off than they were thirteen years ago. If you drive along the roads or walk along the streets you can see it for yourselves. They live better, dress better, and they buy more, with the natural result that the revenue has increased. There is nothing very extraordinary about that. The trade of the country has doubled, and if the trade of the country h^s doubled there must be larger receipts coming into the treasury. The people that were turning their faces to

the south and crossing to the United States are not doing that now. They are finding their way back and helping to make up the revenues.
Some few evenings ago the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Harris) made a very excellent speech in this House in which he referred to a very excellent article in the Ottawa ' Citizen ' of that day. The ' Citizen ' the next morning, in referring to that, published another article which was also a veTy excellent article, but the keynote-I might also call it the text-which ran through the whole of the article was to let the dead past bury its dead, that it was not well to keep up this reference to old financial times or to compare the bookkeeping of to-day with the book-keeping under a former government. For some years past the opposition have apparently been trying to get clear of the dead past, but so long as they have as their financial expert-and I have not a word to say against him-a gentleman who in all probability would be Minister of Finance should the Conservatives ever get to power during his political career, how can they bury the dead past? Is not the whole official utterance of our Conservative friends on the fiscal policy simply and solely a voice from the dead past? I was going to call it a moan from the whited sepulchre of Conservative finance.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to refer briefly to the policy of granting bounties, and I would say, right here and now that so far as I am individually concerned I am no great lover of bounties. But I love bounties more than I love high protection, and I can very well recognize that there may be occasions when the application of bounties, like the application of the knife in surgery, or of a mustard poultice may do good. I do not believe in the principle of granting bounties as a general thing, nor do I believe in the principle of protection either, although of course we must have revenue to carry on the affairs of the country, and so a revenue tariff is an absolute necessity. I have, however, noticed that industries which get bounties would very much prefer to get protection instead of bounties, and in that light I am led to have a preference for bounties over high protection. I think the fact is undisputed that when duties are levied the manufacturer may in turn levy on his purchasers to the extent that the duty will allow him to do so before outside competition comes in, but when the manufacturer gets a bounty then the moment he goes beyond the bounty outside competitors come in it and keep the price down for those who buy his wares, and so of the two evils I prefer the bounty system to high protection. We have heard a good deal of argument with regard to the system of bookkeeping followed by the Dominion, and possibly the system may be an Mr. WARBURTON.
antiquated system of keeping our accounts, but the difficulty is that if you do change the system you render it difficult to make comparisons between the present and the past condition of public affairs. Let me say in conclusion that I listened to the budget speech of the Minister of Finance with satisfaction and pleasure. I knSw that the times were hard, and I was simply surprised that the Minister of Finance had been able to add another to the long list of surpluses which hg,d become a sort of habit with him since he has assumed office.


Mr. J. W. MADDIN (South Cape Breton).: Mr. Speaker, during this debate I have been struck by the many laboured efforts of hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House to point out the great difference which they allege to exist between the tariff as it is and the national policy of the Conservative party. It seemed to me that the object of speaker after speaker on the government benches was chiefly to say something uncomplimentary of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mt. Foster), and it was quite evident that too many of these gentlemen opposite were inclined to regard the speech of the hon. member (Mr. Foster) from a pessimistic point of view. The hon. gentleman from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) treated the House to a quotation from one of the Scotch poets, and I will venture to offer him a couplet which he and others of his political friends may take into consideration:
The world's a very funny place where each man plays his role,
The optimist looks at the doughnut; the pessimist sees but the hole.
And if hon. gentlemen on the government side put on their optimistic glasses when they are dealing with the speech of the hon. member for North Toronto they will see a good deal more than they do now. I wonder if, after all, there is such a great difference between the present tariff and that which the Liberal party found when they came into power in 1896.? We know that prior to 1896 the Liberal party were in the habit of decrying protection from Vancouver to Halifax and Charlottetown, and threatening to destroy it root and branch. Amongst the industries which it was said had fattened at the expense of the toiling masses of the country were such concerns as Frost and Wood and Massey-Harris; yet the Prime Minister was not so very long in poweT until he found places in the Senate for the Hon. Melvin Jones and the Hon. Frank Frost, so that these agricultural implement industries might have their in terests well guarded in the parliament of Canada. This may to some extent account for the fact that during the past thirteen years the government with its tariff for revenue only has seen fit to reduce the

tariff on farm implements by only 2i per cent. The hon. member for Red Deer was not quite content to confine himself to observations on the budget, but thought it well to step aside from the issue before the House to cast animadversions upon the people of Nova Scotia. I quote from the hon. gentleman:
I should always wish to recollect that Nova Scotia is inhabited by a race of men who are reputed to keep the Sabbath and everything else they can lay their hands on.
The hon. member for Digby (Mr. Jameson), who followed the member for Red Deer, censured him for these remarks, and the hon. member for Red Deer informed the hon. member foT Digby that he was not quoting him properly. The hon. member fof Red Deer said:
If my hon. friend will pardon me, I said they were descended from a race of men who had that reputation.
Which is entirely different from what 'Hansard' credited him with, having actually said. However, later on the hon. member for Digby was followed by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Ralph Smith), who informed the hon. member for Digby that the hon. member for Red Deer was only in fun, that it was only a joke, only a little jovial way we had. Well, I have only this to say, that the hon. member for Red Deer did not say that he was only joking; and if the hon. member for Nanaimo is his apologist and says that it was only a joke, I can assure him that the people of Nova Scotia are not to be joked with in that light. I put it to the hon. members from Nova Scotia on both sides of the _ House whether they can tolerate aspersions of that kind upon the people of that province.


Mr. McKBNZIE.: We do not mind it worth a cent.


James William Maddin: I suppose not. I wish to say, with regard to the remark of the hon. member from Red Deer, that the people of Nova Scotia do keep the Sabbath; they also observe the Golden Rule, and that teaches them to deal properly with other things that come into their hands, and I can assure the hon. member for Red Deer, for whom I have a high regard, that it is in no Pecksniffian spirit that I resent the aspersion which he has cast upon the people of my native province. The hon. member for Red Deer, shortly after he had uttered this aspersion against the people of the province of Nova Scotia, spoke about the national policy in these words:
I fail to see how protection ever works in any other way, and I fail to see that its outlook ever entitles it to the high-sounding name of national policy. Show me where it is a national policy in its operation as between the various classes of a country. It is con-156
stantly happening in the high protectionist countries of the world, that goods are sold in enormous quantities more cheaply abroad than they are in the country in which they are produced. A well informed American, intimately acquainted with the iron trade, told me the other day that in Pittsburg, in the month of January, 1908, steel rails were sold to the American people in pursuance of a national policy at $28 a ton, and on the same date were sold in Middlesborough on the north east coast of England for $19.50 a ton. Now, if it he a national policy to rob your own people in order to sell cheaply to foreigners, with the incidental advantage of building up a few millionaires in your country, then a policy of high protection is a national policy, but otherwise it is not.


Mr. M. CLARK.: Will the hon. member permit me to say that my information referred to 1906, instead of 1908?


James William Maddin: So far as the principle is concerned, the particular year matters not. I wish to point out to the hon. gentleman that the national policy of the Liberal-Conservative party was not a policy of high protection. The Liberal-Conservatives never advocated a policy of high protection; they advocated a policy of adequate protection for Canadian industries, which does not necessarily mean high protection. On the contrary, it may mean a very low tariff, according to the commodity to be safeguarded. The hon. gentleman need not have cited the particular instance of steel rails to bear out the argument he offered to the House; for butter, cheese and flour all cost more where they are produced than in the market to which they are exported. In an inquiry before a board of conciliation in this country, English miners testified that they paid four cents a pound more for Canadian cheese in Nova Scotia than they could buy it for in England, and Five Roses flour, a household flour manufactured in the province of Ontario, can be intercepted in the town of North Sydney, en route to Newfoundland, and sold there at fifty cents per barrel less than the largest firms in the county of Cape Breton can bring it there for. I would like also to point out that beef produced in the province of Ontario and sent to the county of Cape Breton in cold storage can be bought cheaper there than it can be in the city of Ottawa. So the hon. gentleman need not have gone so far afield for an illustration. But his illustration does not bear out his argument. The same thing is proved true in the countries that enjoy free trade. The prices are governed by the conditions surrounding production, and it cannot be argued that it is because of a protective policy that manufactured articles are sold at higher figures where they are manufactured than in the markets to which they are exported. Some hon. gentlemen have endeavoured to impress on the House, and I



presume on the country that the policy of the Liberal party differs a great deal from that of the Liberal-Conservative party when they were in power, and I have no doubt, if one were to follow the arguments of some hon. gentlemen opposite to their logical conclusion, that free trade is the goal to which they look forward. I would, however, ask hon. gentlemen from the western provinces and hon. gentlemen from the province of Ontario, on what articles do they consider that the tariff between 1878 and 1896 was very high and whether or not the tariff existing at the present time is not as high as was the tariff of those years. There is nothing in a name, and no one will fail to recognize in the policy being pursued by the Liberal party at the present time the old national policy of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Charles Tupper.
One phase of the budget about which I have not heard much during this discussion is the question of coal. The hon. Finance Minister, in his budget speech, steered clear of that question altogether; but previous to coming into power in 1896, the Liberal party, including the hon. Finance Minister, the right hon. leader of the government, and many gentlemen who support these hon. gentlemen to-day, were very anxious about the coal industry of the country, and professed to be the great friends of the coal miners and the coal industry of Nova Scotia. At the first session after the Liberal party came into power in 1896, Mr. Tisdale, on behalf of Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, asked the following question;


Mr. TISDALE (for Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper) asked:: -that as far as the coal industry of Nora Scotia is concerned, it is independent of duties of any kind. The coal production of the Dominion Coal Company will be more than consumed by the works at Sydney, and by the works at Everett in Massachusetts, and it will take all the time of the other companies to supply other markets. I do not want to be misunderstood-I am in favour of duties upon coal, and of bounties upon iron, and of anything and everything that is considered to be necessary for the protection of every industry now established or hereafter to be established in the province of Nova Scotia or in the Dominion. But I have been assured by those deeply concerned in the business that the coal business of Nova Scotia is absolutely independent of the result of duties. This is the state of the coal industry in Cape Breton, and I am sure there it like prosperity in every other part of the province.
The result of this enterprise has been that the people engaged in this coal industry, and whose living depends upon it are happy and prosperous. It has been a fact that in the past, for four months, and perhaps five and six months in the year, the people of Cape Breton who depended on the coal industry for their livelihood were idle and that the wages of the other six months were eaten up by getting goods on credit, and that in that wJDr lhey were continuously in debt and unable to have a dollar in their pockets. But to-day the conditions are changed, and these men can obtain employment continuously throughout the year, and one sometimes hears the complaint from a man that he does not get a moment of rest. That is a complaint, however, with which we can .have no sympathy.
Now, these are some observations from hon. gentlemen opposite in speaking about the coal question. And, in view of the observations of the hon. member for Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) in the legislature of Nova Scotia, it does seem to me it might well be difficult for the Minister of Finance to know what to do under the circumstances. The coal industry in Nova Scotia has had a hard time of it during the last two or three years, and particularly during the last year. The capability of the coal operators to compete with American coal, of course, depends on the cost of production in the province of Nova Scotia, and I wish to point out to the members of the House that the responsibility for the cost of production in Nova Scotia rests in large measure with the local government of that province, for, during the regime as premier of the province of the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) and during more recent years under the present administration headed by the Hon. Geo. H. Murray in that province, the manner in which the coal leases are dealt with and handed out in that province has gone a long way to hamper the cheap production of coal. The railway charters have also cut no unimportant figure in the Mr. iMADDIN.
province in that matter. In the county of Inverness, in 1887, Hon. Geo. H. Murray, now Premier of Nova Scotia, who was not then even in the legislature, but merely a private citizen, along with some other gentlemen, secured a charter to build a railway from the Strait of Canso up through Port Hood, Mabour and by St. Hose and Mar-garee to Cheticamp. That covers the section of which I wish to speak, though it was to proceed further and eventually join tSe Intercolonial near Grand Narrows. This charter called for the building of the line in five years. The gentlemen who had secured the charter had the charter renewed from time to time, and eventually it was handed over to Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann. These gentlemen had secured coal areas in Inverness, and these they proceeded to develop and they built the railway as far as their own mines. It is a fact that there are large and valuable coal areas north of the town of Inverness which are undeveloped, this lack of development being due solely to the fact that Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann have not completed the railway for which a charter was granted in 1887. As I have said, they completed the railway up to their own mines. But from time to time they found the government of Nova Scotia so plastic as to assure them of the renewal of the charter, and the county council of Inverness so plastic and pliable as to renew their free right of way through Inverness. The Nova Scotia Collieries Company hold coal areas at St. Rose, three or four miles from Mar-garee. They have two or three valuable seams of coal, six, seven and nine feet in thickness, which they are unable to de-velope for: want of railway facilities. Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann are not disposed to complete this road for the benefit of one of their competitors, yet the Nova Scotia government has allowed this charter to be renewed from time to time at the behest of these gentlemen and to the prejudice of the development of valuable coal areas in Nova Scotia. There is another feature in the cost of production of coal in Nova Scotia, and that is the manner in which the coal leases in that province are dealt with. There are no less than 148 coal leases in Nova Scotia held by speculators. We must all admit, and it must be apparent to hon. gentlemen whether acquainted with the coal trade or not, that coal, in order to be cheaply produced, must be taken from somewhere near the surface, that if coal is produced at a great distance from the surface the cost of production is necessarily increased. In the county of Cape Breton, the Dominion Coal Company is the only company in a position to produce coal at a reasonably low cost. The Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company, on the other side of the harbour, is producing coal in a number of instances from a dis-

tance of a mile and a half or a mile and three-quarters from the foot of their shaft. Only last July, in company with the chairman of the Civil Service Commission, Professor Adam Shortt, I had an opportunity to go down the Queen pit.shaft of the Sydney mines, which is on the shore near Cranberry Head, and is sunk to a depth of 800 feet. We travelled 2,460 yards to a tool house or station where the miners' lamps are tested and they get their tools to proceed to their work. This will give some idea of the cost of mining coal to that company. When it is borne in mind that this company were obliged to drive through crushes in order to win the coal at even this great distance, one can form a still further idea of the cost of production. The company cannot develop the areas to the south because they are bounded by the Dominion Coal Company, or to the north because these areas are held by private individuals and concerns that axe not developing.
Let us leave that county for a moment and go up to the county of Pictou. There the two principal producing concerns are the Acadia Coal Mining Company and the Intercolonial Coal Mining Company. Both these companies are circumscribed in their operations and the result is that their slopes have been sunk to a depth now of over 7,000 feet and the great output of coal comes from a distance of over a mile from the surface. When we remember that driving for such a distance the roof and pavement becomes bad and a great amount oi unskilled labour is required to keep up air ways, timber and ventilating, we can form some idea of the cost of producing coal theTe. This condition exists notwithstanding the fact that there are over 140 coal leases in Nova Scotia tied up in the hands of non-producing speculators. We are givn to understand that the coal in that province is vested in the Crown and may be mined on payment of a royalty of so much a ton, but still this large number of leases have found their way into the possession of speculators. The member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie), in his observations before the local legislature in 1901, was very proud ttf point out that in past years the miners of the county of Cape Breton were obliged for four and even five or six months of the year to go without employment, and that their earnings during the months they worked were sometimes eaten up, and they were obliged to go into debt in some instances in the four or six months of loafing. I would point out to him that the conditions of the miners of Cape Breton county and of the province of Nova Scotia were very much better from 1878 to 1896 than they have been from 1896 until the present time. I wish to show that the miners in the province of Nova Scotia are in a more deplorable condition at present than they ever were under he regime of the Liberal-Conservative party. In 1878 when Sir Charles Tupper came to the east to announce the national policy of the Liberal-Conservative party, the coal industry of Nova Scotia was at its very lowest ebb. At that time, standing on the site now occupied by the Dominion Steel Company in the city of Sydney, Sir Charles pointed out that before any great length of time iron and steel works would doubtless grow up under the national policy. He announced that it was the intention of the Conservative party if returned to power to place a duty on coal, and to make the duty so adequate as to develop the mineral resources of the country and to afford adequate protection to its industries; that protection would be given to the iron and steel industries of the country, and he said the time was not fax distant-waving his hand toward the shores of Sydney harbour-when great smoke stacks would rise up from iron and steel and smelting works upon those shores. He spoke as a prophet. In 1878 Sir John Macdonald commencing at the west and Sir Charles Tupper at the east, went through the country and preached the national policy. The people of Nova Scotia and of the Dominion took them at their word, and they were swept into power in 1878. In 1879 they brought down that tariff affording us adequate protection for coal. In 1883 they commenced the bounties on iron and steel. The legislation providing for bounties on iron and steel was introduced by the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster), who was Finance Minister, in 1891, and during those eighteen years the development of the mineral resources of the province of Nova Scotia was an established fact. It only required the continuation of the fostering care of the Liberal-Conservative administration to secure the growth, development and extension of these industries. It is quite true that up to 1896 the output of these mines was not so large as to warrant the shipment of coal in winter. Some of the mines banked .more coal and some less; some none at all, and so at some of the collieries of Nova Scotia work during the winter fell off considerably, with the result, as the hon. member for Victoria quite rightly said, the miners for four and sometimes six months in the year were unable to find employment about the colieries. But they were enabled to make their daily bread the year around ; they brought up and reared about them large families and enjoyed as good a measure of prosperity as they do to-day. What is their position to-day? It is practically true that for eight or nine or ten years the miners of Nova Scotia have been afforded 1 employment for twelve months ot the year.

and if these twelve months were to be proportionately as remunerative as their employment during the months they were at work prior to 1896, you would expect that, having their employment practically doubled, they would be twice as well off. That, however, is not the case. In the county of Cape Breton the miners do not own their own homes; they live in company's houses; they trade in company's stores, and it is safe to say that at least 30 per cent of them have never known for the last seven years what it is to be out of debt in the company's books. Striking instances have been brought to my attention time and time again. There are at least hundreds of instances where the indebtedness of a family in the books of a coal company in Cape Breton aggregate from $600 to $1,000. If the condition of the miners in Nova Scotia was deplorable before 1896 because they were able to work only six, seven or eight months in the year, but were still able to make a livelihood, I submit that they were very much better off, having the additional four or five months off to improve their minds, than they are to-day when they are able to work for twelve months but are still in the unfortunate position I have described. I am not viewing their position from any pessi mistic point of view. I would be very sorry indeed, coming from amongst them as I do, to make their case out as worse than it is, but I have been brought in personal contact with so many instances such as I have described that I cannot allow the opportunity to go by without pointing out that the condition of the miner of Nova Scotia is to-day not as good as it was pervious to 1896, notwithstanding that the men are now able to work for twelve months in the year. I have brought these matters to the attention of the government. The Minister of Finance in a by-election in the county of Cape Breton in 1896, he being then premier of Nova Scotia, seemed to have very little sympathy with the coal duties as enjoyed by the operators of Nova Scotia. I do not wish to be understood as a suppliant on behalf of the mine operators in Nova Scotia, because as a class I do not think Boswell ever slobbered over Johnston as abjectly as the mine operators of Nova Scotia as a class fawned over the government in power, whether it be Liberal or Conservative. This was true of them previous to 1896, and it is true now. Thus it is not out of any feeling I have for the coal operators of Nova Scotia, but rather out of feeling for those who are employed that I speak. Their interests are so interwoven and so closely associated with those of the coal operators that it seems to me the government should introduce some remedy to relieve the situation in connection with coal in the province of Nova Scotia.	i


James William Maddin: As I observed a few moments ago, the Finance Minister was not so friendly to the coal operators of Nova Beotia in 1896. He was wont to say, according to the ' Morning Chronicle,' speaking in Temperance hall, Sydney, in 1896, that if the coal industry of Nova Scotia could not exist without duties let them close down the mines. I have quoted to you the tele?: gram sent out by the right hon. Prime Minister to the hon. member for Pictou on the 18th June, 1896. I have referred you to the observations of the hon. member for Pictou in the local legislature in 1898 when he said. that for a government to be able to pose as the conservators of the coal industry they should impose^ a duty on anthracite as well as on bituminous coal. I have pointed out the observations of the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria. When the right hon. Prime Minister went to the country in the last general election he had for his slogan 'Let Laurier finish his work.' Inferenti-allv. I presume, he is not going to the country again in person or at the head of his party to seek re-election for another term in power. I have pointed out that the coal industry of Nova Scotia is now in need of the guardianship which he promised to give it in 1896. I believe from the observations of the press and of the Prime Minister that he is not going to the country again, and therefore I would urge upon him and his administration that they study carefully the needs of the coal interests in Nova Scotia. I believe that we are not again to have the spectacle of the Prime Minister leading his party in another election. No longer are we to see him as, on the 2nd of October last, we saw him in the county of Russell with his political stock in trade, leading in the van himself with his beaming countenance and sunny smile, speaking the liquid and dulcet language of diplomacy and accompanied by his Irish Catholic Secretary of State, good natured, genial and gentlemanly, and the rear brought up by the Highland Scotch bagpipers of the city of Ottawa. I believe that we are_ not to see a pageantry of this kind again in the political history of Canada, and I would therefore urge upon the Prime Minister-


Mr. McKENZIE.: You do not expect to die before the next election?


James William Maddin: I expect to be very much in the flesh. I would urge upon the Prime Minister that he carefully consider the observations which I have submitted this evening. I have quoted the remarks of hon. gentlemen who support him. The Prime Minister has the Finance Minister from Nova Scotia, he has the hon. member for Pictou and the hon. member for Cape Breton North. These are all great conservators of the coal industry of Nova Scotia and I would ask them and the gov-

ernment: 'What are you going to do about it?' There is no doubt the coal industry has substantially fallen off and as one of the best evidences that the miners of Cape Breton are not enjoying the wonted and boasted prosperity I need only mention that Dominion No. 6 mine has closed down during February and March, or partially closed down. The mine had not been idle three weeks until public subscriptions were called for and the clergy and members of the local legislature were called upon to form committees to provide relief for miners in that community. Hardly a week passes but there are instances of distress brought to the attention of the authorities in the mining towns of Nova Scotia. So much in regard to the coal question.
The hon. member for Queens, Prince Edward Island (Mr. Warburton), while discussing the budget, just preceding me, spoke of the emigration that took place when the Liberal-Conservatives were in power. He said that it was quite a common thing for the people to leave the farms and the country, but that now they were coming back to us. Under the wise administration of this government the people were coming back to their native heath, were coming once again to Canadian soil. There was no one so well able to depict the sad consequences of the flight from the maritime provinces of the people to the United States as the hon. member for Pictou. I have heard him, with a great deal of pleasure, in the most unctuous tones describing the aged pair saying the family devotions and praying for the return of their beloved ones, and he prophesied that this was going to take place as soon as the Liberal party were in power. But the hon. member for Queens has endeavoured to show us that the people are flocking back again to the land of their birth. In 1908 $2,000,000 worth of household effects were shipped into the United States from Canada. What does that mean? It means that $2,000,000 worth of familv effects followed the families there that have gone over to the stars and stripes, and if you take into consideration the large number of young men and young women who have gone and taken no family effects with them, you will have some idea of the extent to which emigration from this country is going on even at the present time. I do not know how it is in the province of the hon. member for Queens, but I can assure him and this House that the people are not rushing and flocking back to Nova Scotia from the United States. There are hundreds and thousands of vacant farms in Nova Scotia, and these have been continually increasing in number from 1896 down to the present time. An effort is being made by the local government to induce settlers to come_ to Nova Scotia, but when one bears in_ mind that there are more Nova Scotians in the
state of Massachusetts than there are in Nova Scotia one can form some idea of the extent to which the population of the maritime provinces has been depleted by immigration to that country. I take issue with the hon. member for Queens when he sa^s that the people are rushing back. Since 1896 we have lost two representatives from Nova Scotia because we did not have population enough to enable us to retain our representation in parliament. Formerly we enjoyed twenty members, but now we have only eighteen, and this is the most striking evidence one could have as to the falling off in population i" Nova Scotia.
There is one other matter that I would like to direct the attention of the government to in connection with this debate and it has reference to the English mail boats,
I would like to urge upon the government the desirability of having the English mail boats call at Sydney harbour during the summer months. I submit that during the past two years, when these boats have called at North Sydney, the experiment has demonstrated the advisability, the sureness and shortness of that route as compared with any other route that these boats could take. I would urge it for the further reason that it would help the Intercolonial Railway which seems to be an eye-sore to some of our friends from the upper province. The English mail boats discharge the mails at Halifax in winter, and there is no good reason why they should not drop the Nova Scotia freight there as well. I can see no reason why the subsidized steamers which carry the mails for eastern Canada and the freight for the different provinces should proceed to St. John after simply dropping the mails at Halifax What earthly reason can there be why they should not put off at Halifax the freight for Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island? The common practice at present is that the freight goes through to the city of St. John, where it is dis charged, and the St. John wholesale houses are able to put their goods on the Halifax market before the Halifax wholesale dealer gets his goods which come on the same steamer. It seems that when the steamer arrives in St. John and the freight is put on shore there, the Canadian Pacific Railway in their anxiety to expedite the traffic for the west throw the eastern freight aside; and the St. John freight is taken possession of promptly by the merchants of that city, while the Nova Scotia freight is subsequently sent over the Intercolonial Railway at an additional freight expense of 50 cents per ton to the consumers of Nova Scotia. That is a hardship and it is a discrimination against the merchants of Nova Scotia for which there is no excuse. I beg to submit further that during that period of the year when the Cabot straits are free

from ice, the boats should make North Sydney a port of call, which would result in the landing of quite a number of passengers and a good deal of freight there, and incidentally benefit the Intercolonial Railway.


Mr. D. B. NEELY (Humboldt).: Mr. Speaker:	When the Minister of Finance
made his budget speech the other day the furthest thing from my thoughts was that I should take any part in this discussion, but, as the debate went on certain statements were made in connection with western questions, which as a representative of a western constituency I feel it my duty to challenge, and which I shall undertake to prove were absolutely unfounded and misleading. Let me in the first place congratulate the Minister of Finance and the government on the very excellent financial statement which has been presented to the House. Of course the opposition members do not take the optimistic view of things which we on the government side take, but, realizing as we all must the financial depression that has existed for the last two or three years not only in Canada but throughout the world, it is a remarkable thing that notwithstanding the falling off in our revenue and notwithstanding the heavy expenditures made by this government for the building of railways, especially in western Canada, the Minister of Finance was able to announce to the House a surplus instead of a deficit. And, Sir, in view of. what the government of Canada have been doing for the 'development of the west and the encouragement ot immigration and the consequent necessary expenditures, if the Minister of Finance had come to this House with a deficit instead of a surplus he would have met with no condemnation from the large majority of the people west of Lake Superior. We all know that under the Conservative government if a railway was to be built in any part of the west it received aid from the government in the form of bonuses and land grants, and it is notorious that a large part of the heritage of the people of the west was given away by the Conservative government for the purpose of aiding in the construction of railways1. But when the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier came into power it had a different policy and that policy was to pledge the credit of all Canada in aid of railways which were absolutely necessary for the development of our great prairie provinces. As a result of that eminently satisfactory policy the country has the railways and the people have the land. The hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Glen Campbell) who I am glad to see is in his seat, undertook to question the statement of the Minister of Finance that the policy of this government was the land for the settler, Mr. MADDIN.
and he claimed that since the Liberals came to power they had been prodigal and profligate in giving away the lands of the people in aid of railway construction. I do not know where the hon. gentleman got his information, but I propose to enlighten him, and I suppose he is open to enlightenment. When the hon. gentleman (Mr. Campbell) made that statement I had a very strong impression that it was not correct, and the result of my inquiry since has been that the very contrary is the case, and that this government has not given away the lands of western Canada to railway corporations. It is true that under this government lands have been selected for railways, but in every instance these were lands that were given to the railways during the regime of the Conservative government. In this House last year, the Minister of the Interior dealt with this very question of western lands in answer to a series of questions which were put by the hon. member for Strathcona (Mr. Wilbert McIntyre), to be found in 'Hansard' of 1908, volume 4, at page 8182, in regard to lands in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, granted as bonuses to railways by the government of Canada previous to the 30th of June, 1896, and those given away since that date; and in answer to these questions the Minister of the Interior made the following statement:
1.	The total acreage in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in odd numbered sections of lands granted to railways before the 30th June, 1896, was 29,550,179 acres.
2.	The total acreage in even numbered sections granted to railways before the 30th June, 1896, was 2,212,775 acres.
3.	The acreage in odd numbered sections of land granted to railways since the 30th June, 1896, to 1st November, 1907-none.
4.	The acreage in even numbered sections granted to railways since the 30th June, 1896, to 1st November, 1907-none.
5.	The acreage of add nuubered sections otherwise disposed of before the 30th June, 1896, was:
Classed as swamp lands.. ..	453,647 acs. est.
Surveyed school lands	 4,375,200 " "
Other lands	 3,155.056 " "
Total	 7,984,803 "	"
6.	The acreage of even numbered sections disposed of before the 30th June. 1896, otherwise than as homesteads with Hudson Bay
Company as excluded was:
Classed as swamp lands.. ..	453,647 acs. est.
As sub. railway lands	 2,212,775 " "
Other lands	 2,475,485 " "
Total	 5,141,907	"	"
7.	The acreage of odd numbered sections otherwise disposed of since the 30th June, 1896, to 1st November, 1907, is:
Classed as swamp	lands.. ..	688,308	acs.	est.Surveyed school lands	
1,951,500	"	"Other lands	
1,402,988	"	"Total	
4,042,796
8.	The acreage of even numbered sections disposed of otter than as homesteads with Hudson Bay Company land excluded since the 30tli June 1896 to 1st November, 1907, is:
Classed as swamp lands	 688,308	acres.
As subsidies railway lands.. None.
Other lands	
2,240,505	"Total	
2,928,813	"9.	The acreage of Indian reserves surrendered and sold before the 30th June, 1896, is 17,828 acres.10.	The acreage of Indian reserves surren-cb red and sold since the 30th June, 1896, to 1st November, 1907, is 198,987 acres.11.	The total acreage in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta covered by homestead entries and pre-emptions with cancellations deducted before the 30th June, 1896, is:Pre-emptions	
1,712,960 acres.Homesteads	
6,208,440 "Total	
7,921,400	"12.	The acreage covered by homestead entries and pre-emptions with cancellations deducted since the 30th June, 1896, to the 1st November, 1907, is:Pre-emptions	
None.Homesteads	
23,592,590 acres.
Of course, this return only brings the figures down to the 1st of November, 1907, and I have not heard that the government lias since that date made any land grants to railways in western Canada, while with regard to the lands given to settlers in western Canada by this government up to date, I am free to say that the amount mentioned in the return falls very far short of the mark. This is the answer to the statement made by an hon. member in this House that this government had been giving away the lands of western Canada to railway corporations. So far as that is true, it has been in consequence of contracts entered into by the preceding government, which this government was in honour bound to carry out. The hon. member for Dauphin also undertook to attack the bargain that was made by this government with the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company.


Mr. CAMPBELL.: The Saskatchewan Valley and Manitoba Land Company.


David Bradley Neely: The 250,000 acres referred to were disposed of, if my information is correct, to the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company. The hon. gentleman found fault with the government for having, as he stated, disposed of this land for the paltry sum of $1 per acre, leading the House by inference to believe that the government had granted a very great concession to the men who formed that company. The hon. gentleman might just as well tell the House that when the government allows an actual settler to go to a Dominion land office anywhere in western Canada and obtain a quarter-section of land for the insignificant sum of $10, he is getting that
land for a ten dollar bill, whereas the hon. member and every other member of this House knows that the actual homesteader doe's not acquire the patent of his homestead by the spending of a $10 bill, but only by fulfilling the homestead regulations as to residence and cultivation duties. They call for a certain amount of expenditure in each year during three years before the homesteader can get his patent. The hon. gentleman knows that when the bargain was made by which the government disposed to the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company 250,000 acres at $1 an acre, there were conditions attached. That company bound itself to perform a certain amount of immigration work. It obliged itself to settle 32 actual settlers in every township in which its lands were located, and the hon. gentleman ought to know that before that company ever succeeded in putting a homesteader on a quarter-section of that 250,000 acres, it had to spend, not a few dollars, but many thousands. So that to say that the company obtained the land for $250,000 is absolutely wide of the mark, and I am happy to have this opportunity of enlightening the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Glen Campbell). No doubt the hon. gentleman made statements similar to those he has made in this House to the people in the constituency of Dauphin who, being situated a considerable distance from the locality where these lands were situated, were without better information than the hon. gentleman gave them. It is no wonder, therefore that he should sit in this House as a representative of a constituency in Manitoba. He sits here by virtue of such statements made in the last election in connection with this Saskatchewan Valley Land Company contract.
Regarding that contract, I have just this to say. While the hon. gentleman and others of the same political stripe have made the statement in this House and on the public platform that this was a bad bargain, it seems to me that the people of that part of the country directly interested ought to be the better judges as to the quality of that bargain. Well, I am fairly familiar with the conditions that existed there before these lands were turned over to that company. Not more than eight or ten years ago, you might take a train on the Saskatchewan, Qu'Ap-pelle and Long Lake Railway, which runs from Regina to Prince Albert, and after you had left Regina some twenty or thirty miles, you would travel through that country for a distance of 125 to 150 miles and you would see perhaps a coyote or gopher or other animals that inhabit the unpopulated prairie, but you would look in vain for actual settlers. To-day, however, that country is inhabited by thousands of settlers, home-1 steaders and others, who have taken up

lands and aie living on them. The conditions along that line of railway at the time the government made this contract were such as I have described. Why was that country not then settled? Why is it settled to-day? People went to that country through the efforts of the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company and made homes there for themselves and are prospering, so that instead of a bare desert, we find thousands of people now located there and cultivating profitable farms. But how comes it that that country lay barren so long? One of the reasons was that the railway company gave it a black eye by refusing to accept the lands given it as a bonus for building the lines from Begina to Prince Albert. The company refused because they said the lands were not fit for settlement and therefore did not meet the terms of the contract under which they undertook to build the railway. That was the condition of things when the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company was offered the land and purchased it from this government at $1 an acre, subject to the settlement duties I have described. And to-day if that country is well settled, it is due to the energetic colonizing efforts of the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company. If the people of that district believed that this was a bad bargain, if they thought that this government had given away the heritage of the people, surely we would find those people to-day strongly opposing the government which put through that bargain. Yet my hon. friend from Dauphin (Mr. Glen. Campbell), who took some small part in the provincial elections in Saskatchewan last August, will bear me out when I tell him that every provincial constituency along the line of that railway from Prince Albert South in which this land is situated, returned last August	a supporter	of the	Hon.
Walter Scott. Surely that is sufficient answer to the hon.	gentleman. At
any rate it was perfectly satisfactory to the Liberal party last August and an effective reply to those who were seeking, during that campaign, to traduce the character of the Premier of Saskatchewan-a man, who, so far as honesty and integrity are concerned, has not his superior in the Dominion to-day. In that connection I wish to say that I deplore and resent the attempt made in this House by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Glen Campbell) to besmirch the fair fame of the Premier of Saskatchewan.


Glenlyon Campbell: Might I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Does he, as a man and a gentleman, on his honour, mean to tell this House that he honestly believes that Walter Scott did not get the certificate of stock I spoke of?


David Bradley Neely: The hon. gentleman does not need to put me on my honour in order to get me to make a true statement. But to gratify him, I will say on my honour Mr. NEELY.
that I do not believe for one moment that
Walter Scott, the Premier of Saskatchewan, ever received one share or one dollar's worth of stock, and I want to say further that I have the word of Mr. Scott himself, in that connection and the sworn affidavit, right in my possession, of officers of that company, who state that neither in the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company nor the company formed to handle the Canadian Northern lands, the Saskatchewan and Manitoba Land Company, does Mr. Scott hold or did he ever hold one dollar's worth or one share of stock.


Glenlyon Campbell: Perhaps I may be allowed to interject a remark. What I said on Friday night with regard to the Hon. Walter Scott and his getting a certificate of stock in the way I stated is, to my knowledge, as far as a man can believe his eyes and believe his ears, absolutely correct and true.


David Bradley Neely: When the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Campbell) undertakes to make statements of that kind, he ought not to ask this House to accept his bare statement; he ought to bring some substantial proof. If he brings that proof, every hon. member will be compelled to believe his statement. But, on the other side, we have the declaration of Hon. Walter Scott himself. I have also the sworn declarations of Mr. A. D. McRae, secretary and treasurer of the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company, and the statement of Colonel Davidson, one of the chief officers. And I say that when this charge was made in the provincial elections in Saskatchewan :ast August, notwithstanding the fact that one of these gentlemen is a supporter of the party to which my hon. friend from Dauphin belongs, when he saw these statements in the Conservative press of Saskatchewan, he came forward like a man and a gentleman and gave an affidavit that these statements were absolutely false.


Glenlyon Campbell: If I have permission to sneak, I would like to say a word concerning the hon. gentleman's (Mr. Neely) statement that proof is necessary. I give as proof this fact-that when Hon. Walter Scott knew that the charge was made on the platform, and made over the signature of one of the directors of that company, he went to the length of telegraphing up to Balcarres to have that man arrested. His friends did not arrest the man. Yet Hon. Walter Scott, knowing that his name was besmirched publicly up there, has not to this moment dared to institute any proceedings against the man I speak of, the man who handed him the certificate of stock personally.


David Bradley Neely: And I want to repeat that the reason the Hon. Walter Scott did not prosecute the men and newspapers who

made that chaTge was that these men and newspapers withdrew the charge.


Glenlyon Campbell: This charge was not withdrawn and never will be withdrawn.


David Bradley Neely: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. gentleman (Mr. Campbell) has had an excellent opportunity to explain his position on this question-


Glenlyon Campbell: Thank you; I appreciate it.
Mr. NEELY-I want to say that the charge was withdrawn.


Glenlyon Campbell: I rise to a point of order. I stated absolutely, and as a member of this House, that the charge I referred to had never been withdrawn.


Mr. SPEAKER.: The question is one of fact of which I am not competent to judge as between the hon. gentlemen. It is customary for members of the House to accept a statement made by another member.


David Bradley Neely: I am not stating that I do not believe that the hon. gentleman thinks he is telling the truth when he is making this statement. I am simply contradicting the assertion. The hon. gentleman said he believed that


Glenlyon Campbell: I state that I know it.


David Bradley Neely: I state that I believe absolutely the contrary, and I s$e no reason why my word should not be taken as well as that of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Campbell). I have documents here to show that the charge was withdrawn by Conservative newspapers of the province. For instance, there was the Saskatoon ' Capital,' the chief Conservative organ of the central part of Saskatchewan. When Mt. McRae went to this newspaper for the purpose of giving his affidavit that Hon. Walter Scott never had stock in the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company, they said to Mr. McRae, ' Oh, we made a mistake; we are on the wrong track; what we meant was the Saskatchewan Valley and Manitoba Land Company,' -which was an altogether different proposition ; it was not the company that obtained 250,000 acres from this government but a concern organized for the purpose of handling Mackenzie and Mann lands, the Canadian Northern lands, throughout western Canada.


Mr. W. H. SHARPE (Lisgar).: Is it not
practically the same thing ?


David Bradley Neely: The hon. gentleman (Mr. W. H. Sharpe) represents a western constituency and he ought to know that it is not. Some of the same men belong to both companies, but the Saskatchewan Valley and Manitoba Land Company never obtained any concessions from this government, and if the Hon. Walter Scott had held stock
in that company, if he had been given stock in that company or even bought stock or had an interest in it, that was nothing to his discredit.


Glenlyon Campbell: That is the charge I made, that Hon. Walter Scott accepted $10,000 worth of stock in the Saskatchewan Valley and Manitoba Land Company.


David Bradley Neely: That has nothing to do with his position as member of the House. And I say it is not a fair proposition to talk in this way on the basis of rumours that are heard on the streets, in the highways, byways and alleys.


William Henry Sharpe: I rise to a point of order. I claim that the hon. member (Mr. Neely) is not discussing what the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Campbell) spoke about. What that hon. gentleman said was that Hon. Walter Scott had received this stock from the Saskatchewan Valley and Manitoba Land Company.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: A point of order must refer to an infraction of a rule of the House.


David Bradley Neely: What I have said is, that, apart from their withdrawal, if these statements had been believed by the electors of the province of Saskatchewan, we should not have had the result so eminently satisfactory to the government, and to its hon. leader, Hon. Walter Scott, that was obtained in the election in August last. And I want to say this, that when the people of that part of the country went to the polls, when they endorsed the action of the government in disposing of this quantity of land to the Saskatchewan Valley Land_ Company, they went of their own free will. And I would say in this connection that, when the people of Saskatchewan want to vote, they always have the privilege according to the election law of our province. We have not a padded list such as our information leads us to believe they possess in the province from which my hon. friend comes and in the constituency which he; represents.


Glenlyon Campbell: I rise to a point of order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I think that statement should be withdrawn.


Glenlyon Campbell: Withdraw it at once.


David Bradley Neely: I wish to keep within the rules, and I was not aware that a reference to the lists of Manitoba would be out of order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I think that, used in the circumstances as referring to an hon. member coming from that province, who would be elected on a padded list, the expression was clearly not parliamentary.


David Bradley Neely: I am not stating that the hon. gentleman was responsible for these lists.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Take it back.


David Bradley Neely: I have not made that statement.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I think the hon. gentleman had better withdraw the statement.


David Bradley Neely: As far the hon. gentleman is concerned, I am quite willing to withdraw the statement but I still must say, Sir, and this surely will not reflect on the hon. gentleman himself, that the electors of the province of Saskatchewan, if I must not speak of the lists, when they go to the polls are not met by officers of the Attorney General's department of that province and practically intimidated in a great many cases.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Glenlyon Campbell: I rise to a point of order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: State your point of order.


Glenlyon Campbell: My point of order is a reflection cast by the hon. gentleman-


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh. Rats.
Mr. CAMPBELL-on the lists on which members were elected.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I do not think there is any point of order.


Glenlyon Campbell: Intimidation, he says.


David Bradley Neely: I want to say that it is a rather difficult thing for the hon gentleman or for any hon. gentleman who knows what actually happened in a great many of the constituencies of Manitoba, I dare not say all or the hon. gentleman would probably rise to another point of order, but in a great many constituencies in Manitoba the machinery of justice, the Attorney-General's Department of that province, was prostituted and debased for the purpose of securing the return of the Conservative candidates from the different constituencies.


Mr. STAPLES.: Mr. Speaker, I beg
leave to ask the hon. gentleman to mention one place in which that happened.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman having the floor can only be interrupted by his own consent except on a point of order. The hon member has no right to interrupt him.


William D. Staples: When I asked a question and the hon. gentleman, having the floor Mr. SPEAKER.
resumed his seat, I assumed I had his consent. I repeat the question and ask for an answer.


David Bradley Neely: I am quite willing to give the hon. gentleman an answer. If the hon. gentleman will read the newspapers of the City of Winnipeg


An hon. MEMBER.: The ' Free Press? '


David Bradley Neely: Any of them, after the election of October 26 last, he will see wherein the Attorney General of the province was humiliated to the extent of having good substantial boot leather applied to the unmentionable part of his anatomy for the way in which he had interfered with the rights of the people in connection with the election, I think that ought to be sufficient answer to the question. I am quite willing to give any hon. gentleman opportunity to ask all sorts of questions but I do not propose to become an encyclopaedia for him. I have given him the information he has asked on this point and I am not lacking for information. Instances can be multiplied where the machinery of justice in that province was prostituted for the ends which I have indicated.


William D. Staples: I challenge the hon. gentleman


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: Order.


David Bradley Neely: Hearing these statements made by the hon. member for Dauphin in connection with these transactions, especially the Saskatchewan Valley land transaction, and the way in which he attempted to bring before this House rumours that he said were circulated through Saskatchewan during the August election in connection with the good name of the premier of that province, I do not wonder that he sits in this House representing a constituency and that the late member for Dauphin fell by the wayside, if the hon. gentleman used those methods and made those statements on the platform in his own constituency during the late election.


Glenlyon Campbell: I rise to a point of order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: What is the point of order?


Glenlyon Campbell: The point .of order is an insinuation thrown out


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: Order.


Glenlyon Campbell: And a misstatement made by the hon. gentleman who is speaking.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I fail to see that there is any infraction of a rule of the House in what he has said.


Glenlyon Campbell: There is a misstatement.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I do not see any point of order and I failed to see any misstatement.


Glenlyon Campbell: He said I based my attack on an hon. gentleman on rumours. If he will take the trouble to read ' Hansard ' he will see that what I said was not on a mere idle rumour, I did not say it was rumour, I said I had it from the man who handed the certificate of stock to Walter Scott, signed in blank. That is no idle rumour.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: If I understood the hon. member he referred to another matter, he referred to the late member for Dauphin, another member altogether.


Glenlyon Campbell: Oh, he is dead now.


David Bradley Neely: Well, Mr. Speaker, the dead have been known to come to life again and the hon. member may find that out on some future day. The hon. gentleman says that I accused him of bringing rumours before this House. The hon. member makes practically the same charge against a member of this House whom he did not see fit to name, at least he made the same statement in connection with what he had heard about an hon. member of this House as against the Hon. Walter Scott. If the hon. gentleman has the excellent and absolute proof he tells the House about, why does he not rise in his place and bring his charge like a man against the hon. member whom he says is guilty of this corrupt transaction? The Hon. Walter Scott, Premier of Saskatchewan, was formerly a member of this House. He is no longer here to defend himself against statements of this kind, but the hon. member of this House mentioned is presumably here and if the hon. gentleman has the kind of proof that he says he has, why does he not rise in his place and on his honour as a member lay a charge against that gentleman and have him expelled from this House for a corrupt transaction? I understand it to be the case that in the election of last October in the constituency of Dauphin, which the hon. member represents, the hon. member went even further than that to besmirch the good name of this government in connection with so-called graft charges that were made so extensively throughout the length and breadth of Canada by the Conservative party on the platform and in the press during that election. I am told, Sir, that the hon. gentleman who represents Dauphin, during the election campaign, on the public platforms throughout his own constituency, made the statement that in order to get a closed grazing lease from the Department of the Interior for the firm of Brown, Beddington and Company, in which the hon. gentleman is interested, he had to spend $2,000 in bribing a high official of the Department of the
Interior. This hon. gentleman, this self-confessed briber, if these statements are true, and I give the hon. gentleman the privilege of denying that they are true-


Glenlyon Campbell: I want to tell this House that I have never in my life applied for any right or franchise from this government or any other gov


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Go on and make your statement.
Mr. CAMPBELL

that any other man,
Liberal or Conservative, did not have the absolute right to make application for.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Did you make the statement?


Glenlyon Campbell: If the hon. gentleman wants information in regard to anything-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Answer that question. Did you make the statement?


David Bradley Neely: I rise to a point of order. I he hon. gentleman is not making a statement in answer to the question.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman is making a statement and he should be heard.


Glenlyon Campbell: If the hon. gentleman wants an answer to his question I will give the same answer to the question here that I gave on the public platform in Dauphin when the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton) was there supporting his brother-in-law. I think that these two hon. gentlemen knew all about the matter as well as I knew about it, and if they choose to give away the name of the official they are welcome to do it.


David Bradley Neely: I am sure the members of this House will agree with me that a lamer statement in answer to a straight and direct question was never given by a member of this House. The hon. gentleman evades the point at issue. If he has in-(formation that a grazing lease covering lands in western Saskatchewan was obtained by any company by a corrupt method that he does not deny, I say it is his duty, now that he has been elected by the people of his constituency to represent them in this House, to represent western Canada and all Canada, to put that information in the hands of the Minister of the Interior that the official may be properly punished for his conduct in accepting such a bribe. But, if it is true that the hon gentleman made the statement that he had to spend $2,000 to bribe an official in the Interior Department surely it comes with very bad grace from the hon gentleman who admits himself to be a briber of government officials, to get up here and besmirch the fair name of the honoured premier of the province pf Saskatchewan. These statements made by the hon. mem-

ber for Dauphin in the late election were brought to the attention of the Minister of the Interior who, speaking at McLeod on the 1st of October, or thereabouts, made this statement:
Mr. Campbell now said that he had to bribe an official with $2,000 in connection with procuring the lease. Such a vague statement on the eve of an election was not good enough. Mr. Campbell to be believed, must name the official and give proof of the bribery. If Mr. Campbell did this he, as Minister of Interior, undertook that if the official was in the service of the department he would not be there a minute after the bribery had been established. Mr. Campbell must either prove this charge, naming the offender, or withdraw. If he did neither, he was merely a despicable slanderer.
That was a challenge that was thrown out by the Minister of the Interior at this hon. gentleman and at the statements that he understood the hon. gentleman was making to the people of his constituency. I repeat that the position taken by the Minister of the Interior on that occasion was an absolutely correct position. If we examine into the statements that were made in connection with the lands given to railways in Manitoba I think we will find they are equally as correct as the statements made in connection with the lands disposed of by this government in the province of Saskatchewan. The hon. gentleman refers, at page 4992 of ' Hansard,' and the hon. gentleman can find it for himself, to a grant of land that was given many years ago to a railway which was supposed to be built from Winnipeg in the direction of Hudson bay, and complains bitterly of the fact that the Manitoba government were unable to secure these lands from this government, and that these lands were eventually turned over to Mackenzie & Mann, the promoters of the Canadian Northern Railway, who took over this proposed Hudson Bay Railway. Although the hon. gentleman comes from Manitoba he seems to be very poorly informed even on the question of land in his own province. I would like to say to the hon. gentleman that the statement he made in this House the.other day, as far as the facts of that statement in connection with these lands are concerned, is quite misleading. The history of this land grant dates back to the time in Manitoba when Mr. Norquay was the premier of that province. A certain gentleman by the name of Hugh Sutherland, of Winnipeg, obtained a charter to build a railway to Hudson bay. He got from the federal government, not this government, Mr. Speaker, but the government that preceded it, the Conservative government, a land grant of 6,400 acres for every mile of this railway that should be built. This company found that they could not finance the build-Mr. NEELY.
ing of the road on the land grant that was to be given them by the federal government of that day. So, they went to the Manitoba government and said:	'We want
you to finance this road; we want you to take over these lands that are to be ours as soon as we earn them, that are to be given us by the federal government and we want you to place your bonds on the market.' The Norquay government of Manitoba did as the railway company suggested. And, with the usual stupidity of Tory governments this Tory government of Manitoba actually handed over the bonds of the province to this railway company before they had earned the lands, and before the Federal government had inspected the road and approved of it. The result was that when the provincial government came to the Federal government and said _ the company had assigned to them their rights to these lands, they were met with the reply from Sir John Macdonald that the lands had not been earned by the railway company and therefore could not be assigned. And so, through this blunder on the part of the Tory government of Manitoba there was lost to the province some $250,000, the value of these bonds. As time went on the Greenway government came into power in Manitoba, and MacKenzie and Mann, the promoters of the Canadian Northern who in the meantime had acquired the charter and rights of the Hudson Bay Railway Company came to the Greenway government for assistance for the building of other branch lines. The answer they received from Mr. Greenway was that when they had undertaken the construction, of this Hudson Bay road and when they had earned this grant of land from the. Federal government, then, if the Greenway government would give them any aid to build branch lines through Manitoba they must contract and agree to hand over 256,000 acres\ of land to the province, and so in this way the Greenway government made provision to correct the blunder committed by the previous Conservative government. The House will readily see that this was a question between the railway companies interested and the Manitoba government and that the Federal government had nothing to do with it. As time went on a new combination of statesmen, a new type of politicians took up the helm in Manitoba, and instead of compelling MacKenzie and Mann to live up to the terms of the agreement tney had made with the Greenway government and turn over 256,000 acres of land, we- find this new Conservative government in Manitoba selling their right and their title to these lands back to MacKenzie and Mann for the paltry sum of $1.54 per acre, for lands which at that time were worth from $5 to $10 an acre. Here was another in-

stance where, through the mismanagement of a Tory government, the province of Manitoba lost a large sum of money. Surely, before the hon. gentleman (Mr. Glen Campbell) again undertakes to charge the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier with squandering western lands he had better learn something of the history of his political friends in the province of Manitoba. Let it be remembered that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Campbell) sat tor some years in the legislature of Manitoba as a supporter of the Roblin-Rogers government which, as we know, has a world-wide reputation in connection with transactions in public lands and public assets. It is a well known fact throughout western Canada that since the Roblin government came to power it has squandered the heritage of the people of Manitoba. My hon. friend (Mr. Campbell) sat in the legislature of Manitoba supporting the Roblin government when the premier of that province actually put a Bill through the House guaranteeing the bonds of a line of railway into a sand pit owned by himself.


Glenlyon Campbell: Does the hon. gentleman know as to the truth of what he says now?


David Bradley Neely: Most assuredly I vouch for the truth of what is common and public property, stated in the public press, discussed in the legislature and so far as I know not denied.


Glenlyon Campbell: I can tell the hon. gentleman something with regard to that which he perhaps would like to know.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I cannot allow any interruption of that kind except with the consent of the hon. member who has the floor.


David Bradley Neely: Well, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Campbell) will have an opportunity to reply through some of his friends from the province of Manitoba, who, if they wish, can later on take up the cudgels in his behalf. Surely, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Campbell) is the last man, who, if he has any regard for consistency, should undertake to charge this government with profligacy in their dealings with the lands of western Canada. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Campbell) further undertook to score this government for, as he alleged, their extravagance in the manner in which the contract for the National Transcontinental Railway was being put through. I venture to say that the hon. gentleman had very little to say in criticism of the government policy in regard to the construction of the National Transcontinental Railway when he appeared before the electors of Dauphin last October. In my own constituency the gentleman who opposed me in the Conservative interest
had as the principal plank in his platform the early completion of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and the immediate construction of the Hudson Bay Railway, and I have no doubt that the sentiment in Dauphin would be very much the same on these questions as the sentiment in Humboldt; and I wish to say that the people of western Canada are glad to know that, notwithstanding the financial depression and the various difficulties in the way of the completion of this great project, the government are coming to the aid of the Grand Trunk Pacific Company and are going to see that that great national undertaking is carried to a successful conclusion.
I have here some facts which I have up ln re2ard to the statement which the hon. gentleman made as to the excessive price paid for ties by the National transcontinental Commission; but I just wish to say that, as I understand, every one of these contracts was let by tender, the lowest tender being accepted in every case, and even then on certain sections of the radway the contractors found the greatest difficulty in securing ties in sufficient quantities to carry through the work.
Another statement which struck me as very strange coming from a man who represents a western constituency, was one which the hon. gentleman made in his discussion of the question of the tariff. These were his words:
On this side of the House, Sir, we call a spade a spade; we believe in protection and call it protection.
It is very evident that my hon. friend was not a member of this House during the last term of parliament, or he surely would not expect this House to accept his bald statement that his party stood for the principle of protection. It is true, the leader of his party stands for a policy of protection, but the hon. gentleman knows very well that the sentiment on the tariff question west of Lake Superior differs very materially from the sentiment of the people living east of Lake Superior. The hon. gentleman knows very well what the view of the people of western Canada is on the question of the tariff. It is true that the election is over, and the hon. gentleman is very courageous. It will be another four or five years before he will have to appeal to the electors of Dauphin, or else I believe he would not have the temerity to stand on the floor of this House and say that he is in favour of protection. Was that the position taken by the hon. gentleman's friends from the province of Manitoba in the last parliament? Surely he is not cognizant of what occurred at the last session but one of that parliament, when the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Schaffner) introduced a resolution proposing to reduce the tariff, not on all agricultural implements,

but on mowers and binders from 17J per cent to 10 per cent? The hon. member for Souris when he introduced his low tariff resolution on agricultural implements knew perfectly well that he was voicing the sentiment of the people west of Lake Superior. We know that in western Canada the farmer spends almost annually large sums of money for the purchase of these implements, and I have this to say to this House and to the government, that we who represent western constituencies and the people of western Canada feel that although this government has done something in the way of tariff reduction, that reduction has not gone far enough. As a representative of a western constituency, I am not going behind the government's back to say exactly what I think on this point. I said it to the people in my constituency in my election, and it met with their approval in every case, that while the duty on agricultural implements had been decreased, it had not been decreased sufficiently to equalize the burdens on all the people of Canada, including the western Canadian farmeT. When the hon. member for Souris brought in his resolution in the dying hours of the session of 1906-7, he was supported by the hon. member for Macdonald (Mr. Staples) and other Conservative members from the province of Manitoba. I wonder if the hon. member for Dauphin, when he got up and said that he called a spade a spade and that he was a protectionist and believed in protection, was aware of the attitude of these hon. gentlemen in moving that resolution?


Glenlyon Campbell: Yes, and I will vote for it, too; will you?


David Bradley Neely: I would most assuredly vote for any bona fide resolution brought before this House for the reduction of the tariff on agricultural implements. Now, I want to say this, that the hon. member for Souris, the hon. membeT for Macdonald and other hon. gentlemen representing Manitoba constituencies in the last parliament were very excellent judges of the sentiment of the people of their constituencies when they moved that resolution in the House. Did these hon. gentlemen expect to carry that resolution? Why, Sir, if they wanted to undertake the contract of having such a resolution passed in this House, if they wanted a majority of the members of this House converted to their views on that question, where would they have commenced that noble work of conversion? They would have commenced it, Sir, with the leader of the opposition himself. We know perfectly well that, in his last tour through the western provinces the hon. the leader of the opposition kept as far away from a thorough and a comprehensive discussion of the tariff as a good Mr. NEELY.
skater steers oleaT of thin ice. Why did he do so? Because he knew that his policy of adequate protection was so indefinite that it did not appeal to the people. He knew that the people of western Canada wanted a clear and unmistakable pronouncement, and that this hazy and indefinite policy was contrary to their views and ideas. That is the position in which hon. gentlemen opposite find themselves to-day. Why, on this very resolution proposed by my hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Schaffner)_ the leader of the opposition got up and said he could not support it. Did my hon. friend from Souris expect to carry that resolution when he proposed it? Why, he could not get even his own leader to support him. How comes it then that my hon. friend submitted that resolution at the time he did? I am not going to suggest motives, but I think I shall be in order in suggesting that at the time there was an election somewhere in sight not very far away.


An hon. MEMBER.: Two or three years.


David Bradley Neely: That may have been the case, but my hon. friend did not know it at the time. If the electors of the various constituencies in Manitoba were brought to believe that the hon. member for Souris and the other representatives from Manitoba were in good faith, if they believed that resolution was a bona fide one, submitted in the hope and expectation of getting the support of this House, is it any wonder that the province of Manitoba sent eight members to support the Conservative opp-sition in this House and only two to support the government?


Mr. SCHAFFNER.: I regret to have to interrupt my good friend. So far as my motives are concerned and the time it was brought in, that resolution was submitted the only time it could be, as an amendment to the tariff, and the motive was the honest one of obtaining the reduction it called for. I am prepared to vote for a similar motion, whoever may bring it in.


David Bradley Neely: I am surprised, since my hon. friend recognizes the importance, in the eyes of the people of the west, of a lower tariff, and since the party of which he is a member never, when they were in power, reduced the tariff on agricultural implements until they saw doom ahead of them, until they saw their political life about to end and since this government has made reductions in the tariff-I am surprised at the hon. member for Souris supporting the leader he does in this House. His position is not a consistent one, to say the least.


Richard Blain: How did tne leader of your party vote on that question?


David Bradley Neely: He voted according to his convictions.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Is the hon. gentleman consistent in supporting him?


David Bradley Neely: Has the hon. member for Lambton the floor or I? The hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Glen. Campbell) says he is in favour of protection. Surely he must have made that statement -without consulting his political friends, representing constituencies in his own province.


Glenlyon Campbell: I think that is imputing motives.


David Bradley Neely: Not at all. I am simply suggesting that my hon. friend, when he declared himself a protectionist, could not have consulted with his friends from Souris (Mr. Schaffner) and from Macdonald (Mr. Staples). My hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Schaffner) says that we must take his word that he did bring that resolution before this House in all good faith. Well, I have looked up the report in connection with the vote taken. The House was in committee, and I find that out of a total membership in this House of some 214, there were actually 78 in their seats when that vote was taken. If my hon. friend was so anxious to have his resolution carried, if he was so anxious to have himself and his party definitely committed to that policy, why did he not compel every member of this House to go on record as to whether or not he was in favour of the resolution? Why, the division hell was not even rung. I have looked up ' Hansard ' and I find that there is not a name recorded. The vote is simply re corded as so many nays and so many yeas. But if my hon. friend wanted to create a good opinion in his constituency, why did he not call for a record of the vote?


Mr. GEO. TAYLOR (Leeds).: He could not do it at that stage.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I could not take any
other course than the one I did.


William Stevens Fielding: He could have divided later.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Eighty per cent on this side voted for my motion, and absolutely every Liberal, including the members from the west, voted against it.


David Bradley Neely: It is a striking comment on the interest taken by the hon. gentleman's friends in this important matter, that when we look up the vote on it, we find that there were but 22 who supported the hon. gentleman. That surely shows a deplorable lack of interest on the part of his political friends in this House, and so far as his leader is concerned, he knows that he was one of those who voted against the resolution.


William D. Staples: Better read what he said.


David Bradley Neely: I assure my hon. friend I have read it. In the recent election con-157
test, this question of the tariff played a very important part in many of the constituencies of western Canada. I do not see the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. McCarthy) in his seat, but the hon. gentleman was very much exercised, during his contest, over certain statements to the effect that he had shirked his duty in connection with this resolution. On looking up the files of the Calgary newspapers, I find that on the 21st of October, the hon. gentleman offered to bet the Liberal newspaper of Calgary the 'Albertan' $100 to be donated to any hospital, if they could prove that he had shirked his duty and -had not voted on this question. The hon. gentleman realized very well what the sentiment of his constituency was in that respect, yet the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Campbell) tells us that he is a protectionist. In connection with that same resolution, let me point to this fact, that while only 78 votes altogether were cast upon it, on another amendment submitted by the leader of the opposition on the same evening-very much later in the evening-when one would naturally suppose there would be still fewer members in the House-what do we find? We find that 120 members voted for the amendment of the leader of the opposition. That resolution of the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Schaffner) was one that, if the government could have seen its way clear to accept it, would have been very acceptable to the people of western Canada. But, when these matters are brought before this House, we want them treated with fairness and justice; and I say that I myself, if I had been in the House at that time under the peculiar circumstances surrounding the introduction of the resolution, in all probability would have felt compelled to vote against it.
1 have exceeded the time I intended to occupy. I have only this word to say in conclusion: I believe that the people of western Canada stand to-day in support of the present government because of the fact that on the tariff question, if they have not moved as far as they ought to have moved, yet they have moved in the right direction. And I hope they will go further in the same direction when the next revision of the tariff takes place.


Mr. T. G. WALLACE (Centre York).: Mr. Speaker, at this late hour I do not wish to take up the time of the House at great length. But, when a candidate in an election presents his views and makes promises to the people of what he will do, if elected, it is clearly his duty when he is honoured with a place in this House to redeem the promises thus made. We are discussing the budget of the Minister of Finance of the Dominion of Canada. As I understand that hon. gentleman's (Mr. Fielding) statement, the revenue of this country last year was eighty-four and a half millions, the



expenditures eighty-three millions, leaving a surplus of one and a half millions. But I understand the hon. gentleman to tell us also that the debt has increased by forty-six millions. To the uninitated, it hardly looks as if we have a surplus when we go further into debt to the extent of forty-six millions, particularly when we find that such items as bounties on steel and iron amounting to $3,200,000, and expenditure for rifles for the militia, $1,300,000, have not been charged to current expenditure. Had these items been charged to current expenditure, as would surely be most reasonable, we should have a deficit instead of a surplus. I regret that the government have not manifested greater care in the expenditure of public money. Had they done so, we might have had an actual surplus instead of a surplus that, in my opinion, exists only on paper.
I regret that the Minister of Finance in his budget has not announced that he will give protection to a certain class of people in this country, the farmers, market gardeners and labourers. As I understand the national policy enunciated by Sir John Macdonald in 1878, it is a protection first to the agriculturists and manufacturers, but also to the labourers, in fact to every class. The manufacturers of this country are fairly well protected-in some lines, probably, too highly protected, though I have no quarrel with the government on that score. But when the manufacturers are protected, I think we should protect the agriculturists, the market gardeners and labourers as well. We are living in a country which has not so early a spring as the country to the south of us. The Finance Minister has been urged to consider the granting of protection on market garden products coming into Canada. It is hardly to be expected that Canada can compete at all seasons with a country situated like the_United States. By the time the Canadian products are coming on the market, the price of the second-class stuff coming from the United States is low, and this material comes into competition with the Canadian product. What the market gardeners and farmers of this country want particularly is a specific duty on these products, not an ad valorem duty, because that is not of much use at the time of the year when protection is most needed. I do not wish to go into this matter at length, but I have a letter here from which, perhaps, I may be permitted to read a part, as it states the need better than I could state it:
The Ontario Vegetable Growers' Association ask that the customs tariff on vegetables be made specifio instead of ad valorem, which we believe would prevent our markets from becoming a dumping ground for culls, as they are at present. We would advise a specific duty equal to 30 per cent on a fair cost of production on market value of average quality on vegetables imported, which would I Mr. WALLACE.
not deter the importation of vegetables at times of scarcity or when the Canadian grower cannot supply the demand ; the market price being high at such times, the specific duty would be smaller relatively.
A specific duty would prevent our market from being flooded with the surplus or damaged products of other countries sent here at a low valuation, at a time when Canadian growers are prepared to supply an abundance of fresh home-grown products. At the same time it would improve conditions for the Canadian consumer by improving the quality of the goods imported.
We also wish to draw your attention to the fact that a very large part of Californian grown vegetables imported into Canada are produced by Chinese labour. Especially is this the case with celery, practically all of which is grown by them, and the low prices at which it can be invoiced at point of shipment is largely determined by that fact.
The parliament of Canada having imposed, and we believe wisely so, a tax of $500 on this class entering this Dominion, as a protection to Canadian labour, it appears to us unfair that the product of such coolie labour should enter into competition with the product of the Canadian vegetable grower, and by an ad valorem duty evade the protection which our laws are intended to afford. We would ask that the following duty be imposed on the vegetables mentioned.
Cabbages	2 cents per head.
Celery	20 cents per dozen.
Onions	20 cents per bushel of 50 lbs.
In the arrangement of our duties, it is clearly wise for us to take into consideration the fact that Canada is a northern country. We should allow for the fact also that Canada is a young country, one whose industries are not fully developed, and whose population is not large. The agriculturists, market gardeners and labourers are certainly deserving of consideration. We have imported within the last few years hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of these market garden goods from the United States nearly all of which should be grown in the Dominion. Such articles, when demanded before their season, are clearly a luxury, not a necessity. Such a duty therefore, is a luxury and would not affect the poor, and the rich the only ones whom it would affect, can afford to pay a little more for the benefit of a class of producers who should be encouraged. I hope the government will take that into their serious consideration, and that the Minister of Agriculture will do something for the market gardeners. The deputation that waited on him and the Minister of Finance asked that when seeds are r>ut up in packages the percentage of germination be printed on the packages, as thousands of dollars are lost every year through the use of worthless seeds and nobody is made responsible for that loss.
I regret that the government did not see their way clear to place a higher duty

on hogs and hog products entering Canada, as the present duty is not sufficiently laTge to prevent the fluctuations of price in hogs in the United States affecting the price of hogs in Canada, and therefore it is the duty of the government to place a sufficient protection to prevent our market from being made a slaughter market for American hogs. The government has been giving a great deal of protection to manufacturers, and they should seriously consider helping out the farmers to the moderate extent asked by these deputations.
During the election campaign one of my planks against the Dominion government was their system of immigration. _ Much of the immigration coming into this country, I believe, is not in the public interest. This subject has been thoroughly discussed in the House. I think we should encourage, as we are encouraging, men from the old land, men from different parts of Europe who make good settlers and men from the United States who are coming in in thousands, but I do not think we have any room for the class of people who come to Canada but never become good Canadians or British subjects. We want people who will come in and make good citizens in time to come. The immigration of Japanese and Doukhobors and people of that class should be either restricted or not encouraged. I have listened with a great deal of attention to members on both sides of the House during the budget debate, and it is only fair to say that I agree heartily with some things said on both sides. I noted particularly that nearly every man speaking on the government side goes in to defend nearly everything the government has done. The government of this country is certainly not perfect, and a man who defends all its acts must defend some things which are wrong. I was rather amused at the member for South Grey (Mr. Miller) who, in making a very able, eloquent and well studied speech defended the government in everything they had done from 1896 down until he struck what is known as the Newmarket canal. Before I came here I concluded from my own belief and knowledge that the construction of the Newmarket canal was a useless waste of public money. After listening to the defence of that project by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Railways, I was sure I was right in that conclusion because their defence was no defence at all. The Prime Minister said that the reason for building a canal and spending one or two millions of dollars on it was tliat a delegation came down from North York to ask the government to do it. Why, I could get a deputation from any part of Canada to come down and ask the government to spend one or two millions near a village, but that is no reason for spending the money. Another 157i
point about that expenditure was that $30,000 or $40,000 was spent before the delegation came down here, and yet we are led to believe that the government started that canal because the deputation came here. That was hardly fair, and I do not think it was intentional. There was no expenditure on the canal for four years except some $31,000 up to March 31, 1908, but from that date to the present about $182,000 have been spent on it. It looked to any one who studied the question at all as if this -expenditure was intended as a bribe to the electors of North York, spending $182,000 in a constituency just before an election.
I do not think that any hon. member, no matter to what political party he belongs, should support expenditures of that kind.
I condemned that expenditure on the platform in Centre York and once or twice in North York, and I believe that the people of that district, although the money is being spent there, will in time reject the men who wasted public money in that way.
I do not wish to take up the time of the House at this late hour. I would simply impress upon the government the necessity of doing something for the market gardeners and farmers. I hope the government will realize that what we ask in this respect is not for the benefit of one class or for one section of the country alone but is for the good of the Dominion at large.


Mr.  W. S.@: LOGGIE (Northumberland, New Brunswick), Mr. Speaker, you have not heard from the province of New Brunswick during this debate and therefore I wish to make a few remarks. The hon. member for Centre York (Mr. Wallace) who has just taken his seat, has _ asked that the government should restrict immigration and he refers to the Japanese as a people who should not be allowed to enter Canada to any great extent. The hon. gentleman should know that this is exactly what the government have done, that restrictions are now being enforced and that during the last year a very limited number of Japanese have come into this country. The hon. gentleman ought to know as well that the government are using every endeavour to have a proper class of immigrants come into this country, and that every precaution is taken that when undesirable immigrants are landed in this country they are returned to the place whence they came at the_ expense of the transportation company bringing them to Canada. Another plea made by the hon. gentleman who has taken his seat is that the government should increase the protection to the agricultural interest, and he cites the protection on hogs, which he says ought to be increased. Forsooth there is a duty now of two cents per pound or

four dollars per barrel, and yet the hon. gentleman wants to have the farming interests of Canada protected to a greater extent than four dollars per barrel on pork. The hogs that come into this country are very largely of a class which are not raised in Canada. The imported hog products are consumed in the maritime provinces and in the lumbering operations of Ontario and Quebec and the eastern provinces. My hon. friend would ask that those who are consumers should pay an increased tax to the farming interest of this country. In my judgment it would he unfair to the consumer to increase the taxation on that product when we realize that the producers are already protected to what I consider a sufficient extent. If there is one item in the tariff list which, it seems to me, is on a protective tariff basis, it is the item of hog products. That is one of the items which the Liberal party have continued in force which was in force under the Conservative party in 1896. As to the request of the market gardeners that they be protected, I think we will admit that the products that are imported into this country are imported at a time at which they cannot and are not supplied by our Canadian market gardeners. If that be true is it reasonable that the consumers should be unduly taxed? They are reasonably taxed now? They pay what is a fair tax for revenue purposes. I think that the government have acted wisely in not every year tinkering with the tariff and making changes. We have framed a new tariff about each decade, and during the interim changes of no great consequence have been made. I do not think that I need refer any more to the remarks by the hon. gentleman. But, I want once again to congratulate my hon. friend the Minister of Finance on the showing that he has brought down to this House. A year ago he told the House and the country that it was a time for caution and that yet we should take courage. It seems to me, from the report laid on the table by the Minister of Finance, _ that this is exactly what the Finance Minister has done.
The hon. member for Centre York (Mr. Wallace) tells us that the expenditure was $83,000,000, that the revenue was $84,500,000 and that we have a surplus of $1,500,000. It is certainly an encouraging fact that it is so because of the stress, if I may so term it, it might have been fair to expect that the Finance Minister would come down to the House showing a deficit on the year's transactions. I think, therefore, that we might repeat what was said a year ago that perhaps no Finance Minister has ever done more to sustain the high credit of the country than has the present Minister of Finance. From his statement we find that the estimated net debt of the country on the 31st March, 1909, was upwards of $323,000,-Mr. LOGGIE.
000, and that during the twelve and three-quarter years, since 1896, we have added to the net debt, in round numbers, $65,000,000. But, Mr. Speaker, I want you to mark that the $65,000,000 is accounted for by $52,500,000 expended on the Transcontinental Railway. That leaves a balance of only $12,000,000 expended on the great public works of this country which would represent about $1,000,000 each year for the twelve years. Will you just recall to mind what has happened during the last five years of the Conservative regime? During that five years they expended $16,000,000 on capital account. During the very same term they borrowed $21,000,000: that is to say they had not sufficient money in the treasury to pay the ordinary running expenses of the country. They had to borrow $5,000,000 for that purpose. But the Liberal party have expended about $100,000,000 annually on ordinary consolidated account and the other great public works that they have undertaken during the past twelve years, have added to the public debt only $1,000,000 per annum over and above the expenditure on the National Transcontinental Railway. It seems that the situation is one from which we might well take courage and which should warrant us in going on and completing this great undertaking. We find that in the year 1896, when the Conservative party gave up the reins of power the per capita debt was $50.82, while in 1909, after we had expended $52,500,000 on the Transcontinental Railway, and after the expenditure on other great public works, we have reduced the per capita to $45.72, equal to a decrease in the debt of the country after all these great expenditures of about 10 per cent. I mean the per capita debt, of course. I have explained already that the net debt has been increased, but we have assets for it as I shall tell you later on. Now, I want to say a word about how we got this money. Perhaps I should remind the House here that the member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) in speaking of that the other day used the following language:

which surpluses were got absolutely and
solely because of extraordinary taxing powers that the government availed themselves of. If the government had kept the volume and burden of taxation down to what it was, or to anything near what it was, in Liberal Conservatives times, they could not have amassed such immense sums of money, and they could not have had such large surpluses. If a government will tax sufficiently, it will have large revenue and may have large surpluses.
Now, Mr. Speaker, during the last five years of the Conservative regime, they taxed at the rate of about 14 per cent more than the present administration is taxing. Let me put it in this way. In 1908 we collected 16 -48 per cent on $351,879,000 worth of imports. In 1896 there were imports valued at $105,-

361,000 and the rate collected in that year was 19 -12 per cent. Our rate is $2.74 on the $100 less on the value of the invoice, or equal to a difference of about 12i per cent on the duty collected. Apply this and it would demonstrate that if in 1896, under the Conservative government, the people of Canada had imported as many goods as they did last year under the Liberal regime, the Conservative government would have taken out of the pockets of the people over $9,000,000 in extra taxation. If, on the other hand, last year the Liberal government had exacted the same rate of duty as did the Conservative government before 1896, there would have been $9,000,000 more collected in duties, and then our surplus would be ten and a half million dollars instead of one and a half millions. But, the hon. gentleman from North Toronto (Mr. Foster), and the hon. gentleman from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) say that the vital point is that the present government collects $11 per head, whereas in 1896 the Conservative government collected only $5.46 per head. My contention is that the vital point is the rate at which $11 per head was collected. If I pay taxes on $10,000 this year at two per cent, and I am fortunate enough next year to have $20,000 on which to pay taxes at li per cent, I pay a less rate but I pay more money on the whole and I ought to be glad I am able to pay it because I have something to represent the extra payment. And why is it that at a less rate of duty than formerly, there is more revenue produced? The answer is perfectly simple. A merchant will keep in his store just the goods his customers require, and if there is a demand for two suits of clothes now where there was only a demand for one suit before, the merchant will have the two suits and the customer will buy them instead of one.


Richard Blain: Why not manufacture them here and pay no duty?


Mr. LOGGIE.: Oh my dear man, don't you know we do manufacture them here? Let me tell my hon. friend that there is a very small proportion of clothing imported into this country.


Richard Blain: The house doing the largest business in the province of Ontario imports all their ready-made clothing under this tariff.


William Stewart Loggie: I will accept the hon. gentleman's word but I can tell him that I know of not one but of dozens of mercantile establishments that do not import one dollar's worth of ready-made clothing. The hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) advanced an argument the other day which it would have been fairer for him to have carried out to its logical conclusions. He told us that in 1886 we would
find $10,000,000 charged to capital account but that was for seven and a half million acres of land, which, as an asset, converted into money was worth $22,500,000, and he asked us to take that into consideration. Well, I will admit the hon. gentleman's argument, but had he been fair he would have carried it further and he would have explained that the fifty-two and a half million dollars spent on the National Transcontinental Railway was a national asset. Will the hon. gentleman have the audacity to tell me that in the National Transcontinental Railway we have not an asset representing that fifty two and a half millions. Does he not know very well that in a short time that money will be bearing interest and and that it is just as if we got the fifty-two and a half millions back, put it in the bank, and drew our interest on it, as in the ease of the twenty-two and a half million dollars we received for the public lands. Is not that a fair comparison to make? Then, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) spoke about borrowing during the interim, ' but that argument was answered by the Minister of Finance who told us that it was a temporary loan which had been paid oil. if the manager of an ordinary mercantile establishment borrows during the year and pays off his debt, he has no explanation to make to his directors. What he has to explain to the directors is what he owes and what he has to represent it. Then, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) also insinuated that if the Minister of Finance had taken care of the surpluses it would not have been necessary for him to go to the London markets to borrow money. I would point out to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) that no one can deny that the moneys received by the government have been wisely expended, for, although there may have been some small items here and there that might not be expended as we all would like, yet on the whole there is not a man on the opposite side of the House who would undertake to charge that there has been any improper expenditure of public money. It is all very well to make insinuations and inuendo, but when it comes to making a charge hon. gentlemen opposite will not assume that responsibility. Has this government not promoted the prosperity of our great country; has it not deepened the St. Lawrence, protected our fisheries, aided agriculture, assisted in the building of great railways ? It is true that if we had tied the surpluses up in a napkin as it were, we could have reduced the debt, but in growing times such as these and in a growing country like Canada it was wise that we should have applied our expenditures in the days of prosperity to develon-

ing the resources of the country. But nevertheless we have reduced the per capita debt, and yet we have an increase in 13 years in the net debt of only $65,000,000, $52,500,000 of which I call liquid assets that will bring us a return in good time. Just
one more word and I have done

the
hon. gentleman from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) gave us a long list of duties levied by Canada and compared them with the duties levied by the United States. I quote his words:
I submit that it is manifestly unfair and unjust to Canadian farmers, and when we take into account the fact that the United States sent into Canada last year 6,428 horses valued at $1,254,704 we must see that a portion of that was deliberately taken out of the pockets of the Canadian farmers.
If that hon. gentleman were here I would ask him who pays the import duties on goods that come into Canada. Would the hon. gentleman have the audacity to tell me that the Canadian farmer pays the duty on the horses that we send into the United States? And yet that is the logical conclusion of his whole argument; and he turns round and tells us that on the horses we sent into the States that the Canadian farmers pay the duty, and that argument is manifestly unfair. I do not understand the tariff if that is the basis of the hon. gentleman's reasoning. Perhaps in the case of a few artiees there may be an exception to the rule. If you have no market but the United States, and are forced to sell your goods there on commission, it may be possible in some cases that the Canadian producer pays the duty; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the Canadian farmer pays the duty on the goods imported into this country, just as the United States farmer pays the duty which his government levies on goods imported into that country; and it is unfair for the hon. gentleman to argue that it is unfair to the Canadian farmer to allow horses to come into this country at a lower rate of duty than United States citizens have to pay on going into the United States.


George Taylor: The Minister of Customs tells us that the Canadian farmer has to pay the duty on Canadian barley going to Germany.
Mr. JiOGGIE. I have no doubt that the Minister of Customs will answer for himself. Now, I want to say just one word in regard to the hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards). Why is it, he asks, that there is a reduction of $35,000 in the estimates of the Department of Agriculture for 1909-10? And then he makes some inuen-does or insinuations-is it because of this or that or the other thing? If the hon. gentleman will read the budget debate of a year ago, or if he studies the budget debate Mr. LOGGIE.
of this year, he will probably get the answer, but I want to tell him this:	In
1896 how much do you think the Conservative government expended on the agricultural interests of this country? No less a sum than $210,000. And how much did this government expend on agricutural interests in 1908? $1,218,000, or more than $1,000,000 in excess of what was expended in 1896; and yet the hon. gentleman has the audacity to ask why the estimates for 1909-10 for the Department of Agriculture are cut down $35,000. Now, Mr. Speaker, my five minutes are up, and I thank the House for the attention it has given to me.


Mr. A. L. FRASER (Kings, P.E.I.).: Mr. Speaker, at this late hour I do not wish to inflict a long speech on those patient members thait I see present. I wish only to refer to one or two matters that have been touched upon in this debate. The first is the statement made by the Finance Minister that there has been a surplus this year. Now, this is either true or it is not true.	The Finance Minister makes the
statement that the revenue of last year from all sources was about $84,000,000. During that time there was spent about $120,000,000, leaving an excess of expenditure over income amounting to $46,000,000. That is the statement in a few words, and yet the astute Finance Minister ingeniously contrives to figure out a surplus, and the way in which he does it is by the old method adopted by this government year after year, while the net debt of the country increases every year. During the last year it has increased by $46,000,000, equal to $7 per head on every man, woman and child in this country, and the interest on that debt for all time to come until it is paid off will amount to $1,500,000 yearly. Now, by what plan does the Finance Minister figure out that there has been a surplus during the last twelve months? The method of keeping the books will explain how the alleged surplus-because there is no surplus, only a fictitious one-is arrived at. This government has two accounts, one called the capital account and the other the current account. I do not find any fault with them for this, because a great many governments, if not all, as well as large mercantile houses and banking institutions follow the same method. To the current account is charged the current expenditures of the yeaT, while to the capital account should be charged expenditures on permanent public works- works that are assets to the country. But this administration, besides charging undertakings of a permanent character to capital account, go on and charge to the same account what we contend should be charged to current account. Among other things, they charge to capital account the bounties. What assets has this country for the bounties paid during the last twelve months on

steel and coal? None whatever. Similar i bounties under the Conservative adminis- s tration were charged to current accounts, t but this administration does not hestitate i to charge them to capital account in order t to figure out a surplus. By this false i method $2,500,000 bounties, which should i have been charged to current account, were s charged to capital account, and a fictitious 1 surplus of one and a half millions thus ' created, And we have had the papers sup- i porting the government and benefiting by government patronage and government ad- [DOT] vertising heralding this surplus through- i out the country. Can it be wondered at that many people should really accept that surplus as genuine, although in reality, instead of having a surplus this country has ; gone back and added to its debt to the extent of $46,000,000?	.
During the last year, the hon. the Finance Minister has had to take some trips to the other side for the purpose of borrowing money. I should like to see the hon. gentleman take many trips across the Atlantic, I hope he will live long enough to make frequent visits to the other side, but I would like to see him go on a pleasanter mission than to borrow money and put himself into the hands of the money lenders.
I would ask him to remember that we have money heTe in the post office savings banks, and government bank, from which the depositors only receive three per cent, although the government has to pay three and a half to four per cent to the money lenders in the old world. It seems to me that our Finance Minister should give our small depositors in the post office savings banks at least the same rate that he pays to foreign money lenders. Why should our small depositors in the government savings banks receive only three per cent on their money, when the government have to borrow abroad at from three and a half per cent to four per cent?
There is another subject to which I wish to refer and which was first introduced in this debate by the hon. member foT North Essex (Mr. Sutherland). That hon. gentleman charged the hon. member for North Toronto with having gone down to Prince Edward Island shortly before the elections and promised to build a tunnel there. In support of the charge, he read this extract from the 'Examiner,' a Conservative paper published in Charlottetown:
For myself I stand ready to implement our bargain with Prince Edward Island by the construction of a tunnel.
The hon. gentleman charged my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) with having said this. Well, that is a statement of which no hon. gentleman need be ashamed. No public man need ever be ashamed of saying that he stands to carry out the bargain made between the Dominion and any of its provinces. Yet, time and again, during this session, I have heard the hon. gentleman criticised for having made this promise. But what are we to think of the Finance Minister who also went down to Prince Edward Island last fall just before the election and .who also spoke in the same connection? I find on the 24th of September in the Daily ' Patriot,' the following words attributed to the hon. gentleman:
If $10,000,000 would bring communication through the tunnel, I should be willing to support it with my whole heart, and I might be willing to support a larger sum.


William Stevens Fielding: The whole tenor of my statement was that I refused to build a tunnel.


Austin Levi Fraser: I am only reading.


William Stevens Fielding: The hon. gentleman is not reading enough.


Austin Levi Fraser: I will continue.


William Stevens Fielding: The substance is as I
said.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Did the Finance Minister promise it?


Austin Levi Fraser: I do not say whether he did or not. I am reading as he is reported.


William Stevens Fielding: Would my hon. friend begin earlier? Let him read what preceded that.


Austin Levi Fraser: I can only read the extract as I have it here. There is nothing false about it.


William Stevens Fielding: I am not charging the hon. gentleman with misrepresenting.


Austin Levi Fraser: The hon. minister can remember if he said these words.


William Stevens Fielding: I remember very well. Mr. FRASER (reading):
If $10,000,000 would bring communication through a tunnel, I should be willing to support it with my whole heart and might be willing to support a larger sum.


William Stevens Fielding: Yes.


Austin Levi Fraser: Now, these other members on the government side charged the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) with haying committed a crime almost be-because he said that he stood ready to implement the bargain made with Prince Edward Island.


William Stevens Fielding: I have somewhere among my papers a despatch in a Conservative paper with the very heading: 'Mr. Foster promised the tunnel.' My speech was commenting on that and I distinctly said I would not promise the tunnel.


Austin Levi Fraser: This is taken out of the 'Patriot ' newspaper of September 24.
Mr. FIELD1A u. It is correct as far as it goes.


Austin Levi Fraser: That is the sentiment I wanted to bring out. The hon. gentleman said further:
But there is no information that would justify me in saying: ' Put me in power and you should have the tunnel/
That is the finish of the sentence. He says there is 'no information' to justify him in promising a tunnel. That is the whole trouble. There is no information that would justify any man in saying that if he is elected he will build the tunnel.


William Stevens Fielding: Why, then, did llr. Foster say it?


Austin Levi Fraser: Mr. Foster is not reported to have said so in the extract referred to by the member for North Essex.


William Stevens Fielding: I will bring the paper in which it is reported


Austin Levi Fraser: I know that after Mr. Foster left the province, it was reported outside that he had promised the tunnel at a cost of $150,000,000. But I never heard him make that statement; it was never reported in any paper in our prov ince that he had said such a thing. The Finance Minister tells us that there is 'no information.' We in that province want the tunnel; it is the most vital thing affecting our prosperity. We made a bargain with the Dominion of Canada when we entered confederation, and one of the conditions of that bargain was that the Dominion should maintain continuous communication with the mainland. That part of the bargain has not been kept. We thought we were to become part of the great Dominion and to share in its prosperity, and we depended upon this continued communication with the mainland for a very large share of that prosperity. But thirty years have elapsed, and this part of the bargain is not carried out. It is true this government has already had to pay some damages on account of the breach of that contract, and likely they will have to pay more. Two provinces, any more than two individuals, should not make a solemn bargain, signed and sealed, and then break it. Now, we want the information which the Minister of Finance says is necessary in order to justify him in promising or not promising the tunnel. We want a sum put in the estimates to make a survey to ascertain whether or not a tunnel can be built. We are not unreasonable; we will not ask for the tunnel if it is to cost $150,000,000, or half that much. We will only ask what is reasonable. In the meantime, we want to know what is possible. And we cannot get that information becausj Mr. FIELDING.
this government does not see fit to spend a few thousand dollars, or a few hundred thousand dollars if necessary, to find out whether or not this tunnel can be built. Did the Conservative administration behave in this manner? No; they started to make a survey of the Strait and spent some money on it. But the survey required some time, and the government went out of power before the work was completed. And, since this administration came into power in 1896, it has not spent a dollar in getting the information referred to by the Minister of Finance. I have quoted what the Minister of Finance said when he was in Prince Edward Island. I would like now to refer to another very prominent man on that side. In 1891, the right hon. leader of this government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) visited Prince Edward Island, and he is reported-and has never denied it- reported by a prominent Liberal politician -as reported in the papers at that time and published all over the island-as saying:
Every man who has given attention to the condition of things and the interests involved by the entering of the island into confederation must admit that such a tunnel must be constructed if the thing is reasonably practical.
Coming to the province before an election, the right hon. gentleman made this promise. Yet he has been in power for twelve years, and has never made a step to find out whether or not the work is reasonably practicable. I urge the government, with all the strength I have, to place a sum of money in the estimates and have a proper survey made of the straits so as to have this question settled, whether or not this tunnel is practicable. That is all we ask-' only this and nothing more,' or less. But I regret that this tunnel matter is not taken up properly even by all. There is a class-a small class of people in our own province who look upon it with apathy; they say they do not think we can get it, that it will cost a very large sum of money. These people do not know that about which they are speaking. No man knows whether the tunnel will cost $100,000,000 or $10,000,000. Any man who makes a statement as to the amount of money it will cost simply shows that he does not know anything about it. We shall never know what the tunnel will cost until a survey is made of the strait. I urge the government not to allow these promises that it has made and the hopes it has held out to go into the already overcrowded graveyard of their broken promises. When the Prime Minister 'finishes his work,' I hope he will not forget to finish this survey which was commenced under the Conservatives, and which has been neglected from that day to this.

Now, as to the expenditure of money, a great deal depends not alone on the amount of money expended, but the way in which it is spent. This is a young and growing country, and necessarily will require large expenditures on public works and means of transportation ana works of that kind. Nobody will condemn the government for spending this money on useful works. But what the government should be condemned for is spending money on works that are not useful and not required. This government can afford to spend a million dollars on what is called the Aylesworth ditch.
This expenditure will serve the interests only of a certain township and perhaps serve the interests of [DOT] the government in securing more support in that township. It is, however, a questionable expenditure and while the government should not be condemned for expending money usefully, it should bfe condemned when it undertakes such large expenditures which cannot be better defended than this undertaking.
There is another expenditure of a questionable character, the building of that section of the Transcontinental Railway from Quebec to Moncton. This was condemned in the House by the most prominent railroad authority of that time, the then Minister of Railroads, the late Hon. Mr. Blair. Mr. Blair said that it was an unnecessary work, that it was parallelling the Intercolonial Railway and that the construction of that road would eventually turn the Intercolonial Railway into scrap iron. Yet this government has gone on with the construction of that road at a great cost and we will have the spectacle of two government roads parallelling one another from Quebec to Moncton, when one good road would amply serve the purpose and afford railway facilities for the people in that country. At the same time other sections of the country are languishing and starving for railroads, but the government in its wisdom or unwisdom has seen fit to build this unnecessary and unjustifiable section of the National Transcontinental Railway.
The expenditure on the Militia Department is open to criticism. This is the only department whose expenditure has not been reduced this year. The department costs the country about $7,000,000 a year. To keep up what? A standing army? We have read of an army where they were all officers and no men. There is a feeling in this country that a great deal of this money is going to the officers, and yet when the time comes, if ever it should come, when there will have to be fighting by the people of this country, it will be found as it has been before, that the fighting will be done not by the men who are living in luxury and enjoying large salaries with all this fuss and feathers as the hon. member
for Nanaimo says about them, the fighting will be done by the hard working men from the country and the towns. There is a feeling of distrust with reference to this militia expenditure. I have no doubt there are many good men in the Militia Department, I have no reason for saying otherwise, but there is a feeling that there is much more spent in that department than the returns justify, and I think that perhaps a certain amount of that money might be more profitably spent in other directions.	_
Much as has been said about making a gift of a Dreadnought to Great Britain. If the government and the people saw fit to do this, I do not think any fault could be found. I think it would be better to make some such gift as that than to waste any money on the Militia Department. I am not saying all the money has been wasted, but there is a feeling that this department is doing as it likes without any check and I am not surprised that a government supporter should come out and state that there is too much fuss and feathers in that department. I firmly believe that of the $7,000,000 spent on the militia at least some has not been spent in a profitable and useful way.
On motion of Mr. E. M. Macdonald, the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 12.30 a. m., Tuesday.

Tuesday, April 27, 1909.