1910-04-26

Mr. LENNOX.: Before the orders of the day are proceeded with, I wish to call the attention of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) to a communication that I have received from a prominent gentleman in my riding, and which I beg leave to read. It is dated 23rd of this month.
Dear Mr. Lennox,-My object in writing you is to lay before you certain facts in connection with the immigration department at St. John, N.B.
I came out from England on the Allan Line steamer ' Corsican ' recently, landing at St. John, N.B., on Saturday evening, April 2nd. The vessel docked at 6 or a few minutes before 6 o'clock that evening, with about 600 passengers on board. The Allan Company had two special trains ready to take us to Montreal, had all the passengers' baggage on deck ready to land, had arranged to have the customs officials on hand to pass the baggage, when we were told that the immigration agent would not permit any passengers to land that night, and so far as I could learn from the captain of the ' Corsican,' without any special reason. We all had to remain on board that night, as not a passenger was permitted to land, and we did not get away from St. John until 3.30 on Sunday afternoon, causing much annoyance and inconvenience to all the passengers.
You would oblige me very much if you would lay this matter before the proper officials at Ottawa.

I lay this before the minister with the hope that he will make inquiries into the subject of the complaint as soon as convenient.


Mr. OLIVER.: I will be glad to take up the matter of the letter my hon. friend has read. Of course, we desire to avoid delay and inconvenience as much as possible, but it may be that in the present rush when there are so many ships coming in and so many people to handle, the difficulty was not avoidable. I will be glad to go into the matter fully. Certainly I can assure my hon. friend that there is every desire on the _ part of the department to redress any grievances that may occur.


Haughton Lennox: I will hand the letter over to the minister.



THE HOUSE OF COMMONS STAFF.

Mr. SPEAKER.: I have the following communication to make to the House:
The Clerk of the House having requested, for the reasons set forth in his communication to me dated the 25th instant, copy of which is hereto appended, the withdrawal of my recommendation respecting a proposed reorganization of the staff of the House of Commons, laid upon the table of the House on the 6th instant. I hereby withdraw the same in order that the subject may be further considered.



COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. KING moved the third reading of Bill (No. 101) to provide for the investigation of combines, monopolies, trusts and mergers which may enhance prices or restrict competition to the detriment of consumers.
Mr. SPROULE.: I would like to say with regard to this Bill, that having looked over it somewhat carefully. I have reached the conclusion that it will prove to be a gold brick in so far as it will give any relief from combines under the law. This Bill contemplates, first, affidavits to be examined by a judge of six parties that they are affected by some combine injuriously. Then, provided the judge is satisfied that there is prima facie evidence, he grants permission to have a board of inquiry named. That board holds an inquiry, and provided the board reaches the conclusion that there are evidences to satisfy them that a combine exists, then, I take it, the case is allowed to stand for the time being. They decide^ that a combine exists, but if the parties interested continue to carry on their work, then the penalties under this Act may be imposed, but they are not imposed, I understand, until an inquiry is made before a judge, and an indictment is framed which has to be inquired into by some court. But it does not appear to me very evident what court it is, whether it is 253
the Exchequer or any other court. But this indictment must take place before any other inquiry or trial can be proceeded with. Then that court may impose a fine, and I imagine that if the court imposes a fine the penalties of the Act can be enforced as well as penalties under the criminal law. But after that is done, I imagine that the individual or combine has a right to appeal. Now the natural course will be that they will make their appeal to the court of appeal, and a combine is not likely to give up its rights so easily where such large interests are involved. The case will continue before that court of appeal until the court disposes of it. Suppose that the conviction is sustained, then the combine may go to the Supreme Court and fight it out there.; and suppose that the conviction is sustained by the Supreme Court, the combine may take it to the Privy Council. Now, after this is all done, justice may be meted out. But what will be the result? The case has got to traverse at least six courts before there is any infliction of a penalty that is collectable. Now, are there six men to be found in Canada who will be innocent enough to undertake a prosecution under these circumstances?
Another feature which attracted my attention is that when you come before the first court, the prosecution has got to take place under the same law that has been on the statute-books for years, and under which it has been declared that no prosecution can be successfully carried on with the object of getting a verdict. That statement has been made in this House, and also toy the late Attorney General of the province of Ontario, Sir Oliver Mowat, a prosecution under this case 'has got to toe made under exactly the same law. Then what is the remedy? The remedy is one or two things, or both. One is that if the article dealt with is an article upon which there is a customs duty, the Governor in Council may reduce the duty to whatever extent they see fit. Or, on the other hand, a penalty may be imposed that is provided under the criminal law. Now I say one or both things may be done. But we have had the same law on the statute-books since 1899, providing that the same thing might be done, and we have had no prosecution. Why? Because it has been said bv eminent lawyers who have looked into lit, and by that very high authority, Sir Oliver Mowat, that no prosecution can successfully be carried on under that law; and yet this is just exactly the same law that has been declared to be unworkable, and under which a prosecution could not successfully be sustained. If you look over the whole ground you can come to but one conclusion and that is that this Act is only a gold brick to the people, making them



believe that some new device has been introduced whereby they may get justice and whereby that which is a combine to the detriment of the consumer or the producer may be punished. I am sure that the law will remain on the statute-book for years to come and no prosecution practically will take place under it. I need not say anything with regard to the trouble, annoyance, delay and everything else that are going to result, or as to who will pav the expense, because it is so unworkable that it seems to me that it is little less than a straw. It reminds me very much of the story of the German who traded horses. When he was asked if he had any fault, to which he Teplied, no except some trifling ones of no account. After the deal was completed, the new owner said what are those trifling faults, to which he replied- one that the horse was hard to catch and the other that was no good when he was not caught. The people have got this Bill and it is no good when they have got it.


Mr. BRADBURY.: Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of the House foT a moment or two to a paragraph that I find in the Winnipeg ' Tribune ' on the cement merger.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: OrdeT.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The question is on the third reading of this Bill.


Mr. FIELDING.: Has my hon. friend reference to this Bill ?


George Henry Bradbury: Yes.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I understood that the hon. gentleman wanted to' put a question.


George Henry Bradbury: No, it is in reference to combines that I want to speak. In the early part of the session I drew the attention of the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) to the effect that the cement merger was likely to have in increasing the cost of cement in the province of Manitoba and throughout the Dominion. I hold in my hand the Winnipeg ' Tribune ' of the 23rd instant, a paper that hon. gentlemen on the opposite side used to swear by. It is as follows :



HIGH TARIFF AND COMBINES.

[Stage Direction]
The advocates of high protective tariff would do well to consider the effect of high duty in the case of cement.
In the course of last year about 400,000 barrels of cement passed through Winnipeg, and roughly speaking, about half of this quantity was used in Winnipeg, or for Winnipeg works. In view of the inordinate amount of building in the city and such works as the new bridges and the power plant at Pointe du Bois, which will alone require at least sixty or seventy thousand barrels, it is more than fair to assume that at least the same quantity will be required by Winnipeg ratepayers this year, namely, 200,000 barrels.
How much more will this amount cost this Mr. SPEOULE.
year than last? At the present time contractors in the city are paying $2.40 a barrel for the same grade of cement as they were purchasing as low as $1.80 last year before the merger was formed, which was brought into existence by the high protective tariff- an advance of 60 cents. This means that if this rate is maintained-and there is no reason for supposing anything else-Winnipeg alone will pay $120,000 more for its cement than last year. At the present time the merger is selling cement at from 10 to- 15 cents a barrel less than the price at which it can be brought in from the United States. They have protection of from 51 to 52 cents per barrel, which is prohibitive. A barrel of cement can be sold at the factory anywhere in Ontario, in round figures, at $1 a barrel. The duty is, therefore, over 50 per cent.
If the duty were reduced to 30 * per cent, which is the average charge on manufactured goods, then it would be possible for the consumer of Manitoba to import their cement from the United States, if the Canadian merger did not make a fair price.
I would like to emphasize what I said in an earlier part of the session when I had the assurance of tire Minister of Finance at that time that a Bill was under way which would deal with this matter. It is very important to the western country. I may say that in all our great structures today due perhaps to the increased cost of lumber, we are using cement very largely arid while the ' Tribune ' estimates that 400,000 barrels of cement will pass through Winnipeg this year over different lines, I think it would be safe to say that a far larger quantity of cement will have to pass through Winnipeg to supply the needs of that growing country. I would like to ask the minister in charge of this Bill if he intends to make an investigation and take such proceedings as to cause the meTger to do what is fair with the people in the west. The suggestion of the ' Tribune ' that the protection should be reduced on this article, I think, is a very fair and wise one. I think that when we find that mergers are causing an increase in the cost of commodities which they are producing which is unfair to the consumer, the government should reduce or take off the duty altogether if it is necessary to force the combines to give the people the product, whatever it may be, at reasonable price. There is no doubt about this cement merger being a serious drawback to the west. You could get cement 'at $1.80 last year; now it is $2.40 a barrel. That is brought about, I am satisfied, 'by the merger, and the government ought to take immediate action to protect the consumer in this matter.
Mr. SCHAFFNER.: Mr. Speaker, before the Bill is read a third time I would like to ask the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. King) a question in connection with clause 5. It says :

Where six or more persons are of opinion that a combine exists, and that prices have been enhanced or competition restricted by reason of such combine, to the detriment of consumers, such persons may make an application to a judge for an order directing an investigation into such alleged combine.
In connection with that application, made by such six persons, there will be considerable expense. There will have to be legal advice and quite a lot of expense in connection with it and the question I would like to ask the Minister of Labour is whether the government intend to assume that expense. I may say that if they do not the utility of the bill is entirely destroyed. I would like an answer to that question before the bill is read a third time.


Hon. MACKENZIE KING (Minister of Labour).: Mr. Speaker, the hon member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule), in all his speaking on this Bill, has, I think, kept too largely in mind the enactments passed with which he has had to do. He seems to forget that in this measure particular stress is not laid on the prosecution side, but that it is rather to the investigation feature that the government look for the chief advantage to be derived. The hon. member for East Grey has pointed out that there may be half a dozen different stages through which persons adversely affected by a combine may have to go before they get the result which they would like to get in the way of a remedy. Let me say in the first place that there are *certain classes of industrial evils in regard to which publicity is more effective than penalty and therefore it is not in the penalty (side of this measure that the remedy will lie so much as in the fear and consequence of the publicity which will be given to the wrongful doings of particular combines.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If that is so how are you going to benefit from examinations in private ?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The hon. gentleman mentions that owing to the fact that some preliminary examinations have to take place this feature in part is offset. If the government had brought in a measure which would permit of the examination of any business of this country at the request of any individual without some form of preliminary examination to ascertain whether or not there were prima facie grounds for saying that a combine did exist and was operating adversely to the public the government would have been open to censure for so doing. The extent of the preliminary examination is not considerable. It is simply to enable the judge who is accustomed to dealing with evidence and to sizing up situations to say whether or 253i
not sufficient evidence has been obtained to warrant a further examination taking place. Now, as to the opportunity which the measure affords for full investigation and as to the machinery of the measure, I doubt if it would be possible to devise a board better calculated to get at the facts with regard to industrial conditions than a board which is composed of a person appointed by those who feel that they have a grievance, a person appointed by those who are complained against and a judge who is accustomed to dealing with matters of inquiry and who will hold the balance evenly between those two.
That is the effective machinery for getting at the facts that this measure provides The hon. member would have us believe that after this investigation the only remedy would be through a criminal prosecution. But the hon. gentleman has failed to recognize the power which at present exists in the Governor in Council to remove customs duties when it appears that a combine has taken advantage of the protection which the tariff affords, to raise prices, and that whereas up to the present that power could only be exercised as the result of a judicial inquiry, carried on at the expense ,of private parties, under the present legislation that step can be taken as the result of the investigation by one of the boards. All expenses will now be met 'by the government instead of by the private parties as formerly, and it is because the expense has heretofore been on the private parties that the existing legislation lias not achieved the results expected from it. Many a group of consumers have hesitated to set the existing law in motion, in the first place, because they were unwilling to charge another group of citizens with being criminals, and because, in the second place, they were unwilling to incur the large cost which such an investigation in the public interest would entail. This legislation will remove these objections. The purpose of the preliminary examination under this Bill is simply to put aside that class of actions which might be taken if it were left to any one on any ground whatever to start an inquiry against a particular concern, and to secure the limiting of examinations under this Bill to cases that reallv appear to be in the public interest.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: How can you inflict the penalty?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I will mention two or three different ways in which a penalty may be imposed.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I mean the penalty provided in the Bill.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Assuming an inquiry has taken place into some alleged combine, and

during the course of the examination it is made plain to the general public that a group of men have taken advantage of the protection afforded by the tariff to unduly enhance prices, the government as a result of a finding by the hoard to that effect may remove the customs duty and thereby lower the price of that article to the whole body of consumers, and that brings about what is primarily desired, namely, relief to the consumers. The question as to whether the parties concerned in the combine shall be punished criminally is secondary in importance to the relief which the public needs.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Suppose it was an article on which there was no tariff?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let us assume that it is a patented article.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Suppose there is a combine by which the farmer, the producer, does not get a fair price for his produce?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps the hon. member will allow me to take in their order the different forms of redress which the measure affords. A kind of combine under which the public to-day is suffering, judging by the representations made, is in the case of a patented article which is needed in manufacturing, and the concern owning it refuses to sell the patented article except on conditions which are in restraint of trade, such as binding the purchaser to purchase all other .articles from the same concern that holds the patent. Here is a case of a person receiving a monopoly from the .state, and having received that monopoly in the public interest taking advantage of the monopoly which the state has given him to use it against the general interest of consumers. If the board finds that such a thins? exists, power is given under the Act to see that that patent is revoked. I might mention a case that came under my notice in my own riding. We have in the town of Berlin a first-class manufacturing concern which produces cabinets for phonographs at a price of something like $125 each. The producer of the cabinet has no records, and I am informed that the dealers all over the country are refusing to sell his cabinet because they are unable ito get the records of other phonograph companies if they sell .any other than the cabinets which these phonograph companies make, and I am told that their cabinets are sold at double the .price which the Canadian cabinet is sold for. This firm'c cabinets are manufactured in Canada and the others are manufactured in the United States. A case of that kind, if proven, would afford the strongest reason why the state would be justified in taking the .patent on records away from the people who hold it if they undertake to use it as Mr. MACKENZIE KING.
against the Canadian manufacturer who is producing another article.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN.: Is it proposed to regulate the record peoDle by the Patent Act or by this legislation.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This legislation will point the way to the form of redress which is necessary.


William Findlay Maclean: Does the minister not think that the use of the Patent Act itself as in Germany and other European countries would be more effective than anything else in regulating these combines?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In the present Bill some features of the Patent Act have been extended in the direction in which my hon. friend indicates. We are legislating by this measure to bring .the patent law into accord with some of the features of the German Patent Act. Again, you may have cases such as you had a few years ago when it was shown that two of the tobacco companies operating in the United States were requiring the dealers in Canada, to sell only the article they were putting on the market to the exclusion of all others. I think the American Tobacco company was one of these and there was another. The investigation showed that the producers and manufacturers of tobacco in this country were at a disadvantage in consequence of the monopolistic control which those_ two American concerns had over the business in this country. The present measure affords an opportunity of_ getting at the facts and letting in the light on whether a concern of that kind is acting in a monopolistic way here. If that were proven, then the government might cancel the license issued to such a firm by the Department of Inland Revenue for the sale of that commodity in Canada. Again, there might he a combine in the shipping business. If it were shown that a number of steamship companies receiving subsidies from this government were combining together to put up the ocean freight rates, and an investigation established this, it would he plain _ that the government would be justified in taking some action to see that the concerns which were receiving the subsidies did not take advantage of these subsidies to the detriment of "the public as a whole, and that the public should receive its rightful share of benefit from the steamship companies in virtue of the subsidies they were obtaining from the government.
While there is no immediate provision in the measure for the removal of subsidies granted, if an investigation went to show that some subsidized company were operating in that manner, there would be a strong reason why parliament, when it met, having the facts before .it, should take some action in the public interest.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I wish to get an answer to the question I put to the hon. minister. Where proceedings would be taken against the parties and you could impose the penalties of the law, upon what would those proceedings take place?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have not come to that point yet. I am dealing with the hon. gentleman's assertion that this Act was a gold brick, and t-fiat it would only have any effect where the parties were proceeded against under the Criminal Code. I am endeavouring to point out that that i's only one and a very remote feature of the legislation, and that the remedies to which the government attach special importance in this measure are primarily those which are going to afford relief to the people suffering in virtue of these combines, and that secondarily attention will be paid to the penalizing of persons who persist in keeping up a combine against the public interest.


Mr. J. A. CURRIE.: Will the Bill afford relief to the public against the insurance underwriters?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps I had better take up the questions in the order in which they are given.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What I want to know is will these punishments take place without the preliminary inquiry before the board. Will the government institute an inquiry before they will take action say with regard to patents, with regard to duties, with regard to subsidies or anything else? Will action be taken on the information brought out by the board, or will the government continue the inquiry further before they will inflict the punishment?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am glad the hon. gentleman has asked that question because I think it will clear up the misunderstanding in his mind. It is on the finding of the board that the kind of action I have been mentioning will be taken. This could take place were there no penal clause at all. The portion of the measure to which my hon. friend is alluding is that which relates to combines which has been reported against as doing something contrary to the public interest, and which persist in doing that despite the findings of the board. In a case of that sort criminal proceedings may be taken. The findings of the board being before the public, there will be the strongest reason why the law should be set in motion against parties who are persisting in doing something against the public -interest, and the facts which have been brought out in evidence in an investigation of this kind may be used against them in a criminal action. That is where the investigating feature gives gome strength
to the Criminal Code in respect to the penalties now provided. Up to the present time the hon. gentleman says the criminal legislation has been in part useless in so far as that is true it is for the simple reason that there has been no way of ascertaining the full facts in advance; there has been no way of establishing that the parties proceeded against are really criminal; but if the board has reported that they are doing wrong, and if the combine persists in the teeth of a report of that sort in continuing a condition of affairs against the public interest, then the Criminal Code comes to have a significance much greater than it has at present, and there is the strongest reason for the prosecuting authorities to proceed against a combine of that sort under the Criminal Code.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If you commence a prosecution under the Criminal Code, are you not obliged to secure a conviction under the wording of the old law, under which it has been declared that you cannot secure a criminal conviction at present? That is the advice of every eminent counsel.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As against the advice of the very eminent counsel I will cite cases in which convictions have been obtained under the criminal law:
Wampole & Co. v. F. E. Karn Co., Limited -Contract-Sale of goods-agreement as to prices on re-sale-illegal combination or conspiracy unduly to enhance prices for medicinal preparations and lessen competition-refusal to enforce contract-Criminal Code, secs. 516, 520.
Plaintiff brought action before Clute, .T., for damages and injunction to restrain the breach of two contracts entered into between themselves and defendants, fixing price at which goods to be sold to retailers. Judgment held that agreements were breach of combines section of the Criminal Code.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN.: That was not a criminal prosecution.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was brought under sections 516 and 520 of the Criminal Code.


Robert Laird Borden: The hon. gentleman misunderstands. It was a case between two parties. The contract was held to be illegal because it was in breach of the criminal law of the country, but it was not a criminal prosecution.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The law to which the hon. member for East Grey was alluding was embodied in the sections of the Criminal Code which were introduced into this House by Mr. Clarke Wallace. It was under those sections that the case was brought. The point of the hon. member for East Grey was that the legislation was of no service.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It might be different if it were a question of sending the parties to jail.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 
Thomas Simpson Sproule: That is the only case 1 ever heard anything about.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am glad the honourable member admits this one, the hon. gentleman stated that there were none. But there were other cases. There was the case of the King vs. Elliott.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: That was dropped.
That was the Brantford case.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That case was not dropped. There was a conviction. Then there was a case in the west 'against a lumber combine.
The King v. Clarke.-The defendant was charged with several offences under section 498 of the Criminal Code. The indictment (or charge) contained 12 counts relating to alleged agreements between the accused, Clarke, and certain lumber dealers to unduly limit facilities for supplying or dealing in lumber. The trial, which occupied 10 days, took place before Chief Justice Sifton without a jury, at Edmonton, in the sittings of the court in November, 1907, the accused being found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $500.
The accused appealed under Criminal Cede section 1012, and the appeal was heard before Scott, Harvey, Stuart and Beck, JJ., at Calgary, on July 8 to 15, 1908. The appeal was dismissed and conviction affirmed.
That is another case and I think I might possibly mention one or two others, but I do not wish to take up too much of the time of the House. However. I think from the citation, of the cases I have mentioned, the hon. member will see that even where the public do not have the facts before them, even where the parties who went into this prosecution had to risk the expense of the prosecution and had to make out their case, they were successful under the crim-Mr. KING.
ial code in bringing to time certain combines which was operating detrimentally to the public. Now, if he will consider how much easier it will be for a prosecution "to take place after an investigation has brought out all the facts, the hon. member will see wherein the penalty clause, if it is punishment he is looking for, where punishment is more likely to be secured in virtue of the penalties under this Act -and under the machinery which this Act provides. One of the difficulties has been to get the Attorneys Generals of the provinces to take action against combines and the reason of that has been that the public has not been aware of the facts. But does the hon. member suppose for a moment that if a board of inquiry had been inquiring into the facts of a particular combine and had brought in a report which in the strongest terms condemned that combine, the Attorney General in any province would refrain from proceeding under the criminal code, if it appeared that the combine continued in spite of the finding of the board to carry on its operations to the detriment to the public? In that regard and in that way this legislation makes of some real service the past legislation which has been enacted by this parliament on the subject of combines. I have only mentioned certain of the remedies which may be introduced, but I think the hon. member cannot attach too much importance in cases of this kind to the effect which publicity will have. In that connection I am inclined to think that much good will come of this legislation. Parties will know when they are entering into a combine in restraint of trade that their operations may be investigated and they will be careful, and in that way the public having the means of getting at the facts of the case will be insured against harmful action on the part of these particular combinations. We have the experience of the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act as a case in point. There we have had something like 80 applications, and I think in 74 cases of the 80, as the result of inquiry, as the result of bringing to light different facts in regard to industrial disputes, the parties have thought it unwise to carry on the fight. They have thought it much better to make a settlement and an adjustment of their difficulties, public opinion having made its influence felt, than to defy public opinion by going against the decision of a board. The same thing will haoDen under these investigations. The combines will be investigated, if investigation reveals an undesirable situation, the members of the combines will very soon see in what position they are going to be placed before the -public unless they change their tactics, and the chances are that in many cases during the course of the investigation itself, a combine will see its way clear to

mend its ways, and the board will be able to tell the public that while such and such a thing was going on before the investigation, during the investigation the parties had mended their ways. That was exactly the case when the select committee appointed by this House in 1888, of which the late Mr. Clarke Wallace was chairman, was conducting an inquiry. A number of the combines were brought before the committee and during the course of the inquiry itself some of them changed their tactics. Now if that was the case under that machinery, there is every reason why it should be the case under the machinery provided by this Act.
I went pretty fully into these features on the second reading, but I may emphasize this further point seeing that the hon. member from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) raised the question as to who should pay the expenses in the event of long prosecutions. Under this measure the government will assume the expenses of the investigation and therefore the' position of parties seeking redress is very materially changed. The member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury) asked a question in regard to the cement merger, and said the Minister of Finance had promised to see during the session that a Bill was brought in to meet the case of the cement merger. It is not my wish to say whether or not the cement merger has enhanced prices unduly. I do not think any one would be justified in making a statement of that kind without having the facts before him. What is the position to-day under the legislation we have? If any one wishes to proceed against the cement merger or a group of consumers wish to proceed against the cement merger, they have to bring a criminal action or they have to make representations to the government sufficiently strong to induce he government to start a judicial inquiry, and they have to be prepared to pay the cost of that inquiry themselves. There are many consumers in this country who will hesitate to ask for an investigation on those conditions. They would hesitate to put the men who are associated with the cement merger in the position of defendants in a criminal action and they would hesitate to render themselves liable to the costs which might be involved in a long judicial inquiry. Under this measure which has been brought down to the House any six persons may go before a judge of a high court, any six of my hon. friend's constituents who feel that they are being unfairly dealt with by this cement merger, may lay before the judge the evidence which they have, the kind of evidence which he has read to the House this morning, and submit to the judge that there is a prima facie case. All they are obliged to do is to swear to the effect that they believe these statements to be true, that as
consumers the cement merger has operated to their detriment, and that they believe it is in the public interest that an investigation should be made into this merger. If they persuade the judge that a case exists for investigation, the judge issues an order for an investigation. Thereupon the six consumers who have made the complaint are asked to name a member of the board to inquire into the business of the cement merger, and the cement merger in turn are asked to name their member of the board, the two to agree upon the chairman. These three gentlemen appointed in this way have all the powers of a court. They have power to send for the books of the company, they have power to compel the production of documents, and to examine under oath and to take evidencs and having gone fully into the whole question they prepare a report which they give to the public on the results of their investigation.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Who is charged with the. responsibility of hunting up evidence and presenting it to that board, these six men?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: After the judge states that in his opinion a prima facie case has been made out, that it is in the public interest that an investigation should take place, then the six men are relieved of further responsibility. The onus is not upon them, it has become a case of investigating in the public interest by the public itself. The measure provides that the government may appoint counsel to gather evidence and present it to the board and the fees of that counsel are to be met by the government The different members of the board are free to ask any question and to send for any document. They are an investigating board assisted by counsel, their expenses and his are paid by the government. In that way a thorough examination will be carried out.


George Henry Bradbury: Does the government bear all the expenses in connection with these investigations on both sides?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government, of course, has to put some limit to the expense. If the parties wish to bring in an array of attorneys and are not satisfied with the counsel which the government has appointed, if they desire to have half a dozen counsel of their own, that is their lookout,' and they may have to meet that part of the expense. But the expense which is neees-sary in the public interest will be borne by the government. The government is prepared to meet all that in its opinion is necessary to get at the facts of the case thoroughly and accurately. Now to conclude the reference to this merger, many of the gentlemen who are associated with the cement merger claim that they are being put in a false light before the public, and

that, as a matter of fact the cement business has been carried on in Canada in the past in such a way that the business has been almost ruined, and that all the merger has done has been to place the different concerns that are in it in a position where through their co-operation they are enabled to get a reasonable and fair profit. If such is the case, it will be brought out on examination, and a finding of that sort made by the board would satisfy the public mind that it had been mistaken as to the cement merger, and that, as a matter of fact, the merger, instead of holding up the public, was doing what it was in the interests of a large industry in this country to do.


George Henry Bradbury: Would the board have power to take into consideration the overcapitalization of a merger such as this, because no doubt two-thirds of it is water.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Certainly, that is just what the investigation is for. You have a board appointed with all the powers of a court, and the members of that board can put any question they wish to the company that is being investigated, and undoubtedly the question of over-capitalization would be one of the first to be investigated. If the board after carefully going into the evidence found that the cement merger was only making a reasonable profit


Mr. HUGHES.: Profit on what?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: On capital invested. A reasonable profit, I assume, is the profit on the money put into the business. If the board found that, as respects the cement merger there was only a reasonable profit on capital invested, and if the evidence substantiated it, then the cement merger would be in a stronger position before the public than they could ever hope to be otherwise, in view of the suspicion and distrust that for some reason or other has arisen. On the other hand, if the board should report that the investigation showed that the cement merger had taken advantage of the situation, the government has power under this legislation, without going any further, to lower the duties on cement. If the board reported that in their opinion the cement company ought to reduce the price, and the cement company persisted in not doing so, then a criminal proceeding might be taken and the parties instituting the proceedings would have before them the benefit of the evidence brought out at the investigation. I think it will be admitted there is no concern in this country that can afford to defy public opinion. If you get public opinion intelligently shaped and have it properly focused on an-industrial evil, then it is not likely that those responsible will continue that evil in the teeth of public opinion. It is in this belief Mr. KING.
that it is hoped this measure may accomplish its object.


George Henry Bradbury: Do I understand that the aggrieved persons will have to lodge information themselves before anything is done, and that the minister will not take the initiative? The minister stated that those connected with the cement business urged that they were only receiving a fair price for cement now. Well, last year we bought cement at $1.80 per barrel, and the large cement company situated within sight of these buildings was able to pay 10 per cent on the basis of that price. Surely when the cement costs 60 cents a barrel more this year there is reason for legitimate complaint on the part of consumers.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: The minister has talked so much that I do not know whether he has answered my question or not. What I want to know simply is: who is going to pay these six men at the outset.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If the six men prove to the judge that they have made out their case, the judge may award such disbursements as he thinks necessary, and the government has power to pay these disbursements, it appearing that these men have acted in the public interest. On the other hand, if six persons come along with a complaint which is frivolous or which is made for some mischievous reason, and are unable to make out a case before the judge, then they must look to paying the costs themselves. I think that is reasonable.


William Stevens Fielding: Touching the cement duties, I ought to say that at an early stage of the session, when some reference had been made to the question in parliament, I received a large deputation, accompanied by hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House, comprising the manufacturers of cement who were not in the merger, and they represented to us-I am not endorsing or denying their statement, but merely placing the House in possession of their contention-they represented to us that there was no increased price of cement that could be a just cause of complaint, and they said that if we should reduce the duty as was proposed the effect would be not to punish the merger, for, perhaps, the merger could stand it, but that all the smaller cement men in the country would have to go out of business. I think it is only fair to mention that this view was presented by the deputation to which I refer. They told us there was no combine so far as they were concerned, that a large percentage of the cbment business was not in the merger, that there was actual bona fide competition between the merger and the outside companies, and that they felt sure the public would get the cement at a reasonable and fair price. I am not endors-

ing these contentions, but in view of what the hon. member for Selkirk has said, I think it only fair that I should present to the House the contentions of that deputation.


Mr. HENDERSON.: Then, judging by what the Minister of Finance has said, I would assume that the Bill of the Minister of Labour would be entirely ineffectual, because he will not dare to put it in force against the merger, fearing he may injure those who are not in the merger. That is an interpretation of what the Minister of Finance said.


William Stevens Fielding: I am not interpreting it as applied to this Bill.


David Henderson: Well, I am.
Mr. KING The representations made to the Minister of Finance may or may not be correct, but the investigation will show whether they are correct or not, and if it be found they are not correct then this measure would be very effectual.


Robert Laird Borden: It would only be the operations of the combine that would be investigated?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Any feature bearing on the combine and its operations. If the combine were being investigated, the argument placed before the Minister of Finance bv the deputation would undoubtedly be urged and that is a question that would be inquired into.


Mr. D. A. LAFORTUNE (Montcalm).: (Translation). Mr. Speaker, I desire to make a few remarks on this question, the county which I have the honour to represent being highly interested in _ all that pertains to the subject under discussion. I find that about ten years ago a powerful company called the American Tobacco Company began its operations in the province of Quebec. Later on they assigned all their rights to another very powerful company, the Imperial Tobacco Company. They bought all the tobacco factories established in the counties of Joliette, Montcalm and L'Assomption, to the great prejudice of the farmers interested in the growing of tobacco. These companies stipulated that the vendors would be precluded, during the space of twenty years, from engaging in the manufacture of tobacco and from having any interest whatsoever in that industry, thus inserting a clause which was utterly prohibitory.
The law which permits the prohibitory clause, as between sellers and buyers, requires three conditions; 1st, that the object should be fullv determined; 2nd. that the place should be accurately specified, and 3rd, that the duration of the contract should be determined. In the case of the companies who bought the factories of the counties in question, they stipulated, in
order to evade the law, that the vendor would have the right to engage in that industry in Alaska or on the banks of the Yukon river. Such a clause clearly indicates that the object in view was simply to evade the law. Indeed, had not this exception been made, the contract would have been radically null and void. But in order to escape the law, it was specified that the vendor would have the right to engage in the manufacture of tobacco in what is known as the Yukon district.
The people who thus sold their manufactures obtained rather high prices from that company who own millions. These sales have caused great damages to the farmers by drawing away from these counties quite a number of factories. Moreover, the Imperial Tobacco Company, being the only buyers of the tobacco crop, controlled the prices and gave the farmers just what they pleased to give them. As a matter of fact, the company regulates the prices and the conditions which they see fit to impose on the producers.
I desire to know from the hon. Minister of Labour whether this Bill can reach such contracts as these. I see by sections 22 and 23 of the present Bill that whoever shall buy out, or prevent competition, or even shall unduly restrict the manufacture or production of any commercial commodity, shall be liable to rather a heavy fine or even to imprisonment.
This is all very well, but there is one point on which I desire to be informed by the minister. I desire to know whether this law shall be retroactive in its effects, or in other words, whether it shall apply to those who have in the past bought these factories with the restrictions which I have pointed out. Because my constituency is very much interested in being able to obtain the power to reopen the factories which have been closed after having been bought by the powerful corporation, ' The Imperial Tobacco Company.'
In my opinion this law is very important from the standpoint of those who are engaged in agricultural pursuits, and especially in the growing of tobacco like the people of the county of Montcalm.
If it is possible to annul or at least to modify the existing contracts; if it is possible to bring before the Board of Control mentioned in this Bill such cases as these, so that the people who sold opt their establishment could reopen their old manufactures, the hon. minister shall deserve the heartfelt gratitude of that part of the country where people are engaged in the tobacco industry, and in particular of that part of the country which I have the honour to represent in this House.
It is my desire that the minister should tell me whether this law will effect that kind of existing contracts.


Robert Laird Borden: 
William Findlay Maclean: I am quite prepared to give this new measure a trial, and especially to give it consideration in view of the introduction of the principle of publicity in these matters. But I also wish to say that the Bill commends itself to me because this government has accepted a principle that I fought for for many years in this House, namely, that the government, when it introduces a Bill to remedy a grievance, ought to provide machinery under the Bill for the enforcement of the law. Hitherto that has been neglected. I was laughed out of the House almost at that time by the Minister of Justice, who said that he was the Attorney General for the Dominion, as he called himself, that he was responsible for the enforcement of Dominion Acts, and that the Attorney Generals of the provinces were also responsible for the enforcement of them. But now I see there is provision in this Act for its enforcement, that the Minister of Justice can institute actions, can retain counsel, that the Governor in Council will also act, and that the patent law can be enforced in this respect. This is great progress compared with what we had in the past. It is a change and it is just an other of the things which I have pressed upon this House and which received little consideration at the start, but which are now recognized and are being adopted as general principles.


David Henderson: They are all the time doing it.	.


William Findlay Maclean: My hon. friend (Mr. Henderson) says they are all the time doing it. But this is not an omnibus Act to cure the grievances in connection * with other general Acts. For instance, if there is something wrong in connection with patents and patent laws, the effective remedy is in the Patent Act, and I believe the Patent Act ought to be greatly.enlarged and extended on the lines of the German and British Patent Acts in order to afford protection to the people. We ought to have a system in this country that would automatically bring about the cancellation of a patent if the patent was being used to the detriment of the public or for the unfair enhancement of prices. If mergers are possible, as they now are, and if they are grievances, automatically, the law that controls the capitalization of the merger ought to in some way intervene and compel a reduction in the capitalization. We have no control of capitalization to-day, and a great many of the economic evils of the country are due to unfair capitalization. Also, in the matter of the tariff, if there is a grievance, in consequence of unfair treatment and the enhancement of prices, the tariff itself ought to automatically operate so as to bring the grievance to a finish. I think this principle should be more and more adopted of the federal government making appropriations, employing counsel, paying witnesses and doing all those things in order to enforce its own laws. It does not do to leave the administration of the large federal Acts to the provinces, or to leave to them the expense of enforcing these laws. It is true that the provinces do enforce the Criminal Code, but there are grave breaches of the Criminal Code in this country that you cannot have enforced by provincial action, and more and more the principle recognized in this Bill should be extended to all the great federal Acts. We have another instance of the extension of this principle in the Railway Act, but, certainly under the Railway Act, you ought to have a general prosecuting attorney in the public interest representing the Crown and the public, and whose duty it would be to see that the Act was enforced. The merit of this and all those remedial Bills that are being passed in this country to deal with public grievances and correct abuses, de- ; pends upon the federal government spending its money freely and employing Crown officers to enforce the law. That will be ] the future of it and of all those Acts of a [DOT] remedial character that we have passed in the last few years. Certainly it is a matter < of satisfaction to me to know that while i the proposition that I made in this House some years ago that this government ! should be responsible for the enforcement ) of its own Acts was ridiculed, it has at : last been recognized, and there is a fair i Mr. HENDERSON.
hope that the principle being accepted with respect to this particular Act will be embodied in a great many others.


Mr. GEO. PARENT (Montmorency).: Mr. Speaker, since this Bill has been under dis-j cussion, I think we have found that the ' general sense of the House is that legisla-' tion of this kind i3 highly desirable. Among all the clauses of this Bill there is one in particular to which I wish to draw the attention of the House, and it is one upon which I beg to congratulate, especially my hon. friend the Minister of Labour (Mr. King). I refer to clause 22 dealing with the Patent Act. In the city of Quebec we have had, for the last 3ix or seven years, a company which has been trying to do business in the shoe machinery trade. But they found that the United Shoe Machinery Company, a big American corporation, was entirely in control of the shoe machinery trade in this country. The Canadian Shoe Machinery Company, the company to which I refer, has for years tried to put its machinery on the market, but unsuccessfully, because the United Shoe Machinery Company had secured entire control of that market. The United Shoe Machinery Company was the owner of certain patents, and it took advantage of these patents so as to make it impossible for any other company to compete against it. It was a genuine monopoly. I would like to call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to some of the clauses that the United Shoe Machinery Company includes in its contracts with the variou3 manufacturers, and then you will see how far they go in their dealings.
Clauses in the United Shoe Machinery Company's Lease and License. Form 1210-|.
2.	The lessee shall at' all times and at his own expense keep the said machinery in good and efficient working order, and shall obtain from the lessor exclusively and shall pay therefor at the regular prices from time to time established by the lessor, all the duplicate parts, extras, etc., to be used on said machines.
3.	The lessee shall at his own expense insure the leased machinery against loss by fire to
the amount of $	 and in case the same
is lost or destroyed before the termination of this lease then the lessee shall pay to the lessor on demand an equal sum as partial compensation for such loss or destruction. The lessee shall pay all taxes and assessments which shall be levied in respect to the leased machinery or in respect to this lease and license or the right to payments hereunder upon whomsoever assessed.
4.	The said machinery shall not be used in the manufacture of any boots and shoes which are lasted on machines other than those leased from the lessor or any welted boots or shoes which are not welted or stitched on welt sewing and sole stitching machine leased from the lessor, or in the manufacture of any boots partly made by the aid of any machinery not leased from the lessor.

i. Form No. unknown-The lessee agrees, as rent or royalty for the said machinery to purchase from the lessor at the prices established by the lessor all the fastening materials used by him or in connection with the said machinery.
8. This lease and license shall continue, unless sooner terminated by the lessor, because of breach thereof on the part of the lessee or otherwise as herein provided, for twenty years from the date thereof.
10. The lessee admits the validity of each and every of the letters patent of the Dominion of Canada owned by the lessor or under which it is licensed, and agrees that it will not directly or indirectly infringe oi contest the validity of, or the title of the lessor to any of said patents. The termination or cesser of this lease and license from any cause whatever shall not in any way affect the provisions of this clause or release or discharge the lessee from the admission and estoppel herein set forth.
I read this to point out how far these gentlemen can go. And, Sir, every one of these contracts is binding on the shoe manufacturers of this country for twenty years to come, and when that term is about to expire, then they come with some other improvements to their machinery, and they bind the manufacturers for another twenty years. This is one of the worst monopolies that is in Canada to-day, and I am glad that by section 22 of this Bill we will be able to get at the bottom of their organization and find means of getting relief. We have heard from hon. gentlemen in this House about the cement merger, and we have heard from other. hon. gentlemen about the rubber merger. It would almost seem that every member of the House has a special merger that he knows something about. We have had in the city of Quebec lately what is known as the Quebec merger. The 'Canadian Electric Company, the Canadian Gas Company, the Frontenac Gas Company, and the Quebec Railway, Light and Power Company have all combined, and from the very minute they did combine the people of Quebec found the price of gas went up from $1 per 1,000 cubic feet to $1.50 per 1,000 cubic feet. It is a curious coincidence that the moment these companies combine the citizens should find that the price of gas goes up. The Minister of Labour also mentioned that this Bill will give us a chance to regulate to some extent the freight rates of shipping companies. The port of Quebec has a grievance in regard to the freight rates that are charged to that port, and I have here a letter from one of our leading merchants in Quebec in which he says that the North Atlantic West Bound Freight Conference lines is practically a combine, which includes the Allan Line, the_ Dominion Line, the Canadian Pacific Railway Line, the Manchester Liners, and Donaldson Brothers. This West Bound Freight Conference line has put in rates to Quebec
which are apparently not the same that they levy to other ports in Canada. I he letter says:
I have already spoken to you on the rates made on goods imported to Quebec from Liverpool, Glasgow, London, and mostly all European points, which are two and sixpence to five shillings per ton of 2,240 pounds higher to this port than to the port of Montreal.
And when we consider that the port of Quebec is 180 miles nearer to European ports than is the port of Montreal, one can hardly find a reason why they make such discriminatory rates to the detriment of the city of Quebec. If, as I hope, we can make these companies afford better treatment to the city of Quebec, the Bill will have done a lot of good, and the Quebec people will be grateful to the government for it. I understand there is no particular provision in the Bill which * affords a remedy for this, but as the Minister of Labour says, as these companies are subsidized by the government, perhaps we can bring them to common sense by reducing the subsidies or by attaching certain conditions to the granting of the subsidies, which will meet the views of the people of the city of Quebec.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I raised the point in the committee stage that as this Bill repealed one section of the customs law entirely and then re-enacted in another Bill, that our procedure was irregular as the House did not go into Committee of Ways and Means.
I understood the Prime Minister was to consider the point and to make a statement in reference to it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Prime Minister did have the matter looked into, and it was thought that the procedure was quite proper, because in this measure there is no m-tent to impose any taxes in connection with customs. It is simply transferring a clause of one Bill to another Bill. If there had been any endeavour to introduce legislation imposing additional taxes, then it would be necessary for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means.


Mr FIELDING.: I was not present when the point was raised by my hon. friend (Mr. Sproule), but I understand that the) Chairman of the committee Tuled against his contention. It would strike me that as what we are doing here does, not impose any burden on the people, it is not necessary to go into Committee of Ways and Means.	-


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: By way of explanation, I should say that the point was not raised in the committee as a point of order. The hon. member (Mr. Sproule) spoke across the House Questioning the procedure, and did not specifically raise it as a point of order. Accordingly there was

no ruling from the Chairman. But had I felt that as a point of order it would have been well taken, it would have been my duty to have ruled. It was only because I did not think it would have been well taken as a point of order that I made no ruling.
^r- SPKOULE. If that be so, I raise the point of order now and ask for a ruling ^'because I understood distinctly that the Prime Minister said that he would have it looked into, and that an answer would be given before the Bill was read the third time.


William Stevens Fielding: So. far as the Prime Minister is concerned, I can inform my hon. friend that he does not agree with him, because I had a conversation with him on the subject.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: Bourinot says:
Changes in the tariff are proposed in the form of resolutions, each of which must be formally adopted by the Committee of Ways and Means and reported to the House.
^ understand that this clause makes no change in the tariff. It only refers to one of the penalty clauses in the tariff which can be dispensed with in this Bill.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the third time.
Mr. KING moved that the title be as follows :	An Act to provide for the Investigation of Combines, Monopolies, Trusts and Mergers which may enhance prices, or restrict competition.
Samuel Hughes: That does not properly describe the Act, according to the minister s own amendment. A combine might also depreciate prices.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is covered, I think, by the words, ' restrict competition '.


Samuel Hughes: No, it is not, as was pointed out yesterday.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no objection to shortening the title further. I move that it be as follows: An Act to provide for the investigation of Combines, Monopolies, Trusts and Mergers.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill passed.

William Stevens Fielding: I wish to move that item 21 on the order paper, being a resolution respecting subsidies to dry-docks be dropped, the object being to bring it forward in another form to-morrow. Some changes have been made, and I thought it desirable to bring it up in the form of a new resolution rather than to amend this resolution.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and order discharged. Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.

[Stage Direction]
House in committee on Bill (No. 25) respecting the Water Carriage of Goods.- Mr. Brodeur.
Robert Laird Borden: Perhaps the minister would give us an explanation of the Bill, particularly informing us whether it differs, and if so in what respect, from the Bill which was before the House two sessions ago.


Mr. BUREAU.: If I am rightly informed, this Bill was before the Senate two years ago. There were some objections to it, and it was considered to be of such importance that there was an investigation held and evidence taken before a special committee for the purpose of ascertaining what remedy needed to be applied. Last year the Bill was again before the Senate and was passed by that House, and sent over to the House of Commons; but it was in the dying hours of the session, and did not go through. This year the Bill came again before the Senate. As it_ is now before the House, it contains certain amendments which were made by the special Committee on Marine and Fisheries, after an investigation in winch evidence was taken. The object of the Bill is to restrict the contracting power of a ship-owner, whenever in his bill of lading or other document he inserts any clause to relieve himself from responsibility for loss or damage, whether as a result of his own negligence or want of care or not.
I understand that complaints were made by shippers that in bills of lading there were provisions of this kind so th^t when goods were damaged or lost, the loss was sustained by them instead of by the shipowner, and the object is to prevent him relieving himself of responsibility in this way.
On section 4, certain clauses prohibited in bill of lading.


Robert Laird Borden: I did not catch what the Solicitor General said as to the similarity of this Bill to the one passed by the Senate.


Mr. SINCLAIR.: It is practically the same Bill.


Robert Laird Borden: Perhaps the minister would let us know when there is any change in any section of the Bill.


Jacques Bureau: I understand that clause 10 has been added as a new section. It was not in the old Bill as presented to the Senate, and it has been added as the result of the investigation held before the Marine and Fisheries Committee. Complaints were made that certain numbers of pieces of wood were shipped and that w..en they got across the ocean, measurements were taken, and if the measurements and standards did not tally with the measurements and tallies of the shippers,

the loss was on the ship-owners. That ha.s been changed. so that when the shipowner delivers the exact number of pieces < he has received, he will be relieved from liability whether the measurements or standards agree or not. That is the only change I understand that has been made in the Act.
On section 6,


John Howard Sinclair: These words ' or from latent defect ' were added by the committee on Marine and Fisheries at the instance of William Thompson and Company, of St. John, who said it would be a hardship sometimes if there was some latent defect in a ship such as a defective boiler which could not possibly be found out, and the ship went to sea with a very valuable cargo and was lost by reason of that latent defect, that the ship-owners should be held liable. That has always been the law, and these words do not change it.


Mr. LANCASTER.: Is it not going a long way to say that a ship-owner should not be held responsible for a latent defect. No one could inspect the ship but himself.


John Howard Sinclair: It only applies to cases where it is impossible to discover a latent defect. There are many cases in which it. is not possible for a ship-owner to know.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: That is hardly the amendment. If there is a latent defect, I do not like the idea of the responsibility being put upon anybody but the person who has control of the inspection and who has the power to order all such defects to be corrected. I do not like it to be put upon any one but the owner of the ship who should be able to discover the defect.


John Howard Sinclair: If the hon. minister will look at the section he will see that it reads ' If the owner of any ship transporting merchandise ot property from any port in Canada exercises due diligence to make the ship in all respects sea-worthy and properly manned,' The ship owner is bound by this to exercise due diligence, and he is also bound under the shipping Act to have his ship inspected every year, and to have a certificate carried by the captain that his ship has undergone proper inspection. If he has exercised due diligence, and there is a latent defect he has the right to be relieved from liability.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I do not disagree with what the hon. member says, but I am afraid the Act itself would not have quite the effect that his argument implies. ' If the owner of any ship exercises due diligence to make the ship in all respects seaworthy and properly manned '-


Jacques Bureau: And equipped.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: That is all Tight as the section is printed, so far as it
goes, but if there was a latent defect in a shiD then the owner could say, I used due diligence to make the ship seaworthy and properly manned and equipped, and I am not liable for the latent defects. He could discover these latent defects by proper inspection.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
Committee resumed at three o'clock.


Mr. CLARKE.: Section 6, it seems to me goes very far. It seems to exempt altogether the owners of the boat from liability for damage caused by negligence or want of proper skill on the part of the servants or agents of the ship-owner. That certainly is contrary to most rules of legal liability. The master is entrusted with the employment of the servants, he has entirely to do with the employment of servants, and when we say that the servant of the master may do as he pleases, and if his action results in damage to the owner of the cargo the master is not responsible, we are going very far. It is not so in the case of railway accidents. If the engineer or brakeman is guilty of negligence the company is liable, and it seems to me dangerous to say that the owner of a vessel shall escape scott free if his employees are guilty of negligence in the management or navigation of the ship. They may run into another boat or a dock or a rock, but no matter how negligent those in charge may be no person is responsible for the loss of the cargo in the ship. I am not very familiar with these marine matters, but it seems to me a dangerous thing to place the owner of the cargo entirely at the mercy of any employee of the ship if the owner of the ship is not to be responsible.


John Howard Sinclair: As I understand the common law has always been that the owner employs the best master he can get, a man in whom he has confidence, and if this man, by improper navigation or by not doing what he should do, destroys the ship, the owner is not liable for the damage to the cargo. It would be unreasonable to make him liable. The running of a ship is very hazardous, it is not at all on the same basis as the operation of a railway. A railway company gets certain franchises from the country, it. has certain rights which it gets from the public. A ship gets nothing whatever from the public. The owner of the ship embarks his capital in a hazardous business, and it would be unreasonable to hold him liable for loss on the cargo under such circumstances. He is just as anxious to save his ship, and get it safely to port as is the owner of the cargo that his goods shall get to port, unless he is a scoundrel anxious to lose his ship for the sake of the insurance.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Is not the owner of a ship a common carrier?


John Howard Sinclair: No and yes. It has never been held in the courts that he has the same liability as the owner of a railway or a common carrier on land. The owner of the ship does not earn his freight unless he lands his goods on the other "side, and consequently you can depend on him to get the goods there. Suppose he does not know what the goods are worth. It often turns out that goods are worth a great deal of money, and the freights are very low. A man may be carrying freignt at a few dollars a ton that is worth millions, and it would be unreasonable to hold him responsible on account of the small freight he gets if anything should happen the cargo through carelessness, &c.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I thought they had to put the value on the bill of lading.


John Howard Sinclair: Not at all. There is often no value stated in the bill of lading. It discloses the number of tons, and of course the freight, but not the value of the goods. This Bill goes_ a long distance towards taking away the rights the ship-owner now has. Under the present common law he has the right to make a contract, but you are depriving him of that right which nearly every person enjoys under the law. We deprive him of the right to contract with the owner of the goods in regard to the care of the goods. There are some cases where it is quite proper that the owner of a ship should be allowed to make a contract to relieve himself of liability, and where the owner of the goods would be quite willing to accept the liability in order to get the owner of the ship to carry his goods. This, then, is a compromise to which the shipowners of Montreal, and other parts of Canada have agreed. The whole question was threshed out before the 'Senate Committee, and later on before a committee of this House. At that committee the following shipping lines were represented: The Allan line, the Quebec Steamship line, the Llder-Dempster line, the McLean-Kennedy line, the Hamburg American line, the Dominion Coal Company, the Donaldson line, and the Thompson line. The Dominion Millers were also represented by men who well understood the business they were dealing with, and gave it a good deal of attention. The Manufacturers' Association was represented, and a number of other interests. ^ The Bill was carefully threshed out, and if we undertake to change it without very careful thought we may be creating a condition of affairs that will cause great disturbance in the commerce of Canada. The Bill goes a great distance in protecting the owners of the goods.. That, of course, is its intention. It arose through the conditions that were being inserted in
Mr. SINCLAIR,
the bills of lading granted by the steamship people in Montreal. In that form of bill of lading they inserted clauses relieving the steamship of the liability which should really have been assumed by the steamship, such liability as putting the goods in contact with other goods that would damage them. The right was also put in the bill of lading to deliver the goods to the consignee notwithstanding the fact that the bill of lading had ben endorsed to a bank. There were in fact certain clauses in the bills ^ of lading in common use among the shipping people on the St. Lawrence that should not have been there, and that is what gave rise to the Bill -in the first place. ^ Many concession were made by the shipping people, these concessions were accepted by the representatives of the Manufacturers Association, and the Millers, and I trust the members will understand that the words of this Bill have not been placed here without a great deal of thought and care. The House ought to accept the Bill unless they can point out something very improper in the language.


Mr. G. TAYLOR.: The shipper of goods can protect himself by insuring his cargo. That is the whole point at issue. When you ship a cargo you insure it for its full value, sometimes for a little more than its value on account of fluctuations in price.


Mr. A. M. MARTIN.: Mr. Chairman, the shipper can insure for the full value of his goods, but to cover the case of the old bill of lading we would require to insure under the all-risks clause, which covers every kind of damage. It costs a great deal more to insure under that clause than under the ordinary clause. However, this section, in my mind, would reduce the cost of insurance to the shipper as it would enable him to insure under the ordinary clause. The trouble in the past has been that the through bill of lading received by the shippers in Canada did not hold the vessel owners liable in any way whatever. It did not even oblige them to deliver the same goods that you shipped; it held them liable to deliver the same kind of goods, but not the same goods. Then it permitted them to deliver the goods to the party to whom they were shipped before the original bill of lading was delivered up. This was the principle object in asking for the new through bill of lading now. Formerly we who shipped from inland points did not really know what our Shipping Bill contained. We took a bill of lading from the railway com-oany, which held the railway company liable for any damage, and that simply stated that we came under the Ship's hill when they handed over the goods to the steamship company. Now, what is needed is a Bill that will hold the steamship

company liable for the goods. However, as my hon. friend from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) has stated, this Bill is in the nature of a compromise between the shippers and the ship owners, and it would be in the interest of the shippers to let the Bill pass as it is, because if any amendments were made to it they would b-lock the Bill for this year and the shippers would have no protection durins the coming year. This Bill will afford a degree of protection to them, and therefore it would be better to let it go through as it is.


Mr. DOHERTY.: The provisions of the Bill which restrict the liberty of a shipowner by means of stipulations in the bill of lading relieving himself from responsibility, are a great advantage to the shipper, and to that extent the Bill is an advantage to the shipper. But I think we require to proceed with care when it is proposed, because those particular sections give certain advantages to the shipper to impose upon him a disadvantage by other sections of the Bill. There may be a sufficient reason for enacting this section, but it certainly is a section which relieves the ship-owner, that is, the ship-owner who is engaged in transporting goods, from responsibilities which undoubtedly were incumbent upon him at common law. I was surprised to hear the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sinclair) say that a ship-owner was not a carrier and did not come under the common law regarding carriers. I think he is a carrier in precisely the same sense as a railway company, if he carries on the business of a carrier, that is, if he transports goods in a ship. The mere fact that a man owns a vessel does not make him a carrier, but if he uses it to carry goods, he becomes a carrier the same as a railway company is a carrier. A railway company, because it owns a railway, is not thereby a common carrier, hut when it engages in the business of carrying, then it comes under the common law regulating carriers. Railway companies have special legislation affecting them, and this is special legislation made for the ship-owners. But when the hon. gentleman said that there never was any liability, that it never was the law that the shipowner engaged in the business of carrying goods was responsible for the loss that occurred by error in the management of the vessel, I must say he enunciated a proposition quite new to me. It is in fact because the ship-owner is a common carrier at common law, and as such would' he responsible to deliver the goods that he undertook to carry, and could excuse himself for their loss only on the ground that the loss was attributable either to the act of God or to the King's enemies, that there is any object- in making a section of this kind. It is clearly a section to modify the 254
responsibility which at common law lies upon the ship-owner as a common carrier. It seems to me to go exceedingly far, it is going to put the ship-owner in a different position, not only from that of common carrier, but it is going to put him in a different position as regards responsibility, from that occupied by every other person who employs others to act as his servants. The general rule of law is, that I am responsible for damage that is caused by the fault or negligence of my servant in the performance of the duty for which I employ him. Now, this is a provision that the ship-owner shall not be responsible for .damage caused b,y the fault of the servant in the performance of the duties for which he employs him, and its practical effect is that the ship-owner, even though he employed an incompetent captain, will not be responsible for the damage resulting from the incompetence of that captain in the management of the ship. It is true, it is required, as a condtion of this exemption, that he should exercise due diligence to make the ship in all respects seaworthy and properly to man it, so it will be on him to show the due diligence. But I think the effect of the section is to create an exceptional position for the ship-owner, it places him in a category by himself.


John Howard Sinclair: What does the hon. gentleman find in this proposed statute that enables the ship-owner to employ an incompetent captain and send him out with the ship?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I pointed out that of course he would have to establish that he had used diligence, but even though he may have used diligence, the captain that he has employed may prove to be incompetent, and still he is being relieved from damage resulting from mismanagement. Now we find here the words: 'error in navigation or mismanagement of the ship '. Those are errors attributable to the captain or officers of the vessel, and the fact that they make such errors would at all events, in relation to that particular error, show them to be incompetent, -and yet we relieve the ship-owner from responsibility. I will not discuss whether the general rule of the law is a good rule, but I certainly think that it cannot be disputed that the general rule of law is that I am responsible for damage that is done by my employee if that damage is caused by him while he is in the performance of the duties for which I employ him; and if you pass this section you place the ship-owner in a lifferent position from any other employer, and you relieve him from responsibility for the incompetency of the people whom he employs. That is clearly a most material liminution of the responsibility of the shipowner at common law as a carrier, and as an employer of persons. Whether the ad-



vantages to the shipper from the other sections of the Act are sufficiently great to compensate for the disadvantages, would perhaps be a matter of question. I think myself that this House ought not to adopt this legislation on the supposition that it never was the law that the ship-owner was responsible for mismanagement of the vessel by his employees.


Mr. MACDONALD.: There can be no doubt that at common law the principle laid down by the hon. member for St. Anne (Mr. Doherty) is correct. 1 My hon. friend will agree that when parties have contracted, however, in regard to the carriage of goods, this clause always appears in a bill of lading for the protection of the shipper. And what are we doing here in this Bill? It might be said in a way tha.t we are making a bill of lading to govern the shipment of goods from Canada and into Canada. We are following in that respect the example which was set by the United States when they adopted some years ago what is known as the Harter Act, and the clauses which are incorporated here are a reproduction of that legislation which was settled at the suggestion of the commercial world in the United States. In declaring what shall be in the bill of lading it might be said that we are declaring what shall be the bill of lading for the future. We are not doing anything that is unfair to either party. The various interests that appeared before the committee on this subject were representative of the shippers and the carriers, the latter of whom were anxious to have a definite and clear bill of lading made a matter of law. While under the common law these liabilities did exist on the shipowner, as a matter of fact they did not exist on account of being contracted against, and I do not think there is anything anomalous in reproducing in the law what is practically in every bill of lading in the coun-* try. The fact that the different interests watched with the greatest keenness in order to see that no undue advantage was given to either side is the best evidence that the measure is a well considered one.


John Howard Sinclair: I am afraid my hon. friend from St. Anne (Mr. Doherty) misunderstood what I intended to convey.' Under the law, ias at present, the ship-owner is allowed to make a contract, and in every charter party and bill of lading he is very caTeful to contract himself out of as much liability as he can. For hundreds of years, in every one of these shipping contracts it has always been the custom of ship-owners to contract themselves out of the specific things that are mentioned in section 7, such as: loss arising from Are, dangers of the sea, the acts of God and the King's enemies, and inherent vice of the thing carried. These are among the things that Mr. DOHERTY. '
have appeared in every bill of lading and charter party that has been in existence in British countries for very many years. We are now by this Act taking away from the ship-owner the right to make a contract that will contract himself out of liability, but we think this clause is a reasonable one.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The shipper is obliged now to sign the bill of lading presented to him ot otherwise he cannot ship his goods. If a loss should be sustained through the negligence of the common carrier and in common law he weTe sued for damages, would not the court determine which of these provisions in the contract were reasonable and which unreasonable, and only allow to prevail those which were reasonable?


John Howard Sinclair: I think the courts have always held a man liable foT the consequence of his own negligence. He can contract himself out of his negligence, and if the owner of the goods agrees to that contract.you have a contract between the two. but that is the thing we are trying to avoid. The committee arrived at the conclusion that the provisions in clause 7 were reasonable. That is the meaning of it and nothing more.
On section 7,


Charles Joseph Doherty: There is something in this section to which I would call the special attention of the committee, because it involves so serious an error that I doubt very much if it could have been intended that the section should be couched in these precise words. At all events I do not think it could have been intended to produce the effect which the enactment of the clause would produce. I quite agree that it would be a proper thing to exempt the shipowner from loss arising from the different causes whioh are mentioned in this section, provided such loss arises without his fault or privity or the fault ot privity of his servants, for whom he is responsible. But, as I read the section as drawn, it exempts the ship-owner from responsibility if the damage is the result of any one of the causes enumerated there, without considering at all whether that cause is attributable to his fault or the fault of those for whom he is responsible. For instance, under the section as drafted, the ship-owner would have nothing to do but say your goods were destroyed by Are, and then he would be exempt under the section. I submit he should be called upon to show that the goods were destroyed by Are which was not attributable to his fault or to the fault of those for whom he was responsible.


Mr. BARKER.: Under section 4, he cannot contract himself out of liability for negligence.
8013 APRIL 26, 1910 8014


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes, but in this section it is not a question of contracting himself out of anything; the law itself here says, that the ship-owner shall have no responsibility, regardless of what contract he may make, for the lo-ss of goods destroyed by fire. It may be that the shipper is insured against that loss, but I have difficulty in convincing myself that it was intended to say, as this section says, that the shipowner in order to be relieved, need only prove that the cause was fire. Fire is not a thing that necessarily excludes the idea of fault on the part of persons in charge of the place where the fire occurred, on the contrary, probably in the majority of cases, fire is due to somebody's fault. When you merely prove that the goods were burnt, the question remains absolutely undetermined in any way whether that is a loss attributable to the fault of the ship-owner or his employees. In dealing with a section of this kind, which has nothing to do with what a man may -contra ot himself out of, but which is fixing the legal liability, you want to remember in making statutory provisions what the position o'f the party was in the absence of these provisions. His position in the absence of any provision to relieve him, was that his obligation was to produce the goods or explain why he did not, and to so explain it as to exclude the idea that it was his fault that he did not produce them. The only excuses the common law recognizes were the act of God and the King's enemies. I am not -arguing that a man should not be exempt from responsibility for the causes enumerated in this section; what I -contend for is that he should be_ so relieved from -that liability, only provided that the happening of anv one of these things mentioned is not aftri-butable to bis fault. I know it may bo answered that as regards some of the things enumerated in this section thev could not be his fault, such as the act of God or the King's enemies or inherent vice m the things carried. Mr. SINCLAIR. That is not his fault. Mr. DOHERTY. Certainly not, but the answer to that is that the common law relieves him from that liability. That clearly could not be a cause of liability because that could not be his fault. The act of God, or the King's enemies or a defect in the goods that were furnished to him would not be his fault, and the common law would relieve him of all liability, but when you come to fire it might bo hi? fault. Mr. SINCLAIR. Fire is the only one that might be his fault. Mr. DOHERTA. I beg your pardon. When you come to the perils of the sea it is quite true that the peril is not his 2541	fault, but an accident resulting from it might be his fault if he has not taken proper precautions to avoid it. Under the the very same sort of legislation you will find judgments of the court to the effect that, though the immediate cause is the peril of the -sea, the ship-owner is responsible for the accident by which his vessel succumbed to the peril of the sea in that, for instance, the vessel was not seaworthy or, until we had the immediately preceding section, that she was not properly managed. With those exceptions, the act of God, the King's enemies and defects in the goods themselves, all of which would exempt him at common law', I submit that the law should be made to read that the ship-owner shall not be held liable for loss arising without his fault or the fault or privity ^ of any person from whom he is responsible from the causes mentioned in that section. I think that t-he explanation of _ how the section comes to be worded in this way is to be found in the fact that the people who drew it followed the example of the revisers of the statutes in 1906 and who, with all respect, I think, have made a very serious error. In 1906 they purported to revise chapter 82 of the _ Revised Statutes of 1886 and, more particularly they revised section 2 of that statute. In what purported to be a reproduction of section 2 they entirely altered the sense of section 2 apparently because they thought there would be an advantage in dividing the paragraphs of the section and giving each one a number. Section 2 of chapter 82, Revised Statutes, 1886, dealt with this subject precisely in the way that I contend it should be dealt with now and its provision reads as follows. After declaring the liabilitv for the loss of or damage to goods entrusted to them for conveyance they went on to say, in subsection 4, section 2: Provided, that they shall not he liable to any extent whatsoever to make good any loss or damage happening without their actual fault or privity, or the fault or neglect of their agents, servants or employees,- (a)	To any goods on board any such vessel, or delivered to them for conveyance therein, by reason of fire or the dangers of navigation. Exempting there substantially the very two causes mentioned here, but making it an additional requirement that the accident should happen without the fault of the ship-owner or carrier or the persons for whom he is responsible. Then they went on: (b)	Arising from any defect in or from the nature of the goods themselves, or from armed robbery or other irresistible force. Then they went on with other provisions I am not quite clear whether they are the same here or not. When the revision took place in 1906, and when the re-

visers came to reproduce that section, they made it read:
Carriers by water shall be liable for the loss of or damage to goods entrusted to them for conveyance, except that they shall hot be liable when such loss or damage happens,-
(a)	without their actual fault or privity, or without the fault or neglect of their agents, servants or employees; or,
(b)	by reason of fire or the dangers of navigation.
So that they did what this Bill is now doing; they made the absence of fault one distinct cause of exemption from liability, and then they made fire and the perils of navigation and these other things that are enumerated other causes of exemption from liability, producing practically . the result that even though the fire should be attributable to the fault of the ship-owner, nevertheless, it was to be ,a cause of exemption from liability. As I said in the beginning, I cannot convince myself that that was intended, for they enact that without regard to the question whether you are in fault or not, you shall not be responsible provided the damage be due to fire, and yet what the section says is clear from the fact that they make the absence of fault one distinct and substantial ground of relief from liability standing by itself. Then they go on to make fire and all the other things separate and distinct grounds of relief from liability. I do not know how this Bill was drafted, but it seems to me that it is the result of following the bad example of the gentlemen who drafted the Bevised Statutes in 1906, and who, in the Act as put in the revision of 1906, drifted away from what was the perfectly sound and correct .statement of what ought to be causes of exemption from liability, namely, fire and the perils of navigation, etc., provided the [DOT] loss was not attributable to the fault or occurred without the. fault of t'he ship-owner or the persons whom he employed. What I would suggest and what it seems to me would make it a perfectly reasonable law and not entail any injury upon the ship owner, is that in the second line of the section, after the word ' arising ' there be inserted the words ' without their actual fault or privity, or without the fault or neglect of their agents, servants or employees'. That would bring the wording back to the wording of the provision of section 2 of chapter 82, which was the provision intended to be merely reproduced from that section in the revision of the statutes of 1906, section 964, and which would set the law forth on what I submit would be a reasonable basis. Then it would go on ' or from,' etc.


Jacques Bureau: Since recess I have had a talk with my hon. friend from Montreal, St. Anne (Mr. Doherty) and I have also Mr. DOHERTY.
taken occasion to consult some Englishspeaking gentlemen about the phraseology of the section. Here is a question of English grammar and phraseology which I frankly admit I am not competent to decide, but I am t-old that this last phrase of section 7 'or for loss arising without their actual fault or privity or without the fault or neglect of their agents, servants or employees' is not a separate and distinct reason why they should be relieved from liability, but is a qualifying phrase which ought to be read with the rest of the section and applied to the whole section. Then, if it is the act of God, or if the ship is burned, the 'Ship-owner shall not be liable provided there is no fault on the part of the master, servants or employees. I do Mot claim to be competent to judge when it comes to a question of English grammar. My hon. friend compares the statute of 1886 with the revised statute of 1906. The language of the Bill is exactly the language of the revised statute of 1906. I am not prepared to admit that the change in the language was made in the revision of the statute. There have been intervening amendments made to the .statute of 1886. There may have been a discussion in the House on those amendments justifying the amendment as it now stands in the revised statutes. That I am not prepared to say, because I had .not time during the recess to look over the statutes from 1886 to 1906 to see whether there had been any amendments between the consolidation and the revision. There mav have been, as the hon. member for St. Anne says, a slip on the part of those who revised the statutes. Before accepting the amendment suggested, I think we ought to find out whether the language of the statute of 1906 is not a repetition of the language used in statutes enacted subsequent to i886, and prior to 1906.


Samuel Barker: If the Solicitor General has been properly informed as to the last two lines governing the whole section, there can be no objection to the insertion of the words which the hon. member for St. Anne proposes, because in that case they will not add anything to the meaning of the section.


Jacques Bureau: That is a question for you to decide.


Samuel Barker: I think it is rather a question for the law clerk to consider, and therefore, the hon. gentleman should allow that clause to stand.


John Howard Sinclair: 
Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not question that, it is precisely in 'section 964 where the error was made. I think the Solicitor General will find that there was no intervening legislation, and that section 964 of the revised statutes of 1906, merely purported to revise and reproduce the dispositions of subsection 4 and the following subsections of section 2 of chapter 82 of the Revised Statutes of 1886; but in the reproduction they made the proviso governing all the exemptions read, as the hon. gentleman has just read it, as a separate clause of exemption from liability. The hon, gentleman talks of the danger of a load of cotton being burned, and says that the ship-owner ought to be allowed to contract himself out of liability for it. I am not arguing against his being allowed to contract _ himself out of liability. The question is not with regard to contracting himself out of liability; it is with regard to determining what his legal liability is in the absence of a contract. The cargo of cotton may be an exceptional case. On the other hand, look at all the classes of goods which in themselves are not specially liable to fire. If a vessel burned and my goods burned in it, and the ship-owner-had not contracted on the subject at all, under this section all he would have to do would be to say that the goods were burned, and even though I proved that the fire was the result of the grossest fault on his part, he would go scot free, because fire per se, -without regard to what caused it, is made a ground of exemption. The hon. gentleman sa'-s that nobody would carry goods otherwise.


John Howard Sinclair: Not at the present rates of freight.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Up to 1906 people carried goods under the law which I am arguing for. I am not arguing that a
party shall not be free to contract himself out of liability, and he will naturally do that when he is dealing with goods that are particularly liable to fire. But in cases where there is no question of goods particularly liable to fire, where people* are shipping different kinds of goods in quantities, and the ship-owner does not deem it wise or desirable to stipulate that he shall not be liable for damage resulting from fire, if we are going to step in to his aid and relieve him of liability because it is a fire, even though it be proved that the fire is his direct fault, I must say that it is most dangerous legislation.


Jacques Bureau: That might be possible, but not probable.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The law of the province of Quebec considers it so iprobaible that a fire, when it occurs, is attributable to the fault of the person at the place where it occurred or, to the fault of his employees, that in the case of landlord and tenant there is a presumption of the tenant's fault w7hen a building is destroyed by fire.


Mr. LEMIEUX.: There was a case in which they held the contrary.


Charles Joseph Doherty: In that case it was held that the tenant might prove that it was not his fault. When the ship-owner to whom I give my goods, comes and saysc I do not deliver, there is m,y contract to deliver your goods, that is my contractual obligation, I do not deliver them. I say: Why don't you deliver, and he replies: Oh, they were burnt on my vessel, my vessel was burnt; I was in charge of it, and I have no further account to render to you. That is a hard enough situation for the shipper, but supposing I am in a position to go on and prove that that fire was the ship-owner's fault, nevertheless, under this legislation, I would have no recourse. Now, I submit that in the revision of the statute it was not intended to so alter the law. The hon. gentleman speaks of men in business refusing to be bound under the law in the sense which I contend for, yet I affirm without a moment's hesitation, that that certainly was the law up to 1906 when this revision of the statute took place, and still there was a good deal of shipping, and a good deal of business done. The hon. gentleman will find in the reports cases where precisely what I contend for was held, but under the exemptions as they stood prior to 1906, neither fire nor the perils of the sea were causes of relief from liability, unless it was shown that the fire was not attributable to the fault of the ship-owner or that as regards the perils of the sea the shipowner had properly guarded against those perils. Now7, I submit that while it is quite true that this section is carrying on

the law as it is expressed in the revision of 1906, it is materially altering the law as it stood up to that time, and altering it to create an exemption from liability in a case that I submit does not deserve sympathy at the hands of this parliament. After all, what is it that I am asking for in asking for the insertion of those words?


Jacques Bureau: Is the liability as in the Revised Statutes of 1906 new, or has there been an,y intervening amendment to the statute of 1886?


Charles Joseph Doherty: My memory is that though the Revised Statute of 1906 purports to be a revision of chapter 82 of the revision of 1886, and refers to no other Act, I am under the impression, the very strong impression, that there was intervening legislation between 1886 and 1906, but in that intervening legislation the wording of 1886 [DOT]was retained. It is noteworthy that in the revised statutes each section refers back to the particular legislation which it purports to revise. I am fairly confident that I am making no mistake in what I have said, because it was not for the purpose of dealing with this Act that I had occasion to look into it. I had occasion to look into the legislation as it existed before the revision of 1906, and I distinctly remember my surprise to have it pointed out to me that the revision of 1906 altered the provision of the law. I am confident that whether there was intervening legislation between 1886 and 1906 or not, it is the revision of 1906 that first made this alteration. In that connection, I think it is noteworthy that the alteration, while a substantial alteration of the law, is effected merely by a rearrangement of the words. Where the law conies to be altered, it is done by taking a proviso covering all the subsections and making it a separate subsection. Now, I would be very much surprised if that is not merely the work of some gentleman occupying a more or less clerical position who thought he was making the thing look better by having each proviso with a number to it, with the result that he made that proviso a substantial disposition standing by itself. I am confirmed in that opinion, because I am convinced that the result is to produce a most unwarrantable condition of the law.


Mr. DANIEL.: At the Marine apd Fisheries Committee at which this matter was brought up there were representatives of the Dominion Millers' Association, and the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, and I think every member of the committee who was present will give these gentlemen credit for doing everything they possibly could to put every liability on the shipowner, and take it off the shipper. But there was not one of these gentlemen who objected to the inclusion of fire in that Mr. DOHERTY.
section. They were quite content to include it after going over this whole business, and they were also the gentlemen who represented those associations before the Senate where this Bill was drafted, and afterwards passed, so that I think this matter has already received a great deal more attention than this House is in a position to give it, and with all due deference to every one I may say more intelligent thought and attention.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Because these gentlemen were present and had an opportunity of having the various matters argued before them, pro and con, on every clause that came up before them. Now the hon. member for St. Anne (Mr. Doherty) has given I have no doubt a very able legal argument in favour of the change he proposes, but at the same time he is a gentleman who lives on the land pretty much; he is acquainted with fire as it occurs in houses and places of that kind. But I take it he is not much of a seaman and he has not spent many days, weeks or months of his life on the ocean. I think it is only necessary to call to the mind of that hon. gentleman the fact that there is no greater horror in existence than fire at sea, and I cannot imagine 'any one having charge of a ship, either as master or mate, or in any other capacity, who would for a moment relax efforts calculated to prevent the occurrence of a fire at sea, for such a fire puts in jeopardy not only the cargoe and the ship, but also the lives of the people who are managing and navigating the ship. So I take it that there are other reasons besides merely legal reasons which might have been brought out by the hon. member for St. Anne (Mr. Doherty) why this matter should remain as it is, because the word ' fire ' has been put in there after a great deal of consideration by those who were appearing for the ship-owners and also those who were appearing for the shippers. There is another point which I think we should not forget. This Bill is a Bill in favour of shippers as opposed to ship-owners. It has, as has already been mentioned, taken away from the shipowner the power to make his own contract with the shipper, something which has not been done by any nation having a large maritime fleet. It is not done by England, Italy, France, Germany or Norway and Sweden. These latter two countries are really stealing away a great deal of our own shipping business, especially as between the maritime provinces and the port [DOT]of Montreal. I think that we as a parliament will have to give some little attention to both sides of this controversy, and not give all the law and all the sympathy to the shipper at the expense of the ship-1 owner. The United States have practically

driven their ocean tonnage off the sea and their freight trade is now being carried on by ships sailing under foreign flags because the countries to which these vessels belong have not surrounded these ships with the restrictions of every shape and form which the United States have and which Canada is now beginning to do. For my part I think the section ought to stand as it is.


Robert Laird Borden: Is it the intention of those who are supporting the Bill to relieve the ship-owner absolutely from liability for negligence in these respects?


John Howard Sinclair: I understand that to be the intention. In cases where the damage arises from loss by fire or from damage of the sea or from the acts of God or public enemies, it was considered reasonable to relieve the ship-owner absolutely from responsibility for negligence, keeping in mind that the ship-owner has his own property in risk, that he has employed a captain competent under the law, that the ship is of value, that if the ship is lost the owner loses everything, and that he is also not in a position to insure the shipper's property. He can insure his own property but not yours.


Mr. J. HAGGART.: Suppose the shipowner sets the fire or is contributary to it?
_ Does that relieve him from liability?


John Howard Sinclair: Oh, no, he would then be guilty of a crime.


Charles Joseph Doherty: You may send him to penitentiary for the crime of arson, but you are indicating there without any conditions that he shall be relieved from liability for loss by fire.


John Howard Sinclair: I do not understand it that way. It is the law now.


Robert Laird Borden: Of course under the common law the carrier is an absolute insurer, and has always relieved himself from liability by means of provisions in the bill of lading. This statute in the 4th section prevents him from doing that under certain conditions, but at the same time, under the section we are now considering, I think it goes a little too far in the opposite direction; it is taking away with one hand, and giving more with the other, at least it is giving a great deal. You might have a case of the greatest possible negligence and a claim might be made against the ship-owner who at common law is an insurer, and he would point to this law and say: Although I have been guilty of the greatest possible negligence in consequence of which your goods have been destroyed I am not liable. That is departing in a very marked degree from the principles of liability that are usually rtoognized.


Jacques Bureau: I understand that this Bill is practically the result of a compromise between the two parties the shipowners and the shippers, and its provisions have been drafted after both parties have been heard and represented before the committee who had charge of the examination of the Bill before it came to the House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Should parliament not exercise its judgment in enacting a law?


Jacques Bureau: Certainly it is just to show the principles of the Bill. I understand as the leader of the opposition says, that it is relieving the owner of quite a responsibility, the responsibility for loss by fire, but on the other hand the nature of the case affords a certain guarantee. The idea of self-preservation is sufficiently well developed in every individual, whether at sea or on land, to stay his hand from performing any act that will lead to the destruction of his own life.


Robert Laird Borden: I realize the importance of that argument, but when actively engaged in the practice of my profession I had a good many of these maritime cases, and I am bound to say that the considerations which the hon. gentleman has mentioned have never tended very much to prevent acts of very great negligence at sea. I call to mind just one illustration. Two large ships in the middle of the Atlantic ocean with no land near, no other ships near, in broad day light, in calm weather collided, and one of them was sunk. You might apply the consideration mentioned to a case of that kind, and say it would be absolutely impossible that such an event could be brought about, that the law of self-preservation, the desire to perform a man's duty, would have prevented an accident of that kind, and yet it did happen under the conditions I have stated with no possible reason for the collision. In the end it came down to a question of the direction of the wind, each ship insisting that having regard to the [DOT] direction of the wind, and the course she was steering the other should have given way. The result was that neither gave way and one went down. There was'no loss of life, but a very narrow escape.


Jacques Bureau: I do not contend that the thing is impossible, I remarked that the chances, the probabilities, are very small.


Charles Joseph Doherty: How does the hon. gentleman explain the number of cases of fires that occur where it has been pleaded that the ship-owner was not responsible for fires. Then fires do not always destroy the whole vessel, only a portion of the goods may be destroyed. It must be remembered that we are dealing not only with

ocean going vessels, but with inland passenger boats as well.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend in order to back his argument said that in 1886 the statute made it without fault or negligence on the part of the ship-owner, his agents or employees. But the ship-owner contracted himself out of liability not only in the case of fire, but of every possible eventuality, while loading. I was even told that when during the investigation before the committee it was found that they had inserted a clause whereby ship-owners carrying cheese and cattle contracted themselves out of any liability for manure or anything of that kind running through the deck, and damaging goods beneath. I suppose that this was a compensation for taking away from the ship-owner the right to contract himself out of liability. I am not a maritime man. Three Rivers has some shipping, but not enough to make a man an expert. If we are going to put this Bill through, I think that, ias my hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) has said, it would be a disappointment to the parties most interested if we did not let it go as it is. I would, therefore, ask my hon. friend (Mr. Doherty) if he would have any objection to allowing his amendment to stand for the present?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I take no objection to letting it stand, but what is going to happen in the meantime if we pass the Bill?


Jacques Bureau: The law will remain as it is in the revised statutes.


Charles Joseph Doherty: When I saw this discrepancy in the revised statutes I made a note of the necessity of amending the revised statutes. Now, I must confess that the thing is so palpably opposed to every sound principle, that I would feel rather ashamed to allow my amendment to stand The persons interested, whom the Solicitor General represents as having accepted this wording, were, I think, under the erroneous impression that the words as they . came at the end of the section qualified the whole section.


Jacques Bureau: The hon. member fob Guysborough tells me not.
Mr. DOIIERT\. Well, to my mind to allow that to pass is creating a situation quite new, and giving a most exorbitant privilege to the ship-owner. You must remember that even with the words 'without fault or privity ' the ship-owner is going to escape if he can show that he did what he could to take care of his 3hip. Ihe hon. gentleman says: Of course they Will take care of their"ship; yes, and of course they will prove it every time. It is not asking much of a man to ask him to take care of his ship.	1


Charles Joseph Doherty: 


Jacques Bureau: It is shifting the burden, of proof.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If he proves what the hon. gentleman says, that he always does, why, he will escape his liability. I think it is my duty at all events to submit my. amendment. I move:
That section 7 be amended by inserting in the second line after the word ' arising ' the words ' without their actual fault or privity or without the fault or neglect of their agents, servants or employees''; and by inserting in the ^tenth line thereof after the word ' arising ' the words ' from other cause.'


John Howard Sinclair: By placing these words in there ' without their actual fault or privity,' I ask the hon. gentleman how the ship-owner could be negligent in case of an act of God or of the King's enemies? I think he does not intend to make the amendment in the way he has made it, or to put it in the place he puts it, for it makes the whole section absurd. We have already enacted that the shipper is bound in all respects to see that his ship is seaworthy and properly equipped, and that section is binding upon us. The shipowner, therefore, cannot be liable for any negligence of his own, from dangers of the sea or other navigable water.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have no objection to putting the words somewhere else. The absurdity of the section consists in our enacting a statutory legislation to say that the ship-owner shall not be liable for the loss resulting from the act of God or the King's enemies. That is the law now. It did seem to me, even if the words were put where they are, that everybody might take his chances that the courts would not interpret them to mean that after a man had proved that something was the act of God, he required to prove in addition that it was not his own fault.


John Howard Sinclair: If the hon. gentleman is acting in the interest of the owners of goods, he is taking a step that is very ]ikely to destroy the Bill altogether. There is no person who would be better pleased, if this Bill does not become law, than the ship-owner. This Bill is taking away valuable concessions and rights from the shipowning people of this country, and if the hon. gentleman pretends to be acting in the interest of the shipper and the people who own the goods, he will allow this section to pass as it stands.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am not acting in the interest of anybody, either the ship-owner or the shipper-, I am trying to act as a member of this parliament to see that the legislation that goes through is in accordance with what I conceive to be justice. That is my entire motive in discussing this matter. The hon. gentleman, assuming that I represent the interests of the ship-

pers, says to me: Well, though this thing may be an unjust thing to you, if you do not consent to this unjust thing, -why, the ship-owners will refuse to allow this parliament to pass these other sections which this parliament considers are just, and which prevents them from contracting out of obligations which this parliament thinks should not be allowed to be contracted out of. I think it is putting this House in a humiliating situation that we should be told that we are to be compelled to do something prejudicial to one interest because if we do not, there is another interest that will force this House to refuse to pass three or four sections of this Act.


Alexander Munro Martin: Supposing the hon. gentleman's amendment carries, what will be the effect on section 964 of the Canada Shipping Act?


Charles Joseph Doherty: This being the last legislation, it will repeal section 964 so far as there is a difference between them. But I am not quite clear that section 964 deals with precisely the same classes of carriers in all respects, but if it does, the effect of my amendment would be to modify section 964.


Alexander Munro Martin: It is not clear. I might read the clause that I referred to for the hon. gentleman. It provides that they:
Shall not be liable when such loss or datnage happens by reason of fire or the dangers of navigation.


Charles Joseph Doherty: It will be modified to the extent of making it read, 'except that they shall not be liable when such loss or damage happens,' etc. The effect of my amendment, would be to strike out letter (a) simply, and embody the rest of it in the first paragraph, making it read this way:
Carriers by water shall be liable for the loss of or damage to goods except that they shall not be liable when such loss or damage happens without their actual fault or privity or without the fault or neglect of their agents, servants or employees.
Then striking out the word 'or' simply, and going on:
By reason of fire or the dangers of navigation; or, from any defect in or from the nature of the goods themselves; or, from armed robbery or other irresistible force.
It would bring section 964 back to read just as did read section 2 of chapter 82, R.S., 1886. If the hon. gentleman will look at that section in the Revised Statutes of 1906 he will see that it purports to reproduce section 2, of chapter 82, of 1886, but does not reproduce it. When I say purports to reproduce it also purports to revise, but in the process of revision they have altered the sense. It will bring it back to the original form of the statute.


John Howard Sinclair: In reply to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Doherty) I would say that he has altogether misunderstood me. I did not hold any threat over the hon. gentleman or anybody else. He has a perfect right to propose any amendment that he chooses to this Biil. I intend to vote against his amendment for two reasons, first, because it does not seem to me to be intelligible. The amendment renders the clause almost meaningless, because we all know that a ship-owner could not possibly be liable by his negligence for the acts of God, the King's enemies, and all those other things that are mentioned. Then, I intend to vote against his amendment for the further reason that I do not consider it is proper legislation. In my opinion, shipowners should not be liable for damage from fire, I care not how it was caused; they should not be liable for the whole value of the goods that are shipped. The ship-owner has always been able to make a contract up to this date. He does not consider whether the cargo that he takes on is valuable or not. It is not his cargo, he risks his own property and he undertakes to carry it and do the best he can, but it has hitherto been his privilege and right to make a contract that he will not be liable for the value of goods provided they are lost by fire at sea. I think that is a proper contract for him to make, and up to this date he has the right to make it under the law of Canada. Now we are taking that right away from him by section 4 of this Bill, ,and it ought to be conceded by every reasonable man, when we are taking that right away, that there are certain rights which we should leave with him. If we intend that shipping business is to be done, if we intend that capital shall go into shipbuilding, and if we are to be in the position of having our wheat, agricultural products and manufactured goods carried cheaply across the ocean, we must at least give the ship-owner the right to make a reasonable contract. It will be most unreasonable if the owner of the ship who loses his own property, a property, perhaps, worth a quarter of a million dollars, must also lose another quarter of a million dollars for the goods which have been lost. There is no reason why the clause should not be enacted as it stands. I beg to differ altogether from the hon. member for Montreal, Ste. Anne, with regard to that.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: Mr. Doherty moves that after the word 'arising' in the second line of clause 7 there shall be inserted the words 'without their actual fault ot privity, or without the fault or neglect of their agents, servants or employees.'
Amendment negatived.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: It is also moved by the hon. member for Montreal, Ste. Anne, that in the tenth line of section 7,

after the word 'arising' there be inserted the words, 'from other cause.'


Jacques Bureau: That is the same amendment.


Charles Joseph Doherty: That is only a necessary consequence of the other one.


Jacques Bureau: Yes, it has no application, the other having been lost.
Amendment negatived, and section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES INVESTIGATION ACT-AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 198) to amend the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act.-Mr. King-read a second time, and the House went into committee thereon.
On section 1,
Thomas Simpson Sproule: Will the minister give us some general light on this?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The proposed amendments are intended to simplify the procedure in the light of experience, and to meet what appears to be the very reasonable request made on the part of the working men through their organizations in respect to certain features of the Bill which they believe to operate to their disadvantage. The proposed amendments do not in any way change the principles of the Act as it stands. The Act has given general satisfaction during the three years of its existence, but the railway employees allege they are at a disadvantage as compared with the members of other labour organizations. For example, the Act requires that before a board of investigation is asked the parties must take an oath that the necessary authority to declare a strike or lockout has been obtained. Where the dispute is confined to one locality it is not difficult to secure this declaration, but where a dispute extends through various provinces, the railway men's organizations represent that the taking of a vote of their members is a great expense and inconvenience. The railway organizations have duly constituted grievance committees which take up grievances with the companies, and they claim they can get a long way in the settlement of differences by mutual conference, and that if they cannot succeed in that way the certainty of a vote being in favour of a strike is virtually established. Then, if the board is constituted after the vote has been taken before a strike can be declared, should the parties be unwilling to accept the findings of the board a second vote is required over the whole system, which also involves considerable expense. It is proposed by one of these amendments


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: to remedy that, and with proper safe-, guards, to allow the organizations to apply for a board if their officers can make a declaration to the effect that the difficulties between them and the company have already been the subject of careful negotiation and that they have got as far as is possible in the negotiations. A declaration to that effect the provisions of the Act in other particulars being complied with will be sufficient to warrant the government establishing a board.
There is one other point-under the law as it stands at present, if either of the parties change the conditions and the otheT party is not satisfied with the change of conditions, then before a strike or lockout can take place a board of investigation must be appointed. Experience in the working out of ithe Act has shown that while either party may change the conditions, in so far as employees iare concerned they must always make the application for a board. We are proposing an amendment here which will throw upon the party who proposes the change, the onus of asking for the board. In 'the ease of the strike of the machinists on the Canadian Pacific railway, in 1908, 'the company proposed certain changes which the men were not satisfied with, and before the men could go on strike they were obliged to ask for a board which reported adversely to them. It was then represented in the press that the men had asked for the board and refused to accept its findings. There is a slight element of injustice in that representation. The company having changed the conditions should have been obliged to call for the board before putting the changes into effect, and had that been the case it would not have appeared that the men were responsible for the calling of the board. There is an amendment framed which will remedy that state of things. I may say that I have submitted the amendments to the various railway brotherhoods, who are generally speaking the only parties that up to the present time have taken exception to the measure. The replies which have been received from them indicate that this proposed change removes the objection almost in whole, which any of them may have entertained towards the Act. I think it important to give this information to the committee, and with the permission of the House, I will Tead a communication which I sent to the duly authorized representatives of the different brotherhoods of railway employees, inclosing a copy of the proposed amendments and the replies that I have received :
Department of Labour, Canada,
Ottawa, March 5, 1910.
Dear Sir,-I am inclosing a copy of proposed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, 1907, which have been

framed, after consultation with yourself and others, with a view of meeting what seem to me very reasonable requests made on behalf of the workingmen of this country through some of their representative labour bodies and officers, and in particular with a view of removing the possibilities of certain injustices which have been alleged on behalf of railway employees as existing, in so far as the provisions of the measure are applicable to them.
I wish you would kindly look carefully over the amendments proposed, and let me know whether in your opinion they are satisfactory, and whether if adopted by parliament they would bring the Industrial Disputes Act into a form generally satisfactory and acceptable to railway employees.
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd.) W. L. MACKENZIE KING.
To this communication I received the following reply from Mr. Calvin Lawrence, the legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers :
Windsor Hotel,
Ottawa, March 5, 1910. The Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, C.M.G., Minister of Labour,
Ottawa.
Dear Mr. King,-I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of March 5, together with a copy of the proposed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, 1907, and in reply, I am pleased to say, that I have very carefully looked over the suggested amendments and they appear to me to be very satisfactory and, in my opinion, if adopted by parliament they should bring the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act of 1907 into a form generally satisfactory and acceptable to railway employees; therefore, as representing the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, I can consistently endorse the Act when so amended, believing that it will, if amended as proposed, be a benefit not only to railway employees, but also to the public generally.
I wish to avail myself of this opportunity to express to you the appreciation of myself and those I represent for the courtesy and consideration you have extended to me during our interviews regarding railway legislation.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Yours very respectfully,
(Sgd.) CALVIN LAWRENCE, Legislative Representative B. L. E.
The following communication was received from Mr. Donald, the legislature representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineers:
Ottawa, March 10, 1910. W. L. Mackenzie King, Esq.,
Minister of Labour,
Ottawa.
Sir,-I have your letter of the 9th instant with inclosed copy of proposed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, 1907.
I have gone carefully over the amendments proposed and I am of the opinion that they
will be satisfactory should they become law as they are drafted. I am also of the opinion that the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, if it is amended as proposed, will bring the Act into a form that will meet with the general approval of the railway employees that I have the honour to represent.
Thanking you for the many courtesies that you have extended to us in the past,
I am, respectfully yours,
(Sgd.) W. J. DOWELL, Legislative Representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen.
From Mr. John Maloney, the legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, I have received the following reply:
Ottawa, March 10, 1910. Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King,
House of Commons,
Ottawa.
Honourable and Dear Sir,-I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of March 5, inclosing copy of the proposed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act of 1907.
I have carefully read over the amendments, and wish to state, as a representative of the Trainmen's Organization, I find them entirely satisfactory, and in my opinion will bring about all desired results. I also feel if proposed amendments are adopted by parliament, they will bring the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act into a form satisfactory ant. acceptable to all members of the Trainmen's Organization.
Respectfully yours,
(Sgd.) JOHN MALONEY, Dominion Legislative Representative
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: May I interrupt the hon. gentleman? Is there any need of risking the time of the committee with these letters when he has told us that all the letters are in approval of the legislation?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it important that these letters should be placed on record, as these amendments are being introduced to make the Act acceptable to the railway employees, and I think the public should know the view of the amendments taken by the representatives of the various classes of railway employees.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think the House is accepting with full confidence the statement of the hon. gentleman that he has written to these bodies and has received replies from them in approval. I think that should be sufficient, as no person is disputing his statement.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Possibly I might abbreviate by giving the gist of what is said in one or two of the letters. The next letter i3 from the representative of the telegraphers:

Order of Railroad Telegraphers,
261 Rusholme Road, Toronto, Mar. 14, 1910. The Honourable W. L. Mackenzie King, C.M.G.,
Minister of Labour,
Ottawa, Ont.
Dear Mr. King,-Replying to your favour in reference to the proposed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, I desire to say that if these amendments can be obtained, the Act will be entirely satisfactory to our organization. In fact, we have felt the need of these amendments almost ever since the law has been enacted, and we are hopeful that parliament will see the wisdom of them.
Wishing you success,
I am,
Yours sincerely,
(Sgd.) D. CAMPBELL,
Third Vioe-President.
Mr. Harvey Hall, representing one of the other branches, writes in part as follows under date of March 14:
This will acknowledge yours of March 9, with a draft copy of proposed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act attached. * * I have gone carefully over the proposed amendments, and believe they will, to some extent, relieve the railway employees of a very serious complaint, namely, delay and expense, when they are forced to apply for a board.

I must admit that the amendments proposed, if adopted, will certainly meet the views of the railway men as far as they go.


Samuel Hughes: What order does Mr. Hall represent?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think he represents at this time the railway conductors. Then,
I have a letter, dated March 11, 1910, from Mr. A. B. Lowe, the president of the International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, in which he says:
My opinion of the Act itself has never changed, that it is one of the best pieces of legislation that has been passed to my knowledge, in the interests of industrial peace.
And on March 18, he writes:
I hope that the amendments proposed may be placed in the law.
The House will observe that these communications cover all the different classes of railway labour-locomotive engineers, firemen, trainmen, telegraphers, conductors and maintenance of way employees.
I have also discussed these amendments with representatives of the railway companies and they have stated to me without exception that they think they are fair and reasonable, and I understand that no opposition will be offered to them if they are enacted by the House.
There is another amendment to increase the allowance to members of boards, and to Simplify proceedings in the matter of the oath which members of boards are required Mr. KING.
to take. They in common with the other amendments have been requested by workingmen through the Dominion Trades Congress and other labour organizations, and appear to be fair and reasonable.


William Findlay Maclean: Are these allowances as liberal as in the Act that went through to-day in regard to combines?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, the allowance is the same as that in the investigation of combines.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.



FISHERIES ACT AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 192) to amend the Fisheries Act read a second time, and House went into committee thereon.
Mr. TEMPLEMAN.: I might explain, that this Bill, although four or five pages in length, is very largely a Bill correcting and slightly amending some clauses of the present Fisheries Act. This section I, repeals subsection 4 of section 9 of the Fisheries Act, which reads: 'The holder of any such license shall not operate more than one whaling steamer in connection with the whale factory under license.' That particular section refers to the licensing of whale factories and the use of steamers. The custom hitherto on the Pacific coast has been to license factories about 100 miles apart, I think, and under the regulations the use of one steamer was permitted at one factory. By removing this clause, from the Act it will be possible for the minister to permit the use of two steamers at one factory. On the coast it has been found that sometimes whales were not numerous in the vicinity of one factory, and it was desired that the steamer attached to that factory might be used at another factory. The object of striking out this clause is to permit the use of two steamers at one factory, and when that is done, one of the factories will be closed up.


Mr. BARNARD.: As a matter of fact, have not factories on the Pacific coast been using two steamers in the past?


William Templeman: Not at all. A factory can only use one steamer under its license.


George Henry Barnard: I know that, but I wanted to know whether the minister knew as a matter of fact that factories had been using two steamers, evading the law or having had permission given.


William Templeman: The department is not aware that the law has been evaded, and, of course, permission has not been given to evade the law.
On section 2, boundaries of estuary fishing.


William Templeman: This is simply adding the three words, 'to do so,' which are placed there for the purpose of making the section more explicit.
On section 3, -space between nets and dimensions of nets.


William Templeman: This is simply t-o correct a clerical error. The word 'hundred' in the stecond line should be 'thousand.'
On section 4,


George Henry Bradbury: What is that section?


William Templeman: This repeals section 22 of the Fisheries Act, and will stop fishing by rod and line at fish-ways.
On section 5,


William Templeman: This will discontinue the practice of taking small trout for bait, which has been a privilege, I believe, in the past.
On section 6, no net or device to prevent passage of fish-screens to prevent escape.


William Templeman: The change in this section is the addition of the last three lines, 'providing that the minister may authorize the placing and maintaining of screens or other obstructions in streams to prevent the escape of fish held for breeding purposes. At present, ponds are used for breeding purposes under the law, and this is "to provide that screens may be placed by permission of the minister where ponds are being so used.


Mr. CROSBY.: Has the Bill been before the Fisheries Committee?


William Templeman: No.


Adam Brown Crosby: Why?


William Templeman: Why, I cannot say except that the enactments of the Bill are of a very minor character, largely corrections in the present Fisheries Act.


Adam Brown Crosby: It seems- strange that it should not be sent to that committee whose members would have a better opportunity of ascertaining whether or not they approved of the Bill.


William Templeman: The Bill has been circulated for several months and contains corrections of a minor character, and one -or two slight amendments to the existing Act not of sufficient importance to be sent to the Committee on Fisheries. Then it is a government Bill and it is not the practice to refer all government Bills to a standing committee.


Adam Brown Crosby: If it is to be understood that government measures in connection with Marine and Fisheries matters are not to be sent to the standing committee I am glad to know it, but I understood the reason for the appointment of the committee was to facilitate such matters by having all Bills pertaining to these matters referred to it.


William Templeman: I trust my hon. friend will not interpret my remarks as meaning that government measures will not be referred to that committee. As a matter of fact the department has received great assistance from that committee, and will avail itself of that assistance on every possible occasion.
Mr, R. L. BORDEN. 1 think the minister has not quite an adequate idea of the importance of the Bill in one respect at least. On section 15, the discussion of the regulations which have been agreed to should come up, and I would have thought it eminently proper that these regulations should be under investigation by the standing committee on Marine and Fisheries.
On section 7, closing of traps, &c., over Sunday.


William Templeman: The amendment is
in the last three lines, providing for the closing of these fishing apparatus in such a way that fish cannot enter. It strengthens the clause.


John Howard Sinclair: Does this mean that it will not be permitted to allow a trap net to remain set over Sunday? It has not been usual to prevent a fisherman from leaving his trap net set. It- is a very difficult net to move, it is large, it is put down with stakes, and anchors, and it is two days work to get the trap down. It would not be practicable to take it up over Sunday. I understand that this allows the closing of the trap so that no fish can get in on Sunday. What is the purpose of this amendment?


Mr. W. H. SHARPE.: Does this Bill affect the international waters?


William Templeman: Clause 15 authorizes the department to take authority to proclaim the bringing into force of the fishery regulations established under the International Fisheries treaty.
The only change in clause 7 is to allow the effective closing of all traps during the weekly close season so that fish cannot enter them at all. It has been pointed out that the closing of pound nets is the method adopted in the state of Washington, and that the Same system has been used successfully in New Brunswick. It does not require the fishermen to remove the weirs or nets on Sunday, but simply to close them effectively.


Adam Brown Crosby: The trouble we are having to understand this Bill simply shows that it should have been referred to the Fisheries Committee. It seems to me that the

object of the last three lines is to prevent the fishermen from desecrating the Sabbath. If this Bill had been referred to the Fisheries Committee, it would save this House bothering with it.


Mr. J. D. TAYLOR.: I suggest that the last three lines of this section will not help the case at all so far as they are intended
to preserve the fish from being taken in traps during the close season:
All sedentary fishing stations and weirs, all pounds and trap-nets, seines, gill-nets and other apparatus used for catching fish, whether under license or not, should be so raised or adapted as to admit of the free passage of fish through, by, or out of such apparatus, or be so effectively closed as to completely obstruct and prevent the entrance of fish into such apparatus.
If this matter had been referred* as suggested, to the Committee on Fisheries, I think that some members of that committee would have been able to show to the minister how that clause must fail of beneficial effect. While it provides that the traps themselves shall be closed, it makes no provision to prevent the fish getting into the leads, which are commonly about half a mile long, and into which the fish go and from which they do not return. So the effect of this provision is virtually to give continuous fishing to the traps. We have had experience of that in the past few years where the trap fishermen on Puget Sound have fished continuously because of a provision such as this. I know that the minister has in his department evidence of the effect of this provision on the Puget Sound traps, and I would ask him whether it would not be well to strike out the last three lines, and make this Act provide absolutely that there shall be free passage through the traps during the close season.


William Templeman: My understanding of the effect of the statute as at present on the statute-book is that a fish trap has to be opened at one point in order to allow the fish to escape during the weekly close season. The addition provided by this amendment is that the entrance to the trap shall be closed so as completely to obstruct the entrance of the fish into the trap, and by preventing them from getting in, or permitting them when they are in to get out, during the weekly close season; that is what is contemplated by this amendment. That is the whole thing, it does not affect the hours of the close season. Previously, if fish got into the fish trap during the close season the trap was supposed to be open and the fish could get out. Under the present law the fish cannot be retained in the trap in the close season. _ The effect of this is to make it more difficult during the close season for fish to get into the traps.


Adam Brown Crosby: 


John Howard Sinclair: I wrould like to know if this applies to fishing on the Atlantic coast as well as to British Columbia? It appears to me that it applies to all waters. It strikes me this is rather a stringent rule to impose upon the fisherman owning a trap, that during the prohibited hours from six o'clock in the afternoon of every Saturday to six o'clock on Monday morning in t'dal waters, fishing cannot Ije allowed, and that the net must not be opened at all during those hours. That is a new provision, that I never heard of before, and I think it will take away a very valuable privilege from the trap fishermen that they now possess. On the Atlantic coast there are a great number of them.


John Waterhouse Daniel: The hon. member is quite mistaken as to its being a new provision, it is a provision of the law now. The only change in this clause is in the phraseology, that is all.


William Templeman: This has been the law for years. The clause is the same as it is in the present Act, except the last three lines, which simply make it more difficult for the fish to get into the trap; that is the only change we are making. We are simply trying to limit the catching of fish in traps during the present close season-we are not changing the close season at all. We are trying to make the Act more effective, and trying to make a regulation that will prevent the fish from getting into the trap, and to allow them the chance to get out if they should get in. The law contemplates that there shall be during every week a close season, and it is because the present fixtures in the trap are not perfect, and because the fish are caught in traps and retained there, and the aperture is not open for them to get out-those are the reasons the department has thought it advisable to say that the fishermen must effectually close their traps so that the fish cannot get in. There can be no doubt of the necessity for conserving the fish by permitting them to have one day's rest at all events, so that no trap or net will take them. This has been the law for years and years. It may not have been effective, and it may not be under this amendment properly enforced, but that is the intention. We want to make it a little more possible to enforce the law.


George Henry Bradbury: I do not think the minister has answered the contention raised by my hon. friend from New Westminster (Mr. Taylor). This lead is from half a mile to three-quarters of a mile long, and while the trap may be closed the lead practically holds all the fish there, and as soon as the trap is opened fish which have congregated all Sunday will move into the trap. It is absolutely necessary in the interest of the fisheries that the'fish should

have free passage one day in a week. If the fishery department wants to make this law effective there must be more than the closing of the trap; the lead must be closed also.


William Templeman: I quite understand that the point raised is important particularly on the Pacific coast. The leads leading up to the traps in the Pacific ocean are very long, and no doubt keep back a large number of fish. I may say, however, that nine-tenths of the Canadian salmon caught in traps in the Pacific ocean are caught in American traps on the American side of the boundary, and that there these leads are in use. We have in British Columbia very few traps indeed, not a quarter as many as they have on the American side. I am informed that this amendment that we are putting into the Fishery Act, and which will apply to all Canada, was approved of by the Fishery Commission, and will apply also to the traps on the Pacific ocean. This is an attempt to make the taking of fish in traps during the close season more difficult than formerly. In the fishery regulations which have been drafted by the fishery Commissioners of Canada and the United States, there are some regulations in Tegard to trap fishing and this is one of the provisions of these regulations. This is the best we can do as between Canadian and American fishermen in regard to international waters. It is a very desirable addition to this clause. I am sure that what the House and every person interested in the fisheries wants is to conserve the fisheries, and if there is a close season for one day in the week, which may be Sunday or any other day, the whole object and intention is to make that closed day effective so that fish will not be taken in traps.


George Henry Bradbury: I agree with the minister that everybody who has any interest in the fisheries, must admit that there should be one day in the week during which fish cannot be taken, but I contend that the contention raised by my hon. friend from New Westminster is absolutely correct, that as long as these trap nets are allowed to remain in the water, and these long leads are allowed to remain down while the trap is not catching fish, the fish are congregating there, and when the trap is opened next day the fish that would have passed through, if the lead had been opened or up, will simply find their way into the trap. I can understand very well that this amendment is a step in the right direction, but I contend that it does not go far enough. The leads to the trap nets should be lifted during the day when fishing is not allowed. If that had been taken up with the International Commission it should have been arranged, because I
understand that on the coast the Americans are really getting our Canadian fish. The amendments you are proposing I do not think will be effective to a very great extent as far as protecting our fish are concerned. While you do not fish on Sunday the fish are congregating there and they will go into the trap on Monday.


James Davis Taylor: I wnuld like to point out that the addition which the minister has made to the section renders it absolutely inoperative in so far as providing a weekly closed season is concerned, and that before he added anything to it it was an effective provision. It was provided that the fish should pass freely through the traps at all times. Now, it simply erects a barrier against which the fish may congregate while the trap is not supposed to be in operation and where they will remain until the hour comes for the lifting of the gate of the trap when all the fish will go in and be caught- The remedy is very simple. If the government does not think it wise to provide that there must be a free passageway through the traps, there is another device by which they can effect a close season and that is to provide that there shall be an opening in the lead through which the fish will pass when they find their way barred by the gate of the trap. The International Fisheries Commission recognized that when they were dealing with fish other than the salmon of the Pacific coast. Unfortunately it is true that the provision that they have made with regard to Pacific coast salmon is not effective. We seem to have deferred to the American greed for the catching of fis'h without Tespect to the effect on the industry, and we have allowed them to make a provision with respect- to the Puget Sound for continuous fishing. But, with regard to Ontario, they have made an effective regulation which I see no reason for not applying to the Pacific coast. The Ontario regulation reads as follows:
During this weekly close season, all weirs or other fitted apparatus used for the capture of salmon shall be so raised, closed, or adapted as to admit of the free passage of fish through, or by, or out of such weirs or other fixed apparatus.
There is an effective provision. What I want to know is why we cannot have a provision so simple and so effective as that under the general operation of the law so that it may apply to the traps in Ontario, the maritime province and British Columbia alike.


William Templeman: I think that a careful perusal of this section will show that exactly what the hon. member for New Westminster wants is provided for. The trap may be either closed or opened, which-1 ever way is the more effective.


George Henry Bradbury: The trap?


William Templeman: The trap may be either opened or closed:
It shall he so raised or adapted as to admit of the free passage of fish through, by, or out of such apparatus, or he so effectively closed as to completely obstruct and prevent the entrance of fish into such apparatus, whether under license or not.


James Davis Taylor: Is it at the option of the trap operator or the fishery officer that it shall be opened or closed?


William Templeman: This amendment is recommended by the British Columbia Fishery Commission.


James Davis Taylor: At whose option is this?


William Templeman: I am stating that this amendment is on the recommendation of the British Columbia	Fish
Commission. The same regulation has been adopted by the American commissioner in the state of Washington. It would seem to me from the reading of the clause, that it will be at the option of the party operating the trap, and I would at once concede to my hon. friend (Mr. J. D. Taylor) that if the House thinks it desirable to make it at the option of the fishery inspector I am prepared to do so The most effective way to close the trap is to have it at the option of the fishery overseer, who will see that the trap is open or closed as the case may be.


James Davis Taylor: If the minister makes it at the option of the fishery inspector and not the trap operator, for myself I can see no objection to it.


George Henry Bradbury: In that is involved the important question that our legislation on the Canadian side should be uniform with the American legislation. Unfortunately, for many years the Americans have always got the best of us in this respect, and if we make our law stringent and allow the Americans to have theirs as lax as they like, they will get the salmon and we wont. The concession which the minister offers to make is undoubtedly a proper one, but if we make our fishery officer responsible for seeing that the traps should be opened or closed then there should be some pressure brought to bear on the American authorities to have a similar regulation on their side. We have been protecting the fish in Canadian waters, but the Americans have been fishing how and when they like, and that is a great hardship to Canadian fishermen. If we cannot induce the American fish commissioners to meet our Canadian regulations, then a good deal of our work for fish preservation is useless.


Adam Brown Crosby: If this Bill is of such a simple character as the minister has stated,


William Templeman: and if we have had practically the same law on the statute-book for a great many years, no interest can suffer by allowing the Bill to stand over for another session, and referring it to the fisheries commission, so that we may ascertain the conditions both here and in the United States, and try to make uniform the regulations of both countries.


John Waterhouse Daniel: How would this legislation affect the regulations issued by the National Fisheries Commissioners in respect to fishing in international waters? I presume that the regulations made by that commission, being the result of a treaty, will have priority over any law we may pass.


William Templeman: I am sure my hon. friend (Mr. J. D. Taylor) will see the force of the observations of the hon. member for Selkirk, that it would be discriminatory to make more drastic regulations on the Canadian side than exist on the American side. The International Fisheries Commissioners have agreed to certain regulations, and this regulation now proposed is the regulation on the American side. If, as I proposed, we should make this provision enforcible by the Canadian inspector on the Canadian side, and the American inspectors on the American side have not the enforcement of it, we would be subjecting our fishermen to more stringent regulations than the Americans would operate under. Perhaps it is better to leave this clause as it is. We are working under extraordinary difficulties, particularly on the Pacific coast, with regard to our fisheries. The Americans catch our fish when passing through their waters, as they have a perfect right to do, and they catch them in their own way. They have been catching fish for a great many years in traps without comparatively speaking any regulations at all, while we on our side have been enforcing stringent regulations. Under the proposed agreement with the United States, what are practically the Canadian regulations 'have been adopted by the International Commission, and they will be enforced so soon as they are proclaimed the law on both sides.


George Henry Bradbury: This Bill would in no way limit the conclusions arrived at by that commission?


William Templeman: No.


John Howard Sinclair: I have a doubt whether the traps used on the Atlantic coast are capable of being closed. I am not a practical fisherman, but I have seen the traps, and as I understand it there is no machinery for closing them, so that you would require a trap differently constructed from that now used in order to comply with this regulation.


James Davis Taylor: I sympathize with the Minister of Fisheries in the difficulty in which he is placed, for I think it must be admitted that he has at last let the cat out of the bag. We are not in this section doing anything to help to conserve the salmon, but we are facing the position that by our international agreement with the Americans we have sanctioned their deliberate intention to have no close season so- far as traps are concerned; and having sanctioned that, we have amended our own law so that we shall not do on the Canadian side of the boundary what toy international agreement we sanctioned on the other side. I think this is a most deplorable condition, a condition that is bound to work great hardship on the great mass of Canadians engaged in the salmon fishery industry to the extent that we are relaxing the law and_ giving sanction to continuous trapfishing by the section now proposed. We should strenuously refuse to make any change in our law, but should insist upon our regulation, which experience has shown to be so advisable, to the extent, if necessary, of allowing these international regulations to fall to the ground because of the reluctance of this parliament to adopt them. I say that in all seriousness, because so far as we on the Pacific coast are concerned, we are apt to experience nothing but calamity from the operation of those regulations. On every point they are against us, most seriously against us. I will not discuss them now, because they come in under section 15; but there are other sections quite as disastrous to us as this section 7, which in two lines destroys the only prohibition we have had in the past against continuous trap fishing.
On section 9, fish guards ini British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest territories and Yukon.


William Templeman: This is the clause as it stands at present that the words 'British Columbia' are introduced, making the law applicable to that province.


George Henry Bradbury: I do not know that there is any other clause in this Bill which will give me the opportunity of drawing the minister's attention to tire fact that in the construction of the dam on the Red river at St. Andrew's rapids there is no provision for a [DOT] fishway. This is a very serious trouble. The dam is situated 25 or 30 miles from Lake Winnipeg, and completely prevents the fish from getting up the river. I had the matter before the Fsheries Department, and I had the assurance of the deputy that immediate action would be taken and a proper fishway placed there. During the time the Minister of Public Works was oassing his estimates, I called his attention to the matter, 255
but the only assurance I received from him was that if a fishway were found necessary it would be placed there. I think it is absolutely necessary, because at present no fish from Lake Winnipeg can pass up the Red river or the Assinaboine. I would urge the minister to see that a proper fishway is provided there immediately.


William Templeman: I quite agree with what my hon. friend says. This clause has nothing to do with fishways; but if the ascent of the fish up the Red river is prevented by the dam. there should be an adequate fishway provided. We have many instances of the same kind in British Columbia, where dams have been erected and have stopped the passage of fish. I am a strong believer in allowing the free run of fish on all rivers. Natural spawning after all is better than artificial, and ought to be encouraged. The officer of the department lias informed me that the matter to which my hon. friend has referred is receiving the consideration of the department now.
On section 11, standard size of oyster barrel.
Mr.' TEMPLEMAN. I move to strike out section 11. 6ome legislation is required to standardize the size of barrels for various purposes, hut it belongs to the Trade and Commerce Department rather than to the Fisheries Department. Not having full information as to what the standard of a barrel of oysters should be, it has been decided to leave the matter over for this session.


Mr. TALBOT.: When this Bill was up before, I drew the attention of the minister to the great destruction of bar fish in the St. Lawrence river. I do not see anything in this Bill relating to this particular matter, but I would like to know whether the department has taken any steps to prevent the destruction of the bar fish. It seems to me that some very simple mode could be adopted. I have drawn the attention of Prof. Prince and other officials of the department to the great destruction of that fish. Thousands are taken every year of a. very small size that is almost not fit for fcod, and I think something should be done to prevent this scandalous destruction of one of our finest fishes. I think the department should take action. There are two or three ways in which it could be done. The size of the fish to be caught could be limited or the weight. I know that in the province of Quebec there is a conflict of authority between the provincial fishery authorities and the federal authorities, but it seems to me that something ought to be done. It is really a very strong grievance;
I would almost say it was a national disaster to have that fish destroyed by the thousands every year. It is not utilized

for any purpose. The peddlers simply go from fishery to fishery, and are even ashamed to go to the market, but the fish is distributed on the highway and in the back parishes. I wish the minister would see whether he could do something to prevent the destruction of that very valuable fish.


William Templeman: I am advised that the matter is one for the province of Quebec. The fishery is under their control, and the taking of this fish comes under the regulations of the province of Quebec and not under the regulations of the Dominion government. I may also inform my hon. friend that the matter has been the subject of correspondence between the Department of Marine and Fisheries and the province of Quebec, and there is some reasonable prospect of an arrangement whereby the bar fish will be protected more than it has been in the past. I am told that the .result of the correspondence so far has been encouraging, and it is hoped that something will be done to prevent the destruction of what is a valuable fish.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 216) respecting the British Northwestern Fire Insurance Company.- Mr. A. Haggart.	.

[Stage Direction]
House in committee on Bill (No. 210) to incorporate the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada.-Mr. Gervais.
On section 1,
Mr. ROCHE.: I would like a few words of explanation on this Bill. I had not the privilege of being present at the meetings of the committee except on one occasion when a Bill somewhat similar to this was up for discussion, and was, I believe, opposed very strenuously by the same gentlemen who are seeking incorporation under this Bill. I refer to the co-operative Bill which was killed in committee, largely I believe by reason of the strong fight put up against it by the Retailers' Association. What a good many cannot understand is how it is that the Retail Merchants' Association fought that Bill so strenuously, and refused incorporation to the consumers, whereas they are themselves seeking incorporation for a somewhat similar purpose in the Bill now before the House. Grain Growers Guide which voices the opinion of Mr. TALBOT.
the farmers, the consuming population very largely in the west, says':
The Retail Merchante' Association did not want to see the co-operative Bill pass^ the House of Commons. They wanted it killed, and it was killed. The Bill would have allowed consumers throughout Canada to organize among themselves for fair play if they so desired, and would protect them against unjust prices on the part of all dealers. This Bill being killed leaves the consumers in the same helpless condition as they were before. The Retail Merchants' Association is getting busy, and has a Bill before the Senate to incorporate itself to do business. This is certainly 'doing things' with a vengeance. The consumers of Canada may not be allowed to co-operate, _ but the retail merchants want to become incorporated so that they can form a trust similar to the one existing in the United States. Down across the line it is considered that the retailers are more to blame for the high cost of living than probably any other organization. Are we going to sit by and see them do the same thing in Canada? We doubt if the farmers and consumers will stand for this.
I am not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of every statement contained in this paragraph, but I would like some explanation from the promoter to explain away some of these statements if they can be explained away. The accusation here made against the Retailers' Association would seem reasonable, that having objected to the incorporation of the Co-operative Society under that Bill, they are seeking under this Bill extensive powers which they would deny to the consuming population. In another issue of the Grain Growers ' Guide,' appears this article:
The Refail Merchants' Association has been successful in killing the co-operative Bill before the House of Commons. This is the Bill that would have allowed the consumers of Canada to do their own business and protect themselves from exorbitant prices on the part of the retailers. Following up their victory the retail merchants have now a Bill before the Senate to provide for their own incorporation. This will give them the powers of a trust, as one of the powers given by the Bill is: 'the promotion of the industrial and commercial interests of the retail merchants of Canada,' and another is: ' generally, all such other lawful objects for promoting the trade interests of its members as may from time to time be determined by the association '.
As will be seen by this clause they are very indefinite in their terms, and the Bill may cover great powers. I would like an explanation of the details to which I have drawn attention.


Mr. GERVAIS.: I do not see how there can be confusion between the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada, and the Cooperative Societies which some of the hon. members would have liked to have seen

formed under an Act introduced in this House. The co-operative societies of which the hon. gentleman has just spoken were commercial societies trying to benefit themselves commercially to the utter detriment of other classes, and of the masses of the country. These co-operative societies in a general way were purely and simply commercial societies, organized for the purpose of trespassing on the ground of the consumers of trespassing on the ground of the retail merchants, and on the ground of the wholesale merchants of Canada. If I am allowed to define the object of this society, I will be able to show that the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada is more a philanthropic than a commercial society. The contrary was proved in reference to the so-called co-operative societies of Canada, for which incorporation was sought from this House. Let me quote for example from section 2 of the present Bill, defining the objects of our society:
The objects of the association shall he the promotion of the industrial and commercial interests of the retail merchants of Canada.
I may assure you that the Retail Merchants Association of Canada are not trying to derive financial benefit from the good work they wish to be enabled to do in the interests of all, because I think the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada as well as the wholesale merchants of Canada have done more for the progress, and the prosperity of Canada than any other class.


An hon. MEMBER.: No, no.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: Yes, yes. If Montreal is something more than a little village, it is due to the marvellous audacity and tenacity of its wholesale and retail merchants, and the same remark may be made applicable to all the cities of our country. I shall try to explain to you in a few words what has been done in the past in relation to the promotion of the industrial and commercial interests by the retail merchants of Canada. For instance they have dealt with the abolishing of. trading stamps, coupons in packages, and of all lotteries and merchandizing schemes; the adjustment of taxation, both municipal and provincial; the regulating of the hours of closing; advising and consulting on city by-laws regarding awnings, clean streets, the regulation of signs, &c. That has been one part of the work which the Retail Merchants' Association has been doing for fourteen years, for that society was incorporated fourteen years ago. Let me also say the association has been promoting all that time fair adjustments of freight rates, express charges, increase and decrease of duties on parcel posts; prosecuting fraudulent advertisements and sales, and adulterations of goods. The association has been also pub-255}
lishing information and statistics relating to, or concerning trade interests, such as supplying the Dominion government with the number of retail merchants doing business in Canada, the amount of their investments therein, the taxes paid by them, their employees and the amount of goods sold for cash or credit. This information is not supplied officially in any department from other sources.
Let me now speak of the arbitration and settlement of trade disputes between any of it3 members. For instance, the farmers who produced milk met not long ago, and they made a hard and fast rule that unless the retail milk dealers bought milk at their price that they would simultaneously cut off all milk supplies by them in Toronto, and the retail milk dealers appealed to their members, and the latter decided to arbitrate, which was done, and it resulted in a fair, compromise, so that the farmer, the retailer and the consumer received fair treatment. The working tailors also decided to strike, and their case was settled by the association, and entire harmony now exists among them. They have settled also disputes with regard to whether merchants sold the quality of goods to their customers that they represented them to be, also a great many other technical trade matters.
The procuring and furnishing to its members of information as to the solvency of persons who deal with any of its members. For instance, it is estimated that about 75 per cent of the retail sales made from day to day are made on credit. This means an enormous sum of money, and no matter how the condition is viewed, this system in my opinion, will continue, as it is more convenient for the housekeeper, and in many cases for the storekeeper, especially when orders are sent in, as a great many now are, over the telephone. There are some people who make it a practice to live on the storekeepers, and they have no moral sense of what is right. In many casesj workingmen are out of work, especially in-the winter time; others are absolutely hon-j est and they meet with misfortune-to all these credit is extended, but those who deceive us are placed on a list, and if they will not pay, and it is thought they should, this acts as an incentive for them to be honest. The deserving ones are assisted through the organized associated charities, which are mostly conducted and contributed to by the retail merchants. Where-ever possible they put themselves in touch with the ministers, preachers and priests and rectors of parishes regarding' these people, and they have helped hundreds to help themselves.
' Generally, all other lawful and similar objects for promoting the trade interests of its members as may from time to time be determined by the association.' This clause

applies to all of the preceding, and the words ' lawful and similar,' in our opinion, is quite sufficient to safeguard all concerned. No possible danger can come out of this charter, as everything that is acted upon must be first voted upon, and in the association are some of the most upright men in the community, men who are looked up to by the people and who occupy public positions such as mayors, reeves, magistrates, justices of the peace-men who hold high positions in the churches, on school boards and in other public capacities, and it would, therefore, he almost impossible to' get them to impose upon the community anything that was unfair, and especially upon the consumers, who are their friends and customers. All the other clauses refer to the details regarding the rules of the association. I admit that they have been trying to do something in the interest of the retail merchants, but, their efforts have been more especially in the interests of the consumers and the general public. You will see by paragraph (b) of section 2 that the association asks for power to collect and publish information and statistics relating to or concerning such interests. Well, you will find in the work of the association that it has been for 14 years supplying the Dominion government with statistics as to the number of retail merchants who are doing business in Canada the amount of money invested, the taxes paid, and the sales on cash and for credit. I shall not detain the House by defining what is done under each of these paragraphs of section 2; I say they show in a summary way what are the aims and objects of this association. I think I have said enough to demonstrate that the association is more a benevolent than a commercial society, and that there is no danger to any class in the country or to the public interest in the little Bill which is now before the House.


Mr. NEELY.: Will the hon. gentleman tell us why this association needs to be incorporated by an Act of this parliament for the purposes which are .set out in the Bill. According to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Gervais) this is a voluntary association which has been carrying on this beneficial work for a number of years, and why then do they want an Act of incorporation from this parliament?


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: The answer is that the 'Retail Merchants' Association of Canada was incorporated 14 years ago bv a statute of the Ontario legislature, and, the Ontario association has been promoting its objects throughout the different provinges. but in some cases they have been con fronted with the fact that the local associa ion will not pay anything towards the good work. The Ontario association was al-Mr. GERVAIS.
ways of the opinion that it would be more fitting that a general association should be formed under the charter of which the local branches should be forced to do their work when they are willing to enter the general association. This is merely the 'incorporation of a few retail merchants' associations for the benefit of all.


Mr. RALPH SMITH.: Why don't you seek incorporation under the provincial law?


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: Trade and commerce are regulated by the parliament of Canada, and if the association is chartered by this parliament they will be better enabled to carry on their work.


William Findlay Maclean: But this is not trade and commerce, it is a benevolent association.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: Our association does not intend to do any trade or to interfere with the business of anybody in the land; it is simply a benevolent society.


Ralph Smith: I do not know that anybody can take serious objection to the incorporation of a retail merchants' association as a Dominion institution, but it is important to point out to the House that the very gentleman who led the attack against the incorporation of co-operative societies in this House, is the very gentleman who is promoting the incorporation of this retail .merchants' association. And the same corporation that engaged that gentleman to do that work in their interests at that time are evidently employing him at the present time.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: I rise to a point of order. I wish to tell the hon. gentleman (Mr. Smith) that I never was retained by the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada to do such work. What I am doing is I believe, in the public interest.


Ralph Smith: I said that the hon. gentleman was engaged by the Retail Merchants' Association to promote their interests against the Co-operation Bill. I would not suspect that my hon. friend would for one moment be retained further than that he was willing to use his influence to -combat the principle of co-operation in the interests of the retail merchants' association. Now, I would point out that every reason which the hon. gentleman (Air. Gervais) gave against the Co-operative Bill is given by him now as a reason in support of this Bill. He argued that the Co-operative Society should be incorporated in the several provinces, Jhat it was not a Dominion organization, that it should not be recognized as a Dominion corporation, that it should be continued as a provincial work and so on. I rvould also point out to the hon. gentleman, and every one of these applies

to his retail merchants' association, that this Bill provides that the retail merchants association shall hold real property, and that it shall carry on business in other respects.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: The fact is that section 6 of this Bill has only one purpose, namely, to enable the corporation to purchase and hold property notwithstanding the laws of mortmain. We are bound by the enactment of mortmain in this country, and to get over that even a benevolent society has to be authorized by parliament to possess real estate. As a matter of fact, the hon. gentleman cannot find in section 6 anything which tends to show that the Retail ^Merchants' Association of Canada intends to engage in any kind of trading. They simply want to be empowered to possess real property, the amount of which is strictly limited by the section.


Ralph Smith: Section 6 of this Bill provides, that this association may carry on all kinds of business, and the same provision in the Co-operation Bill was vigorously opposed by my hon. friend (Mr. Gervais). It does seem to me that the Co-operative Society was much more entitled to do a Dominion business between its own members than this society to deal with the general public. The same hon. gentleman who is promoting this Bill did everything he could to prevent the co-operative movement. Section 7 of this Bill provides for the acquisition of property of voluntary associations, and that means that this incorporated body is getting power to provide for the purchase of the societies that may not be able to exist when the organization of this society is completed. The provisions of section 7 give the necessary power to acquire property to a society that may not be able to operate as a consequence of this organization, and therefore, you create a practical monopoly of the Retail Grocers' Association. My hon. friend may shake his head, but; there is the section that provides for the possession of that property. I have no serious objection to the incorporation of any society of this kind, but it is a very unfair thing for a responsible member of this House to object all he could to the organization of a voluntary institute that sought powers from this parliament simply to do business with its own members, when he is now in favour of granting far more extensive Powers to an organization that seeks to do business with the whole country. *


David Bradley Neely: This seems a very extraordinary Bill to bring in towards the close of this session in view of what occurred somewhat earlier in connection with those co-operative Bills that have been mentioned by my hon. friend from Nanaimo (Mr. Smith). My hon. friend (Mr. Gervais)
who is supporting this Bill has not . made clear to my mind any good reason why the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada ought to be incorporated by an Act of this parliament. As my hon. friend from Nanaimo has said, the same hon. gentleman opposed the formation of co-operative societies that merely had in view the mutual benefit of their own members, taking as one of his grounds that the provinces should deal with a matter of that kind. But, if the objects of this association are as innocent as my hon. friend stated, it seems to me that "he has given no reason, no ground whatever, why this Bill should be put through this House. They have been carrying on practically all the work they propose to carry on under the terms of section 2 of this Bill as a voluntary association, and I see a lurking menace in this Bill against the interests of the consumers of this country. It seems to me that this Retail Merchants' Association, if it is incorporated in this way, might become a monopoly. We have spent a great deal of time in this House, to-day, and on other days, in- passing a Bill with which to protect the consumers of this country from monopolies and trusts. I do not see any reason, if this association is incorporated by Act of parliament, why it may not become a menace to the consumers of Canada in so far as the regulation of retail prices is concerned. The promoter of the Bill may say that this cannot be, that the Bill that we have already put through the House will prevent it, but there are ways and means-underground wavs and means-whereby these incorporated associations are able to do things, and it is very difficult- to find them out or catch them in the act. One of the subsections of section 2 gives another object of this association as the arbitration and settlement of trade disputes arising between any of its members. We have an Industrial Disputes Act on the statute-books already. I do not know that we ought to delegate to the Retail Grocers' Association any such powers as this whatever. It seems to me that a general Act dealing with that question is quite sufficient. The co-operative Bills that were before this House some time ago were smothered in committee. I was not a member of the committee that dealt with those Bills, and I regret very much that the Bills were not reported to the House. I say frankly that I am opposed to this Bill. I am opposed to it for one reason besides those which I have already given, and that is because this very retail grocers' association were the people who were practically instrumental in the defeat of the co-operative societies Bills. I believe those Bills were in the interest of the consumers, the farmers and the workingmen of this country, and yet we had a large delegation of

these retail grocers and other retail tradesmen of this Dominion who came here and brought every influence to bear on the committee that dealt with these Bills for the purpose of smothering them. They were smothered, and I say that it is only fair that this Bill, which is introduced by the people who are responsible for the destruction of the other Bills, should be accorded like treatment and sent to oblivion along with the co-operative societies Bills.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: I must say a word in answer to a statement of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Neely). It is rather a queer argument to say that we must kill this Bill because another Bill has been considered bad by the House or by one of its committees. I have not had a long experience in parliamentary life, but I know enough to say that each measure must be adjudicated upon with reference to its own individual merits and not with reference to a question of personality or of individuality which has nothing to do with the measure.


David Bradley Neely: What about precedent?


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: There is no precedent. The Co-operative Bill was justly killed because it was against the public interest. It was so considered by the Committee on Banking and Commerce, and every other Bill which contains provisions which are regarded as a menace to the trade of the country will be considered in a similar way. But here we have a Bill in which *a very important class of people are simply seeking for incorporation and nothing else. It is idle to assert that through this Bill there is any intention of doing any trade, and more especially of creating any kind of monopoly. Any gentleman who has any experience in business or of the law will support my contention that through this Bill the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada are merely asking for a charter of incorporation. I will leave It to the interpretation of any lawyer or business man of unbiased mind. Fortunately or unfortunately I have been fighting the Cooperative Bill. I did it because I had had sufficient experience to convince me that it was a bad Bill, and it was so held unanimously by the members of the Banking and Commerce Committee. I say this is a good Bill, that it is a Bill that is in accordance with the public laws, that it is a Bill which is in accordance with the constitution of 1867, and that it is a Bill which should pass, as we are bound to give any charter in answer to any demand which is made upon this House in accord-ace with the laws of the country and in accordance more especially with the rules of equity and justice.


Mr. BICKERDIKE.: I may say that if there was a possibility of this association * Mr. NEELY.
going into trade, I would feel like my hon. friend from Humbolt (Mr. Neely), but if it is simply an institution that we are incorporating the same as we might incorporate the butchers' association, or the wholesale grocers' association, or the com exchange, or any other exchange of that kind, there can be no objection to it. If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Gervais) says it is not to carry on trade of any kind there can be no objection to it.


Mr. STRATTON.: The powers which this company are applying for here can be acquired by them under the provisions of the Ontario Company's Act. I had for a time charge of the administration of the Ontario Company's Act, and my impression is that the powers asked for here may be obtained by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council. This is purely a matter which should come under the jurisdiction of the different provinces, and if this association desires to exceed the boundaries of any particular province they can obtain registration and do business in the different provinces of the Dominion. This is certainly not a Bill which should be enacted in this parliament.


William Roche: There is another feature of this Bill to which I wish to call the attention of the promoter. I know that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Gervais) is very plausible in his plea that this retail association is a purely philanthropic institution, but I draw 'his attention to a very innocent little subclause (a) of section (3) which says:
The association may make by-laws for: (a) the administration, management and control of the property, business, and other affairs of the association.
Now. in the Act for the incorporation of the Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Timiskaming which passed this House this session, there was an almost word foT word subclause which read:
The administration, management and control of the property, business and other temporal affairs of the corporation.
And this House felt it incumbent upon ft to safeguard the interests of the people, and in order that under that clause they might not engage in banking or business of any kind, the following amendment was added to that subclause:
That after the word ' corporation ' the following be inserted: nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the corporation to issue any notes or bills payable, or any promissory note intended to circulate ae money, or as the note or bill of a bank, or to engage in the business of banking or insurance.
If the hon. gentleman is willing to accept such an amendment as that, for my

part I am willing with that safeguard to let go through this innocent Bill for a benevolent purpose, as he describes it to be. Let us put in this Bill that amendment which is inserted in the other Bill which was to incorporate an institution much less liable to he a detriment to the public than this retail merchants' association.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: I join issue with the non. member (Mr. Roche) on the ground that the amendment incorporated in the other Bill was useless, because any corporation which does anything not authorized by its charter would be compelled to desist by a writ of quo warranto issued upon information. That amendment was just as useless in that other Bill as it would be to insert in a law creating a public officer, a proviso that he should never be Emperor of Germany, cr to insert in the Act incorporating the Railway Commission that none of the commissioners should ever become Emperor of Russia.


William Roche: That is a reflection on the House of Commons.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: It was an absurd and useless provision to insert in the Bill in question. If my hon. friend would look at clause 2 of the Bill he will find that the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada cannot do any trade or business at all, and if they should try to do it then they would be prohibited by writ of quo warranto issued on behalf of the Crown upon the information of the Attorney General. At any rate we can take up the discussion of these matters when we come to the particular clauses referring to them.


Mr. NESBITT.: I would like to ask the hon. member why he requires clause 0 which reads:
The association may receive, acquire, accept and hold real property by gift, purchase, devise, bequest, lease or otherwise, for the purposes of the association, and may sell, lease, invest or otherwise dispose thereof in such manner as it may deem advisable for such purposes: Provided, however, that the annual value of the real estate held by the association shall not exceed the sum of fifty thousand dollars.
Now, $50,000 per annum is a large amount of real estate for an ordinary association formed for benevolent purposes to hold. The phrase ' the purposes of the association '[DOT] in that clause may be very widely construed. I would like to correct the hon. member for Humboldt in his reference to the Co-operation Bill. The Retail Merchants' Association were not heard before that committee at all. They had a solicitor there to represent them, but he was refused to he heard by the committee, and in the view of the committee, one of the Bills in connection with that matter
was considered to be impossible as drawn and that is why it was thrown out.


Mr GERVAIS.: As a matter of fact the Retail Merchants' Association were not instrumental in the rejection of the Bill by the Ranking and Commerce Committee.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Not in the slightest degree in any manner, shape or form.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: And the hon. member (Mr. Nesbitt) attended every sitting of that committee?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Yes, and their influence had no more to do with the rejection of that Bill than had the EmperoT of China.


James Robert Stratton: All legitimate powers sought for by this society can be Obtained under the joint stock companies Acts of the different provinces. Some of the powers they apply for here would not he given them in the provinces, and why should we interfere with the rights of the provinces by .incorporating this company here. I am quite satisfied in my own mind that this legislation has some otheT purpose than that which appears on the face of it. They can obtain all the power necessary for carrying on legitimate business from the provincial secretaries of the different provinces.


William Henry Sharpe: If we allow this Bill to go through, it will give these people power to form the largest combine that has ever been known in Canada. I am a retail merchant myself, and I am satisfied that this Bill will give the retail merchants power to form themselves into associations to restrict the number of stores in each little town throughout the whole country. They will be able to control prices and to restrict trade all over Canada. The hon. gentleman who has introduced the Bill says that the wholesale people of Montreal are practically a benevolent society. I want to say that I have bought thousands of dollars worth of goods from the wholesale people of Montreal, and I have never seen any sign of that so far.
Section 1 struck out.	,


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: Before the question is put, I move that the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The Chairman has declared the first sectipn lost.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: I move that we reconsider the first clause.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: I cannot accept that motion at this stage. If the hon. gentleman wishes to withdraw his motion that the committee rise and report progress, he can do so.
Motion of Mr. Gervais that the committee rise and report progress withdrawn.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: I move that the first clause be reconsidered.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: I now move that the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.
Motion agreed to and progress reported.



GUELPH JUNCTION RAILWAY.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. GUTHRIE moved the second reading of Bill (No. 218), respecting the Guelph Junction Railway Company.-Mr. Clarke (Essex).
Mr. BOYCE.: I would ask the hon. gentleman who has charge of the Bill to make some explanation of it. I think it calk for some explanation.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I understand that the promoter is not here.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: Then the hon. member for South Wellington had better ask that the Bill stand.


Mr. GUTHRIE.: I am not in charge of the Bill, but it is one that affects the constituency that I have the honour to represent, and I think it ought certainly to go to the Railway Committee. That committee meets on Thursday, and it is just possible that it may not have another meeting this session. 1 do not know another instance in which a private Bill has stood under such circumstances, and I would ask the hon. gentleman to withdraw his request, and let the Bill go to the committee and be considered there. It is a Bill that has already passed the Senate. If a brief statement is wanted, 1 think I could perhaps outline the situation. This is a Bill practically in the interest of the city of Guelph, whereby that city asks for the right to take over all stock in this company which may be outstanding. The city of Guelph is practically the owner of a small road sixteen miles long, running from the city to the Canadian Pacific railway, constructed by the city of Guelph in 1888 at a cost of about a quarter of a million dollars, at the request of a number of gentlemen who claimed that they must have competition, as we had only the Grand Trunk railway at Guelph at that time. It was necesary that some men should qualify to be directors, and ten men took ten shares each in the common stock of the company, on which they paid $100 each. It turned out that the road cost more than was anticipated, and the city asked that the ten gentlemen should pay up the balance on their shares, which they refused to do, claiming that they held the stock as trustees for the city. The ratepayers finally passed a by-law to pay the indebtedness and relieve the shareholders from payment of the balance upon their Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.
stock and the stock-holders agreed to hold their stock as trustees for the city. The city assented to this, but allowed them to hold one share each and continue on the board. The road is indebted yet in respect of its bonds to the extent of between $60,Uuu and $70,000, but since it has been continued to Goderich by the Canadian Pacific railway it has become a very good earning proposition for the city of Guelph. Four or live of the shares originally held by these trustees are still outstanding. All the others have transferred their interests to the city and have received their $100 and $300 by way of bonus-$400 in all for the $100 that they had paid. Four or five have refused to hand over their shares, and this Bill, I understand, is to compel the transfer of these shares on the payment of the sum of $400 and also to permit the' city to issue stock to represent the $70,000 of indebtedness still on the bonds.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Originally who paid for these shares?


Hugh Guthrie: The individuals who subscribed $100 each.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The individuals subscribed and paid.


Hugh Guthrie: They subscribed $100; the city then relieved them of $19,000 of indebtedness, and of the $900 which each was liable to pay on their call on signing the declaration that they held the shares as trustees for the city.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Then you are asking for the right to confiscate other people's property?


Hugh Guthrie: I do not look upon it as confiscation. 1 have gone into the matter very carefully, and I am satisfied it is right. I think it would be far better to discuss it when the shareholders are before the committee, as they will be on Thursday.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: In consenting to the second reading of this Bill we are necessarily adopting its principle, and in adopting the principle of this Bill we are adopting a very pernicious principle in respect to the legislation of this House. Let us look at clause 2, irrespective of any collateral circumstances.


Hugh Guthrie: I do not like to interrupt my hon. friend, but I am sure he wants to give thi3 Bill fair treatment. There are only a few minutes left now, and there is only one' more sitting before we prorogue. If he is reasonable at all he will allow it to go to the committee.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: I do not like to have it insinuated that I am not giving this Bill fair treatment. I may say I do not think it was very fair treatment on the part of my

hon. friend t-o slip in a motion to suspend the rule so as t-o get rid of the 24 hours' notice we ought to have had. This Bill was only introduced to the House last night for the first time.


Hugh Guthrie: I beg my hon. friend's pardon. I never heard of a motion of that kind until now.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: This Bill was only read the first time last night, and but for the suspension of the rule, to the motion respecting which I fancy nobody paid any attention, my hon. friend would not be here to-night at all. Therefore, I do not think he can complain of any reasonable criticism upon his Bill, and I do not think 1 deserve, out of the mouth of my hon. friend,, any 3uch comment or charge that I have been obstructing or opposing any Bill which did not deserve, for some reason or another, to be opposed. I am speaking to the principle of the Bill, that principle' which we are now asked to accept, and 1 want to say that if we commit ourselves to the principle of this Bill, we are committing ourselves to a very dangerous principle indeed, because as my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) has said, we virtually say to this minority of shareholders, those shareholders mentioned in section 2, you have got to sell your shares and you have got to deliver those shares at the valuation which parliament _ places upon them, irrespective of what their value may be to them in the future. Now, my hon. friend (Mr. Guthrie) himself has taken strong grounds with respect to the very same shares and to this very railway, grounds diametrically opposed to the legislation asked for under section 2. I propose to demonstrate that to him and then to satisfy him that I am not unnecessarily commenting upon what I conceive to be ,a pernicious principle in this Bill. What is the principle to which we are asked to subscribe? The corporation of the city of Guelph may, subject to the laws of Ontario, acquire any shares in the company not now standing in the name of the city, and the said corporation is hereby empowered and declared to be entitled to acquire the said shares of the company's stock from the several persons in whose names the shares stand or may stand, and to have transfers thereof made by such persons respectively to the said corporation upon payment to such person respectively of the sum of $400 in respect of each one share fully paid up, or of each ten shares, upon which ten per cent only has been paid; and it shall be the duty of such persons respectively to transfer such shares to the said corporation accordingly. Now, speaking for myself, I cannot subscribe to any such principle as that, that part can take any beneficial ownership of shares or of
any property as that section empowers that company to do, and say, here is your $4UO for that 3tock, though it may be worth a, thousand dollars, and I believe that each, one of those shares is approximately worth $1,000. But whether it be worth only $400 or $450 a share, have we the right as a parliament, and if we have the right, should it be exercised in this way, to compel the shareholders of that company, who are not trustees, but who are beneficially entitled to their own shares, to give those shares-up? My hon. friend himself says that nobody wanted to take their shares away from them, that their shares were their own.
I say, can he come nine years later and say, that which I said we did not want to take away, I now want to take away. I say this is an interference with the rights of property. It i3 an interference with civil rights. It is an interference with the right of a party to retain his own shares.
. The hour for private Bills having expired, the House again went into committee, and resumed consideration of Bill (No. 192) to amend the Fisheries Act.



FISHERIES ACT AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
House in committee on Bill (No. 192) to amend the Fisheries- Act.
On section 12,
William Templeman: The only change in, this section is that the return asked for should be sent to the minister through the inspector of fisheries for the district not later than the 31st day of May of each year, instead of not later than the 1st day of September, as in the Fisheries Act.
On section 13,


William Templeman: The change in this clause is- simply the addition of the words-in the 24th and 28th line3 ' or of any international regulation.'


Adam Brown Crosby: It does seem that this Bill covers a great deal of ground, and we should have some lucid explanation o-f the whole matter. I cannot understand why the minister having the Bill in charge should come before this committee, and ask us to pass it without having sent it to the Committee on Fisheries. It seems a complicated Bill, and the further we get the more complicated it gets. There must be something in it or the Bill would not be here.


William Templeman: Clause 13 is precisely the law as it is at present with the addition of the words I have cited, * of any international regulation,' making a violation of the international regulations when they are brought into force, a violation of the Act.

On section 14, penalty for violations.


William Templeman: The only change is the substitution of $1,000 for $100. The object in thus increasing the fine is that with some traps, particularly on the Pacific coast, it is possible for a trap owner to violate the law, and be fined $100, and still make money. The penalty was too small, and we are increasing it to $1,000 with that object especially in view.


James Davis Taylor: Does this remove all other penalties that have been in force?


William Templeman: I am advised it does not.


James Davis Taylor: Does the minister think this fine of $1,000 will he sufficient to secure compliance with the law by the owners of traps?


William Templeman: The previous clause provides that all the property of a party violating the law may be confiscated. The $1,000 penalty is heavy, and it is deemed by the department to be sufficient. I do not think that owners of traps would violate the law very often if they were fined $1,000.


George Henry Bradbury: I would suggest in addition that the license of the man who violates the law should be cancelled, and a renewal refused.


William Templeman: That is a question of policy. The department can very properly refuse a renewal to a habitual violater of the law.


George Henry Bradbury: In drafting a jaw with severe penalty, the cancellation of the license should be one of the penalties, so that a man would know what he was facing when he violated the law.


William Templeman: The law might be violated by a trap owner inadvertently, and it would be hardly proper to deprive him of a license when he was not guilty of intentional wrong-doing. However, as the power of renewal is absolutely in the hands of the department, it is believed that the interests of the government are sufficiently protected.


George Henry Bradbury: When the minister
reminds me of the fact that the discretion as to renewal lies absolutely in the hands of the department, and says that that should be a guarantee that the man would be punished, and the license not issued, I would recall some of our experiences on the inland lakes. Glaring violations of the law have been committed, and the officials in Selkirk and in the department here knew of it. An investigation was held costing this country $1,200, and after it had been demonstrated that the American fish interests were violating the
Mr. TEMPLEMAN
law, fishing twice the amount of nets allowed, fishing when they liked, and how they liked, the tools of the American Fish Company, for the company had no status in Canada, got their licenses year after year just the same. It is cases of this kind that make a man on this side anxious that the penalty should be included right in the Bill so that we we will be sure of its enforcement and not have to depend on the officials to protest Canadian interests.
On section 15, International fishery regulations may be brought into force.


William Templeman: As the committee is aware, in the year 1908, a treaty was made between the United States and Canada, for the purpose of regulating the fisheries in the inland waters contiguous ito the two countries. By that treaty, commissioners were appointed by both governments under article 3, to prepare and put into operation with as little delay as possible, regulations, restrictions and prohibitions, with appropriate penalties for breaches thereof. The day when they were to come into operation was to be fixed by concurrent proclamation of the Governor General of Canada, and of the President of the United States. In pursuance of that article of the treaty, representatives of the United States and of Canada have agreed to regulations governing fishing in international waters as set out in the treaty. The clause in this Bill is to give to the Governor in Council power to bring those regulations into force by proclamation as required by the treaty. The proclamation in Canada and the proclamation in the United States are to toe issued concurrently. That is the only object of this clause. When the United States are ready to bring the regulations into force on their side of the line we want to ' be ready to proclaim the regulations on our side, and we have been advised by the Justice Department, that it is necessary that we should take this power by statute.


James Davis Taylor: I would like to point out to the minister that while the penalty of $1,000 prescribed to this section, like the section we have just passed, may be sufficient on the Canadian side, there is grave reason to doubt whether it will be a deterrent on the American side. There has been a law on the American side against fishing traps in certain days of the week. The government knows from observation made last year that that law has not been carried out, and although there has been a suggestion that the authority for regulation and supervision shall be taken from the state and conferred upon and exercised by the federal jurisdiction, we have heard nothing of any progress made in that direction: and we have no assurance, so far as I have heard, that the federal government of the United States is to be in effective

control of the waters of the state of Washington. I presume if any such arrangement had been made it would have been communicated to the House by the minister just now. In the absence of any assurance of that kind, we are interested in what happened last year, and on that point I have the authority of Prof. David Starr Jordan, the American representative on the International Fisheries Commission. In his report to Washington he says:
With upwards of 2,5r0 square miles of fishing territory, the state of Washington has' no patrol vessels, and so far as I know, but a single gasoline launch. The present statutes are fairly well enforced in most of the eastern boundary states, notably so in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In Washington they are not adequately enforced. It is claimed that in the current season the fishermen of Washington caught by encroachment on the close season salmon to the value of upwards of $600,000 to which they were not entitled. Part of these should hare been taken in British Columbia waters. The others should have escaped up the Fraser river to the spawning grounds. In Canada, throughout the boundary waters, the statutes now in effect are rigidly enforced. It does not even occur to any one to violate them. The real need of the boundary situation is less that of stringent legislation than of equal enforcement of law on either side. I see no way to accomplish this except by a federal patrol, corresponding to the Dominion patrol of Canada.
Now, Mr. Chairman, if the only deterrent we have against the prospect of another American raid upon our salmon during the close season, a raid which netted $600,000 last year, is this fine of $1,000, which is the limit allowed by the international regulations, I fear it will be found ineffectual. I would like to call the attention of the minister to the fact that one of these traps caught last year as high as 110,000 fish in one day. At the price at which these fish were sold, 20 cents each, that would mean $22,000 worth of fish that one of these traps has been known to catch in a single day, and the sole penalty for an open and wilful violation of the law that will yield $22,-00U in one day would be a fine of $1,000. Of course any trap owner who could reap that rich harvest would accept the risk of a fine every time. I uould suggest to the minister that if there are to be any further negotiations in connection with the international regulations, he should press for some such further provision with respect to traps as he has now with respect to net fishing, that is, that if a net fisherman wilfully violates the law and the department ha.s cause of complaint against him as an incorrigible, the department may confiscate his license and his nets, and I would recommend that he press for power to deal in the same way with the trap fishermen. I would ask the minister whether the government has examined that phase
of the situation, and whether, in view of the enormous profits of trap owners to be obtained by paying a fine for violating 'the law, the government has considered it advisable to make the penalty more drastic than it is in these regulations.


Mr. CLARK.: I would be very glad if the government could see its way clear to suspend the clause of this Bill that relates to the confirmation of the international regulations with the United States. It seems to me that the regulations which have been framed, have not been framed with proper inquiry and proper care for the interest of the fishermen who have been carrying on operations in international waters. Along the whole length of the Detroit river men have been fishing for their life time; they have got their plants, and now, by the operation of this treaty and of these regulations, their business is going to be cut away from them. It may be that it is in the interest of fish culture generally that that should be done, but I think it would be much more satisfactory if a committee of this House could hear the fishermen themselves in order to find out whether the interest of the fishery is so very important as to require so drastic a measure as is proposed by these regulations. It appears to me that it has gone too far now. What I would like to suggest to the minister is that the matter be taken up with a view of a further conference in order to have it dealt with in the light of the greater information that can be got by hearing the fishermen themselves. They feel very much aggrieved. Many of them have almost made their living from fishing in the Detroit river. It is not so on the American side. There the river front is so much taken up with wharfs that they have not the fisheries on their side, and I can quite understand their acquiescence in regulations which are no loss to them. But on the Canadian side, where people have been fishing for their lifetime, or for many years, it is a great hardship, and I hope the minister will take this into consideration and see even at this hour if there is not some way of at least giving the fishermen a hearing.


William Templeman: I would point out to my hon. friend (Mr. A. H. Clarke) that the clause now before the House does not necessarily mean that the regulations agreed to are going to be proclaimed. I suppose that the government could refuse to proclaim them. They are simply taking power to bring these regulations into force. My attention has been called to the fact that one of the regulations affecting the fishing in boundary waters prohibits net fishing in the St. Mary's, St. Clair, Detroit, Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers where they form part of

the international boundary line. I am not in a position to say whether it would >be deemed advisable to prohibit net fishing altogether, but I would naturally suppose that net fishing in these waters was destroying the fish and it was deemed wise to prohibit net fishing. However, that is simply an expression of opinion. We 'take power to bring into force by proclamation any agreement that may be reached, [DOT]whether this agreement or a subsequent agreement is necessary, and it is necessary for the government to have that power, because otherwise no treaty made with the United States could be proclaimed and tnade law. I would suggest to my hon. friend that, while he may have a good 'point in trying to have that regulation changed, it does not necessarily follow 'that fishing in that way would be prohibited as a result of taking power to proclaim the treaty. Under the treaty the regulations are revisable by the mutual consent, I think, of both governments at 'any time, and it might be found that before the treaty was proclaimed, with the concurrence of the United States com-fnissioner^ a change in the treaty would 'be advisable. The treaty provides that it Shall remain in force for a four year 'period. In regard to my hon. friend from 'British Columbia (Mr. J. D. Taylor), I Vant to point out that the condition there *will be, in my opinion, vastly improved 'by this treaty. I think my hon. friend from New Westminster will admit that fact. Generally speaking hitherto there has been practically no law. well observed, at all events, in the state of Washington. The states control the fisheries, 'and up to the present time the state of Washington has had certain regulations, but these regulations were never enforced. 'A close season was not observed and our fishermen have thought that by the rather rigid enforcement of the regulations made by the Fisheries Department they were unfairly discriminated against. This treaty applies to the United States side of the line, with respect to the Pacific ocean, practically the regulations which hitherto 'have been in force in Canadian waters. The American government have undertaken to enforce these regulations, not the 'Washington state government. The United *States government take the ground. I think, upon the advice of their highest 'legal authority, that although the various fisheries are controlled and regulated by the states, when the federal government 'enters into a treaty with a foreign nowpr the right of the United States to regulate the fisheries is paramount and must prevail. Therefore, we feel quite sure that when the United States government undertake, in the words of the treaty, by legislation and executive action, the regulation and restriction of the fisheries we must denend unon them to carry out Mr. TEMPLEMAN.
their treaty obligations. The treaty does not impose any penalty; it simply provides that each government shall impose its own penalty for any infraction of the treaty. This government is imposing a penalty of $1,000 for a violation of the regulations under this treaty. I would assume that the United States government would impose about the same penalty. I quite agree with -what my hon. friend says with regard to the destructive character of the fishing carried on south of the boundary line. As a matter of fact, if we did not have this treaty with the United States government to regulate fishing in Puget Sound, and if no restriction, other than those which have been imposed in the past, were to be imposed in the future, we; might just as well conclude that fishing on the Fraser river, would be absolutely destroyed in another ten years. I read in a newspaper the other day a statement by the fishery inspector for British Columbia who, disheartened by the fact that thq people in the state, of Washington were not living up to their own regulations, and were catching -salmon which would, if not intercepted, have gone up the Fraser river to be caught by the Canadian fishermen, declared that if the United States would not impose effective restrictions, the restrictions imposed by the Canadian government should be removed, and apparently concluded that the river should be fished until the last fish was taken out of it. I do not think it is in the interests of the Canadian fishermen that this government should not make a very earnest effort indeed to obtain from the United States government a treaty imposing upon the citizens of that country the same restrictions as we are imposing upon the fishermen in British Columbia with the view to conserving the the great fishery of the Fraser river. I believe that this is a good treaty. As I un-i derstand its application to the province of British Columbia, I think it is a goodf treaty. I must confess with regard to other portions of Canada, and especially in regard to the complaint made by my hon. friend from South Essex (Mr. Clarke) I am not very familiar with the facts, but in regard to British Columbia, if we are ever going to restore the Fraser river to its position as a sock-eye stream we must do it by a treaty with the United States government. It is a fair treaty. The same regulations are to apply on each side of the boundary line. I know it is said that they will not carry them out. There is some little reason for that suspicion from lations were supposed to be carried out their regulations in the past, but the regulations were supposed to be carried out. by the state governments. Now, the obligation to do so is imposed upon the federal government, and I believe

that it is really in the interest of the fishermen of the Fraser river, in which interest the hon. member for New Westminster is speaking, more than in the interest of the canners, as well as in the business interests of British Columbia, that the yield of fish should be restored to its normal condition, as it can be by the enforcement of a treaty of this kind. Whether the American government will enforce the treaty as the Canadian government will enforce it I do not know, but I have faith enough in the American government to believe it will. At all events, if the treaty does not work well, we can terminate it in four years after it goes into effect, or try to get a better one.


Mr. CONMEE.: I agree to a large extent with the remarks made by the hon. member for Essex (Mr. Clarke), and I believe to a great extent the Canadian fishermen have not had the opportunity they desire to present their case. I understand from the minister that while this Bill may pass it does not follow that it will come into force except by proclamation.


William Templeman: The Bill will come into force when passed, but the clause under consideration takes power to proclaim the regulations concurrently with their proclamation in the United States.


James Conmee: It does not come into force automatically through the passing of the Bill?


William Templeman: No.


James Conmee: Would the fishermen of Canada have an opportunity of being heard as to the hardship these regulations may work upon them.


William Templeman: The joint commission appointed by Canada and the United States to carry out the treaty can at any time hear the fishermen, and they have the power to revise or change any of the regulations.


James Conmee: It so happens that along the north shore of the Georgian bay, the north shore of Lake Huron, and Lake Superior, Rainy lake and the Lake of the Woods, the open lake is on the American side while the most of the islands are on the Canadian side, and this territory affords the best fishing grounds. In certain cases this Bill would not bear so hard on the fishing interests of the United States as on Canada from the minister's statement, I assume our fishermen will have a right to be heard before that joint commission which it is assumed will deal fairly with all these matters. If our fishermen have the right to present their case, and seek redress, notwithstanding the passage of the Bill, I would not so strongly object to it, but otherwise I would agree with the member for Essex that it would be better to defer this legislation.	'	[DOT]


George Henry Bradbury: I have given considerable attention to our fresh water fish supply, and I can say that in my opinion this legislation is an effort in the right direction. I believe that if the provisions of this treaty are carried out by the Americansy as it will be by the Canadians, honestly and faithfully, it is bound to have a good effect. The trouble in the past has been, and I suppose it will continue in the future, is to get the American officials to be honest in enforcing the law. I think we can depend on our officials to carry out faithfully their part of the duty cast upon them by the treaty. However, I want to point out to the member for Rainy River, as he no doubt knows, that on the Rainy lake for instance, nearly all the fishermen who have been engaged there, and on the Lake of the Woods have been fishing for American companies. The Canadian fisheries have been exploited for many years by large American concerns, and while the treaty makes it obligatory upon the Canadian government to protect their side of the line it does not deal with the Americans on the other side. I do not believe that Canadians would suffer so much loss as the Americans, for the reason, that two-thirds of the Canadian fishermen catching white fish, pickerel, and other species, on our lakes are largely in the employ of the American companies. It is an open secret that our laws have been openly violated for years on the Great Lakes, and the inland waters as well, by the American companies who have obtained control of our fisheries in a round about way. They get Canadians to take out licenses, and thus evade the law. We, on our part have not been receiving the benefit we should receive from our fish wealth. Lake Winnipeg used to be one of the greatest white fish fisheries in the world, but now it has been destroyed or nearly destroyed, simply because the Americans have been allowed to come into our waters, and evade our laws. They formed what they called the Dominion Fish Company which has operated all the way from Lake Winnipeg down to the great lakes and that fishing company was no other than the Booth Fishing and Packing Company of Chicago. I repeat that if the treaty is carried out faithfully it will have a beneficial effect, and I trust the minister will watch carefully to see that the Americans are not allowed to take advantage of us, but are compelled to live up to the terms of the treaty. The minister will have to watch them very closely in that respect. Now, the sturgeon fishery is a most important industry to us, and I notice that in the regulations under the treaty the commissioners


John Allister Currie: I am very glad to see my hon. friend from Rainy River (Mr. Conmee) and mv hon. friend from South Essex (Mr. Clarke) taking a hand in this discussion of fishery matters, especially on the side of the fishermen. The Bill under discussion is certainly an important one, especially as we are legalizing regulations that have been adopted by the joint commission. One thing in connection with these regulations which I cannot understand is that the north channel of the Georgian bay is included in the international waters, that is to say, the channel north of the Manitoulin island, which is many miles away from the United States, and is virtually a huge inland river or canal. The question of our fisheries being controlled by Americans is not at all a question of surmise. It is a fact that is established by the evidence of Prof. Prince given last year before a committee of this House. He stated that the boats and the gear used in the fishing business on the Great Lakes and on Lake Winnipeg were owned by Americans; and under a clause of their customs regulations fish caught in boats or with gear owned by Americans are admitted into the United States free of duty. The result of that has been, to place the fisheries of the Great Lakes entirely in the hands of Americans and to make Canadians virtually hewers of wood and drawers of water to the American companies. The fish taken from our inland waters by these companies is carried to the United States and put in cold storage, and when Canadians want any fish, it is sent back into Canada from Buffalo, Chicago and Sault Ste. Marie. It would not be difficult to correct this, but there is no use of mv asking the minister to make any change, because I know that it would not be made. The only thing to do would be to put a clause in the Act providing that foreign craft and gear would not be allowed to be used in Canadian waters. I think we have attained that measure of nationality where we should not any longer be hewers of wood and drawers of water to any people. The statements I have made are facts which cannot be controverted, as any one can see by looking at the evidence given last session by Prof. Prince before the committee on Marine and Fisheries.


James Conmee: It is quite true that the fishing interests of the Great Lakes are entirely in the hands of Americans. There is only one section, that is, the north shore

of Lake Superior, consisting of a stretch of 150 or 200 miles, where the fishermen own their own outfits and carry on the fishing on their own behalf. All the other fishing interests, on both the Canadian and the American side, are under the control of one or two companies. But I think my hon. friend's information is not correct when he says that American craft and American implements are used entirely in the taking of fish. What happens is that these American companies have gradually driven the Canadian fishermen into the position of catching fish for them, and later they have acquired their outfits, their tugs, their fishing smacks and their entire plant; so that, speaking generally, the Canadian fishermen are catching fish with the plants of these great companies, but they are Canadian bottoms. The trouble is not altogether with the licenses. The licenses are issued to Canadians, but the Canadians are in the service of these companies. The provincial government, I am speaking of the government of Ontario, for I know the circumstances perfectly well, are aware of this monopoly, and they have not yet adopted or grappled with 'anything in the shape of a remedy. Now, I do not know to what extent that could be remedied by action here, because this government does not give licenses for the taking of fish. It seems to me that the remedy could be used with much greater force by the provincial authorities than under the regulations of the federal authorities so far as Ontario is concerned. As I understand it, Ontario is the only province that has taken over the management and control of their own fisheries. The other provinces under some arrangement permit the federal authorities to issue licenses and to regulate the whole procedure of taking fish in the provincial waters. That is not the case in Ontario. Ontario has a department which manages and controls the whole matter. I am finding no fault at all. I am just pointing out that it is not so much a question of issuing licenses; it is the difficulty of finding a market, and that is where this American monopoly and the advantage and control, having the capital at their command. Whether there is anything in this treaty that will enable the joint commission to remedy an evil of that kind, I am not prepared to say. I doubt very much that there is such a remedy. Speaking of Ontario, I am afraid it will not be remedied unless the provincial government takes very strong action in the matter, or unless there is some arrangement made by which this government would assume control and make regulations necessary to put an end to that monopoly.


George Henry Bradbury: What the hon. gentle^ man said suggests another question on
which I had intended to say something, and that is the question of the American fish interests in the west. Now, the hon. gentleman says that the Americans do not' own the nets and gear and boats. I want to say most emphatically that the American fish companies on Lake Winnipeg have owned for years every steamboat, every sail boat and all the nets that were used in that lake by those companies up to a year or two ago. They secured the license in defiance of the law. The law is pretty clear and well defined that no license should be issued except to a British subject, and that that subject should own all his boats and gear. That is laid down in the fisheries regulations, as drastic a law as there is on the statute-book. But that law has been evaded openly and the Fisheries Department has been aware of it for years. There has been no secret about it at all.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Whose fault is it?


George Henry Bradbury: The fault must lie with the officials or with the department, because it has been an open secret and everybody knew about it. It has been going on for the list fifteen or eighteen years now. How does it operate? There is a duty on all fresh fish that goes into the United States, but under some 'special arrangement with the 'Customs Department of the United States any fish said to have been taken in gear owned by American citizens is admitted free. The consequence is that in Lake Winnipeg the American companies, taking the oath that the fish were caught in their own nets, get the fish into the United StateS free, while the fish taken by Canadian fishermen in Canadian nets has to pay three-quarters of a cent duty on the fish. I say that is a great hardship, and the government should take very drastic measures to compel the enforcement of the law so that Americans will not be able to control our waters to the detriment of our Canadian fishermen. The Booth Fi3h Packing Company^ failed in Chicago about a year ago, I think. Now, what happened? The great plant of the Dominion Fish Company came under the hammer, and there was proof positive that that great company owned that plant. As soon as it failed in Chicago everything belonging to it was tied up. I repeat it is an open secret, and something in regard to which the goverment ought to take action. To say that the American fish companies do not control our waters is a great mistake. The American fish companies have controlled them for years, and it is up to the Fishery Department to take the full responsibility. This matter has been brought before them time after time, and surely there must be some way by which the gov* ernment could protect their own waters,

especially the inland waters. There is no. reason under the sun why the American companies should come to Lake Winnipeg and be allowed to control that lake to the detriment of our own fishermen. That has been going on for fifteen years, and as the licenses are issued by the Dominion gov-erment, it is a matter absolutely undeT the control of this government which ought to act in defence of our fisheries.


John Allister Currie: I may say that
under the international regulations the government takes control of the gear. They limit the number and size of the nets that shall be allowed and various other things, so that I think the jurisdiction over the gear is certainly in the Dominion government. The licenses, as we have seen in Manitoba, are issued by the Dominion government, and they permit this work to go on in Manitoba. It is quite true that licenses to fish without virtually any control are issued by the Ontario government, but the only control the Ontario government ha3 is in Georgian bay, and a large section of that control has been taken away by these very regulations, because it puts the North channel, one of the best fishing grounds, under international waters. I think the government should take action in this matter, and that something should be done which would gradually return the control and operation of our fisheries to the hands of Canadians and Canadian capital.


David Henderson: All I have to sav in connection with this Bill, and clause lfi, is that the minister should not be in too great a haste to bring the regulations into force. I think it is highly desirable that plenty of time should be taken. I know that in the western part of Lake Ontario the fishermen will be obliged to procure new nets under the new regulations, because they will be compelled to fish with a net of a different mesh when these regulations are brought into force. Now, these men are anxious not to be forced to do that too soon, and they desire to be permitted to use their own nets practically until they are worn out. Instead of the regulations being brought into force at the end of the year 1910, I think the time should be postponed for at least another year. By that time the nets now in use would be pretty well worn out and the fishermen would be ' obliged to secure new nets in any event.
therefore, appeal to the bon. minister in the hope that he will exercise his influence with the other members of the government, and not have these regulations brought into force too hurriedly. There may be a way out of some of the difficulties that have been referred to by hon. gentlemen tonight. Perhaps some new investigation may be made by the two countries, and I


George Henry Bradbury: hope that better counsels will prevail, and that so far as the part of the country I live in is concerned there will be no interference, at any rate for another year, by which time the fishermen will be better prepared to enter upon the changed conditions.
Bill reported, read the third time and
passed.



VOLUNTEER BOUNTY ACT AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
House in committee on Bill (No. 163) to amend the Volunteer Bounty Act of 1908.- Mr. Oliver.
Mr. CAMPBELL.: When this matter was up before I asked the minister whether or not the government had given any intimation to the public last year as to any possible changes. His reply was ' not in his recollection '. My memory happened to be better than his and I said so. I wish now to bring to his attention his reply on February 4 of last year to a question by my hon. friend from Lisgar (Mr. Sharpe). The question was
Has the government Under consideration any change in the conditions relating to the South African land grants.
The minister's reply was:
No changes are contemplated.
That was the reply to a question which . covered absolutely this condition as to the time. A minister coming here ought to be up in the subject to be discussed, and should not make statements such as he made to me on that occasion which are absolutely misleading. I object entirely, or almost entirely to any change in those conditions because the great majority of that scrip has got into the hands of speculators, it is out of the hands of the men who actually earned it, and if a special bonus of this kind is to be given by the government it should be given to the men who went out and took their lives in their hands. I would not object to this additional time being given in the case of military bounty warrants still held by the volunteers, or by the widows or heirs of men who died in the service. The government should also consider the case of those who went out there, such as nurses who took care of our boys in time of sickness, but who were not under military supervision, and for that reason did not get warrants. Their case ought to be taken up, and a recognition of their services in this way would meet with little, if any, opposition.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend has seen fit to open his remarks by the suggestion that I was not frank to the House in a statement I made last session. If my memory and understanding are right, the

question at issue and under consideration at that time was the extending of the scope of the Act, and I replied at that time as I reply now, and as this Bill is the evidence, that the government had no intention of changing the Act. The extension of time for the location is not a change in the principle of the Act, but a change in the operation of the Act, and that matter is now submitted to this parliament for their judgment. If it is in accordance with the judgment of parliament this extension will be given, if it is not it will not be given. As to extending the operation of the Act to embrace other classes, it was the judgment of parliament in 1908 that the Act should apply to the people to whom it was made to apply. The government has seen no reason to change the opinion then expressed. That is to say it has seen no reason that would warrant the opening of the Act, and the widening of its scope as has been suggested on various occasions. Therefore on this occasion the government offers for the consideration of the House the proposition that the. time for the location of the warrants granted under this Act shall be extended for one year, being moved to do so by the request of the men who were themselves volunteers and who by reason of their election to the position had the right to speak for the volunteers who went to South Africa, and were entitled to this scrip.


George Henry Bradbury: Has the minister any idea how many of these warrants are still in the hands of the original holders?


Frank Oliver: There is no means of knowing that. There have been issued altogether 6,846 warrants, and of these 3,142 have been either located or the transfer has been registered. There remain 3,704, or more than one-half which have not been accounted for, and of the present possession of which we have no knowledge. So far as we know they are still in the hands of the parties to whom they were issued.


William Roche: Was the scrip for lands given in years gone by under similar circumstances negotiable?


Frank Oliver: Oh, yes.


William Roche: In every case?


Frank Oliver: Certainly.


Mr. TURRIFF.: And in all former scrips of this kind the time for location was extended for many years, year after year. I have to leave in one-half hour and will not be here again this week, so that I may not have another opportunity of discussing the Bill, and if you will allow me I would like to discuss it now for a few minutes. 1 hava an amendment to section 4, and this will probably be my sole opportunity of 256
discussing it. It is not for the purpose of extending the scope of the Bill. The amendment is to cover the case of those veterans, or the substitutes, the assignees of the veterans, who have located their scrips on different half-sections throughout the country, some of whom, a small proportion, have unfortunately been either misled by others or have misled themselves, and have located their warrants on land that subsequently turns out to be practically worthless. They are in this position, that it will not pay them to go on and put in their three years residence on that half section in order to secure the patent, and under the present Act it seems the minister has no authority, or claims to have no authority, to allow them to make an exchange. Now, here is the way it has worked out. Take the case of one young man in my constituency, a man who has been in that country for 15 or 20 years. He volunteered to go to the war, he went all through the war, and he got his warrant. He went away southwest of Moosejaw, 150 or 200 miles, he spent over $100 in cash looking at various lands, and he selected five or six different half-sections. He came back to the office at Moosejaw. In the meantime it had been advertised that some half dozen or dozen townships were to be opened on a certain day, townships he had looked at. When he got back to Moosejaw, there was a tremendous rush for the land. He had to get in line with the others, he was some 40 or 50 back from the head of the line, and by the time he got to the counter every one of the sections that he had examined personally, and of which he had selected three, had all been taken. When he got there the man in front of him said to him: There, I got my first choice. But there is another section that is first-class, just as good as the one I took. Now, this man wanted to avoid what might easily happen a second time, he did not want to be obliged to spend another $150 in cash to go back and make a second selection, and here was a chance to get a first-class section. The Tesult was that he took the man's advice, and he made an entry there and then for a homestead preemption, and also located his warrant that he had earned himself as a volunteer in South Africa on the other half-section. Then he immediately goes back to this land and examines it, and he finds that the man who gave him the information was either deceived himself, or had deliberately deceived the man of whom I am speaking, Mr. Brockway, one of my constituents, and he found out that both the section of land entered for homestead and pre-emption and the other section under warrant were absolutely worthless. He told me he could not get $10 for the section. Now, the department allows him to abandon his home-



stead pre-emption and take up another on payment of $10 for 'the entry. But, so far as the warrant is concerned he cannot do that. He. >is therefore in the position of losing one or the other of them, and all I am asking is that an amendment be made to the law-I do not think myself that it needs an amendment, I think the minister has the authority, but he thinks not, and his opinion goes-but if an amendment is necessary I think there should be one made to that clause that would permit a man who has selected a half-section under a warrant and who finds the land is no* good, to enable that man for once-I would only give him one more chance-to abandon that and get authority to substitute another half-section under the same warrant. Now, I have mentioned one case, but I have another case that is ten times more serious. There are a number of oases of hardship, but this one is an especially glaring case, and I want to bring it to the attention of the committee to show how unfairly this law may work out. It is the case of a man who formerly lived in my constituency, his brother is at present in my constituency. This man himself has moved up west of Batitleford and located land there. I will read a copy of his letter:
Stainsleigh, Alberta, Nor-ember 5, 1909.


Mr.  J. G.@: Turriff, M.P..
Ottawa, Ontario.
Dear Mr. Turriff,-I had the pleasure of meeting you once many years ago when I was teaching at Carnduff; my brother, J. A. Thompson was Massey-Harris agent at C., and you were agent for that company at Estevan. Not on the grounds of that slight acquaintance, hut because you are familiar with our western conditions, and because I believe you have a sympathy with a thing .that is essentially just, I am making free to ask your assistance in a matter of very great importance.
I have been unable to do a day's work since midsummer of 1905, when I was stricken down with tuberculosis of the spine. Dr. Chown. of Winnipeg, diagnosed my disease, and I have for past four years been under the treatment of Dr. Clarence L. Starr, an ortho-poedic specialist of Toronto.
In 1906 I came west to homestead, locating on N.E. 18-T. 40-R. 1-W. 4. I have resided on my homestead continually since May 5, 190S, sleeping under canvas from that date until the present, excepting two and a half months the hitter winter of 1906-7.
Last winter I purchased two South African scrip claims, believing that by doing the necessary duties to prove up on the land I saw means of making provision for my wife, my children and myself. In this way I would be making use of practically the only earning power I possessed.
I may say that this man was a minister, either a Presbyterian or a Methodist, when he was stricken down with this disease.


John Gillanders Turriff: In the purchase of the scrip I invested about all that I owned, as it seemed to me a perfectly safe venture. It was utterly impossible for me to endure the driving necessary to locate land myself, and I had to depend on some one else to do the work for me. I had arrangements made with a conple of men who were thoroughly competent and reliable to make an exploring tour for me, when a conple of men -with whom I had an intimate acquaintance, came to me with the story that they had unexpectedly made a discovery of some excellent land and, knowing my wish to locate land, had hurried across to give me the first chance. The land was within seven miles of a town; peculiar circumstances had prevented it being filed in before, and if I wanted the land I must decide immediately, and get out at once to secure it, as land-suckers rvere in all around, and such land as this would soon be picked up. I trusted them without the slightest misgiving, and, being unable to examine the land personally, and supposing they were really showing me some consideration because of my position, I hurried to Battleford and filed the land. I filed on May 5.
The land proved to be worthless. Three-quarters are absolutely worthless for either agricultnre or pasture, and the fourth quarter has fair surface, but is underlaid with gravel. To spend the money necessary to do the duties would be to make an outlay for which there would he no compensating return.
I paid $50 for the locator's information, and they took the entire responsibility. It was pure fraud on their part.
The land on which I filed is S.E. 18 and 8. i-7 in Tp. 38, R. 28, W. 3rd M. Homestead Inspector McArthur, inspector for that district, chauced to call on me, and, at my request made an examination of my land. His report was forwarded by R. E. A. Leech, inspector of agencies to the department with riequest that, owing to special conditions, some consideration be shown. The deputy minister replied stating that the law did not allow the privilege of abandonment with a view to re-entry.
So this disposition of the question means almost complete financial ruin to me, and involves an essential injustice, I am wishing to ask for a consideration of the question by the minister, or if the minister feels that he should not exercise discretionary power owing to the wording of the law, should not a law that involves such hards rips aud injustice he changed.	,
Dr. Clark is member for our constituency and will, I feel sure, lead in advocacy of my cause. John Tolmie, of Kincardine, Ontario, has promised to support earnestly any effort made to secure redress for me. If you feel that my request is right when I seek redress, may I not ask for the kindness of your support. Your familiarity with homestead conditions will make your advocacy of special value to me.
Trusting that you may feel free to grant me the favour that I ask, I am,
Sincerely yours,



A. THOMPSON.

[Stage Direction]
There is a case surely that would call for the sympathy of any member of this House. This man has already been to

blame in the matter, but under the law he cannot get any redress, and what I ask is that section 4 be amended as follows:
Gilbert Howard McIntyre: I would ask the hon. gentleman, if he is proposing to enter into a discussion of section 4 or to offer an amendment, to wait until we come to that section.


John Gillanders Turriff: I am quite aware that I am transgressing the rules of the House, but I have to leave in a few minutes, and with the permission of the House I would offer this amendment:
That section i of the Volunteer Act, 1908, chapter 66, be amended by adding to it the following words: ' Every such grantee or his substitute may within six months after the date of entry, abandon the land so entered and may thereafter, within the time limited for selection and entry by subsection 1 of this section, or within six months after such date, make a second entry; provided that nothing in this subsection shall authorize or entitle any grantee or his substitute to make any further entry in place of the land abandoned as aforesaid.'
That is to say that he shall have the opportunity of making one exchange, but no more. It is probable that out of 6,000 or 7,000 cases, there will not be more than a hundred cases in which such an exchange is made. It seems to me a small matter to do that. We have taken the position that it is proper and right to give a South African veteran a half-section of land, and that being the case he should be given the opportunity of making an exchange if he has got poor land. We all know that when a man takes up a homestead he can abandon that homestead or it may be cancelled. He may enter for ten homesteads and have them all cancelled, and if he does so he does not lose his homestead right. In that case we are giving the land for nothing. Here is the case of the South African veteran who has served in the war in South Africa for the empire, or, in the case of the substitute, here is the man who has bought his warrant at a price ranging all the way from $300 to $1,000. I think it is only fair and just that some consideration should be given to these men. This is the amendment that I wish to make to subsection 4, and I trust that you will see that it is passed.


Mr. S. SHARPE.: I would like to ask the hon. gentleman if that amendment would not have the effect of extending the operation of the Act for six months beyond the year for which it has already been extended?


John Gillanders Turriff: No, it would extend the time for six months only to make the ex-256i
change, but it would not extend the time for the location of the warrant.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: It would have the effect of extending it for six months under the Act.


Glenlyon Campbell: In spite of the explanation given by the minister as to what he meant, the words I read were absolutely plain. In answer to the question:
Has the government under consideration any change in the conditions relating to South African land grants?
His answer was:
No changes are contemplated.
The point I want to make is that if he did not understand the meaning of the question, the hon. member for Lisgar had in mind nothing else except the possibility of an extension of the time. The people who held the warrants believed that the minister's answer meant that by the end of 1910 the time for taking up these warrants would expire. For that reason, many of them sacrificed those warrants for a very inconsiderable price as compared with their actual value-somewhere about $700 and down to $500. They sacrificed their claims because they believed that the Minister of the Interior meant what he said in answer to the hon. member for Lisgar. There is no question that that was the belief of the majority of the people in Canada. Even the men who were buying and dealing in scrip, in making a deal, brought in an argument in favour of low prices that by the end of 1910 the warrants would be of no use whatever, and they could not resell them. For that reason they acted as bears on the market and held down the price. That was the case until January of this year when we find that a firm who dealt in half-breed scrip before and are now dealing in bounty warrant scrip came down here and had an interview with the minister, or some official, or some one who was in the know. They telegraphed to their brokers in Winnipeg to buy all the scrip they could get. That is a true sign that there was inside information given to men who were dealing in scrip with the view of putting up the value of the warrants. For that reason I think we should have an explanation from the minister before he forces this legislation through. In the west it has been generally understood that in matters appertaining to the west the minister's word is good, and a year ago he gave his word absolutely in this connection. I would feel hurt personally if on this occasion he departed from the course bv which he has won this good name.


Frank Oliver: I do not know that there is any use of my hon. friend and myself imputing motives across the floor of the

House. My hon. friend has seen fit to represent that I did not give a frank answer to a question that was asked, last year, and he tells the House now what was in the mind of the questioner when he asked the question, and what was in the mind of the House when the question was asked. The only question that had been under consideration was as to whether there should be other rights included in the grant. There was no question of an extension of time and whatever may have been in the mind of the questioner or whatever may have been in the mind of the House I may be permitted to answer that what was in my mind, and what my answer was given in regard to the question of the extension of the provisions of the Bill and not in regard to the question of the extension of time. However, from that my hon. friend has seen fit to say that I gave a pledge or a promise that there would be no legislation. My hon. friend has not read any such words from 'Hansard'. He has not read any words that could be construed into that meaning.	What I said was
that the government had not in contemplation a change in the Act. So that whether the hearer thought I meant one thing or meant another, there was no pledge on my part or on the part of the government. I stated the fact whether you take the one meaning or the other: that the government had not in contemplation. But, as my hon. friend is aware, there have been representations made to the government since last session upon this subject, representations that were entitled to some weight, representations made by the official representatives of the volunteers, asking specifically for an extension of time for location for a period of two years. The government did not think it well to accede to the request for a two years' extension, but thought that a one year's extension would not be any serious injury to the public interest and would remove any complaint that might seriously be made against the short time that was given for the location of the scrip. It was with the desire, and only with the desire to do what was fair and right by the people to whom the bounty was extended, and to do no more than was fair and right, so that there should not be any undue advantage to any particular class of the community nor any undue disadvantage to the settlement of the western country. Since the matter was up in the House before, I have received this copy of a circular on the subject, which I will take the liberty to read:-
Committee.-Capt. W. Hart McHarg, Vancouver, British Columbia ; Lt.-Col. W. G. Hurdman, Ottawa, Ontario; Col. G. Sterling Ryerson, M.D., Toronto, Ontario ; Major H. B. Stairs, D.S.O., Halifax, Nova Scotia; Major F. C. Jamieson, Strathcona, Alberta;


Frank Oliver: 


Major A.   C.@: Macdonald, D.S.O., Winnipeg, Manitoba; Major B. R. Armstrong, St. John, New Brunswick; Major W. A. Weeks, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Lt.-Col. 0. C. C. Pelletier, Quebec, Quebec; Major J. Cooper Mason, D.S.O., Toronto, Ontario; Lt.-Col. Wm. Hamilton Merritt, Toronto, Ontario, Secretary.
Toronto, Ontario, April 18, 1910.
Dear Sir,-We have read the discussions which took place in the House in connection with Mr. Oliver's Bill to extend the time by one year in which the South African veterans may locate their grants. It appears to be the wish of some of the members that those persons who have speculated in these warrants should secure none of the advantages which an extension of time would involve, and in so far as the advantages which should accrue to the veterans themselves are secured, this committee is desirous also that these speculators should be given no consideration.
The amendment Which has been suggested, however, we feel, will work to the disadvantage of both the veteran and the speculator, and in nullifying the advantages which the veteran would receive under the original Act, would destroy entirely the purpose of that Act.
If the extension is granted only to those persons who still retain their scrip on the understanding that these people will themselves locate their own land, the cash price will doubtless suffer, and those who have held in the hope of receiving full value for their grants will be forced to sell within the next nine months at such prices as they may be able to get, and as it is apparent at this time that two years was not a sufficient time for all this scrip to be absorbed without manipulations on the part of the speculator, it is likely that the prevailing price during the next nine months will show the result of the forced sale of a large number of grants within a short time.
On the other hand if the Bill grants the extension for all scrip at the present time in the hands of the original holders, who will be entitled to settle or sell as they may desire, it is felt that such legislation will have the effect of establishing two classes of scrip on which there will be a separate and distinct price, (a) Scrip that must be located within the present year, and (b) scrip that need not be located until the end of 19X1. This would doubtless serve the purpose intended, but we feel that the confusion arising therefrom would lower the prices of both classes of scrip and there would be many misunderstandings, and intending purchasers would be obliged to have scrip verified at Ottawa before it would be safe for them to purchase. In the United States scrip has depreciated in value on account of the doubtful authenticity of part of it and of the trouble involved in establishing the authenticity, and a similar condition would doubtless prevail in this country.
We think that in the interests of the veterans the Act should be passed in the form in which it was presented to the House. In asking for the extension we are not asking for more than we believe it was the government's intention we should have when the Act was

passed in 1908, sufficient time to allow of all this scrip being taken up or sold without unduly forcing or crowding the sale of it all in a shorter time than the natural supply and demand laws would take care of it.
Yours very truly,
WM. HAMILTON MERRITT, Lt.-Col.,
Secretary.


Mr. MEIGHEN.: Is the hon. gentleman in accord with the position stated in that circular?


Frank Oliver: It is not necessary for me to say whether I am in accord with it or not. I am presenting to the House a Bill which these gentlemen see fit to endorse. Their reasons for endorsing the Bill may not be the same as mine, for presenting, the Bill, but our conclusion is the same when we ask the House to support it.


Arthur Meighen: 'object, and I object a* strongly as I cau.
I do not see that the minister has made any case at all for this extension to the speculator. He says, in the language of the circular-and I understand that on a previous occasion he adopted much the same contention-that unless you grant it to the transferee, the present Holder of South African scrip will not get the benefit that the Act intends. That is to say, unless he is able to sell and is not forced to lo-'cate, he will be compelled to throw his *scrip on the market in the next few months j 'at whatever the market will stand. That imay be the case, but it is easily gotten 'over. If the minister does not propose to 'throw a plum to the speculator, why not say that only such scrip as is now in the hands of South African veterans shall be [DOT]entitled to the benefits of this Act? There was something in the circular venturing to argue that to do so would be an inconvenience to the soldiers, but so weak was it that the minister refused to endorse it. It argued that if you are going to draw a distinction between the scrip now in the hands of the veterans and that in the hands of speculators, you are going to compel the purchaser of scrip held by the Original grantee to make a search to make certain that it is so held, and that it is distinct from the scrip already transferred. That is not very much of a hardship. Here is a grantee who holds his scrip getting a material advantage over the one who has sold. He has not much to complain of if, in order to effect his sale, he has to *make a search at Ottawa. Surely the minister was well advised in declining to endorse the argument embodied in the end of the circular, which I will venture to say was framed by some astute solicitor acting not lor the veterans but for the speculators. T know nothing myself as to the composition of that circular. I simply judge how it arose by the way it reads and by the arguments therein contained. There is no difficulty whatever in limiting the benefit [DOT]of this amendment, if it is to go through -and apparently the minister is determined that it shall-to the veteran who has earned the scrip. Why should we grant that benefit to the speculator who has purchased, and who has secured his grant at a bargain by reason of the minister's words of the 4th of February last? This is certainly a grant of something that belongs to the Crown. The very extension is an increment of the value that is now a possession of the people of Canada, and, if this Act passes, that will go to the speculator. Why should the speculator get that for nothing? The principle is bad and cannot be defended, particularly in view of the fact that he bought on the understanding, so far as the vendor was concerned, that no such increment was to be Mr. MEIGHEN.
added. Therefore I submit that it is the duty of the minister to submit an amendment limiting the benefits oi this Act to such as at the time of the passing of this Act were the original grantees.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: I am at a loss to understand what my hon. friend who has just sat down means when he talks about the people wdio bought scrip from the veterans as being speculators, in a tone implying that they are people who should be despised. The men who bought scrip from the South African veterans were gentlemen doing a service to the veterans who lived in eastern Canada.


Arthur Meighen: I said nothing derogatory of the speculators.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: If my hon. friend thinks that those whom he dubs speculators are perfectly estimable people and that no legislation should be passed to discriminate against them, then I do not understand what the whole tenor of his speech was about.


Arthur Meighen: I do not want to discriminate against them; neither do I want 'to discriminate jin favour of them.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: My hon. friend proposed an amendment which would be a discrimination against them.


Arthur Meighen: Just leave them wdiere they are now.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Why should they not be treated as well as anybody else? I say that the speculator who bought the land from the veteran who lived in the east was a public benefactor. Those of us who sat in parliament and pressed on the minister and the government the wisdom of granting these lands to the men who went to South Africa did not want the boys who lived in our counties, when their rights to these lands accrued, to be,. compelled to go to the Northwest in order to get the benefit of them. We all hoped, we all knew, and we all expected that there was to be an opportunity to dispose of these rights once they were given to them, and I am sure a great many of us who were proud of our veterans would not have been so enthusiastic about the grant if we knew it meant to take away our boys to the west. We anticipated that their rights would be disposed of, and that there would be some people in this country who would want to buy them. There is no use in saying that those boys who went to South Africa and got the scrip did not know what they were doing. It is an imputation upon their intelligence and ability which is at least as good as that of ordinary citizens, it is, I say, an imputation upon their intelligence and ability to say that these boys * when they sold their scrip did not know

what they were doing, or that they, were not doing what they wanted to do, and that when somebody came along and gave them in cash what they did not want to take in kind, they were not entitled to take it. They did not want to leave their homes to go to the west: Now why should a man who gave a veteran the value for his scrip be treated differently from any one who buys real estate in this country? That is the proposition. There are to-day outstanding 3,704 warrants to men who went to South Africa that have not been located, and that have not been sold, and those veterans, those boys who went to South Africa want to sell them, and want to get the most they can out of them, and they have a perfect right to do that. But my hon. friend says the minister said last year that there was not going to be any extension of time. Probably there were some gentlemen who did not want to see any extension of time granted. There might not have been anything contemplated by the government, but I am in close touch with a large number of young men who are veterans, and I know that they looked forward and believed that the government this year would grant an extension in order that they would have more time to dispose of those warrants. They hoped it would be done, and they fully expected it would be done. I have had communications from some veterans who live in the east, and whose names are on the circular which was read by the minister, and I discussed the matter frequently with them during last year, and they hoped for an extension, and they believed it would come.


William Henry Sharpe: May I ask the hon. member a question. After the question was asked last year, how much did the value of the scrip depreciate on account of the answer?


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: My hon. friend was probably more interested in the value of the scrip than I was. I did not follow the fluctuating value of that scrip. But I may say for the benefit of my hon. friend that I have been pressing upon the minister for the past two years the desirability of this legislation in the interests of the men in the east who wanted to sell their scrip, pressing for an extension of the time in which location should be made so that the men who were late in taking out their warrants for various reasons, and every one knows there were a great many reasons why the taking out of those warrants was delayed, should have an op-jportunity of getting every dollalr they oould out of them. Speaking for the east, without any prejudice against our good friends in the west in whose future we all take a pride, I may say that we are specially jealous of the fact that our boys are going west. There are plenty of vigorous people going into that western country with the view of building it up, but we hope that our boys in the east will stay at home .and we want them to get all they can out of those warrants and give their vigour and energy to the eastern coun-1 try. Where more than half are not located up to date, are we going to limit them and prevent them from getting every dollar they can. I say that the man who buys this land from the veterans in the east is a benefactor to the veteran who wants to sell and who does not want to go out to the west, and there should be no discrimination at any time which would impair the value of the warrants given to the boys who went to South Africa and who are entitled to get every dollar out of those warrants possible.


Charles Joseph Doherty: It seems to me that the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) rather misconceives the effect of the proposition. There is not, as I understand it, any desire to discriminate against the speculator, but we all heard the minister say that the motive that inspired this legislation was to protect the interests of the South African veterans and to enhance the benefit to be derived by them from their scrip. The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) speaks with a good deal of indignation against any attempt to do anything that would in any way prevent the South African veterans from getting the full value for their scrip. Now, 1 am prepared to be as indignant as he is against any endeavour of that kind, but as I understand it the suggested amendment cannot in the slightest degree affect what any South African veteran has got or will get for his scrip. It will not affect what he has got, because the man who sold it has now got every dollar he is ever going to get, whether this legislation is passed or not, and it will not affect what any South African veteran will get in the future, because, as I understand1 it, the suggestion is to limit the application of this Act to scrip that is now held by South African veterans. Provided it is now held by a South African veteran, he will be at perfect liberty to sell it at any time after the passing of this Act, and will receive the enhanced value that will attach to it by reason of the extension of time.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Does not the hon. member recognize that the effect of the legislation is to discriminate against the man who is prepared to purchase scrip from the veteran?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The effect of this legislation is to confer a benefit on the South African veterans and to decline to give the same benefit to the man who is not a South

African veteran, but who is a member of a very respectable class, whom the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) describes as the purchasers of real estate. The hon. member asks why should this particular purchaser of real estate be treated differently from any other purchaser of real estate? I say he certainly should not be. But in what other instance has legislation been introduced to enhance the value of the property of the purchasers of real estate? Nobody ever came before this House and said that the purchasers of real estate are a deserving class in the community and therefore we will enact legislation to make their property more valuable than it was when they bought it. and yet that is precisely the position that will be created if this legislation is made applicable to scrip in the hands of persons who have bought and purpose re-selling it. These very excellent persons bought scrip which gave them a right to a property provided it was located before the 31st of January, 1910. With that restriction upon it that property had a value, and when they bought it, they presumably paid that value. However excellent people they may be, I do not think I am doing any injustice in saying they paid that value and not more than that value. What they bought and paid for they have got, they have everything they bought, a right to that property provided they located before the 31st of December, 1910.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Does that not also apply to veterans?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The veteran has today everything the legislation gives him; but this parliament says that we consider that the South Africa veteran is entitled to something further and we, out of our judgment that perhaps we did not give him as much as his services earned, are prepared to give him a little more, but we do that because we think under all the circumstances his services earned a little more. In the case of the purchaser, that man got precisely what he bought, and paid for, and we are coming in now by legislation to attach an additional value to that thing which the especially privileged purchaser of real estate bought. We are doing that out of consideration for the merits of the gentleman who sold to him, and that gentleman will not get one cent more. So we are going to reward this purchaser for having purchased from a very meritorious p/erson. The legislation as it stands makes a distinction or a discrimination between this particular kind of purchaser of real estate and all other kinds of purchasers of real estate. I ask in all fairness why this House should come to the rescue of a particular purchaser more than of any other pur-Mr. DOHERTY
chaser. The hon. gentleman says that the South African veteran when he sold knew what he was doing. I do not want to question that, but again we say that the purchaser when he bought knew what he was doing, and if he did not receive any increase he would have no ground on which to say that he was to have anything more than the right to this property provided he located it within this particular period of time. I have been seeking a reason why this gentleman should be given- this advantage. It is not a question of legislation to his detriment, it is a question of whether we shall legislate to confer an advantage on him. I had the advantage of receiving a copy of the circular which the hon. gentleman has read, I read it carefully, and I have listened to its reading by the minister. As far as that circular argues against any restriction that will bear on the scrip in the hands of the veterans, I have nothing to say. I am not arguing for anything that would affect that, but when the writer goes on to find reasons why this legislation should apply even to scrip that has already been sold, and is in the hands of a purchaser, then it seems to me that my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen), has done ample justice to that reason. What does the reason consist of? That there Will be two classes ol scrip, and the man who goes to buy the scrip will therefore have to find out whether the scrip he is buying is of one class or the other. What does that difference reduce itself to? That the gentleman who goes to buy will have to verify the claim that the gentleman he buys from is a South African veteran, the original holder.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: In a case where a young man, say in the east, has assigned, as I know he has done in two cases, to his brother who lived in the west


Charles Joseph Doherty: The amendment I suggested before would not exclude that brother. The purpose of the amendment I proposed is not to get at cases of that kind.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: How would you help yourself?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I would provide that the extension would not cover cases of that kind. My amendment reads:
That section 4 be amended by inserting in the second line, after the word ' Act,' the following words:
Or any bounty certificate that has been, prior to the passage of this Act, sold or transferred to any person acquiring the same for purposes of speculation or resale.
When I suggested that it should be put in that shape, I did so, precisely to avoid injuring in any way, the person who would have acquired under circumstances, such

as have been, suggested, and I think there is a reason for making the difference. Where a South African veteran has parted with his scrip to any relative, where the consideration is presumably the affection of the veteran for the person to whom he chooses to give it, then in giving the enhanced value to the person to whom the veteran gave the land, you are indirectly benefiting him, you are giving to the person on whom he chooses to confer that benefit the benefit he would himself have got, and you are indirectly benefiting him. The situation is different from the situation with which I have been dealing. My amendment would cover the case of a man who went out into the market and bought with a view to resale. In the case of the latter man this legislation simply enhances the value of what he bought. In the case where the South African veteran has chosen to part with his scrip to a relative or a friend where it is not a matter of some one coming in and trying to turn the property over for a profit, where it is not being dealt with commercially, I would not make my amendment apply. I quite understand that in restricting it as I do, I am perhaps enabling some classes of persons, who ought not to get the benefit, to do so, but I want it made clear, that I am not desirous of doing anything that either directly or indirectly through others will injuriously affect the veteran. The case I would like to see excluded from the operation of the Act, is the case of the man who purchases to resell, the man who speculates in this scrip. I have no criticism to make of that man, but as I have said, I have not heard suggested one reason why this parliament should intervene to make that speculator's property more valuable, or his speculation more likely to be profitable. I do not see why we should give an advantage to that man more than to any other real estate speculator.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: What tribunal is to try out the question of the intention that exists in the mind of the party who purchases as to whether he is going to sell or not?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Of course when the party comes forward to claim the right to make his location, he wdll have to produce his title. 1 call attention to the fact that the original purchaser under my amendment would not be precluded from locating. I am not trying to reduce the time of the man who has bought and actually located. Where I find the evidence of his purpose in making the purchases where you have to look for evidence is in what he does, that is to say, where you find the intention proved by the fact that the person who will come and locate will be a person who bought from a person
who had bought from the original holder; there you will have at all events a prima facie case that the original holder bought for the purpose of reselling. It may be susceptible of rebuttal, but my hon. friend knows that it is not at all an exceptional case that courts are called upon to decide what was the intention in doing a particular act. What people do speaks loudly as to what people intend to do. Now of course in the practical application of this, it would be for the department to take its position whether they will recognize the particular application or not, and if an application is refused and it is considered unjustly refused, why, the person holding the scrip will have his recourse to the court of competent jurisdiction.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: My hon. friend does not indicate what tribunal has to determine this -question.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I did not rise for the purpose of giving to my hon. and learned friend a complete course in law, of which he has no need at my 'hand. But if I understand it rightly, the transferee of this scrip who would claim the right to locate a property and who would have that right refused to him because the time had expired, will be in the position of a man whose rights the Crown was_ refusing to recognize. Does my hon. friend think I am right to that extent?
. Mr. MACDONALD. You are getting along pretty well, but it is rather complicated.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Now in what does his position differ from the position of any man who has a claim against the Crown which the Crown disputes? As I understand the law, where a man has a claim against the Crown, and the Crown disputes it, he is entitled to recourse upon a petition of right to the Exchequer Court, and it has jurisdiction to determine that question as well as any other. But assuming that there may be more difficulty than I see in enforcing the right, it does not seem to me that is a conclusive reason why wp should create rights for people for which they have no claim whatsoever, simply because, if we do not, perhaps there wili be somebody who will claim them, and succeed in evading the law, or somebody who may have difficulty in showing he comes within the law.


George Taylor: Might I suggest to the minister that, as it is now II o'clock, he suspend the consideration of this Bill until to-morrow, and in the meantime he can consider the amendments offered by my hon. friend from St. Anne (Mr. Doherty), and my hon. friend from Assi-niboia (Mr. Turriff).


Frank Oliver: I have no desire to force the Bill. I appreciate the importance of the suggestions made by the hon. member for St. Anne and by the hon. member for Assiniboia. But I understand that there are other amendments to be placed before the House, and I would suggest that we' spend half an hour more in hearing what other hon. gentlemen have 'to say, and what amendments they desire to make.


Samuel Hughes: I believe my hon. friend from Hamilton (Mr. Barker) has an important amendment, and the hon. member for North Ontario has an important amendment, and I suggest that these be made now in order that the minister may have time to consider them.


John Allister Currie: Before we go further with this Bill I wish to say that I am in harmony with it as it stands, though perhaps some amendments might be made to it. But I rise to refer to some implication that has been cast upon a gentleman who signed that circular, Col. Hamilton Merritt. It was suggested that he had at bottom some scheme to speculate in land grants. Now, every person who knows Col. Merritt knows very well that he is not that kind of a man. He is a man of ample means, a man of integrity, and of the highest honour, and r do not think for a moment that he would lend himself to any scheme of the kind. Everything he has done was for the purpose of aiding these men who still have their scrip, and I think it adds very little to the strength of any argument in this House against the Bill to cast reflection on the gentleman, who gave up a European tour to go at his own expense and serve his king in Africa. He is a man of considerable means, and he would not be a party to any attempt to bunco, as I may say, the Minister of the Interior into any legislation that is going to help land speculators. There is another thing that the House fails to note. I agree that the minister last year left the impression that there was not going to be any extension. Now, I am not an old parliamentarian, but I am an old enough Canadian to know that the minds of the government are never fixed on anything, and if I could find out from the government what they are going to do two years from now in regard to a certain thing, 1 could make a large sum of money. Consequently when a person asks the government what they are going to do on anything or at any time, they generally say that they have not considered it, or they have not contemplated doing that sort of thing. Sometimes when they are getting ready for an election they say they have got it under their serious consideration. Now, a question has been raised about speculators. It does seem to me that it would be almost impossible to pin a specu-Mr. G. TAYLOR.
lator on these amendments. Supposing we did pass a measure which would only have effect from now on, is it the intention to make the amendment such that the man who purchases from the veteran from now on will not be entitled to an extension for two years?	[DOT]


An hon. MEMBER.: No.


John Allister Currie: Most of these grants are passed from hand to hand, made out in blank, payable to Bearer and without any date on them. The result would be that any speculator who owned scrip of this kind, if he had eight or ten of these blank scrips in his possession, would, in five minutes, put in the dates, and how could you prevent it? The only way you could do it would be to get the veterans who hold their scrips to return them and get new ones. Whatever strength there is in that suggestion I will leave to the judgment of the House. I think that the veterans are entitled to this extension. I have received fifty or sixty letters from individual veterans who hold their land scrip asking me to support a measure of this kind. I do not think there is any objection to it, and I think that if the House got down to the consideration of the clauses we might get to the meat of the thing much more quickly than by making speeches aimed against particular sections of the Bill, which might be construed as a general attack on the Bill.


Samuel Barker: I have an amendment that I think will not raise any of the difficulties which we have been discussing so far this evening. In the original Act of 1908, provision was made for a bounty to the South African veterans, and it was there provided that the grantee, as he was called, or his substitute, should select, enter and perform his settlement duties before a fixed time. A veteran might appoint a substitute under the original Act, but the peculiarity of the Act was that the substitute could not be an agent. He must be practically a purchaser, an assignee or transferee of the rights of the veteran, and the patent could issue only to the substitute and not to the veteran. It has happened in several cases that the veteran had become incapacitated so that he could not personally make the entry or selection. I have brought before the department one instance of that character. Mr. Smart of Toronto had become incapacitated in South Africa while on service there. On his return he suffered from rheumatism and nephritis, and he was quite incapable of going on the land and doing the settlement duties, but he is a man who hopes to go upon the land with his family and settle. He objects to being compelled to sell out. He wants no dealing with speculators; all he wants is the

privilege, if it can be called a privilege, [DOT]of putting a man on the land to do the work for him that he cannot do himself. But, instead of employing an agent or put-tin? his own servant on the land to do the work, he must do it himself, because the department says that if he is not doing it himself he must do it by a substitute and the substitute must get the patent in his own name. It seems so monstrously absurd that I can hardly explain it to intelligent people. Anybody would suppose that a man in the position of the man I refer to might beyond question employ somebody to do the work for him and take the patent in his own name. To man after man having applied to the department in Ottawa here they have said: You cannot do it, you must either go upon that land yourself or send a substitute, and if you send a substitute the patent must go to the substitute. It seems a monstrous thing to treat a deserving veteran in that way. You are giving him a bounty, you are doing something for his benefit in gratitude for what he has done, but you say to him: You are rheumatic, you cannot before the 31st December personally do settlement duty, and we will not let you do it by anybody else. If you put anybody else on the land he will get the patent and not you. It seems an absurdity that such should be possible, but it is actually the case. I placed the case of Mr. Smart in waiting before the department and I had the reply of the department that they could not meet his difficulty, that they could only deal with the man who himself makes the entry. All I propose to do is to say-and I have submitted the clause t-o the minister, and I hope he is not going to oppose it-that * the grantee may personally or by his agent appointed 'by him in that behalf in writing, and acting for him,' perform the settlement duties; that is, he may either do it by his own hand or send his own employee to do it for him. Then a veteran who wishes to sell out may do so by appointing a ' substitute,' as already provided for in the Act of 1908. This man wants no speculators. He wants to get the grant that the government has made to him, that he is entitled to, 'but he wants, because he is physically incapable of making that entry and doing the work by his own hands, the power of doing it by an agent. The department will not allow that. I hope there is no gentleman in this House Who will say that there is anything unreasonable in making the statute operative in such a way that a veteran may employ some other person to do the work, and then claim his rights.


Arthur Meighen: I have already spoken on the amendment and I only rise by reason of the remarks made by my hon.
friend from North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) in which he .stated that a certain implication had been levelled by the previous speaker against Mr. W. Hamilton Merritt. Inasmuch as my hon. friend from Montreal, St. Amie (Mr. Doherty) and myself were the only parties who spoke with reference to the circular to which Mr. Merritt's name was attached, I feel that I should say something. I just wish to express my regret that before the hon. member made that remark he had not waited until he had read what I had said in 'Hansard'. I made no implication against Mr. Merritt by inference the most constrained. I do not know Mr. Merritt. I have never seen him. I did not have him in mind favourably or unfavourably, and I used no words that could be so construed. I regret that my hon. friend did not wait until he had read exactly what I said in 'Hansard' because I can assure him and the House that I made no such implication; and I am sure that Mr. Merritt, if he possesses the high mental faculty and moral standing ascribed to him by my hon. friend will certainly so understand what I said.


John Allister Currie: I said there was an implication that this was an organization that was to benefit speculators, and that the agent of this organization was around here wire-pulling with the minister. Now, knowing Colonel Hamilton Merritt as I do, I do not believe he would be a party to anything of that kind for a minute.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I hope the hon. gentleman does not think I made any such imputation?


John Allister Currie: I do not think you did.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I certainly had no idea of it.


Mr. MOLLOY.: There is a big difference between the actual veteran and the speculator. For my part, I am in favour of a year's extension to the veterans, but I also wish to go on record that I shall never vote for any extension for the speculator. So far as the speculator is concerned', I will not grant him one minute more time. I have lived in the west as long as have the majority of members in this House who come from the west, and I am opposed to the speculator from beginning to end. That the speculators have retarded progress and settlement in the west every one knows. The question has been well placed before the House by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie and by the hon. member for St. Anne (Mr. Doherty) in that this parliament is granting to the speculator more than he expected and more than he paid for. There was no arrangement made between the veteran selling his grant and

the speculator that he would have a year longer, but nevertheless parliament steps in and says: You have bought this South African grant from the man who actually
earned it, and now we will give you another year to work on it. I won't support it.


William Henry Sharpe: There has been a good deal of discussion on this question which I asked a year ago. When I asked the question a year ago, it was because I heard there was going to be just such an extension of time granted by the govern-met as is now proposed. At that time the scrip was worth about $800, and when I received the answer from the minister that there was not going to be any change made at all, the price of the scrip went gradually down until about a month or so ago it was only worth $500.


Mr. DOUGLAS.: Where does the hon. gentleman get his quotation?


William Henry Sharpe: From the grain exchange in the city of Winnipeg, and scrip wa3 sold in that city as low as $400.


James McCrie Douglas: To my knowledge the price in western Canada has never been under $625.


William Henry Sharpe: I know it has been lower than that in western Canada, and right here in the city as well.


An hon. MEMBER.: And in Toronto.


John Patrick Molloy: And many of them less than $500.


William Henry Sharpe: Yes. But the moment it was known that this Bill was go-, ing to be introduced, the price went up to $800, and the speculative price to-day is from $800 to $900. I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that the people of western Canada are against this Bill from start to finish. The grain growers at Prince Albert passed a very strong resolution against it. All the grain growers1 associations throughout western Canada are against it, because it retards the settlement of that country. The fact is there has been scrip issued by this government covering over 2,000,000 acres, and less than ten per cent of that is settled by_ actual volunteers who went to South Africa. I am decidedly against the extension of this time to the speculators, but ! will support my hon. friend from St. Boniface in his proposal that an extension should he given to the men who actually went to South Africa.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Would the hon. gentleman mind telling me how the extension of time for a year retards settlement?


William Henry Sharpe: Surely the hon. gentleman does not want an answer to that question?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I do.


John Patrick Molloy: 


William Henry Sharpe: Why, if the time is not extended, all this land will be settled before next fall, and if it is extended, settlement will be held back for another year. That's why.


Samuel Hughes: As the intention to-night is merely to submit proposals for amendment, I shall not now take up the time of the House in discussing the question in detail. I may say as to this circular sent out in Colonel Merritt's name, that the names of the committee at the head of the circular which was read by the minister are no indication that any one of these gentleman ever saw the resolution or ever heard of it. As a matter of fact, it is a matter of physical impossibility that they all could have seen it, because some of them live on the Atlantic coast and some on the Pacific, and there is no evidence that they did see it. I have received circulars from gentlemen in Toronto-I will not call them speculators, but they are land agents and very decent fellows-asking in the interest of the volunteer who has already sold that the time be extended, and they tell me that a lot of the poor volunteers have already bought the scrip back from the speculators and are wanting an extension.


Hugh Guthrie: I suppose the hon. member (Mr. Hughes) admits that Colonel Merritt, who sent out that circular, knew what was in it. I have received a personal letter from Colonel Merritt in connection with it.


Samuel Hughes: I am not at all
referring to Colonel Merritt. Colonel Merritt is a very fine gentleman.


Hugh Guthrie: If he signed it, you would think it would be genuine and that you could depend on it.


Samuel Hughes: So far as Colonel Merritt is concerned, it is genuine enough, but the circular is presented here to influence the House and to make us believe that the gentlemen whose names are on the top of the circular, signed it. We have a perfect right to discuss that circular without referring at all to the gentlemen whose names are printed on top of it. We can do that without any disrespect to Colonel Merritt, who is a very fine fellow, or to the others.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Will the hon. gentleman let me ask him a question?


Samuel Hughes: With great pleasure.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: How do you know that the gentlemen whose names are signed to that circular did not know about it?


Samuel Hughes: In the first place these gentlemen did not sign the circular; their names are printed at the head.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: How do you know they did'nt see the circular?


Samuel Hughes: It is a physical impossibility that they could have read the circular.


James Conmee: That would mean that there was a misrepresentation on the part of Colonel Merritt.


Samuel Hughes: Nothing of the kind. If you look at the circular you will see that the names of these gentlemen are merely printed at the head of it, and there is nothing to say that they ever signed it or saw it.


John Allister Currie: That is a charge that must involve the honour of these gentlemen.


Samuel Hughes: There is no question of the honour of these gentlemen about it in any sense, and I object to the interruption.


John Allister Currie: I would like to inform the hon. gentleman.


Samuel Hughes: I don't wish to be interrupted.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Currie) has no right to interrupt without the permission of the gentleman who has the floor.


Samuel Hughes: The question of honour was dragged in by the hon. member for North Simcoe when there was no necessity for it at all. Are we going to let that circular go on record as an argument for giving the speculator an extension of time, because the member for North Simcoe says that somebody's honour is involved? I will not for one.


John Allister Currie: The hon. member has said that these gentlemen did not know anything about the circular, and I may say that I presented a petition to this House on behalf of one-half of these gentlemen in favour of the principle involved in that circular.


Samuel Hughes: I do not want to
be interrupted by the hon. member.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Currie) cannot interrupt.


Samuel Hughes: At the proper time,
I will propose an amendment to this effect:
The provisions of this Act, and of the Volunteer Bounty Act of 1908, shall apply to any volunteer whose domicile was in Canada at the time of the openiug of the war, and who produces indubitable evidence of his service in the field in South Africa, although he may not have been duly sworn in and enlisted.
My objection in this is to meet a number of cases that I think should be covered. The case of the doctors who went out and did splendid service will be covered by another amendment. Then, I wish to mention the case of a lad named' Devine, from Halifax, who went out in one of the corps under Capt. Beardmore. He was too young when he started to be enrolled; but he served all through South Africa, wore the Uniform, answered the roll-call every day; but owing to the fact that he was not technically enlisted and properly sworn in, he is not entitled to the benefit of the Bounty Act.


Hugh Guthrie: The circular read by the minister was one dated the 18th of April, 1910. The circular and correspondence to which I have referred was some months earlier. The circular which the minister tead is signed Wm. Hamilton Merritt, lieutenant colonel, secretary, and the names of the committee are at the beginning of the circular. The association is not speci-'*fically named in the circular, but I think it is of some importance to the committee to know whether this circular is authentic tor not. I assume that it is authentic, and that it expresses the views of the officers 'whose names are at the head of it. I assume also that the secretary had instructions to send that circular, and I -think this committee might very well be guided by what that circular contains. If any one makes the imputation that the circular is not authentic, I think we should have some definite information on that point. I for one shall take it as authentic, and shall be guided by its contents.


Samuel Hughes: The hon. gentleman and the hon. member for North Simcoe are the only ones I have heard to-night throw any discredit on the circular. I shall deal with that matter to-morrow on its merits, and not on any ideas that may be promulgated for the extension of the Act for the benefit of the purchasers.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: In regard to the circular, I _ understand that there was a South African committee appointed some years ago, and this is no doubt the same committee whose names are at the head of this circular, which was sent out by the secretary and no doubt expressed only his own personal views. No doubt the members of that committee aTe in favour of the Bill, as we are, in a restricted form. I Understood that this Bill was on behalf of men who performed a service to the country, South African veterans, but not for speculators.


James Conmee: How are you going to *draw the line?


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: It can be very easily drawn; make them produce their scrip and have it certified by the department.


James Conmee: Take the case mentioned by the hon. member who moved the amendment. There are hundreds of such cases.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: In reference to that specific case, the young man is now in the west farjning, and., being right on the ground, he can surely locate his land before December, 1910. I have an amendment which I submitted to the minister some time ago, enlarging the scope of the Act. There were certain civil surgeons who served in the war, who were in active operations in the field with the Canadian forces, and endured all the hardships; and if any persons who were not properly enlisted are entitled to the benefits of the Act, I think 'they were. If the benefits of the Act are to include nurses, I think surgeons should also be included. Then, there were certain volunteers who died on their way to South Africa. My amendment includes them, so that the scrip will go to their heirs. The effect of my amendment is very limited; it does not extend to more than eight or ten men; but if the minister wishes to do substantial justice to the men who served in South Africa, he should accept this amendment, and I commend it to his. favourable consideration. I understand that under the regulations of the department existing at the time this Act first passed, the members of the families of two of those who idied on the way to South Africa did receive scrip. My amendment is only to make the Act general in that respect. It reads as follows:
Section 2, subsection 2 shall le amended by adding thereto the following words, viz.:
Canadian civil surgeons who served in South Africa during the war, and persons enrolled with any Canadian corps proceeding to South Africa on active service, and who died before such corps reached its destination.


Mr. HERRON.: When we come to deal with the Bill clause by clause, I wish to move an amendment which will be number six of the present Act changing section 2 of the original Act. It is meant to cover such cases as those who enlisted for South Africa, and received injuries while on duty which caused them to be invalided home, before they reached South Africa. I have just a few words in clause 2, that I wish to be inserted; in the 5th line after the word ' Africa,' I would insert the words ' Or began the journey thereto,' and in the 6th line after the word ' War,' there might be added ' or injuries received on the journey.' That is the change I suggest, and it will make this difference that all the men who enlisted, and entered upon their duties, but who received injuries while on duty and were invalided home would receive the privileges of the Act to which I think they are entitled just as much as the men who went to the front, in many cases much more so, because some of the men invalided home are still unfit to earn a livelihood for themselves. I do not think there are many cases, there is only one or two to my Mr. CONMEE.
knowledge in the whole Dominion]. Of course, this amendment will also cover the oases of those who died._on the journey. That is all I wish to say until we come to deal with the Bill clause by clause.


Adam Brown Crosby: This is a favourable time to make propositions, and amendments to the Bill which we have before us. Last session I think I asked the Minister of the Interior to take into consideration the case of the men who garrisoned Halifax, and enabled the imperial troops to go to South Africa. These men enlisted, and were liable to be called at any moment to the front; in fact they were desirous of being called to South Africa, but they were not permitted to go there. I would urge the Minister of the Interior to take this matter up in connection with this Bill so that we will have the Bill made perfect. I think that last session the minister was good enough to tell me that he would bring the matter before the attention of his colleagues in the government so that I hope that when the Bill comes back he will have an amendment to the effect I have suggested, for I would rather it came from him as I know it would be more likely to go through.


George Taylor: As the hour of twelve o'clock has now arrived, and as I presume the minister has heard all the suggestions he wants to hear to-night, we may adjourn, and he will be able to bring a perfect Bill before us at another time.


Mr. PATERSON.: If none of those amendments are intended to be moved to section 1, perhaps section I should pass.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: I intended to say that it was only at the invitation of the minister that these amendments should be made at this stage, and none of them are to section 1, and none >are before the House at the moment. Yney will appear in ' Hansard,' and will have to be moved when the Bill comes up again.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Section 1 might pass, if the amendments proposed are to section 4.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: The second jone deals with section 3 of the Act, and my amendment deals with section 2, consequently mine would come in prior to this section.


Frank Oliver: I am quite willing to accept the suggestion of the member for Leeds, but if there are any other gentlemen who have an amendment in mind or a suggestion to make, I thought perhaps we might get it to-night, and it would appear in ' Hansard,' as the Chairman has said. It would be convenient for reference and might 'shorten the discussion on a future occasion. If there is no other proposition .to be placed before the House, however, I

would move that the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. PATERSON moved the adjournment of the House.
George Taylor: Before the House adjourns will the hon. minister say what business will be taken up to-morrow?


William Paterson: We will take some of the Bills that are upon the order paper, and then Supply.


George Taylor: I understood there was an arrangement between the leader of the opposition and the Prime Minister that we would take Supply early, because an hon. member on this side of the House has something to say. I think there is an arrangement to that effect.


William Paterson: I think there has been notice of -a motion that will be made on going into Supply, but I think perhaps that in the forenoon we might take up some Bills that we are anxious to get through, and send to the other Chamber.


George Taylor: Some non-contentious ones?


William Paterson: There are one or two I think that are non-contentious, and they may be taken up first.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 12 o'clock (midnight.)
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, ApriJ 27, 1910.