1910-12-06

FIRST READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 31) respecting the Guelph and Goderich Railway Company.-Mr. Rankin.
Bill (No. 32) to incorporate the Security Trusts Corporation.-Mr. Martin (Regina).
Bill (No. 33) respecting the South Ontario Pacific Railway Company.-Mr. Nesbitt.
Bill (No. 34) respecting the Walkerton and Lucknow Railway Company.-Mr. Donnelly.

Mr. WARBURTON.: There was a proposal which I presented a few days ago with regard to the Public Accounts Committee, which, I understood, was to come up this afternoon. I move:
Thalt the public accounts of the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1910, and volumes one and two of the Auditor General's Report of the same period be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.


Mr. H. LENNOX (South Simcoe).: I gave notice the other day that I proposed to move an amendment to this motion. The same question was before the House a year ago and many hon. members have been considering the matter since and have become impressed with the necessity of a wider range of investigation before the Public Accounts Committee. The right hon. gentleman who leads the House (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) was good enough then to say that the remarks I addressed to the House had so impressed him and that the proposition looked so reasonable, that he would like' further time to consider it. Upon that understanding, the matter was allowed to stand over. I thought then that, inasmuch as on that occasion only the first and third volumes of the Auditor General were referred to the committee, when a motion was made to refer the second volume to the committee, the right hon. gentleman would seize upon that occasion as a fitting one in which to have the matter brought before the House again. I found, however, that the second volume was not laid on the table for nearly a month and a half and that, strange to say, it was never referred to the Eublie Accounts Committee. I then got busy with other matters, very interesting to me and I believe also very interesting to the country, and the one to which I am now referring escaped further discussion last year. The right hon. gentleman and others have had an opportunity of considering the question in the meantime, and I entertain the hope that the Prime Minister will now, in harmony with the suggestion which he threw out last year, see fit to let the amendment go through without^ a vote. What I am moving for is that instead of having only the accounts for the last financial year ending March 31, last, referred to the Public Accounts Committee, we shall refer to it the accounts of last year and the accounts of the preceding year, together with the Auditor General's Reports for those two years; and I do so because, in my experience and that of other hon. members, occasions arise when it is necessary to go back further than one year. And if we keep in mind the great object to be served, namely that'the people should know what their representatives are doing with the people's money, it does not seem at all unreason-

able that we should have at least two years' accounts referred to the committee. This is a reform I am asking, and it is one of a good long list required in the Public Accounts Committee. For instance I have no quarrel with the chairman -that is the chairman we have now-he is a very desirable chairman as compared with those we have had on some previous occasions, but I feel all the same that we could make an improvement as regards the question of chairmanship. Does it not seem that when these accounts are the accounts of the government and when there is a majority of the committee supporting the government, it would be more seemly, more in accord with the fitness of things and more likely to let the people know exactly what is being done by the government, if we had a chairman selected by the men who are mainly active in investigating our public accounts. That is the practice followed in England. The right hon. gentleman is very eloquent at times in pointing to British precedent particularly if it is against an argument advanced by the other side. The right hon. gentleman is disposed to follow British precedent when it suits him, but when it does not suit him he follows it at a very respectful distance. What does the right hon. gentleman think of that as a precedent? Would it not be apt to give the people a better chance of knowing what the government is doing? Would it not be calculated to give the people more confidence in the audit supposed to take place in the Public Accounts Committee? Well, I will come again next year, the Prime Minister will have time to consider it in the meantime, and if when I come next year, we have not had a general election in the meantime, I shall appeal to the right hon. gentleman, and if we have had a general election, I will appeal to the hon. leader of the opposition, as to whether it would not be better to have this reform brought about.
There are other improvements that we ought to have; one of them was suggested last year; that is, in regard to the enormous number of men we have on this committee. Does the right hon. the First Minister realize that it is absolutely impossible .ever to have efficient work done in this committee so long as we have 82 men supposed to do the work? So, when I come again next year, I hope I shall be-if we have a general election, I certainly shall be -appealing to the hon. leader of the opposition, who will then be the Prime Minister, for that reform as well.


Mr. GEAHAM.: Which one?


Haughton Lennox: My hon. friend interjects which one, and that is because we have such a wealth of material on this side of the House. On the other side of the House there would be no question which one, because there is only one man who measures Mr. LENNOX.
at all up to the position. I may be told that the present method has been adopted for years and has been sanctioned by the Conservative party. I admit it, but I do not care. We are living in a progressive age; but as regards giving the people a chance to look in at what is being done, we are not living under a progressive government. I am in favour of giving the people a chance, through their representatives of auditing the public accounts fairly and ks fully as the circumstances will admit. And again what might be a tolerable system in 1896, when our total expenditures did not exceed $44,000,000, and when abuses were rare, suggestions^ of dishonesty were rare, and proof of dishonesty was rarer still, becomes an intolerable system and a great danger when we are spending, according to the estimates brought down, with supplementary estimates which may be added, no less, perhaps, than $144,000,000, and when startling and cogent evidence of dishonesty and graft assails us from every side. And what might be a fair and workable system in 1896, when supporters of the government vied with members of the opposition as auditors on behalf of the people to drag to light any isolated cases of dishonesty or wrong-doing that might have arisen, becomes intolerable when we have members of the government assembling in the Public Accounts Committee and concurring in, and sanctioning, if not conniving at, a system of premeditated and organized opposition such as we have witnessed in that committee in the last ten years. So we need not go back to 1896 to find an answer to my argument. It may be said, why not come to the House from time to time as occasion arises?


An hon. MEMBER.: Hear, hear.


Haughton Lennox: The hon. gentleman who says hear, hear, may not be in the habit of attending the Public Accounts Committee. We cannot come to the House when the occasion arises, because we are met by the rule that forbids discussion in the House upon a matter pending before a committee; when we move in the committee for enlarged powers, we are voted down; when we move to have the matter referred to the House, we are met with the statement that unless we close the investigation, and therefore render our application to the House useless, we cannot refer it to the House. So we are on the horns of a dilemma, either to refer the matter to the House and have nothing to deal with, or to take the measure of justice accorded by the committee, which is no justice at all. Again, I would not want to refer it to the House from time to time, for this reason: Do the members of the government, when they talk about hastening the session, really mean it? Do they want short sessions? If they do,

why have applications from day to day or week to week,.or even two or three in a session, which will involve half a day's discussion, when the matter could be settled at once by allowing sufficient latitude to the Public Accounts Committee. If the Prime Minister would come up and see what takes place in that Public Accounts Committee during one week, especially if the committee did not know it was being watched, he would do more good than he has done in three sessions in the House of Commons, by reforming the methods followed there. Members realize that if an investigation can be staved off till near the end of the session, it will not be held at all, and the result is- that the matter is talked out. It rarely happens that a public work has been commenced, finished and paid for in the same financial year, and it is not until an account runs into the second or third year that the figures take on form and colour, and that the sinister significance of some of the payments begins to manifest itself. So, if we are confronted with the rule that we can investigate only the transactions of a single year, we have perhaps to plunge into the middle of a transaction that has no beginning and that may have no end at that time. We are bound by this artificial rule, which never had any origin in sound principle, and is utterly unreasonable when transactions aTe so numerous and so gigantic as those that relate to Canada at the present time. I was going to say that we had a lot of free traders on the other side of the House. I do not know whether we have any or not.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: We have some on the other side now.


Haughton Lennox: That is good. We have some gentlemen on this side of the House who do, to a very much greater extent than the hon. members on that side of the House, realize what is the true meaning of the National Policy and if that is what the First Minister means I quite agree with him. But we have the men who were for years talking about pulling down your walls and letting down your bars and all that kind of thing, principally to let the products of the United States come in and overrun the markets of the Dominion of Canada. What do you say to taking down the wall now, removing these bars and letting the people have a look in, the people whose moneys are being spent? Would it not be reasonable, is there any good reason why it should not be done? I have heard the right hon. the leader of the House (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) talk of Haman's gallows, its immense height; he and his government in the Public Accounts Committee have builded a wall against the people to shut the people out from a knowledge of their transactions, many of them nefarious, many of them dishonest, many
of them of a charatcer which could not be defended, if they came to light-he and they have builded a wail higher than Haman's gallows and thicker and far stronger than the walls of the Laurier tower which fell down a few years ago, and behind that wall there cower such men as the double named Leopold Lazarus, the North Atlantic Trading Company, ,the men of the Carbide Companies and the Sub-Target Gun Company and the Robbins Irrigation Company, the Adamson's and the Burrows, and the Walbergs and the Pearsons and the Lodges and the Mer-wins and I think the Dodges, and the Mc-Avity's and the Galloway herd, all feeding at the public trough at the expense of the people of this country. Does the right hon. gentleman want that kind of. thing to continue? The 82 men who are appointed on that committee are 82 auditors appointed to look after the peoples' money, to audit the public accounts, to get at the bottom of things, to find out what has been done and to tell the people. That is constitutionally our position. Has it been done? We on this side of the House have striven to do it, but have been blocked and prevented by hon. gentlemen supporting my right hon. friend. I will ask the Prime Minister, I will ask hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House, to take a review and say how many of them can stand up and say that they have discharged their duty as auditors on behalf of the public in investigating the public accounts, ascertaining how the public money has been spent and have carried to the people, as far as they could, a knowledge of what the government has been doing. I defy one gentleman to stand up and say he has done it in the last ten years, and I chal lenge the Prime Minister to call into caucus or into his private office his supporters and ascertain if one of them will tell the Prime Minister that he has discharged his public duty in an endeavour to find out how public moneys have been expended, and bringing the matter to light and revealing it to the people.
If that is the case, have I made out a case for reform and for asking this particular reform to-day? I am in earnest about this matter. I have been called some uncomplimentary names in the press; at one time I was called a watch dog. Nobody likes to be called a dog. A gentleman of the Lumsden committee, that some of our friends were calling me the watch dog, but he said: I hope you do not mind, I call you the timber wolf. I did not know what' kind of an animal the timber wolf was, but I have been investigating and I am satisfied to accept the appellation. The timber wolf is not a skulker like the prairie wolf, he is all right.- But I am here to ask and I asked last session and some sessions before for some reforms in order to get the

people to know more about what is going on in the government behind this high and thick wall, in order tht the people may know what their servants are doing with their money, and I now ask that the government should concur with me in this reform, and I ask them now to allow this motion to pass without a division. If they will not, we will have a division. I therefore move:-
That the motion now read be amended by inserting therein after the figures ' 1910 ' the words and figures following, that is to say: 'and the Public Accounts and the Auditor General's Report for the year ended 31st March, 1909/


Wilfrid Laurier: 
Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: What particular cases?


Wilfrid Laurier: Cases in which the investigation is incomplete if confined to one year. It is our practice to
refer the public accounts of the last fiscal year to the Public Accounts Committee. If an investigation confined to the one year is incomplete, and if the House were asked to refer to the committee these accounts for a previous year, for my part I think there would be good reason to grant the request. But my hon. friend asked us to depart from a practice which has remained unchanged since confederation. He proposes that the committee should have power not only to investigate the public accounts of the last financial year, but to go over again accounts investigated the previous year. I am sure my hon. friend will see that the arguments he has used do not appeal to me. He charges that there has been dishonesty and graft, on which points I altogether disagree with him. He must not be surprised if such arguments do not impress me or other members on this side of the House. What I would suggest is that, if in the Public Accounts Committee, which is now sitting, the hon. gentleman, or any of his friends is of opinion that there is a matter which cannot be fully investigated if the investigation be confined to the accounts for one year, or that any investigation of the previous year should be reopened, that should be made a special matter; and, if the committee come to the conclusion that such a matter should be investigated, then and there it would be our duty to grant the request.	-


Haughton Lennox: If the Prime Minister will allow me, he has addressed a long argument referring to cases in which there was a partial investigation of last year's public accounts and suggests that we want to go into these matters further. My argument refers to cases that do not reveal themselves before the thing has been going on for two or three years. In such a case, we begin an investigation for the first time, but we cannot complete the investigation, because we find ourselves stopped by the rules that you cannot go beyond the accounts of the financial year referred to the committee. The cases to which I refer are much more numerous than those of which the Prime Minister speaks. [DOT]


Wilfrid Laurier: It seems to me that the hon. gentleman's argument proves too much for his amendment. [DOT] He states that it may be desired to investigate a matter that goes back two or three years. Therefore, to complete that investigation, the committee should have the accounts not merely of one previous year, but of two or three years referred to them. The hon. gentleman's amendment covers only one year. And so his argument is exactly in line with what I was pointing out. In such a case as he has indicated, it would be better to have all the accounts

involved referred to the committee that the whole transaction may be investigated. But last year's committee went through the accounts of the previous year that were referred to it. And now the hon. gentleman wants the privilege this year of going over all those accounts without exception, because that would be the effect of referring to the committee the public accounts, and the three volumes of the Auditor General's Report of the previous year. What I suggest as more reasonable is that, if it is desired to go into any of the accounts of the previous year, the matter should be brought before the committee, and if the committee recommend the investigation of accounts of previous years, that recommendation can be discussed and adopted here. For these reasons, I move, in amendment to the amendment:
That when, in a. report of the committee on public accounts, it is recommended that particular items of the Auditor General's Report of the previous year be referred to the said committee, the House will favourably consider said recommendation.


Mr. W. R. SMYTH. (East Algoma).: Last session this House did me the honour of placing me on the Public Acounts Committee. I do not know for what reason I was selected for that position, unless it be that I was somewhat widely known as a business man. When I attended that committee I confess that I was much disappointed at the proceedings. I supposed that I was going there practically in the capacity of a director in a concern, the concern being this great Dominion of Canada, that the shareholders were the people of this Dominion, and that the right hon. the Prime Minister was the president of this company. Sir, I found an entirely different state of affairs, I found that while our worthy chairman-against whom I have not a word to say, because I think he wishes to do what is fair and right-I found opposed to me as a layman, as a man of business training, an array of eminent lawyers, as you might call them, sitting alongside the chairman, and particularly my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley), who is known to be a lawyer. He is always very close to the ear of the chairman, and when anything comes up touching his department, he is always ready to give the wink to the gentleman who sits beside him to .plead on behalf of the government, suggesting that these gentlemen raise some legal or technical objection which the ordinary layman perhaps does not understand. Now I do not know why this government should array these gentlemen in front of the chair to raise legal and technical objections to every matter that a layman brings up. If this government are honest, if they are transacting the affairs of this country hon-Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
estly, there should toe nothing to hide My observation has alsq been directed to another state of affairs. I find that the right hon. Prime Minister and the ministers of the departments who appear in that committee, are guilty of causing some poor fellows, to perjure themselves to my mind, when they come before that committee. Perjury is not too strong a word to use in that connection. You find men coming there with an honest intention to give honest evidence, tout they are so twisted and bamboozled by objections and otherwise, that they are afraid to open their mouths. We find even civil servants coming there, whose bread and butter depend on their trying to screen any misdoing of this government or their agents. Now, Sir, I want to say that if a business man, a layman, is to be of any use at all on that committee, the Prime Minister must adopt the policy of allowing him to get at the truth from the witnesses who appear, to get at what he believes to be the truth; then I think we will find in many instances that the ordinary layman will he of some use in getting at the truth, because he will adopt common sense, business methods,and will obtain a better result than the committee are now obtaining.
I hope the right hon. gentleman will not only agree with the amendment of my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox), but that he will reform the committee along the lines I have suggested. But if the right hon. gentleman refuses to do that if he prefers that that committee be turned into a Donnybrook Fair, as I have seen it some times, then let it be known; because there are some men with fighting qualities on this side of the House and we are ready for a fight. But we would rather fight as gentlemen, we would rather do our duty to our constituents, and to our country, than to engage in these unseemly wranghngs that take place in that committee. I have had the honour of sitting as a member in another legislature than this, and sitting on the opposition benches, in the days when my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), was a member of that legislature, and was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee; and I must say, Mr. Speaker, that "in the worst days of that committee it was very much superior to the Public Accounts Committee of this House of Commons. After the hon. gentleman vacated that position, or after he was compelled to, the committee reformed its proceedings, so that they can now go back one or two years, or even three years, if need be, and investigate any transaction that happens to be under investigation; they can investigate it from the start right up to the minute the committee is sitting. Therefore, I do not see why the amendment of my hon. friend from Simcoe, should not be accepted, unless

this government wishes to hold a club over the heads of the opposition, and prevent them from seeing what the public is entitled to see. I am sorry to see that the Prime Minister does not agree with my hon. friend from Simcoe, and I still hope that he will change his mind.


Mr. A. H. CLARKE. (Essex).: Having had some experience with this much abused Public Accounts Committee, I think it is only fair that I should offer some ob. servations on the motion which has been made, and concerning which my hon. friend who has just sat down (Mr. Smyth), has seen fit to make a speech, devoid of any arguments, that I could see, bearing upon the matter in question. If it be true that perjury is committed in that committee, if it be true, as he says, that a layman does not meet with the success which he thinks he deserves in investigating the public accounts, I cannot for the life of me, see how that state of things is going to be improved by adopting the motion of the hon. member for Simcoe, (Mr. Lennox). If there is perjury, and if there are improper proceedings, if there is unfairness to laymen in regard to the investigations of one year's accounts, evidently all that trouble will be doubled if the accounts of two years are submitted to the committee. Now I cannot understand why this motion should be made. The Committee of Public Accounts is as alert now as it has been at any time since confederation. Ever since confederation there have been member^, belonging to the opposition on that committee who have made it their business to investigate the affairs of the year as they have gone along. Is it that the present opposition is not so alert as the oppositions of past years have been? Is it that they are not so assiduous in attending to the business of the country as in past years? Up to the present time they have been able, in the year under consideration, to investigate the accounts of that year, and if they are not able to do so at the present time, surely it is a reflection upon those watch dogs, or those timber wolves, as they may style themselves, if they do not do their duty in that respect.
Now, I am glad to hear the praise of the conduct of the chairman of that committee, and I think it is well deserved. We have heard these charges of abuse with reference to the Public Accounts Committee. Surely there have been some instances which can be pointed out where the chairman has not done his duty. But, we have hon. gentlemen coming here saying in one breath, there are abuses in that committee, and in the other breath, we have them saying that we have a chairman against whom no complaint whatever can be made. These two stories do not hold together. If there are abuses
the chairman is the man to rectify them, and yet they say that the chairman's conduct has been perfectly satisfactory, and I am sure it has been. Speaking with reference to the time before that of the present chairman, the greatest complaints that I have heard have not been entirely against members on this side of the House. It must be remembered that most of the work of the committee is at the instance of members from the other side of the House. It must be remembered that members on the other side of the House mainly cross-examine the witnesses, and I have heard it said that they, too, mainly tried to distort the evidence so that the real facts are not known. I do not take much stock in that sort of thing. In every Public Accounts Committee you hear the same thing. If you read the history of the Public Accounts Committee in the great mother of parliaments, you find the same accusation made. We have it in the Public Accounts Committee here where reference is made to what has gone on in the province of Ontario, where my hon. friend the last speaker, I am sure, will agree that there is the most perfect organization to be found in any parliament. I recollect that two years ago it was brought up when something was asked to be done. It was pointed out that they had not done it in the province of Ontario under the great Whitney administration, but immediately the friends of that gentleman said: That is only a provincial organization and we cannot follow them here because we are dealing with matters on a higher plane. In so far as I know, there has been the greatest facility for investigation in the Public Accounts Committee with respect to matters brought up before that committee.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Alfred Henry Clarke: If an effort is made to go back two or three years, I think that any chairman of a committee would say that it is not within the province of the committee unless there has been a special reference to it for that purpose. I know quite well that when I had the honour of being chairman of the committee, no matter how far back the committee wanted to go, whether it wanted to go two or twenty years back, it had a perfect right to go back, so long as the inquiry had relation to the item under consideration. But when it is proposed to deal minutely with items two or three years back I think it has been invariably the ruling in this committee as well as in other committees that it is something over which the committee has no jurisdiction, because it is beyond the reference, it is beyond the matters which properly are assigned to the committee to investigate.
COMMONS [DOT]
I do not know of any case where the? fullest investigation has not been permitted with regard to the matters which have been referred to the committee. It is an easy matter, if there are other things to be investigated, to obtain a reference, and I db not understand that the Public Accounts Committee, under the general order of reference, is the only one that investigates. If there are charges of improper conduct then, quite properly, the House will refer them to that committee, or to any other committee, but the Public Accounts Committee, as I understand it, is a routine committee; it is not there to investigate scandals, it is not there to investigate charges, it is there to investigate the routine accounts of the preceding year. There is the fullest opportunity, to investigate them. If the one year's accounts cannot be investigated in one year, surely there is very little hope of having the committee properly investigate them by referring to them accounts of two years ago, especially with the growing business with which the committee has to deal. It may be said that in times past there were not so many expenditures. It is also to be said that in times past the sessions were not so long as they are to-day. The matters for investigation are greater in proportion as the length of _ the session is greater, and if we are going to leave arrears over we will never get through. It seems to me that the amendment submitted by my right, hon. friend the leader of the government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) to complete the investigations which have not been completed must certainly meet every reasonable requirement. If, beyond that, some one discovers that in past years there has been some terrible scandal, it is perfectly open for any hon. member to bring it up in the House, and if there are sufficient grounds, it is open to the House to refer it to that committee or any other committee to investigate the charge.


Mr. BLAIN.: Mr. Speaker, the chief reason why the rules governing the Public Accounts Committee are unsatisfactory to the opposition is beeause this government insist upon purchasing goods from middlemen. That matter was very fully discussed in the committee and in the House some two or three years ago, and it would be useless to occupy the attention of the House this afternoon with a further discussion of it except to show that the principal reason for our objection is that the government will insist upon keeping a large number of middlemen supplying goods at enormous prices. For example, one gentleman supplied goods to the government and was protected by the Public Accounts Committee. He -was de-Mr. A. H. CLARKE.
fended by the committee. After a good deal of effort on the part of the opposition we were able to bring to light the important fact that that gentleman hacl supplied some articles to the government at enormous prices, and when we made an attempt to find out how much these goods should have cost the country we were denied that right and voted down in the committee. But the opposition did not stop at that, and finally we were able to discover that Mr. Merwin had purchased an article for $756 and had sold it to the government for $1,250, making a profit of $493 on one article. What the opposition members in the Public Accounts Committee have stated and what, I believe, the people of the country will endorse is that this government should not have dealt with Merwin at all, but that the article should have been purchased by the department itself for $756 and $493 left in the treasury. That is what we are complaining about. This discussion is up this afternoon because members of the committee on the government side are in the committee not as defenders of the public treasury but as defenders of the middlemen who supply the government with goods. I could give a number of instances of the purchase of such articles, but that is not necessary because that exemplifies the methods of these middlemen who are supplying goods to this government. The attention of the government has been directed to this, we have moved a resolution in the House calling upon the government to do away with the middlemen, my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) and every member on this side has supported that resolution, the resolution was voted down in this House and the middleman prospers and flourishes under this government. I want to read the resolution that was moved in the Public Accounts Committee last year by my hon. friend from North Ontario (Mr. Sharpe) :
Moved by Mr. Sharpe, and seconded by Mr. Goodeve:
That whereas one of the chief functions of the Public Accounts Committee is the investigation into all questions as to the fair and reasonable price paid by the government for the various commodities sold and services rendered to the government; and whereas to properly discharge this duty it is absolutely necessary that the greatest latitude be given to members of the committee to inquire into the first cost of such'commodities and services to the persons selling same to the government; therefore the committee deprecates the unwarranted and continual interruption, obstruction of the work of the committee by some of its members, and regrets that the rulings of the chairman, Mr. Warburton, in the present investigation before the committee prevented a full and free inquiry into all the facts of the case.

That motion was put with the following result :
Yeas: Messrs. Blain, Crosby, Currie (Sim-coe), Goodeve, Hughes, Lake, Sharpe (Ont).
Nays:	Messrs. Allen, Carvell, Congdon,
Loggie, MacNut|t, McAllister, McKenzie, Neely, Parent, Proulx, Rankin, Reid (Resti-gouche).
Voted down, seven voting for it and twelve against it. Who were w7e working for then, the public? We were working for the middlemen to be put out of business in this country, to put it plainly. My hon. friend from North Ontario (Mr. Sharpe) was making a special effort to find out the first cost of heating and lighting public buildings in Ottawa.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: I think the gentleman must be mistaken. There was no such resolution passed with regard to the building occupied by the Department of Labour.


Richard Blain: I stand corrected, I intended to say the Woods Canadian building. Does the hon. minister deny that that resolution, which applies to the same thing-


William Pugsley: It does not apply to the same thing.


Richard Blain: After all is not the tactics now being followed by the hon. minister the very same as those followed in the Committee on Public Acoounts? My hon. friend gets up and thinks he has gained a great victory.


William Pugsley: Not at all.


Richard Blain: Yes, this is the kind of tactics the member uses in the Public Accounts Committee. Oh, he says, there is nothing wrong, that was not the building at all. Does he deny that we were trying to find out the first cost of heating and lighting the Woods Canadian building? He knows that to be the case, and because we are making an effort to find out why the hon. gentleman's own department and other departments in this government do not purchase these goods direct instead of through middlemen, he takes objection in the committee and in the House talso. But the hon. member cannot get away from the responsibility he owes the people when he practically tells the people that he and his colleagues will continue, notwithstanding the efforts of the opposition, to feed these middlemen and pay these enormous profits until we put this government out of office. The cost of lighting and heating was about $9,000 to the government, but the real cost, as brought out by my hon. friend from North Ontario (Mr. Sharpe) was about $6,000, so that because this government did not purchase this lighting and heating direct, but through middlemen, the country lost $3,000 per year on that trans-27
action in the lighting and heating of one building only. I shall not follow this further. The hon. member for Essex (Mr. Clarke) asked me to name a case or two. Well, I can give another offhand. The Minister of Militia purchased some subtarget guns a few years ago and in that transaction the middlemen also flourished. The government gave a contract for the sum of $250 each. The company which received the contract without tender had no factory or place of business in this country at all, so they went down to Sherbrooke and bought these guns from a firm there at $64 each; and that company, without ever touching a gun, sent in a bill for $250 each, which was paid by the treasury of the country. What my hon. friend from South Simcoe is now asking is that this government will do away with these middlemen and will, when they require sub-target guns, or any other articles, purchase them direct at first cost. Then these enormous profits which for years have been paid to the middlemen, and are still being paid them, will be -saved to the people. I listened attentively to the remarks of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister. Sometimes he takes a long time to consider a question and consults his friends before -coming to a decision. At other times he does not consult them, but makes up his mind very quickly. Last year he said he would consider this question. He has given a very plausible reason why he did not, but it seems to me that when he could find so little objection to the resolution, and if his government be as honest as he tries to make us believe it is, he ought to be willing to allow the Public Accounts Committee to go back two years or more if they so desire. It is no argument to say that -such was not the custom of the past. We are supposed to make some progress, and if there were fetters around the Public Accounts Committee in this connection in the past, even if they were put there by the Conservative party, I am not going to say that they should not be removed. If the party in power be what it styles itself, a party of reform, it would consent unanimously to this resolution, and I am sure that my right hon. friend, when he takes time to consider it, will reproach himself for not having at once consented. All we ask is that, with our present rules, crippled as we are, we should have the right to go back two years in the pubic accounts if we think that necessary and investigate, not only the accounts of last year, but those of the year before.


Hon. JOHN HAGGART (South Lanark).: I have listened with interest to the debate on the motion introduced by my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) regarding the powers and duties of the Public Ac-



counts Committee. What is the duty of that committee? It is to investigate the public accounts which are referred to it, in order to elucidate everything that appears in the Auditor General's Report. If, in order to do this, it be necessary, in any particular instance, to go back to the preceding year or the preceding two years, you reouire no order from this House to do that. That power is in the Public Accounts Committee to-day, as the hon. member for Essex (Mr. Clarke) intimates. If, for the purpose of clearing up any expenditure, it be necessary to go back two or three years into the public accounts, the committee does not require to come to this House to get the authority to do that. The investigations of the committee should be confined to the accounts of the year, but if there be in the public accounts an expenditure which has continued some four or five years, there is nothing to prevent the committee from deciding to go back four or five years in order to inquire into that expenditure. That is within the power of the committee and it need not come to this House.


Haughton Lennox: But they do not do that.


John Graham Haggart: That is for the chairman to decide. If he makes a ruling that the committee cannot go back beyond the present year, he is unduly limiting the power of the committee. The power to refer back to previous years is one that was always exercised by the committee in my time, and is a power vested in the committee, as the hon. member for Essex (Mr. Clarke) has pointed out. But these transactions of previous years must be pertinent to the accounts referred to the committee this year, otherwise you have no right to inquire into them. Why should it be necessary to adopt an amendment such as the one before us? I was in the Public Accounts Committee when a motion was made for the purpose of appealing from that committee to this House and it was carried. You would think that such a motion would be sent at once to this House and the power required obtained for the purpose of making a full inquiry. But how did they block it? They did not report it. They simply said that the account had not been fully inquired into and there is no report to send to the House. But what is most annoying and objectionable to one who has been m the House, as I have been, for nearly forty years, is the course followed in the Public Accounts Committee in the questioning of witnesses., which my hon. friend has described. That course would be a disgrace to the lowest police court in any portion of the country. The rule governing these committees is that you are not limited by any legal rules as to the questions you put to a witness; but when a question is asked, two or three lawyers on the committee bob up and raise the ' Mr. J. HAGGART.
legal point that it is not a right or proper one. The question is on the authority of the man asking the question. Is it pertinent to the inquiry? If it is, there is no limitation by any legal rule. The committee is a farce. A matter may be referred to that committee and it cannot be inquired into, because the moment we commence questioning, some legal objection is raiseu. It is referred to the chairman. You appeal from the chairman's ruling to this House; but the question is not referred to the House until there is a general report of the committee on the question. It is time a stop were put to the manner of conducting the committees of this House. The Public Accounts Committee particularly is a disgrace to the country. The minister who should take the most intense interest in a matter of inquiry, and, if there is anything wrong, should assist the opposition in exposing it, acts as if there were something which would not bear the light, and assists his friends in the committee to defeat inquiry


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: Mr. Speaker, I would not have deemed it my duty to intervene in this discussion had it not been that references have been made to a ruling which I made in the Public Accounts Committee last year, a ruling for which I take absolute and full responsibility, which I thought then and still think was right. It came up on a motion that the ruling of the Chair be. not sustained. The last speaker could not have attended the meetings of the Public Accounts Committee last session, or he would have known that the charge he made, that members of the committee were not allowed to ask questions because they were interrupted by lawyers, and because the Chair sustained the objections of these lawyers, was not borne out by the facts. There was scarcely a question submitted during all the meetings of the Public Accounts Committee last session, of which I had the honour to be the chairman, as I am now, which I did not allow to be put, although exception was repeatedly taken by members supporting the government.	-


John Graham Haggart: I may say to the hon. gentleman that I was not in the committee last session, and his ruling may have been an exception.


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: The hon. member for Welland (Mr. German) last year took exception to questions being asked, and had I been sitting as a judge in a court of law, I unquestionably would have sustained his objection. But I laid down this principle, that in my view the committee was not a court of law, but a committee of inquiry, two-thirds of the members oi which were not lawyers, and could not be

expected to understand the technical rules of evidence, and therefore they ought to " be allowed considerably more latitude than would be allowed in a court of law. I may be right or wrong, but that was the principle on which I acted throughout the whole of last session; but I did not propose to allow that latitude to become license. With respect to my ruling with regard to the Woods building, which has been referred to, the facts of that ruling have not been stated to the House. It seems that in 1897, speaking from memory. Mr. Woods had erected a buildiing which is now rented by the government. I think it is known as the Woods building. He had at the same time a manufacturing industry in the city of Ottawa. He had made a contract with the Electric Consumers' Company to supply him with light and power at a certain flat rate. It was evidently a very low rate, which was easily to be gathered from the evidence before the committee. The reason for that flat rate subsequently came out. We had evidence from the manager of the Municipal Electric Company, and he was asked whether that flat rate was not a very low one. I did not allow evidence to be given as to what the original flat rate was, but the evidence of the manager was that they would not give that flat rate now, and they had given it at the time the original contract was made only because the company had a large surplus of power which they were prepared to give at a very low rate. The matter was investigated at great length before the Public Accounts Committee. Later on Mr. Woods, or the Woods Company, erected the building known as the Canadian building, and carried on negotiations with the Consumers' Company to obtain light and power at the same flat rate as they had got previously, and the company verbally agreed that they would give Mr. Woods or his company the same rate for the new building that -they had given for the old. The contract was not actually reduced to black and white when the city took over the Consumers' Company's plant and work, but it had been carried to that extent that the city considered that they should carry out the contract. They had taken over the Consumer's lighting plant and electrical plant with the undertaking that they were to assume and carry out all the agreements and contracts entered into by that company, and although this agreement had not been actually reduced to legal form they considered, nevertheless as, it had been really negotiated, and the negotiations completed that they should carry it out and they did so. We thus have the same terms for the new building that they had for the old. When the government rented from them this building they entered into
a contract with Mr. Woods or the Imperial Company to supply light and power at the ordinary rate for supplying light and power, that has come out in evidence, and a contract to that effect was entered into by the Department of Public Works. That contract was allowed to go before the committee without objection, but the gentleman who was conducting the investigation wanted to go further and find out the business contract between the old Consumers' Company and Mr. Woods, now represented by the Imperial Company. His general manager objected and said that it was exposing their private business to the public, because this was a contract made before the government had anything to do with the matter, and even although they had a good contract, and a good arrangement, that was no business of the public, or of the committee, or of the government. I sustained them in that objection, and I thought at the time I was doing right, I think so still. Repeated efforts were made to bring in that old agreement, and I invariably ruled against them, and if such a thing should happen during the present session and a precisely similar case should come before me, I should rule the same way. I do not think it is a fair thing for a private company to bring out an agreement of this kind made between them and a private company before the government had anything to do with it.


William Ross Smyth: Not even in the public interests.	[DOT]


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: I do not think it is in the public interest to unnecessarily interfere with a private individual, but there was no difficulty in the way of the opposition or any one else ascertaining whether or not the government paid too much for light and power. They could have summoned the managers of the local electric companies or any large consumer of electricity in this city without going into private contracts made years before with individuals.


Richard Blain: Was not Mr. Linton who represented the company quite willing to supply the contract for use in the committee, only my hon. friend the chairman said he should not be compelled to do so.


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: No, I would say that Mr. Linton did object. He said he would obey the orders of the Chair, but he objected to supplying it. Through an error of my own I ordered that he should give up the contract or agreement which I at the moment thought was the one between the government and the Imperial Company, but it turned out to be the old contract to the production of which there had been objection. When it was called to my attention that the wrong paper had been handed oyer I insisted on its being returned.


Mr. GEO. TAYLOR (Leeds).: As a member of the Public Accounts Committee for many years I wish to corroborate the statements of my hon. friend from Peel. I moved for papers a few years ago in reference to purchases made by the Public Works Department in Montreal from Mr. Lymburner. The hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Rhodes) handled the matter before the Public Accounts Committee and it was proved to the satisfaction of the minister himself that they had overpaid, and he said he would have the man who certified the accounts properly dealt with and would let us know later but we have never heard of it since. Lymburner sold to the government leather belting at list prices, thousands of dollars worth, whereas every manufacturer in the House will bear me out in saying that any manufacturer could have bought the same goods not at the list price but at 60 and 10 and 10 and 10 off and could buy it to-day for that. I made a contract only a few days ago for a quantity for our factory at 60 and 10 and 10 and 10 off. The government paid %, dollar for what a private individual would pay 29 cents. The Minister of Public Works was to have a stop put to that sort of thing. But what do we find in the Auditor General's Report to-day? The same purchasing from the same Lymburner of thousands of dollars worth, at nearly every page in the Auditor General's Report, purchases from this man who took out of the public money of this country 601 cents on every dollar's worth purchased after we had x>roved to the satisfaction of the Minister of Public Works in the Public Works Department that this overcharge was being made. Yet this same fellow is now taking his rake-off, no doubt handing back to the government a portion of it because they would not let any man steal that much and put it in his own pocket. It is currently reported in the country that these men would get the rake-off, hand over 20 per cent of their rake-off to go into a campaign fund. I have had this statement made to me by some of the men who are selling to the government. We want that kind of thing stopped, we want the honest money of the people spent honestly, not giving 604 cents on every dollar to some middleman for his benefit or for the benefit of the party to which he may belong. It is for that purpose that we are asking the Prime Minister to see that the Public Accounts Committee is properly conducted. Hon. gentlemen opposite should be as anxious as we are to know that the people's money is spent properly, and they should aid in these investigations. The Minister of Public Works promised that in the case of leather belting, that would stop and there would not be any more purchasing from Lymburner. At page 0-96 of the Auditor General's Report there is a purchase from Lymburner of $2,785. At V in Mr. WARBURTON.
the minister's own department, Lymburner is down for $152 in one place.


William Pugsley: I thought the hon. gentleman said that thousands and thousands of dollars worth were purchased from Lymburner for my department.


George Taylor: I said the hon. tleman said that thousands and thousands of dollars worth of leather belting.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman said in the first place that we bought thousands at a charge of upwards of a dollar and we had continued to buy thousands of dollars worth from Lymburner at the same outrageous prices.


George Taylor: I am charging the government, my hon. friend is not the government. At page O-96 Lymburner is dow'n for $2,785. I have only glanced at the Auditor General's Report, I may find it at every page. How much of that $2,785, on which there is a rake-off of 70} cents on every dollar, went to the campaign fund? My hon. friend said there would be no more purchasing of this kind but it is going on and who is getting the rake-off? We want to know that the people's money is spent properly and it cannot be when the government ask for such an outrageous sum as one hundred and thirty odd million dollars, where we used to run the country, years ago, practically as well as it is run now. with $40,000,000.


Wilfrid Laurier: Is this charged in the last report of the Auditor General?


George Taylor: Yes, the report now before us. And the government are responsible, because the Minister of Public Works said that the man that certified to that account said that he could have bought for 29} cents what the government paid $1 for


William Pugsley: What department?


George Taylor: The Public Works Department-bought for the custom-house at Montreal. My hon. friend from Cumberland (Mr. Rhodes) can tell more about that, because he handled the witnesses in the case. We should know this session how many thousand the government have bought, and if the rake-off is as much as one would suppose it to be. From the price charged the total rake-off will be pretty large. But we will investigate the matter.


William Pugsley: I am sure the House will agree that if the hon. gentleman (Mr. Taylor) gets as excited in the Committee on Public Accounts as he is here


George Taylor: I am not excited.


William Pugsley: Then, if the hon. gen-} tleman, when he is not excited, talks in the same way before the committee as in this House, one can see how quickly trouble would arise in that committee. I have observed, in the comparatively few times that I have had the opportunity of attending upon the Public Accounts Committee, that lion, gentlemen on the other side who are members of that committee are very apt to ask questions which they know are entirely inadmissible and to seek to go into matters which are entirely irrelevant to the question before the committee.


Richard Blain: Would the minister give us one case of an irrelevant question being asked?


William Pugsley: I could give many, though I may not have particulars before me at the moment. These hon. gentlemen are very apt to ask mere hearsay questions. I have known such cases; and the chairman, in the fair discharge of his duty, has refused to allow them to bring out evidence of that character on the ground that the proper evidence is the original evidence, documentary or otherwise, Hon. gentlemen opposite have complained very bitterly that they were not allowed to bring out hearsay evidence. I have in mind a case which occurred last session. One of the hon. gentlemen who have spoken said I had been an offender before the Committee on Public Accounts and had given the wink to certain members-that I was close to the chairman


William Ross Smyth: Many a time.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Smyth), even though he ransacks his memory, will fail to produce a single case in which I acted in that way before the committee. I appeal to hon. gentlemen who are members of that committee, I appeal to the chairman, if I have, directly or indirectly, tried to influence him in the judgment he gives as head of that committee. How inconsistent are these hon. gentlemen opposite. In one breath they declare that we have an excellent chairman, one with whom they have no fault to find; and in the next breath, they insinuate that the chairman is influenced by suggestions made by myself as a member of the committee and a member of the government. They must have but little regard for the chairman if they desire this House to believe that he would be influenced by any intimation which a member of the government might give.
I differ entirely from some hon. gentlemen on the other side who have spoken as to the conduct of the Committee on Public Accounts. So far as I have observed,
there has been every disposition to investigate the accounts as appearing in thei Auditor General's Report, in the fullest and freest manner. Speaking of all that I have seen of that committee since I entered this parliament, every opportunity! has been given for the fullest investigation. But when hon. members ask questions which they know to be improper, there is nothing for the chairman to do but to rule out those questions. I believe these gentlemen ask such questions simply in order to be prevented from putting them, that they may have a grievance, something which may appear in the newspapers to show that, in some way, they are denied the opportunity to expose the public business before the country. My hon. friend from Leeds (Mr. Taylor) says that what the mover of this resolution desires is to prevent the government purchasing from middlemen. Surely the mover, my hon. friend from South Simeoe (Mr. Lennox) has taken a queer way to accomplish that end. That would be a proper subject of a substantive resolution before the House, but he has not moved such a resolution.


Richard Blain: With the permission of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley)-such a resolution was moved in this House and voted down by the minister and his friends on that side.


William Pugsley: It is just possible that the motion referred to may have been a want of confidence motion, or may have been moved at an improper time. I am not aware that in the Department of Public Works there is any middleman, nor am I aware that middlemen supply goods to other departments.


Richard Blain: How about the sawdust wharf?


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Blain), must have a strange idea of the meaning of words when he suggests that the man who sold the so-called sawdust wharf was a middleman. He was not; he was the owner of the property. And, so far as I know, neither he nor anybody else, got a rake-off. He received what a great many people said was the fair value of the property, and no man from the county of Kent or from the town of Richi-bucto', except the political partisan, who came here to give evidence against the government


Mr. LALOR.: How many days, may I ask, had he owned the sawdust wharf?


William Pugsley: A good many weeks -several months. We tried all that out: and I repeat that no middleman or anybody else received a rake-off. so far a? I know. The government paid for the

property what many people swore was its fair value, and what no disinterested man from Richibucto or elsewhere in New Brunswick could be induced to testify was anything but a reasonable price. But, as a matter of fact, how will this resolution effect the purpose which the hon. member for Leeds and others say is to 'be effected?
Mr: LENNOX. Will the hon. gentleman like me to tell him?


William Pugsley: Yes.


Haughton Lennox: Suppose a government work was begun two years and a half ago. At first, things go on very nicely. After a while, one year's accounts come in. There is nothing there to challenge public attention or to put the opposition on the alert. But the second year's accounts came in, as they came in the other day. Perhaps we find window blinds or curtains charged up, and we suppose that the goods bought are window blinds er curtains. But suppose it is found that they are not window blinds or curtains, but ladies' dresses,-"we want to investigate that account, and go not only over the last year's accounts, but over the accounts of the year before. But we are not permitted to do that. If my resolution carries, we shall be permitted to do it. And I want it for that reason. I want it also because it will remove the temptation to the blocking which goes on in that committee. As long as hon. gentlemen opposite know that by staving us off from one year they will stave us off altogether, they will do their blocking, as the minister has helped them to do. But, with this resolution passed, that kind of thing would be curtailed.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend, I am sure, is not serious, when he says that I ever helped to block the committee.


Haughton Lennox: Does the minister forget the sub-target gun case where a lawyer of the government party was chairman and where prominent lawyers of the government party were engaged in the matter, where a minister was assisting, and two other ministers of the Crown were assisting as well? It was about as glaring a ease, as barefaced a case of blocking, as ever occurred in a committee.


William Pugsley: I can tell my hon. friend that he is entirely mistaken. I have a very good memory, and I know my hon. friend is just as wrong as the hon. member for Peel was, when he said that there was an investigation last year into the lighting of the building occupied by the Minister of Labour; my hon. friend from Sim-coe is just as much in error in what he says. So far as I recollect, I had nothing in the world to do with the investigation of the gun target case.


William Pugsley: 


Haughton Lennox: My recollection is otherwise.


William Pugsley: I do not remember being present during the investigation. Now just a word w'ith reference to this motion. My hon. friend from Simcoe says that he wants _ to carry the investigation further back in respect of accounts which appear in the Auditor General's Report actually before the committee. Now it seems to. me that my hon. friend from South Lanark, has answered the hon. member as to that, because he says that where the committee is engaged in investigating an account they have a perfect right to turn back to the Auditor General's Report of the previous years. But if the amendment of the Prime Minister is adopted, there will be no question' about this House, when asked, always giving to the committee an opportunity to go back and trace an account to the previous year, and I have no doubt that upon their request they would be allowed to go back even beyond the previous year. But what I object to, and what I understood the Prime Minister to object to, is that, upon a motion of my hon. friend, the Auditor General's Reports of previous years are to go holus bolus before the Committee on Public Accounts, which may thus have a right to begin an original investigation into accounts which may not appear at all in the Auditor General's Report for the last preceding year, but which may appear in the report of the previous year. If my hon. friend's amendment is to prevail, they would have a right to investigate accounts of the previous year which do not "appear at all in the Auditor General's Report for the last preceding year. My hon. friend I think will agree with me.


Haughton Lennox: I agree with the minister, if he will allow me a word.


William Pugsley: Yes.


Haughton Lennox: I do not care whether they occur in the last year's financial report or not, they may or they may not. But I say that within the limit of two years, this auditing body should have the right to take upon themselves to say what accounts they will investigate; and as long as they do not go back more than two years, they may take into the Public Accounts Committee whatever they think is best in the public interest. That is all I claim.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is getting away from what he first gave as his reason for the motion. The reason he first gave wras that the committee should have the right to investigate accounts in the Auditor General's Report, which were running back to the preceding year, when they might find it desirable to go back. Now he says that he wants the accounts for both years referred to them, accounts which

might run into each other, to investigate the accounts of .two years ago as well as the accounts of the last year. Now, Sir, that would be unsatisfactory. The effect would be that instead of making the committee diligent in doing their work during the present session, they might feel inclined to let a case stand over this year with the intention of taking it up next year. If they were inclined to neglect their business they might leave an account open to the next year, with the privilege of going into accounts which they had entirely neglected during the current year.


Mr. OWEN.: I understand the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Taylor) to say that the Public Works Department was paying $1 per foot for leather belting, and he added that he or any other manufacturer could buy it in the market for 29J cents a foot. That statement was proved in the Public Accounts Committee. What has the minister to say to that?


William Pugsley: No, that is not correct. The hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Taylor)
I regret has only told half the story with regard to that belting; I will give the other half. Instead of it being an account for many thousands of dollars, it was an account, if I remember rightly, of some $400 or $500, and probably even less than that. It appears that the account included labour, included installing the belting, and included a great deal of night work. The man was called upon suddenly to install this belting, and my recollection is that all the services and the labour in connection with it were added to the price of the belting. I do not profess to have all the facts in mind at the present time, but I am safe in saying that instead of the account being for thousands, it was only for a very few hundreds.


George Taylor: I did not state that he paid $1 a foot. I stated that he bought it at list prices, on which any manufacturer could buy it at 60, 10 and 10 off. Then I illustrated by a dollar's worth. 1 did not say what the price was.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is quoting the manufacturer's price. This was a small quantity of belting which Mr. Lymburner was buying. He was not a manufacturer or a wholesale dealer. None but a wholesale dealer could buy it at that price.


George Taylor: Any manufacturer could buy it at that.


William Pugsley: This was not a manufacturer. My hon. friend knows perfectly well that an employee of the government requiring to get a small quantity of belting could hot get it at the manufacturer's price. These discounts are only given to
wholesale purchasers; my hon. friend from South Lanark knows that.


George Taylor: You can go into any hardware store and buy belting on these conditions.


William Pugsley: Then my hon. friend ought to explain to the House why the manufacturer has different prices, and what these discounts mean which are deducted from the original price. As I understand it, the belting was bought at the ordinary list price, but the labour was included in it.
Mr. TAYLOR (Leeds) No, no.


William Pugsley: I think so.


George Taylor: He charged for labour separately.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend will have an opportunity before the Committee of Public Accounts to investigate any purchases which may have been made by Mr. Lymburner, fust as he had the fullest opportunity to investigate those of a few years ago. But what I rose to say is that I do not think my hon. friend from Simcoe should press his amendment, which would have the effect of throwing holus bolus before the committee the accounts of both years. There ought to be a limit fixed, so that only upon a request of the committee may the accounts of preceding years be investigated. in which case the committee would make the request to the House, and if the amendment of the Prime Minister is carried the House will accede to that request and allow the committee to carry its investigations back as far as necessary, not only to the preceding year, but back even beyond that, in order to get the information they might desire.


Mr. T. S. SPROULE (East Grey).: The Minister of Public Works started out by reprimanding my hon. friend from Leeds (Mr. Taylor) because he appeared to be excited. Well, when one comes to read these transactions before the Public Accounts Committee he is liable to get excited, because of their extraordinary character. The dishonesty and unfairness of the proceedings of the committee are enqugh to make any one feel indignant. When they are refused the opportunity of bringing it out it is an additional reason why they should feel somewhat indignant. I cannot return the compliment to the Minister of Public Works, because I have noticed that very frequently when he gets up in his place to defend a transaction which is somewhat off colour-he may get up one time or twenty times-he is as calm, serene, bland and innocent looking as any pirate that ever scuttled a ship or cut a throat. There is no excitement-not

at all. He disarms criticism by the very innocent appearance that he always displays, especially if his case is very bad.


Mr. FOSTER.: Long practice.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes, long practice. I was amused at the reasons given by the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) for the refusal to allow this motion to pass. What were they? The first one was that we are in the middle of a parliament and this is not the time to reform committee work ; the proper time is at the beginning of a new parliament ; let it go now, we will leave the question over for a while and then at the commencement of - the next parliament we can reform parliament as we choose. That suggests the old proverb about locking the stable after the horse is stolen. That is just what this is. They are stealing the horses right and left and we do not want the stable door to be left open until they are all stolen. I do not think the country will regard that as a very strong reason why this motion should be rejected. What is the next reason? The House will consider any case that is sent from the committee to the House desiring the right to go back. But the supporters of the government will not allow the committee to report a case to the House to get the right. Then, how are they to get it? Time after time they have been refused that right when they desired to make a report so as to get further powers from the House delegated to them. They are absolutely denied that right, therefore, they cannot do it and I have no doubt that the same course will be pursued in the future as that which has been pursued in the past. Another hon. member says : Well but the committee is willing to report at any time and the House is willing to consider it. The committee may be willing to report, but the members of the committee who are doing the work cannot get an opportunity of reporting so that the House has not an opportunity of inquiring into the matter or of giving further instructions to the committee.
I	was a member of that committee for many years, but two years ago I asked to be relieved of the work and to be transferred to some other committee. Why? For the simple reason that I went there year after year, and if I desired to do what I would do in connection with any private business transaction, commercial or otherwise, in regard to which I was endeavouring to ascertain whether money had been properly expended or not, that is to bring out the information, what happened? I ask a question according to my way of bringing out the information and the question is scarcely propounded before some lawyer jumps up and says : I Mr. SPROULE
object to that ; it would not be allowed in any court of law ; that is not according to the rules of evidence. You may remind that gentleman, as we did many times over, that we are not governed by the rules .of evidence, that we have the right to ask any question we desire so long as it bears on the subject and is likely to bring out the information, but we are badgered from minute to minute and from hour to hour with the result that the whole time of the committee is absolutely frittered away. You cannot do the work in the same way as it would be done by any private commercial concern, or by a board of directors, when you undertake to look into the expenditure of public money. This kind of thing takes place over and over again until the layman is almost afraid to attempt to ask a question in the committee in the performance of the duty for which he is sent here. The result is that in the performance of that part of his parliamentary duties his efforts are paralysed by the conduct of what is termed, outside of this House, the blockers brigade, because we found that they would not allow us to go on with the work. It had become so disagreeable, so unpleasant, so offensive that many laymen have left the committee and will not attempt to do any work upon it. I asked to be relieved of membership in that committee and to be transferred to some other committee because I thought that my time could be used to better advantage elsewhere. I found that I could do nothing on account of the way that we were obstructed. Sometimes it is done by a minister of the Crown, or by friendly lawyers who are always there ready to pounce down on a member and to say :* Stop, you are a layman and do not know anything about it i you are wasting the time of the committee ; you are not following the rules of evidence. The result is that the committee is paralysed in its work. Then, the right hon. leader of the government says that they cannot get over two Auditor General's Reports. He says that the Auditor General's Report contains an expenditure of $135,000,000 or $136,000,000 and he asks : How are they going to look through an expenditure of twice that amount if they take two years? If they were allowed to conduct the investigation, as any public corporation, or any commercial concern would do, they could get through two years' expenditure with much less trouble and in a very much shorter time than they are able to do it now, in examining a portion of the expenditure of one year according to the system that has been carried out for several years past. But they are not allowed to do it and if it is to be the same in the future as it has been in the past it will not increase the work very much to take two years instead of one.

But, we are told, it has not been the custom and it is not the proper thing to do.
I	would like to ask the leader of the government if he remembers the long inquiry that took place in 1891 or 1892-I forget the exact year-in that committee with reference to the Interior Department. When it was found that some of these cases went back more than one year a request was made to this House that the public accounts of other years be referred to the committee and that they should be permitted to go back a year. The question was asked: Whv should you not go back as many years as vou like if you think there is anything wrong?-and they were allowed to go back as many years as they desired. That was the proper, the correct, the sound principle and it is one which should be followed out to-day. The very reverse is the case and at this very moment, although we believe, from the information in our possession, that we should, in the interest of the country. go back another year in many of these examinations, we are being denied the right to do that and the very high authority of the Prime Minister himself supports an amendment to this motion to deprive that committee of the right that it should have of suing back on these transactions so as to bring out the information that would protect the country's money and insure its being expended in a proper way. I think that he should be the last in the House to do that. He has not lived up to the very line of policy that he, away back in 1891 and 1892. advocated when he defended the principle that it was a right thing to go back, a principle that he does not defend to-day, and I think it is well that the attention of the country should be drawn to this featur* of it because the work of the committee is paralysed by the practice that has obtained in the committee for several years past. If this practice is continued in the future and we are prevented from bringing out the information the Public Accounts Committee is of vety little use to the country.
M- S. SHARPE (Ontario). Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to interpose in this debate, but I listened, to the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) state that the fullest opportunity was given for investigation and that he was the last man in the world that would interrupt, or interfere with or interpose, or in any way take part in the work of obstruction in the Public Accounts Committee, and I could not allow that statement to go without calling the attention of the House to some facts that transpired in the Public Accounts Committee last year. I submit that the opposition was interfered with in a recent investigation that took place in the Public Accounts Committee by reason of the attitude and the tactics of government supporters. The Minister of Public Works was the most flagrant
sinner in that regard in the committee. He had to be repeatedly rebuked by members of the opposition, and I desire to submit to the House a few observations that were made. I am quoting from the minutes of the Public Accounts Committee. I was asking the question:
Now, I want to ask this question.
The witness was Mr. Linton, secretary of the Imperial Realty Company, and we were desirous of getting at the original contract to see what this imperial Realty Company was paying for the lighting of this building. The Imperial Realty Company had nothing to do with the manufacture of electric light, yet strange to say the government were paying that company for lighting the building, and were paying it some $6,000 a year more than the company was paying the city for that same light.


William Pugsley: Where does that appear?


Mr. SHARPE (Ontario).: I challenge the hon. minister to produce all the papers, and he will see where it appears.


William Pugsley: All the papers were submitted to the Committee on Public Accounts, and so far as I remember, that does not appear in any of them.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: I was present and conducted the whole investigation, and I tell the hon. minister and the House that all the papers were not submitted to the committee, as will appear by the very words which I purpose reading out of the minutes of the committee:
Now, I want to ask this question and if you object to it, you can say so. Was that contract-referring to the original contract- at a meter rate or a flat rate?


William Pugsley: The contract will speak for itself. The witness has already declined to answer that question.
Then the witness, taking his cue from the Minister of Public Works, said:
I decline to answer that question.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: That is a perfectly proper question.


William Pugsley: No, it is not?


William Pugsley: Hear, hear.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: 


The CHAIRMAN.: What contract are you asking about now?


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: About the original contract. The minister says it is a fair and reasonable one so far as the government is concerned.


William Pugsley: Which contract are you asking about? Are you asking about the contract between Mr. Woods and the government.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: You can ask about the contract between Mr. Woods and the government.


Mr. BOYCE.: I do not think it is the per-rogative of a minister of the Crown any more

than any other member of the committee to stand between the witness and the examining counsel.


William Pugsley: Not at all.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: My hon. friend the Minister of Public Works is here apparently defending and protecting the witness.


William Pugsley: Not at all.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: I strongly object and protest against his conduct in this committee this afternoon. I say the Minister of Public Works has no right to tell a witness that he must decline to answer or to say ' you need not answer that question, or that is not a proper question.'
Mr: PUGSLEY. I am here as a member of this committee, and I have the same rights as Mr. Boyce or any other member.
A little further on I find that the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) had to rebuke the hon. Minister of Public Works for continually interrupting the witness and giving the witness a cue, so that he might refuse to answer.


Mr. MIDDLEBRO.: The hon. minister has begged the whole question.


William Pugsley: In what way?


William Sora Middlebro: Because you are presupposing that you know this witness is going to say he will not answer the question.


William Pugsley: Not at all.


William Sora Middlebro: Excuse me, now, by your interjection you are intimating to the witness that he need not answer, before you know whether he will object or not. . .
The Minister of Public Works, by taking the stand that he does, is taking the stand that he is the private solicitor for the gentleman who is in the box.


William Pugsley: How absurd.


William Sora Middlebro: He is, because supposing after you had made this objection the witness says: 'I do not mind answering it at all.'


William Pugsley: That is not proper evidence.


William Sora Middlebro: Then you have no right to interject your objections until you know whether the witness objects to answer or not. You are taking the position of counsel for this witness.
And to-day, we have the extraordinary spectacle of the Minister of Public Works, on the floor of this House saying that he never objected.


William Pugsley: Will my hon. friend let me ask him a question, and I ask it of him as a lawyer-because he is a lawyer and a good one-was he not seeking to give secondary evidence of the contents of a contract that had been ruled out by the chairman of the committee?


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: The objection of the hon. minister


William Pugsley: Could my hon. friend not say * yes ' or ' no ' ?


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: The Minister of Public Works objected to the production of Mr. SHARPE (Ontario).
the original contract because he said it was a private document.


William Pugsley: No, I was not present when the chairman ruled out that contract.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: The Minister of Public Works, and all his cohorts surrounding him, objected to the production of the original contract, because it would disclose the amount this company was paying the city of Ottawa for its light.


William Pugsley: I have made the statement that I was not present in the committee when objection was taken to the original contract, and when it was ruled out.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: I will show the minister, from the minutes of the Public Accounts Committee, when he was present:


Richard Blain: I have always understood that the desire of the committee and government was to get at the full facts, that is my understanding, of the object of this committee.


William Pugsley: But not to indulge the curi" osity to pry into the private affairs of the people.


William Pugsley: I desire to repeat-and my hon. friend must either accept my statement, or give evidence to the contrary -that when the question as to the admissibility of the original contract came up, I was not present in the committee, and I was not present when the chairman ruled it out, but afterwards I appeared on another day.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: And repeated the objection.


William Pugsley: But my hon. friend, notwithstanding the original contract had been ruled out, sought to give secondary 'evidence of its contents. That is what I objected to^ and that is what the minutes show I objected to. As a lawyer, my hon. friend must admit I was perfectly aright.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: The Minister of Public Works upholds the chairman. I quote again:


William Pugsley: The chairman holds, and I think properly so, that any member of the committee has the right, if an improper question is asked, to call attention to the fact that it is an improper question.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: And the minister overrules the chairman. That is just contrary to what the chairman has said.
The evidence shows conclusively and repeatedly that the Minister of Public Works repeatedly objected to the admissibility of this evidence and suggested to the witness that he should not reply. What the committee desired was the production of the original contract between the Imperial Realty Company and the city of Ottawa in order to ascertain what that company was

paying for electric light. In this instance the middleman was the Imperial Realty Company, and I challenge the Minister of Public Works to lay the documents before the House. If he does the House will ascertain that the rake-off to the company was at least $6,000 per year. In view of the evidence as printed in the minutes of the Public Accounts Committee, it ill becomes the Minister of Public Works to say that every opportunity was given the committee to investigate into all these facts, and it ill becomes him to say here that he never objected or tried to suppress the facts. The government succeeded, by reason of the ruling of the chairman, in suppressing that particular contract, but we were successful, nevertheless, in getting around that ruling by summoning the ex-mayor of Ottawa, Mr. Ellis, who was secretary of the Ottawa municipal electric plant, and the committee found out from him that the government was paying $4,425 per year at least over and above what it would have had to pay had it contracted direct with the city of Ottawa. This is set out in a resolution moved by myself. The facts were so conclusive that the deputy Minister of Public Works, and the chief architect of that department admitted that the contract was contrary to the interests of the public; and now notwithstanding the violent opposition of the hon. the Minister of Public Works and all the Liberal members of the committee, the fact was brought out that there was an annual rake-off of $4,000 or $5,000 a year for the electric lighting of these two buildings. Then we moved this resolution, which was actually seconded by Mr. Carvell, one of the principal Liberal members of that committee :
That whereas the expense to the government during the last year for lighting the Woods and! Canadian buildings amounted to $9,465.91, paid to the Imperial Realty Company, which company -is not an electrical lighting company; and whereas the city of Ottawa has a standard schedule of prices whereby the lighting would cost only $5,040 or less, thereby effecting an annual saving to the country of $4,425.91 or more; therefore this committee desires to urge upon the Minister of Public Works and the govern meat the desirability of cancelling the present arrangement and recovering the excess unjustly paid to the Imperial Realty Company, and giving the city of Ottawa or some other company the contract at lower rates; and that a copy of this resolution he forwarded to the Minister of Public Works.
From an answer to a question which I put on the Order Paper yesterday, I find that the Minister of Public Works cancelled that electric light contract, and is thereby going to save the country $3,000 or $4,000 a year; and if that evidence had been suppressed, which the Minister of Public Works and the Liberal members of the
committee were desirous of suppressing, that saving would never have been effected.


William Pugsley: Perhaps the hon. gentleman will read the whole of my answer.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: I have no objection to the hon. minister reading it if he wishes to do so. The facts are there, substantially admitted by himself. Another matter that was investigated was the heating of the building. That was actually let out to the Imperial Realty Company, which was making a rake-off of some $3,000 a year in connection with that. That contract, I understand, has also been cancelled, and the country is going to save $3,000 a year in consequence thereof, which would not have been effected if the Minister of Public Works and the Liberal members of the committee had had their way in suppressing the evidence.
A word with reference to the chairman of. the committee. The hon. gentleman who occupies that position is a most estimable gentleman, and I have not a word to say against his personal character; but I do say that he has been too easily influenced by the Minister of Public Works and the Liberal members of the committee. It required only a nod or a suggestion from the Minister of Public Works or the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell), to have any question ruled out by the chairman; and the only objection I have to the hon. gentleman is, that he is too easily influenced to suppress evidence which is in the interest of the country. The investigations before the Public Accounts Committee have amounted to a public scandal. They have been made party affairs, in which the Liberal party have again demonstrated their ability to go back on their old principle, enunciated in the Liberal platform of 1893, that it was the undoubted prerogative of the people's representatives to thoroughly investigate every expenditure of public money. That is another plank in their platform which has gone to the winds. Instead of allowing us to thoroughly investigate every expenditure, the Public Accounts Committee is organized for the purpose of obstructing investigation. The true function of a public accounts committee is to ascertain whether a price is reasonable and just to the government; and how can we ascertain that, unless we ascertain what the middleman is paving, and thereby the amount of rake-off he receives in each instance? I will support the amendment, as I believe it to be in the public interst.


Mr. EDGAR N. RHODES.: (Cumberland), Mr. Speaker, I would not have said anything this afternoon, had it not been for the fact that the question of the purchase of leather belting from Lymburner, Limited, has arisen in the discussion; and, as I

conducted the proceedings in the Public Accounts Committee on that matter, J think it proper that the facts should appeal correctly on the record. The lion. Minister of Public Works said that the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. George Taylor), only told half the truth in respect to the proceedings before the committee. I have taken the trouble to get the report of the committee, and I would like to read a few words from the evidence with respect to this purchase in 1908. I may say by the way of preface, that the government purchased this leather belting, not from a leather belting manufacturer, nor from . the representative of one, but from people in Montreal, who had no connection whatever with the manufacture or sale of leather belting. The transaction arose in connection with the purchase by the Department of Public Works of four pieces of leather belting aggregating 388 feet, 7 inches in length. This is the evidence of Mr Moody, the traveller for the manufacturer of leather belting:
Q. Now, taking the total invoice prices of these four different items of leather belting at $024.09, just figure what that would come to, taking off first 60 per cent, then 10 per cent, then 10 per cent, and then 2 per cent. Perhaps you had better verify my figures, Mr. Moody?-A. I make it $293.41.
Q. You have made a computation?-A. Yes.
Q. And the sale price of these four invoices of belting, taking off the jobbers' discount, what does the same come to?-A. I made that $293.41.
Q. $293.41 ?-A. $293.41.
Q. As contrasted with $861.38 which was paid by the government?-A. Yes.
Q. The difference then would be $538.27?- A. Yes.
Q. In other words, the government by paying for this belting on the basis of a discount of 10 per cent paid $538.27 more than they could have bought it for had they purchased it at the jobbers' discounts?-A. Yes.
Q. And you would have sold-you have already stated, I think, that you would have sold the same belting to the government at the jobbers' discounts?-A. We would have.
Q. In other words you would have sold the same belting to the government for the sum of $293.41?-A. We would have.


William Pugsley: Does my hon. friend remember what he stated the retail price was?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: He stated that he would sell it to the government at the jobbers' discounts.


William Pugsley: What would the jobbers' price be? That would be the retail price.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The retail price less., 60 and 10, and 10 and 2 per cent.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend misunderstands me surely." The manufacturer sells to the jobber, and the jobber sells to the retailer, who sells to the ordinary pub-Mr. RHODES.
lie. Does the evidence show at what price that would be?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The evidence shows that the government bought four pieces of leather belting, for which it paid the sum of $861.38, and that this belting manufacturer's agent swore, that he would have sold the same belting to the government for the sum of $293.41; in other .words, that upon a transaction involving to this government a total cost of $861.38 there was a rake-off pure and simple of $538.27. There is not much dispute about that evidence, it was verified, it was amplified by the evidence of other leather belting manufacturers. in fact was so strong that the hon. member for Carleton, New Brunswick, (Mr. Carvell), at the close of the proceedings, rose and made these remarks and I would like to have them embalmed in ' Hansard ' if we never see them again:-[DOT]


Mr. CARVELL.: Before we adjourn I wish, to notice that at some future meeting of this committee I intend to move a resolution that a report he made to the House recommending that in each of the purchasing departments an official be appointed whose duty it will be to certify as to the justness of accounts from the standpoint of prices before payment. I think the government of Canada should he in the same position as an ordinary individual; if they are buying small articles they are justified in going to a retailer and buying them. But we have had from the evidence that D. K. McLaren & Company are selling belting in one case at a discount of 50 per cent. It is not in evidence but it is in the Auditor General's Report that the same firm are selling belting at jobbers's discount. Now, we have also evidence that the Public Works Department have paid much greater prices than D. K. McLaren charged, less 50 per cent. That is, we have three sets of prices paid by the government for leather belting.
That motion has not been moved. I do not know that the government is to be accused, is to be found guilty upon isolated instances where agents of "theirs purchase articles such as leather belting at three or four times the price for which it can be purchased in the open market, but I do say that the government is responsible if, after a condition of affairs such as this is brought to their attention, they do not remedy it. In this case it was shown that in a purchase from Lymburner, Limited, of $800, there was a rake-off of $500 and I used the word ' rake-off,' advisedly. Yet on looking in the Auditor General's Report this year I have already found items showing purchases on the part of this government from the same firm of Lymburner, Limited, involving amounts of $4,137.40. There may be others but these I have found. I do not propose to labour this matter in detail, the facts are very simple. If the Public Accounts Committee is to be of any service to the people of this country, then

its proceedings must be free and untrammelled and when it is disclosed before that committee that a state of affairs exists such as was ashown in the case of Lymburner, Limited, the government should take notice of the facts to such an extent that the same evil would never occur again in the same quarter.


Mr. J. D. REID (Grenville).: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the Prime Minister should object to this motion. I have known for some time that it is absolutely necessary for the Committee on Public Accounts in investigating the accounts of any one year to have access to the accounts of the preceding year. I have had that experience and have been prevented by members of the Public Accounts Committee, supporters of the government, from going back beyond the year the accounts of which we were examining. When these gentlemen were objecting in that way I supposed they were acting alone. I could not believe that the Prime Minister himself was supporting them, but when he objects to-day to our taking the last year's report, I feel that he must have advised those gentlemen at that time not to allow us to go back. In the present year I myself have had experience of cases in which it is absolutely necessary that we should have last year's Auditor General's Report. I know one item in the Marine and Fisheries Department which I wished to examine, but I was told that some of these payments were made previous to this year and of course we could not go into that item. In another case in the Interior Department an item I believe was delayed and placed in this year's account so that we could not examine the original item. I shall give the instance so that the Prime Minister may investigate;. The Interior Department paid a certain gentleman for work in that department in 1888-9. They also paid him a salary, in fact double salary, for doing other work in that same department. They held back the extra amount until after March, 1909, and then paid it to him. We cannot investigate the whole circumstances of the case because we cannot use the Auditor General's Report of last year. The Prime Minister a few years ago when we alleged that in several departments robbery, looting and thievery was taking place, said he was very much astonished that such representations should be made, but after the very first investigation into the ' Arctic ' he had to come down and acknowledge that there was some truth in the charges. When I asserted that there was robbery, looting and thievery in the Marine and Fisheries Department, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries was very indignant, but when we got part of an investigation-and only part of it-we showed that every statement we made was true. The same thing applied to the Public Works
Department, no doubt there was looting, robbery and thievery there by the middleman and yet the Minister of Public Works now asks us to name one middleman. Does he want one name?


William Pugsley: Yes.


John Dowsley Reid: What about John Moore of St. John, N.B.?


William Pugsley: He is not a middleman.


John Dowsley Reid: He knew nothing of dredging.


William Pugsley: I never heard of his being a middleman.


John Dowsley Reid: He never knew anything about dredging, and did not the Minister of Public Works give him a contract last year at 90 cents a yard' for dredging when his engineer certified that 20 cents or 30 cents was a sufficient price?


William Pugsley: After public tender.


John Dowsley Reid: The Minister of Public Works knows, if he states what he knows is true, that that contract was given to John D. Moore before any tender was publicly asked for.


William Pugsley: Not at all.


John Dowsley Reid: I challenge the Minister of Public Works to deny that statement, that he told his department to give the contract to John D. Moore.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is entirely wrong. Public tenders were called for that work of dredging at a very exposed place at the mouth of the Gaspereau river, in New Brunswick. The Maritime Dredging Company had a dredge coining from the St. Lawrence river. I knew that that was a place where we could expect very few people to be willing to dredge. I sent word through the engineering department to the Maritime Company that if they stopped their dredge there and dredged for a short time until the tenders were due, we would pay them in the meantime, while they were dredging, the price of the lowest tender, if they were not the lowest tenderers, they would go down to the Bay of Fundy and the lowest tenderers would get the contract. That is exactly what took place.


John Dowsley Reid: I know the cir-. cumstances of that case.


William Pugsley: I know them too.


John Dowsley Reid: The Maritime Dredging Company had purchased a dredge at Montreal, the old Gilbert dredge, at once the minister told John D. Moore, who is practically the Maritime Dredging Company-


William Pugsley: I tell my hon. friend he is entirely mistaken as to that. The pur-

chase of that dredge, I have reason to know, had nothing whatever to do with dredging at the mouth of the Gaspereau river. It was being brought down to the Bay of Fundy for other dredging work entirely.


John Dowsley Reid: Mr. J. D. Moore was not in the dredging business before the Gaspereau contract. He purchased his first dredge at that time, and that contract was the first work he did. Immediately after that, the St. John ' Telegraph ' was purchased. There is no doubt in my mind that the difference between 30 cents a yard and 90 cents a yard was given to buy the St. John ' Telegraph'-every person knows what that is, what it was given for. Then, what about McAvity? Was not he a middleman? He get five to ten cents a yard from Mayes, and is not he to-day one of the largest middlemen in the Public Works Department?


William Pugsley: That is something that took place before I became minister, and I know nothing about it.


John Dowsley Reid: But the minister knows it was proven


William Pugsley: The minister knows it was not proven.
Mr. REID (Grenville)-that Mr. McAvity got five to ten cents a yard from the Mayes dredging contract. That was proven.


William Pugsley: It was not proven.


John Dowsley Reid: 
Robert Laird Borden: I desire to say only a few words in answer to some observations of the Prime Minister (Sir* Wilfrid Laurier), which were intended to. show the inadvisability of referring the accounts of any previous year to the Public Accounts Committee. In the first place, I do not agree with the Prime Minister that it has been the invariable practice not to refer such accounts to the committee. As a matter of fact, we have the precedent of three years ago, when the accounts of two years were referred to the committee; and I am not aware that this course proved greatly detrimental to the public interest or that it occasioned any inconvenience. I am not going into the many matters that have been dealt with in this debate, but I would point out to the Prime Minister some reasons why we should follow now the course that was followed three years ago. In the first place, there was a very considerable delay last year, as I am informed, before the Public Accounts Committee took up the work of investigating the public accounts and Auditor General's Report. In the next place, after that investigation had been commenced, the work of the committee was put over more than once at the instance of the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) and the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell), as I am informed.


William Pugsley: I think the hon. gentleman is misinformed.


Robert Laird Borden: 1 do not pretend to have any personal knowledge of the matter, but I have made some inquiries as to why this proposal has been made, and this is the information that I have received. I am sure that it is the case so far as the hon. member for Carleton is concerned-that he had to be absent and the work of the committee was delayed during his absence. Another consideration is that the Public Accounts Committee last year met usually, I believe, only twice a week. The right hon. Prime Minister will realize that this allows very few meetings having regard to the enormous amount of work that the committee has to do, particularly in the light of what has been exposed here this afternoon as to the*oper-ations of the middleman in the various departments of this government. One would naturally think that the case which was put forward by my hon. friend from Cumberland (Mr. Rhodes)-a most glaring and astounding case, in which $850 or thereabouts was paid for goods that could have been bought for less than $300-I should have thought that that one instance of robbery of the public treasury would appeal to the right hon. gentleman to give the fullest possible opportunity for exposing every transaction of that kind. Another consideration is that the time of the Public Accounts Committee last session was given almost wholly to the affairs of the Public Works Department, and they did not get half through with the matters that should have been investigated in that department alone. Another consideration-and I state these only briefly, and do not wish to dwell upon them-is that, on account of the indisposition of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Brodeur) last session, his department, as I understand it, was not touched at all by the committee-there was no investigation and no opportunity for investigation. Then, because the time of the committee was so much taken up with the Department of Public Works, the affairs of the Printing Bureau were hardly touched at all ; and, surely my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), in the light of the revelations that have been made before the session, and at the beginning of the session in the report of the Secretary of State, will hardly deny that there ought to be some investigation into the affairs of the Printing Bureau in recent years. There is the further consideration offered by my hon. friend from Grenville (Mr. Reid), that in many cases which are proper for investigation by the Public Accounts Committee, the items to be found in this year's accounts run into matters which appear in the accounts of previous years ; and I understand from members who have spoken here to-day that the accounts of previous years are not, in such cases,
allowed to be taken up without the special order of the House. My hon. friend from South Lanark (Mr. Haggart) has stated to the House that, in former years that was not the rule, but it does appear to be the rule now. This affords another very cogent reason why the accounts of last year at least should be referred to this committee. In view of these considerations, and of the fact that no detriment to the public interest can be imagined or surmised as arising from the reference of such account to the committee, the Prime Minister might very well conclude that the accounts of the previous year, as well as those of the year just closed, should be referred. I should expect him to go further and say that, on the demand of any member of the Public Accounts Committee, the accounts of any previous year, so far as they refer to any matter which he desires to investigate, ought to be referred to the committee without a moment's hesitation. As far as my right hon. friend's motion is concerned, it is of no value at all, it only tells this Public Accounts Committee to do what it may do at the present time without any such amendment. Further than that, it seems to be restrictive even of that which, as the hon. member for Lanark has explained, used to be the rule of the Public Accounts Committee in years gone by. So, inste.ad of bein# any advantage in the way of furthering investigations, it is really restrictive, because it seems to recognize the rule that the Public Accounts Committee must come back to this House before it can even touch items of by-gone years closely connected with items under investigation by that committee.


Wilfrid Laurier: I was impressed by the argument of the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Rhodes) to the effect that Mr. Lymburner was practically accused of having charged an extra price, and that, though this was proved before the committee, still the same firm has been furnishing goods to the government. That was certainly a charge which inn pressed me. But my hon. friend knows as well as I do that if the amendment of the hon. member for Simcoe is defeated the committee will still be able to investigate the circumstances referred to by the hon. member for Cumberland. Three years ago there was a special reason why the whole accounts of the previous year were referred to a special committee, because I had to go away, and the session was shortened, and it was understood that the accounts of that year would be investigated in the ordinary course, and they were investigated in the following session. But I always understood the practice to be that which was stated by the hon. member for Lanark, that the Committee of Public Accounts is bound

to go back as far as necessary, and if that is the -case, then there is no necessity for the motion of the member for Simcoe.


Robert Laird Borden: It is quite true that the arrangement of three years ago was carried out under an agreement. But the reasons for that agreement were of exactly the same character as those I have urged this afternoon. On that occasion there was not time for a full investigation, because the session was cut short on account of the departure of the Prime Minister for the conference. Last year the Department of Marine and Fisheries was not touched, because the minister was indisposed, and no attempt was made to touch it. The Printing Bureau was not touched for the reason that our time was all taken up with the Department of the Minister of Public Works, and so all through. So it seems to me there is practically the same reason for referring the accounts of last year to the committee as the reason which prevailed three years ago.


Wilfrid Laurier: No, these were special cases, and if the motion of my hon. friend is for a special case also, it can be made before the Public Accounts Committee. It is said that the Department of Marine and Fisheries was not investigated on account of the absence of the minister. That is a very good reason why they were not investigated. But that is not at all the argument which is now made for departing from our practice and referring all the accounts of the previous year to the Public Accounts Committee.


Mr. LOGGIE.: I would like to refer to a remark of the hon. member for Grenville (Mr. Reid) regarding dredging in Westmorland county. The hon. gentleman failed to tell the House that the contract was let late in the season, and that it was on the western coast, which was very much exposed to stormy weather, which made the work difficult to complete in time.


John Dowsley Reid: It was in July.


William Stewart Loggie: The hon. gentleman also failed to tell the House that the Maritime Dredging Company did not go on with the contract that season and complete the work at the 90 cents per yard.


Haughton Lennox: Did they get something better?


William Stewart Loggie: I do not know. I only know that it was brought out in evidence that they did not go on and complete the work.


Mr. SPEAKER.: The question is on the amendment to the amendment.


Mr. McCOLL (West Northumberland).: I have been a member of the Public Accounts Committee for some years.


Wilfrid Laurier: 


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I have put the question on the amendment to the amendment. The hon. member may speak on the amendment.
House divided on amendment to the amendment (Sir Wilfrid Laurier).
YEAS:	
Messieurs	
Allen,	McCraney,
Aylesworth,	McGiverin,
Beauparlant,	McIntyre,
Beland,	McKenzie,
Black,	McLean (Huron),
Borden (Sir Frederick) McMillan,	
Brodeur,	Major,
Brown,	Marcile (Bagot),
Bureau,	Martin (Montreal, St.
Carrier,	Mary's),
Cash,	Martin (Wellington),
Champagne,	Meigs,
Chisholm (Antigonish)	, Michaud.
Chisholm (Inverness),	Miller,
Clark (Red Deer),	Molloy,
Clarke (Essex),	Murphy,
Conruee,	Nesbitt,
Currie (Prince	Neely,
Edward),	Oliver,
Delisle,	Papineau,
Demers, Duheau,	Pardee,
	Parent,
Ethier,	Paterson,
Fisher,	Pickup,
Fortier,	Proulx,
Fowke,	Prowse,
Gauvreau,	Pugsley,
Geoff rion,	Rankin,
GervaSs,	Reid (Restigouche),
Girard,	Richards,
Graham, Guthrie,	Robb,
	Ross (Middlesex),
Harris,	Roy (Dorchester!,
Harty,	Roy (Montmagny),
llodgins,	Rutan,
Hunt,	Savoie,
King, .	Schell,
Knowles,	Sealey,
Lachance,	Sinclair,
Lanctot (Laprairie-	Smith (Nanaimo),
Napierville),	Smith (Stormont),
Laurier (Sir Wilfrid), Talbot,	
Law,	Templeman, Tobin,
LeBlanc,	
Loggie, Lovell,	Todd,
	Tolmxe,
Macdonald,	Turcottc (Nicolet),
MacNutt,	Turriff,
McAllister,	Warburton,
McCoig, McColl,	Wilson (Laval).-98.
NAYS:	
Messieurs	
Amos,	Lalor,
Armstrong,	Lancaster,
Arthurs,	Lennox,
Barker,	Lortie,
Barnard,	Macdonell,
Beattie,	McCall,
Best,	McCarthy,

Blain,
Blonclin,
Borden (Halifax), Boyce,
Bradbury,
Broder,
Burrell,
Campbell,
Chisholm (Huron), Clare,
Cowan,
Crocket,
Crotliers,
Currie (Simcoe), Daniel,
Doherty,
Donnelly,
Edwards,
Elson,
1-oster,
Fraser,
Gilbert,
Goodeve,
Haggart (Lanark), Haggart (Winnipeg), Henderson,
Herron,
Hughesi,
Jameson,
Kidd,
Lake,
Magrath,
Marshall,
Meighen,
Nantel,
IS orthrup,
Owen,
Paquet,
Perley,
Reid (Grenville), Rhodes,
Roche,
Russell,
Scliaffner,
Sexsmith,
Sharpe (Lisgar), Sharpe (Ontario), Smyth,
Sproule,
Stanfield,
Si aples,
Stewart,
Taylor (Leeds), Taylor (New Westminster),
Thoburn.
Thornton,
Wallace,
Wliite (Renfrew), Wilson (Lennox and Addington), Wright.-74.
PAIRS: Messieurs
Ministerial.
Fielding,
Lemieux,
Emmerson,
Stratton,
Kyte,
McLean (Sunbur^ * Lai'ortune,
Carvell,
Gordon (Kent),
Douglas,
Iiickerdike,
Chew,
Martin (Regina),
Opposition.
Price,
Osier,
Worthington, Gordon (Nipissing), Crosby,
Porter,
Monk,
Bristol,
Wilcox,
Lewis,
Forget,
Middlebro,
Maddin.
in no fewer than three separate act3, namely, the Adulteration Act, The Canned Goods Act, and the Inspection and Sales Act. This Bill to a large extent is based on similar Australian legislation and if passed, will place the inspection of food of all kinds in the hands of a commission, which will formulate rules to govern the sale, the storage, and the preparation of foods. The Bill will also take under its operation the regulation of cold storage warehouses, concerning which there has been a great deal of complaint throughout the country. The House must recognize as the country is recognizing, that under modern conditions, the cold storage man is a middleman between the producer and the consumer, with the result that the cold storage warehouses may at any time create a monopoly of human food and cause an artificial scarceness. The country has been prosperous and wages have gone up, but unfortunately not in the same proportion as the price of food. The Bill, if passed, will place the control of these cold storage warehouses undeT a commission, which, will be composed of 12 independent men, selected from the faculties of the different universities, the other members of the commission being experts on sanitation, and the Dominion Analyst will be chairman of the board. In other countries legislation of this kind has worked satisfactorily, whereas in the United States, where the food regulations are left in the hands of officials of the government, the 'public have not been satisfied. This legislation will place this important matter under an independent commission, and take it out of politics. I shall defer any further remarks until the second reading of the Bill, when I shall ask the House for a special committee to look into the matter.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.
Amendment to the amendment agreed to, and motion (Mr. Warburton) as amended agreed to on same division.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.

Mr. CURRIE.: (Simcoe) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 35) respecting pure foods.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Explain?


Morley Currie: This is similar to a Bill which I introduced last session, but which, unfortunately, was not reached before prorogation. The object of the Bill is t">
codify to some extent the present laws bearing on this subject, and which appear 28 [DOT]



ADJOURNMENT OVER THURSDAY.

Wilfrid Laurier: That when this House adjourns on Wednesday the 7th inst., it stands adjourned until Friday the 9th inst.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. F. D. MONK.: (Jacques Cartier), I call the attention of the government to the following announcement which appeared in the government organ, the ' Free Press ' of yesterday.



TO BUILD NAVY SHIPS IN CANADA.

[Stage Direction]
The government will in the course of a few days ask for tenders for the construction of four cruisers of the Bristol type and for six destroyers of the improved River type, the plans and specifications having arrived from
[Stage Direction]


the Admiralty and been adapted to Canadian conditions.
No firms outside of the British Empire will be allowed to tender.
It is expected that the competition will lay between a Canadian syndicate, Vickers, Sons and Maxim, and Harland and Wolff of Belfast.
The vessels will have to be built in Canada, and are expected to be ready for commission by 1914.
This item, which is one of considerable interest is sufficient to whet the curiosity of the House and of the public, and I think we are entitled to ask the government to let us know if really it is cruisers of the type mentioned in this newspaper, which are being built, and what is their tonnage. The tonnage of the projected cruisers was 4,800 tons. What is the tonnage of the present ships, their length, their width, the speed required, when the construction is to begin, when delivery is to be made, where they are to be constructed? I believe that the practice in England is that when the plans are determined on and the keel is about to be laid, the plans are open to the inspection of the public and published in the naval technical newspapers and the 'Naval Annual' long before the ships are launched. At any rate, I think we are entitled to some enlightenment with reference to this newspaper item. I would ask the Minister of Marine if he will not give us a little more information than has been given to the newspaper.
Mr. BRODEUR.: I may say to my hon. friend that nothing has been given to the newspapers. So far the government has not asked for any tenders for the shins. We have received from the admiralty plans and specifications, which are now being considered by the officers of the department, and as soon as the necessary consideration has been given to them they will be printed and then tenders will likely be asked for.



THE WATERWAYS TREATY.

[Stage Direction]
House went to committee to consider the following proposed resolution
Resolved, that it is expedient, in connection with the establishment of the International Joint Commission under the Waterways Treaty of January II, 1909, to provide, (a) that the Governor in Council be authorized to appropriate annually, out of the consolidated revenue fund, a sum not exceeding seventy-five thousand dollars towards the payment of the salaries of the commissioners to be appointed bv His Majesty on the recommendation of the Governor in Council, as well as the salaries of the secretary and other officers and employees, and also all other expenses which may be incurred by such commissioners, with the approval of the Minister of Public Works, together with one-half share of all reasonable and necessary joint expenses of the said commission, incurred by it and under the terms of Mr. MONK.
the said treaty, required to be paid in equal moieties by the high contracting parties, (b) That the commissioners may from time to time employ such clerical and other assistance as is deemed advisable, their compensation and expenses to be fixed at such amounts as may be determined by the commissioners and approved by the Minister of Public Works, and may expend an amount to be fixed by the Minister of Public Works, not in excess of three thousand dollars per annum, for office accommodation, equipment and supplies.
William Pugsley: As the government is asking from parliament a considerable sum for the purpose of paying the salaries of the Canadian members of the International Joint Commission, which it is proposed to appoint under the terms of the Waterways Treaty of January, 1909, it might be well that I should call the attention of hon. gentlemen to the provisions of the treaty under which they are to act, in order that the committee may have a better understanding of the very important duties and the very heavy responsibilities which will devolve upon this International Joint Commission. I do not know that I can do this better than by referring to the different provisions of the treaty. Hon. gentlemen are no doubt aware that the treaty was signed at Washington on the 11th of January, 1909. The United States Congress has already made provision for the salaries of the commissioners to be appointed on behalf of the United States, and also for their expenses, and the amount which has been provided for at the last session of Congress is a sum not exceeding $75,000, the same amount for which we are now asking. It will be observed that the resolution fixes the maximum salaries of the commissioners, also the maximum salary of the secretary who is to be appointed by the Canadian section of the commission, also the amount for office accommodation, equipment and supplies. Of course, there will necessarily be considerable other expenses, such as the salaries of engineers, and the payments for clerical work, which it is impossible to fix definitely at the present time; but all these expenses must be certified to by the commissioners and approved by the Minister of Public Works before payment.


Mr. DANIEL.: Is the $75,000 provided by the United States Congress supposed to pay all the expenses of this commission for_ a year, or only the salaries of the commissioners and perhaps those of their engineers and secretaries?


William Pugsley: All the expenses.


John Waterhouse Daniel: That is not the case in the resolution you are about to propose.


William Pugsley: Yes, because it is provided that the amount shall not exceed $75,000, and out of that amount the salaries of the commissioners and the secretary, the

cost of office accommodation, equipment and supplies, and all other expenses are to be met.


Mr. CROCKET.: How many Canadian commissioners are there?	_


William Pugsley: The treaty provides for three to be appointed by His Majesty and three to be appointed on the part of the United States. I think the preamble to the treaty very well sets forth the objects sought to be accomplished by the convention, which was entered into. It is as follows:-
His Majesty tlie King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the seas, Emperor of India, and the United States of America, being, equally desirous to prevent disputes regarding the use of boundary waters and to settle all questions which ane now pending between the United States and the Dominion of Canada involving the rights, obligations or interests of either in relation to the other or to the inhabitants of the other, along their common frontier, and to make provision for the adjustment and settlement of all such questions as may hereafter arise, have resolved to eonclude a treaty in furtherance of these ends.
It will be seen by an examination of the treaty that these objects are all very carefully kept in view by the different provisions of the convention. There is first the settlement of all questions relating to boundary waters. Then provision is made for the settlement of all questions which are likely to arise involving the rights, obligations and interests of either in relation to the other along their common frontier; and the treaty even goes further than that, and provides that by mutual consent all questions of any kind that may arise between the two countries may be submitted to this International Commission. So that hon. gentlemen will see at once, even without my reading the different articles of the treaty, how very important are the duties which these commissioners will be called upon to perform. The first article provides :-
The high contracting parties agree that the navigation of all navigable boundary waters shall forever continue free and open for the purposes of commerce to the inhabitants and to the ships, vessels, and boats of both countries equally, subject, however, to any laws and regulations of either country, within its own territory, not inconsistent with such privilege of free navigation and applying equally and without discrimination to the inhabitants, ships, vessels, and boats of both countries.
It is further agreed that so long as this treaty shall remain in force, this same right of navigation shall extend to the waters of Lake Michigan and to all canals connecting boundary waters, and now existing or which may hereafter be constructed on either side of the line. Either of the high contracting parties may adopt rules and regulations gov-28 i
erning the use of such canals within its own territory and may charge tolls for the use [DOT] thereof, but all such rules and regulations and all tolls charged shall apply alike to the subjects or citizens of the high contracting parties, and the ships, vessels, and boats of both of the high contracting parties, and they shall be placed on terms of equality in the use thereof.
Then it provides that:
Each of the high contracting parties reserves to itself the exclusive jurisdiction and control over the use and diversion, whether temporary or permanent, of all waters on its own side of the line which in their natural channels would flow across the boundary or into boundary waters.
I may say that that is simply an affirmance of what has always been contended by the United States to be international law, and of what I do not think has been disputed by the jurists of this country, that is to say that so far as the waters which are wholly situate within the country are concerned, that country may make a diversion of these waters and prevent them from flowing into the boundary waters.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Did the United States take that stand in regard to rivers arising in Mexico and flowing into the southern part of the United States, or do they confine it to the rivers that originate in the United States and flow into Canada?


William Pugsley: The United States have contended that it is a principle of international law that any country has the right to divert waters in its own country subject always, I may say, to the question of navigation. I do not think that they have contended that they would have a right to so divert the waters as to seriously or materially interfere with navigation; but in the matter of waters which might be required for purposes of irrigation, a very important case came up between the United States and Mexico, in reference to the waters of the Rio Grande. These waters were diverted and upon complaint being made by the Mexican government the matter was taken up by the Attorney General of the United States, and after a lengthy investigation the United States took the position that what had been done was perfectly legal and that the Mexican government had no right to complain. This is very important by reason of a situation which exists in western Canada, a situation which is of very great interest to the people of Saskatchewan and Alberta as well as to the people of Montana upon the United States side of the line. This being the view which is taken by the United States and which, so far as I am aware, is not disputed on the part of this country, it is very important to bear in mind that the clause to which I am now inviting the attention of the committee goes on to provide:

Any interference with or diversion from their natural channel of such waters on either side of the boundary, resulting in any injury on the other side of the boundary, shall give rise to the same rights and entitle the injured parties to the same legal remedies as if such injury took place in the country where such diversion or interference occuts; hut this provision shall not apply to cases already existing or to cases expressly covered by special agreement between the parties hereto.
Therefore, hon. gentlemen will see that as to all future cases the citizens of either country are placed in exactly the same position as a riparian proprietor lower down the stream would be nlaced in regard to any diversion of water by a private riparian owner further up the stream by which his rights would be interfered with. In other words, both nations, by the latter clause of this article, making provision for the reeog nition and payment by the country whose subject caused the injury, recognize that there would be the same obligation to make payment for that injury as if it was a question between citizens of the same country.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not quite understand how that works out. Stripped of unnecessary words the clause would read: It is agreed that any diversion from their natural channel of such waters shall entitle the injured parties to the same legal redress as if such injury took place in the country where such [DOT] diversion occurred. That is the way it would read if you left out immaterial words. What does that exactly mean? For example, suppose diversion takes place in the United States of waters in which the people of Alberta are interested. What are you going to do about that?


William Pugsley: It is provided that the people of Alberta shall have the same right to proceed in the courts of the United States as they would have to proceed in the courts of Alberta if the diversion had taken place in Alberta, that is to say the United States will have a perfect right to divert the water yet that diversion must be subject to the right of the person lowbr down the stream, whether in the United States or in Canada, to the same right of action against the upper riparian proprietor as if both people were subjects of the same country.


Robert Laird Borden: I understand the suggestion. A citizen of Alberta will go into the United States courts, I presume in Montana and bring an action; but suppose the diversion has been authorized by a statute of the United States.


William Pugsley: Then I take it it would be the duty of both countries, the United States government in this case, the duty of the Canadian government if the diver-Mr. PUGSLEY.
sion were authorized by our government to make provision for the payment of any damages. That would be the obligation of each party under the terms of this treaty.


Robert Laird Borden: If the minister's statement could be a'dded as a rider to the treaty it would make it very plain, but there is nothing in the treaty to that effect. On the contrary there is a direct statement that the United States reserves absolute jurisdiction and control over that very thing, and therefore can pass such a statute as I have alluded to without apparently infringing the terms of this treaty, rather in accordance with its very terms. Then the citizen would not have in the United States the same rights as he would have if the diversion had taken place in Alberta. Therefore I do not think that you could work out the provisions of the treaty in the way the minister suggests.


William Pugsley: This article does not profess to give to either country the right to divert water; it simply reserves to each country the right already existing and the right which would be exercised without the riparian owner lower down the stream having any possible remedy. This article provides that if the diversion is done by an individual there shall be the same right for a citizen of this country to go to Montana and bring an action as -a citizen of Montana would have if the diversion took place in Montana and vice versa.


Robert Laird Borden: I am not so sure as the minister is that it is a recognized principle of international law that one country or its citizens under its laws can divert a stream that runs into an adjoining country. I have always had it in mind, although I have not looked carefully into the question, that the general rule of international law was quite the reverse of that.


William Pugsley: We have had a very striking example of that right being claimed on the part of the United States and being acquiesced in by the various governments of this country for 40 or 50 years in the case of the Allegash river in the state of Maine. The Allegash river naturally flowed into the St. John river. As much as forty or fifty years ago, the legislature of the state of Maine authorized a company to divert the waters of the Allegash into the Penobscot at a place called Chamberlain lake, which is at the summit. By putting a dam at the foot of Chamberlain lake, the waters of the Allegash were thrown back into the Penobscot. There was a canal dug also. Some controversy took place and some international correspondence passed, but the government which was in power at the time when the diversion took place did not appear to think-and I presume it was so advised-that there could be any

claim made against the United States, but that the Americans had the right to do what was done. In that case-and it makes the case of the Allegash even stronger than an ordinary case would be,-it might be contended that the diversion of the waters of the Allegash interferred to some extent with the navigation of the St. John river. It certainly interfered with the floatability of the river for the purpose of driving logs.
Mr.	CROCKET.	Does not	the treaty
make an end to the controversy as to the Allegash ?
Mr.	PUGSLEY.	Except as	to navigation.


Oswald Smith Crocket: And ends it in favour of the United States?
Mr.	PUGSLEY.	Except as	to navigation.	I take it that	where rights have not
been asserted, or have been asserted only at rare intervals and not successfully, and where the diversion took place some fifty years ago and has existed for fifty years, it would be too late to expect that any remedy would be applied. But it has always been contended that any rights which the people of New Brunswick had to have the waters of Chamberlain lake turned back into the St. John river depended upon the question of navigation. It was contended that the diversion of the waters interfered with the floatability of the St. John river for the purpose of driving logs, and that I think, in this country, would be taken as affecting navigation. However, whatever these rights are they are expressly reserved by the treaty.


Robert Laird Borden: The point I referred to, I would like to thresh out a little, if the minister will bear with me, is this: If the diversion in Montana takes place under the authority of a statute, citizens of Alberta, coming into the courts of Montana would have no right of action. The minister suggests that the two governments would get together in some way and provide damages or compensation. But I do not find that in the treaty or anything like it.


William Pugsley: One would not expect to find it in the treaty, I think. My hon. friend is aware that if the legislature of the province of Alberta chose to authorize an injury to be done by one riparian proprietor to another and did not provide for compensation there would be no right to compensation. But it is not supposed that any legislature, where the right is expressly recognized by law, would take away that right without providing compensation. The important provision in this article is that it gives to the people of both countries the right of action which they have not heretofore enjoyed, and it also recognizes the principle that they shall have the same
right to compensation or damages, as if they were both residing in the state or province in which the injury was committed. That, I think, is a very important principle to have recognized.


Robert Laird Borden: The principle may be a very good one, but it strikes me that the right of action may prove entirely vain and illusory.


Mr. MAGRATH.: While dealing with that feature, as I am not a lawyer, there are one or two points I would like explained. The state of Montana controls its waters, but the province of Alberta does not control its waters. The federal government in Canada has the right to deal with the waters in Alberta, while the federal government at Washington, as I understand it, has no such right. Now, if the legislature of Montana gave certain rights to parties to withdraw water-to put water to beneficial use-in Montana, and some interest on the Canadian side should be injured, I understand the minister to say that, on failure to reach a settlement the-two governments would step in. This treaty is with the federal government at Washington, which, as I understand it, has nothing to do with the waters in question.


William Pugsley: I am satisfied that it is recognized as law in the United States that, as the treaty-making power rests with the government of the United States, a treaty, when it comes into force, binds all the states of the Union, and so, this treaty will govern the rights of the different states in respect of any of the waters dealt with by the treaty.


Robert Laird Borden: I was not aware that there was any provision in the constitution of the United States to that effect. There is a provision in the British North America Act that the parliament of Canada shall have the right to enact any legislation that may be necessary to carry out the terms of a treaty. I have no very exhaustive knowledge of the constitution of the United States, but I am not aware that it contains any similar provision. I speak rather from recollection of facts which are common knowledge, that there have been difficulties in carrying out treaties with the United States-the federal government has said, over and over again, that it has no control over the states in respect of certain matters.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden), is right ; there is no such provision in the American constitution. And I may go further and say that my hon. friend knows, and everybody knows, that, in the days of the extreme State's Rights party in the United States, it was also contended that the treaty-making power did not apply

against the rights of the states. But I understand-though I have not looked into the case recently-that the doctrine is now accepted in the United States that the treaty-making power dominates the state rights and makes the law of the land. I have not studied the question, but that 1 understand from American jurists.


Robert Laird Borden: It is very important that we should know something definite about that in view of the points raised by my hon. friend from Medicine Hat (Mr. Magrath).


William Pugsley: The same question has come up in regard to fishing in the lakes. I am not in a position to-night -to tell my hon. friend where the principle is authoritatively stated, but I know that it is recognized by the law officers of the government of the United States. They have dealt with the fisheries entirely upon that principle. By the treaty they have dealt with the fisheries of the states bordering on the Great Lakes. The legal authorities assert, without apparent question as to the authority of the statement, that, under the treaty the state rights must give way so far as the treaty is concerned.


Charles Alexander Magrath: I do not know whether the hon. minister objects to being interrupted now, or whether he would rather have the discussion take place afterwards-


William Pugsley: I will take occasion to look into the question raised by the hon. member (Mr. Magrath). This resolution is to be followed by a Bill, of course, and I will give every opportunity for the discussion of this matter on the second reading or in committee.


Mr. McKENZIE.: I might remind the minister and the leader of the opposition of a case in point which has probably escaped their attention, where treaty powers have conflicted with state rights in the United States. I refer to the case of the California schools where trouble arose about two years ago on account of the state legislature passing a law preventing Japanese children from attending the public schools. This law was clearly in contravention of the Japanese treaty with the United States, and the state government had to abandon their contention on the ground that the treaty gave a special privilege to the Japanese children. That is a case in point, showing that in the United States a treaty was considered superior to state rights.


Charles Alexander Magrath: One more question. I understand the minister's opinion is that under that article vested rights against a stream on one side of the boundary must be honoured on the other side.


William Pugsley: Exactly, that is the spirit of the treaty, that is what it is intend-
Sir WILFRID LAUR1ER.
ed to provide, and it is giving an absolutely new right to subjects of the two countries.


Morley Currie: This question of conflicting jurisdiction is liable to come up frequently. For instance, it is well established in the United States that the federal government has the right to make treaties in all matters where citizenship or the rights of citizens are concerned; but in matters relating to private property the state has always raised objections to federal action. I do not think that there is any decision that will clear the matter up to the satisfaction of this House. The controversy has arisen in several cases. There was a case at the Sault where property was held for a millwright, and some compromise was arrived at, leaving the question not yet definitely settled. We have this matter coming up again and again. This country goes into the business of making a treaty with the United States, goes into it with clean hands and with federal rights unchallenged. On the other side there is just that danger that the old question of state rights may be involved and may crop up. It is very doubtful whether, in a matter of international law, private property for instance could be expropriated for treaty purposes. That is virtually what is here proposed. Now there is another point with reference to this. I would like to know from the minister if the present commission has established a boundary line in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The reason I ask is this: I think if that boundary line has >een established it is desirable that a copy of the map of that part of it in Niagara river should be laid on the table of this House. I understand from information I obtained in the United States that there was a question with reference to the waterpower of Niagara Falls. The original boundary was clearly defined by the commissioners established undeff the treaty and could easily be found to-day. In the division of the territory then the Horse shoe Falls were given entirely to Canada. We have there a large amount of power now belonging to the province of Ontario. The United States set up a claim for one-half of the water-power, virtually, of the Niagara river. Now I understand that this commission which is now establishing these waterways and this boundary- there are two commissions, I do not know whether it is this one or the boundary commission-one of them has gone to work and is laying down a new line and a neiv boundary depriving the province of Ontario of its rights to the whole of the Horseshoe Falls. If that is the case I think the minister should so state in the House now, and take an early opportunity to lay the whole matter before the House, so that we may know whether that boundary is going to be altered. This is a very important matter.

It is a grave commentary on the contention of this government in the matter of treaties, since they have always been claiming that Great Britain has surrendered territory belonging to Canada in the past, and it would be a singular thing if this government now make a surrender of territory which has been clearly established to be ours by treaty, by definite survey and by landmarks.


William Pugsley: 
Morley Currie: That is the very point I mention. This commission may do all the damage possible, and the moment you have appointed this new commission there is nobody to blame for it. Now, I think that before the debate on the Bill takes place, the hon. gentleman should lay on the table of this House a plan of the surveys of the Niagara river, and the boundary established there as it now exists at this date.


William Pugsley: I will be glad to do that.


Morley Currie: It is all right to establish a boundary line along the centre of the lakes, because in the old days it was very hard to establish. But there is no question as to where the boundary was laid down in the Niagara river by the former commissioners, and there is no necessity for changing that now, which I understand is being done.


William Pugsley: I was going to call attention to the fact that the remaining clause of this article provides expressly :
Each of the hivh contracting parties reserves to iteelf or to the several state governments on the one side and the Dominion or provincial governments on the other as the case may be, subject to any treaty provisions now existing with respect thereto, the exclusive jurisdiction and control over the use and diversion, whether temporary or permanent,_ of all waters on its own side of the line which in their natural channels would flow across the boundary or into boundary waters.
The effect of that is to provide, that so far as ordinary streams are concerned, the high contracting parties reserve jurisdiction over the use and diversion of the waters of those streams, subject always to the right of compensation, and then each country reserves to itself the right to protest just the same as it could do before this treaty was agreed to, against any diversion which would interfere with navigation.


Mr. MACDONELL.: I would mention the case of a province which owns or controls its own waters. Take for instance the province of Ontario, which has the ownership of all its own waters, subject to the superior law of the federal authorities over navigation. Under article 2 of this treaty not only all waters are governed by this treaty, but all waters which flow across the boundary, or waters which flow into boundary waters, are subject to this provision. ' Boundary waters ' is a very large term. It would include, as I apprehend, the waters adjacent to the Great Lakes, such as Georgian bay ajid the rivers flowing into Georgian bay. These waters always have been and are still notoriously provincial waters. They are being dealt with by this treaty. The rights of riparian holders are being dealt with and they are being very seriously affected. If they interfered with the flow of these waters they would be liable in damages to a lumberman or citizen of the state of Michigan, New York, or any other state. Has the government taken any steps with regard to consulting the different provinces or is it acting in co-operation with the provinces, such as the province of Ontario or any other province, which owns adjacent waters, before disposing of these waters or of the riparian rights in them?


William Pugsley: The rights of the provinces are in no way affected. The province of Ontario to-day may divert the waters of any streams flowing into the Great Lakes within that province. All that this treaty provides for is that if any American citizen suffers damage by reason of the diversion he will have the right to compensation, and if, on the other hand, one of the United States bordering on the Great Lakes, diverts waters that are tributary to the Great Lakes and a resident of Ontario suffers damage, he shall be entitled

to claim compensation. In so far as the' power of the different provinces and states is concerned, it is in no way interfered with. All that this treaty does is to provide an equitable mode for the people of each country to obtain compensation from the people of the other country in case their rights are in any way affected. I am sure the committee will realize that there are very few cases-perhaps there never would be a case-where this question would arise except in the case of waters which are used for the purpose of irrigation. The question might arise between the inhabitants of Montana, Alberta and Saskatchewan, because a person or company in Montana might divert certain waters which flow to the northward and use these waters for the purposes of irrigation. The result might be to deprive a Canadian living lower down the stream upon the Canadian side of the boundary of water which would be very necessary for the purpose of irrigation. Before this treaty that could be done and he could not say a word, but under this treaty he can complain through this government, I take it, to the authorities of the United States, and it would be their duty, in carrying out the spirit of this treaty, to see that compensation is provided for the injury, and, vice versa, the same obligation that is imposed upon the people of the United States is also imposed upon the people of Canada.
Just a word as to the question of the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Magrath) as to the right of the United States government to make a treaty which will bind the states which, as my hon. friend says, are the owners of these waters.
I find by article 6 of the Constitution of the United States that this point is clearly settled. That article provides:-
That this constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all treaties made or which shall he made under the authority of the United States 6liall be the supreme law of the land and the judges in every state shall he bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
That seems to make it absolutely clear that the treaty-making power of the government of the United States extends to, the waters of the various states and also to the fisheries of the various states.


Angus Claude Macdonell: Following that up, will the minister cite or quote what power this government has on the other hand to deal with provincial waters such as belong to tthei provinces in whom these waters are vested-Ontario as an example?


William Pugsley: This is a treaty made between His Majesty the King of Great Mr. PUGSLEY.
Britain and Ireland and the dominions beyond the seas, and this treaty is the supreme law of the empire as far as Canada is concerned, just the same, as far as the United States is concerned, it is the supreme law of the United States, and every state is bound by it.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Has it become effective without ratification by parliament?


William Pugsley: Yes.


Oswald Smith Crocket: That is not the case in the United States, where every treaty must receive the ratification of the Senate.


William Pugsley: There the Senate is the treaty-making power, just as with us the King is the treaty-making power.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: It is an extraordinary thing that this government, after the protest that was made in this House last session, would permit of the imposition of a special rider in this treaty discriminating against and making special provision with reference to private rights in St. Mary's river. I do not understand it.


William Pugsley: We will come to that later on.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: If, as the Minister of Public Works- has stated, this treaty is to be supreme between the two nations, why did the government consent to a rider being attached to it, which recognizes riparian, territorial and other rights in the waters of the St. Mary's river? Why, with regard to _ all other rivers and waters with which this treaty presumes to deal, are these rights merged in the supreme right of the high compact when the rights with regard to St. Mary's river are singled out, and given separate treatment. It was pointed out to the right hon. Prime Minister, I think in as cogent a manner as it possibly could be done, having regard to the facts at our disposal, that there was a dangerous encroachment on Canadian territory in the St. Mary's river, and I would like to know why these dangers were made more dangerous by this rider and why that rider was consented to by the government, if the law is as it is stated to be by the Minister of Public Works?


William Pugsley: I will come to that a little later on because that rider is at the last of the treaty. I am sure that my hon. friend (Mr. Boyce), will not think that I am discourteous to him, if I deal with that provision of the treaty later.


Charles Alexander Magrath: With regard to that article, the last paragraph indicates that waters used for navigation purposes shall not be disturbed. I understand that is the substance of the last paragraph of the treaty, and if that is so, there is this point that I would like to bring to the attention of

the hon. gentleman. Streams run into each other, or rather they are made up of smaller streams. Take the Missouri river. It is difficult to navigate properly in certain seasons. It is fed by a great number of these streams which cross from Alberta and Saskatchewan. By the diversion .of these streams in Canada you might interfere with the navigation of the Missouri river. Would it be possible for our friends to the south of us to say: You must not disturb these streams in Canada, because, while they are not navigable themselves, they go to feed a stream which is navigable or partially so?


William Pugsley: My hon. friend, I think is aware that this question could only arise in respect to the Milk river, and its tributaries. Am I not right in that? [DOT]


Charles Alexander Magrath: No, 1 do not think so. We have two or three thousand miles of boundary and that feature might arise at various other points.


William Pugsley: Not with regard to streams running into the Missouri?


Charles Alexander Magrath: No.


William Pugsley: If my hon. friend is right then the Milk river is the only river, which flows into the Missouri from Canada?


Charles Alexander Magrath: I merely mentioned that as an instance to bring the point to the hon. gentleman's attention.


William Pugsley: Of course, if we go to the little streams which are tributaries of the larger streams and which are again tributaries of the rivers which are not navigable, and which finally become tributaries of the navigable streams of the United States it would be difficult to say that even the use of the water in a small stream for domestic purposes does not remove a certain quantity, even though it might be infinitesimal, of water, and keep it away from the deep river which is navigable.
But, what the two governments have done has been to endeavour upon the broadest possible basis to try to provide a means for,settling these international and irritating questions, which are liable to arise from time to time. As my hon. friend will admit, so far as the Missouri is concerned, that is a river in regard to which I suppose one of the most important questions would be likely to arise; indeed, the only important question so far. as diversion for irrigation purposes is concerned, because happily we do not have to use water for purposes of irrigation in the east. The Milk river is the only river which flows from the Canadian side into the Missouri. The Milk river takes its rise in the state of Montana, and the Milk river and the St. Mary's river are the two principal rivers which are
essential for purposes of irrigation in that western country, and both of them have their source in the United States. Under the principles of international law I am inclined to think that there would be no question that the United States government, but for this treaty, would have the power to divert the waters of both these rivers before they flowed over the Canadian boundary and so deprive the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan of the use of these waters for purposes of irrigation. We know that in the west, water for irrigation purposes is almost priceless, and if the United States had exercised the right which they held they were entitled to exercise and were to divert these streams down towards the Missouri river and prevent them flowing into Canada they would have caused irreparable injury to the people of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. We have by this treaty provided against the possibility of anything of that kind occurring. When I come to the article which especially deals with the St. Mary's and the Milk rivers I think hon. gentlemen will agree with me that in concluding this treaty the United States, powerful country that it is, has shown a spirit of justice, a spirit of exceeding fair play towards the people of Canada. I think every one will agree that the treaty is eminently fair and makes the most valuable provision for safeguarding the rights of the people of Canada, as well as Ube rights of the people of the United States with regard to these rivers.


Charles Alexander Magrath: I appreciate the hon. minister's oration about the justness of this treaty with the United States and the inestimable value of water in that western country, those subjects, and the extent to which he has protected the rights of Canada I shall have something to say when the Bill comes down. But, I have put a practical question to the minister. I mentioned the Missouri river. Now the minister appears to be expending money in the development of the Saskatchewan river for navigation purposes. Suppose we reverse the situation. There is the St. Mary's river flowing north into this country and supplementing the supply of the south Saskatchewan river. I have seen boats on that river some 25 years ago, and there was not any too much water to permit of navigation. Under this treaty the provision I have just referred to in the concluding paragraph of the article says that navigation interests shall not be interfered with. The point I raise is this-take the St. Mary's river, a very important stream upon which navigation is not possible, but is it not possible that bv diverting the St. Mary's river into the United .States and withdrawing its supply from the Saskatchewan river, you will put the Saskatchewan

river out of business so far as navigation is concerned. That is thu point I was referring to.


William Pugsley: Of course the same question would arise so far as Canada is concerned with regard to the Milk river. Suppose you were to utilize the Milk river in the 100 miles over which it flows through Canadian territory and take its water for the purpose of irrigation, thus preventing it flowing down to the Missouri, the United States would have just as much ground for complaint as we could have in the case of the St. Mary's river. But I want to say, if my hon. friend (Mr. Magrath) will pardon me, that the high contracting parties have left by this treaty the rights to each country, so far as navigation is concerned, exactly where these rights were before the treaty. There is this provision:-
It is understood that neither of the high contracting parties intend by the foregoing provision to surrender any right which it may have to object to any interference with, or diversions of waters on the other side of the boundary, the effect of which would be productive of material injury to the navigation interests on its own side of the boundary.
The treaty leaves that question concerning the rights of the two countries exactly' where they were before; it does not interfere with these rights in the least degree.


Charles Alexander Magrath: I realize what the minister has said; I was really endeavouring to- get from the minister an interpretation of the language in the treaty.


William Pugsley: I could hardly be expected to do that off-hand, because it is a very important question.


Morley Currie: Am I to understand that a copy of these maps and the delimitation of the boundary of the Niagara river will be laid on the table when this Bill next comes before us?


William Pugsley: Yes, so far as they are prepared. I do not know how far the preparation of the maps has proceeded, but I will make inquiry and give the hon. gentleman information. Some considerable time ago I was spoken to with regard to the survey which was being made, and 1 would suppose that there would be maps and reports sufficiently far advanced to be laid on the table. I will give my hon. friend an opportunity for further time for consideration if he so wishes, after I have given him information as to the maps.


Morley Currie: I understand that the maps are being drawn on copper plates and that proofs of them have been taken from time to time, as they proceeded with the work. I understand that this commission has settled the boundary of Niagara Falls, and I would like to see where that boundary has been placed.


Charles Alexander Magrath: 


William Pugsley: I will be glad to get these reports.


Angus Claude Macdonell: I would like to understand definitely from the minister whether the waters in the province of Ontario have been dealt with, as they are dealt with in article II. of the treaty, without the government of Ontario being in any way consulted.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is entirely wrong. The waters of Ontario have not been dealt with at all. If the treaty has done anything so far as the waters of Ontario are concerned, it has reserved to the people of Ontario the right to do as they pleased with their waters, subject only to the right of compensation.


Angus Claude Macdonell: Whatever the dealings have been in regard to these waters in the province of Ontario, under article II. of this treaty, they have been arrived at without that province being in any way consulted.


William Pugsley: Will the hon. gentleman tell me of one stream in the province of Ontario which flows into a boundary water or which this treaty interferes with or affects in the slightest degree?


Angus Claude Macdonell: I certainly will. Although the hon. minister should, I think, have courteously answered my question, still I will answer his. The treaty deals with boundary waters or waters which flow into boundary waters. As a sample of waters which are boundary waters, and yet through which the boundary line does not pass, take the Georgian bay, the centre of which is hundreds of miles from where the international boundary runs through Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. These are treated as boundary waters, and the rivers and streams that flow into the Georgian bay and Lake Simcoe are also treated as boundary waters. These are provincial streams subject only to the greater right of the Dominion in regard to navigation. I ask the minister if, in dealing with these waters under article II. of this treaty, the provincial government of Ontario has in any way been consulted.


William Pugsley: It is possible that the chairman of the International Deep Waterways Commission may have conferred with the Ontario government. I do not know as to that. I refer to Mr. Gibbons, who had a great deal to do with assisting the British ambassador in looking afteT the making of the treaty. I am not aware that there was any conference with the Ontario government; but the treaty cannot by any possibility give any ground for complaint on the part of the province of Ontario. The streams which flow into the Georgian bay are not touched by the treaty excepting so far as

navigation is concerned, and the treaty expressly reserves to the people of Canada and the people of the United States the right to protest against any interference with navigation.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Will the minister say that the provincial authorities of New Brunswick are not interested in the diversion of the waters of the Allegash river?


William Pugsley: The people of New
Brunswick are very deeply interested. I do not know that the provincial authorities are more interested than the people are, and this government has been very careful to safeguard the interests of the people of New Brunswick.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I understood the minister to admit that this treaty had concluded that controversy in favour of the United States.


William Pugsley: No, it has not concluded it at aill. It has done nothing about it in one way or the other.


Oswald Smith Crocket: The minister stated that that controversy was concluded by this treaty. That is a matter in which the provincial authorities are very much interested, and I would like to know if before the treaty was concluded they were consulted as to its terms.


William Pugsley: I fear I did not make myself understood by my hon. friend. What I said was that the right to divert a stream which would injuriously affect navigation, is not given to either country, but the right to protest is reserved to each country. Each country had the same right to deal with such streams before the treaty that it has to-day. What the treaty does is to give to the inhabitants of either country the right to compensation from those who do injury in that connection. The people of New Brunswick never had that right before.


Angus Claude Macdonell: That is an entirely new right. But for this treaty the residents of the United States would not have that right-is that not correct? Remedies are given in favour of citizens of the United States in cases where the streams in Canada have been diverted or in any way interfered with. Before this treaty those persons would have no such right of action against citizens of this country. I ask, is it not so that under this treaty and only under it such rights of action would arise in favour of citizens of the United States?


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is right in that-and also in favour of citizens of Canada. This right of compensation is a new right which is given to the citizens of either country. To that extent it might be said that it would be of interest to the people of a province where water could be
diverted by citizens of the United States to the injury of the people of that province, and vice versa. With regard to the Allegash river, I did not intend to say and I do not think I did say that this treaty has concluded the question with regard to that river.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Except in so far as navigation is concerned.


William Pugsley: What I did say was that this treaty leaves the question of the Allegash just where it was before. If its diversion does not interfere with navigation. we had no right to make any claim against the United States before, and we have just as much right to-day to make a claim as we ever had. If its diversion interferes with navigation, we expressly reserve the right to protest, and that right is recognized by this treaty.


Oswald Smith Crocket: What does this clause in article II. mean:	'By this provision
shall not apply to cases already existing' ? I thought it was in connection with that clause that the minister made the statement that the Allegash controversy was concluded by the terms of the treaty.


William Pugsley: No. What I meant to say and did say was that this treaty in no way deals with a diversion which took place before the treaty was negotiated. The only thing provided for is that there is no claim for damages which took place before the treaty came into force.


Oswald Smith Crocket: As I understand article II. of the treaty gives the right of action in certain cases to citizens on one side of the line against citizens on the other side; but immediately afterwards it says: 'This provision shall not apply to cases already existing.' Does that not include cases like the Allegash?


William Pugsley: Quite so, but that refers to questions of damages. So far as the right to recover damages is concerned, this treaty relates wholly to future diversions; but so far as the right to make a claim against the nation for previous diversions is concerned, that right remains exactly as it was before the treaty was made. Nothing is added or taken away. The right to protest against interference with navigation remains as it was. It has not been sacrificed or altered in any shape or form.


Oswald Smith Crocket: At any rate, I understand that the provincial government of New Brunswick was not consulted at all in regard to the terms of the treaty?


William Pugsley: Not at all.


Mr. BURRELL.: It is very evident that this treaty does put forward a new principle-that under this treaty compensation is possible to the citizens of either country.

The minister admits that as rather an advantage in equity to the citizens of both countries. Has the minister or has the government made any careful estimate through its engineers as to the proportion of streams which flow southward from Canada into boundary waters or northward from the United States into boundary waters? If 75 per cent of these streams flow southward, it is obvious that the provision of this article will work very strongly to the advantage of the United States because their claims for compensation will be 75 per cent as against our 25 per cent. It would be interesting to get information along that line.


William Pugsley: I have not made a careful calculation because it would be impossible to make one which would be of any value as the question would not depend on the number of streams there were, but on the number of diversions which would be likely to take place, and that would depend, of course, on the question of irrigation, and, as my hon. friend will see, upon many other questions which might arise.


Martin Burrell: I cannot see the strength of the point raised. Surely there is some reasonable ground for asking as to the total number of streams, a comparison of the flow, as it would work out in the end that the same percentage of diversion would be possible in one case as the other, and if 80 per cent were flowing south and 20 per cent north, the diversion would be the same, and we would be suffering great disadvantages as compared with the United States in regard to compensation.


William Pugsley: Diversions are not likely to take place except for irrigation. There might be. some slight diversion in regard to the development of power, but the water so diverted is again turned into the streams, and the flow is not reduced. In the case of irrigation it is different because when water is taken from a stream and used for irrigation it flows over and sinks into the land and is lost to the stream. As far as the irrigation district is concerned, I would think, from my study of the different rivers, it is about equal. The high contracting parties have made special provision with regard to the Milk and St. Mary's rivers, to which I shall invite the attention of the committee a little later.
The next article provides for certain important duties which are to be performed by the representations of the two' countries. That article is as follows:
It is agreed that, in addition to the uses, obstructions, and diversions heretofore permitted or hereafter provided for by special pgreemienit between (the (parties hereto, no further or other usee or obstructions or diversions, whether temporary or permanent, of boundary waters on either side of the line, Mr. BURRELL.
affecting the natural level or flow of boundary waters on the other side of the line, shall be made except by authority of the United States or the Dominion of Canada within their respective jurisdictions and with the approval, as hereinafter provided, of a joint commission to be known as the International Joint Commission.
The foregoing provisions are not intended to limit or interfere with the existing rights of the government of the United States on the one side and the government of the Dominion of Canada on the other, to undertake and carry on governmental works in boundary waters for the deepening of channels, the construction of breakwaters, the improvement of harbours, and other governmental works for the benefit of commerce and navigation, provided that such work6 are wholly on its own side of the line and do not materially affect the level or flow of the boundary waters on the other, nor are such provisions intended to interfere with the ordinary use of such waters for domestic and sanitary purposes.
That imposes, as hon. gentlemen will see, a very great responsibility upon this commission. They are to investigate cases which may arise from time to time of proposed development, proposed diversion of water which might affect the navigation of the boundary waters and it is their duty to investigate each case; before any such diversion takes place it must be by authority of the United States or the Dominion of Canada within their respective jurisdictions and it must have the approval of this joint commission.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Will not this joint commission then take the place of the present commission that has been sitting for the last year or two with regard to the river St. John as a boundary river, and if so what will become of the work of the present commission? Has that commission made any report to the government or the Department of Public Works, and by what authority was that commission appointed. They have been working for some time and must have been working under some authority and with some end in view. While the minister is referring to this article he might give us an explanation of the position of that commission, whether it is a joint commission and what its future will be.


William Pugsley: I have no doubt my hon. friend is aware that some few years ago a lumber company called the St. John Lumber Company, incorporated under the laws of the State of Maine, proceeded toward the construction of a saw-mill and also of booms, sheer dams, dams and sorting works upon the United States side of the St. John river. The lumbermen operating further down the St. John river, both in St. John and Fredericton, and I think also in other places, claimed that this was a violation of the Ashburton treaty, that under that treaty the waters

of the St. John river were to be kept open, free and unobstructed, to the commerce of both countries, and that by erecting these dams, piers, booms and sorting works, the floatability of that portion of the river was interfered with. Protests were made to the United States government and, without going fully into the details, finally an understanding was reached by which a commission was appointed, two members being appointed by the United States government and two by the Canadian government to consider the question of these obstructions. Provision was made for the salaries and expenses of the commissioners by this parliament and that provision has been renewed from time to time. Afterwards their duties were enlarged so as to authorize them, indeed they were instructed to consider the question of the possibility of storing the waters of the St. John and its tributaries so as to provide a more even flow of water, a greater flow during the dry season and so adding to the navigability and floatibility of the river, more especially for the purpose of lumber driving.
They have been engaged with engineers in taking the evidence of people who have had experience on the St. John river. They have had surveys made and have made an examination into the feasibility of constructing storage works and have devoted a good deal of time to the performance of the duties to which they were appointed. They have not submitted a report; but I had word a few days ago from the Canadian branch of the Commission stating that, if it was thought advisable, they would submit a preliminary report and asking my opinion. I wrote that I thought it would be well to have a preliminary report, that we might be informed of the work they have done up to the present time. I have no doubt that that report will soon be presented. As to whether their duties will cease on the appointment of this commission, I am not so sure; I should think that a matter for the consideration of the two governments. It might be-and I am at the moment inclined to think it would be-better that they should continue until they have completed the special work for which they have been appointed and have made a report. I do not imagine that it will take very much longer to complete the work. They have no authority to enter upon expenditure for storage or other works; they are an advisory body. We hope they will agree upon a recommendation to the two governments with regard not only to this question of the alleged obstruction of the St. John river by the works to which I have referred, but also on the question of erecting storage works to improve the navigability of the river.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Are they expected to decide whether the booms and other works
on the river which they were appointed to inquire into are obstructions and in contravention of the treaty?


William Pugsley: It will be quite within their power to express an opinion to the respective governments upon the question whether these works are obstructions or not.


John Waterhouse Daniel: But they have no power to order them away?


William Pugsley: No; they are simply to make a report for the information of the two governments.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Referring to the first clause of this article:-
It is agreed that, in addition to the uses, obstructions and diversions heretofore permitted or hereafter provided for-
And so on. Could it be held that these are obstructions that have been permitted, and so to be left there under this article, without leaving it open for the government of Canada to object?


William Pugsley: This would not affect the rights of the respective parties under the Ashburton Treaty.


Oswald Smith Crocket: What is meant by the words I have just read?


William Pugsley: That would mean, permitted by the two countries.


Oswald Smith Crocket: And would not apply to the case of the St. John river?


William Pugsley: I do not think it would.
The next article provides:-
The high contracting parties agree that, except in cases provided for by special agreement between them, they will not permit the construction or maintenance on their lospective sides of the boundary of any remed' ial or protective works or any dams or other obstructions in waters flowing from boundary waters or in waters at a lower level than the boundary in rivers flowing across the boundary, the effect of which is to raise the natural level of waters on the other side of the boundary unless the construction or maintenance thereof is approved by the aforesaid International Joint Commission.
It is further agreed that the waters herein defined as boundary waters and waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.
Here, the House will see, is another very important duty imposed on these commissioners. They are to inquire into any remedial works it is proposed to construct the effect of which would be to raise the level of the water upon the other side of the boundary than that on which they are constructed, and such works are not to be carried on without their consent. The

next provision is for the division of the water-power at Niagara.


Angus Claude Macdonell: In view of the special and onerous duties that this commission is to perform, I suppose the minister proposes to appoint able, skilled engineers having technical knowledge of the matters dealt with?


William Pugsley: The question of the appointees to the Commission has not come before the government for consideration. But I would agree with my hon. friend (Mr. Macdonell), that the duties and responsibilities of this Joint Commission will be so great that only men eminently fitted for the discharge of these duties should be appointed; I am sure my hon. friend will have enough confidence in the government to believe that when the time comes to make the appointments, the government will be guided by this consideration.


Angus Claude Macdonell: Will the minister please state who are the present members of the board?


William Pugsley: The Canadian members are: Mr. Gibbons, of London, Mr. Louis Coste, and Mr. Stewart, of Ottawa. The appointments are to be made by the imperial government, upon the recommendation, of course, of the governor in council.


Charles Alexander Magrath: I do not know whether the hon. minister wishes to discuss that feature of the matter now, or whether he would rather go through the treaty.


William Pugsley: I think it would be better to go through the treaty. The next provision, as I have said, is for the division of the waters at Niagara Palls. I need not go into that further than to say that it is provided that the United States may authorize the diversion of the waters above the Falls for power purposes to the extent of not more daily than at the rate of 20,000 cubic feet per second, while the United Kingdom, the Dominion, or the province may authorize the diversion to an extent not exceeding in the aggregate daily 36,000 cubic feet per second.


Charles Alexander Magrath: The Joint International Waterways Commission made recommendations regarding the Chicago Drainage Cana! which have not appeared in the treaty. Is the minister at liberty to state why their recommendations in that respect were not embodied in the treaty?


William Pugsley: I am not able to say. I am not familiar with the recommendations they made on that subject.
Article 6 is a very important article and one of special interest to the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and to the state of Montana. It is as follows:-


William Pugsley: The high contracting parties agree that the St. Mary and Milk rivers and their tributaries (in the state of Montana and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan) are to be treated as one stream for the purposes of irrigation and power, and the waters thereof shall be apportioned equally between the countries, but in making such equal apportionment more than half may be taken from one river and less than half from the other l.y either country so as to afford a more beneficial use to each. It is further agreed that in the division of such waters during the irrigation season, between the 1st of April and 31st of October, inclusive, annually the United States is entitled to a prior appropriation of 500 cubic feet per second of the waters of the Milk river, or so much of such amount as constituting three-fourths of its natural flow, and that Canada is entitled to a prior appropriation of 500 cubic feet per second of the flow of St. Mary river, or so much of such amount as constitutes three-fourths of its natural flow.
The channel of the Milk river in Canada may be used at the convenience of the United States for the conveyance, while passing through Canadian territory, of waters diverted from the St. Mary river. The provisions of article II. of this treaty shall apply to any injury resulting to property in Canada from the conveyance of such waters through the Milk river.
The measurement and apportionment of the water to be used by each country shall from time to time be made jointly by the properly constituted reclamation officers of the United States and the properly constituted irrigation officers of His Majesty under the direction of the International Joint Commission.
I think the mere reading of that article will show how important will be the duties which this commission will have to perform with respect to the control of the apportionment of the waters of the Milk! and St. Mary's rivers. The intention of the high contracting parties as expressed in the treaty is that the waters of the two rivers are to be treated as if they were one river, and that in making an equal apportionment the commissioners shall have in mind where the waters of one stream may be used to the best advantage, and may apportion more than one-half of one portion of the stream, or of one of the streams, to one country, and less than' one-half to the other, and more than half of the other stream to the country which gets the least amount of the first-mentioned stream, so that there may be an equal apportionment of the waters of the two streams between the people of the twd countries. This is a work which must be carefully attended to, and which will require the services of experts; and it is all important that the work shall be dond in such a manner as to satisfy the people' of the two countries in order to prevent the irrigation which would naturally arise if there was a feeling on either side that any injustice was being done. I may say

for the information of the committee, that these two streams both take their rise in United States territory. The St. Mary's river rises in the mountains and runs to the northward, flowing later on into the Saskatchewan river. The Milk river also rises in the United States, not very far from the source of the St. Mary's river. It flows northeasterly across the Canadian boundary, flows easterly for about one hundred miles, then flows again to the south, passing through United States territory, and it empties into the Missouri river. So in the absence of a treaty, and if it were recognized that either country could assert its rights to the waters so far as they were within the territory of such country, the United States, if it chose to exercise those rights, might have diverted the waters of both of those rivers before they enter into Canadian territory, carry them eastward into the Marias river, and so on down to the Missouri, and thus deprive the people of Alberta of the right to use any portion of those waters which have their source in the United States.


Robert Laird Borden: I would like to see some authority for the position that they can do that under the principles of international law.	[DOT]


William Pugsley: My own opinion is that there is no question about their right to do it, unless by so doing they interfered in some way with navigation in the adjoining country.


Robert Laird Borden: What difference in principle is there between the' right of navigation and the right to use for other purposes)? I cannot see the distinction. If they can divert so as to interfere with the use of it for irrigation, why can they not interfere with its use for navigation? What difference is there in principle? The principle which would forbid it in both cases is this, that the river runs partly through the territory of one sovereign power and partly through the territory of another sovereign power, that' both have rights in it, and that neither one of those countries can use that water to the detriment of the other. That has always been my idea. I would like to see some authority for the position the min-ter takes.


William Pugsley: I think my hon. friend will find that the recognition of the international right to complain of the diversion of waters before they pass into its territory depends entirely upon the question of navigation. I am satisfied that if my hon. friend looks up the authorities he will find that that is the only case in which the sovereign right of a country is disputed. It is recognized that it pertains
to the sovereign right of a country to deal with waters in its own territory, just as it would deal with any other species of property, and that right, under international law, is subject to this one consideration^ that if diversion interferes with the waters in that country, if it interferes or materially affects navigation in the territory further down, the government of the country \shose navigation has been affected has a right to complain under the principles of international law against such diversion. I am satisfied my hon. friend will find that the right is limited wholly to cases where it is alleged that navigation has been seriously interfered with.


Robert Laird Borden: It is plain so far
as navigation is concerned that it cannot be interfered with. Both countries have rights, and neither, one can interfere with the rights of the other. I find, on looking at some of the authorities, that two or three hundred years ago the country through which the lower part of any such river ran, claimed and at one time exercised the right to prevent access to the sea by the inhabitants of the country through which the upper part of the stream ran. But that has all been done away with.


William Pugsley: That deals with navigation.


Robert Laird Borden: I understand that. But what I cannot understand, and what I cannot find any authority for, after looking up the books for the last half hour, is that any country has such an exclusive right to deal with the waters of an international river. I admit that I cannot find any authority so far which says that one country cannot divert, but, on the other band, I cannot find any authority which says that any country can divert to the detriment of the other. Therefore, there being no authority so far as I can find either way, I would think that the same principle which applies to navigation of the stream would also, according to sound logic, apply to the diversion of the waters of a stream, and in the absence of any authority to the contrary I would consider that to be the law.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend will rind a very valuable opinion given by the attorney general of the United States in a question which came up on the complaint of the government of Mexico against a diversion of a portion of the Rio Grande riveT. The question is well reasoned, and put distinctly on this ground, that it would be an interference with the sovereign right of a nation, with the right of sovereignty in a nation, for any other country to say: You shall not deal as you like with the waters in your own country, your legislature shall not have power to deal with

waters in your own country, and the right to complain upon the ground that navigation is interfered with, is an exception which is engrafted on to that principle of the recognition of the sovereign right of each country to deal with waters in its own territory. My hon. friend, I think, will find no case anywhere in which anv country has claimed to interfere with the sovereign right of another country except in cases where it is alleged that diversion has interfered with navigation-unless it may be in the case of the government of Mexico, which asserted that a whole town was destroyed, a beautiful and flourishing town,- because it was inundated by the waters either of the Rio Grande or a branch of the Rio Grande. The United States Congress, or one of the state legislatures, permitted the diversion of that water over their part of the territory, the result of which was to turn that beautiful section of Mexican territory almost into a desert. A complaint was made to the government of the United States, and the opinion of the attorney general was, a very well reasoned opinion, that it would be an interference with the sovereign right of the United States if it were to recognize that any other country had the right to say what it should permit with regard to waters in its own territory. It is laid down that no country could tolerate such interference or complaint upon the part of any other country.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not know what argument might have been made by the Attorney General of the United States. I would pay as much respect to that as the reasoning contained in it would demand, but I would not regard the argument of the Attorney General of the # United States, made with respect to a matter in controversy between his own government and the government of Mexico, as absolutely conclusive of the international law upon this subject. I repeat that I can see no distinction between rights which must be respected by reason of the use of a river for navigation and Tights which ought to be respected by reason of the use of the waters of a river for other purposes. My hon. friend has not pointed out any distinction. He says it is a matter that appertains to the sovereign rights of a state, but he must remember that we are speaking of rivers which in the natural course of the configuration of the country, run into the territory of another state which has equal sovereign rights with respect to the waters of that river when they come within its boundaries. The point for which my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works contends is a very important one. He has alluded to one case where a very considerable- portion of territory was rendered absolutely unproductive. His position then would be that a portion of Alberta in this Dominion, which Mr. PUGSLEY.
depends for its fertility upon waters that have their rise in the United States, could be absolutely destroyed and rendered unfit for navigation simply because those waters took their rise in the United States before they flowed into Canada. With all respect to my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works, I doubt very much if this position could be maintained. It certainly has no analogy whatever to the ordinary rule as between individuals within any sovereign state because they may use the waters that run through their lands, but they may not use them to the detriment of those above or below them. They may use them in the ordinary course. If you argue from that as to similar rights existing between sovereign powers through the territories of both of which a particular river runs, you find that the same principle should apply not only as to navigation, but also as to the use of the water of the river for any reasonable purpose that might be required by the in-' habitants in one country or the other. I do not feel myself bound at all by the opinion of the Attorney General of the United States making an argument for the interest of his own country in the matter that has been alluded to.


William Pugsley: My view is that it would be an act of discourtesy which would be greater or less depending upon the extent of the waters which were diverted, but it would not be a casus belli. It would not be a ground upon which the government would feel warranted in taking hostile action against the government which authorized such a diversion to take place. It is different in the case of navigation. That is what I mean and I am sure that my hon. friend will not find any authority which holds that it is contrary to international law to make that diversion. However, perhaps, that is not so material now because we have provided by this treaty, or those who have had to do with the making of the treaty, have provided that there shall be an equal division of the water, that even though they naturally take their rise in the United States the water shqll be equally divided between the two countries. Then, as St. Mary's river is used quite largely for irrigation purposes in Alberta, it is provided that in the dry seasons the seasons when the water is most needed, there shall be a prior right to 500 cubic feet per second bn the St. Mary's river by the people of Alberta and there shall be 500 cubic feet prior right to the people of the United States oh the Milk river. We have secured the prior right in the water which is most important to the people of Alberta and we have allowed the United States to take the prior right in the river, namely, the Milk river, which, no doubt, has been thought to be of importance to the people of the United States, but which certainly is of very much

less importance to the people of Canada. However, I referred particularly to this article in order to show the important duties which these commissioners have to perform and as being one reason why we are asking what some might regard as a liberal salary for them. I think that even that one article would, if the commissioners had no other duties to perform, show that it would be important to have men of very great capacity and of good judgment and who would be prepared to give to the consideration of these questions the very greatest possible care.


Charles Alexander Magrath: From what the hon. gentleman says I should judge that he is satisfied that the arrangement is fair to Canada. I have no intention to discuss it.


William Pugsley: Yes, I am, and I may say to my hon. friend before agreeing to the terms of the treaty the government gave a great deal of consideration to it. This article 6 particularly was the subject of very careful inquiry. We did not depend solely upon the information which we had from our officials, but we went outside and got information from those who were best capable of passing judgment upon the question. I can assure my hon. friend that we came, after the most careful consideration and after very full inquiry, to the conclusion that the treaty was eminently fair to Canada and that if there was any advantage to either country that advantage certainly was not against the people of Canada. Perhaps my hon. friend would think it better to discuss it later.


Charles Alexander Magrath: I have no intention of discussing it. The hon. gentleman has stated that they have gone outside to get information. They managed to go considerably outside and away from gentlemen who understood the situation in order to get the information.


William Pugsley: Where is that?


Charles Alexander Magrath: Did the hon. gentleman call in any of the people who live in the immediate neighbourhood to tell him what they knew about the situation?


William Pugsley: Yes.


Charles Alexander Magrath: Whom? Will the hon. gentleman tell me?


William Pugsley: One gentleman was Mr. J. S. Dennis, who has been for twenty years prominently connected with work in that western country, who for many years has been prominently connected with irrigation work and has been in charge of the irrigation work of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. I think my hon. friend will not question his judgment.


Charles Alexander Magrath: I think, as the hon. gentleman is going to have a Bill before the House, probably it would be well to discuss it at a future day.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Who represented Canada in the negotiation of this treaty?


William Pugsley: The British ambassador and Mr. George C. Gibbons, chairman of the Deep Waterways Commission. That is speaking as a general thing. My hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ayles-worth) and myself also attended at Washington to confer with the British ambassador upon this subject. This was in reference to certain questions which arose during the consideration of the draft treaty.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not think that any of you were very great experts on the Milk river or the St. Mary's river, if I may venture to say so much.


William Pugsley: The great advantage the country had was that we did not think that we knew more than we did, and we sought to get the very best possible information from those who did know.


Robert Laird Borden: Whom?


William Pugsley: We were advised by Mr. Campbell.


Robert Laird Borden: Who is he?


William Pugsley: He is one of the experts of the department of the Interior. We were advised by Dr. King who has a very extensive knowledge of that section of the country; we were advised by Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, whose company owns a very large portion of the stock of the Alberta Irrigation Company, which is the only large company operating on the Canadian side of the boundary. We consulted with and were advised by Mr. Dennis, who, above all men in Canada, has had experience in irrigation work, and who has enjoyed for years in the very highest degree the confidence of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, in connection with the system of irrigation which they are carrying on in the province of Alberta. We were willing to get advice wherever we could get that advice from experts. We brought to bear the very best judgment we could, and I say without hesitation, that Article 6 is eminently fair to Canada, that it protects the rights of the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and if there is any advantage at all in it, it is not against the people of Canada.


Charles Alexander Magrath: In view of the positiveness of the minister as to the fairness of Article 6 to Canada, I want to say that I know more about that question than he does, not that I claim to be more intelligent than the hon. gentleman


William Pugsley: I would be glad, if the hon. gentleman is going to make a speech, that he would first hear what I have to say.


Charles Alexander Magrath: I can express my views in a very few words to the committee. The hon. minister has positively stated that that article 6 is fair to Canada, and that he has had expert testimony which has enabled him to reach that conclusion. I entirely disagree with him. I am not going to make a speech, but I wish to say that I am just as positive on the other side, and I wish to go on record now that in my judgment, the hon. gentleman is entirely wrong in the view he holds.


William Pugsley: I shall be glad to hear the reason for my hon. friends opinion at the proper time. Article 8 makes provision for the priority of the various uses to which the waters may be put, and Article 9 is a very important one and it provides
The high contracting parties further agree that any other questions or matters of difference arising between them involving the rights, obligations, or interests of either in relation to the other or to the inhabitants of the other, along the common frontier between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, shall be referred from time to time to the International Joint Commission for examination and report, whenever either the government of the United States or the government of the Dominion of Canada shall request that such questions or matters of difference be so referred.
Hon. gentlemen will see that it is a very far reaching provision, and one which, if the commissioners are qualified for the performance of their duties, will be likely to make for peaceable relations between the two countries in the future. It provides that outside of this question of boundary waters, there may be referred to these commissioners any other questions or matters of difference which involve the rights obligations or interests of either party along the common frontier, between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, and that reference may be made by either country without the consent of the other.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Whether it relates to waterways or not.


William Pugsley: Whether it relates to waterways or not. If any question arises which in the absence of a treaty might lead to irritation between the two countries, either country may have the question submitted to the International Joint Commission, and that question must go to the commission whether either country desires it or not. In article 10 still wider provision is made and it reads:
Any questions or matters of difference arising between the high contracting parties in-Mr. MAGRATH.
volving the rights, obligations, or interests of the United States or of the Dominion of Canada either in relation to each other or to their respective inhabitants, mav be referred for decision to the International Joint Commission by the consent of the two parties, it being understood that on the part of the United States any such action will be by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and on the part of His Majesty's government with the consent of the Governor General in Council. In each case so referred, the said commission is authorized to examine into and report upon the facts and circumstances of the particular questions and matters referred, together with such conclusions and recommendations as may be appropriate, subject, however, to any restrictions or exceptions which may be imposed with respect thereto by the terms of the reference.
You see there is first the provision that all these questions relating to boundary waters shall be referred to this commission; then it is provided that any questions arising in respect to the rights or obligations of either country along the frontier may be referred, at the request of either country, not with the consent of both, but by the wish of either. Then it goes still further and provides that any question whatever, whether relating to the frontier or to boundary waters, or to whatever it may relate, may be referred by the two countries to this tribunal. It is in a small way, perhaps not so small a way after all, a sort of a Hague tribunal to which may be referred by the consent of both parties all such questions of whatever nature or kind, which may arise between the United States and the Dominion of Canada. Then it is provided by this article:
A majority of the said commission shall have power to render a decision or finding upon any of the questions or matters so referred.
If the said commission is equally divided or otherwise unable to render a decision or finding as to any questions or matters so referred, it shall be the duty of the commissioners to make a joint report to both governments, or separate reports to their respective governments, showing the different conclusions arrived at with regard to the matter or questions so referred, which questions or matters shall thereupon be referred for decision by the high contracting parties to an umpire chosen in accordance with the procedure prescribed in the fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs of Article XLV. of the Hague Convention for the pacific settlement of international disputes, dated October 18, 1907. Such umpire shall have power to render a final decision with respect to those matters and questions so referred on which the commission failed to agree.
Now, I think Mr. Chairman, that hon. gentlemen will agree with me that if this commission is what we hope it will be; if the gentlemen who are appointed on the part of the United States, and of the British government-the latter, of course, to be appointed on the recommendation of the Gov-

ernor in Council-if they are the right men, and if they proceed to discharge their duties animated by a desire not alone to defend the interests of the country which they represent, but to recognize the rights of the neighbouring country, it seems to me that this tribunal will be a most important one in making for permanent peace between these adjoining nations. We know that without some such tribunal, having this vast frontier extending between the Atlantic and the Pacific, there are likely in the future to be questions in regard to which the people of the two countries would not be likely to see eye to eye, and therefore it is of the very greatest possible importance that there should be a tribunal to which these questions may be referred from time to time for settlement. I think this is a great step forward in the direction of securing permanent peace between the two countries. The treaty further provides that the government of the United States shall appoint three members of the commission and the British government shall also appoint three members upon the recommendation of the Governor in Council. It is also provided that each section of the commission shall appoint its secretary, and that the commission may appoint such other parties, engineers, and others, -as may be necessary in order to enable them to properly discharge their duties, and also, that any expenses which are incurred by the joint order of the United States section and the Canadian section, shall be borne equally by the two countries.
I have not referred to the clause which was added to this treaty at the instance of the Senate of the United States, as I do not think it necessary to do so. My object now is not so much to justify the conclusion of this treaty as it is to endeavour to show the committee that, the treaty being concluded, the duties of the commission will be important, and that therefore the House ought to entrust the government with sufficient funds to enable them to secure men who will be fit for the discharge of the important duties which, under the treaty, will be entrusted to them. I may say, however, with regard to that clause which was added as a rider to the treaty at the instance of the Senate of the United States, that in the opinion of the Minister of Justice, who gave the matter very careful consideration, it in no way took away or disturbed the Tights of any of the people of Canada, It simply preserved certain private rights, just as the treaty leaves the private rights of the people of Canada at the Sault as they were before, and, after consideration, the Minister of Justice gave the opinion that there was nothing in that which ought to interfere with the Canadian government approving of the treaty. Now, having explained the provisions of the treaty, I 29*
think hon. gentlemen will agree with me that if we are to have the treaty carried out satisfactorily to the people of Canada, it is desirable that we should get the very best men who are available for the purpose.


Oswald Smith Crocket: What is to be the tenure of their appointment?


William Pugsley: They will be appointed at the pleasure of His Majesty. The resolution provides that the salary shall not exceed $7,500 per annum, which, considering the duties they have to perform, will not be considered excessive.


John Waterhouse Daniel: How long will the treaty last?


William Pugsley: It will last for five years and thereafter until terminated by either party on 12 months' notice. I trust that the results of the treaty and the manner in which it will be administered on the part of both countries will be such that it will last, if not for ever, at least for many generations.


John Waterhouse Daniel: If I understand the minister correctly, this treaty does not contemplate any compensation being made to Canada or to any province thereof on account of the diversion from the St. John river of the Allegash water, which naturally ought to flow into it. The minister stated that it was generally recognized as a principle of international law that the country in which a river originated had sovereign rights over the water in that river and could divert that water to any purpose it pleased. _


William Pugsley: Unless it interfered with navigation.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Well, I take it that the people of New Brunswick never consented to any such principle as that. If my memory is correct, I think the people interested in the River St. John, into which the Allegash naturally ought to flow, at one time blew up the dam on the Allegash river, which was preventing the water of that river from flowing into the St. John river. It has been a source of quarrel and irritation ever since Maine people attempted to divert the water of the Allegash into the Penobscot river. The minister's statement, which I presume is correct, will be a great disappointment to the people who are interested in having as large a flow of water in that portion of the St. John river as possible, because the diversion of the water of the Allegash has very materially interfered with the navigation of that stream. Of course, the treaty has been signed, and any debate on it now goes for nothing. But it certainly does emphasize the importance of the people who are specially interested in a treaty such as this

being consulted before it is finally signed and made law. However, the treaty has been made and is not laid before parliament until after it has been signed, sealed and delivered; and this parliament, which ought to have something to say as to a treaty of this kind, has really had nothing whatever to say with regard to its various clauses. I do not think it is a good way to start making treaties on behalf of Canada. Where a treaty of so much importance is undertaken by the government of this country, although nominally made between His Majesty and the United States, this parliament at least ought to be consulted and have something to say with regard to its terms.


Robert Laird Borden: I would like to say to my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works that he evidently had not examined all the authorities when he made the rather sweeping statement that no authority could be found in opposition to the view which he presented very forcibly to the committee. I have in my hand the first volume of a treatise on international law by Prof. Oppenheim, a very well known and able writer and lecturer on international law. This gentleman is Lecturer in Public International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), and a member of the faculty of Economics and Political Science of the University of London, and formerly Professor Ordinarius of Law in the University of Basle, Switzerland. In the preface to the book he says:

I have nearly always taken pains to put other opinions, if any, before my readers. I have been carefeul to avoid pronouncing rules as established which are not yet settled. My book is intended to present international law as it is, not as it ought to be.
All through the book where there is any doubt as to any particular doctrine, he always presents the doubt. I am indebted for reference to this authority to my hon. friend from St. Anne (Mr. Doherty). On page 175 my hon. friend will find this:-
Just like independence territorial supremacy does not give a boundless liberty of action. Thus, by customary international law every state has a right to demand that its merchantmen can pass through the maritime belt of other states. Thus, further, navigation on so called international rivers in Europe must be open to merchantmen of all states. Thus, thirdly, foreign monarchs and envoys, foreign men-of-war, and foreign armed forces must be granted exterritoriality. Thus, fourthly, through the right of protection over citizens abroad which is held according to customary international law by every state, a state cannot treat foreign citizens passing or residing on its territory arbitrarily according to discretion as it might treat its own subjects; it cannot, for instance, compel them to 6erve in its army or navy. Thus, to give another and fifth example, a state is, in spite of its Mr. DANIEL.	j	l
territorial supremacy, not allowed to alter the natural conditions of its own territory to the disadvantage of the natural conditions of the territory of a neighbouring state-for instance, to stop or to divert the flow of a river which runs from its own into neighbouring territory.
Exactly the point we have been debating this afternoon and a direct authority against the position which the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) has taken.


William Pugsley: Is that not in the case of a navigable river?


Robert Laird Borden: It says nothing of the kind, I will read it again. It cannot mean what my hon. friend sugv gests it means, because the very second example he gave was that navigation on international rivers in Europe must be open to the merchant men of all states. He is dealing with something else, something fuller and more comprehensive.
Thus to give another and fifth example, a state is, in spite of its territorial supremacy, not allowed to alter the natural conditions of its own territory to the disadvantage of the natural conditions of the territory of a neighbouring state-for instance, to stop or to divert the flow of a river which runs from its own into a neighbouring territory.
If the writer of this book had intended to use language absolutly descriptive of the very point we are debating now he could not have used any more apt for that purpose. It seems to me that the Minister of Public Works and the government must have been altogether too much influenced by the opinion of the Attorney' General of the United States in the Mexican case to which he refers and must have accepted as a thoroughly reliable statement of international law what was, after all, only an argument made by the Attorney General of the United States in opposition to a claim for damages from Mexico., I would be inclined to think that the government in entering into this treaty have! had a wrong impression as to the international law on this subject. The Minister of Public Works took pains to state that the rule of international law as he understood it was embodied in the terms of this treaty except that a right of action was provided. It would appear that international law is not embodied in the terms of this treaty, that a very different principle is laid down and recognized by this treaty, one for which my hon. friend says the United States has made contention in the past, notably in the case of a dispute with Mexico to which he alluded. I do not know that there is any particular reason why we should have been led in this particular case to accept as a true statement of international law that which was simply an argument, a brief for the*

United States, put forward by its Attorney General, whose duty it was to put forward that argument in the way which best might serve to maintain the interests of the United States. I think that my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works has not made good his position or the position of the government ; he has merely made it apparent to the House that the government, in entering into this treaty, have done so with not very much regard to international law, and as far as they did have any regard thereto, under a very thorough misapprehension as to the rules of civilized nations with regard to this subject.


William Pugsley: The hon. member for St. John (Mr. Daniel) rather assumes that in some way this treaty interferes with the situation so far as the Allegash river is concerned. It does not touch at all the Allegash river, it only deals with boundary waters, with the exception of the Milk and St. Mary's, which are especially provided for.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Boundary waters and waters flowing into them.


William Pugsley: Oh, no. The preliminary article is as follows.


Haughton Lennox: The minister said a short time ago it had settled that question.


William Pugsley: I said it had so far as navigation is concerned, that is to say navigation cannot by interfered with,_ but that is a right which is reserved. My statement is that the treaty expressly provides, by the preliminary article, that it does not deal with waters flowing into a boundary water. To make that plainer still, it expressly provides that nothing in_ tile treaty shall take away the right of either country to protest against any interference with navigation.


John Waterhouse Daniel: What does the first clause in Article II mean?


William Pugsley: That each of the high contracting parties reserves all its right, that is the right to control the waters on its own side of the line. That is, by this treaty, each country reserves its right to deal with waters on its own side of the boundary line but it is recognized that it cannot deal with them in such a way as to interfere with navigation. I wish to make it clear that so far as the Allegash is concerned, this treaty does not come in at all, it leaves the question of diversion exactly where it was before. If that diversion interferes, as when I was a member of the provincial government I always contended it did interfere and as I contend to-day it did interfere with the navigation of the St. John river, this treaty
does not alter the right of the people of New Brunswick or of Canada or the government of Canada to protest against that diversion. This, however, is a diversion which took place some fifty years ago. When the diversion was fresh .before the government of the country, I presume representations were made to the British government on the subject. I presume the British government did not take it to be a casus belli, the ground for taking a hostile attitude towards the United States; it was allowed to remain and for forty years before this government came into power this diversion continued. This treaty leaves those rights exactly as they were before, it does not take away the right of the people or of the government to protest just as from time to time they have protested in the past.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Does it place in the hands of the Joint Waterways Commission power to hear these complaints and remedy them? If they find they are worthy or to endeavour to remedy them as far as the Allegash is concerned.


William Pugsley: I would think it does so far as it might interfere with navigation.
In answer to the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden, Halifax) I think he does the government injustice when he says that we have proceeded upon a wrong theory so far as this treaty is concerned. Now, my hon. friend ought to remember,
I think, that what I pointed out was that the United States, in the case of the Republic of Mexico, had taken the ground that they had the sovereign right to divert for purposes of irrigation the water flowing through the United States and into Mex; can territory. But that they have the right to do this was not the mere opinion of the attorney general; it was the deliberate action of the government of the United States. Now, does my hon. friend suggest for a moment that, if the United States government had diverted the waters of the St. Mary's river or of the Milk river, the British government would have gone to war with the United States because of that diversion? He must recognize that it was the settled determination of the United States to maintain the sovereign right to do as they pleased with the waters of their own country, except so far as it might interfere with navigation in the neighbouring country.


Robert Laird Borden: Does the minister mean that because the United States insisted that that was the principle of international law we must admit at once that it was the principle of international law?


William Pugsley: No, I do not say that.


Robert Laird Borden: Then, what do s the minister mean?


William Pugsley: I say that, in my opinion, the United States is right in that contention.
Mr. BORDEN (Halifax;. Has the government accepted that contention?


William Pugsley: No, the treaty is not framed on that theory. I was presenting that view as a reason why this treaty might be regarded even as more satisfactory . than one might regard it simply having reference to its terms, and if one were to take that view of international rights and obligations. What I said before, and what I say now, is that, apart altogether from the question of the right of either country to divert water, this provision under Article VI. is eminently fair to both countries because it provides, in respect of both these streams which take_ their rise in the United States and pass through Canadian territory, that the water shall be equally divided between the two countries, and that such division shall take place under the direction of this International Joint Commission which shall have power to divide them from time to time so as to give the most beneficial use possible to the people of both countries. So. altogether apart from the question of international rights, this treaty affords us, so far as the St. Mary's and Milk rivers are concerned, provisions eminently fair and calculated to do complete justice to the people of the two countries. I move the adoption of the resolution.


Robert Laird Borden: We shall come to the fairness of the provisions by and by -it may be that we could not get very far with that to-night. But the minister said, over and over again, that the principle laid down and recognized in Article 2 was a well known principle of international law. I challenged him on that point and asked for his authority. I got his reply in the reference to the attitude of the United States with regard to Mexico. I challenged him later on, and he said it would be impossible to produce any authority to sustain the contention which I respectfully put forward with all possible deference to the opposite view which he had stated. He has the authority now, and I do not think he can produce any authority in opposition to it. That indicates that the Minister of Public Works, who appears to have been particularly acting for the government in this matter, entered into the treaty without a due regard to the ordinary .principles of international law, and that it would have been better for the government to examine, have examined that matter thoroughly. Had they done so, they might have arrived at a different conclusion as to whether the article is or is not a fair settlement of the question so far as this country is concerned. However, we can discuss that later.


Robert Laird Borden: 


Mr. AYLESWORTH.: I take, with each one of my colleagues, the fullest responsibility for recommending the acceptance of the treaty which is under consideration. The question which had to be considered as a practical question, in coming to a conclusion on that point, was, whether or not we were better off with such an international arrangement as this is, than we should be without any at all. It is all very well for the learned leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), to cite us the opinion of a very well known text writer, stating that a nation is not allowed to divert a river which crosses the boundary between its territory and that of another nation, if such diversion will injure property the territory of the down-stream nation. That is a very good principle ; it is exactly the principle of law which would be enforced as between an up-stream riparian owner, who was seeking to divert, and a down-stream riparian owner, who was to be hurt by it, if the two properties were in the same country. But how are you going to enforce such a provision of international law-if it be a settled principle of international law-when the property injured is in a different country from that in which the diversion takes place? Now, on this very point as to the effect of a diversion in the up-stream, a case came before the existing Waterways Commission. An undertaking in the state of Minnesota desired to do just what was done in the case of the Allegash lake or river. Water flowed in the state of Minnesota from a natural source, into the Rainy river, to ultimately find its way to the ocean through the water's of Hudson's bay.. This undertaking, being authorized thereto by the legislature of Minnesota, was proposing to take that water over an intervening height of land, and, by artificial means, carry it to the southward so that it would flow into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. That diversion was objected to on the part of Canadian riparian owners, and, in view of the objection, the existing Waterways Commission considered that very subject and came to the conclusion-the United States members of the commission agreeing-that-such a diversion ought not to take place. That was prior to this treaty altogether. That question and the reasons for the conclusion which the Waterways Commission came to, is to be found in one of their annual reports. And just by reason of that conclusion of the commission when it came to be a matter of discussing the terms of this proposed arrangement with the United States, Mr. Root, as Secretary of State of the United States, took the highest possible ground, that he would not agree to it. And it was just in this position that we could not get the stipulation which would have carried out the rule of law as to flowing wiater which is undoubtedly to

be applied supposing the riparian owners are in the same country. We thought that, inasmuch as the common law oi England is the basis alike of the law of all our Canadian provinces, except Quebec, and of the various boundary states of the United States, we might well appeal to that common law and might well urge that, just as in either Ontario -or any of the border states of the Union no downstream owner would be allowed to be in jured by an up-stream diversion, nor any up-stream owner allowed to be flooded out and submerged by some down-stream obstruction, so the same rule ought to apply in all flowing streams whether flowing out of the United States into Canada or out of Canada into the United States. And, speaking for myself, I will say at once, that I would have been much better pleased if that rule had been applied.
But when you are making a bargain of any kind, whether it be an international treaty or a compromise between two individuals, you have got to get the best terms you can secure, and frequently you have to compromise, and do a considerable amount of give and take. Now, we could not induce the representatives of the United States in this matter to go the length we would like to go, the length of declaring the principle of common law that water flows and ought to be allowed to flow. But we have induced them to go a considerable distance. Supposing they had been willing to affirm the principle that I have alluded to, and to declare that there should be no diversion, then what would have been the remedy? The right of the down-stream man would have been either to prevent a diversion up stream which would hurt him, or to have compensation paid him for injury if that diversion was allowed to take place. We could not induce the United States to go the length of preventing the injury, of giving our Canadian down-stream owner a right to enjoin the intended diversion up-stream. It was said that no diversion could take place except by legislative authority, no matter whether that diversion was in Canada or in the United States, and it is not right that a sovereign legislature, whether in Canada or the United States, should be restrained from doing what it thinks is in the interest of its people. Therefore there cannot be any question of preventing a diversion if a legislature decides upon it. But wherever a diversion takes place, on whichever side of the boundary, if the effect is to injure the property of a riparian down-stream owner in the other country, we will agree to put that man in exactly the same position he would have been in if there had been no boundary at all. If there had been no boundary, if that property, instead of being the first lot, if you please, on
the Canadian side of the boundary, had been the last lot on the United States side, the owner could not prevent the up-stream diversion because it was 'something permitted by his legislature. You could not expect to put the Canadian down-stream owner on a higher footing than the United States down-stream owner himself. If the diversion is permitted up-stream by authority of the legislature of one of the United States, then no down-stream man can prevent it, but he is entitled to compensation. The agreement is: We will put the Canadian down-stream man on precisely the same footing and give him precisely the same rights to compensation as United States citizens have, put him exactly in the position he would have been in if the boundary had been away to the north of him, instead of between him and.the diversion, or putting the boot on the other foot, it would have been perfectly possible in a physical situation for Canadians to have obstructed the waters of the Milk river where they flow through Canada, or to have taken out for irrigation, or other purposes, such quantities of those waters as would have been an injury to the United States riparian owners further down the Milk river after it returns across the 49th parallel into the United States. Now, if it were something not specially provided for in the 6th clause of this treaty, if we had only the 2nd clause, if they did that, they would be liable for damages exactly as if the whole stream had been in the one territory. They could not prevent it, no injunction would lie to restrain them. But in either point of view the citizen on each side of the boundary line is put exactly on the same footing, and looking at the thing from that standpoint, it seems fair. I fully concede, as I have said, that if we could have got the right to prevent diversions, even though that would have subjected us in Canada, to some restraint upon diversions we might like to make, I would have been personally better pleased, and would have thought that it was more fully carrying out the principle of the common law. But unable to get that, we have got certainly the next best thing, and a very great advance upon nothing at all, because if there had been no treaty you could not have prevented the United States doing these very same things. It is all very well to cite Oppenheim to them, but what do they care for Oppenheim when there* is no court to enforce the rules of law he lays down? You could not have any redress short of an agreement to go to the Hague. The utmost we could do would be to expostulate, to complain, to grumble, to protest, and what good would it have done us? I think, taking a practical view of the situation, that it was wiser to take what we could get than to refuse and get anything at all.


Robert Laird Borden: The argument of the Minister of Justice, when it is reduced to its last analysis, seems to amount to this; whatever the attitude of the United States may be with regard to matters of great international import, we are obliged to accept it, because we can do nothing but expostulate. The present is perhaps not a very serious illustration. The United States have taken very high ground in international matters before ; we have not always accepted it. They took the ground that they had a right to capture Canadian vessels on the high seas on the theory that the Behring sea was a mare clausum, but that was not accepted. There was expostulation, and the expostulation eventually was so effective that the matter was referred to an impartial tribunal. I am not pretending for a moment to say that this is a case which equals in gravity the one to which I have alluded, but they are much alike in principle. I would not be inclined exactly to accept the view which the Minister of Justice puts forward, namely that when an attitude is taken by the United States in disregard of accepted authorities on international law, we are obliged to recognize that as a sound position simply because if we do not, nothing will be left to us but to expostulate.


Wilfrid Laurier: 
Charles Alexander Magrath: Before the resolution is carried I want to say a few words about the resolution itself. I am pleased that the discussion on the treaty for the present is disposed of, because it is not an agreeable subject with me, and in so far as I am concerned, in regard to the resolution providing $75,000 for this service, I am quite prepared to support it. These commissioners are going to be called upon to look after the inter-

ests of this country in one of its greatest assets. We want to secure men on that commission whose scientific attainments enable them to look into the faces of men prepared to do business for any other country, I am not going to suggest to the committee that to-morrow morning $7,500 per year is going to be a target for men throughout this country looking for jobs. I merely want to place myself on record now before that commission is appointed. I am quite satisfied that the individual members should get $7,500 a year, but I ask the government to keep that feature in mind and to get scientific men who can stand up and face the representatives of the United States and do business for this country. I feel, Mr. Chairman, and I feel very strongly in connection with this treaty we have been discussing that that feature was not sufficiently looked after.


John Dowsley Reid: Will these commissioners have the power to grant the right to dam a navigable stream such as the St. Lawrence, say at the Long Sault or the Cedar rapids, without coming to parliament?


William Pugsley: My hon. friend surely does not feel it necessary to ask that question. There is nothing in the treaty which gives the Joint Commission the power to authorize the damming of the St. Lawrence. That authority could only be given by this parliament and all that this treaty provides for is that even if this parliament *were to give authority then, in so far as boundary waters are concerned, there must be the approval of the Joint Commission.


John Dowsley Reid: I am glad to hear that. It was rumoured that they would have such power.


Wilfrid Laurier: Do not believe rumours.


John Waterhouse Daniel: I would like to know if the minister will lay the regulations or instructions that the commission will receive on the table of the House, or make parliament acquainted with them.


William Pugsley: That would be entirely the right thing to do. I can assure my hon. friend that any regulations which may be made and which will necessarily be made by the Governor General in Council will be submitted to parliament.


John Waterhouse Daniel: And the instructions to the commissioners?


William Pugsley: Yes.


John Dowsley Reid: I do not understand this exactly yet. Take, for instance, the Long Sault with regard to which we had so much trouble last year. If the United States decide to dam what is called
the South Sault rapids which are entirely on the American side of the river-in fact the whole of the Long Sault rapids are on the American side with the exception of a very small portion on the Canadian side- can they do so, if they get the approval of this commission?


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: They can do it now without the approval of anybody.


John Dowsley Reid: As I understand it you cannot dam any part of the St. Lawrence river without the consent of both countries-Canada and the United States, the South Sault is a navigable part of the St. Lawrence river, and this same company which wants to dam the St. Lawrence at the Long Sault now intends, I am told, to dam it at the South Sault. If they get the consent of the state of New York to that and also the consent of this commission, will it be unnecessary for them to get the consent of this parliament.


William Pugsley: I think it is clear that they could not do it hereafter unless they can do it now, without coming to this parliament. This treaty is restrictive, not permissive. It does not give to any company any right which it does not now enjoy, and in order that the rights of the people of both countries shall be safeguarded it is provided that these questions shall be submitted to the International Joint Commission. No person and no company can get any power from this commission to do what by law they are not authorized to do. They must come either to the legislature of the state of New York or to this parliament and get authority to place any works in that boundary river. Were it not for this treaty they probably could get the authority from the legislature or parliament of either country to construct works upon their own side of the river, but no company can get any authority in that respect from this Joint Commission. As I say, it is restrictive and not permissive, and it is intended to safeguard the public interest by providing that even after legislative authority is obtained they must submit their plans to the commission and get the approval of the commission. But, this commission cannot give any authority or any approval unless authority is first obtained from the legislature having power to grant it.


John Dowsley Reid: There is the North Sault, where the Richelieu and Ontario steamers go down, and there is the South Sault rapids, which are run every day by smaller steamers of say 200 tons burden. I am informed by competent legal authority here that if the United States give authority to dam the St. Lawrence or any navigable stream on their side of the river, if authority is also obtained

from this commission, there would be no necessity for coming to this parliament. Now, if they could dam the South Sault rapids they would probably injure for all time to come the Cornwall canal, and they would destroy the North Sault rapids. I am perfectly satisfied if this commission has no power to grant permission to parties in the United States to dam any por->
tion of the St. Lawrence river which is now a navigable stream, but, competent legal authority on this side is of the opinion that if they wish to place a dam for power purposes entirely within the United States, they can go ahead with it if they get the consent of the proper legislative authority in the United States and of this commission.


William Pugsley: What would these legal authorities say and do at present, before the commission is appointed?


John Dowsley Reid: They say that under the treaty between Great Britain and the United States, the United States cannot dam any portion of the St. Lawrence at the point I have mentioned without getting the consent of the Dominion of Canada.


Alfred Henry Clarke: Under what treaty?


John Dowsley Reid: The Ashburton treaty. Now, if without the consent of this parliament, they can get 200,000 horsepower by damming the Sault, we would get no revenue from the sale of that power and the United States would reap all the advantage. Under the Ashburton treaty no portion of the St. Lawrence river between the two countries can be dammed at the present time without the consent of the Canadian government and the legislative authority in the United States, whether it be the legislature of New York or the federal government. We should be very careful to guard whatever power we give to this commission in this respect. A few years ago the Canadian government gave permission to a company at Massena to run a canal at the Sault rapids from which power is obtained and from which we get no revenue.


William Pugsley: Do you say that this government granted that permission?


John Dowsley Reid: This government gave them permission to take off a canal from the St. Lawrence river, the result of which was to turn the water in another direction.


William Pugsley: Did they restore the water to the river?


John Dowsley Reid: What they did was to dig a canal from the South Sault rapids into the Racket river. If that dam Mr. REID.
was to break away or Tie destroyed the water would be forced through that canal and perhaps destroy the navigation of both the North Sault and the South Sault.


William Pugsley: Was that authority given by this parliament, and, if so, when?


John Dowsley Reid: It was given by the department.


William Pugsley: I think my hon. friend is misinformed.


John Dowsley Reid: I understood that from a party connected with this power company.


William Pugsley: It would be very much better to find out from the order or the statute what was done.


John Dowsley Reid: At all events, I would like the Prime Minister, in this case, to guard against any possibility of trouble between the United States and Canada in regard to damming the St. Lawrence at this particular point without our having a full opportunity to discuss the matter in parliament.


Haughton Lennox: Does the hon. gentleman know', as a fact, that the w'ork does exist there?


John Dowsley Reid: I know that this canal does exist.


William Pugsley: On the American side?


John Dowsley Reid: On the American side.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend must see the absurdity of this. How could this government give authority to anybody to build a canal on the American side of the boundary line? The very statement of my hon. friend show's that he must be wrong. I can understand the United States government giving the authority, but not this government.


John Dowsley Reid: The United States government did give the authority to dredge a canal from the St. Lawrence, but before the company proceeded with the work they asked for the consent of the Public Works Department of this government, and got it. The South Sault rapids are entirely in the United States, and 95 per cent of the North Sault rapids are in the United States, and if this Bill is going to give the company authority to dam the South Sault rapids without coming to parliament, I certainly object to that. The hon. minister told us last year that he was protecting Canadian interests when he was getting $30,000 a year as a rental for damming the whole St. Lawrence river at Cornwall.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is wrong. Nothing of the kind took place. My hon. friend is simply feeding on his imagination.


John Dowsley Reid: When we raised the question of damming the St. Lawrence the hon. minister made the statement that he was protecting the interests of Canada because we were going to get $30,000 a year of revenue from that, similar to what the United States was getting.


William Pugsley: Not at all. Surely my hon. friend ought not to make these statements without trying to get at the facts. There was no proposition to dam the St. Lawrence, though gentlemen opposite tried to make people believe there was, and then they, were astonished to find that those who were promoting the Bill were willing to accept any amendment to make it clear beyond the shadow of a doubt. What I stated was that if parliament should hereafter grant any authority to dam the St. Lawrence and I were Minister of Public Works at the time, I would see that any company getting the power would pay as much as was to be paid to the state of New York, which I understood was to be $30,000 a year.


John Dowsley Reid: Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that no proposal was made to him last year to dam the St. Lawrence?


William Pugsley: None whatever.


John Dowsley Reid: If I remember, the hon. gentleman said that the plans were referred to him, and that he approved of them.


William Pugsley: Not at all. I disapproved of the plans, and then they were referred to the International Waterways Commission.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not see how the proposal could be rejected if it was not made.


John Dowsley Reid: However, the only thing I want the Prime Minister to assure the House is that if this commission is appointed, it will not have the power to authorize the damming of the rapids at Cornwall until it comes to this House and gets the power to do so. Will the Prime Minister agree to that?


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not understand what my hon. friend asks me. The treaty is there, this is only the first day, and the Bill will have to come for its first, second and third readings, so that there will be plenty of opportunity for discussion.


Robert Laird Borden: I would like to know if there has been any correspondence with regard to this treaty which has not been brought down?
c r WILFRID LAURIER. Everything has been brought down. However, I will look again, and if there is any that has not 1 een brought down, I will bring it down.


Robert Laird Borden: I would like to have the assurance that it will be brought down, if there is any, before this measure goes to another stage. I would like also to know if there is any understanding between this government and the United States government with respect to the legislation that shall be passed in both countries for the purpose of making the treaty effective.


William Pugsley: So far as I am aware, the only legislation on the part of the United States has been the making of provision at the last session of Congress for the identical amount we are asking for, $75,000, for the salaries of the commissioners, the salary of the secretary, and other expenses. A Bill was introduced in the Senate _ by Mr. Cullom, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, along the same lines as we are proposing to-night, that is fixing the salaries of the commissioners at an amount not exceeding the salaries to be paid by the government of Great Britain and not exceeding $7,500 per annum, fixing the salary of the secretary at an amount not exceeding $3,000 a year and making the same provision for clerical and engineering assistance and the payment of one-half the expenses, just as we are doing. The Bill passed the American Senate but it did not proceed further at the last session. Whether that was because we had informed the United States authorities, through the British ambassador, that we would not be able to fake the matter up at the last session of parliament, but would have to deal with during the present session, I do not know, but they have made the same provision as we are making by this Bill so far as expenses are concerned.


Haughton Lennox: I would like the minister to pronounce definitely on the statement made by the hon. member for Grenville (Mr. Reid), before we advance this matter another stage. That hon. gentleman's position is that supposing the Americans grant certain rights on one side of the St. Lawrence, taking the St. Lawrence as an instance, then can this Joint Commission sanction that work or will it be necessary as heretofore, for these parties to come and get the concurrence of the parliament of Canada? I understood the Minister of Public Works to say that he thought not. It is too important a question to leave in that way. I would ask the Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Justice to tell ns definitely when we meet again, that no such right will be vested in this Joint Commission, because I feel that such a right could not be safely vested in any joint commission. If the minister can assure us of that, well and good, but it would be an unfortunate condition of things if, by anything that we are

doing now, we should change the control over these international waterways.


William Pugsley: There is no difficulty in giving that assurance to this extent that this commission cannot take the place of parliament. There is nothing in this treaty to give them power to take the place of parliament. This treaty provides a safeguard which did not formerly exist. In all cases where it was necessary to come to parliament it will still he necessary to come to parliament. The appointing of this commission is more as a safeguard, it provides an additional safeguard. It is that if any company gets the requisite legislative authority in any matter relating to boundary waters or affecting boundary waters in any way, they must, in addition to that, get the permission of this International Joint Commission, but there is nothing that will enable this commission to take the place of parliament, and where-ever heretofore, it was necessary to get the authority of parliament, it will still be necessary to get that authority. That is, as far as it seems to me it would he possible for me to go. I cannot give an opinion as to what would be the authority of the legislature of New York to give rights on their side of the river. We know that this parliament has given authority to construct works on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence, without going to the Unitea States. The Sheiks' Island dam is wholly on the Canadian side, and the sole authority to construct this dam was given years ago, by this parliament. It seems to me that all my hon. friend should ask, is that we should be clearly able to give an assurance that this commission does not take the place of parliament, it can confer no power which has to be conferred by parliament and in every case where, but for this treaty and the appointing of the commission, it would be necessary to come to parliament, it will still be necessary to do so. The commission can give no rights, the whole duty and scope of its authority will be of a restrictive and safeguarding character, rather than in the way of granting any permission or rights.


Haughton Lennox: I shall not bandy words with the minister at this hour of the night on this point, but I may point out to the minister that we want something more than the mere statement of the minister.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman is a good lawyer, he would know himself.


Haughton Lennox: I have not given the matter special study. Perhaps when it comes up again I shall have given it more study. I want to know from the minister how he shows from the wording of the treaty that it is so. The minister says we have the right to construct certain Mr. LENNOX.
works on our side of the boundary, Sheik's island was mentioned. Will this commission affect that right in any way? Take a work which we would have a right to construct on our side of the boundary and the United States would have, a_ right to construct on their side of the river. Would this commission have any control over that?


William Pugsley: Yes?


Haughton Lennox: They would have the right to veto that legislation, would they not?


William Pugsley: I would think if authority was given by this parliament to construct any works in the St. Lawrence river, the United States might say: This is going to interfere with the right of navigation or with our rights upon our side of the river and we would ask that that be referred to the International Commission. In the same way if the United States Congress, of the legislature of New York gave authority to construct any works on the American side of the St. Lawrence, the Canadian government would have a right to say: We would like to have this referred to the International Commission, we think it may affect-our interests, and it would go to the International Joint Commission who would have a right to determine whether the work should be permitted or not, or as to any remedial works which might be necessary in order to preserve navigation.


Haughton Lennox: Each country has the right to the full navigation of its international boundary rivers, I suppose.


William Pugsley: Yes.


Haughton Lennox: Then any work constructed by the people of Canada upon their side of the river necessarily control to that extent the navigation of the river; if it encroaches on the waters at all it narrows the passage which vessels would have the right to use. Is that not the case? To that extent it interferes with navigation, and the United States would have the right to complain of it. Then that commission could say as I understand it, I am not saying whether it is right or wrong, but as I understand the minister, that commission would have the right to step in and say: Canada has no right to pass that legislation in reference to improvements upon their side of the river, or the development of power because it will interfere with the navigation rights which are vested in common in the people of the United States, and in the people of Canada. That is correct, is it not?


William Pugsley: I should say so. That was the very object of the commission- to settle these difficulties that might arise between the two countries.


Mr. DOHERTY.: Is it quite fair to say that the only power that has anything to say about what is done on the American side of the river is, first the American legislative authority and then this commission? I am not in a position to state whether this parliament has anything to say about constructions on the American side or not ; but it seems quite clear that, in the future, under this treaty, this parliament will have no power in the matter.


William Pugsley: I understand my hon. friend (Mr. Doherty) to say that at the present time the American legislative authority provide for work on the American side of the river and we at present would have nothing to say about it.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I say that, whether we now have any such power or not, under this treaty we shall clearly not have it any longer.


William Pugsley: As I understand it, so far as any governmental action on this side is concerned giving authority to erect works in navigable waters, on the American side, of course, this commission would take that place. But, in every case where, to-day, it is necessary to get the authority of the Canadian parliament for any works, it will still be necessary to come to parliament. My hon. friend must see that, in this commission, there is an additional safeguard, as it is necessary to secure the approval of the commission for such works.


Charles Joseph Doherty: That is precisely what I do not see. If to-day there is power in this parliament to say anything about what construction shall he made on the American side-I am not saying there is such power-it will disappear under this treaty. So, what the minister said a few minutes ago, that it was immaterial, that whatever power parliament had now it would still have, seems to .me to be correct only if there is no power in this parliament to say anything about constructions on the American side. If we have no such power, we get the additional safeguard of the commission. But if, as suggested, by the hon. member for Grenville (Mr. Reid), a construction that would interfere with the navigability of the river, even if on the American side, could only be made with our consent, that power disappears under this provision of the treaty.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend will hardly say that the Canadian parliament had no right, years ago, to give authority to build that dam between Sheik's island and the main land in the St. Xawrence.


John Dowsley Reid: That is entirely different.


William Pugsley: It is different because it is on the Canadian side?


John Dowsley Reid: Let me explain the position-


William Pugsley: Is not the channel between Sheik's island and the mainland part of the St. Lawrence river?


John Dowsley Reid: It is part of the canal system. The Cornwall canal runs from Dickinson's Landing to Cornwall, and Sheik's island is away below the head of it. It is not in a navigable stream.


William Pugsley: But is it not part of the St. Lawrence?


John Dowsley Reid: No.


Mr. GRAHAM.: Certainly.


William Pugsley: By what authority did the Canadian parliament authorize the building of the Cornwall canal and divert a portion of the water of the St. Lawrence river?


John Dowsley Reid: Botli Sheik's island and the main shore are on the Canadian side.


William Pugsley: But is not the south shore of the river American territory?


John Dowsley Reid: The minister does not understand the location.


William Pugsley: But the hon. gentleman can tell me whether it is or is not American territory.


John Dowsley Reid: The south shore is, yes.


William Pugsley: At this point on the Canadian side, these works were constructed by authority of the parliament of Canada, without asking permission from the authorities of the United States. I do not know that anybody ever disputed our right. Well, if the Canadian parliament could do that in respect of our side of the boundary, the United States could equally do it in respect of their side. The object of this treaty as I have said, is to safeguard the interests of the people on both sides and provide that works in these navigable waters shall not be constructed except after obtaining the approval of the International Commission.


John Dowsley Reid: The portion of the St. Lawrence of which the minister speaks was not a navigable part of the St. Lawrence and is not navigable except through the canal system.


George Perry Graham: That does not affect the point.


John Dowsley Reid: We can consider that later. But, as a matter of fact, it is not a navigable stream. The Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) knows

that both the North and South Sault rapids have always been navigable and large steamers go down both. A steamer of probably 100 or 150 tons runs down there once or twice a week. Another thing is that, for the last fifty years, the South Sault rapids is the only one down which timber rafts go, and so the South Sault rapids are as important as the North Sault. Now, as I understand the Minister of Public Works, if the Ashburton treaty gives the United States power to dam this portion of the St. Lawrence, or any portion of that river, without coming to this parliament, it is all right. But, if we have any authority over that matter, if at a point where the river flows between the two countries we have the right to say whether a dam shall or shall not be made, it is certainly objectionable to hand that power over to a commission so that works can be made by their authority without coming to this parliament. Right at this particular point where they proposed last year to dam the St. Lawrence is the very point where the United States territory stops. From that down to Montreal the St. Lawrence is entirely in Canadian territory. I feel that the power to dam the St. Lawrence should remain entirely in the hands oi this House. The time may come when it may be necessary for us to consider the damming of the St. Lawrence, and I wish to protect the rights we now have to dam the St. Lawrence at any point, whether at Cornwall or elsewhere. I understand this treaty will place in the hands of the commission the right to issue charters to dam the St. Lawrence at the South Sault, for instance, and this government would have to sanction it. If this government ever gives the right to dam the South Sault rapids it will not only destroy the channel of the North Sault, but I believe it will destroy the Cornwall canal.


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: This treaty does not confer the slightest legislative authority upon the board of commissioners. There is no fear whatever that they will give any such permission as my hon. friend speaks of. In addition to getting such legislative authority as any such proposed enterprise would now require, they will, under this treaty, require to get the approval of the commission as well.
Resolution reported and agreed to.
Mr. PUGSLEY moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 36), relating to the establishment and expenses of the International Joint Commission under the Waterways Treaty of January 11, 1909.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.
On motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, House adjourned at 11.50 p.m.
John Dowsley Reid: Wednesday, December 7, 1910.