1910-03-31

[Stage Direction]
Order of the day for motions being called.
Mr. H. LENNOX (South Simcoe).: In accordance with the motion that was carried the other day providing for the consideration of the fourth Lumsden report, and having regard to the retirement of three members of the Lumsden Committee, I propose to address a few remarks to the House this afternoon. In retiring from that committee I had in mind the extreme gravity of the situation, and I realized that we were taking a somewhat unusual course which we would not be justified in taking unless for grave and important considerations. In fact, any one who examines at all the circumstances surrounding the construction of the National Transcontinental railway must realize, as I did, that it is the duty of every member of this House, and much, more of the members of that committeei of seven, to do everything in his power to elucidate this question, and to ascertain whether there has been, as we believe there has been, gross mis-Mr. WALLACE.
management and perhaps gross dishonesty in connection with the construction of that road. The most casual investigation into the returns and the papers that have been brought down must convince everybody that the enormously increased? expenditure in the construction of that railway cannot be harmonized with any theory of honesty in the staff or ability in the management. For instance, taking up the matter of classification, let me give an illustration of how enormously rock grows:
Statement in reference to nine contracts.
Total cost under Contract Rock alone
Contract.	was to be	will cost.No. 4	$1,898,124	21	$1,475,480" 5	
1,646,253	65	1,847,942" 8	
5,011,346	00	4,318,368" 9 and 10.... 5,297,257 45	7,905,504" 11	
1,691,073 41	2,336,320"12	
4,'559,284 50	4,324,000" 19	
5,937,208	75	5,800,000" 20	
1,158,258	25	1,009.116" 21	
13,010,398	92	13,012,000


Mr. SPEAKER.: I wish to remind the hon. member that there is no motion before the House at present. Does he intend to conclude with a motion in order to regularize the proceedings?


Haughton Lennox: I did not intend myself to conclude with a motion, I intended to refer to the circumstances in connection with this road, and I am referring to these items for the purpose of showing that there ia a necessity for everybody to be vigilant in investigating this matter, and that I, as a member of that committee, would have remained to investigate that question if it had been possible; and I was proceeding to point out the reasons for having the fullest investigation.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman will understand that his proceeding is irregular, as there is no motion to consider the report. If a motion was made for the adoption of the report, or a motion to bring the report before the Chair, his action would be in order. But at present there is nothing at all before the Chair.


Haughton Lennox: It was not a report, as I understand, that required adoption, it did not ask that anything should be done. Of course, if necessary, I could formally move an amendment to the report. But what I proposed to discuss, and what has been standing for discussion for some time, is the question of the retirement of three members of the committee.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: There is no objection to discussing that, only I would like to have something before the Chair.


Mr. SPROULE.: The hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) gave notice that on motions being called for he would move that the report be concurred in.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: That is the reason I inquired if the hon. member was going to conclude with a motion.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: That was my impression the other dav when we asked to have this day set aside to discuss the matters referred to in the committee. I understand a motion was to be moved for the adoption of the report, and I supposed my hon. friend had an amendment to move to that motion. But on looking at the report since, I see it is not one that requires a motion for its adoption.


Haughton Lennox: We could only move an amendment to the report, we cannot move for the adoption of the report, because it is not a report that requires adoption. On Tuesday, when the report was brought in, I moved that it be considered on this day. The resolution was carried. I do not understand that I have to make any motion in order now to discuss it. I am proceeding to "consider the report as brought in.


Wilfrid Laurier: In order to place the matter before the House, some one should move that the report be taken into consideration. That would give an opportunity for discussion.


Haughton Lennox: Well, I move that.


Wilfrid Laurier: Very good.


Haughton Lennox: I move, seconded by Mr. Barker:	[DOT]
That the fourth report of the special committee appointed to investigate the Lumsden charges be now taken into consideration.
I was proceeding to refer to some of the items of the classification, and I will turn now to the figures, as given in a return brought down, of what the road as a whole is going to cost us, and the situation is still more startling. I have compiled, from the return 426, what this road is_ likely to cost us, and I find a most startling set of figures as regards what it must inevitably cost upon the information that is available at- the present time. These figures are as follows:
Thirteen Contracts.
No.	To Cost.	Costing.1	.. $ 989,895	$ 1,765,6002	.. 289,090	536,6633	.. 767,434	951,0914	.. 1,898,134	2,475,0955	.. 1,646,253	3,170,0006	.. 1,385,941	2,105,5247	.. 2,377,409	3,256,7388	.. 5,011,346	7,320,7639, 10.. ..	.. 5,297,257	12,963,24311	.. 1,691,073	3,637,62714	.. 3,815,279	5,154,35021	.. 12,000,000	17,456,268$37,169,101	$60,792,962
An excess of 60 per cent.
We were told by the department that:
The above amounts stated to be required to complete are approximate and are subject to revision; no special estimates having been made for the purpose.
Complete'figures for the other 8 contracts are not available, but when we find that these thirteen contracts are going to cost us this enormously increased amount, it is fair to assume, I think, that those upon which the work has not been done yet will cost us in the same proportion. Therefore, you may add to the eight contracts yet to be completed at least 60 per cent of the estimated cost at the time the contracts were made. Then we will have the follow-in result:	.
Statement of Cost under Contract.
We have then 13 contracts to cost
$37,169,101 costing	$60,792,962
We will have 8 contracts to cost
$26,866,051 costing	 12,985,686
Add under-estimate of 5 per cent. 5,188,932
And the 21 contractors will be paid. $108,967,580 Add interest during 8 years construction, say 1 years at 31 per cent simple interest	 15,155,161
Total cost when road completed for
schedule items only	$121,123,011
Add 7 years interest at 3 per cent compounded	 28,532,128
Total cost of scheduled items 7 years
after completion, this is all extra. $152,655,169
We must make some allowance, more or less, for errors-honest errors if you like- and we might well make an estimate, according to the experience we have had, of probably 20 or 25 per cent. But, I will not make any estimate of that kind. I will assume that there has been an error of 5 per cent. Add 5 per cent for under estimate, which will give you $5,188,932, and it will bring the amount to be paid to these twenty-one contractors up to $108,967,580, or nearly $109,000,000. You have to add interest during the construction period which, when this matter was launched, was said to be five years. Seven years have gone now, and far more than five years will elapse before the Quebec bridge will be completed; and before a good deal of this work will be done. Count eight years, which will give an average of four years for construction-, and if you add four years at 31 per cent simple interest, you get $15,155,461, making the total cost at the time this work is completed, $124,123,041. These are not speculative figures. These are the figures taken from the returns brought down. Then, we have to bear the expense of the road for seven years at all events, and we will have to pay compound interest; there is no getting out of that because we will have to borrow the money. We will have therefore to pay for seven years 3

per cent compounded which will amount to $28,532,128, making the total cost, not of the road, but of the 103 schedule items alone of $152,655,269, at the end of the seven-year period. The Finance Minister, not relying upon his own information, but after sufficient inquiry, after investigation, after consulting experts, assured us that he had ascertained that the total cost would be $51,300,000. That was for everything. Now, for the schedule items alone we have $152,655,169, or three times the estimated cost as given by the Finance Minister. But that is not all by any means. We have to add to this all the items that are not included in the contracts let to contractors. These do not include right of way, the rails, the fastenings, the terminals, the station houses, the turntables, the sidings, the telegraph system, the workshops, the elevators, the bridges, and the Quebec bridge, built, fallen and to build in all, counting for more than $50,000,000 yet. This is a very startling condition of things, and therefore, it is one which demands, not of the members of this committee alone, but of every member, of this House, yes, and of every Canadian, a thorough, a full, and searching investigation. It is something so startling, and so unusual that it demands of the Prime Minister now, that he shall say, as being more responsible than anybody else, that we shall have a thorough, , full, and searching investigation. These figures represent instead of the $25,-00d or $28,000 a mile that was estimated by the Finance Minister, an actual expenditure for the work let of over $84,000 a mile. That ought to be sufficient to make the Prime Minister think. With all the items added it will make the total cost of this road $200,000,000, and it will not be one dollar less according to the figures we have. It represents an actual total outlay for these 1,084 miles of road of $111,000 a mile. Yet, we have a committee of four, or of seven, whichever you like, pottering over a little matter that is practically of no importance, spending time over some' isolated instances instead of meeting the situation boldly, and carefully, and inquiring how it is that this road, which was to cost $51,300,000, according to the estimate which the Finance Minister said he had taken the best means of ascertaining to be correct, is costing at least $200,000,000, from Winnipeg to Moncton alone. There are some other instructive figures I intended to read before coming to this. We have eighteen contracts upon which work has been done. We have three contracts upon which no work has yet been done. I take these eighteen contracts which have been proceeded with, and I take the figures upon Mr. LENNOX.
which they were let, the total estimated cost, according to the estimates at the time these contracts were let, and I find that i lie rock alone-I mean loose, and solid rock altogether-will cost a sum equal to the Finance Minister's estimate of the total construction cost of the whole road. I hope I will have the attention of the hon. Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham). He is peculiarly responsible, almost as responsible i.s the Prime Minister. It is said that he does not hear me. If he does not hear me some other people will, and the country will know how these figures are. They are government figures, taken from a government return, and they cannot be gainsaid. The government give us the amount that the work was to cost, and they give us the percentage of work that has been done. I add to the whole work done the percentage yet to be and the following results appear r
Rock
to cost.	Has cost.	Will cost.No.	i..	.. $ 71,158	$ 579,628	$ 610,1352..	.. 29,236	109,198	175,9303..	.. 244,379	317,234	373,152"	4..	.. 920,760	1,106,610	1.475,4805..	.. 716,738	1,385,956	1,847,9426..	.. . 308,716	859,157	909,695"	7..	.. 1,017,305	914,300	1,956,602"	8..	.. 588,821	2,878,912	4.318,3689..	.. 608,607	803,853	1,071,804f*	10..	.. 1,303,517	4,950,507	5,569,32011..	. 471,450	1,668,702	2,336,184"	12..	.. 1,946,169	376,093	4,324,960tt	14..	.. 369,071	534,826	1,900,080t<	15..	.. 486,620	[DOT] 459,125	1,377,375"	18..	.. 422,160	491,840	1,008,272tt	19..	.. 3,926,610	1,179,960	5,800,000tt	20..	.. 754,975	681,837	1,009,11621..	.. 6,723,843	12,140,755	13.012,000$20,910,145	$51,036,415
So that we have this result, that the rock excavation in these contracts, which according to the engineer's estimate, based upon what was said to be reliable data at the time the contracts were let, was to cost $20,900,000, is costing, according to the returns brought down by the Minister of Railways, $51,036,000; or, in other words, the rock excavation alone is costing what the Minister of Finance said would be the cost of the whole 1,800 miles of road. Now, in this condition of things, I recognize, as everybody must recognize, that however we were hampered in the committee and outside of the committee, it is the duty of us all to investigate this matter in every possible way with the view of finding out how this enormous squandering of the people's money has been brought about. It is said by the organs of the government that the reason we left the committee was that we were disappointed that things were not coming our way, I suppose that by that

they assume-and they must be the judges of their own view of the matter-that we wanted the investigation to turn out badly. 1 deny that entirely. We did want a thorough and searching investigation. We had not proceeded very far with the committee work until we found good reason for believing that we could not obtain that thorough and searching investigation, and any one who has even casually watched the proceedings of that committee will not be convinced that there is very much investigation about it down to the present time. But, taking the suggestion of the Grit press with the ' Globe ' at the head of the list, and the minor organs chipping in and singing the chorus, that we did not think matters were turning out bad enough, let me look at a few pages of Mr. Lumsden's evidence, and see the result. I have taken the trouble to take out of the long array of items furnished byMr.Lumsden some thirty or more instances of which he complains. He told us in the committee that he had only given us one-quarter of what he had ascertained in the few days he was going over the road. Mr. Lumsden told us that he had got a statement of the returns which had actually been made by the government engineers to the commission, the prices according to those returns, and the amounts that were to be paid, and as he went along he noted what he thought was wrong in the classification. From those notes of the engineer I have been able to ascertain what was the overpay in each case. Now, if the government organs, the ' Globe ' included, want to be fair about this matter, they ought to be reasonably well satisfied. I start with the minor cases, which run up from eighteen per cent of excess of payment to nearly 400 per cent. That strikes me as being something that ought to arrest the attention of the government, something that ought to make the government feel that there should be more than this little petty investigation that is going on at the present time; and I want to tell the Prime Minister what it means, if he has not been following the evidence. It means this, that just as in the Hodgins inquiry the whole bent of the inquiry was to find out that Hodgins, the gentleman whom the government employed, was no good, so in the bigger case to-day, the whole bent of the inquiry, the energy of the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Chrysler, the energy of that other independent gentleman, Mr. Smith, the energy of Mr. Moss,- and it is all right as far as he is concerned-the energy of all these parties is to show that the government employed for their chief engineer an absolute fool. If that is the way the government are going to finish their work, If that is the way they are going to reinstate themselves
with the public, well and good; but that is the, drift of the cross-examination; that is what eight or ten men, an army of engineers, and a large number of lawyers, at an expense of from $800 to $1,000 a day, are engaged in at the present time. I have numbered these statements, and I will summarize them:
No. 1-Engineer's note ' Something wrong here; rock should not be more than one-half in all the cuts, and one-half the remainder common excavation.' It was all charged as rock and loose rock. It should have cost $4,945; it cost $5,845, an overpayment of $900, or an excess at the rate of eighteen per cent.
No. 2-The engineer's note is ' Cut all sand and gravel, very few stones The cost was $16,499.30. The engineer said the cost should be $12,882. So there was an overpayment of $3,617.30, or an excess at the rate of twenty-eight per cent.
No. 3-The engineer's note is ' Borrow pits; all common excavation '. It was charged nevertheless as 1,743 cubic yards of loose rock, and the rest common excavation. It should have co3t $1,307.10; it cost $1,829, an over-payment of $521,90, or forty per cent excess.
No. 4-The engineer's note is ' Ballast pit, no boulders in sight, all sand, and a little clay '. They found, however, 437 cubic yards of boulders, and 24,033 cubic yards of loose rock. The cost should have been $17,620.50, whereas it was $25,428.20, an over-payment of $7,807,70, or an excess of forty-four per cent.
No. 5-The engineer's note is ' All common excavation But there was returned 1,050 cubic yards of loose rock. The cost should have been $630; it wa3 $945, an over-payment of $315, or fifty per cent more than it should have cost.
No. 6-The engineer says that this was 'All common excavation,' which should have cost $3,887.77, or 12,959 yards at 30 cents. It cost, however, $5,746.80, making an overpayment of $1,859.10, or 47 per cent.
No. 7-The engineer's note with regard to this is, * Ploughed and scraped,' meaning common excavation. This cost us $29,970, and it should have cost only $19,597.50, making an over payment of $10,372.50, or 53 per cent.
No. 8-The engineer says that this was all muskeg, common excavation. Yet I find that we paid for 7,049 cubic yards of loose rock at 60 cents, and only 4,985 common excavation at 30 cents. We paid in all $5,724.90, whereas we should only have paid $3,610.20, making an over-payment of $2,114.70, or 58 per cent.
No. 9-The engineer's note is, ' Not a boulder.' Yet we paid for loose rock, 4,679 yards at 60 cents, and common excavation, 3,046 yards at 30 cents, making a total paid

of $3,721.20, whereas we should only have paid for the whole as common excavation at 30 cents, $2,317.50, making an over-payment of $1,403.70, or 60 per cent.
Did our engineer know what he was talking about? Does the government take the position that he is a ninny? Mr. Lumsden is probably sixty years of a*e. Well, men who are sixty years old, and who are drawing a salary of $6,000 a year, do not throw up such a good position on a whim or without good cause. Had the engineer not been a man of principle, had he simply been bent on keeping office, he would have effaced himself and passed everything. But he took the opposite course. And remember there is no pension attached to the office. The engineer does not belong to the military branch of the service. Yet we find this man throwing up a salary of $6,000 a year, and we can come to no other conclusion than that he had to do so or act dishonestly by the country. His action was not that of a nonentity. The government and their press are, however, straining every nerve to show that this man was an imbecile, that he was no good. Well, Mr. Speaker, if he were, he would have clung to his position and done what he was told. But contrast the position which the government now takes with the one they took two years ago. At that time I called its attention, in pretty strenuous terms, to the necessity for an investigation _ in connection with the resignation of Major Hod-gins. I then asked the government whether they were satisfied that their chief engineer, Mr. Lumsden, was a competent man. I said to them: Do you think you have the right man, or is there something wrong? It would be better to pay $10,000 a year more and get the best man to be had. The government replied that their chief engineer, Mr. Lumsden, was quite competent, that everything was all right. At that time, however, they were fighting Major Hodgins, and now they are doing their best to crush" Mr. Lumsden.
No. 10-This shows an over-payment of $1,574, or 68 per cent. We should have paid only $2,304, whereas we paid $3,877. -
No. 11-The engineer's note is ' No stone in sight.' However, we find the following paid for:
Rock, 90 yards at $1.70	 $153 00
Loose rock, 500 yards at 60 cents.. .. $300 00 Common excavation, 502 yards at 30
cents	 $150 60
Total	 $603 60
This should have been common excavation, 1,092 yards at 30 cents, $327.60, making an over-payment of $276, or 84 per cent.
No. 10a-The engineer's note is ' All looks like common excavation; may have been 50 yards loose rock south side.' Yet we paid as follows:


Haughton Lennox: Loose rock, 6,600 yards at 30 cents.. $3,300 00 Common excavation, 4,400 yards at
21 cents	 924 00
Total	 $4,224 00
Whereas we should only have paid for 50 yards of loose rock, and the balance common excavation, or a total of $2,324.50, making an over-payment of $1,899.50, or 81 per cent.
No. 12-Engineer's note is ' 50 yards loose rock at east end, all the rest common excavation. No solid rock.' Well, we paid $3,878, whereas we only should have paid $2,304, making an over-payment of $1,573.97, being an excess of 84 per cent. This over-payment is due to the fact that 996 yards were charged as solid rock at $1.50, and 1,047 as loose rock, at 50 cents.
No. 13-The engineer's note is 'Except possibly 5 yards loose rock, it is all common excavation.' But instead of paying only for 5 yards of loose rock we paid for 3,324 yards of loose rock at 60 cents and 405 yards of common excavation at 30 cents, or a total payment of $1,515.90, whereas we should only have paid $820.20, making an over-payment of $695.70, or 80 per cent.
Remember that these are only upon a little section of the road. Now take up No. 14.
The chief engineer's note is, 'No signs of a stone.' Yet we paid as follows:
Solid rock, 1,562 yds. at $1.50	$2,343
Loose rock, 2,562 yds. at 50 cts	 1,280
Common excavation, 10,821 yds. at 21 cts. 2,274
Total	$5,896
Whereas we should only have paid for 14,953 yards at 21 cents, $3,140, being an over-payment of $2,757, or 87 per cent.
No. 15-The engineer's note is 'AH common excavation, no sign of rock or loose rock here.' Yet we paid $595 instead of $315, or $280 over-payment, or 88 per cent.
No. 16-The engineer's note is 'All common excavation.' Nevertheless, on a total of 870 yards we paid for 580 yards of loose rock at 50 cents. Or we made an over-payment of $160, being at the rate of 92 per cent.
No. 17-The engineer's note is 'All common excavation,' I find, however, that out of 2,740 we paid for 2,000 yards of loose rock and only 740 of common excavation, making an over-payment of $580, or an excess of 100 per cent.
No. 18-The engineer's note is 'Looks like 10 yards of solid rock, 300 of loose rock, and the rest common excavation.' But what did we pay for it? We paid for it:
Rock, 3,446 yds. at $1.50	$5,169 00
Loose rock, 4,329 yds. at 50 cts	 2,164 50
Common excavation, 14,143 yds. at 21 cts	 2,970 00
Total	$10,303 00

Whereas all we should have paid was $4,702, making an over-payment of $5,600, or 119 per cent.
No. 19-The engineer's note is 'All common excavation.' We paid $697 for the little work done there. Whereas, all we' should have paid was $311, making an overpayment of $385, or 123 per cent.
No. 19a-The engineer's note is 'No rock; say 1,000 yards loose rock, rest common excavation.' Yet we paid for 5,790 yards of rock and 3,850 yards of loose rock. Or in all we paid $11,735, whereas, on a proper classification, we should only have paid $4,400, making an over-payment of $7,295, or 164 per cent.
The importance of these items is this, that they show the hollowness of the arguments of the Grit press that the opposition members on the committee retired because there was no evidence of wrong-doing. What better evidence could they want? It seems to me that the evidence is very strong. It seems to me strong enough to satisfy the right hon. the Prime Minister that when he narrows the inquiry into a trial of Mr. Lumsden and diverts it from the true issue, as to whether that road is costing more than it should, he is not doing justice to the country.
Take No. 20-The engineer's note is 'Dug in places to test it; good ballast; whole cut common excavation, might be a few yards of rock in boulders.' Well, we paid for 4,730 yards of solid rock at $1.70 and 9,672 yards loose rock at 60 cents, and 2,007 yards only of common excavation at 30 cents. We paid a total of $14,686, whereas, we only should have paid $5,054, making an over-payment of $9,231, or 169 per cent. We over-paid $9,231, or at the rate of 169 per cent.
No. 21-The engineer's note says 'This seems all common excavation, no rocks, but a per cent of loose rock, say 25 per cent for boulders, some of it good ballast.' It cost us $84,771.34 according to the classification. Ihe engineer says it should have cost us $29,993.59. In that case there was an over-payment of $54,777.76, or 182 per cent.
No. 21a-Mr. Lumsden says ' Little or no rock. Considerable loose rock, say one-third; rest common excavation.' We paid for this $16,577.45; we should have paid $5,844.25, an over-payment of $10,733.20, or 183 per cent.
No. 22-The engineer says ' May have been a few yards rpck, one-fifth loose rock, remainder common excavation.' We paid for that $43,270.13; we should have paid $15,129.06, an over-payment of $28,141.07, an excess of 186 per cent.
No. 23-The engineer's note reads ' May have 'been a few yards, say 20, of rpck, one-fifth loose rock, remainder common excavation.' The quantity of solid rock returned was 20,267 yards, and of loose rock 18,409 yards. We paid $43,269.65, when, according to the judgment of the engineer, we should have paid $15,068.43, an over-payment of $28,201.22, or 187 per cent.
No. 24-The engineer's note says ' May have been 10 yards rock, and say 1,000 yards of loose rock, the rest common excavation.' We over-paid, in that case, according to the government engineer's estimate, $6,854.32, or 190 per cent.
No. 25-The engineer's note says ' Say 2 boulders, 5 yards rock, one-eighth loose rock, the remainder common excavation.' For these two boulders, we paid for 4,127 yards of solid rock and 4,210 yards of loose rock. The excess payment amounted to $6,079.25, or 194 per cent.
No. 26-' Nothing but *common excavation in sight,' says the engineer's note. We paid $10,833.57 more than, according to the figures given by the engineer, we should have paid. That is, we made an excess payment of 245 per cent-three and a half times more than we should have paid.
No. 27-In this case, 'No rock in sight, say one-eighth loose rock, the remainder common excavation,' is the way the engineer's note reads. We paid $23,9*90.27, when we should have paid $6,826.45, an excess payment of $17,162.82, or 251 per cent.
_ No. 28-The engineer's note says * No rock in sight, one-eighth loose rock, remainder common excavation.' We paid $5,853.45, when we should have paid $1,611.95, an excess of $4,241.50, or 263 per cent.
No. 29-The engineer's note ' No rock, only say 100 yards loose rock, the rest common excavation.' Yet, there were returned 2,142 yards of rock, and 1,395 of loose rock. We paid $4,198, where we should have paid $1,059.89. That is, we over-paid $3,138.73, or 296 per cent-about four times what we should have paid.
No. 30-The engineer's note says ' Except 150 feet east end, all common excavation -say 600 yards loose rock at east end.' We paid $7,711.93, when we should have paid $1,735.35, an over-payment of $5,976.58, or 344 per cent.
And yet, this pious editor of the ' Globe,' the gentleman who, when he is not praying or pretending to, is negotiating our treaties at Washington, or is slandering somebody, is very much concerned because he thinks that the members of the minority of the committee were so athirst for gore, that they were not satisfied with these disclosures. I have only touched the fringe of what Mr. Lumsden gave in the first two days of his investigation. What he has done since is easy to ascertain for anybody who will follow the investigation. He has given some answers to Mr. Chrysler which will do neither harm nor good. He has been in the hands of Mr. Smith for many days in an honest endeavour to show that the government had an engineer who was



no good. What comfort the government is going to get ont of that I do not know. We want a capable, as well as honest, government; this kind <if inquiry, I am afraid, will not convince the country on either one point or the otfrer.
Now, I have referred to these items, first as to the railway question generally, and then as to a few of the disclosures during the two days of investigation when we were present in the committee, for the purpose of emphasizing the fact that I realize that our duty was to stand to our guns and fight in the interest of the country if we could fight effectually. But I take the position that, while it is my duty to stand firmly in the interest of the people in this committee of mystery, it is also my duty to select my fighting ground to some extent, and also to select my weapons. And now, I come to the point of why we left that committee-or, the more important point, as not involving the personal question, what was the attitude of that committee which necessitated the retirement of three of its members. And first, let me say that I am not afraid of fighting. Perhaps, sometimes, I am recklessly hold.	I do not mean that I fight
effectively, or that I am a match for the hon. gentlemen who were on that committee. But I do say that I am not driven away by any feeling of timidity.	I left that committee when I
came to the conclusion that, by reason of the manner in which the proceedings were being carried on, and 'by reason of the drift of matters, it was impossible to serve the public in that committee, and that if I remained I would become a party to a farce -a laughing farce if it were not so serious in the interest of the country, a farcial investigation which was an insult to the intelligence of the people of Canada. Now, the position was this:
On the first day of the inquiry, the commission appeared by counsel. Mr. Lums-den announced that he was merely a witness, and he did not propose to have counsel. It is said in a lying pamphlet-I want to choose my language on this occasion- it is said in a lying pamphlet that is circulated by supporters of the government from week to week, that goes out every day during the session, and that has been dealing with this investigation, goes out under frank of that sapient gentleman, that very busy gentleman, the Solicitor General (Mr. Bureau), that goes out under his frank the year round, both during the session and after the session, that the members of the minority insisted that Mr. Lumsden should have counsel. That is not true. No member of the minority committee suggested that Mr. Lumsden should have counsel. We recognized from the first that, not Mr. Lumsden, but the commission, and ultimately the government, -were Mr. LENNOX.
the people on trial. You cannot shirk that issue, the government is on trial, the commission is on trial, .and Mr. Lumsden is merely a wdtness. It _ is absolutely false to say that the minority of the committee ever urged [DOT] that Mr. Lumsden should have counsel. But what we did say was, that before this investigation went further, there should be counsel to represent the people. Mr. Lumsden did not appear by counsel, and I think he was a wise man. He had no axe to grind, no fight to put up, although the government is fighting to-day tooth and nail, as they fought Mr. Hodgins. The government is on trial in this matter, and we said that as the government was represented by counsel, there should be somebody to represent tire people. The chairman took the ground that it was a fight-just imagine!-a fight between the subordinate engineers and Mr. Lumsden, and therefore there was no need for counsel for the people. Another gentleman, the hon. member for Laval (Mr. Wilson), did not know who the people meant, and so far as I know he does not know yet. What a pity, what a lovely position that is to be in, that we have on this investigation a gentleman who does not know who the people are. Let me read his exact language. I had been talking about the people, and he said:


Mr. WILSON.: I understand that Mr. Lums-den has made some charges or some reflections against some engineers, and I for one will be delighted if Mr. Lumsden is represented by counsel, and that the party or parties against whom he has laid complaints should also be represented. But when you talk about counsel to represent the public, that seems to me a very vague word.
There is a good deal in that. When wo have gentlemen who sit in their seats until the Prime Minister rises, and if he should make a mistake and sit down, they would not get up, men who think that Providence, and Canada, and the nation are bound up in the Prime Minister-when you get men of that kind on a committee, it is not surprising that they do not know who the public is. They are fighting for the Prime Minister, they are fighting for the government, fighting for the party. But nothing for the public, nothing for the people. I was thinking of this, as I walked up to-day, and I remembered that possibly I could find some lines that fit the case in a poem of Riley, which I find in a little volume called ' The Flying Islands of the Night.' I will only read a line or two:
Wo follow ever on and on-
O'er hill and hollow, brake and lawn;
Thro gruesome vale and dread ravine-
And there have been many gruesome vales and. dread ravines in the political history of our hon. friends opposite:
6021)

Thro gruesome vale and dread ravine Where light of day is never seen.
We waver not in loyalty,-
Unfaltering we follow thee-
We follow, follow, follow thee?
Then let me give the concluding stanza: We follow ever on and on;
It doesn't make any difference where, they are so used to it.
We follow ever on and on;
For wheresoever thon hast gone We hasten joyous, knowing there
Is sweeter sin than otherwhere-
Does the right hon. gentleman appreciate that? There has been a lot of sweet sin, there are mountains and mountains of sweet sin in this railway, this great National Transcontinental railway that the right hon. gentleman talked about, and which I am afraid will have to be called the great National Transcontinental Graft railway.
We follow ever on and on; tor wheresoever thou hast gone We hasten joyous, knowing there Is sweeter sin than otherwhere-
Leave still its latest cup,
It s latest cup.' What a splendid thing if we could only believe that we had finally got to the latest cup in this iniquitous railway deal.
Leave still its latest cup, that we May drain it as we follow thee.
We follow, follow, follow thee!
Now, that sums up fairly well the attitude of the hon. member for Laval. As to the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), his methods are so well known they are so creditable to his ability, that I won't say anything about him. But we did urge that at this initial stage of the proceedings, not that Mr. Lumsden should be represented by counsel, but that the people should be represented by counsel, seeing that the government was already represented by counsel paid by the people. Well, we could not get our way. Finally it was understood that Mr. Lumsden would give us a statement in writing, and there was to be no cross-examination. That agreement was not kept. We went on, with a counsel there for the commission, and the chief commissioner, himself an able counsel, being there; we went on, the minority against the majority, and every question that could be interjected from time to time by the hon. member for Pictou, with his excellent ability, was interjected for the purpose of getting, if possible, to the same stage at which that same hon. gentleman lauded Mr. Hodgins some two years before. Then, at the end of two days, my hon. friend proposed that we should have counsel for the committee. If, on the first or second day when we proposed that counsel should be retained, it had been ac-192i
ceded to, and an adjournment had until counsel was retained to represent the public, I would not have felt so strongly that it was absolutely necessary that the nomination of counsel should be left in the hands of the minority. But matters developed during these two days, and by the end of these two days I was convinced, and I think any one who will read the evidence will be convinced, that it was absolutely necessary, if this investigation was not going to develop into a greater farce than it was at the beginning, that the nomination and engagement of counsel should be left in the hands of the minority. Well, we met, and what we proposed was that inasmuch as the majority of the committee were favourable to the government the engagement of counsel should be left in the hands of the minority. I ventured to say that the political affiliations of the majority of the committee, all things being equal, -upon a balance of evidence-would lead them rather to decide in iavour of the government than -against the government, and I ventured to say that, all things being equal, having regard to their political affiliations, and convictions, upon a balance of evidence, the minority of the committee would be disposed to decide in favour of the Conservative view of the matter. For that I was called a cynical partisan by that great organ of public opinion, the 'Globe.'
I am not ashamed of that view; I could press it farther than that. But, the majority being favourable to the government, the government having in their employ counsel paid by the country, the government having at their; disposal a well organized staff, the commissioners having also Mr. Smith, an able lawyer, at their elbow, throughout the whole investigation, and also having at their beck and call when necessary the Justice Department of the government, it being well known too that the contractors, and the commission stood in together, fighting Mr. Lumsden, and it being well known that the contractors were going to have counsel, that array of counsel being on the government side, on the side of the commission, and on the side of those who were accused, I claimed then, and I claim now, and on that I am prepared to be judged by the country, that if this investigation was not to be an absolute, and abominable farce we should have the right to name the counsel on behalf of the people as we were the only members standing independently in the matter. If some one says; ' Give the decision to the minority.' I reply that we do not absolutely ask it for the minority. We said we want to name counsel in whom we have confidence, whom we can go to, talk to and consult', but we will not force anybody upon the committee, we will submit names, and if one shall be found to be objectionable for a.ny cause we shall submit another, and
(3031

so we shall go through the list. We will not. ask you to appoint a partisan of any kind. We parted on the understanding at that time, as is evidenced by the statement tof the chairman, that that right would be conceded to us. But the ma_-jority on the committee, in the end, would not a now us that right. They said:	We
will name the counsel. They did not wait to submit a name, but they went to Mr. Wallace Nesbitt, and they engaged him, and secured his services. Every lawyer in the House, almost everybody in the country, knows what the effect upon the mind of counsel is as to who may engage him. He naturally looks for his instructions to the party that engage him, and he naturally expects to advance their interests. Tell me if you like that the majority of the committee want a fair investigation. I will grant it if you like, but I will say that there is yet their political affiliations, their_ political leanings, their desire is to have it appear that there is nothing wrong except Mr. Lumsden, that everything was done above board, that the classification was honest, that the country was not defrauded, and that, whilst the road will cost four times what we were led to believe it would cost us, yet it is honest, just, and fair. That is the fight of the government, that is the fight of the Minister of Railways in this House, and that will be the fight of the majority of the committee. They said:	We
will appoint Mr. Wallace Nesbitt, and the ostensible reason for that appointment was that he is a man of commanding notoriety, he is known throughout the whole country as a prominent counsel, and, they said, we cannot consent to appoint any body of less eminence than Mr. Wallace Nesbitt. They said:	He is a Conservative. What has
that to do with it if we are to have an honest investigation?
Some; hon. MEMBERS. Hear, hear.


Mr. LANCASTER.: When they want an honest counsel they have to get a Conservative.


Haughton Lennox: Well, as to the Conservative 'branch of it I am not much concerned. I retired before Mr. Wallace Nesbitt's name was mentioned at all. I have enjoyed the friendship and acquaintance of Mr. Nesbitt for many years. He is a very clever counsel. He has a brother here, a supporter of the government. That has nothing to do with it. Mr. Wallace Nesbitt is the one Conservative in all Canada that the government have anv confidence in. They appointed Mr. Wallace Nesbitt as a judge of the Supreme Court. They had never transgressed in any other instance or in any other appointment. Clear grit every time except that one time that was the only time that they ever lapsed into virtue. I am not going to Mr. LENNOX.
say anything against Mr. Wallace Nesbitt. He had the grace, when he found that we were opposed to him, not to Tatify the appointment. He had consented, and he was appointed. I am not going to ask whether he is a Conservative or not. He came from that riding that the late James Sutherland used to represent-Oxford-and we have had many peculiar types of Conservative from that Tiding. I made no objection to Mr. Wallace Nesbitt on personal grounds. But, there was an insuperable barrier to Mr. Wallace Nesbitt being the counsel and my hon. friend from Pic-tou (Mr. Macdonald), who was a member of the Hodgins Compiittee, and my hon. friend, the chairman of this committee, who was the chairman of the Hodgins Committee well knew it all the time. I knew it and my hon. friend from Hamilton (Mr. Barker) no doubt knew it. Who is the gentleman they wanted to have? Why, the gentleman who gave them an opinion in writing two years before against the contention of Mr. Lumsden. And the hon. member for Pictou, behind the back of the committee-I do not mean that in the sense that he acted wrongfully-but without consulting the committee, engaged Air. Wallace Nesbitt and Mr. Wallace Nesbitt would have been the counsel as far as -we know but for the fact that the minority would not consent.


Mr.   AIACDONALD@: Will my hon. friend permit me to say that that statement is not correct? I did not engage Air. Nesbitt at all.


Haughton Lennox: What statement?


Mr.   AIACDONALD@: The statement that I had engaged Air. Wallace Nesbitt to be counsel behind the backs of the members of the committee.


Haughton Lennox: I have the statement of the hon. member for Hamilton (Mr. Barker) who will be able to speak of it presently and I have the information that the hon. member for Pictou reported to the hon. member for Hamilton that he had consulted with Air. Nesbitt, that Air. Nesbitt was open for engagement and ready to come, and when we retired from the committee-


Mr. MACDONALD.: Does the hon. member (Mr. Lennox) mean to assert now, in view of the statements he has made, that I engaged him?


Haughton Lennox: I am going to tell that.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If the hon. member says that I engaged him, I can only say that his statement is not correct.


Mr LENNOX.: I did not say that the hon. member for Pictou (Air. Macdonald) engaged him before the time of which I am about to speak. When we retired, they



MAKCH 31, 1910 '

[Stage Direction]
passed a resolution in the committee appointing Mr. Wallace Nesbitt. If that does not mean an engagement, I do not know what does. They afterwards received a letter from Mr. Nesbitt declining the position. But that was after we had refused to accept, and by our departure had protested against the position taken by the majority.
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: You had not got out before the motion was put.


Haughton Lennox: Shall I digress to tell the contrast in the treatment we received during the first two days of the work of that committee with the attitude of these hon. members when we determined to retire? Everything was offensive and aggressive in those two days-so much so "that the chairman of the committee had to remind these hon. members that I was a member of the committee, in order to allow me to be heard at all; so much so that I had to curb my temper to avoid doing personal violence to the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald). But, when we decided to leave, when we brought it home to them that the eyes of the country were upon them, and that they would not have us as buffers between them and the people, but must fight it out alone, then these hon. gentlemen became humble, and peaceful and engaging-


Mr. EMMERSON.: Mild and loving.


Haughton Lennox: Yes, mild and loving, and besought us to stay there with them. And, with my usual courtesy and politeness, in deference to the suggestion of the chairman, I remained for a little while. But I made it perfectly clear, as the evidence will show, that I would not be a party to the proceedings that were then being carried on.
Well, enough said. Now, the majority of the committee were very solicitous that we should have a prominent counsel, a man known to all Canada. And they were very much afraid that no Conservative lawyer would be known to all Canada. There are one or two very clever lawyers upon the Liberal side who are notoriously known to all Canada at the present time. But, with that exception, I think we have as prominent lawyers in the ranks of the Conservative party as there are to be found in the Dominion.


Mr. GRAHAM.: If we do say it ourselves.


Haughton Lennox: Yes, and we are prepared to say it ourselves. We have in the city of Toronto some of the leaders of the bar in this Dominion. Contrast the position of to-day with the position of the government party when they said that nobody but Mr. Wallace Nesbitt would do. Whom did they select? I do not want to say anything
against Mr. Chrysler, a good honest man, as lawyers go-and all are honest-but when you talk about a man of Dominion reputation, no doubt those who know Mr. Chrys-ler's name will know whether he has a Dominion reputation or not. He has done some good service for the government, and has been paid for it. For as long as I have known him, Mr. Chrysler has been doing good service for the corporations against the people. But that is what he is paid for, and I am not prepared to say that he did more than his professional duties demanded of him. I have respect for Mr. Chrysler in his station as a lawyer. But when you talk of Dominion reputation, I stop talking because I do not know anything about him, in that way-nor do the people. Within a small radius roundabout Ottawa, Mr. Chrysler is known as a capable lawyer. I have no doubt that he will be zealous. But the question is:	For whom? I think the right hon
Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) could tell, if he wished to. Here are some items from the Auditor General's Report, showing payments to the firm of Chrysler, Bethune and Company, of Ottawa, in the years mentioned:
1896-1897		
1897-1898		
1868-1899		
1899-1900		
1900-1901		
1901-1902		
1902-1903		
1903-1904		
1904-1905		
1905-1906		
1906-1907		
1908-1909		
Total			 $26,917 23
This is as far as the Auditor General's Report goes. We do not know what the total may be by this time. Of all the counsel in Canada, a country which, I am proud to say, is blessed with many eminent counsel, this was the independent, prominent, impartial counsel in the interests of the people who could be depended upon to stake his legal position, his pecuniary interest, his personal advancement against the government if necessary, and to fight the government and fight the commission. No doubt Mr. Chrysler will be zealous for somebody; and ordinarily a counsel is zealous for the parties who employ him. My hon. friend from West Elgin (Mr. Crothers) has been criticised for outspoken remarks as to what the duty of a counsel is. I am not a prominent counsel-do not pretend to be; but I am a lawyer like some of the others here; and I have always thought that my first, my sworn duty, was to stand by my client and try to advance his interest. I have never learned that it was my duty to pander to the other side

or to try to elicit evidence for the other side. We have Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith pledged us, the first day, that he had been instructed by the commission to elicit everything and to do all he could in the interest of the public. Mr. Smith, when he started the cross-examination the other day, said: 'I am not going to cross-examine;
I am only going to ask a few questions on behalf of the commission.' And for 400 or 500 pages in four or five volumes of the records of the commission he has been asking questions; and I will challenge anybody, members of the commission or members of the House, to find on any one page of that record anything except a constant and persistent attempt by Mr. Smith, despite his virtuous professions and his uplifted hands, to fight for the commission and to down Mr. Lumsden.
Only one more word to show the attitude of that committee, which I venturq to say, in all the somewhat spotted record of the present administration, will stand before Canada, by virtue of its position, I will not say by virtue of its intention, as having conducted the most outrageous, nonsensical, ridiculous and thoroughly dishonest inquiry ever held in this country. One more instance only is perhaps required to show the position of those gentlemen. When Mr. Chrysler was appointed, what do you think were the instructions given to Mr. Lumsden? It was represented again to Mr. Lumsden that he could have counsel, and it was suggested to him for the first time that the government would pay for his counsel if he had any. Mr. Lumsden said again that he did not want counsel.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend should also tell the House that Mr. Lumsden stated that he perfectly understood that the committee were prepared to pay for counsel at any time.


Haughton Lennox: My hon. friend is perfectly correct. My hon. friend, as I recollect, stated to Mr. Lumsden: ' You understood all the time that we were prepared to pay for counsel?' And Mr. Lumsden echoed my hon. friend's words. Mr. Lumsden has the same unfortunate faculty as many other people of not seeing through my hon. friend as well as he might, and he echoed his remark, but I can only judge by what was said and done, and I say that throughout the investigation there never was any suggestion by any member of the committee, or by any one, that Mr. Lumsden could have counsel paid for. _ I am not saying whether it was in the minds of the committee or not. But that is not a matter of importance. My hon. friend from Pictou, the active member of the committee, the guiding hand, said: * Now, Mr. Lumsden, you will confer with Mr. Chrysler,' and Mr. Lumsden gave a reluctant assent. That was theoretically correct, be-Mr. LENNOX.
cause theoretically Mr. Chrysler represents the public in this investigation, and it was right that the man who would have the prosecution of the case should confer with the prosecuting counsel. But what do you think my hon. friend from Pictou did in addition to that, and he is no chicken? My hon. friend cannot plead innocence or inadvertence. He is an able and shrewd lawyer. He said to Mr. Lumsden:	Mr. Lumsden, you will also confer with Mr. Smith,' the counsel for the defence. Mr. Speaker, you too have the honour of belonging to this great profession of the law.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, no. Apologize.


Haughton Lennox: I do not apologize. An undeserved compliment, Mr. Speaker. You have shown such a judicial mind that I judged you to be a lawyer. But from your experience, it will occur to you as one of the most outrageous things that could possibly be suggested that the counsel for the defence should confer with the witnesses for the prosecution. It is only a little thing, but it shows exactly how this matter is going. We have had, day after day, the harmless Mr. Chrysler going over a lot of stuff and bringing in letters which were intended to damage Mr. Lumsden; though my opinion is that in these matters the opinion of counsel is of no weight whatever. Mr, Chrysler brings in these letters and a lot of evidence and sits down. Mr. Smith then goes on from day to day. When Mr. Smith omits anything, Mr. Chrysler suggests the omission, and cures it; if he does not, my hon. friend from Pictou comes to the rescue; and so it goes on from day to day, and from week to week, at- an expense of,
I suppose, |1,000 a day to the country. But that is a small matter compared to the enormous expenditure involved. For my part, when I retired, I thought I was serving the public best by doing so in protest against the attitude assumed by the government with their long array of counsel, fortified by the Minister of Justice. In reference to Mr. Wallace Nesbitt, let me say that when his opinion came to Ottawa two years ago, from whom do you think it came? It came from the firm of Ayles-worth and Company, the firm headed by the Minister of Justice; and to-day a member of that same firm is fighting for the position taken' by the commission, which is fighting for the postion taken by the government; and they are all Chrysler, -Smith, Atkinson in the office, the lawyer at the head of the committee, the government counsel, the able, sapient and potent Solicitor General, overworked as he is, in sending out this false literature to the country-all fighting against the people and the people's interest. So I thought I would select my field of battle outside of that committee;

where I could do better service for the public, and not remain there as a buffer bef tween the people and those who deserve the people's condemnation. I retired, and I am willing to abide by the issue. May I, in closing, appeal to the Prime Minister? It is said that we are in contempt. We are not willingly in contempt. We can, of course, be put in the tower for our wrongdoing; I recognize that, and for the interest of the country I am willing to sacrifice myself even to that extent. But I beseech the Prime Minister, as my parting word, to send me to the solidly-built tower of this building and not to the Laurier tower, so liable at any time to fall again.


Mr. A. H. CLARKE (South Essex).: Mr. Speaker, if no other good comes from the investigation of the Lumsden charges, I think the House can congratulate itself that it ha3 served the purpose of giving us the most interesting bit of comedy for the last hour and a half that this House has listened to in many a day. There is only one thing lacking, and that is that my hon. friend from Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) should have put it into song, and allowed the House to hear his musical voice in those beautiful lines: ' I will follow, follow, follow all the way '. There is a hymn to those words, I think he ought to practice that hymn and let us have the benefit of it.	;
It seems to me that the dicsussion today is for the purpose of seeking to justify, or excuse the conduct of the three members of the committee who refused to carry out the mandate of this House. This House appointed a committee to investigate certain charges made by Mr. Lumsden not made by any member of the opposition, but by Mr. Lumsden alone, an appointee of the government, in respect of certain other appointees lower in order than he-and the three hon. gentlemen to whom I refer were appointed to act on that committee. It seems to me that the arguments of my hon. friend are such as to condemn him, and the other two who have shirked the duty this House imposed upon them. It seems to me every argument he has used has been the strongest condemnation of the conduct of himself and his friends. What are those arguments? In the first place, he has taken up matters which he knew full well before he agreed to act on the committee. It has been frequently stated in this House that there is a great difference between the estimated cost of the railway and its actual cost. No one disputes that, and that was a matter for discussion on the 27th January. My hon. friend made then practically the same speech as he has just given us. It has been made many times; and if his object in re-hashing to-day all that wa3
said so frequently before, was to justify him in having refused to act on the committee, my answer is that that was an objection which he should have taken at that time. He should have taken that objection before he agreed to act on the committee. However he did not, and with all the knowledge he now has, he entered on his duties as member of that committee. Surely it is idle, therefore for him to say now, that he objected to serve on that committee because matters were not referred to it other than those which this House decided to refer to it by its resolution of January last.
Then my hon. friend went on to discuss matters which one would have thought a member of the committee would have refrained from discussing. He went on to discuss matters which are now before the committee of investigation. Being a lawyer myself, I was amazed that my hon. friend, who is also a lawyer, should come here and base an argument on partial statements made before that committee when the men charged have not had the opportunity of being heard. I was astonished that a member of that committee, himself a lawyer, should have endeavoured to prejudge matters concerning which evidence has not yet been given. That is something which passes my comprehension. If those matters are so serious as he would have us believe, all the more was it his duty to carry out the mandate which the House gave him, and attend the meetings of that committee, and see that the fullest investigation took place.
There is only one reason, I understood my hon. friend to say, which actuated himself, and his friends in departing from that committee, and that is the reason embodied in a resolution which the hon. member for Hamilton (Mr. Barker) proposed in the committee on the 4th of March last. On the 23rd of February, by the unanimous voice of the committee it was decided to employ counsel to represent the public interest. Mr. Lumsden had declared that he did not desire that counsel should act for him. He made it plain that he would take that position. It was then suggested, and agreed to without dissent, that the committee should ask leave of the House to appoint a counsel who would represent the public. Strange to say, although my hon. friend and his associates agreed to that, within two hours after, without any notice to the other members of the committee, the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) got up and moved an amendment asking that the minority have leave to nominate the counsel. That took place on the 23rd February. That amendment was moved to the report made on that day. My hon. friend moved to amend the motion by adding thereto the following words:

It is further ordered that the members of the opposition on the said committee shall hive the right to select the counsel so to be appointed, which counsel shall be instructed to protect the interests of the people of Canada in the said investigation.
The decision of the House was that that was not a sound position for the minority on the committee to take. By a large majority the House decided that it was not the right of the minority on the committee to chose counsel. If the refusal to allow this choice to the minority was a reason for the three members to retire from the committee, surely that was the time for them to do so. But they did not at the time consider that that was a reason why they should withdraw. On the contrary, they went afterwards to several meetings cf the committee. On the 4th of March the matter was brought to a crisis by a resolution moved in the committee by the hon. member for Hamilton (Mr. Barker):
That it is the right and duty of the members of the committee who represent the opposition to nominate the counsel who shall prosecute the investigation in the public interests.
The majority of the committee negatived that proposition as the House had previously negatived it. You will notice the words: 'It is the right of the' members of the minority to chose the counsel.' Well, the House of Commons had decided that it was not their right. These hon. gentlemen had attended the committee in obedience to that ruling. They attended several meetings of that committee, and then, because the oommittee would not agree to this motion, they made that a pretext for filing out of the room one after the other. Well, if they think that they were Justified by this in shirking the duties imposed on them by the House, I do not think the country will endorse that view. There was no question then as to who would be appointed counsel. My hon. friends did not suggest any names. They did not say: Give us this or that man. There was not a single suggestion, not a single nomination of any individual, but they said that they should have the right to name the counsel. In other words, four members of the committee were to annihilate themselves and allow three members to do what seven were appointed to perform. They made no suggestion, they did not suggest that any particular counsel should be named, but they said: Unless you accede to our proposition we shall have nothing to do with j ou, no matter whom you may appoint. Objection has been made since to the counsel appointed, but that was not the reason why these gentlemen retired. Mr. Nesbitt was nominated. It was said that he had given an opinion as to the specifications. Possibly that was known to some members of the committee, but not to all. Surely if it Mr. A. H. CLARKE.
was known to the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) it was his duty then, as a member of the committee, to have pointed out that Mr. Nesbitt was not a proper man to be nominated. But now they say because two of the other members of the committee knew this about Mr. Nesbitt that absolved them from their duty of saying anything about it. Much has been said about Mr. Chrysler's appointment.
I may say that, if my hon. friends had done their duty, they would have Taised their objections to Mr. Chrysler if they thought there were any. If there has been any error in appointing Mr. Chrysler, it is the fault of these hon. members of the committee that they were not there to point it out. Certain it is that no objection was made to him. I made the nomination myself. I thought Mr. Chrysler was a competent man, and a fair man, a reliable man, and one fully equipped for the position; and there has been nothing in the conduct of the inquiry since then to change my opinion in the slightest degree. I do not think that there is any man whom the committee would have chosen who would be satisfactory to the members who retired. I have not heard them suggest any person who would be satisfactory. It is all a question whether or not three shall usurp the position of seven, and, failing that, object to anything any person whom the majority may choose. It seems to me that the position is one which is absolutely indefensible. And my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) has gone out of his way to attack Mr. Moss, who represents some of the engineers, or, rather, to indirectly attack the Minister of Justice (Mr. Aylesworth), because Mr. Moss is a member of his firm. I think the hon. gentleman knows perfectly well-I think he must have heard the Minister of Justice in this House more than once state, and perhaps in answer to the hon. member himself-that he had no interest whatever in that firm, that his name was allowed to remain there (as, I believe, it was stated the name of the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) was allowed to remain with his former firm) he having no interest in the firm.


Mr R L. BORDEN.: It is a matter of no importance, but I may say that is not true of myself.


Alfred Henry Clarke: I am glad the hon. member (Mr. R. L. Borden) makes the correction, but I think he will agree that it was stated in the House at least once._ I remember quite well that, on one occasion, the Minister of Justice referred to the hon. member as being in a similar position to himself. The hon. gentleman says that it is not correct in his case.


Robert Laird Borden: The statement was made, but was corrected.


Alfred Henry Clarke: But the statement concerning himself was made by the Minister of Justice, and I think the hon. member (Mr. Lennox) knows it quite well.


Haughton Lennox: No, I did not, but it does not alter the case mucn.


Alfred Henry Clarke: No, I do not think that anything would alter the case for my hon, friend (Mr. Lennox). I cannot conceive of anything the committee would do that would alter the opinion of my hon. friend. He thinks, I am sure, that this whole government has been a farce since 1896; I have no doubt there is nothing that this government, or any committee appointed with the consent of this government has done, that is not >a farce in the opinion of my hon. friend.
Now, w'hat was the proper position of these hon. members? If they wished to retire from this committee, and give way to other men, they could have asked to be relieved of their duties. If they had done so, of course they would have given some reason for it. The only reason they could give would be that, so far as appears by the record, they held that they should be allowed to choose the counsel. The House has already passed upon that. Therefore, we have the spectacle here of three members of a committee appointed by the House, undertaking the duties, not asking to be relieved, still remaining members of the committee, yet absenting themselves from the committee, where, according to their own statements, it is of the utmost importance they should be. If the counsel, and the members of the committee are not doing their duty, surely all the greater is the reason why these three-who are equal to four or more-should be there to see that the investigation is properly carried on. I have no hesitation in going before the people, and commending those who serve against those who quit. Why, service has been praised ever since the battle of Crecy. We have, in the crest of the Prince of Wales, under the three white ostrich feathers, the motto ' Ich Dien '-I serve. And so honoured a place has this motto, and the idea it represents in our minds that we have the nobility of service taught in the schools. The attempt is now made to reverse that. Instead of it being a virtue to serve, it is represented as a virtue to quit. It is so important a revolution in the ethics of this country that it should be commemorated. There should be pictures of the three members filing out of the committee room with the motto, ' I quit.' The white feathers might remain, for I think they would be quite appropriate. And these should be posted in the public schools, to teach the precept hereafter that quitting is a virtue instead of service.


Mr. S. BARKER (East Hamilton).: I do
not propose to follow my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) in showing the enormous amounts of money involved in this question. I think there can be no doubt in the mind of any hon. member that the amount involved in the question whether there has been gross negligence, or whether there has been swindling in connection with these operations is enormous, it is away op in the millions. The first estimate we had of the cost of this road from the government was $51,000,000. There cannot be a doubt now that the cost will be at least three times that-probably more. So it is of great importance to the people of this Dominion that the truth should be known as to how this great discrepancy has occurred. Therefore it is that the hon. member for South Simcoe took some pains to lay before the House and the country the real gravity of the situation, that the people might understand that this is not merely a question whether three gentlemen choose, or did not choose, to go on with this inquiry, but a question whether there shall be a fair and full inquiry into a matter of great practical importance to the public.
Now, I observe that the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. A. H. Clarke) has tried to be a little humorous and sarcastic. He says that the charges made by Mr. Lumsden are against other officers lower than himself. That is nrecisely what a majority of the committee are trying to make out, the case is represented to be from first to lastr-simply a quarrel, a difference of opinion, between Mr. Lumsden and his subordinates. But no one knows better than the hon. member from South Essex that there is _ a much graver question than that in it. It has been stated in writing that these subordinate officers are believed to have been acting, not upon their own motion, but under instructions given by those above both, themselves and Mr. Lumsden. The question, therefore, arises who are the people who have led these subordinates to do these wrong actions. That is a most important question and it is the question upon which everything turns. We have not been trying to find out exactly what was the motive of the subordinate engineers. I do not believe for a moment that these subordinate engineers have been doing this off their own bat; I am quite sure they have not. Thev have known that they have the support and backing of people in place, who can maintain them and support them in whatever they do; otherwise those men, I believe, would never have done what they did. Now I do not propose to occupy the time of the House in discussing what it was necessary for my hon. friend from Simcoe to discuss; I propose to deal simply with the question why I felt compelled to withdraw from the com-

mittee when I had been, appointed to it by this House, and had accepted the position. I admit the gravity of the step that I took, I am not going to treat it lightly, and I hope the House will believe that I realized the gravity of the step. I retired because I felt it was my duty to get out of that committee, and not he a party to what I might call a whitewashing operation. That is the truth, and the whole truth. If I had had any doubt as to the propriety of my conduct, I would have been satisfied to go on. But I have no doubt now, and I had no doubt at the time; I believe now* that I was right in the course I took.
Now I want to recall for a moment the beginning of this thing. It is in the recollection of the House that in 1908 Major Hodgins, then in charge of 386 miles of the western end of this section of the road, had made grave charges against the staff, and his charges, his allegations, extended not merely to his own district F. but also to section B. Those allegations led practically to his dismissal by the commission. Subsequently a committee, known as the Hodgins Committee, of which I was a member, and two other gentlemen opposite were members, was appointed to investigate that question. I need not state what that committee did. Nothing resulted. The majority of the committee on that inquiry cleverly induced Mr. Hodgins to admit that the inquiry would be more satisfactorily prosecuted by a board of engineers than by the committee that was investigating it, and thereupon the whole thing was thrown overboard, and that was practically the end of the Hodgins inquiry. But, Mr. Speaker, within a year afterwards the whole country was startled by hearing that the chief engineer, who, acting under the	commission, had been a party to the dismissal of Mr. Hodgins, had himself resigned, and in doing so had made grave and serious charges with respect to the very districts that were involved in the Hodgins inquiry. The Hodgins inquiry arose largely on district F, but Mr. Hodgins had been taken down to what is called a kindergarten show on B, and so some evidence was given as to district B. And those two districts, F and B, are the districts with which the whole inquiry under the Lumsden Committee is concerned. We had that investigation in 1908, and no action was taken by the government, no action was taken by the commission, no investigation as to what was the real truth about the Hodgins complaints. Everything was smoothed over, not a word from the government, or from any department of the government on that subject, until Mr. Lumsden throws up his most important position, his salary of $6,000 a year, goes entirely out of the service of the commission, because he could not stand what was going on. Now that was a startling posi-


Samuel Barker: 
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What page was that?


Samuel Barker: I will give it to my hon. friend. Then the minority saw at once the position going to be taken by the majority. There was no complaint, no charge against the commission, and they were not to be investigated. I dare say they would have objected to any investigation as against themselves, there being no charge against them, and they had the authority of the hon. member for Pictou to that effect. We never concealed our view of the position. We- said frankly: We of the minority desire to prove this case if it can be proved, and on the other hand, the hon. members comprising the majority would prefer that we should not prove it. Therefore, we said, if this is to be nrosecuted in the sense of a public prosecution and a public inquiry, we, who want to see this investigation succeed, should have the nomination of counsel and not those who want to see it fail. I think that was a perfectly legitimate position to take, and we were driven to it by the fact that Mr. Lumsden had refused to have any counsel, for in the absence of counsel representing the minority or Mr. Lumsden there would have been no prosecution of the inquiry at all. A motion was made by us that we should not proceed until counsel had been appointed. Immediately afterwards the suggestion was made that the hon. member for Pictou and I should meet and endeavour to agree upon counsel. We did meet, and ultimately we failed to agree upon counsel. The hon. member for Pictou said to me-there is nothing private in what I shall state-'Suppose we (the majority) name a Conservative lawyer of high standing'? I replied : 'It does not matter at all whom you name; our position is that you are not to name the man to prosecute this inquiry, but that he should be named by us because we desire the prosecution of the inquiry.' That position was taken fairly and squarely. There is no question about the position that we represented. We said: No matter how eminent the counsel may be, if he be nominated by the majority he will regard himself as acting for them, while if we nominate him, he will know that, and accept our directions and act on our behalf. I see it has been asserted that we did not

name any counsel. I rather gathered from the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. Clarke) that he was under the impression that we did not name counsel. I named three counsel to the hon. member for Pictou and not one of them was satisfactory to him. I do not find fault with him for it, but I did name three, and I venture to say that the counsel I named were quite as eminent, quite as well known as the gentlemen they have appointed, and probably more broadly known throughout Canada. But .just consider what the objection was. The minority were content to have certain gentlemen as counsel. The hon. member for Pictou did not think them eminent enough. Surely, if we, who were really anxious to succeed in this inquiry, were satisfied with the counsel, he need not have made much objection. We were the parties who wanted the work well done, we were the side that wanted the eminent counsel, and we were not likely to take a man who would not have done his work well. We knew the men perhaps as well as the hon. member for Pictou did. But nothing would satisfy him, and the hon. member will recollect that our endeavours to agree upon a counsel ended by his telling me that they had decided to stand by Mr. Wallace Nesbitt. That ended it, and there was no use in proceeding further on that subject. I do not propose to mention the names of the other gentlemen. They have not been appointed, and privately we agreed that we would not mention the names of any who were not appointed. There is not the same objection to mentioning the name of Mr. Wallace Nesbitt, because his name has been published in the press, and Mr. Chrysler has been appointed, so that the same secrecy is not called for with reference to these gentlemen. But the other gentlemen would have been quite satisfactory to us, and if we were satisfied with them, I don't see why the majority should have objected. As to Mr. Nesbitt, I wish to say, as the member for Simcoe said, that there was no question at all about his standing or his professional reputation or anything of that kind. He is a personal friend of mine. We made no question about his ability, but what we did say was that we would not have Mr. Nesbitt or any other man who was the nominee of the majority of that committee. We made that perfectly plain; there is no doubt at all about it; our objection was that we knew that neither Mr. Nesbitt or any other gentleman named by the majority could do the duty we required of him to probe that matter to the bottom. If the majority of the committee appointed him he would know for whom he was acting, and if we nominated him he would know he was acting for us. That is all we eared for, and Mr. BARKER.
we laid that principle down, and the majority refused to assent to it. The position we took was made perfectly clear, because I drew up a short memorandum in the nature of a report and submitted it to my friends in the minority, and it was read and appears on the minutes. It was to this effect:
Mr. Chairman,-Pursuant to what passed at rhe last meeting, Mr. Macdonald and 1 endeavoured to agree upon counsel to act in the prosecution of this investigation. We have failed to agree. I insisted that the members of this committee who represent the opposition should nominate that counsel, subject, of course, to the gentleman named being a proper person, acceptable in that regard to the committee.
We did not wish to bring in any man, regardless of his standing and we conceded that he must be a man of character and standing at the bar. Subject to it being approved in that respect, we claimed that the man who was going to pursue that inquiry to the end ought to act for us and be named by us.
Mr, Macdonald would not concede that we of the opposition should have such nomination. We have therefore failed to agree, and f may at once say that that question was the real difficulty. I am not now arguing the question but stating the facts, and to put my position clearly I move:-
That it is the right and duty of the members of this committee who represent the opposition to nominate a counsel who shall prosecute this investigation in the public interest.
The majority voted down that resolution, four to three.
Now, I have endeavoured to make quite clear what it is that we contended for-the commissioners were represented by counsel selected by themselves and paid by_ the country; Mr. Lumsden took the position that he was simply a witness, th*t he was ready to answer as a witness, but that ha was not prosecuting and would not /appoint counsel to make good his charges. It was not disputed that there ought to be counsel to prosecute the inquiry and establish the charges if they were true. _ The only question was who should nominate that counsel; should he be nominated by the opposition members, whose interests and whose wishes, were to probe the matter to the very root, or, by the government majority on the committee, who, as we said, and as we believed, would desire and prefer that the charges should fail. There was the clear issue, and there could not be any question about that. There was no misunderstanding about it at all. We wanted a counsel to act for Us who knew that he was acting for us and for nobody else; we wanted him to know that he was not acting for the government, because the government would be blameahle if the charges

were driven home; we wanted him to know that he was not acting for the commis sion, because they had their own counsel, and they would be to blame if the charges were driven home. We contended that in the	public	interest there shouldbe counsel who would follow np every charge	to	the	end and endeavour	tomake	it	good,	if it were possible	tomake	it	good.	But the majority	of
the committee scoffed at our want of faith in them; our want of faith in the absolute purity of their motives. One after the -other of them read us homilies upon partisanship; they all professed there was nothing like partisanship on their side, and that they were above that sort of thing. I recollect that one member of the majority of that committee-I need not mention his name-was so horrified by the doubts cast by the member for Simcoe upon their perfect impartiality, that he exclaimed: My God, what do you want? and he added: I am an honest man.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER, Hear, hear.


Samuel Barker: Well, they were all honourable men, of course, but they recognized us three of the minority as partisans, and they themselves: Oh, no, they were not partisans. But we frankly treated ' them as partisans. We wanted to drive that case home, and wTe said so, and wa said we wanted counsel to help us in doing it. We represented that we did not want the other side to appoint their own counsel to prove them guilty. We knew they would not do it, and we did not propose to go through the humbugging operation of having a counsel to defeat the objects of the men whom he was supposed to be working for.
I want to say a few words moTe. I have already said that Mr. Nesbitt is a friend of mine, but that does not debar me from saying a fe\s words as to the impropriety of any attempt to get him to act as counsel. I put that squarely. I will read a few letters from the Hodgin's inquiry. At page 420 of that inquiry there is this letter:
Toronto, November 27, 1907.
P. E. Ryan, Esq.,
Secretary of Board of Commissioners of Transcontinental Railway,
Ottawa.
Sir,-We have obtained the opinion of Mr. allace Nesbitt, K.C., on the interpretation of clauses 34, 35 and 36 of the specifications, and will forward same to you by to-morrow's mail, and have the honour to remain,
Your obedient servants,



AYLESWORTH, WRIGHT,

[Stage Direction]
MOSS & THOMPSON.
I may say that clauses 34 and 35 and 36 of the specifications referred to in this letter are the basis of all the trouble. There is another letter on page 421 which reads:
Toronto, November 28, 1907.
P. E. Ryan, Esq.,
Secretary of the Board of Commisioners of the Transcontinental Railway,
Ottawa, Ont.
Sir,-Re contract for the construction of the Transcontinental railway (eastern division) and specifications attached thereto.
We have the honour to inclose you herewith the opinion of Mr. Wallace Nesbitt, K.C., as to the construction to be placed upon the language used in the above specifications in the classification of material. Kindly acknowledge.
We have the honour to remain, Sir,
Your obedient servants,

[Stage Direction]
MOSS & THOMPSON.
Then there is this letter from the secretary of the Transcontinental Railway Commission to the Minister of Railways:
Ottawa, December 2, 1907.
Sir,-I have the honour, by direction 9f the Board, to hand you, which I do herewith, a letter from Mr. Wallace Nesbitt. K.C., addressed to Messrs. Macdonald & O'Brien, and submitted on their behalf to the commissioners, containing Mr. Nesbitt's opinion as to the construction to be placed upon the language used in the specifications with respect to the classification of material; and I am to request that you will have this letter placed on the file which accompanied my letter to you ot the 23rd ult. and considered therewith.
1 have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,

[Stage Direction]
Secretary.
Then follows a very long letter from Mr. Nesbitt, K.C., to Macdonald & O'Brien, contractors on district B, discussing these questions of classification that the witnesses are to be examined upon; that Mr. Lumsden is being examined upon; that Mr Smith, the counsel for the commission, is doing his best to break him down upon. All these are discussed by Mr. Nesbitt, and that letter of his was filed as evidence in the Hodgin's inquiry, and Mr. Nesbitt commits himself to opinions on this classification diametrically opposed to Mr. Hodgin's views and to those of Mr. Lumsden. Just picture Mr. Nesbitt acting in this inquiry and putting in Mr. Nesbitt's written letter as evidence to prove what the true construction and meaning of the specifications was. What position would we have occupied if we had agreed to accept Mr. Nesbitt to prosecute this investigation, and he had been asked by the unanimous committee to take the brief? Perhaps Mr. Nesbitt would have accepted the brief under such conditions, but when he heard that we objected to anybody named by the majority, he at once declined. And yet we were asked to accept him as the one man who above all others could do his duty in this matter. I know Mr. Nesbitt well, and we all have the highest respect for him, but I repeat that no-
[Stage Direction]
man could do his duty in prosecuting this investigation who had given that opinion He was against Mr. Lumsden from the word go, and he could not do his duty from our point of view. He would have done his duty according to the opinion of the majority of the committee, 1 have no doubt. I do not like to say that they deliberately selected him knowing that, but it is most extraordinary that even in this Lumsden inquiry that very opinion has been put in evidence against Mr. Lumsden, as already published by this very majority.
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Does my hon. friend say that the question on which Mr. Nesbitt gave the opinion is the issue now before the committee?


Samuel Barker: I say that the specifications as to rock, loose rock, and common excavation are dealt with in that opinion broadly and largely, and these are the very questions coming up.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend does not follow the question I was asking. I want to know whether he says that the matter referred to in that opinion is the issue before this committee.


Samuel Barker: I say that after the Hod-gins inquiry Air. Lumsden consented to certain variations, but the man who gave that opinion could not have an unbiassed mind on the question between Afr. Lumsden, and the contractors.
Mr. AfACDONALD. Why not?


Samuel Barker: Well, I would rather not employ him if I had a case against the contractors.
Afr. AfACDONALD. If my hon. friend is not prepared to say that the opinion of Mr. Nesbitt is on the question at issue before this committee, there is no reason why he should not have been employed.


Samuel Barker: I assume that it is in issue, or they would not have put it in in evidence in this very case.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: It might have been evidence, and not in issue.


Mr. NORTHRUP.: It could not have been evidence unless in issue.


Samuel Barker: It bears on the case, and the man who gave that opinion would not have been in a position to act as a proper counsel against the government, or against the contractors.
I want to recall to the memory of this House a case that arose when hon. gentlemen were in the minority, and the Conservatives were in power, and I want to contrast the treatment that was accorded to them with the treatment that the government to-day Mr. BARKER.
are according to the opposition. The cases are very much alike. I refer to the celebrated McGreevy case of 1891. Allegations of misdoing had been made by a brother of Afr. McGreevy, involving not only him, and certain contractors, but also the Minister and Department of Public Works of that day. Sir John A. Macdonald was the leader of the government, and I think Sir John Thompson was Minister of Justice. The right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier) was then in opposition, and Mr. Tarte, a member of the Liberal opposition, presented to the House a resolution demanding an inquiry before a special committee. It was suggested that it might go before the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which was assented to on all sides. I need hardly say that the majority on that, committee were Conservatives, and the minority, including the right hon. gentleman, Mr. Tarte, and others, were Liberals in opposition. It appears that at the first meeting of the committee Mr. Tarte appeared with counsel, who was Mr. Geoffrion, K.C., a brother of the chairman of this Lumsden committee, a fact which might have recalled to him the history of the AfcGreevy case. No objection was made at all. There was no pretense on the part of the partisan Conservative majority that they should name the counsel to prosecute the inquiry-not a word on that subject. Mr. Geoffrion acted as counsel, and was paid by the government of the day. I do not suppose he was paid in advance; he was paid afterwards, I believe, $3,000. But the point I make is that while the right hon. gentleman, then in opposition, was willing to accept from the Conservative majority of that committee what he refuses to us, he claims that he is all right now, and I suppose he was all right then-he wants to take both sides. He was glad to accept from Sir John Macdonald the privilege of appointing counsel to investigate that case, but he refuses to give the minority in this case the privilege which he enjoyed in the AfcGreevy case. Why is it so? Counsel were appointed in that case for the Public Works Department, an analogous appointment to that of Mr. Smith for the commission. Those prosecuting the charges were allowed counsel named by themselves and the government paid him. Counsel were appointed for the contractors. The contractors paid their own counsel, but all others were paid by the government. It appears that there were a hundred meetings of that committee, and it is stated in the speech with which the report was made that in all those hundred metings there wa3 only one division of the committee. And on that occasion, with a majority of Conservatives in the House, the motion

was carried two to one, showing that the conservatives supported the opposition of that day in what they wanted. Not only that but it was said there, and uncontradicted, that the utmost freedom was given in the production of evidence. In one. case in which a witness refused to hand a book over to the committee, the Liberal members wanted possession of the book, so as to examine every page of it. The witness said he would let them see everything relating to the case, but not the whole book. The matter was brought before the House, and Sir John Thompson himself, moved a resolution that the witness be compelled to hand the book over to the committee, and he was compelled to do so. Just look on the two pictures. There is what the Conservative government did. Contrast that with the refusal of thi3 government to allow the minority to nominate, counsel.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Did the hon. gentleman ever make a charge as Mr. Tarte did?


Samuel Barker: Mr. Tarte simply took up what was published. Mr. McGreevy's brother was charging him with certain wrong doing. Mr. Tarte brought the matter before the House, and a committee was granted at once.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Did not Mr. Tarte come before the committee with his own counsel? The committee did not appoint his counsel.


Samuel Barker: He acted for the minority all through and was paid $3,000 by the government.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Did Mr. Tarte not come to the committee with his own counsel and ask the committee to allow his counsel to appear for him?


Samuel Barker: He simply came there with his counsel. The next day he explained to the committee that his counsel was absent owing to illness in his family.


Mr. GERMAN.: Did not Mr. Tarte make the charges on his responsibility as a member of this House? And if he had not succeeded in establishing them, would he not have had to resign his position?


Samuel Barker: There is no such law as that. What difference did it make here? If the right hon. the leader of the government had not moved the resolution he did would not the leader of the oposition have moved it. Do you suppose that the resignation of Mr. Lumsden would have been allowed to go without inquiry? If the right hon. gentleman had not moved for a committee, a committee would have been moved for from this side of the House. What difference would it make?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If my hon. friend will look at the report of the proceedings of the committee referred to, he will see that the chairman, Mr. Girouard, having asked whether any of the parties desired to be heard by counsel, Mr. Tarte handed him the name of Mr. C. A. Geoffrion. It was Mr. Tarte who appointed his own counsel, and not the committee at all.


Samuel Barker: We can easily get counsel if you will allow him to act, but you will have no counsel. The government of that day paid Mr. Tarte's counsel. Mr. Tarte was only one member of that committee and his request was granted. But three-fourths of the committee in the present case have asked for counsel and their request is refused?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Did not Mr. Tarte
have his counsel appointed because he made the charge?


Samuel Barker: Mr. Tarte went there with his counsel, and the chairman of the committee asked him if he wanted to appear by counsel, and Mr. Tarte said he did. Why could not that be done here? On the Lumsden Committee, there were three members of that committee who wanted to appoint counsel, and their request was refused.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If my hon. friend had made any charges himself, no doubt, he would have got his counsel, but he did not make any charges, and Mr. Lumsden said he did not want any counsel.


Samuel Barker: Suppose I had moved that resolution, would it have made any difference whether it was moved by me instead of the Prime Minister?


Wilfrid Laurier: In the case alluded to, Mr. Tarte made an accusation which put in peril the seat of two members of the House, Mr. McGreevy and Mr. Langevin.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: How would it imperil Mr. Tarte's seat?


Wilfrid Laurier: If the charges were proved, he would be unworthy of a seat in this House.


William Barton Northrup: There is no such law in England or Canada.


Samuel Barker: The right hon. gentleman will not contend that it is absolute law that a man who fails to prove his charge will lose his seat.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not say it is statutory law but it has been the law of parliament.


Samuel Barker: Never.


Wilfrid Laurier: Was not Mr. Sadler expelled from parliament on a charge against him?


Robert Laird Borden: The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) said that Mr. Tarte *would have lost his seat if he had not been able to make his charges good.


Wilfrid Laurier: Yes, and I say it on the authority of Sir John Macdonald. When in the Pacific scandal Mr. Huntingdon made a charge against Sir John Macdonald, Sir John said that Mr. Huntingdon would be driven out of the House if, having made such charges as he did, he failed to prove them. No doubt if the charges were not true, Mr. Huntingdon would have been unworthy of a seat in this House.


Robert Laird Borden: Sir John Thompson at the time certain charges were made by Mr. Edgar, reviewed the whole question and declared that, having carefully examined the cases, there was absolutely no such rule in parliament.


William Barton Northrup: You will find on inquiry that the law is this. There is no penalty against any member making a charge against a fellow member involving the loss of his seat as the consequence of a failure to prove the charge; but if the charges are of such a character that, not being proved, the House considered that the member who made them is not a fit and proper person to sit among gentlemen, the House will expel him.


Samuel Barker: In that case the man would be guilty of conduct not becoming a gentleman. But that is not the point here. In the Tarte case, Mr. Tarte took up matters of public rumour and put them into the form of a resolution, and a committee was granted without discussion. He went before the committee and brought counsel with him, without permission of the committee or anybody else.


William Manley German: He was not a member of the Committee on Privileges and Elections at that time.


Samuel Barker: I think he was. I do not think that that committee is confined even now to members of the legal profession. At all events, I have seen his name in that committee.


William Manley German: He was at their meeting.


Samuel Barker: He was in the list of members oif the committee. There are members on that committee now who are not lawyers. It has been the general understanding that on that committee lawyers should be appointed, but there are members on it who are not lawyers. It may be that his name was put down by ^ Mr. BARKER,
mistake, but it was there. I know the right hon. gentleman was there-


Wilfrid Laurier: No; I was a
member of the committee, but I did not attend on that occasion; I took no part at all.


Samuel Barker: The hon. member's name was down as being present. However, there was the position-it seems perfectly clear that the right hon. gentleman was glad to accept the privilege granted Mr. Tarte of appearing by counsel to prosecute the inquiry, but that he refused to allow the minority in this case, when they asked for it, the same privilege. I do not understand how that can be justified except on the ground of brute majority. There is no other reason for it.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I do not like that expression ' brute majority.' Perhaps the hon. member might use some other.


Samuel Barker: I do not use it in a personal sense. But,* in any case, I do not wish to insist upon it. What I insist upon is that in a matter of this importance, involving so much to this country, it is an outrage upon public rights for the government to refuse the appointment of counsel to represent the prosecution in this ca.se, and that the investigation should be going on in the way it is without any counsel there to drive home the charges against the commission or the government,
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. VICTOR GEOFFRION (Chambly and Vercheres).: When my hon. friend from Hamilton (Mr. Barker) was speaking, I was surprised to hear a gentleman of his eminence at the bar quoting a part of the evidence, and discussing it when the whole of that evidence is not yet adduced before the committee, just as if he were taking evidence before a lower court, and reporting it to a higher tribunal before all the evidence was taken. Now the question may be fairly reduced to this, whether my hon. friends opposite were logical, and rational in withdrawing from the committee on the sole ground that they had not the exclusive choice of counsel. That question of choosing a counsel was first submitted, I think they will admit, and pressed by themselves. Although I agreed with them that perhaps it would be better to have counsel, I had my doubts whether the committee, composed as it was of eminent lawyers, at least six members on the committee were eminent lawyers, could not themselves take charge of the investigation. In other committees, for instance in the Public Accounts Committee, the cus-

tom is for some one of the members to take charge of a particular case, and conduct it himself. I did not see why the members of this committee could not conduct the investigation themselves. However, it was thought proper for the speedy conduct of the proceedings to appoint a counsel. Then the question arose whether the counsel should be appointed by the whole committee or by the three members composing the minority. We submitted to them that it was only fair that the whole committee, representing as it did the whole people, should appoint the counsel. They would not admit that proposition, they contended that they alone should have the exclusive right to appoint ia counsel. We had before us the precedent of the Hodgins investigation. The gentleman who made the charge in that case came before the committee accompanied with his counsel. In this case the circumstances were very much the same. The charges were made, not by members of the opposition, but by Mr. Lumsden himself against some of his subordinate engineers. It was certainly the right, a right always acknowledged by other such committees, that the parties interested might appear before the committee accompanied by their own counsel. We all expected that Mr. Lumsden would come before that committee with counsel, we also expected that the commission would come accompanied by counsel; it was fair also that the engineers against whom charges had been made, should be represented by counsel. Then the question arose whether the committee itself should be represented by counsel, and we thought that the minority members of the committee were not fair in asking that they alone should be entrusted with the choice of counsel. Hon. gentlemen who have read the report will see that the matter was left to two members of the committee, Mr. Macdonald, and Mr. Barker, to decide who should be appointed. In all the discussions that arose between_ the members of the committee, ' the majority contended that they had just as much right to submit names as the minority. Of course we did not wish to appoint a gentleman who was in active politics, we admitted that it would not be fair to the minority to take a man who was engaged in party strife; but we thought it would be fair to take a man of high reputation at the bar, a man who had the confidence of the whole country, and who was not known to be a politician. We went further, and we offered to submit to them a gentleman who belonged to their own party; but still they insisted that they alone should have the right to appoint a counsel. That was their contention, and they would not depart from it. We could not agree with them, and I am ready to submit our view of the matter to the judg-193
ment of the House, and to the judgment of the people at large.
Now,_ reference has several times been made in this discussion to the McGreevy affair as a precedent. At that time I happened to be a partner with my brother, Mr. C. A. Geoffrion, who was appointed counsel by Mr. Tarte. Mr. Tarte made the charge himself, he chose his own counsel. He came to the office when I was present, and engaged my brother, and agreed to pay him himself. Mr. Geoffrion accordingly came before the committee, and took charge of the whole matter for Mr. Tarte, for the man who had made the charges. After proceedings had been going on before the committee for a little time, parliament thought proper to pay themselves the counsel that had been named by Mr. Tarte. Now we did exactly the same thing in the Hodgins case. Mr. Hodgins, who had made the charges, came before the committee accompanied by his counsel. Hie committee admitted that he had thes right to be represented by counsel, and we recommended to the House that the House should pay his counsel. We did just what was done by the House in the McGreevy case, when it paid Mr. Tarte's counsel. And if Mr. Lumsden had chosen to come before the committee with his own counsel, doubtless the House would have consented to pay his counsel, as it did in the cases of Mr. Tarte and Major Hodgins.
Now, Sir, I do not think that the minority members of the committee were really acting fairly when they contended that they were not well treated. They admitted themeslves that they were prejudiced in the matter, they cannot deny it, it is in the report. They say that both parties are prejudiced. We would not admit that, we no more desired to see Mr. Lumsden fail in his charges than we desired to see the engineers fail in their defence, the men who were employees of the commission and consequently employees of the government. Why should we? We took the ground that all members of the committee were disposed to probe the matter to the bottom. If the engineers had done anything wrong we wanted to discover it, in order that we might advise the committee, and advise the House. On the other hand, if Mr. Lumsden fails in proving his charges so much the worse for him. No doubt hon. gentlemen opposite are desirous of finding that the charges made by Mr. Lumsden against the engineers are true.
I have been chairman of the committee, and I think that hon. gentlemen will admit that I have treated everybody as fairly as I could. I have done my very best to help everybody. The committee recommended that Mr. Chrysler put himself in communication with Mr. Lumsden. We advised Mr. Lumsden to tell him every-

thing he could and to come and report to the committee if anything was wrong, assuring him that anything that was wrong would be remedied. As far as Mr. Chrysler is concerned, I had dealings with him as a lawyer before I came to this House,' and I had dealings as against him in certain cases. I always found him a very eminent lawyer, a man jealous of his reputation, and I cannot conceive of Mr. Chrysler not doing everything to probe this matter to the bottom in face of the instructions given to him that he must do his very best in that direction. Mr. Lumsden is there to give him all the assistance possible. The commission is open to Mr. Chrysler and Mr. Lumsden, they can go to the books and find out anything they desire to know and produce the evidence before the committee. I do not see why my hon. friends opposite are opposed to the appointment of Mr. Chrysler. The hon. member for South Sim-coe went so far as to insinuate that Mr. Chrysler's standing in the profession was not of the highest. I think that all parties before the committee are well represented. Mr. Smith stands at the top of his profession in the province of Quebec. Mr. Moss is an eminent lawyer, and I think Mr. Chrysler is in the first rank of his profession. But, if my hon. friends opposite desired at heart to investigate this matter properly, why did they not themselves undertake to do it? They are three eminent lawyers well able to conduct the investigation themselves. Any one of them could have taken charge of the investigation. In fact, we do not need any lawyer. Any one of them could have taken charge of the investigation with the help of the other members of the committee, and it would have gone just as well perhaps as with a lawyer. But, they would not do that, and if they are not satisfied with Mr. Chrysler, why do they not come back to the committee and help to put the questions if they think that the questions are not being properly put? If they can think of anything else, they are welcome to come before the committee and ask questions, as they have a right to do. I do not think we need to extend this discussion. As I said in the beginning, this is not the place or the time to discuss the question of the cost of the Transcontinental railway, and it is not the time to discuss the evidence. I do not think the House has the right to discuss the evidence, because it is not before them I do not think it is fair or rational that any member of this House should take the evidence and discuss it when it is not all before the committee yet, and when members of the engineering staff have not been examined. My hon. friend from South Simcoe this afternoon took some parts of the evidence, commented upon them, and left other parts, which, in some instances, contradict those parts which he was commenting upon. I submit that the commit-Mr. GEOFFRION.
tee is acting fairly, that it is trying to do its best, and that the House and the people may have every confidence that it will do its duty.


Mr. T. W. CROTHERS (West Elgin).: There is scarcely a question dealt with byt this House, or by any of its committees, which is not approached and determined from a party standpoint, and the one before us now is assuredly not one of the exceptions. Conduct and transactions are approved of in this House, which, disassociated from party politics, would receive the prompt condemnation of every rightthinking man. The report under consideration, for the first time, raises the question why the minority on the Lums-der. committee refused longer to participate in the investigation, and for the first time gives them an opportunity of answering that question, which, like all other questions, has two sides.
Those who approve the action of the majority on the Lumsden Investigation Committee, try to justify it in this way. They say that Mr. Lumsden, in June last, when resigning his position as chief engineer of the National Transcontinental railway, gave as his reason for so doing, that he had lost confidence in some of the engineers for improper classification and measurements of construction work in sections ' B ' and ' F '; that, recently, at the instance of the government, the House authorized them to appoint a select committee of seven to investigate the charge thus made, which was accordingly done, four supporters of the government and three members of the opposition being chosen; that the government and its supporters have no desire or interest to serve other than to ascertain whether the charge be well founded; that on behalf of the people they seek the truth merely; that no charge against the government is made, and therefore it is not a party matter at all; that the whole people of Canada being interested counsel chosen to conduct the investigation should have a national reputation for ability and probity, and should be selected by a majority of the committee, namely, by the four government supporters on it; that they having chosen such a man, the minority on the committee should be satisfied, and that it was unreasonable and unprecedented that they should insist on being permitted to name counsel.
That, I think, is a fair statement of the attitude taken by the majority on the committee, and supported by their political friends-plausible, but, as it seems to me fallacious as well.
Let us, for a moment, examine the other view of the situation as taken by the minority. The government undertook to construct the National Transcontinental railway, to construct that part of it between Winnipeg and Moncton directly as a government work. The government, therefore,

is responsible to the people of Canada for the manner in which that great work is being done, more especially that part of it. When taking power to build that part of the road, they told the people that they had all the requisite information to enable them to say that it could be built for $51,300,000. The work of construction has now proceeded sufficiently far to enable them to admit that it will probably cost at least three times the sum so named. That admission naturally suggests either that they had not comprehensive and reliable information when those figures were given, or that they are paying for the work enormously more than it is fairly worth. And the reason given by Mr. Lumsden for his resignation points to the latter.
As already stated, the government is strictly and fully responsible to parliament and to the people, in every particular, for the manner in which the great project is being prosecuted, for the conduct of every one engaged in the prosecution thereof, whether it be that of the chief engineer, of the Transcontinental Railway Commissioners, or of the resident and district engineers.
It therefore follows that the investigation directed by this House, and limited as it is to sections ' B ' and ' F ' of the road- although the opposition contended it should cover the whole project-places the government on trial respecting the manner in which the construction so limited has thus far proceeded. Full comprehension of the above would go far to illuminate the conduct of the majority of the committee as hereinafter set forth. Further, on the 25th of June last the Transcontinental Railway Commissioners sent a letter to Mr. Lumsden, and to each of the other two arbitrators appointed to determine questions of classification, &c., which was in part as follows:
The commissioners object to and protest against proceedings of the arbitrators as being improper and illegal for the following reasons, viz.:-
(a)	That they were based in whole or in part on the said draft agreement of May 14, 1909, which had been rejected and which had no existence in fact;
(b)	That the examination of the work was of a hasty, insufficient and superficial character ;
(c)	That the engineers on the line who classified the work were not afforded a sufficient hearing and an opportunity of presenting evidence;
(d)	That the contractors were not afforded an opportunity of showing cause, and further to say that the commissioners insist in the public interest that the proceedings of the arbitration tribunal shall he exhaustive, final and conclusive; shall cover all the objections filed by the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and that the report of the arbitrators when made shall he supported by substantial evidence, including details of quantities, etc.
That letter clearly shows the feelings entertained by the commissioners towards Mr. Lumsden. Of that grossly improper letter, written obviously in sympathy with the subordinate engineers and contractors, and apparently to intimidate the arbitrators in the impartial discharge of their duties, the government expressed no disapproval, although it loudly called for sharp repri mand if not for immediate dismissal. The non-action of the government on that letter, and its prompt acceptance of Mr. Lumsden's resignation, show that the government determined to stand by the commissioners, their appointees, and the contractors as against Mr. Lumsden, and the people. One may pause to ask why, and receive some ugly answers to the query. The government being on trial as aforesaid, and in the light of the circumstances I have mentioned it is clear what it desires the outcome of this investigation to be, and it has taken good care to place on the committee a majority of its own supporters upon whom it can rely to guide the inquiry to a satisfactory conclusion. The railway commissioners appeared before the committee with counsel who had evidently been instructed that the carriage of the proceedings was to be in his hands, for he said:
Allow me to say one word. Of course I do not propose to apoligize for my presence here at all, hut I did imagine that I represented the public interest. But if in the course of the investigation I can help the committee in a humble way in getting at the facts my instructions are to make the inquiry within the scope of the reference as full as possible, in order to fix the responsibility, if any exists,.
But upon its being pointed out that his clients were clearly in the position of defendants, and that it would be too absurd and transparent to entrust the prosecution to the defendents counsel, the committee upon the urgency of the minority thereof determined that other counsel should be engaged to take the carriage of the investigation. >Now, it is perfectly clear Mr. Speaker, that the idea of the other members of the committee was that Mr. Smith who appeared before the committee as representing the commissioners, should have the carriage of the investigation, and that there should be no other counsel, and no counsel at all on behalf of the people. At page 11 of the evidence you will find that the hon. member for Pictou stated distinctly that the commissioners were not on trial.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The commissioners are not on trial here and there is no use of your saying so.
And further he said


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Would my hon. friend quote what Mr. Lennox said right there?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I have given you the page, and the words you used.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What did Mr. Lennox say?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I am going to give more of what you said. You can give us what Mr. Lennox said. But I have no objection to giving what Mr. Lennox said. He said:


Haughton Lennox: The commission is responsible for the class of engineers that they employ, to employ competent and honest engineers. The commission may he able to show that they are absolutely blameless in this matter.
That is what Mr. Lennox said, and I may say here that the chief engineer was appointed by the government, and not by the commission, under section 10 of the Transcontinental Railway Act, and under section 11 the subordinate engineers, and all other servants, and workmen are employed by the commissioners. Mr. Macdonald said in reply to Mr. Lennox:
The commissioners are not on trial here and there is no use in your saying so.


Haughton Lennox: It will be just as well for us to give each member of the committee the liberty to express his ideas in his own way. Mr. Macdonald usually claims that privilege for himself, and I will take the same liberty.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is so, and I hope I am not interferring with the expression of your views in that way, but when you say the Transcontinental Commission is on trial here I say they are not..
Well, the Transcontinental Commissioners were there with their able counsel. They were either there as defendants or as prosecutors. Mr. Macdonald repeated that they were not there as defendants, and it therefore follows that they were there as prosecutors. And, the proposition was by the four government supporters on the committee. and by the Transcontinental Commissioners, that their counsel was to have the carriage of the proceeding ..acting as prosecuting counsel as well as counsel for the defence. That is borne out by some statements made by the chairman of the committee. At page 12 there is a little conversation with the chairman which shows the view that he entertained at this stage. I quote from the evidence:


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Yes, and the other side I think will desire to show that they are well founded. A lawyer will know well enough, Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Wilson will know, that no lawyer can represent two sides of a question and represent it properly. We all know that the truth can best he brought out if there is an examination, an examiner-inchief, and a cross-examiner. That is the principle of all investigations. 1 have had something to do with investigations myself, and I always encourage the appointment of counsel by any one who wished to have a re-Mr. MACDONALD.
presentative, in order to bring out the truth. We cannot help it, there are two sides upon any point, those on the one side striving in one direction and those on the other side striving in the other direction. No one lawyer can bring it all out, we understand that, and it is necessary in the interests of the public that we should have counsel on each side.


The CHAIRMAN.: I think this is a very peculiar position. There are two sides as Mr. Crothers says; I understand that one side is Mr. Lumsden making a charge against other parties, and the other side is the other parties who are accused by Mr. Lumsden. We aslc Mr. Lumsden if he wants any counsel and he says: ' No, I do not want any counsel/ Now, who is the other party? The other side is the parties who are accused by Mr. Lumsden of having disobeyed his orders. Now, if they are here and want to be represented by counsel, I, for one, see no reason why their request should not be complied with. In that case we would undoubtedly have both sides represented. On the one hand is Mr. Lumsden making the charge and on the other hand the parties who are accused if they both want to be represented by counsel I should be delighted for them to have as many counsel as they choose. That is the way I understand it, but of course I am in the hands of the committee about that.
I do not know how we can now go on and assign counsel to anybody who is not in the case. I do not think that the government, the commission or anybody else are parties to the case, except Mr. Lumsden on the one hand and the engineers accused by him on the other. That is the way I understand the case stands.
So that the chairman of this committee and the other three supporters of the gov-ment on the committee regarded the two parties in the case as Mr. Lumsden on the one hand and the subordinate engineers on the other hand, while the people of Canada had no interest whatever. On the same page Mr. Smith is reported to have said:	.
Allow me to say one word. Of course, I do not propose to apologize for my presence here at all, but I did imagine that I represented the public interest. No charge has been preferred against the commission, but the commission desires as full inquiry as possible in order to fix the responsibility if these charges are well founded, and to fix the responsibility for these unfortunate things that exist; and while I should be delighted that counsel should represent any other interests, or should represent Mr. Lumsden's interests, to which I am not objecting in the least, I must say that I have not conceived it my duty to come here to defend the commission against any charges, because I am not aware that any charges have been preferred against them. But if in the course of the investigation I can help the committee in a humble way in getting at the facts, ray instructions are to make the inquiry, within the scope of the reference, as full as possible in order to fix the responsibility if any exists.
Mr. Barker said:
As I understand Mr. Smith, he considers himself appointed by the commission to repre-

sen! the interests of the public; I, for one, as a member of the committee, think that would be narrowing very much this inquiry.
Then we have Mr. Wilson's view:
I understand that Mr. Lumsden has made some charges, or some reflections against some engineers, and I, for one, will be delighted if Mr, Lumsden is represented by counsel, and that the party or parties against whom he has laid complaints be also represented, but when you talk about counsel to represent ' the public,' that seems to me a very vague word.
So that the idea of the chairman of the committee and the other three supporters of the government on it was that Mr. Smith, who was there representing ithe commissioners, who were clearly in the position of defendants, having appointed the engineers against whom the charges were made was a proper person to undertake the carriage of the proceedings, which I think will strike any fair-minded man, any lawyer or any layman, as being a most extraordinary position for any one to take, much less for gentlemen who are members of the honourable profession to which I have the honour of belonging. Up until the third meeting of the committee our friends insisted that Mr. Lumsden should be sworn and proceed to give testimony without any other counsel being appointed. We insisted that the proper time to appoint counsel on behalf of the public was at the very beginning of the inquiry, before Mr. Lumsden or any other witness was called to give testimony. When it was announced that Mr. Lumsden was not to have counsel for himself we made a motion to adjourn in order that we might consider the question of naming counsel for the other side; but that resolution of ours was voted down, and the majoritv of the committee insisted that Mr. Lumsden, the chief witness for the prosecution, should proceed to give his testimony without any lawyer to represent the public, and that was carried. Afterwards the hon. member for Pictou admitted that counsel ought to be appointed to represent the other side, and at page 75 made quite lengthy remarks in reference to that. He said:
Mr. Lumsden says, ' I am not going to be a prosecutor in this matter at all; I am not going to bring counsel; I don't want counsel; I am here only as a witness.' He disclaims any responsibility of any character whatever; consequently the committee would be left in this position, with the assistance of Mr. Smith, representing the commission. But I am not sure, on account of his high standing at the bar, and his position generally, we would all recognize that he would take a very high stand in regard to the matter, and would assist the committee in the fullest possible way. At the same time, personally, I feel that the committee would be relieved of very much labour, and the thing would be very much more satisfactory, if we had somebody here who would assume the role of presenting the facts from the other side.
That was a very proper observation, as I said on the next page:
I am perfectly prepared to agree with everything Mr. Macdonald has said. I think he has covered the ground well.
Then the question arose as to who should name counsel for the other side. The minority of the committee submitted that as there were two sides to the inquiry, as the government was on trial and therefore naturally desired but one ending to it, as the majority on the committee being supporters of the government would naturally desire that it should be exonerated, and, as the characteristic virtue of hon. coun sel is to strive to give effect to the desire of his retainers, counsel chosen by the majority of the committee would be satisfactory neither to the minority nor to the public. On the other hand, were counsel named by the minority, it would be his duty to uphold their contention, and that of the opposition, while counsel appointed by the commissioners would uphold their contention, that of the majority and that of the government as well; so that, no interest could suffer, and both sides of the controversy would be fully presented. Now I submit to this House that that was a very reasonable and proper proposition. Lawyers know full well that the characteristic virtue of a good lawyer is to strive to carry out the desire of the man who retains him; that is inbred in the very nature of a lawyer; it is involved in the oath he takes before he begins to practice, and he cannot shake himself clear of that influence if he would, and we would not if we could. So that the proper way to get counsel in a case of this kind is for the party who is interested in reaching one conclusion to select one counsel, and the party who is interested in reaching the other conclusion to select the other counsel. The counsel selected bv those who desire to reach the one conclusion will strive to give effect to the desire of those who retain him, and the counsel appointed by the other side, as in this case the counsel appointed by the commissioners, will strive to give effect to the desire of those who retain him. It is well known to every lawyer in this House, from the right hon. the Prime Minister down to the humblest member, that that is the best wav to get. at the truth and to reach satisfactory results.
The majority of the committee having refused to adopt those well recognized principles and to allow the minority to name one of the counsel, I refused and still refuse to serve on a tribunal to hear evidence and argument adduced by counsel chosen by one side only.
The minority named counsel to whom

no reasonable objection could be taken, but the majority would not accept one of them, merely because they desired that the counsel chosen should understand that his appointment came from them, and be influenced accordingly.
It is said that the counsel chosen by the majority is able and honourable. We gladly admit that, but we deny that he is divine. Yes, he is both honourable and human, like the rest of us, and being so, he would, unconsciously, perhaps, desire to serve those who appointed him to an honourable and lucrative position. And I make that statement after an experience of many years, during which I have been associated with many of the most eminent counsel this country has ever produced, several of whom now adorn the bench of our highest courts. More than once in this country we have had eminent judges even, in special political inquiries outside of court proceedings, exercise an unconscious desire to please their political retainers.
There are many able and honourable lawyers on both sides of this House, and there is not one of them from the Prime Minister down, but knows that what I have said is absolutely true, but knows that it is absolutely unfair and contrary to public interests that counsel for both sides of this or any other question should be chosen by those on one side only interested in the result, as is being done here. There is not one who does not know that to have this investigation carried on by counsel so appointed is grossly indecent, and that the results thereof will not command the respect or confidence of the people of this country, who are fully seized of the situation.
Similar methods found great favour with the late Liberal government of Ontario shortly before its ignominious dissolution when, desirous of deceiving the people and of extricating itself from compromising positions-my hon. friend from West Peter-boro (Mr. Stratton) will recognize the facts -their modus operandi was to appoint a shrewdly selected commission of inquiry, to retain counsel of their own political persuasion to conduct it, and to refuse counsel on the other side. The results were often amusing, as well as absurd. Such an investigation in the West Elgin case produced a finding that admissions made over the signature of a Liberal member of the legislature and that of his counsel, the present Minister of Justice, were ill-founded. Another, conducted in camera, discovered that certain publishers were losing money at the prices being paid them for school books, while the facts, subsequently revealed, demonstrated that one-half those prices would yield a fair profit, and at the latter prices the books are now being supplied.
In the light of experience, I must em-Mr. CROTHERS.
phatically refuse to allow myself to be humbugged by any such transparent scheme or to be a party to any such farcical proceedings. I might add that the gentleman chosen by the four government supporters on the committee is an active politician of the Liberal type, has been a candidate for a seat in this House, and who is now conducting this investigation, figures largely in the Auditor General's report every year, and has received an average of over $3,700 per year for seven years under the present administration. In 1903-4, he received $7,800, last year he received $3,940.74, and no doubt is living in joyful anticipation of better things to come. With this gentleman conducting the prosecution against the government, with able counsel acting for the defendants, the Transcontinental Commissioners, with other able counsel representing the subordinate engineers, without any counsel appearing for the chief engineer, Mr. Lumsden, and with four impartial and righteous judges on the bench, chosen from among the political partisans of the government, who dare question the conclusion that will be reached?
Now I understand that not only are the four gentlemen who represent the government on this committee responsible for this condition of things, but that they have consulted the right hon. the Prime Minister from time to time with reference to the appointment of this counsel, and that the course they have pursued has met with his approval. There are two sides to this question. The government is responsible for the construction of this railway. It is responsible for the conduct of the chief engineer. It is also responsible for the administration by the Railway Commissioners and for the actions of every subordinate engineer who has had anything to do with that road. So that the government is vitally interested in making it appear, as the result of this investigation, that the subordinate engineers were both competent and honest. That is one side. I quite admit, as the chairman of that committee (Mr. Geoffrion) said a few moments ago, that the opposition, in this as in every case, desire to show that some blame attaches to the government. That is always the desire of the opposition. Hon. gentlemen opposite were in opposition at one time, and although that was a long, time ago, it is not long enough to allow them to forget their eagerness to establish a strong case against the government then in office. It is likewise a legitimate desire on our part to show that the people are being defrauded out of large sums of money in the construction of this railway, and to bring out in the inquiry before this committee, limited though it be in its scope, limited to a very small portion of the whole road, some facts which would show how the country is being defrauded. On the other

hand, the desire of hon. gentlemen opposite is naturally to pTove if possible that everything is going on honestly and properly, and consequently they would not be likely to appoint counsel who would act vigorously in attempting to bring out the facts and prove the government guilty. Will the people be satisfied with an inquiry conducted by two counsel, both of whom were appointed by those who are particularly interested in showing there was no wrongdoing? The minority asked simply fo>-what was reasonable. They asked simply for what was granted in the case of the Me-Greevy investigation. We have had some quibbling by hon. gentlemen opposite this afternoon regarding that investigation, but in substance there is no difference between the two cases. The opposition of that day were in that case making charges against the government then in office." The man who made the charges asked for the privilege of naming his own counsel. He was most interested in showing that the government were guilty of wrongdoing, and the government of that day, headed by the late Sir John Thompson, very properly acceded to his request. Mr. Tarte, who made the charges and who really represented the whole opposition, was allowed to name his own counsel, and the gentleman he retained was paid by the government. In the present instance, there is a charge made, and the House cannot get away from that. The people so understand the position. The government is responsible for the conduct of every one engaged in the construction of this great railway. The government is on trial; there is no use saying that the government is not on trial. The government desires to be exonerated and the four supporters of the government on that committee desire that the government should be exonerated. I have no objection at all to that desire; it is a very natural desire and a very legitimate desire. But, when they tell us that it is not a party matter and that they have no party feeling in it-well, they may tell that to the marines. If there is no party feeling about the matter, why did the Prime Minister not name four Conservatives instead of four Liberals on that committee? Why were four supporters of the government appointed, two of whom at least have had a great deal of experience in matters of this kind? If it is not a party matter why did the Prime Minister appoint men whom he thought would guide the inquiry to a satisfactory conclusion for the government? I do not purpose for one, Mr. Speaker, to be a party to any such farce. I have been interested in several similar investigations in the province of Ontario, and there I knew of eminent coun'r sel; counsel just as eminent as those who are engaged in this investigation-and I know what I am speaking of-deliberately
concealing documentary evidence that would be strong against the government. So that I submit, Mr. Speaker, to this House, that we were asking nothing but what was fair and reasonable, and the Conservative minority upon that committee, having been refused what was fair and reasonable, I declined to be a party to any proceeding of that kind and I am very glad that I did decline, and I would do so again under similar circumstances,


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that most hon. members who have followed this discussion have wondered why it was that my hon. friend from Simcoe precipitated a debate op this matter, and why we have lost this afternoon and this evening so far in discussing the subject he has presented to the House. Did I say subject which he has presented to the House? Perhaps I should not have used that expression, because so far as I have heard his charges, and those of his friends who have followed him, I am yet at a loss to know what subject he did present to the House. My hon. friend well knows that the proper time to discuss the facts which relate to this matter is when the committee appointed by this House makes its report after all the facts have been elicited, after all the evidence has been obtained, and when the House would be in a position intelligently, and fairly to consider the whole matter. But, the hon. gentleman did not choose to wait until then; he thought it would be a good thing for him from a political point of view to have a debate on a presentation of one side of the story. My hon. friend, and his associates have talked a good deal about this matter to-day, but they have not ventured to come in the proper parliamentary way and ask the indulgence of the House for their non-attendance on that committee. The reason is that these hon. gentlemen know they have no grounds upon which they can ask the House to excuse them for not performing their duties as members of that committee. LeT me consider for -a moment what the position of members of B parliamentary committed are. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition has always manifested some regard for the maintenance of parliamentary rules, and I think that in this case he should have seen to it that his followers should pay some respect to these usages which have always obtained in this, and in the English parliament. Hon. gentlemen opposite are always ready to cite precedents from the mother country, but when it comes to their carrying out in a proper spirit the usages prevalent in the mother of parliaments, they are not very careful about their performance. When the right hon. the Prime Minister moved to appoint this committee they knew just as well as

they do to-day everything which, they have presented to the House now; they knew the committee was to be composed of a majority of members supporting the government; they knew that under the usual rules of parliamentary government a majority of that committee would be in sympathy with the government of the day, and, why did they not take the position then that they would not serve on that committee. I might suggest that there are reasons why these gentlemen have declined to serve on the committee, and these reasons may become apparent before the close of this parliament. In the meantime the reasons which they are attempting to present are not valid reasons, and do not constitute any logical argument why they should be excused from attending the committee. They went to that committee with a mandate from this House to perform a duty which the people elected them to discharge, and when they refused to perform that duty in the committee without the consent of parliament, they just as much failed in their duty to their constituents as if they had absolutely refused to sit and vote in this House. If my hon. friends want to make campaign material on a one-sided story in regard to this matter, they will no doubt be able to do so by the course they have taken. But so far as I am concerned, the House having assigned to me certain duties to perform in that committee, and having delegated to me the maintenance of the rights of the people, and of this parliament, I feel it my duty to accept the responsibility delegated to me and to proceed with the investigation and to report on the facts as I find them.
And to ask me or any other gentleman constituting that committee to come in now and discuss in this parliament the merits of this case is a proposition to which I will not assent; and so far as I am concerned my hon. friends will be able to present to the House and to the country, for the moment, a one-sided story. Then, Sir, if this debate was to have any purpose whatever, it was evident that these gentlemen have not the pluck to risk the judgment of the House upon this matter, and they are attempting by quibbling to discover a way of retreat, and to try to show their friends outside that they are making a brave fight, instead of abandoning their functions and neglecting their duties. Let us examine their reasons. -I ventured to say in a previous debate on this matter, that my hon. friends would search in vain the records of this parliament or the records of the imperial parliament to find any precedent for the proposition that the minority of a committee were the body to dictate as to the appointment of counsel or to do anything else. If my hon. friend's position is cor-Mr. E. M. MACDONALD.
rect that the minority of the committee should rule in regard to the* appointment of counsel why should they not rule upon all other questions? As the committee is but a small parliament in embryo, a delegated portion of this parliament, why should not my hon. friends in this House control and direct every matter of national policy? Why did they not go down to Washington and deal with President Taft? If the minority in the House has the same right as they claim for the minority on the committee, they would have Just as much right to send representatives to Washington and to dictate the policy of this country in regard to the United States, as they would have to dictate the proceedings of this committee. Indeed, to hear my hon. friends talk, one would think they are still sleeping the sleep of Rip Van Winkle, and they are still under the impression that their party, which was defeated fourteen years ago, are still in power, and are still running the country. The government of this country and the members who support this government came here in 1908 with a mandate from the people to govern this country in parliament and in committee. We are responsible to the people to-day, and we will be responsible to them so long as this government has the support of the majority of the members of this House, and we could not rid ourselves of responsibility in regard to the appointment of counsel or of anything else by delegating that authority to my hon. friends opposite.
Now, Sir, is there any precedent for my hon. friends position? I say there is not. I have listened to these hon. gentlemen, and they have failed to produce a single' precedent for their contention. Don't you think that if they had found in the long history of England anything to support their theory that the minority should control the proceedings of the committee, they would have produced it? Don't you think that if they could have found in the forty years' history of this parliament any precedent of that nature they would have produced it? Not one precedent have they found. Their position is absolutely untenable, and contrary to the history of responsible government in this country. I thought my hon. friend from Elgin (Mr. Crothers) to-night was hardly as enthusiastic in his address as he usually is. He, and my hon. friend from Hamilton (Mr. Barker), would like their friends who are going to read their speeches in the country, to think; that when they had control of the government in 1891, they actually went to work and appointed Mr. C. A. Geoffriou, who was subsequently a member of the government of the right hon. gentleman who leads this House, and allowed that prominent Liberal to come in and conduct the prosecution in the McGreevy case, and

paid him for it. They know that nothing of the kind occurred. I have under my hand an extract from the reports of the proceedings before the committee in 1891, which shows exactly what did occur, and I will read it verbatim, in order to put it on the records, and show that there is no excuse for their argument. This is what occurred:
The committee met on Friday, May 15, 1891, under the presidency of Mr. Girouard, now Mr. Justice Girouard. The chairman having asked whether any of the parties were desirous of being heard by counsel-
Mr. Tarte, the gentleman who had taken the responsibility, from his seat in this House, of making a written statement and positive charges against another hon. gentleman in this House.
-Mr. Tarte handed in the name of Mr. C. A. Geofirion.
, Mr. BARKER. Who paid him?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Is there any question about who paid him? I do not know whether he was paid or not. I suppose if he was paid, he was paid by the government.


Samuel Barker: The government paid him.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Certainly they did. But did the government appoint Mr. Geof-frion?


Samuel Barker: A member of the opposition appointed him.'
Mr. MACDONALD, The gentleman who made the charges, Mr. Tarte, chose Mr. Geoffrion as hi9 counsel, and came there with him, just as Major Hodgins did in the committee with which my hon. friend and myself were connected two years ago. Major Hodgins took his cousin, Mr. Frank Hodgins, as his counsel, and brought him to the committee, and asked us to recognize him, and we did so, and we paid him. My hon. friend is quibbling about the question of payment, he and his friends are attempting to mislead their supporters outside into the idea-


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Did not the gentleman and the party who were making the charges then name the counsel who should prosecute the charges?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Certainly, Mr. Tarte named his own counsel.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Are they doing it now?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Is my hon. friend making any charges?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: 13 the man who is making the charges, or on whose behalf they are being made, appointing a counsel?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I have mysfilf repeatedly offered Mr. Lumsden the opportunity of appointing a counsel, and told him the committee were prepared to pay his counsel, any one he might name, and he declined to do it. My hon. friend is attempting to rely upon his astuteness in order to create an impression outside.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Is Mr. Lumsden the prosecutor in this case?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Certainly, he is the man who made the charges. If my hon. friend means as prosecutor the man who made those charges which initiated these proceedings, Mr. Lumsden is the man who made those charges which a committee of this House was appointed to investigate. They have called before them Mr. Lumsden, who made those charges, and have told him:	If you wish to appoint a counsel we will pay him. Mr. Lumsden says:
I don't care to have counsel, and we have gone on as I have shown. Time and again we have endeavoured to get our hon. friends to agree upon a counsel, and they would not agree to it.


Mr. MEIGHEN.: Will the hon. gentleman tell us now who are being prosecuted?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend will hear what I have to say on that matter &3 I go along. I am for the moment dealing with the question whether what occurred in regard to the appointment of counsel in the McGreevy case, is a precedent for my hon. friends opposite. They are attempting to find a precedent here. Let us see what took place. When the government of Sir John A. Macdonald came to act, what did they do? I want hon. gentlemen to recall the difference between their attitude and the action of Mr. Tarte, who came with Mr. Geoffrion as his counsel on May 15 at the inception of the investigation. Mr. Tarte, having made his chargee in the House, and they having been referred to a committee, he came there to prosecute them, and he had his counsel with him. On May 26 the committee again met, and that is the first time that the government appear in regard to the matter. What transpired then? Sir John Thompson moved:
That the following gentleman be heard before the committee as counsel:	H. McD.
Henry, Q.C.
To represent the people, forsooth?-and this is the first occasion in this committee upon which the government is heard from. H. McD. Henry, to represent the people?- not at all, but to represent the Public Works Department.


Samuel Barker: But Mr. Tarte had previously brought his counsel there.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Of course, my hon. friend knows that. I have just told him

that on May 15, Mr. Tarte, at the inception of the committee, came there to prosecute the charges that he had made and he had his counsel with him to look after his interest. He appeared before this committee, and the committee granted leave for Mr. Geoffrion to appear as counsel. At no stage in the proceedings did the government propose to appoint counsel for the people. But when the government did move, on May 26th, they did not move at all that counsel be appointed to represent the people, but that Mr. H. McD. Henry, Q. C., be appointed to represent the Public Works Department. Was there any suggestion, throughout that whole inquiry, of the government, or any of its representatives on the committee, moving for any counsel to represent the people?	,


Samuel Barker: No, because counsel had previously been appointed.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Because counsel had been appointed to represent Mr. Tarte, and not to represent the people. My hon. friend is quibbling, and he knows it. But he is not going to deceive anybody in this House. He may deceive some of his party friends outside, who wish to be deceived, but nobody in this House is going to be deceived. Then, later on, Mr. B. B. Osier, Q. C., came into the matter. We have heard some suggestions in the press outside about Mr. Osier and Mr. Henry acting for the people. My hon. friend has got a new version of the story in which he is trying to make out that Mr. Geoffrion was acting for the people when, as a matter of fact, he was acting for Mr. Tarte. Who were Mr. Osier and Mr. Henry acting for? I have shown that Mr. Henry acted for the Public Works Department, and later, on June 24, Sir John Thompson moved that Mr. B. B. Osier, Q. C., be heard before the committee, as counsel, with Mr. Henry, Q. C., for the Public Works Department. That is the position which these gentlemen occupied before that committee. My hon. friend says that it was Mr. Geoffrion who acted for the people. The Tory papers outside say that it was Mr. Osier and Mr. Henry who acted for the people. We find that Mr. Osier and Mr. Henry acted for the Public Works Department.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Does the hon. gentleman say that Mr. Tarte's charges were not in the interest of the people?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Oh, my hon. friend need not think that I am so very fresh as all that. My hon. friend knows that if the hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr Lennox) had made those charges in this House, and if he had gone before this committee and asked for counsel to represent him, counsel would have been appointed by the committee, as a matter of course. My hon. friend knows that if he had gone Mr. E. M. MACDONALD.
to the committee and asked to be assigned counsel, having assumed the responsibility of making charges, the committee would have given him counsel. But when nobody has the responsibility of making charges either here or elsewhere, when hon/ gentlemen are unwilling to attach to their names the responsibility of making one charge against this government, and when we find that the gentleman who does make the charge that the government themselves sent to be investigated, says that he does not want counsel, these hon. gentlemen come in and say that they will not sit upon that committee because Mr. Lumsden would not appoint counsel. I have analysed the occurrence of 1891, and I have shown conclusively that what occurred at that time was that Mr. Geoffrion was not appointed by the committee, but was the private solicitor of Mr. Tarte, who took him before the committee as his counsel, that he was accepted by the committee, and that Mr. Osier and Mr. Henry, who were said to represent the people, had been appointed by a motion of Sir John Thompson, to represent the Public Works Department. I do think that, as a professional man, the hon. gentleman's reflections upon Mr. Chrysler were most unfair. I know Mr. Henry, who was subsequently Judge Henry, very well, and my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) knows him too. He was a splendid lawyer when in the enjoyment of his health. He was a Conservative candidate in the city of Halifax a short time before this against my hon. friend the Finance Minister, and he was defeated. He had budding ambitions in the Conservative party. I do not recall that anybody in that province urged that the inquiry was going to be unfair because Mr. Henry occupied that position, and I hardly think it was worthy of hon. gentlemen, members of the bar, to make the statements they did make in regard to Mr. Chrysler, whose reputation in this country is unquestioned, and whose status as a professional man is beyond reproach. It is not more than two weeks ago since the city of Winnipeg had that gentleman appear before an important committee of this House to represent them in regard to their interests, and it can hardly be said that a man who has had the important responsibilities before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Privy Council which Mr. Chrysler has had so repeatedly, and who is known by the bar of this country as a man against whom no imputation can be made, would violate his oath as a barrister and throw away all his great professional reputation in order to play a miserable little political game. But this is a diversion. I have shown that the precedent which my hon. friend has endeavoured to find is no precedent at all, in support of his contention, but entirely the contrary.
<507 7


Robert Laird Borden: I would like to ask my Ron. friend whether there was not a counsel in 1891 who was selected neither by the government nor by the majority of the committee; that is Mr. Geoffrion?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: He was selected by Mr. Tarte.


Robert Laird Borden: He was not selected by the government or by a majority of the committee.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Or by any portion of the committee; neither the majority nor the minority. .


Robert Laird Borden: What counsel is there in this investigation who corresponds with that position?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I am surprised at the leader of the opposition; he knows very well that Mr. Lumsden occupies the position that Mr. Tarte did; that if Mr. Lumsden had come to the committee and said:
' I want counsel,' counsel would have been appointed, but he said he did not want counsel. I was proceeding to show what course the majority had adopted in regard to this question


Robert Laird Borden: Is there any counsel corresponding to that in the investigation now proceeding?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: M,y Chrysler is performing the duties of prosecutor in this matter.	1


Haughton Lennox: Instructed by the defendants.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Instructed not by any defendants. My hon. friend has said what is incorrect, and he has no warrant for making that statement whatever. -


Haughton Lennox: I stand by it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: He is instructed solely and only by Mr. Lumsden. Mr! Lumsden told us that he had given his full confidence to Mr. Chrysler, and that hd had given him all information necessary to conduct the investigation. What are the facts in regard to this question of counsel? The very day the committee met the question as to what should be done in regard to the appointment of counsel was discussed and my hon. friend from West ElgiD (Mt. Crothers), who is a very ingenious gentleman, undertook to make an argument to show that my hon. friends and myself took the position that the commission was not a party to this matter, and that, therefore, we thought that Mr. Smith, who came there as counsel of the commission, was a man who would represent the people. My hon. friend was hardly fair in the quotation which he read in regard to my remarks. When I interrupted him in the course of his speech and asked him to
read it all, he omitted to read the remark of the hon. member for South Simcoe.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I did not; I read it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will show you what you did read, and what you did not.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I read what you asked me to read.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: This is what occurred:


Haughton Lennox: He speaks about a certain number of engineers, the commission is responsible for the class of engineers that they employ, to employ competent and honest engineers. The commission may be able to show that they are absolutely blameless in this matter.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The commissioners are not on trial here, and there is no use in your
saying so.
This is what my hon. friend omitted.


Haughton Lennox: I have not said so.


Haughton Lennox: That is true.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: So that my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) took the position that he had not said the commissioners were on trial or were a party to the investigation.


Haughton Lennox: I said that up to that time I had not specifically stated that the commissioners were on trial. When my hon. friend (Mr. Macdonald) said the commissioners were not on trial and there was no use in my saying so, I said: I have not said so, but I proceeded to point out the position they were in.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The material point I wanted to make there was that my hon. friend (Mr- Lennox) had followed up my statement by saying that he never had said the commissioners were on trial, and when I asked my hon. friend from Elgin (Mr. Crothers) to quote what my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) had said, he omitted to quote that statement of Mr. Lennox.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I beg your pardon; I understood you to ask me to read what Mr. Lennox had said which led up to your statement, and that I read. Of course, I may have misunderstood you. Before I sit down I would ask my hon. friend to read the next remark of Mr. Lennox.


Haughton Lennox: And my next remark after that?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Certainly. It i3 possible my hon. friend Mr. Crothers was mistaken as to my request, although he surely must have seen the significance of reading that part where Mr. Lennox said that he never said the commissioners were on trial.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I see no significance in it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: You don't?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: No, I read the significant part of it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Oh, very well. Then I said to Mr. Lennox as appears on page


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: You say they are responsible ?


Haughton Lennox: It will be just as well for us to give each member of the committee the privilege to express his ideas in his own way. Mr. Macdonald usually claims that privilege to himself and I will take the same liberty.
He was not in very good humour that morning. Then I said:


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is so, and I hope I am not interfering with the expression of your view's in that way, but when you say the Transcontinental Commission is on trial here I say they are not.
Then Mr. Lennox said:


Haughton Lennox: I have not said that.
He repeated what I had said that he did not state the transcontinental commissioners were on trial, and he continued.
-but I repeated it that when Mr. Lumsden said a number of the engineering' staff had disobeyed his instructions, and that a wrong classification exists, it is a reflection upon the manner in which this railway is constructed.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Will my hon. friend allow me?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Now, I am not on the witness stand. My hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) certainly stated that the commissioners were not on trial and that is the important point I was endeavouring to make, and the hon. gentleman'repeated it twice.


Haughton Lennox: Now, if my hon. friend will oblige me by reading the conclusion of the sentence so as to make it complete.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will gratify my hon. friend. He went on to say that the commissioners were responsible and they being responsible the government was responsible, and that the government side was represented by Mr. Smith and that the public interest was not represented. But the case made by hon. friend from Elgin (Mr. Crothers) was that he inferred because I made the statement-and I will not discuss now whether I was right or not-that I was taking the position that Mr. Smith represented the public. That position I never took because, if my hon. friend will turn to page 14 of the evidence he will find that in answer to Mr. Lennox I said:


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Mr. Lennox, I am prepared to vote with you for everybody to have counsel so you need not argue that point.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: That was our position on the very first day. We were perfectly willing that everybody affected should have counsel, but later on I said:


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Again, I say that you are arguing about something that nobody is objecting to, everybody is perfectly willing to have counsel.
So, at the very inception of the case the action of the majority of the committee was that anybody affected in any way should have counsel and that there should be independent counsel for the prosecution. We took that position and we followed it up at the next meeting of the committee after Mr. Lumsden had made his statement of what his position was by making a motion which will be found at page 76:


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Consequently, as I am sure that all that anybody wants in this mat- . ter is to find out what Mr. Lumsden is talking about, and find out whether there was anybody that he had any right to lose confidence in, and we ought to have all the facts before us, I propose to move: That this committee apply to the House for permission to arrange for counsel for the committee in investigating the matters referred to us for consideration.
Then, my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) was perfectly in agreement with that proposition.


Haughton Lennox: Just read what I said.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I am going to. My hon. friend had no notion of leaving the committee then, and he said:


Haughton Lennox: One step at a time is good,
I think.
And referring to my suggestion he said:
That is right, I think, as far as it goes.
So that he agreed with me up to that point, and he said that my resolution was right. Then I said to my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) in order to emphasize the matter, and so that there might be no doubt about it:


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Is there anything else you can suggest?
Here was the position of the majority of the committee asking leave of the House to appoint counsel, and having gone so far to satisfy my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) .1 asked him was there any thing else he could suggest, and he said:


Haughton Lennox: I don't think there is anything else we should consider at this stage.
And here it is, that these gentlemen who were 30 badly used that they left the committee because they were not given the right to appoint counsel; here was my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) giving me commendation for my action, of which I was proud, and even my hon. friend from Elgin (Mr. Crothers said:


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I am perfectly prepared to agree with everything Mr. Macdonald has said. I think he has covered the ground well.
So that on the 23rd of February the action of the committe had the full concurrence of these gentlemen, and every thing that had been done up to that moment had been endorsed by my hon. friends opposite. Then, came the 3trange, and sudden, and peculiar change within two hours, and I can only account for the changed attitude of my hon. friends opposite between one o'clock, when we adjourned up stairs, and two o'clock when we met here, by their having received some inspiration of a very improper kind from some source. To our intense surprise the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) came into this House about two o'clock, and moved that this resolution which he had stated in the committee was all right as far as it went, should be amended, and he asked that the House should accord to him, and his friends, the peculiar, anomalous, and unprecedented privilege of appointing the counsel. They did not suggest this in the committee; no one had heard of it before they launched it in the House. The House declared that they should not have that privilege, and en passant I might say, it is questionable whether all this discussion is not out of order, it having been thrashed out before. But, my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) and his friends came back to the committee after the House told them they would not agree to let them have the appointment of counsel. They came back next day, and we had a friendly and informal talk about who should be the best man to appoint as counsel. It was intimated by all of us on the majority of the committee, that we were not tied to any name, that we were anxious to appoint a counsel with a reputation, and a position at the bar, so that no matter what his politics might be, there would be ample guarantee to the House, and to the country, that on his professional reputation he would be bound to elicit the fullest information. And, my hon. friends were frank enough to agree with us that that was a fair proposition, and on page 84 we had this discussion about that:


Haughton Lennox: Here is what you can do. If you cannot think of a suitable Liberal oounsel-you say you have not any one in your mind-could you not think of some prominent and distinguished Conservative counsel whom you could suggest, and maybe we would fall into line at once.


Alfred Henry Clarke: Somebody who is non-partisan; that is what we want. We don't care about any particular party affiliation.


Haughton Lennox: For instance, if we had a man of the type of Christopher Robinson in his old days, I think we could agree, of course, on a man of that kind, but they are not very plentiful, and I cannot say that I could think of another man.
The result is that on the 24th of February my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) was not contending for the principle that the minority should have the appointment of counsel.


Haughton Lennox: I beg my hon. friend's pardon.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is certainly what that language means.


Haughton Lennox: I beg my hon. friend's pardon. Not only that, but I made it perfectly clear, and the chairman had practically agreed to it, and I can. give the reference.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend was in a very amiable frame of mind that day. He, and his colleagues, had forgotten the fact that they had been asserting the principle that they should have the right to name the counsel, and he said very frankly and very naturally that if Christopher Robinson was alive, of course, they would all agree to him.


Haughton Lennox: Will my hon. friend allow me to call his attention to the sequence of events? I argued for a length of time that the committee should allow us the privilege of naming the counsel, and in the end the chairman said:
I think the committee is ready to take your suggestion, and if you will appoint a man who has the general confidence of the country as a lawyer, I think we will be ready to accept him. Of course, we do not want to agree before we know the name. We want to be the judge. We are lawyers, and know the standing of lawyers in the country.
Then it was suggested that two gentlemen should confer together, and we had this informal discussion in reference to what these two gentlemen would do when they got together.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend might have spared us that little speech, because there was nothing in it that was not agreed to. I was pointing out that this informal discussion occurred before the minority had agreed to the appointment of this sub-committee, and my hon. friend said that if Christopher Robinson was alive we would of course agree on him. My hon. friend from Hamilton and I were appointed a sub-committee to name counsel. I am stating these facts to show that our hon. friends had gone back on the principle they asserted before, that they should have the appointment of counsel, and were willing to confer amicably with us to get a man who would have the confidence of the country. My hon. friend from Hamilton and I met. He proposed certain gentlemen and I proposed certain gentlemen. I suggested the name of Mr. Nesbitt, a former judge of the Supreme Court. After we had talked over names, my hon. friend from Hamilton, after the lapse of about a week,

finally came back to the position that he would not agree with me on the selection of a man because he and his confrers wanted to control the appointment. He very frankly to-day said the same thing, so that there is no dispute as to that fact. Our hon. friends seemed to settle down to the position that if they could not have the appointment of counsel, they would not play any more. I ventured to say that they were playing the baby act, and they have been playing it ever since. To say that a man occupying the position of Wallace Nesbitt, a former judge of the Supreme Court of this country, a man acknowledged to be one of the leaders, if not the leader of the bar of this country, and a Conservative, was not a man to whom they could trust their interests or the interests of the people in this investigation, is too absurd to listen to for one moment. My hon. friend from Simcoe took the position to-day that because Mr. Nesbitt had given an opinion as to what the specifications meant, that did not mean that he should be in any sense disqualified for acting as counsel.


Samuel Barker: Why did Mr. Nesbitt refuse the retainer you offered him? Was it not because he had given that opinion?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: In my opinion the statement^ made by Mr. Nesbitt in regard to the meaning of the specifications was not the reason for his refusal. In my judgment the reason he refused was because he was not the unanimous choice of the committee. I have no doubt whatever that if he had been the unanimous choice of the committee, he would have acted.


Samuel Barker: I understand that Mr. Nesbitt refused to act on the ground that, having given that opinion, he was disqualified to receive any brief from a portion of the committee.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend is speaking from private information of which I know nothing. I am speaking of the letter which Mr. Nesbitt addressed to the committee; and this afternoon, when I asked my hon. friend if he would undertake to say that the mere technical construction of No. 36 of the specifications and the opinion given by Mr. Nesbitt upon that, was a pronouncement on the merits of these charges made by Mr. Lumsden to such an extent that it would be impossible for him to act as counsel to bring out the facts alleged by Mr. Lumsden, my hon. friend would not say that that was the issue. My hon. friend knows that the construction of those specifications was not the issue particularly. If it was, then we have Judge Nesbitt pronouncing against all the assertions of our hon. friends. If their contention is correct and the opinion given by Judge Nesbitt was such as to prevent him acting as counsel, then our friends are out


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: of court. Because one of their leaders in the province of Quebec, Sir Alexander Lacoste, as well as Donald Macmaster, Mr. Shepley, Mr. Beaudin, Mr. Lafleur, and Mr. Charles Ritchie gave an opinion as to the meaning of these specifications along the same lines as Mr. Nesbitt, not as a matter of legal construction, [DOT] but as a matter of mere grammatical construction, do they say that that would in any sense impair or interfere with the performance of their duty in carrying out an investigation into the allegations made by Mr. Lumsden?


Haughton Lennox: It certainly would.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The hon. gentleman did not say that this afternoon.


Haughton Lennox: I say it utterly debarred these gentlemen from acting as counsel in' this matter.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Then my hon. friends would have difficulty in convincing their friends of their case if Sir Alexander Lacoste has given the opinion that Mr. Lumsden was wrong. Will my hon. friends undertake to say that- was not Sir Alexander Lacoste's opinion?


Samuel Barker: I take the position that any person who gave an opinion on the question of the classification under these' contracts, whatever the opinion was, would not be a proper counsel to conduct this investigation.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend is evading the question. I asked my hon. friend whether the question of the construction of these specifications was the issue, and he evaded the question. If these hon. gentlemen will not say that it was the issue, then they know that Mr. Nesbitt was not disqualified. Mr. Nesbitt and the other gentleman who gave an opinion as to the meaning of the specifications, did not know at the time that Mr. Lumsden was going' to declare two years afterwards that he had lost confidence in his engineers. Both the hon. member for Hamilton and the hon. member for Simcoe declined to say that the question of the meaning of the specifications was the issue in trial in this investigation.


Haughton Lennox: I do not decline anything of the kind. I say that the specifications have been made a question at issue in this investigation, and the whole trend of the examination by Mr. Smith for several day^ has been to bring in again the construction to be put upon those three items of the specifications.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Then I understand that my hon. friend at last comes down to the point of saying that they are an issue' in this matter.


Haughton Lennox: You have made them the issue.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend will find that I have not asked one question that led un to this matter at all.


Samuel Barker: Will the hon. gentleman tell me what was the object of putting Mr. Nesbitt's opinion in as evidence in this Lumsden case?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will accept whatever proposition my hon. friends make. If they say that Mr. Nesbitt's opinion is material, then they are in this position, that Mr. Nesbitt, Sir Alexander Lacoste, and all these other distinguished gentlemen, have given opinions which indicate that Mr. Lumsden was entirely incorrect in his opinion of the specifications; and all these distinguished Conservatives outside of this House have given opinions on this question which materially disagree with the position taken by our hon. friends opposite, who have discussed this question this afternoon. If, on the other hand, they say that these opinions are not material, or that the specifications are not a part of the issue, then it would not do to say that Mr. Nesbitt was disqualified on that account. However, whether Mr. Nesbitt should act or not was a question of professional taste, and he has settled it. On what grounds he settled it I know not. But I want to point out that our1 hon. friends did not run away from the committee because Mr. Nesbitt had given this opinion. If they had come to the committee and said: You have made a wrong selection in appointing Mr. Nesbitt because he gave an opinion, and we cannot support his appointment, then they would be logical. But they did not want Mr. Nesbitt; they were not going to have him, whether he had given an opinion or not. The position they took was that they were going to appoint the counsel. The gentleman we selected, Mr. Nesbitt, they did not object to because of any lack of qualification on his part. Mr. Nesbitt is a distinguished jurist, a very clever lawyer, and a man of unblemished reputation. That he had these qualities they all admitted, but they said: That makes no difference, we want to appoint a man ourselves. In fact, they had made up their minds to withdraw. Thev took no objection to Mr. Nesbitt personally, but they evidently did not want him nor did they want a matt like the late Mr. Christopher Robinson, though my hon. friend from Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) says they did.


Mr. HARTY.: He is dead.
Mr. MAiCDONALD. And as my hon. friend from Kingston says, he is dead. Mr. Nesbitt is one of the leaders of the bar of Ontario


An hon. MEMBER.: And a good Tory, too.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: But they were de* termined not to be pleased, no matter what might be done. This only shows that my hon. friends left this committee, not because they did not have the appointment of the counsel-for they never had any warrant according to parliamentary practice or precedent for expecting any thing of the kind-but because they felt that they were in trouble, and they were looking for an excuse to get out of it. I have no desire to detain the House at greater length, because I have already talked too long, but I wanted to point out that, so far as the majority of the committee is concerned, we acceded to the proposal of the minority that counsel should be employed. We asked them to name counsel, and we discussed' with them, in the frankest way, the appointing of counsel, but they took the position that they would not accept anybody whom we might appoint, but they wanted to name the counsel themselves. We re-* plied that that was an impossible positioit for them to take, and nobody knew it better than they. I shall not trespass fur-' ther upon the time of the House. The committee is proceeding with its task to the best of its ability, and we have a counsel, Mr. Chrysler, to whom my hon. friend from Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) has referred in a manner which, on reflection, I am sure he will himself regret. Both of us belong to a profession, which is sometimes jocularly spoken of by those who do not belong to it, and we both ought to stand for its highest traditions and should be readv to recognize the merits of the best men who are in it. We who come from the smaller provinces recognize that while in some things the province of Ontario does not take the lead, it occupies, as regards the qualifications of the men who are at the head of its bar, a leading position in this Dominion; and I regretted very much .tp hear my hon. friend from Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) talk the way he did about a gentleman occupying the position in the Ontario har which Mr. Chrysler does, and whose integrity, long experience and ability have given him a leading rank among those who are most prominent in the legal profession of that province. I do not believe that the leaders of the bar of Ontario, I do not believe that such men as Mr. Chrysler, would prostitute their abilities to the achievement of some petty advantage in party politics. I believe that Mr. Chrysler will bring out in this investigation whatever facts it is possible to bring to light. I am sorry that my hon. friends opposite have formed so low an estimate of the duties of the gentlemen who compose a committee such as this. If there be any duty of importance in this House, it is that devolving upon the members of a commit-

tee of investigation to look into the matters at issue with the greatest possible care, and bring out all the facts to the light of day. True, we all have oiir party predilections, 'but I would be sorry to think that any one in this House would be willing to sacrifice his ideas as to what is right and proper in order to gain a miserable poltical advantage. On behalf of the majority of this committee. I submit that we are endeavouring to carry out the task allotted to us to the best of our ability, and with the sincere desire that, if there be any wrongdoing, it may be brought to light. Who cares, from a political point of view, if there have been engineers, who, out in the northern wilds, have made wrong classifications?


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: A good many of them are friends of hon. gentlemen opposite. Do they mean to say that the position of this government will be affected in the slightest degree if it be shown that a certain resident engineer somewhere in northern Ontario has wrongly classified common excavation as rock cutting. The desire of this government, I take it, is that, if there be anything of the kind, it should be shown, and that if any engineers have been guilty of wrongdoing, they should be dismissed at once.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Macdonald) may congratulate himself on the ingenuity with which he evaded a great number of questions put to him by this side. Some of them he evaded by a method he has cultivated for many years, and others he evaded by answers, the transparency of which are only too apparent to every member of this House. Still others he evaded by promising to reply later on and then forgetting to do so. More than once in his speech I asked him, after he had said that the prosecutor was Mr. Lumsden, to be good enough to tell the House who the prosecuted was.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If my hon. friend ' will permit, what is it he would like to know?


Arthur Meighen: I do not know why the hon. member rose, if he does not understand what I want to know.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I understood my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) was asking me a question in the course of the remarks I was making-and I intimated that I would speak to the point-as to the persons who were charged in this case.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member stated who the prosecutor was in the investigation. I asked, who was the prosecuted?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: So far as appears from the reference to the committee, Mr. Mr. E. M. MACDONALD.
Lumsden stated that he had lost confidence in certain of the engineers. He has given us the names of these engineers, and certain information in regard to the conduct which caused him to lose confidence in them. I should imagine that among the people against whom the charges are made are these engineers. In his statement, Mr. Lumsden made no reflection at all upon the commissioners.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member (Mr. Macdonald) having stated that the prosecutor was Mr. Lumsden was, in logic, compelled to say that the prosecuted was the engineers. _ If it was possible for this House to bring itself to such a conclusion as that, we may, with patience, listen to the arguments of hon. members opposite. If a committee of this House is to be appointed at the suggestion of the Prime Minister to investigate a point in dispute between one employee of a public commission, and those employed under him, then, as I say, we may possibly listen with patience to the argument. But I do not understand that the status of a committee of investigation of this House is merely to inquire into a quarrel between certain employees of the government. If this came down to a mere dispute concerning classifications between Mr. Lumsden, and his sub-engineers, I should say that the proper parties to investigate were the parties regularly appointed by the authority of this House, and not a special committee appointed at the suggestion of the Prime Minister. Surely, we can trust Mr. Lumsden to investigate questions of lack of skill, or care, on the part of the employees under him; we need no committee of this House to look into such matters as that. I would like the hon. member (Mr. Macdonald) to give this House a precedent for the appointment of a committee of this House to investigate a quarrel between civil servants of the government. If the government are not implicated, if members of this House are not implicated, where is the precedent for the appointment of such a committee? There was a commission appointed by this House-not a committee of this House, but a commission from outside-to investigate the Civil Service. This is one commission-let me say in answer to the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. A. H. Clarke)-that members on this side do not consider a farce. The precedent of appointing a commission of that sort has not been repeated by hon. gentlemen opposite, and I venture to say never will be. But to say that a committee of seven members of this House are to sit at a cost of $1,000 a day merely to dis~ cuss the merits of a quarrel between an engineer and his sub-engineer, the facts of which do not go beyond these officers, is to talk what I must regard-and what every man in this country will regard-as arrant

nonsense. There can be no question, and the people of the country, so conceive it, that the prosecutors in this case are those concerned in the success of the investigation, those represented by the opposition in this House, and that the parties defendant in this case are the commission appointed by the government, and through them the government itself. You may cloud the issue as you like, but that is how it is regarded in the country, and.no man who wants to be fair, and to talk common sense will say anything else. We must consider that the parties who are charged-by whom they are charged may be another question-and who are in the position of defendants, are the Transcontinental Railway Commission, and through them the government, because on no other basis can logic or common sense be claimed for the appointment of a committee of this House to investigate.
Another question that the hon. member (Mr. Macdonald) did not answer is this: Why did he and his confederates on that committee decline to accept the counsel nominated by the opposition members there? He knows better than to try to answer that question. Should he give the first answer that might occur to him, he would say that this gentleman was not competent counsel. But, were he to say that, he would 'be laughed at. The country would say: Cannot we trust those whose political fortunes are bound up with the success of the investigation to appoint the most competent counsel they can find? Were the hon. member to answer that this gentleman -was not a Liberal, he would be laughed to scorn; if he were to say that he was a Conservative, the error would be equally apparent. So, the hon. member cannot answer the question, and until he answers it to the people of this country he cannot defend the position of the committee or show that they were anxious to have a thoroughly useful investigation.
Now, if the hon. gentleman even appeared to make a point in the whole course of his speech, it was when he said that he could not find, in the course of British or Canadian history, a precedent for any powers whatever devolving upon the minority of a committee. Now. I had not intended to take part in this discussion, when it opened, consequently I have not had time to look up precedents. Only one precedent has been mentioned on either side of the House in this debate; there is only one parallel case brought to the attention of the House; and, if there is one thing clearer than another emerging from this discussion, it is that that precedent is absolutely on the side of the members of the opposition. Some years ago, a committee of investigation was appointed by this House to consider certain charges against members of the House. On what side were 194
the people in that investigation? It was to the interest of the people that these charges be thoroughly probed. The people were represented by Mr. Tarte, a member of this House. The interests of the people were analogous to the interests of Mr. Tarte; the two were inseparably bound up. When Mr. Tarte appointed his counsel, that counsel was necessarily counsel for the people. Now, Mr. Tarte in that case, occupied a position exactly similar to the minority of the committee in the case now before us. The party concerned with the success of the investigation, the party analogous to the prosecution, were represented by Mr. Tarte. The party analogous to the defence were represented by those in this House charged by Mr. Tarte. Both had counsel in that case; only one had counsel in this case. Who are the parties in the present case identified with the success of the prosecution? Who are the parties in this case whose political fortunes, to an extent at all events, are bound up with the thoroughness of the investigation? Why, the opposition members of the committee. Yet, there is absolutely no counsel to represent them. There cannot possibly be counsel to represent the people. On the other hand, the members of the Transcontinental Commission and the government are arm in arm with counsel, they are surrounded with counsel at every point. Mr. Smith is counsel for the commission, he is counsel for the defence, he is also counsel for the government. Then there are the four counsel on the committee, there is the counsel who represents the contractors, and the contractors are interested in securing the very same verdict that the four members of that committee are interested in securing; consequently the counsel who represents the contractors is also arm in arm with the government. There is also the counsel for the sub-engineers, I understand that there was one there to represent them, and he is arm in arm with the government too, because the only verdict of that committee that can possibly suit the engineers is the very verdict that will suit the government members of the committee. All these counsel are retained to secure one end, and one alone, they are all working for the same goal, they cannot be otherwise true to their clients. And now, as if to heap injury on insult, they appoint Mr. Chrysler, who is the nominee of the four government members, and who, to put it in the fairest possible way, is not concerned solely to secure a successful and useful result to that investigation.
Now, the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat complained bitterly that we on the opposition side of the House have had so much to say of the enormous cost of the Transcontinental railway. I sympathize with that hon. gentleman. I can understand that he, as a member of the



government party, a3 well as every other member of the government party will always be seriously alarmed whenever this question of the cost of the Transcontinental railway comes up. It appears to get worse as time goes on, and I do not think the people can hear too often of what has taken place, and of what is taking place in regard to the construction of that railway, when there is an addition to the cost of one hundred millions, an addition sufficient to take care of the public works of this country for years to come, an addition to the cost of a sum of mon.ey that equals $12 or $13 for every man, woman, and child in Canada, an addition to the cost that is accounted for by only one of two things, either by worthless and fraudulent estimates given by the government, or their engineers when the matter was first entered upon, or by the worthless, and fraudulent classification which has taken place in the interest of the contractors, and through them perhaps in the interest of others. Now, the situation is surely serious enough to demand a serious investigation; and whether there were a precedent or not in British or Canadian history, if the members of that committee were really desirous of prosecuting these charges with a view of ascertaining the cause of this enormous increase, it was their duty to pay no attention whatever to precedent, but to take their position on the side of the people, to coincide with the wishes of the opposition. I affirm that there is no man in this country, if he will put aside for the moment party considerations, so foolish as to say that the interests of any prosecution, or of any defence are best conducted when they are not most closely identified with those interested in securing the success and thoroughness of that investigation. It was a matter of minor consideration whether there were precedents or not, the end to be attained was the great consideration, and as I said before, every principle of common sense, every principle of law should have led every member of that committee to place himself in unison with the principle that you could not too closely identify the conduct of an inquiry with those interested in securing its success.
Now, Sir, I want to refer to a matter which, although I must confess is not absolutely in point of the discussion, still it serves the purpose of bringing before this country the direct association of this government with the wrongs of the Transcontinental railway. I want to point out two or three things before I sit down. In 1903 this House, in its wisdom, laid down a plan whereby this matter of over-classification was to be investigated, and decided upon, they laid down the plan of arbitration free and untrammelled, and to a large extent they determined that that Mr. MEIGHEN
plan should be followed in the event of dispute. They placed very few limits on the method of arbitration, or on the manner of it. But we had the spectacle some four years afterwards of the Minister of Railways, and the Transcontinental Commission conspiring together to limit the methods adopted by this House for conducting that arbitration. The Transcontinental Railway Commission, on the 10th of January, 1908, of their own motion, deliberately set to work to confine within limits which this House never contemplated, the powers of that Arbitration Board. The Minister of Railways, when this matter was under discussion last fall, admitted on the floor of parliament that he was a party to that alteration, and that it was done at his instance. By the way, Sir, my experience has led me to this conviction, that whenever a speaker in this House reaches the proud position of attacking the Minister of Railways, that hon. gentleman will be found engaged in a forced sleep, because I have always observed that when a discussion is unusually hot, that ig the attitude which the Minister of Railways assumes. Now, not only did he by that memorandum, limit the method, and limit the principle of arbitration as they had been laid down by this House in 1903, but for two long years that commission, which should have represented the people of this country, and guarded their interests, were struggling with the officials of the Grand Trunk Pacific to enforce that unwarrantable limitation of the Arbitration Board; for two long years, during which the evidence was dying out, during which witnesses were disappearing, during which the evidence that could have been adduced earlier was being wiped away by time, for two long years that struggle went on, the Grand Trunk Pacific on the one hand struggling with the Transcontinental railway Commission for the full and free investigation as determined and outlined by this House, and the Transcontinental Commission struggling pertinaciously on the other side. Now, was not that a melancholy spectacle? Is not that something for the people to consider, that those who were appointed to guard their interests, were struggling against their interests, and against the intent and meaning of an Act of parliament?
Not only were they doing so, but they were doing so with the tacit and expressed approval of the Minister of Railways and Canals himself. The struggle went on unceasingly and bitterly, and it did not end until, by the union of the skill of the Minister of Railways and the Minister of Public Works some change suddenly came ovef the scene. There is only one thing unexplained by the report brought down in connection with that struggle. One thing not explained is that we find that when

the angelic presence of one member of the government, the Minister of Public Works, floated over the scene, peace suddenly ensued. He seemed to have the effect of the twin stars, as celebrated* by Horace, on the stormy sea. The winds fell, the waves were stilled and the turbulence that surged over the waters existed no longer. Why that was it is impossible to conceive, but we must remember, in trying to reach a solution, that there was one way of appeasing the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway 'Company. There was a method of appeasing the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company that must appear to any one who thoroughly studies that report. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company appear in a double capacity. They appear in the capacity, in the first place of lessors of the road later on and as such interested in its cost, but they are also in the capacity of contractors on many portions of the line. In one capacity they are interested, to a 3 per cent extent, in keeping down the cost, and in the other capacity they are just as interested in keeping up the cost. In seeking for an explanation of the sudden peace that came over the storm we must remember that. It is only right to remember that. It does* not show a suspicious* mind; it only shows mat a very possible explanation is to be found there. Whether it existed or not we do not know. The fault I find with the government is that they have refused such an investigation as would ascertain what the real cause was. They confined it within limits that were absurd, and that is the charge which they must answer for before the people of this country. Had they assisted in an investigation that might have been useful within its terms we might have been able to trace the connection, if there were any, between the ills that were perpetrated in the construction of this road and the government which was in charge supposedly on behalf of the people. The hon. mem: her for South Essex (Mr. Clarke) closed his speech with a homily on the difference between a quitter and a server. I could not help but think that he was more anxious to bring in a joke about the white feathers that he saw on a crest than to teach any useful lesson to the House. But . if one has to decide whether he is going to be a quitter or a server he should first of all come to a decision as to what he is quitting and what he is serving. There is no essential virtue in quitting and there is no essential virtue in serving. I have no doubt_ that if a man should decide to quit serving mammon he would do well, and the hon. member for South Essex ought to have given consideration to the question as to whether he was serving mammon upon that committee rather than talk about the crests that he saw upon the walls 194J
of the committee room. I cannot see what' object could possibly have been served by the members of the opposition further remaining there. That committee was a farce and it had no other motive from its very birth. As soon as that was abundantly plain what could these hon. gentlemen do but withdraw from the committee? What purpose could they serve by wasting their energies on the committee any longer?' The only thing that might have resulted was that they might have been identified' with a report, the farcial character of whicli is as certain as anything could be certain in any parliament, and there would be no one more surprised than the members of that committee and myself if that report does not absolve the engineers, the commission and the government, just as it was intended to absolve them when the committee was first appointed.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I did not intend to take any part in this discussion, but there are some propositions set forth by hon. gentlemen opposite, regarding the duties of members of parliament, that I wish shortly to protest against in so far as I am concerned, so that I will not be understood as in any way assenting to them by my silence. The hon. member for Pictou" (Mr. Macdonald) for instance, in the course of his speech, while referring, as a justification of the position of the majority of this committee, to the historical Larkin-Connolly investigation in regard to money that was stolen, or alleged to have been stolen, prior to 1891, declined to answer what I thought was a very pertinent question in regard to the matter that he was then discussing, as to whether the charges made by Mr. Tarte were in the interest of the people. He evaded that answer, but the answer is manifest that unless Mr. Tarte was a hypocrite and a humbug, the charges were made in the interest of the people. The right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) was in the House at that time, and he got the full benefit of those charges. They helped to get him into power, because they hammered into this country and among the people the idea that the conduct of the Public Works Department was a sample of the administration of the government at that time. He was assisted to take that position because of the uncompromising and absolute honesty of the Minister of Justice of that day, Sir yJohn Thompson, who insisted upon cleaning up what was wrong, whether it was done by Conservative or Liberal. The Minister of Justice of that day was a Minister of Justice in fact as well as in name, and it made no difference to him where the charges came from. He saw to it that when wrong was done, whether by Conservatives or Liberals, it was punished and the whole

force of the government was turned in to probe those wrongs and see that justice was done, not for the Conservative party, not for the Liberal party, but for the people of this great country. The Prime Minister today owes a great- deal of his success in getting into power in 1896 to the fact that the Minister of Justice of that day was that kind of a man, and saw that charges, when made, were prosecuted to their utmost in the interest of the people. Yet, the hon. member for Pictou declined to tell me whether Mr. Tarte made these charges in the interest of the people. I say that he did. I was not in the House at that time, but I know something about that investigation, because some of the people most concerned lived in the city of St. Catharines. A great many of the witnesses concerned in the case lived in St. Catharines, in the constituency which I have the honour to represent, and I know that witnesses were brought here and that witnesses who tried to escape were forced to come here by virtue of the Dominion police, through the action of Sir John Thompson, to prove the charges, if they could prove them, no matter whose ox was gored, and no matter what party suffered. I say again that the Prime Minister, to a great extent, achieved power by virtue of the conduct of Sir John Thompson, and because of his determination that if charges were made they should be probed, and that if wrong existed, it must be stopped. The hon. member for Pictou attempted to justify the action they have taken in declining to appoint counsel, as suggested by the minority, and I am not here concerned in saying whether the minority or the majority should have the appointment of counsel, but I say that the Prime Minister, who controls every committee of this House, and who has the say as to who shall conduct these investigations, ought to do like Sir John Thompson did, and see that counsel is appointed in the interest of the people.
Notwithstanding the very eloquent argument of the member for Pictou, it is idle for the Prime Minister to pretend that any one is to-day representing the people of Canada in that investigation. Applying the precedent in the McGreevy-Connolly investigation, as there is no counsel to-day appointed by the person who is making the charges as was the case in that investigation, then the government should see to it that a public prosecutor is appointed. Supposing somebody iays an information charging some one or other with a serious crime, and the person who lays the information declines to engage a counsel, is the government to say that because he will not do so, they are not concerned about it? Is not the government the guardian of the public morals of this country? Is the Prime Minister unconcerned about how much money has been stolen on the Mr. LANCASTER.
Transcontinental railway,	because-Mr. Lumsden contending that he appears only as a witness-will not take the responsibility of naming counsel? Is the Prime Minister absolutely indifferent as to whether Mr. Lumsden's charges are substantially true or not? Is not the Prime Minister the chief trustee of the affairs of the people of this country, and, if his Minister of Justice will not do his duty, and if the members of the committee will not take the right view, is it not his duty to declare that counsel will be appointed to represent the people? In my humble opinion the Prime Minister is to blame if that investigation is not properly conducted in the interests of the people of Canada. Is this House to be turned into a two-penny-halfpenny court of inquiry to determine a row between engineers in the employ of the government; is there not a far greater principle at stake in this matter? If the superintendent of the Welland canal charges a subordinate with not doing his duty, is a committee of this House to be appointed, and an inquiry instituted at an expense of $1,200 a day to determine such a petty question as that? And yet, it is to such a trivial issue that the Prime Minister would limit this Lumsden inquiry. All the Prime Minister has to do is to put his Anger on the button and he can secure that the rights of the people in this matter are properly protected. In my humble opinion the Prime Minister is guilty of dereliction of duty if after what he has heard today he does not appoint counsel to represent the people of Canada to prosecute thege charges. When Sir John Thompson was Minister of Justice a different course was taken by him, and that course was approved b,y the Liberal party then in opposition. Is it to 'be said that a course which the Prime Minister approved of before he assumed office is now to be repudiated by him? I rose, Sir, to enter mv protest against such conduct on the part of the Prime Minister and his government, and having done so, I can say no more.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I presume, the purpose having been served, the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) will consent to withdraw his motion?	>


Haughton Lennox: Yes, Mr. Speaker ; it was in deference to what you said that I moved the motion.
Motion (Mr. Lennox) withdrawn.



TRENT CANAL-CLAIMS FOR FLOODING.

Haughton Lennox: The Minister of Railways promised some time ago that he would investigate the Clarry matter. Has he any information to give with reference to thatS I have subpoenaed Mr. Clarry to the Public Accounts Committee to-morrow, and I

*would like to know whether the minister will assist me in the prosecution-I mean the investigation.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend is more anxious for other people to assist him in the prosecution than he is to assist other people.	.


Haughton Lennox: I should have said investigation.


George Perry Graham: I sent a member of my staff with full authority to investigate under oath the charges made by the hon. member for Simcoe, or rather the charges contained in documents which he read to the House. I had hoped to have the report of that official to-day, but at all events, I think I shall have it to-morrow or on Monday.


Haughton Lennox: The minister stated that Mr. Clarry would be paid on the first of April. I have drawn attention to certain facts in connection with Mr. Clarry which, as I am instructed would render it not proper to pay him at present. Does the minister propose to pay him on the first of April?


George Perry Graham: Mr. Clarry is an official of the Department of Justice and not of my department. I imagine that the inquiry must have referred at least incidentally to Mr. Clarry, and if the report shows that Mr. Clarry is innocent of wrongdoing, I see no reason why he should not be paid. However, as to the matter of payi ment, the Minister of Justice, in whose employ he was, will deal with that.


Haughton Lennox: I was told that the investigation did not include Mr. Clarry.


George Perry Graham: Incidentally it did, I think.


Haughton Lennox: We are going on with the investigation to-morrow.


George Perry Graham: I cannot control that.


Haughton Lennox: Better not pay the money.


Robert Laird Borden: Is there any particular significance in paying him on the first of April?


George Perry Graham: Except that the suggestion came from the hon. member (Mr. Lennox).


Haughton Lennox: It was the minister who said he would pay him on the first of April, and I thought the suggestion was rather unfortunate.



MILITIA PENSION ACT AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
House again in committee to consider the proposed resolution of Sir Frederick Borden to amend the Militia Pension Act.
Sir FREDERICK BORDEN.: Since last evening I have looked into this matter more
carefully, and I find that the amendment which was proposed by my hon. friend from Centre York (Mr. Wallace) will not be necessary, for the reason that subsection (e) of 6B will include the only officer who would be affected by that amendment, Under this subsection he will be able to count sufficient time to become eligible for a pension within the age limit to which he will be able to serve on the permanent corps. Therefore, I have asked my hon. friend not to press his amendment, because I think it undesirable to legislate for one individual, particularly when it is not necessary. The case is a meritorious one, and I have told my hon. friend that if it should turn out that I am not correct in this, I shall be glad myself to introduce the amendment which he has suggested next session. My hon. friend has accepted this statement on my part. Otherwise I think the resolution was fully considered.


Mr. GEO. TAYLOR.: This resolution deals somewhat with the South African contingent. I mentioned to the minister that there were a few cases of hardship that have not yet been dealt with by the government. I refer to the relatives of those who started for South Africa, and died on the way. The legal representatives of those who reached Suuth Africa, and died there have participated in the grants of land made by the government, while the relatives of those who died on the way have received nothing. There are only a few of these cases, and I think the minister or the government should provide for them. I know that these people feel that they have been harshly treated, and I think some action should be taken to put the matter right.


Frederick William Borden: I am glad my hon. friend has brought the matter up, but I think he will agree with me that the grievance to which he refers cannot be dealt with in this Bill, which is merely for the purpose of amending the Militia Pension Law. It would have to be dealt with by an amendment to the Act providing land grants for South African veterans. While I cannot give any promise, I have told my hon. friend that I will be glad to consider the matter.
Resolution reported, read the second time and agreed to.
Sir FREDERICK BORDEN moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 194) to amend the Militia Pension Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Sir FREDERICK BORDEN moved second reading of Bill (No. 180) to amend the
60iHI
[Stage Direction]
Royal Military College Act. He said: From time to time, o-wing to the growth of the Royal Military College, the amount of money necessary to pay salaries has been increased. I think there have been amendments on three different occasions. Now it is proposed to amend the Act so that the limit shall be $60,000 a year instead of $30,000 a year. I explained that the commandant is being paid a larger salary than his predecessor because, owing to the adoption of the plan of creating a general staff throughout the empire, it is desirable to have an officer at the Royal Military College holding the highest class in the army; and to get such a man, you must pay more. It has been necessary also to increase the salaries of some of the other professors.
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, read the third time, and passed.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved the adjournment of the House.
Robert Laird Borden: What business tomorrow?


Wilfrid Laurier: The tariff resolutions and the estimates.


Robert Laird Borden: I would prefer that the tariff resolutions should stand over until next -week.


Wilfrid Laurier: In that case we shall go into Supply.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at II p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, April 1, 1910.