1911-01-30

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On the orders of the day being called:
Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York).: I would like an explanation from the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), or the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) in regard to a very important question of construction of the tariff arrangement recently made. The construction put upon it in some quarters seems to be quite different from that conveyed to this House. In the New York ' Herald ' of Saturday last appears a despatch from Washington, from which I read a few sentences in order to explain what I desire to know:-
The American Newspaper Publishers' Association insists that paper and wood pulp will be free as soon as the agreement becomes law. The official announcement issued by the State Department yesterday said regarding this matter: 'Printing paper is to

become free on the removal of all restrictions of the exportation of pulpwood.'
This would mean that unless the restrictions in the way of the provincial charge were removed paper would continue to come in at the Payne rate of $3.75 a ton, plus $2 a ton countervailing duty.
The agreement made by Mr. Knox and Messrs. Fielding and Paterson makes paper, paper board and pulp free with a provision which, stripped of all verbiage, says free paper and pulp provided no export tax of any form or device should be imposed by Canada on paper or wood pulp or the wood used in the manufacture of 'such paper.'
It is felt here that if this means wood used in the manufacture of 'such paper' for export it does mean free paper, because no tax is imposed by any of the Canadian provinces on pulp wood cut from Crown lands which enters into the manufacture of paper made in Canada, whether for home consumption or for exportation to the United States. Should this be true, then the real issue has been waived and the purpose attained by the use of an ambiguous expression deliberately framed.
There is the statement, in effect, that a proposition deliberately framed-^and with the implication to deceive-will allow free paper under the agreement. I would like to hear from the Minister of Customs an interpretation of that clause of the agreement.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) is not here. I have only to say that the agreement is exactly as set forth in the correspondence between the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs and Mr. Knox, and already laid on the table of the House.



PRIVILEGE-MR. KNOWLES.

Mr. W. E. KNOWLES (Moosejaw).: I
wish to make reference to a few lines in an article in the press. I refer to the ' News,' a paper published ini my own city-


Mr. SPEAKER.: Does the hon. gentleman (Mr. Knowles) wish to put a question?


William Erskine Knowles: I wish to speak to a question of privilege-is it not in order?


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Knowles) did not say what he was going to do, and I wished to know.


William Erskine Knowles: I quote a few lines from this newspaper, the ' Morning News,' of Moosejaw,.dated 27th inst.:

For four years a Liberal member, Knowles of Moosejaw, has set himself down for practically the same resolution, hut never proceeded further than having it printed again and again iu the programme.
And the closing paragraph contains these words:-
That Mr. Knowles had used his annual low tariff resolution as a means for blocking the Mr. MACLEAN.
real discussion of the matter in the House of Commons is now pretty well known.
I would not take up even the minute or two of the time of the House I wish to occupy were it not that I find that it seems to be taken for granted in this House, and even more so outside the House, that I had such a motion and that such a motion was used for the purpose of blocking the discussion with regard to the matter of lowering the tariff duties. I find that such papers as the Montreal ' Gazette,' the Ottawa ' Citizen,' the Winnipeg ' Telegram,' the Toronto ' News,' and even the Toronto * Globe,' which is supposed to be an organ friendly to Liberal members, take more or less this view of it. This motion of mine was on the Order Paper for two sessions. It was first placed on the Order Paper on the 15th of February, 1909. Newspapers, or persons, who say that this notice of motion has been before the House for four years are absolutely in error. As the date when it was first given notice of was comparatively near the close of the session, the last private members' day being the last Monday in March, the motion was never called during that session. So that, for the purpose of criticism, there is eliminated entirely the session before last, because my motion was never reached that session, and there remains for me to account to the public, to my constituents and to hon. members of this House, only that notice on the Order Paper last session. It was placed by me on the Order Paper with the full intention of bringing it before the House. Even taking the very worst view of the matter, that worst view would be that I had the notice upon the Order Paper for one session, and it was not gone on with. That is by no means unusual. I dare to make the statement that every session dozens of motions go by the board on the taking away of the last day for the discussion of private members' business in the same way as my motion was taken away last session.
With regard to this motion, I had intended to proceed with it. I was asked by different hon. members on the other side who wished to be advised as to the day when I intended to proceed with the motion. I told them of a certain day when I had made up my mind to proceed. I recall having told my hon. friend from Dauphin (Mr. Campbell) of the date and also my hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Schaffner). Upon my telling the hon. member for Souris, as he had asked me as a matter of courtesy when I intended to bring on the discussion, he, for the first time, informed me that he understood an arrangement had been made between the chief whin of the other side, the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Taylor), and the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) that a motion of the hon. member for North Renfrew (Mr. White) in connec-

tion with the Georgian Bay canal should be taken up. I went to see the hon. member for North Renfrew, and he said he had been informed by his chief whip that it was so. Though my motion had priority, yet, as a matter of courtesy-as, I think, the hon. member will bear me out in saying- I decided to defer bringing on my motion. It turned out that this was the last private members' day. Of this, so far as I know, notice had not been given, and I was not aware of it. Had I been aware of it, I would have hesitated to give up the place of priority which I held. The hon. member for North Renfrew took the day and afterwards the House resolved that po more motions from private members should be heard that session. Therefore, I wish to say this motion never was used to block discussion. During the first session, when it was on the Order Paper, I could not discuss it, even though I wished to do so, because it was never called, and last session, after I had decided to proceed with it on a certain day, it was because of my desire to show courtesy to an hon. gentleman on the other side that the-matter was not brought up for discussion on that day.


Mr. WHITE (Renfrew).: Since the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) has referred to me, I think it is but right that I should make a statement to the House. Last session I well remember that when I had a motion on the Order Paper, I spoke^ to the hon. member, who had a motion in precedence of mine, and he was good enough at that time to give way to me. The facts as stated by him with reference to me are perfectly correct.



SPRINGHILL STRIKE.

Mr. RICHARD BLAIN (Peel).: I desire to ask the Minister of Labour (Mr. King) as to the present position of the strike at Springhill, N.S., which was commenced, I think, in 1909. And may I ask him, also, if any of the Canadian militia are in attendance to keep order there?


Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Minister of Labour).: I understand that at the present time about 600 men are employed in Springhill. The men who went out on strike about a year and a half ago are still out-or a large number of them are; some of them have left for other places. I am not aware as to there being any Canadian militia at Springhill at the present time, though I could not speak definitely on that point.


Richard Blain: Will my hon. friend answer that at some other time?


Mr. KING.: Yes, I will find out.



RECIPROCITY ANNOUNCEMENT AND THE PRESS.

Mr. RHODES.: Before the orders of the day are called, I would like to put a question to the government based upon an editorial which I see in the Manitoba * Free Press,of Saturday, January 28, which paper is I believe the government organ in the province of Manitoba. It reads as follows:



SHABBY TREATMENT.

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The Minister of Finance in connection with his announcement of the tariff arrangement with the United States, treated the newspapers and the public very shabbily in failing to see to it that the moment he rose in his place in the House at Ottawa to make his statement, there were furnished to the representatives of the newspapers of Canada in the press. gallery copies _ of the new schedules, and a summary resume of the whole arrangement.
In making his statement, the minister was speaking not only to the House, but to the country. In listening to that important statement, the men in the press gallery were the representatives of the people of Canada-decidedly more so, in that special sense, than the members of the House. The people of the whole Dominion were keenly expectant in regard to that statement. At Washington the government was guilty of no such failure to discharge the duty, it in like manner owed to the eagerly waiting public of the United States.
At the time agreed upon between the two governments for the announcement of the tariff arrangement, the new schedules were handed to the press correspondents at the capital of the United States, together with a comprehensive summary, containing about a thousand words setting forth the substance and meaning of the arrangement. The afternoon papers throughout the United States were thus able to lay before the public the main facts in regard to the tariff arrangement, its scope, and its bearings. It was from Washington that the first comprehensive news of the tariff arrangement came to Canadian papers, hours before a word of information came from Ottawa.
At Ottawa it was not until after Mr. Fielding had come to the end of his speech, about six o'clock, that there was furnished to the press correspondents one copy of the undigested schedules-a great mass of figures, requiring to be studied carefully, before it could be dealt with. There was no summary available, such as at Washington was furnished before four o'clock in the afternoon to the press correspondents.
I would like to ask if the grievance complained of in this editorial is justified, and if so, why it was that the newspaper press ' of Canada had to get its first information from Washington. I would ask also if that was the practice followed one year ago when the Minister of Finance was at Washington?
Mr. FIELDING.: If my hon. friend wants us to follow the American method we will



have to adopt the American constitution. The methods of procedure in regard to these matters are so different in the United States from those which have been established in Canada that it is rather difficult to make comparisons. Answering the latter part of my hon. friend's question first; a year ago, at the last session of the House when a certain arrangement was made at Washington, the understanding was that this should be made public at or after a certain hour. Our American friends have a practice of issuing these things in advance under seal, to be released at a given hour. That did not form the subject of any discussion then, but what happened was that when, soon after three o'clock, I rose in the House to present the result of the negotiations, at that very hour there was I believe in the telegraph offices in Ottawa a full report of the whole matter, having been kept, as they say, under seal from Washington, and having been given out in advance according to the American method. In the present instance, it was distinctly understood that no communication should be made of the agreement itself, or of any part thereof, until after four o'clock in the afternoon. Now the American method is that the President of the United States and the Secretary of State of the United States, having no seats in the Congressional bodies, either in the Senate or House of Representatives, their method is to send a message to these bodies, and the moment the message is delivered, it is available to the public. Our method of dealing with such things is different. The practice is that in all matters of tariff changes the House of Commons is first informed; therefore, I did not feel at liberty to give out the details of this arrangement until I had informed the House of Commons thereof, and this necessarily occupied a little time. It is the different method of procedure in the two countries that accounts for the delay my hon. friend has complained of.


William Findlay Maclean: I quite agree with what the hon. gentleman says. But if, when he were at the finish of his speech he had had several copies, or a summary of the agreement, to hand to the press, it would have been a great convenience, and would have helped the newspaper men in making up their report that evening, instead of having to depend upon the only one copy that was given out.


Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: I cannot understand how the Canadian constitution, or the British constitution, or anything else that we value, would have been greatly violated if the Minister of Finance had handed out these schedules when he began his speech. We on this side of the House would very much have appreciated a copy at the commencement of his speech instead of at the end of it, and I think it would Mr. FIELDING.
have been perhaps no more than ordinary courtesy to have given it to us then instead of at the conclusion of his speech. He will realize, as every hon. gentleman will realize, that it is very difficult to pick out the substance of comprehensive proposals such as these were, only having them under one's hand just as he rises to speak. The same is true of the men in the press gallery. When the Minister of Finance was about to announce the proposals, and had actually stood upon his feet, then it seems to me some summary of these schedules, or something of^ that kind, could have been given out without violating any principle of the constitution; and it would have been a great convenience, and would have saved a great amount of labour, not only to the men in the press gallery but to others.


Mr. FOSTER.: Besides that, it doesn't seem to me that any rule or practice would have been violated. Do I understand the Minister of Finance to say that these schedules which he laid on the table giving the duties for certain articles, are to-day in effect, and that entries are being made on them?


William Stevens Fielding: Nothing of the sort.


George Eulas Foster: There is no reason in the world for this secrecy, except in a case where you are bringing down tariff duties where the very moment the Finance Minister lays these changes on the table of the House they become actually operative, and duties are paid in accordance therewith. No duties are paid in accordance with these schedules, and no practice or any rule of this House, so long as I have known anything about it, would have been violated if, forty hours before the Finance Minister got up' to speak, he -had given those schedules to the members of parliament, and to the members of the press. There was nothing bindin-g upon him except, as _ I understand it, his pact with the administration of the United States, and that would have been satisfied if, at the time he rose this information had been put into the -hands of the House, and the public. What I mean to protest against is that the Finance Minister tries to shelter himself behind a rule or practice of this House regarding tariff changes going into effect instantly, and that therefore, there must be no knowledge given of them until they have been announced in the House. These did not fall under the category, they were simply possible things that may come into operation, and may not ; and if they do come into operation, it will not be at the present time, but upon proclamation and certain things being previously done by the United States.


William Stevens Fielding: I am sorry that our method of procedure in this matter has

not met with the favour of our hon. friends opposite. But I cannot see that there is any ground for complaint. It is a fact that in the United States the moment a document dealing with a matter of this kind is delivered to congress it becomes accessible to the public. Our method is different. Whenever anything of that nature is to be propounded it is explained in the House of Commons first by the Minister of Finance, and until he has done that, the document is not delivered to anybody. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition suggests that it would have been courteous if he had -been furnished with a copy in advance. I cannot agree with him at all.


Robert Laird Borden: I say when the minister began his statement.


William Stevens Fielding: That was in advance.


Robert Laird Borden: I would not call that in advance.


William Stevens Fielding: 
William Stevens Fielding: There were several copies of every document that I brought down. There may not have been enough to give one to each member of the press, but these were our busy days, and ,we could not prepare a large number of copies for distribution. Although I am not as communicative sometimes as the gentlemen of the press would like me to be, I think they cannot dispute the fact that whenever there is_ any information that I can give to them in the way of printed or any other documents I am' always willing to oblige them. I think that really in the time at our disposal every effort was made to satisfy the gentlemen of the press, and 844
I do not think that there is any general complaint from them in that regard.



RECIPROCITY-INQUIRY FOR PAPERS.

George Eulas Foster: I would like to renew' a request that I made in the absence of the-hon. Alinister of Finance (Air. Fielding). Perhaps the Finance Minister has been made acquainted with it. It is that just as soon as possible the statistics of trade bearing upon the arrangement which the Finance Minister laid before the House on Thursday should be put into the possession of members of the House. That statement would include not only the trade between ourselves and the United States, but also a list of any articles of common trade between us and the countries with whom we do that common trade; that is, Great Britain, the most favoured nation treaty nations and the overseas dominions. Aly hon. friend the Minister of Finance, of course, has that all made up, because he gave the result of it,, and he could not have done so if the information had not been available. It is well that we should have that before the House goes on with the discussion of the subject.


William Stevens Fielding: I shall endeavour, as far as possible, to comply with the hon gentleman's request.



RECIPROCITY-DUTIES ON PULP AND PAPER.

Air.   AIACLEAN@York: Now that the hon. Alinister of Finance (Air. Fielding) is in his place, I would like to press for an answer to the question that I nut before he came in. The New York Publishers' Association say, in a report issued from Washington, that the arrangement, as it now stands, will be interpreted to mean the admission of free paper in the United States. I would like to ask if that is the minister's view of it?


William Stevens Fielding: I am afraid we will have to leave to our American friends the interpretation of their own item. AVhat we are clear about is the interpretation on our own side. They make a condition respecting the terms upon which they will admit free paper. There may be some room for dispute as to their own interpretation of this condition; we must leave that to them. But on our side of the line we have a clear and distinct understanding that until they admit, paper of the kind specified from all parts of Canada we will not give them the reciprocal advantage of free paper in Canada.



ADDITIONAL LETTER CARRIERS FOR AlONTREAL.

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Air. A1EDERIC A1ARTIN (St. Alary, Alontreal). (Translation.) Mr. Speaker,
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before the orders of the day are taken I wish to inquire from the Postmaster Genera], if he cannot see his way clear to give an additional number of letter carriers for the city of Montreal. For a long time I have had occasion to observe that the letter carriers are overloaded with postal matters of all description. Even this morning, in going down town, I met at least a dozen letter carriers getting out of the street cars, on their way to the streets where the distribution is to be done. They had to -carry on one arm such a load of *newspapers and other postal matters, that "they could not see in front of themselves, and besides, they had to carry a mail bag for letters in their other hand. If, under such conditions, it happens that a letter is lost, no blame can attach to the letter -carriers. I hope that before long an additional number of letter carriers will be appointed for the city of Montreal.
Hon.RODOLPHE LEMIEUX (Postmaster General). (Translation.) In answer to my hon. friend I may say that I will get information as to these facts from the post office secretary, at Montreal, and if there is any necessity to put on a greater number of letter carriers, I shall make my hon. friend aware of it.

Mr. GRAHAM.: My hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), in my absence the other day, made an inquiry of my right hon. 'friend the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid LaurieT) concerning dock accommodation at Halifax:. The situation is this :	Some
few months ago the Board -of Management of the Intercolonial railway visited Halifax and decided that spme improvements in the way of additional accommodation should be made there. The department authorized the engagement of Mr. Kennedy, of Montreal, who is an expert in harbour matters to go to Halifax, make an investigation and report as to what was needed. His report has not come in yet and it is too late to do anything this season. In the meantime some temporary arrangements were made to handle the traffic as well as possible this year. We hope in a few days to receive Mr. Kennedy's report and to take into consideration the much needed improvements with regard to wharf accommodation at Halifax during the coming year.


Robert Laird Borden: I would like to press upon the minister somewhat strongly the feeling of the board of trade and citizens generally that there will be more or less congestion in Halifax this year on account of the very marked increase of shipping business that is expected.


Mr. MARTIN (Montreal).: I know nothing of this matter -personally.


George Perry Graham: I think there is some reason for that belief.


Robert Laird Borden: I know nothing
of it personally but an increase in the -business is very confidently expected this year and there will be a great congestion of traffic. I would like to suggest that whatever temporary arrangements are to be made should be made as promptly and effectively as possible.


George Perry Graham: The work, I think has been completed; whatever it is, I am not in a position to say.



BRITISH FLAG ON GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS.

Mr. THOBURN.: I would like to bring the attention of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) to an item that I
read in the Almonte * Gazette ' copied from the Brockville * Recorder ' and which is as follows:
An order was received at the post office today from the Public Works Department at Ottawa saying that the Union Jack must be hoisted over the post office every day in the week from sunrise and remain in that position until sunset The order is general throughout the Dominion.
I wish to say to the minister that I am not referring to this matter from any desire to find fault, but the very reverse, for if I had my way I would like to see the Union Jack fly over every public building in the Dominion of Canada. The only reason I refer to it is to know from the Minister of Public Works if the statement is correct and if it is to be general. If so I hope it will be thoroughly enforced, for up to the present time I h-ave not seen the Union Jack flying o^r the post office in Almonte except on public holidays.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: I may say to my hon. friend (Mr. Thoburn) that the matter has been under consideration, but no such general order has been given as is stated in the paper. I will make further inquiry and see what foundation there is for the statement contained in the paper, but I feel quite sure that the order is not so general in its character as has been intimated there.


Mr. HUGHES.: Is there any flag other than the British flag ordered to be flown on public buildings.


William Pugsley: No, none but the British and Canadian flags.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
House in Committee on Bill (No. 32) to incorporate the Security Trust Corporation. -Mr. Martin (Regina).
[DOT]2649

On section 5,
5. The company shall not commence business until at least one hundred thousand dollars of stock have been subscribed and thirty-five thousand dollars paid thereon in cash into the funds of the company to be appropriated only for the purposes of the company under this Act.
George Eulas Foster: It would not be a bad idea to insert the word ' bona fide ' before the word ' subscribed ' in this section. It cannot militate against the Bill, and it may serve a useful purpose.


William Melville Martin: I have no particular objection to that, but I do not see why it should be inserted in this Bill when it is not in any other similar Bill to my knowledge.


George Eulas Foster: Certain recent developments show that the insertion of these words may serve a very useful purpose. I suppose the promoters of a company of this kind would have no other object in view than that it should be bona fide, and therefore there can be no objection. I would advocate the same for every like Bill.


William Stevens Fielding: I do not think it makes any difference whether the words are in or not; I have no objection to them.


Mr. NESBITT.: If you insert the words ' bona fide ' it will suggest that there is something wrong and I do not think there is any necessity for them any way.


George Eulas Foster: These words serve a very useful purpose in the Bank Act, if proper care is taken.
Mr.-NESBITT. I do not see that they serve any useful purpose in the Bank Act according to the hon. gentleman's own statement the other evening. If there are any subscriptions at all why should they not be bona fide?


George Eulas Foster: Even although the Bank Act calls for bona fide subscriptions, the subscriptions in a certain case were not bona fide. If the words bona fide be inserted here, and if there should be any doubt, it makes it very easy for the minister to ask for adidtional proof.


Mr. SPROULE.: What occurred in the Farmers' Bank was that the subscriptions were made by the notes of the subscribers which were discounted and these were called bona fide subscriptions, which, of course they were not.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: There having been objection raised, then under rule 112 no important amendment can be proposed without notice.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It is admitted that the intention of the Bill is that the subscriptions should be bona fide, and I would ask you, Sir, do you rule that the insertion of words to better carry out the intention of the Act is an important amendment,


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The insertion of the words is a superfluity. The minister has just as much right to inquire into the nature of the subscriptions if these words are not in as he has if they are in the Act.


George Eulas Foster: That may be all true, but if you insert these words it advertises to those who are getting up the concern and to those who are subscribing that there are not to be any fake subscriptions. The hon. member (Mr. Nesbitt) could have made the same argument before the Farmers' Bank got its incorporation, but there is not the slightest shadow of a doubt that in that case there -were both fake subscriptions and fake payments on subscriptions, and if I mistake not the excuse for the action of the government was that they did not suppose it was necessary to go back of the usual form of subscription and the affidavit thereto. That incident ought at least, make this House not unwilling to insert words which cannot in any way be detrimental to the institution, which .are undoubtedly significant in calling attention to the fact, and which would also afford a good standing ground for the minister to make inquiry.


Mr. LENNOX.: It is important we should have these words inserted in the Bill even if only to call attention to the matter. Recent developments have shown that subscriptions are not always bona fide. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Nesibitt) complains that their insertion suggests a possible impropriety, but we have good reason to think that there have been improprieties and there may toe improprieties again. It is quite common in legislation to use words of this character, and it is perfectly right and exceedingly important at this time, when we have had such startling evidence of attempts to get around the clear provision of the law, that parties in cases of this kind shall be given clearly to understand that the subscription must not be a sham or nominal one, but a bona fide subscription. This is so important that if objection is taken, I think the matter ought to stand over until the notice can be given of this necessary amendment. All along the line of our banking institutions it will be necessary for us to take stock of the situation exactly as it is to-day. and make very careful and important amendments to the legislation governing banking. I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.


George Eulas Foster: I give notice, then, that when the Bill comes up again I will move that as an amendment.


William Stevens Fielding: If the chairman rules that it is an important amendment, I have nothing more to say.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: I do not wish to take too technical a view of the matter; but the mover of the Bill himself is entitled to notice of any amendment. The actual debate seems to lend force to the view that it is of some consequence, and for that reason I think my wisest course is to stand by the rule and to state that such an amendment should have one day's notice.


William Stevens Fielding: In that case, may I suggest that we be permitted to take up the other sections of the Bill, so that if it stands over it will stand only with reference to this one point.


William Melville Martin: I presume that as the mover of the Bill, I would be at liberty to waive any objection as to, notice of the amendment. I do not consider the proposed amendment such as I would ask a day's notice of, because I am perfectly willing that the words 1 bona fide ' should be inserted; and, taking that position, I do not think it necessary that the Bill should stand over. It seems to me, however, that in the section the public is fully protected, for $200,000 of stock must be subscribed and $70,000 paid in cash, and that being the case, surely the subscriptions must be bona fide.


George Eulas Foster: I understood that that was agreed to by the hon. gentleman who had the Bill in charge; but the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) seemed to have such a strong and vital objection, and his objection was urged with such force, that it brought the House up standing, and here we are.


Haughton Lennox: I am willing to withdraw my motion in order that we may consider the other provisions of the Bill, after which I will renew the motion.


George Eulas Foster: If the mover of the Bill thinks he can mollify his colleague from Oxford, we might put in the words ' bona fide ' and go on.


William Melville Martin: I do not wish to take up the time of the committee. I am willing to let this section stand if any member of the committee wishes that to be done.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: If the mover of the Bill does not object, I am sure I do not.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to, and section, as -amended, agreed to.
On section 6-directors.
George Eulas Foster: What was the hon. gentleman's object in raising the number of directors to 21?


George Eulas Foster: 


Mr. MILLER.: I may say that when this Bill was before the Banking and Commerce Committee, that question was raised, and it was pointed out that charters had been granted to other companies doing a similar business, and having 25 directors.


George Eulas Foster: So far as I have any knowledge of companies, a large directorate is not conducive to good business management. It is impossible to get the directors together.


Henry Horton Miller: It was argued that it is a good thing (for a company obtaining business to have a pretty fair representation on its directorate, and this company is to have power to do business in several provinces.
On section 6: resolutions may be signed by all directors without calling meeting.


William Stevens Fielding: This is one of the points to which attention was drawn when the Bill was brought before the House. I find that this provision has been inserted in several Bills, the argument for it being that which was so forcibly presented by the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Henderson) the other night, that is to say that a memorandum signed by all the directors would be much more likely to represent the wish of the body, than a resolution passed by a board quorum at a formal meeting. If a quorum were allowed to sign the memorandum there would be more objection, but as all must sign the memorandum it was thought iby the committee that that was sufficient protection. I confess I do not like the method of legislation, but it is found in several other Bills ; I have no very strong opinion about it, there is a precedent for it and we try, as far as possible, to have uniformity of legislation in these matters.


George Eulas Foster: Is the effect of the resolution that they need not call a meeting of directors, but if they get a memorandum signed by all the directors that will be equivalent to a resolution of the board of directors?


William Stevens Fielding: Yes.


George Eulas Foster: I think that is a very bad thing. You have no consultation, and the man who is very intelligent and experienced is in no better position than the man who has little intelligence and no experience. The document is put before each one separately and there is no chance for that consultation which is really the object for which a board of directors exists. And if there is anything that will tend to laxity in business and bad results, if actually carried out, I think it will be that system by which some one having an interest in the subject could go around and button-hole each director separately, put

his own views before the director and get his signature. In that way you might get resolutions passed which, if a meeting was called, would never be considered.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I objected to this in the committee for very much the same reasons as have been advanced. I did so because I had seen and actually knew the baneful effects of such a system. When a paper of that kind is sent around it is accompanied by all the arguments in favour of doing it and doing it quickly and the directors are urged that unless they do it, some danger or loss will arise. All the arguments in favour of it are presented but none of the arguments against the proposition, whereas if the board were called together they might take a directly opposite view after consultation and hearing' officials of the company. I move that section 6 be struck out.


George Eulas Foster: I would ask the mover of the Bill if he persists in this end and if so what his reasons for doing so are?


William Melville Martin: One of the main reasons for asking this power is the distances that prevail in our province, which are much greater, for instance, than in Ontario. A trust company may be formed in Ontario and possibly all the directors will reside in Toronto so that you can get them together very easily but in our province it is difficult to get together say twenty-one members of the board of directors of a company. As to the argument of the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) if we have twenty-one directors a quorum will consist of eleven members, and eleven directors could pass any resolution they liked providing they agreed on it at any particular meeting of the board. The section says :
The company may. by by-law, provide that a resolution in writing signed by all the directors.
The whole twenty-one. It seems to me that the shareholders or people interested in the company are better protected by a resolution signed by twenty-one directors than they would be at a meeting where possibly only eleven were present.


George Eulas Foster: Would the hon. member not rather have the reasoned opinion and decision of eleven men meeting and canvassing the whole thing than the unreasoned decision of twenty-one or twenty-two scattered all over? I have seen a board of directors come together with a proposition before them unanimously, in favour of the proposition at the beginning of the discussion but after questioning the officials and discussing the matter the board absolutely changed its mind. You always have at a meeting of the board of directors, some one who is like a permanent head and understands the history of the company and the
matter under discussion much better than any individual director and it is by having an opportunity to avail themselves of the knowledge, experience and information of that person that the directors form their best decisions. To make this board nondeliberative would be equivalent to electing members to this parliament and then saying to them that they need not come and sit in parliament, that a memoranda would be sent to them on each piece of legislation, and that if the majority agreed to it, it would become law. You take away ' the really valuable thing, deliberation.


William Melville Martin: The hon. gentleman takes it for granted that if any resolution is put before a director at any particular place for his signature, he will not consider it, but will sign it. It must be remembered that he may have the advice of the very man who is the head of the company and knows about its business and he lias before him the reasons why the resolution should be signed. I am not sure whether this power has been granted to all companies I am about to mention, but I was informed in the Banking and Commerce Committee that it had been granted to the Northwestern Trust Company, Chapter 113, Dominion Statutes, 1907 ; the Western Trust Company, chapter 180, Dominion Statutes, 1906; Prairie Provinces Trust Company, chapter 121, Dominion Statutes, 1909, and the Prudential Trust Company, chapter 124 of the Acts of 1909, on which the Bill we are now considering is exactly modelled, and as I said a few moments ago the very strongest argument I can advance for the written resolution signed by the directors-all the directors and not a part of them-is the great distances we have in the western provinces. Some of these directors will be in the province of Saskatchewan, but some will probably be in Alberta, or Manitoba, or perhaps British Columbia. It may be impossible to get all these directors together. This is not like a trust company confined to the province of Ontario or the province of Quebec.


William Findlay Maclean: There is a wider reason for this change. What is this company doing? It is administering trust funds. If we are to insist upon the law of trusteeship, if we are to recognize the importance of trusteeship, how can we say that a man can discharge his duty as trustee by signing a document presented to him as director and with no opportunity for full consultation with his fellow directors? If we are to uphold the idea of trusteeship, it is imperative that trust funds controlled by a board of directors should be administered by that board in consultation. And, while I am on my feet, I would suggest to the Minister of Finance that it is time we should have a uniform law in the formation 1 of trust companies as for the banks. Also,

it is high time that the returns of the trust companies should be published, as the returns of the banks, more or less, are published. The government gets returns from the trust companies, but, they are not published so far as I know. As to the point immediately before the committee, I think that the administering of trust funds by signing documents received by the directors individually through the post or otherwise is a violation of the first principle of trusteeship.
Subsection 3 agreed to-Yeas 35, Nays 29.
On section 8, business of the company.


William Pugsley: Subsection (j) of this section provides as to the real estate to be held by the company. It says:
-but the company shall sell any real estate acquired in satisfaction of any debt due to itself, other than as trustee or in an official capacity, within seven years after such acquisition, unless such time is extended by order of the Governor in Council, otherwise such real estate shall revert to His Majesty for the use of Canada.
I am not quite sure what is meant by ' shall revert to His Majesty,' It would rather imply that some time or other the property had belonged to His Majesty, and after having been vested in a company, was now to revert to His Majesty for the use of Canada. I call attention to that. I do not see why real estate in provinces which were provinces before confederation, and which was Crown property, should revert to His Majesty in right of the Dominion of Canada. It might be all very well in the western provinces, but certainly in the old provinces it should go to the provincial government.
On section 15,


William Stevens Fielding: A question arose on this clause the other day in apprehension of a conflict between the federal and provincial authorities. I find the clause is in a number of charters, and the explanation is that which I gave at a venture the other evening, that inasmuch as the laws of the provinces deal with trusteeships, and as all we do is to create a company for the management of the business, what is really contemplated by these words is that the company incorporated toy the Dominion in the management of trustee business must operate under the laws of the province, and not do anything in conflict therewith. That I think is all that is intended. I find it has been in a number of Acts. I do not know whether the Minister of Public Works will regard that as a sufficient explanation ; tout at all events, that is the theory upon which this clause has been put into a number of Bills.


William Pugsley: I do not think the fact of there toeing similar provisions in char-Mr. MACLEAN.
ters of a number of other companies, carries so much weight, because the custom is for the draftsman to copy the charters which have been previously obtained. No doubt that has been the case in the third subsection of section 6. I would have no objection to section 15 reading as follows :
The powers and authority hereby granted to the company shall be exercised in any province subject to the laws of such province in that behalf, so far as they are not inconsistent herewith.
But it does seem to me that to make a statute of this parliament entirely subject to the laws of the provincial legislature, and then to go further and declare that whatever may toe enacted in this chapter should have no force or effect if it is inconsistent with the laws of the province, not only laws which now exist but laws that may be passed in future, is I think to subordinate the powers of this parliament to the powers of the provincial legislatures, and I do not think that is proper legislation.


William Stevens Fielding: But suppose provincial laws were inconsistent with this Act, if the provincial legislature were within their own jurisdiction, their laws would prevail.


William Pugsley: No, because when parliament incorporates a company with power to do business throughout Canada, then the authority of parliament is supreme.


William Stevens Fielding: Only within certain limits.	.


William Pugsley: I would not like to differ with my hon. friend, but it has always been my view that the moment parliament gives authority to incorporate a company for purposes which are of a general character, Canadian in their character, giving a company power to do business throughout Canada, then parliament must be the judge of what power should be vested in the company, parliament is the sole judge of that. For instance, when parliament creates a railway company with power to build railways throughout Canada, parliament can give powers of expropriation. No provincial legislature could alter this charter because parliament is supreme, and so, if it is a fact that this parliament has power to incorporate the company at all it has authority to vest it with the powers deemed necessary to enable it to carry on its business. It seems to me that the section ought to be read that it should be subject to the laws of the provinces in so far as they are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I know that already the provinces have intervened in cases like this and even if the Bill were drawn as

suggested toy the Minister of Public Works they would still claim the right. In the case of insurance companies some of the provinces have refused to allow them to do (business in the province unless they complied with certain provincial statutes, one of which was the payment of a fee, and the other registration in the province. I know that such is the case at the present time. British Columbia has, I understand, challenged the authority of corporations doing business under federal charters, so has Manitoba, and in both cases these companies were obliged to comply with the requirements of the law or otherwise refrain from doing business in these provinces though they had their charter from the federal parliament. That is*the way I think this would work ; if you said that they might exercise such powers in so far as they were not inconsistent with the Act that would not cover it all.


George Eulas Foster: I do not know whether the question has much sense in it at all, but there is an authority granted to a company to be exercised in any province subject to the laws of that province. It is situated, we will say, in Regina under the laws of Saskatchewan. A trust has been put into the hands of the company by the province of Alberta. The Alberta laws are different from those of Saskatchewan. Does the trust make it necessary that the laws in accordance with that trust should follow the origin of the trust? They may be greatly different. Would this company have to carry out each trust according to the laws of the province from which it originated? What do the solons of the House say about that not including the Minister of Finance because he is not a solon.


William Stevens Fielding: He does not claim to be a solon.


George Eulas Foster: If the Minister of the Interior were here I would appeal to him.


William Pugsley: I think there is a great deal in what the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) says, but if you pass this section as it is, each province could legislate as to this particular trust company. Alberta could legislate in one way, Saskatchewan in another, Ontario in another, Quebec in another, and each province might have different provisions which this company would be 'bound to obey because parliament has said : It is true, we give you certain powers, it is true we state what you shall do, it is true we make provision for the holding of the meetings of the board of directors, and the Way in which you shall handle trust moneys, but in every province you must comply with the laws that the provincial legislature may *pass, and any Act at all which is inconsistent with this would override this statute.
I think this parliament ought not to declare that any charter which it gives to a company may be overridden by the legislature of any province. The hon. member for East Grey spoke of provincial legislatures claiming the right to prevent a company incorporated by this parliament from doing business without paying a tax and taking out a license. I admit that, and I think that the Privy Council held that they had that power in the case of Parsons v. Citizens Insurance Company, that power being based on the right of the provincial legislature to impose taxation for the purpose of raising a provincial revenue. That is under a clause of the British North America Act. Therefore, I am not prepared to dispute that if this company is incorporated by parliament it may be required to pay a tax or a fee and to take out a license. But that is altogether a different provision. In this case parliament is abdicating its functions, and saying that whatever the provincial legislature shall do with regard to this company shall be the paramount law, and shall override whatever this parliament has done with regard to this company. That is why I object to it.


William Stevens Fielding: If my hon. friend (Mr. Pugsley) thinks this point important I would rather he should draft an amendment, and let the Bill stand because on a question of a possible conflict between the provinces, and the Dominion, even if it affects only this one particular charter, I should like to have the advice of the Department of Justice. It is really a very important question, and it has an effect upon other things. I know the purpose of the clause, and it is a good purpose. It is important to draw a distinction between the powers of a company created as a man with authority to do business, and the nature of the business which is governed not by the Dominion but by the provinces. That is what those who drafted the clause had in mind. Whether it is adequately expressed in this clause is a matter for our legal friends to determine, and I would like to have the advice of the Minister of Justice with regard to it.


Mr. CARVELL.: I would suggest that if the promoter would simply drop out the latter half of the section because the laws of the different provinces have to prevail whether we want them to or not it would meet the case. I could give an illustration. This company is authorized to loan money on mortgages and it becomes a matter of civil contract. The legislature of .each province has a perfect right to pass any laws it chooses regarding these contracts. For instance, we had the matter discussed only a few days ago on the Bill introduced by the hon. member for South Grey (Mr. Miller) being an amendment to the In-

terest Act. We held, and I believe rightly, that this parliament has no right to say to a company:	You must cancel the mortgage. All we can say is: You must not charge any more interest after a certain time. The legislature of the province, however, can say that the company, after the payment of a certain amount of money, must discharge the mortgage from the records. It is the law of the province which has to prevail. I think that if all after the word ' behalf ' were omitted we will have accomplished all we can accomplish and there will be no conflict between the federal and provincial authorities.


William Pugsley: That would meet myi
views.


Haughton Lennox: I think that what the hon. member for Carleton, N.B., (Mr. Car-veil) says would accomplish what was suggested, but I entirely concur with the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) that this is a matter of sufficient importance to justify us in getting the advice of the Minister "of Justice so that we will be absolutely sure about what we are doing in this matter. The different provinces have the right to regulate contracts. By this Bill we are creating a body corporate to do business, but the provinces have asserted then-right to regulate the manner of carrying on business in their various jurisdictions. It would be unfortunate if there should be any conflict as to the proper exercise of that jurisdiction. The provinces. more than we, are concerned with the manner in which this business shall be carried on. I entirely agree with what the Minister of Finance says. I do not feel that I have given this matter sufficient attention to be able to say what shall ultimately appear to be the right thing to do but i" think this is a matter that should receive the consideration suggested by the Minister of Finance, and that it should stand.
Section allowed to stand.
On section 16, annual statement to be given to the Minister of Finance.


George Eulas Foster: Just as a matter of information, may I ask the Minister of Finance if in carrying out similar legislation in regard to other companies, he could tell me what is required other than the four things that are set out? I would ask the minister how the operation of that clause has worked with regard to other companies?


William Stevens Fielding: I would not like to answer the hon. gentleman offhand, but so far as I know returns have been sent in and if they appear to conform with the Act I do not think any question would be raised. I would like to look up the Mr. CARVELL.
returns of these companies before I could answer more definitely.


William Findlay Maclean: That emphasizes my point that it is high time that trust (companies doing business in Canada should send their returns in on a standardized form just as in the case of railways. These returns should be published, and in that way we will get some idea of what business they are doing. There are a large number of trust companies now doing business in every province and they are getting to have an enormous influence in connection with financial affairs in this country. At present these returns are sent to the department and they are, as I understand, examined in but a perfunctory way. The time has come when there should be uniform legislation in. regard to trust companies, as there is in regard to banks and railways.


George Eulas Foster: The point gets additional force in the fact that trust companies incorporated in the provinces have to give very much fuller returns than trust companies incorporated by the Dominion parliament. We may have trust companies come. seeking legislation here for the very purpose, in their view, that they would not have to submit to so much publicity as if they were incorporated in a province. Publicity is not a bad feature, and we should demand from the trust companies incorporated by us no less information than is demanded by the provincial governments from trust companies incorporated by the provinces. Are joint stock companies, incorporated by the Dominion, obliged to give any return?


William Stevens Fielding: Companies incorporated under the Joint Stock Companies Act do not make returns, but those incorporated by special charter are, in most cases, required to and do make returns.


George Eulas Foster: I think this matter is worthy the attention of the government.


William Stevens Fielding: It is.


George Eulas Foster: The Minister of Finance will, I think, agree with me that we should demand from the companies incorporated by us no less in the way of publicity than is demanded from companies which are incorporated by the provincial legislatures.


William Stevens Fielding: That seems reasonable. We have had banks, and insurance companies, and loan companies, for a very long time, and in the light of experience we have found it expedient to have general legislation in regard to them. Trust companies are a more modern invention, but they are becoming somewhat numerous, and there is force in the suggestion, which I think has been offered be-

fore, that we should have, if not some general legislation, at all events some standard returns and some publicity. The whole subject, in view of recent events, is well worthy of careful consideration, and I will see that it is not overlooked.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: And further, loan companies and insurance companies should send in a return as to how much unclaimed money remains in their hands. My own view is that that money should be transferred to the state after the expiry of a certain period.


William Stevens Fielding: A colleague of the hon. gentleman has a Bill before the House for that purpose.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: And there should also be legislation to compel companies incorporated under the Joint Stock Companies Act to forward returns. There should be such a proviso in all such special Acts as that before us, and I had intended fJ>
move to that effect before the third reading of the Bill.


Haughton Lennox: We cannot do better than give this matter a moment's consideration. The trust companies touch the people's interest very closely, and they have originated out of the fact that in some instances in the past the estates of deceased persons have been squandered. One of the most important functions of these trust companies is to act as executors in administering estates. We have had no scandals so far as I am aware of in connection with trust companies, but it would not be a very hazardous prediction to say that if we are not careful in our legislation we may have them some time in the future. The trust companies exercise a most important function in that they handle the money of people of limited means. They are very desirable institutions, but it is the duty of this parliament to see that they are hedged about with every possible safeguard in any legislation we pass regarding them. I emphasize the necessity for full, accurate, and published returns. As the years go by the necessity for this is growing inasmuch as to a large extent the^ same men are non-' nected with a number of these public financial institutions. The people who are connected with banks are very often connected with trust companies, mortgage companies and insurance companies, and it is not easy to tracq the money from one transaction to another or from one company to another. Therefore it is necessary that in this matter the government should exercise the most careful supervision. In saying that I have no reason to believe that any existing company has done anything that is not absolutely fair or that this company
will not follow the same honourable course that has been followed by other companies. But this is a company which will have the custody of the moneys of a large class of people. We institute these trust companies to discharge duties which used to be discharged by private executors and we should be very careful to see that they are so instituted as not to have the disastrous results which have often followed from the appointment of private executives.


George Eulas Foster: Is there any provision giving this company power to take money on deposit?


William Stevens Fielding: Subsection (g) of section 8 provides that it may receive moneys for investment and allow interest thereon for a reasonable time until invested.


Richard Blain: Are the shareholders of these trust companies subject to any double liability?


William Stevens Fielding: No.


Richard Blain: Why should they not be the same as banks in that respect, seeing that they receive trust moneys?


William Stevens Fielding: The fact that during all these years the wisdom of parliament has not imposed any such double liability suggests that there are probably good reasons. There is certainly a broad distinction between a trust company and a bank. A trust, company's powers are large, but those of a bank are larger, and the double liability might be right in the one case and not in the other.


Richard Blain: That same argument might be urged against the revision of any law. These large corporations open their doors to receive the savings of the people of this country just as banks do. It is true, their line of business is different; but their responsibility to the wage-earner is the same, and I cannot understand why the shareholders of a bank doing a very much smaller business in some parts of Canada should be subject to the double liability, while the shareholders of a large corporation doing ten times as much business are not subject to the same liability. It seems to me that this is a matter that ought to receive some consideration from the Minister of Finance. I suppose that the failure of the Farmers' Bank causes legislation of this kind to be more closely criticised than it would be otherwise, and" it seems to me that a good time to surround institutions of this kind with every precaution in the interest of depositors is before.we have any great disaster among them. When this whole matter is up for consideration, I think it would be in the interest of the people of Canada and would be appreciated by them, if my hon. friend the Minister of

Finance would give some attention to this matter.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is a disputed opinion. The hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) is against a double liability.


Richard Blain: I differ with the hon. member for South York on that point.


William Findlay Maclean: I believe the protection of the public in the case of banks is public inspection, and not double liability. If we had public inspection, the chances are that we would not need the double liability; or we might have the security of both. Certainly I do not see the sense of the government which charters a bank evading the responsibility of its inspection and putting that on the shoulders of the shareholders by involving them in a double liability. A wise system of public inspection would protect both the public and the shareholders.


Henry Horton Miller: I think there is another reason besides the one given by the Minister of Finance why it may be right to impose the double liability on the shareholders of a bank and not on those of a trust company. My hon. friend from Peel might argue just as well and reasonably that the shareholders of a loan company should be subject to a double liability, because they handle a very large amount of the people's funds which they take on deposit.


Richard Blain: Why should they not?


Henry Horton Miller: The reason is that the government gives to a bank a great and very valuable monopoly, in the right to issue notes and in unusual methods and privileges by way of securing advances made by them. No such monopoly is given either to trust companies or loan companies. The business of a trust company is carried on by private parties all over the Domin-' ion; so also is all the business done by a loan company. Why should not the shareholders of a manufacturing company have a double liability as well as those of a loan company?


Haughton Lennox: They do not take deposits.


Henry Horton Miller: But they have many small stockholders who entrust their money to the chief stockholders who are looking after the business, and sometimes they do take deposits.


Richard Blain: Does the minister not think this matter should receive the attention of the government and the Finance Department? The arguments of the hon. member for South Grey (Mr. Miller) are altogether insufficient. I could not see the force of the argument that because we ask that shareholders of a trust company should Mr BLAIN.
be held for double liability, therefore the stockholders in a manufacturing establishment should be so held. There is a very great difference, as my hon. friend understands very well. I urge it for this reason, that they are both banking concerns. The trust corporation is a banking concern in the eyes of the depositor, just as a bank is. We have had some great disasters in Ontario in financial corporations, such as the York Loan, in Toronto, and the Atlas, in St. Thomas.


William Melville Martin: These were not trust companies.


Richard Blain: These bring great disasters to depositors, and wherever a set of men, whether in connection with a trust company or a bank, receive powers from this parliament to accept the wages and savings of the people of Canada, we should put every possible restriction around them, so that their interests should be protected. I can see no force in any argument advanced this afternoon in favour of the contention that the shareholders of a bank should be called upon for a double liability while the shareholders in a trust company should not. Banks, as in the case of the Farmers' Bank, sometimes hold smajl amounts of money compared with the amounts held in trust by these other corporations, and I cannot see why one should be held for double liability and the other escape altogether. The Minister of Finance may say that because England has never had any government banking restrictions and has not now, after all her experience in financial matters, therefore we should not have government inspection in Canada. If we accepted arguments of that kind we could find proofs on every hand to sustain any argument.


William Stevens Fielding: The Minister of Finance is not in any different position from my hon. friend in respect to this matter. We have both been sitting in this House and voting for charters for trust companies without any such provision. We must have seen some distinction between them and a bank, or else we would not have helped to put their charters through. However, we live and learn, and, without discussing the Farmers' Bank, or the question of bank inspection, both of which will no doubt be discussed in due course, and confining myself entirely to trust companies, I would say that we must at all times be careful in the incorporation of 'financial institutions to surround them with reasonable checks and guides, and if the experience of either the Dominion or the provinces is calculated to suggest any additional checks and restrictions, I certainly agree that we should profit by them. I do not think that we should come to the conclusion that we should impose a double

liability on trust companies as on banks. The difference is very material. However, on every question of that nature I quite agree with hon. gentlemen opposite that we should exercise the utmost care and what my hon. friend and others have said along the same line to-day will receive our very careful consideration.
Progress reported.



SECOND READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 101) respecting the Huron and Ontario Railway Company.-Mr. Sealey.
Bill (No. 102) to incorporate the Imperial Traction Company.-Mr. Rankin.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. TAYLOR (Leeds):: 1.	Is one Robert Kelly in the employ of the government at Vancouver, British Columbia?
2.	If so, in what capacity and what are his
3.	Is the government aware that the following Canadian Press despatch appeared in the Ottawa 'Citizen' of January 26, 1911:-
'Vancouver, B.C., January 25.-At the Chinese investigation to-day, Joseph Martin, M.P. for St. Pancras, Eng., renewed his charges of graft against the Liberal organization in Vancouver, couching his remarks in general terms. He stated that he knew nothing of his own personal knowledge of fraud in connection with the Chinese investigation. He added that Sir Wilfrid Laurier could remedy matters in five minutes by refusing to accept Robert Kelly's appointments. "If I had charge of an investigation," added Mr. Martin, "I could prove it to the hilt without any question. I would not give any evidence myself, but I would call a lot of people who would have knowledge. I have been told there is graft in every department in which Mr. Kelly saw a dollar to be made. Nobody could get an order or a contract from the government in the last nine years except through Mr. Kelly."
'Mr. Martin, when asked for names by Mr. McCrossins, said he would suggest Mr. Kelly as a witness, also Mr. Templeman and R. Smith, M.P. "As it is," he added, "the Liberal party has disappeared in a cloud of smoke." '
i.	Is it the intention of the government to appoint a commission to investigate the serious charge made by Joseph Martin, M.P. ?
5.	Is Joseph Martin, M.P., a member of the British parliament?
6.	Was the said Joseph Martin, M.P., formerly a member of this parliament and a supporter of the present government?


Wilfrid Laurier: 1 and 2. Robert Kelly is not in the employ of the government.
3.	Yes; members of the government have read the testimony given by Mr. Martin, and reported in the Ottawa ' Citizen '. All
I have to say personally is that during the nearly fifteen years that the present government has been in office I have only received one communication from Mr. Robert Kelly.
4.	There is an investigation now going on.
5.	Mr. Joseph Martin is now a member of the Imperial House of Commons.
6.	Mr. Martin was a member of this parliament, but not since the present government came into office.


GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC DEVELOPING COMPANY.
Mr. SHARPE (Lisgar):: 1.	Has the government or any department of the government bought any land from the Grand Trunk Pacific Developing Company? If .so, how much land was bought and what price was paid for it?
2.	For what purpose or purposes was each parcel bought?


William Pugsley: Answering for my own department, I may say that the department has not bought any land from the Grand Trunk Pacific Developing .Company, but the company has offered a free site for a public building in Prince Rupert.


Haughton Lennox: Is there anv other department that can answer anything about it?


William Pugsley: I think not. We have made inquiry.


Haughton Lennox: The matter is probably rather in the jurisdiction of the Railway Department. I think it had better stand for the present.


NATURALIZATION OF ALIENS.
Mr. AMES:: Is it the intention of the government during the present session to bring in a measure affecting the naturalization of aliens?


Wilfrid Laurier: No.


THE FARMERS' BANK FAILURE.
George Eulas Foster: '
1.	Did the Finance Department or any of
its officials, the Finance Minister or any other member of the government, receive any communications, verbal or written, previous to the issue of the certificate of the Treasury Board to the Farmers' Bank, cautioning, warning or suggesting inquiry as to the standing or character of the promoters, or the proceedings by which the deposit was procured ?	_
2.	If so, did the government make any inquiry or investigation with the view of satisfying itself as to the bona fides and sufficiency of the undertaking?


William Stevens Fielding: The government did not receive in any form any information which afforded ground for the refusal of

the certificate. At one stage of the transaction, some shareholders, through their solicitor, applied to have proceedings delayed until he might be heard. The solicitor afterwards withdrew this request. After the certificate issued, a communication from the Canadian Bankers' Association, bearing same date as that of the issue of the certificate, reached the department next day, stating that there was some question as to the regularity of the subscription. The procedure in respect to the issue of the certificate to enable the Farmers' Bank to do business was substantially the same as in other cases of similar character.


THE QUEBEC BRIDGE.
[Stage Direction]
* Mr. BORDEN:
1.	At what date is it expected that the Quebec bridge will be completed?
2.	What has been the total cost to date, respectively, of the remains of the structure and the portion which fell?
3.	What has been the total cost of the bridge to the country up to the present time?
4.	What is the estimated actual value of the ruins or remains of the structure?
5.	What is the estimated total cost of the bridge when completed?
Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	Various tenderers name dates from June, 1914, to December, 1916, all contingent upon the masonry being completed by November, 1911.
2.	The following is the only one of this, nature, in regard to which the Board has any information:
Removal of debris, contract price. $45,000
Amount paid	to	date	 31,995
Removal of old false work, contract
, Price	 22,750
Amount paid	to	date	 13 644
3.	$7,154,987.49.
4.	The steel remaining the property of the government as follows:
South side yards	 2,369,891
North side yards	 18,070,703
Two approach spans	 2|200'000
22,640,594
It is very difficult to determine the value of this material, taking into consideration the expense of handling, loading, transporting and having no knowledge of the use to which it will be put. For the present all that can be figured on is what it would be worth as scrap, which has a value of about $10 per ton. This would make this material worth about $113,000. It is difficult to estimate the value of the material in the present piers, in regard to the new structure, but a safe estimate would be $300,000.
5.	As the tenders are still under consideration, it would not be in the public interest to make public the amounts.


William Stevens Fielding: 


MR. FREDERICK J. NASH.
Mr. STANFIELD:: 1.	Who are the employees of the government in the inland revenue service in Charlottetown ?
2.	Is Frederick J. Nash, of Charlottetown, an employee of the Dominion government? If so, what are his duties, what is his salary per month, how long has he been employed, and what are his office hours?
3.	What is the total amount he has received as salary from the time of his first employment to 1st January, 1911?
4.	What is the number of hours the said Frederick .1. Nash has been on duty each day since his first employment up to 1st January, 1911, as per time-book in the office where he has been employed?
5.	Has the said Frederick J. Nash ever qualified for a civil service position?


Mr. TEMPLEMAN:: 1.	In the excise branch: Samuel C. Nash, Theophilus Moore and Frederick J. Nash. In the Weights and Measures Branch: E. Davy, H. Hughes. In the Gas Inspection Branch, J. H. Bell.
2.	Frederick J. Nash is an employee in said office at Charlottetown. His duties are to supervise such licensed establishments and do such other work, as may be assigned him by the collector of the division. His salary per month is $58.33.
He has been employed since May 26, 1908. His office hours as an excise officer are from 8 a.m., to 5 p.m.
3.	$1,819.52.
4.	The collector advises me as follows:
' F. J. Nash has had full charge of Messrs. T. B. and D. J. Riley's Tobacco Factory since his appointment, has performed his own and deputy collector Moore's duties during three months of 1909 when the latter was on sick leave, and has assisted in office.
5.	Yes.


CARILLON CANAL WATER-POWERSv
Mr. BOYER:: 1.	Who is now the lessee of the hydraulic powers of Carillon and Pointe Fortune?
2.	On what date did this lease come into force, and how long has it existed?
3.	Was the lessee bound to carry out certain obligations before the end of the first year, and did he do so in the terms of the lease? If not, is the lease therefore cancelled?
4.	If the government has not cancelled this lease, does it intend to do so shortly?
5.	What is the rental and how much has the government received from this source since the leasing to the last person?
6.	Does the lessee still owe any arrears9
7.	Who have been the lessees for the last twenty years, and how much has the government received each year from the dTfferent lessees?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	Lease granted to the General Manufacturing Company of Canada, dated July 26, 1898, and to Crawford Ross, of the City of Ottawa, dated 12th Decamber, 1908.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	Yes. The lease is not cancelled.
4.	It has been represented to the government that a strong company is being formed .fully competent to develop this water-power under the present lease. A reasonable time will be given them to perfect their plans and begin operations.
5.	$2 per horse-power per year, and $100 land rent from Crawford Ross. The government received $100 from Crawford Ross; see answer to No. 7.
6.	Yes, $150, payable March 15, 1911, in advance.
7.	The only other leases for water-power besides those mentioned above were: A lease to William R. Hibbert, of St. Andrews, P.Q., dated 18th May, 1897, cancelled 6th June, 1899; lease to John P. Mul-larliey. dated June 3, 1901, and cancelled on 16th May, 1906. Paid by John P. Mul-larkey $500 in 1901, and by Crawford Ross $50 in 1909, and $50 in 1910.


NETHERLAND LOAN COMPANY.
[Stage Direction]
* Mr. MONK:
1.	Has the government officially notified Mr. Preston, Canadian Trade Commissioner at Amsterdam, Holland, that his statement about Sir Charles Fitzpatrick being the source of the information that led to the withdrawal of Dutch financiers from a proposed inve t-ment in western Canadian farm securities, is contradicted by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? If so, what is the nature of Mr. Preston's reply?
2.	If the government has not notified Mr. Preston about Sir Charles Fitzpatrick's denial, is it the intention to do so, and also obtain from Mr. Preston full explanation in regard to the matter?
3.	Has the government had any further correspondence with the Commissioner of Trade in Holland on this question since the adoption of the resolution by this House for the production of the correspondence bearing on the Netherlands Loan Mortgage Company?
4.	Will the said correspondence be laid upon the table of the House?
5.	What steps does the government intend to take in order to remove the impression created by the alleged depreciation of the west as a suitable field for the investment of European capital?
Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: 1. and 2. No, for the reason that communications were immediately received from Mr. Preston containing the information that Sir Charles Fitzpatrick had pub-licely denied having given any depreciatory information respecting western Canada.
3.	Yes.
4.	Yes, if the correspondence be moved for.
5. The department has already issued an official statement respecting the high regard in which western farm lands are held by some of the principal loan and investment companies.


LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF NOVA SCOTIA.
Mr. BOYCE:: 1.	At what date was the present Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia appointed?
2.	Was there any correspondence with the
government or any minister of the government in reference to the continuance of the lieutenant governor as a director of the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company? .	.
3.	Was there any verbal communication with or between members of the government on the subject matter of question?
4.	Was there any consent by the government or any member of the government, or understanding on its or their part, that the lieutenant governor might continue to act as such director?	_	.
5.	Is the lieutenant governor still a director of said company?


Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. McGregor was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia on October 18, 1910.
Neither in the case of Mr. McGregor nor any other lieutenant governor was there any correspondence with the view of imposing any conditions in relation to any Lieutenant Governor's business. In all cases matters of that kind are left to the Governor's judgment. The government does not know whether the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia is or is not a director of the Nova Scotia Steel Company.


BANK FAILURES IN CANADA.
George Eulas Foster: Has the Finance Department obtained the reports of the several curators appointed for the banks that have failed during the last five years?


William Stevens Fielding: The Department of Finance has asked for and obtained from the several curators or liquidators reports upon the financial condition of the several banks referred to.


Mr. SHARPE (Ontario):: 1.	Is the government aware that Mr. H. C. McLeod, late general manager of the Bank of Nova Scotia, is alleged to have publicly stated tliat since 1865 over $40,000,000 have been lost by the shareholders of insolvent Canadian hanks? If so, is such statement correct?
2.	Is the government aware that it is asserted by the same gentleman that there are fully eight times as great a percentage of failures among Canadian banks as is' to be found of insolvent United States National banks ? If so, is such statement correct ?
3.	Is the government aware that the same gentleman has asserted that there is a greater percentage of failures among Canadian banks

than, among banks of any other country? If so, is such assertion correct?
4.	Is the government aware that the same eminent Canadian banker, Mr. McLeod, publicly stated that the Bankers' Association of Canada was aware that a number of Canadian banks were submitting false reports to the government? If so, did the government take any steps to verify such assertion?


William Stevens Fielding: 1,	2 and 3. The government are aware that Mr. McLeod has from time to time expressed his views as to the operation of the Canadian Bank Act. Whether such views were correct or otherwise the government have not felt called upon to say. Mr. McLeod's statements and views were summed up in a pamphlet which was widely circulated in December, 1909, which pamphlet does not contain the allegations referred to in the hon. gentleman's question. The chief purpose of Mr. McLeod's pamphlet was the advocating, in connection with the pending revision of the Bank Act, of some form of external bank inspection. From the arguments used by him in this pamphlet, the government are of opinion that he would quite approve of the method of external inspection provided in the Bill now before the House.
_ 4. Mr. McLeod's statements respecting falsification of returns have not been understood to refer to any intentional falsification, but to a practice of long standing, but now discontinued, concerning the method in which many of the banks have kept their circulation accounts.


Mr. SHARPE (Ontario):: 1.	Is it true, as publicly stated by Mr. EL C. McLeod, late general manager of the Bank of Nova Scotia, that since 1865 over $40,000,000 have been lost by the shareholders of insolvent Canadian banks?
2.	Is it true, as claimed by the same gentleman, that there are fully eight times as great a percentage of failures among Canadian banks as is to be found of insolvent American National banks?
3.	Is Mr. McLeod's statement that there is a greater percentage of failures among Canadian banks than there is among the banks of any other country, a correct one?
4.	Is the government aware that about a year ago an eminent Canadian banker, Mr. McLeod, publicly stated that the Bankers' Association were aware that at that time a number of different Canadian banks were submitting false reports to the government?
5.	Were any steps taken to verify that assertion?


William Stevens Fielding: Answer to previous question applies.


DAIRY INDUSTRY.
Mr. BRODER:: 1.	What was the nature of the memorials presented to the government on the 19th January, 1911, with respect to the dairy industry of Canada?
Mr, SHARPE (Ontario).
2.	Has the government yet taken into consideration the requests contained within the said memorials?
3.	What action does the government propose to take in connection therewith, and when?
Sir WILFRID- LAURIER:
1.	The government was asked to appoint, an official weigher of -butter and cheese at Montreal, and also that cheese buyers should be licensed and required to give bonds.
2.	Yes.
3.	The matter is still under consideration.


UNITED SHOE MACHINERY COMPANY.
Mr. NORTHRUP :: 1.	Is the honourable the Minister of Labour aware that an application has been made before a judge of the Superior Court sitting in and for the district of Quebec under and in virtue of the Combines Investigation Act for an investigation concerning the affairs of the United Shoe Machinery Company of Canada?
2.	If so, has the minister instructed anybody to appear for him or for his department or to speak for him on the said application?
3.	Has the Minister of Labour or any officials of the Department of Labour or anybody on behalf of the government assisted or aided in the preparation or organization of the committee who are applying for said investigation, or otherwise assisted in bringing the matter before the courts?


Mr. KING :: 1.	Yes.
2.	No.
3.	No.	'


PRINTING BUREAU INVESTIGATION.
Mr. NORTHRUP :: 1.	Is all the evidence that was taken in the investigation into the Printing Bureau affairs by the honourable the Secretary of State printed in the blue-book laid on the table by him?
2.	Was the evidence taken under oath?
3.	For what cause was Mr. R. E. Cook dismissed from the service?
4.	On what particular facts was the charge against him based ?
5.	On whose representations was such action taken?
6.	Who is the present superintendent of stationery, if any?
7.	If none, who is discharging the duties of the office, and at what salary?
8.	Who is the present accountant of the Department of Public Printing and Stationery, and how long has he filled the office?
9.	Is he duly qualified under the Act?


Mr. MURPHY :: 1.	The Blue-book contains all the evidence of which any written record was made. In addition to the witnesses examined at the Printing Bureau, many other persons were interrogated at different times and places, but no record was made of their statements. Information was also obtained

through an examination of the files of several departments, and of a large number of papers and documents all of which were returned to the places whence they were obtained, without any minute or their contents being made.
2.	No person was examined under oath as the investigation was a departmental inquiry, and it was not deemed necessary to issue a commission authorizing the taking of evidence under" oath.
3.	For disobeying instructions, wasting public moneys, placing orders outside the Bureau without securing competitive prices, and for untruthfulness and incompetence.
4.	His dismissal was not due to any charge being made against him, but to the facts elicited in the course of the investigation.
5.	Action was taken by the Secretary of State as the result of his investigation.
6.	The office is vacant.
7.	The former assistant superintendent of stationery who has been promoted to the position of superintendent of stores and distribution at the salary of the late superintendent of stationery, namely $2,500.
8.	J. A. Frigon, since the 4th March, 1907, when he was promoted after serving 13 years in the Printing Bureau.
9.	Dr. S. E. Dawson, the late King's Printer, recommended that Mr. Frigon be promoted, and certified that he had passed all the necessary examinations for promotion, and was fitted in every respect for the position. The examinations embraced the requirements set forth in the Act.


ST. JOHN RIVER CHANNEL.
Mr. CROCKET :: 1.	Has the Department of Public Works paid rent for any office in connection witli the survey of the St. John river channel between Fredericton and Woodstock?
2.	If so, where is said office situated, and what was the monthly rent paid therefor?


Mr. PUG.SLEY :: 1.	Yes.	[DOT]
2 (a) In Fredericton.
(b) Ten dollars per month.


MR. ALPHONSE GERVAIS.
Mr. PAQUET :: 1.	How long has Alphonse Gervais been employed by the government, and what yearly salary has been paid him since his appointment ?
2.	What is the nature of his employment and where performed?
3.	Is the government aware that the said Alphonse Gervais is said to have been condemned to pay a fine for electoral corruption ?
4-. If so, does _ the government intend to notify him of his discharge ?


Mr. TEMPLEMAN :: 1.	Mr. Alphonse Gervais has been employed in the inland revenue service at 85
St. Hyacinthe since April 1, 1901. His salary has been as follows : 1900-1,	$300 ;
1901-2,	1902-3, 1903-4,	$500 ;	1904-5,	10
months at $500 ; 2 months at $600 ; 1905-6, 1906-7, 1907-8, 1908-9, 1909-10, $600.
2.	He is attached to the bonded factory survey at St. Hyacinthe, Que.
3.	The department has no knowledge respecting this matter.
4.	In view of answer 3, no reply to this question is necessary.


PULP WOOD EXPORTS.
Mr. PAQUET:: 1.	To what amount in money did we export pulp wood to the United States during the fiscal years 1908-9 and 1909-10?
2.	To what amount in money did we export wood pulp to the United States in 1908-9 and 1909-10?
3.	To what amount in money did we export paper to the United States in 1908-9 and 190910?


Mr. PATERSON:: 1.	The exports of pulp wood from Canada to the United States during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1909, amounted to $4,356,391, and during the fiscal year 1910 to $6,076,628.
2.	The exports of wood pulp from Canada to the United States during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1909, amounted to $4,306,929, and during the fiscal year 1910 to $5,204,597.
3.	The exports of paper from Canada to the United States during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1909, amounted to $958,870. and during the fiscal year 1910 to $1,297,052.


IMPORTS OP PAPER.
Mr. PAQUET:: 1.	What sum of money did the importations of paper purchased in the United States amount to during the fiscal years 1908-9 and 1909-10?


Mr. PATERSON:: 1.	The importations of paper from the United States into Canada during the fiscal
years ended March 31, 1909, and 1910 were as follows :-
1909.	1910.
Value. Value.
Printing paper	$195,580	$234,780
Ruled, bordered and coated papers; boxed papers and
papeteries,	
61,112	99,943Paper, all kinds, n.o.p	
633,259	927,190Wall paper	
154,819	206,662Wrapping paper	
52,465	58,102
ST. HYACINTHE MILITARY SCHOOL. Mr. BLONDIN:
1.	When was the Military Riding School of St. Hyacinthe built, and what was the cost of construction ?



2.	What has been the total cost for repairs and necessary improvements since its construction?
3.	Who were the contractors for the different works, and what amounts have they respectively received ?
4.	Who is the caretaker of the Military Riding School of St. Hyacinthe, and what annual salary does he receive?
5.	Who is supposed to do the heating of the Riding School, and what yearly salary does he receive for his work ?
6.	Does the government intend to pay, besides the salary of the caretaker, that of the fireman ?
7.	What is the annual cost for the maintenance of the riding school?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: 1.	This question appertains to the Department of Public Works.
2.	$588.
3.	Only one contract in connection with (2) above has been let, and that for a minor alteration in the caretaker's quarters. Amount paid to Messrs. Paquet and God-bout, $40. Other small repairs by day labour make up the total of $588.
4.	D. Bouchard, $365 per annum, with free quarters, fuel and light.
ft. N. Langlier, $400 per annum.
6.	There is at present, in addition to the caretaker, a fireman. There is no immediate intention of making any change.
7.	In 1908-9, $997.80; in 1909-10, $976.32, exclusive of salaries of caretaker and fur-naceman.


BOOT CONTRACT FOR NAVAL DEPARTMENT.
Mr. PERLEY:: 1.	Did the Department of Naval Service call for tenders for 600 pairs of half boots for the use of seamen of the naval service, during October or November, 1910?
2.	If so, what standard pattern and specifications were adopted by the department, and upon what were they based?
3.	What opportunities for tendering were offered to Canadian manufacturers?
4.	What tenders were received and at what prices?
5.	To whom was the contract awarded, and at what figure?


Mr. BRODEUR:: 1.	On October 25, 1910, the Department of the Naval Service called for tenders for all articles of kit and clothing to be issued to the men of the naval service under the order in council on the subject, dated 6th June, 1910. Seamen's boots are included in this list.
2 and 3. Some time before calling for these tenders the department communicated with the secretary of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association with a view to obtaining the names of all the Canadian manufacturers of the articles required by the department. The association recom-Mr. BLONDIN.
mended the use of the ' Canadian Trade Index,' a book published by the Manufacturers' Association, and which is presumed to contain the names of the manufacturers in Canada, whether members of the Manufacturers' Association or not. _ The list of manufacturers of boots in this book contains about 100 names. Circulars were sent to all these manufacturers inclosing a copy of the specification of the boot used in the imperial navy, and stating that the Department of the Naval Service would in the near future call for tenders for 600 pairs of boots of this type; that the specification was sent as a guide to the type of boot required, but that, as Canadian methods of manufacture were different to British methods, the exact detail of specification would not be adhered to. The circular stated that a standard specification and pattern would be adopted, based on the experience of the department after a thorough trial of Canadian made boots.
The specification on the tender form read as follows.
' Boots to be supplied under this contract shall be similar in quality to the samples exhibited at the time of tendering, and shall be made of an equal quality in all respects of Canadian or British tanned leather. The sample boot accompanying the accepted tender shall be used as a sealed pattern, and all subsequent deliveries shall conform in all respects of manufacture, material, workmanship and finish to that sample, otherwise the officers of the department shall be at liberty to reject the same.'
The advertisement calling for tenders was published in the press of all industrial centres in Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A duplicate slip of the advertisement was forwarded to each manufacturer on the list published by the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. Samples of the British boots were exhibited at Halifax, Quebec, Ottawa and Victoria, and were also forwarded to firms in other localities for their inspection. The proceedings adopted in this case are, in a general way, the same as those which were followed in obtaining tenders for other articles required by the Naval Service Department.
4 and 5. The following tenders were received: Ames-Holden, $3.50; Jas. McCready Company, $3.75, $3.50; Slater Shoe Company, $3.50, $3.65, $3.85, $3.45, $3.25, $3.25, $3.10, $3.00, $3.40, $2.95, $3.75, $2.25; John Lennox, $3.25, $3.25; Sovereign Shoe Company. $3.50; Robert Taylor, $3.50; George A. Slater, $4.00. The samples received were examined by three naval officers. who chose three boots as being the most suitable received. A further and independent examination was made by experts on boots from the Militia Department, who chose one boot as being, in

their opinion, the most suitable for our needs. This boot was one of the three chosen at the first inspection. These inspections were made without knowledge of either the makers' names or the prices of the boots. This decision was accepted by the department and the contract was placed with the Slater Shoe Company, Ltd., of Montreal, the makers of the accepted sample at the price quoted in their tender, $3.45 per pair. This boot is considered a most suitable boot, and in many respects superior to the British boot.


GOVERNMENT LAND OPTIONS IN ST LAMBERT.
Mr. SHARPE (Ontario):: 1.	In what month and year were options taken on lots in St. Lambert for government building?
2.	How many lots were under option, and what is the name of the owner and the price of each lot?
3.	What was the price paid for the lot purchased, and when was the option exercised?


William Pugsley: 1 and 2. One option taken, dated 11th February, 1910. from Mr. Noel Marcille at $4,140 for four months.
3.	10th June, 1910.


PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND WINTER SERVICE.
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What sort of coal has been used during the last ten years and up to the present time, in the ice breaking steamers between Prince Edward Island and the mainland?
2.	From what mine or mines has this coal been procured?
3.	Has this coal proved satisfactory as a steam producing coal?
4.	Have any complaints as to the quality of this coal been received from the officers or engineers of these steamers, or from any of them ?
5.	Have any reports been received from the officers or engineers of these steamers, or from any of them, as to the quality of the coal used?


Mr. BRODEUR:: 1.	Bituminous screened coal.
2.	Mines of the Intercolonial Coal Mining Company.
3.	Fairly satisfactory.
4.	Yes.
5.	Yes.


BEAUHARNOIS CANAL.
Mr. ROBB:: 1. In what year was the Soulanges canal opened tor navigation, and the Beauharnois canal abandoned for general navigation?
-*	the opening of the Soulanges canal
until leased to McIntyre and Robert, what were the annual expenses to the government for maintenance and repairs to the Beauharnois canal?
3.	Under the lease to McIntyre and Robert, what amount does the government save in repairs and maintenance?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	Soulanges canal opened for navigation on May 1, 1900. Beauharnois canal abandoned for general navigation January 1, 1908.
2.	_ Annual expense for Beauharnois canal, maintenance and repairs from opening of Soulanges canal until leased to McIntyre and Robert, average $20,160.
3.	Saved in maintenance and repairs, $23,160.


INDIAN RESERVES IN BRITISH COLUMBIA RAILWAY BELT.
Mr. PERLEY:: 1.	With reference to the Indian reservations in the province of British Columbia outside of the twenty mile belt, has the Dominion or the province control of these lands?
2.	Can an intending settler purchase these lands and obtain a patent for the same? If so, should he apply to the Dominion or the province ?
3.	If there is a dispute between the Dominion and the province as to jurisdiction over these lands, are there any proceedings pending either in the court or otherwise to settle the same, and how soon may a decision be expected ?


Mr. OLIVER:: 1.	Indian reserves in British Columbia, outside the railway belt, are under the control of the Department of Indian Affairs.
2.	No land on an Indian reserve can be sold until after surrender bv the Indians, in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Act. The right of the government of Canada to grant the lands upon such surrender is disputed by the province of British Columbia.
3.	No judicial proceedings are pending, but there has been correspondence upon the subject, and the matter is under consideration.


WIRELESS TELEGRAPH STATIONS.
Mr. ARMSTRONG:: 1.	How many wireless telegraph stations are owned by the government of Canada, where are they located, what was the cost of each, and when were they erected?
2.	How many wireless telegraph stations are operated by the Canadian government, where are they located and what is the cost of operating each?
3.	How many of said stations are leased, to whom leased, the rental paid each year, and where are they located?


Mr. BRODEUR:: On motion of the hon. member for East Lambton on the 14th December, 1910, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries presented a return on the 18th January, showing how many wireless telegraph stations! are owned by the government, where'

located, the cost of each, and the revenue; derived from each; and stating that there are no stations leased.


THE FARMERS' BANK.
George Eulas Foster: I desire to say a word with reference to an answer to a question. The question was this:
Did the Finance Department, or any of its officials, the Finance Minister or any other member of the government, receive any communication, verbal or written, previous to the issue of the certificate of the Treasury Board to the Farmers' Bank, cautioning warning or suggesting an inquiry as to the standing or character of the promoters, or the proceedings by which the deposit was procured.
The answer I received is this:
The government did not receive in any form any information which afforded ground for a refusal of the deposit.
I beg leave to point out to the House that the answer given is not an answer to my question. I think I have a right to an answer to my question, then the House, as well as myself would form its own opinion as to whether it afforded ground for any interference. .


William Stevens Fielding: There was some gossip in banking circles concerning the Farmers' Bank, of which we became aware. I do, not see how we can take cognizance of that. There is an answer as to any representation that was made in the proper way. There was gossip abroad concerning the Farmers' Bank, I was well aware of it.


George Eulas Foster: There must be some other way of getting an answer.


William Stevens Fielding: If I knew what the, hon. gentleman wanted, I would be happy to give it to him.


BIRTHS AND DEATHS IN EACH PROVINCE OF CANADA.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. McCarthy moved for a return setting forth:
1.	The number of births and deaths in each province of Canada in each calendar year from 1901 to 1910 both inclusive.
2.	The excess or surplus of births over deaths in each such province during each of the said years.
3.	The number of immigrants who located or settled or became domiciled in each such province during each such year?
4.	The number of persons who emigrated from each such province during each such year ? *
5.	The number of persons who removed from each province of Canada and settled or became domiciled in some other province in Canada in any such year, giving the number so removing from and the number so settling or becoming domiciled in each such province in each such year.
Mr. BRODEHR.: 6.	The like information with respect to the Yukon Territory and other territories and unorganized districts of Canada.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: These returns are not under the control of this parliament.


Wilfrid Laurier: The only way we can get them is to make application to the provinces. We have no power of our own to get them. We can only ask them as a matter of grace.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: This is an order of the House generally with reference to something where you have to apply to the provinces, or to the Lieutenant Governor. I think there should be an address.


Wilfrid Laurier: The address would be to His Excellency to procure the information. But I think there is no fault to find with the form of the motion.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. E. A. LANCASTER (Lincoln and Niagara) moved:: That a humble address he presented to His Most Gracious Majesty the King as follows:- Most Gracious Majesty:
We, Your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Canada in parliament assembled, beg leave most respectfully to represent-
That in the year 1867 by Act of your imperial parliament commonly known as the British North America Act, the then existing provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were federally united and formed into one Dominion under the name of Canada, and the constitution of the legislative authority of such Dominion provided for 4nd the I nature of its executive government declared,
| and since the said Act other provinces in British North America have also been federally united to the said Dominion and now form part thereof, with representation in this House of Commons, pursuant to the provisions providing therefor in the said British North America Act and amending, and other, Acts subsequently enacted;
That by the said British North America Act the executive government and authority of and over Canada is declared to continue and be vested in Your Majesty and your heirs and successors, kings and queens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, anil Your Majesty is represented in Canada by a governor general;
That by the said British North America Act there is also a council to aid and advise Your Majesty, styled the King's Privy Council for Canada, the members of which council are from time to time chosen and summoned by Your Majesty's said governor general and may be from time to time removed by the said governor general;
That by the said British North America Act the parliament of Canada consists of Your Majesty, an upper House styled the Senate and the House of Commons, but with powers not to exceed those at the passing of the said Act held and exercised by the Commons

House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland;
That by the said British North America Act it is also provided that Bills for appropriating any part of the public revenue or for imposing any tax or impost shall originate in the House of Commons and that no such Bill or vote, resolution or address for such appropriation or tax or impost shall be adopted or passed that has not been first recommended to that House by message of Your Majesty's said governor general in the session in which such Bill, vote, resolution or address is proposed;
That by the said British North America Act it is also provided that where any Bill passed by the House of Parliament is presented to Your Majesty's said governor general for Your Majesty's assent, he shall declare according to his discretion but subject to the provisions of the said Act and to Your Majesty's instructions, either that he assents thereto in Your Majesty's name, or that he withholds Your Majesty's assent, or that he reserves the Bill for the signification of Your Majesty's idea-sure, and that where he assents to a Bill in Your Majesty's name if Your Majesty in Council within two years after receipt thereof by the Secretary of State thinks fit to disallow the Act such disallowance shall annul the Act,, and that a Bill reserved for the signification of Your Majesty's pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within two years from the day on which it was presented to Your Majesty's said governor general for Your Majesty's assent he signifies to the Houses of Parliament or by proclamation that he has received the assent of Your Majesty in council;
That by the said British North America Act legislatures for the various provinces constituting the said Dominion of Canada are also established, each governed by a lieutenant governor appointed by Your Majesty's said Governor General in Council for five years, and whose salaries are required to be fixed and provided by the parliament of the Dominion of Canada and such provincial legislatures are empowered exclusively to make laws in relation to a large number of matters and subjects of great importance, subject to disallowance by Your Majesty's said Governor General in Council within one year, but not in any way subject to consent also by the said Senate;
That in regard to all matters and subjects not within the said exclusive power of the said provincial legislatures it is provided by the said British North America Act that all laws to be made by the said parliament of Canada must be consented to and passed by both the Senate and the House of Commons before being presented to Your Majesty's said Governor General for assent and the members constituting the said Senate are appointed for life and not subject to election or rejection by the people, and the members of the House of Commons are elected by the people every five years or at any less period at which Your Majesty's said Governor General may dissolve the parliament;
That during the forty years since the said British North America Act has been in force much dissatisfaction has been caused from time to time to Your Majesty's loyal subjects in Canada by the actions of the Senate in regard to matters dealt.with by the House of Commons and the rejection of laws sought to be made by the people through their representatives in the House of Commons and passed by the House, and by reason of the heavy expense and burden of taxation placed upon the people to provide for the maintenance of that two-fold system of dealing with the making of laws bv the parliament of Canada;
That in view of the many other provisions heretofore referred to for guarding against and disallowing any ill-advised or improper legislation which might by any possibility pass the said House of Commons, and of the aforesaid dissatisfaction of the people and heavy burden of expense involved and of the great advance made in education by the whole people of Canada since the passing of the said British North America Act, this House is of the opinion that the Senate is no longer required or advisable for the properly carrying on of responsible government in Canada, or safeguarding of Your Majesty's full rights and prerogatives; and that the abolition of the said Senate would greatly conduce to the welfare of the Dominion of Canada and promote the interests of the British Empire.
We therefore respectfully pray that the said British North America Act be so amended as to provide for the abolition of the said Senate.
He said: In rising again this session to discuss the question of a second chamber, and to move a resolution for a petition to His Majesty the King praying for the abolition of that chamber, I desire to say that although the motion is in exactly the same language as the one which I presented to the House last session, I think it is well to discuss it again at this session, principally because in the interim I have Tiad so many communications from 'every province of Canada urging me to proceed with it until something substantial is done either by way of reform or abolition. The parties writing to me have almost invariably stated that they preferred abolition. Last session the vote upon my resolution was almost unanimously against it, I think only twenty three or four voted for it, principally because I think, of what some have seen fit to call the radical nature of the resolution. We have a history in regard to this matter ever since confederation, if any solution had been brought forward by the brightest and ablest minds that have been in parliament since confederation the probability is that I should not have felt it my duty to bring forward this resolution again and to move for the abolition of that chamber. But no solution has been found for what every one admits is an unsatisfactory state of things, except possibly the senators themselves for the time being.
Now, at the risk of wearying the House, I desire to go over the matter again, and show the exact position we are in. At Hie* time of confederation a second chamber was established. No one at this day knows exactly why, hut we are led to believe

from what we have read that the principal reason was 'because a second' chamber had s been established in other legislative bodies such as was being established for the government of Canada. In the state of civilization at that time there was a great deal more reason for a second chamber than there is to-dayt Education was meagre comparatively to what it is to-day. The knowledge of how laws were made, how other countries were progressing, or retrograding, of what goes to make up prosperity " or the adverse of prosperity, wras | possessed by a comparatively small per, centage of the people. So much was that so that for some years after confederation it was a common thing that constituencies could not find within their borders a person fit to represent them' in the House of Commons, and for years we had non-resident representation simply and mainly because there were not within the limits of
(constituencies people whom the voters in those constituencies thought sufficiently well educated and informed to represent them on the floor of the House of Com-maps. We had for many years non-resi-' dent representation, if I may use that expression, the House understanding that I mean by that a member representing a constituency wherein he did not reside, wherein perhaps he had no interest. That has almost entirely gone. I do not know that there is any one in this House at the present time, except perhaps the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. King), who represents a constituency in which he does not reside. There may be others, but if there are I do not know. I do not think that in the last parliament we had one, except perhaps the Prime Minister, who, I think the House will concede, may be an exceptional case. That illustrates what I mean by the position with regard to education. A second chamber, in my humble opinion was thought necessary at that time, probably more than for any other reason, because of the want of education, and ability in the people to intelligently and successfully deal with the important matters that parliament has to deal with. That being the position, I wish to say that I do not concede at all that because we had a second chamber at the time of confederation there is any reason for continuing it. j wish to emphasize the j fact that at the time of confederation the I conditions in this country were entirely i different from what they are now. I do not concede in any way that anything is to | be said against this resolution from the i mere fact that the second chamber was | established forty years ago. I do not be-| lieve that if our ancesters had realized 1 at the time confederation was brought I about that in a few years this country \ would have attained to the state of education at which it has arrived to-day they ' Mr. LANCASTER.
would have concluded that there should be] a permanent second chamber, i Then, the* condition of things is entirely different. Having regard to the condition at that time they felt it was necessary to safeguard the constitution by having a second chamber not elected directly by the people.
I suppose their reason was that they thought that the comparative ignorance of the ordinary voter might result in the creation of a sentiment in the country which would intimidate or frighten members of parliament into doing something that was altogether too radical, and not in the true interest of the. country, un-British and ill-advised. Therefore, they sought to provide the check which the British constitution gives in the home land in the form of cooling chamber, so as to speak. Their object no doubt was, looking at the matter from the standpoint of the people of Canada, to prevent, by any popular or sudden declaration of public opinion, the adoption of a course that might bring about disaster to the country. The reason for having a second chamber in Great Britain is very different from what it is in this country. People who say there is the same necessity for a Senate in Canada as there is for a House of Lords in England are speaking without realizing what they are talking about. The House of Lords in England is the only safeguard between the Commons and the King, and if the House of Lords were not there the Commons would be able to force the King to abdicate if he did not give way whenever the elective chamber choose to ask his assent to any particular line of policy. There is no other safeguard, or bulwark, or cooling basin to put a check upon hasty legislation in Great Britain but the House of Lords. But, in this country,. if the House of Commons, notwithstanding all that I have hinted at with regard to education to-day as compared with the state of education in the days when confederation was brought about, were to pass hasty legislation under which certain interests were injured, under which the rights of minorities were interfered with unfairly or unconstitutionally,' or was tending in that direction, or if even without unconstitutional legislation the rights of minorities were interfered with, for the checking of which the second chamber is supposed to exist, I say, and I wish to emphasise this point, that the second chamber would be useless. By the constitution under which we live any Bill passed by this parliament is subject to disallowance whether there be a Senate or not. Whether the Senate exists or whether it does not exist, every Bill adopted by this parliament has to be passed upon under the constitution by the home authorities within two years and it can be, without any wrench to the constitution, abrogated, set aside, and, annulled as if it were just

so much waste paper. There are a great many gentlemen both in this House and out of the House-more out of the House- who do not appear to be well informed upon this point who are not aware of this fact, and as ' Hansard ' is a public document that every person can obtain I think it is well that I should put upon ' Hansard ' the sections of the British North America Act which I referred to in a previous debate on this subject last session, and which every one, who chooses to obtain a copy of ' Hansard,' can read for himself. Section 55 of the British North America Act under which we exist to-day as a parliament says this :
Where a Bill passed by the Houses of the parliament is presented to the Governor General for the Queen's assent, he shall declare according to his discretion, but subject to the provisions of this Act and to Her Majesty's instructions, either that he assents thereto in the Queen's name, or that he withholds the Queen's assent, or that he reserves the Bill for the signification of the Queen's pleasure.
Section 56,
Where the Governor General assents to a Bill in the Queen's name, he shall by the first convenient opportunity send an authentic copy of the Act to one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, and if the Queen in Council within two years after receipt thereof by the Secretary of State thinks fit to disallow the Act, such disallowance (with a certificate of the Secretary of State of the day on which the Act was received by him) being justified by the Governor General, by speech or message to each of the Houses of the parliament or by proclamation, shall annul the Act from and after the day of such signification.
Then section 57,
A Bill reserved for the signification of the Queen's pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within two years from the day on which it was presented to the Governor General for the Queen's assent, the Governor General signifies, by speech or message to each of the Houses of the parliament or by proclamation, that it has received the assent of the Queen in Council.
Then it says:
An entry of every such speech, message or proclamation shall be made in the Journal of the House.	[DOT]
I need not read that as it does not affect the sense. Under these sections, and more particularly under section 56, after a Bill has been passed by both Houses of this parliament as at present constituted, and notwithstanding that the Senate has approved of the Bill the assent of His Excellency to that Bill has no permanent effect, because the King in council in Great Britain, can within two years, if they see fit, disallow that Bill. Of course that would not often happen and if it did I would not be petitioning the King to abolish the
Senate, because I would feel that there might be some need indirectly for the existence of that body. What I point out is that whatever action the Senate may take on a Bill, whether it rejects our Bill or whether it amends it or whether it forces us to concur in their amendments, after all, that Bill may be refused by the home government and the constitution of this country is in no way wrenched. It would be no reflection upon His Excellency-because his very appointment is a limited power of attorney in such matters if I may be pardoned for using the expression-if after he assented to that Bill it should be rejected by the home government. Now, supposing we had no Senate, is not what I have just indicated all the protection that is required for the various interests the Senate is supposed to protect. No Bill has ever been discussed in this House that has not found men here to point out that it infringes on vested interests, if that be the case. The members returned to this House have to recognize vested interests, and every other interest and if any of us were to advocate in this House an attack on these interests which the second chamber is supposed to guard, the chances are that we would not be re-elected. If any interests be disastrously affected by our legislation, these interests have in a sense control over members of parliament, and if a member of parliament be extreme or-unreasonable on any point the chances are that he would not again be returned to the House. A man may come to this House of Commons biassed, but he hears the debates and discussions, and he gradually becomes more reasonable. He may fight for principles and point out why they should be put into practice, but the tendency is that the men who come here are educated by their fellow members, and the result is that the Commons does not pass legislation against any interests that may require protection from the second chamber. The need for a second chamber today is in an entirely different position from what it was in 1867. If a Bill of an extremely radical character were passed by this House-one of the kind the Senate is supposed to protect the country against- and if the Senate assented to it, would any one say that if that legislation were calculated to work havoc in this country, that the interests affected could not go to Great Britain and seek its disallowance. Surely, if it were not important and weighty enough to pursue with regard to it such a course as that provided in section 56, the interests affected could not be very much hurt. Let me give an instance of how the Senate as at present constituted may be a barrier to carrying into legislation the wishes of the people. I regret I have to refer to a personal matter and to speak of a Bill which I had a great deal to do with. For seven years I sought in this House to
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have legislation passed providing for the better protection of human life at railway level crossings. In two sessions of one parliament that Bill was sent up to the Senate with the unanimous approval of the House, and at the first session of the succeeding parliament it was for the third time sent to the Senate. It had been discussed in the House and before committees for six years, champions on both sides of the question were heard, and at last this j House of Commons unanimously, from the I Prime Minister down to the last elected back-bencher on either side, approved of ; the Bill and sent it to the upper chamber, j For the first two years the Senate refused to pass the Bill; in the third year they sent it back to us amended so that it did not mean what the Commons intended it should mean, the Senate providing that certain expenses should be borne by the municipalities in the discretion of the railway commission, instead of being paid by the railway companies as the House of Commons thought they should. After seven years consideration in this House and four years unanimous approval by the House, and the Senate having sent it back | to us twice, the Prime Minister was oblig-| ed to stand up in this House and say: We cannot get what we want from the Senate and we shall have to take what they give us.
Is that a state of affairs which the fathers of confederation anticipated? Thirty members of the Senate voting one way overrode 16 members of the Senate plus 221 members I of the House of Commons, with the result that the municipalities of the country, which might be fairlv classed with the minorities, have since been obliged, in the dis-i cretion of the Railwav Commission, to pay a part of the expense of protecting the ! level crossings against dangers which have been created by the railways by the fast running of their trains, and by their want | of care in other respects. The 221 mem-[ bers of this House of Commons for three ; years voted unanimously for a certain mea-S sure as the only right wray of meeting the evil, and were backed up by 16 senators, making 237 in all, representing the will of the people in this matter, and their action was nullified by the vote of 30 senators. That is not a state of affairs that ought to exist, or that it was ever expected would exist by the fathers of confederation when the Senate was created. With that illustration, I think I can leave it to the House to say that something ought to be done to make it impossible for that condi

tion of affairs ever to happen again.
It is often said that the second chamber is required for the protection of minorities. Last session, in debating this question, I pointed out that the Senate had never, in the whole 40 odd years of its existence, been known to do the first thing Mr. LANCASTER.
to protect minorities; and if in those 40 odd years it has gone on without any attempt to do that, it is fair to say that it was not required for that purpose. Xhe Prime Minister, in answering that part of my argument, though I do not think he really answered the integral and important part of my motion, said-I read from page 2056 of the unrevised ' Hansard ' of last session:
So one of the reasons, one of the inducements given to the smaller provinces, to lower Canada, and Nova /Scotia and New Brunswick, was that there should be au upper chamber as well as equality of representation, and this was for the protection of minorities. My hon. friend asked with some pertinence: What have the Senate done during the forty years that it has existed for the protection of the minorities? He answered, nothing. Sir, I am glad that my hon. friend from Niagara (Mr. Lancaster) can say that the Senate has done nothing in the forty years of its existence for the protection of minorities. But this is not to the discredit of the Senate, it is rather to the credit of the House of Commons. It means simply that the House of Commons has done nothing to endanger minorities.
Using the same sort of argument, I would say, with all deference to the Prime Minister, is it not equally plain that, if the House of Commons has so acted as not to require the Senate to protect minorities, that is a reason why no Senate was needed to protect minorities? If with so many diversities of opinion in this House, and with so many sections and callings represented in the cabinet, not once in the whole 40 years has any minority required to be protected, is that not a good reason why the Senate is not required at all?
Going on with the history of what public men have done about the Senate, let me point out that this constitution was not in existence 20 years before murmur-ings began to arise concerning the Senate. This murmuring increased to such an extent that 17 years ago one of the great political parties of the country, at a convention held in Ottawa in 1893, passed the following resolution in regard to it:
The present constitution of the Senate is inconsistent with the federal principle in out-system of government, and is in other respects defective, as it makes the Senate independent of the people, and uncontrolled by public opinion of the country, and should be so amended as to bring it into harmony with the principles of popular government.
Now. two things stand out prominently in that resolution. That great political party declared that the Senate was inconsistent with federal principles 'and that it was in other respects defective, and it pledged itself, on going into power, to remedy those defects. From that time to this there have been various agitations on this Subject in the country, but the govern-

ment has not since it attained power, made any proposition which would be acceptable to any large proportion of public men towards remedying those defects. [DOT]
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o clock.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Mr. Speaker, when you left the Chair at six o'clock, I was pointing out what seemed to me to be instances of the lack of usefulness of the Senate in making legislation in this country during the last ten years. In this connection I would point out that nearly every public man of standing in the Liberal party has, at one time or another, some of them many times, during the last ten or fifteen years, stated many objections to our present system of legislation, owing to the inefficiency or worse of the Senate. For instance two years ago Senator Sir Richard Scott, almost immediately after he had ceased to be a member of the present cabinet-and I do not know whether that fact has any significance-made one of the most emphatic utterances in condemnation of the present system of appointment to the Senate, and introduced in that chamber a motion seeking to reform it. His motion was to this effect:
That in the opinion of the Senate the time lias arrived for so amending the constitution of this branch of parliament as to bring the mode of selection of senators more into harmony with public opinion.
This is a clear and distinct statement by a senator of many years' standing that he recognizes that the Senate is not at all in harmony with public opinion, and reading between the lines it is easy to understand from his language that he believed the constitution must be so amended as to make the Senate of more use to the country. Sir Richard Scott supported this motion earnestly. He suggested as a mode of appointment the election of two-thirds of the members of the Senate by the people and the appointment of one-third by the Crown, for seven years in each case. His suggestion did not meet with very much favour, in fact no suggestion for the reform of the Senate has ever met with strong support from any large number of people. One gentleman will propose one reform, another a different reform, some newspaper a third, but, practically speaking, no plan receives the support of any person except the proposer of the reform. In fact, although the large majority of the people and of the members of parliament believe that, as Sir Richard Scott says, the Senate must be reformed, no two people will agree as to what reform should be made. The Prime Minister will remember that three years ago, speaking on the motion of the present
deputy Speaker (Mr. McIntyre) for the reform of the Senate, the right hon. gentleman pointed out just what I have said. He discussed seriatim all the reforms that have been suggested and decided that not one of them was acceptable. The Prime* Minister has not himself suggested any method of reform. By the Liberal platform of 1893 he and his party were pledged to the reform of the Senate. The Prime Minister is a man of great ability and ingenuity who is never without means to accomplish what he thinks ought to be accomplished in the interests of this country, yet since 1896, for nearly fifteen years, the Prime Minister has had it within his power as Prime Minister to introduce some of the reforms to which he pledged himself in 1893 and on which he attained office in 1896. If the Prime Minister, holding office under that pledge, with all his ability, his vast resources of mind, and his great power, has not been able to effect a reform, it is fair and reasonable to take the position that the Senate is not working properly and in the interests of the country, that it cannot be reformed, and that it should be abolished. Therefore, I believe the concrete motion I have brought forward, which takes the form of an humble petition to His Gracious Majesty to so amend the British North America Act as to provide for the abolition of the Senate, is the only sensible, practical, reasonable action for this House to take under the circumstances. To assume otherwise is to assume that while the Prime Minister with - the vast majority he has had since 1896, with all his power, with all his ability having been unable to effect a reform, some of us can do what he cannot do, an assumption which is ridiculous.
In view of all these circumstances one must come to the conclusion that the only sensible, practical and reasonable thing to do is to petition the imperial parliament tp provide for the abolition of the Senate as an entirely unnecessary body.
Other prominent members of the Liberal party vigorously followed up the pledge contained in the platform of 1895. Sir Richard Cartwright, another member of the Senate, was one of the most emphatic speakers on this question. He has been, from the beginning, a member of the present administration. He was one of the leading Liberals of the country in 1893, and was present at that convention. When this plank was made in the party platform, he expected-and, as it turned out, rightly expected-to be a member of the cabinet if his party attained power. He sat for years in this House as a member of the government and deskmate of the Prime Minister, and it is only a few years ago that he was translated to the upper cham-1 ber, where he sits still as a member of the

government. This hon. gentleman, in 1896, following up what he understood to be the opinion of the Liberal party-and you cannot blame me if I think the same as he did-t'haj the Senate should, be abolished, **and speaking in Massey Hall, Toronto, dealt with this question of the Senate. Remember, he had had three years since 1893 in which to thoroughly consider and understand what the platform of 1893 meant. And I have his words before me. I put them on ' Hansard ' last year, but it will do no harm to refresh the minds of hon. gentlemen opposite on this subject. He said:-
The Senate was a millstone around the neok of the Canadian people which he prayed that Providence would soon remove.
If he is still praying, the locality from which he offers his prayers, I should think, would prevent them from doing much good. I doubt if his prayers go through the roof, for he occupies a place in the very institution for the abolition of which he was praying in 1896. Speaking seriously to the people on the eve of a general election, speaking as right-hand man and prospective colleague of the leader whom he wished to see placed in power, trying to convince the people that his party should be put in power, he declared the Senate to be a millstone around the neck of the Canadian people, which he prayed that Providence would soon remove. How he was ever able to take a seat in the Senate after that I do not know, but since he has been in the Senate I have not heard of him offering up that prayer. If there was cause in 1896, why this august body, the Senate, should be removed, in the opinion of Sir Richard Cartwright and of the present Prime Minister, what has happened since then to justify a change of their opinion?
Now, the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) may ~ not have intended to say quite what he did say in answer to me when I spoke on this subject last session. What he said will be found at page 2054 of ' Hansard.' He spoke in part as follows:-
It may be that the present action of the Senate is not satisfactory to my hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster). I can remember when the action of the Senate as it existed twenty years ago was not very satisfactory to me, for instance. My scruples are not the same to-day as they were then, and it may be that the time will come when my hon. friend will change his views on this point, and, the composition of the Senate being different, his objection may be removed. But he says that, as no satisfactory reform of the Senate is suggested, there is a general opinion that the condition of the Senate at the present time is not satisfactory and that all heartily desire a change. I agree that there has been a strong suggestion made at different times and in different quarters that we should have a reform of the Senate.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: What does that mean? I can only take one meaning from it, and that is that when the majority of members of the Senate were of a different stripe from the right hon. gentleman it was a bad Senate, but since, by the effluxion of time and, other causes, a majority of the Senate is now made up of his friends, and largely of his own appointees, his objection is removed. I hope that was not his meaning, because it would be no answer to my argument. It is such an argument as no independent-minded man would consider for a moment. But there has been no change in the Senate except in the political complexion of the majority. I regret if I have taken the wrong meaning from what the right hon. gentleman said; if I am wrong, I hope he will put me right. Rut I am forced to the conclusion that the reason why the opinion of the, right hon. gentleman has changed in the last twenty,years is that the political complexion of the Senate to-day is different, from what it was twenty years ago. I can assure the right hon. gentleman that' my grievance against the Senate is not, merely that the political complexion off the Senate does not please me. My objection to them is that very often they do nothing to help the country to secure good legislation, and when they do wake up, they wake up at the wrong time, obstruct good legislation passed by this House, and so do mischief.
There was another hon. gentleman who, in his lifetime was very highly respected, now gone to his reward

Sir' Oliver Mowat. He was everywhere respected for! his ability as a public man. He also, joined the cabinet of the right hon. Prime Minister, becoming his Minister of Justice. In 1896 he was active in trying to get the present Prime Minister placed in power, and he, like others, spoke on the subject of the Senate. I placed one of his remarks on 1 Hansard ' last year, but it will do no harm to repeat it and so remind hon. members of what was said. It will be found at page 2042 of ' Hansard'' of last year:
We are agreed as to the necessity of a fundamental reform of the Senate, if, for any reason, it must or should be retained.
The pith of that sentence-yes, and its sting-are in the last clause, ' if, for any reason, it must or should be retained.' It is quite clear that Sir Oliver Mowat thought that there was no need of it at all. Sir Oliver Mowat thought there was no need of it at all, at most he would compromise on a reform of the Senate, and he took care to say: We are all agreed. That is, all the leading members of his party who were going to form a cabinet after they got into power, as they did in 1896, were agreed that something must be done. Now

we must assume in all fairness to this government that they have tried their best since 1896 to carry out that pledge and to reform the Senate. We have a right to assume that they have striven night and day to devise some way by which they could reform that Senate. Now this government must be intending to carry out those pledges, and in all fairness to them we must assume that they have ever since been endeavouring to find some solution to this problem. They have' been unable to do so. Then in the name of common sense, in the name of everything that is reasonable, is it not time' that a petition was sent to His Gracious Majesty asking him either to remove the Senate, or to reform it in the interest of this country?
Now, some people say there are large matters dealt with in the Senate, and we never know that one of these large matters might come up in regard to which the -Senate might act as a cooling basin, to allow parliament and the country to give further consideration to the matter, in short to act as a check on hasty legislation that might be indulged in by this chamber. Rut look at the province of Ontario-no Senate, no second chamber, no trouble, but dealing with a great many important matters that come right home to the people, matters like direct taxation which the people feel instantly. Now, the province of Ontario has not had a second chamber for years and years, it was abolished almost directly after confederation, and no one ever said that the legislature of Ontario passes hasty legislation, or that the people are not satisfied with it. I believe the only provinces in the Dominion that still technically continue their second chambers are Quebec and Nova Scotia, but so little work have they ever done that scarcely any one realizes that there is a second chamber in those provinces. So I say that in view of -all the important matters that are dealt with by the provincial legislatures with a single chamber, we are justified in concluding that if those legislatures do not need a second chamber neither does this parliament. Why? If it were a matter of sufficient importance, as I have already pointed out, any Bill could be delayed by the home government, and there would not need to be any wrench to the constitution.
There has been another suggestion for reform which the Prime Minister says lie does not approve and that is appointments by the provincial legislatures. I do not think a Senate appointed by the provincial legislatures would work satisfactorily, and I will tell you why. Senators thus appointed would be swayed by purely local influences, they wouid be provincial in their ideas, and partial to the provinces
that appointed them. If any legislation bore rather harder on one province than upon another, you would find the senators from that particular province obstructing that legislation, believing that in so doing they were carrying out the will of the province that appointed them. We would find no independence in a body thus appointed. Let me give you another illustration to show how this so-called independent Senate is a broken reed upon which we cannot rely. Here is a case that might happen any day. The government .might bring down a Bill which was unpopular. Supposing, for instance, that last session the Canadian Senate had seen fit to oppose the government Bill creating a Canadian Navy on the ground that it was unconstitutional. Supposing after the government's majority in this House had voted the Bill through, the Senate had rejected it, and sent that Bill back here. This government has power to appoint senators by its own inherent power, and we all know that whatever government is in power their tendency is to appoint senators of that particular stripe. Does any one suppose that that institution, appointed by the party in power for purely political reasons, is going to resist their masters who appointed them, and would declare their independence of the government that placed any Bill before them? Where would be your responsible government under such circumstances?
Now, I can well understand that any one who was determined on separation from Great Britain might desire that the Senate should continue to exist. But I could not understand an imperialist holding such an idea, because if a man is an imperialist he feels absolutely safe in the fact that the home government would, in any case where vested interests were interfered with, or injustice was being done, interpose its veto within the two years' prescribed by the constitution. But I could understand that a man having in view separation from Great Britain would not wish to see the Senate abolished, because if the country is going to separate from Great Britain then he would want a second chamber here to keep us right instead of the very thing which the imperialist would desire, a right to appeal to the home government under the circumstances I have mentioned. But any one who does not wish a separation from Great Britain might suppose there was no need of a second chamber.
Now, I wish to put a quotation or two on the ' Hansard ' to show what the newspapers are saying about this matter. Take, for instance, the Toronto ' Star,' a paper that is not looking for opportunities to find fault with the present administration. In fact, I think I can go further and say that

it is a very faithful supporter of the government to-day. On January 4, 1909, the Toronto * Star ' said:-
As the matter now stands the Senate is simply an addition to the patronage of the government.
That is the statement of a paper supporting this government.
Patronage in the Civil Service we have learned to endure through custom, but surely it is unwise to extend the system of patronage to the appointment of those who make the laws of the land. Responsible government means the responsibility of the government to parliament, hut who can speak seriously of the responsibility of a government to a portion of parliament appointed by the government itself?
Exactly, if I may interpolate, this is the very point that I was endeavouring to make to-night of a Bill going to the Senate sent up by a majority of this House, and the Senate rejecting it to help out the government. The ' Star ' goes on:-
The plan laid before the Senate by the Hon. Sir R. W. Scott is good in so far as it proposes to substitute election for appointment. An elected Senate, dealing independently with the measures sent up by the House of Commons, including government measures, might occasionally serve a good purpose. It is doubtful whether such a body could work in harmony with a system which requires that the government of the day shall have a parliamentary majority for the support of its measures, hut if it were found unworkable it would probably be a half-way house on the road to abolition, which to many seems to he the logical solution of the problem.
I may not toe in very good company with the ' Star ' tout I call it as a witness. We find the ' Star ' supporting this government strenuously since it came into power. I do not know whether this paper was in existence before the government came into power, but I see that it has been thriving very well since the government has been in power. It says that practical abolition is the logical solution, tout that until you get abolition you had better have an elected body, a half way house to the final consummation so devoutly wished for. The ' Star ' on November 16, 1909, said this:-[DOT]
Against the Senate we wish to register several objections. The least of these is that it is a feeble echo of the party in power in the Commons. When the Senate docs nothing but ratify the will of the Commons, we see it at its best, for we are then having representative government. The will of the elected parliament is not being frustrated by another body, whose memibens are chosen for reasons the people know nothing about, and which no amount of study can enable them to understand. At such a time the Senate is only unnecessary, and nothing worse.
Yet we must qualify the statement, for in Mr. LANCASTER.
that case it is even worse than unnecessary and worse than being a profitless expense, because no member of parliament knows just how soon a vacancy in the Senate may occur, and it is not uncommon to find representatives of the people forfeiting their popularity at the polls confident of reaching that upper chamber where no poll is long enough to reach them.
At another time the Senate is not the feeble echo of the Commons. We submit that it is seen at its worst when it resists the will of the Commons, or undertakes to originate legislation. In that case it weakens popular government, impedes, and frustates it. Why should the people support an appointed House to resist and baffle the purposes of an elected one?
Then I will refer once more to the ' Star,' bringing it down to November 30, 1909. At the end of a long article, all of which I need not trouble the House by reading, we find this conclusion:-
But the fact that the Canadian Senate does not go to such lengths as the British House of Lords does not make it a desirable part of ; our constitution. If birth ought not to make a legislator, neither should a legislator he appointed by the government, which ought to be checked and controlled by the legislative body. It is the tendency of all bodies not elected by the people to become reactionary. The Senate of the United States is in this respect not much better than the British House of Lords. All appointed bodies, freed from the wholesome influence of public control, tend to lose touch with the people, and to voice the opinions and sentiments of privileged classes.
I will give a quotation in rather terse language from a paper for which, if I may be pardoned for saying so, I have more respect, and that is the Toronto ' Mail and Empire."' The Toronto ' Mail and Empire,' writing about this matter on the 5th January, 1910, said this:-
Canadians are being incited by several papers to indignation against the House of Lords as a political institution. Like other human works, the House of Lords is full of imperfections, hut candour compels us to admit that it is both an abler and a more conscientious legislative body than the Senate of Canada or the Senate of the United States. In practice, also, it is more democratic than either of these chambers.
Then, a very short quotation from the Goderich ' Signal,' and a comment from the Hamilton 'Spectator' upon it:-
The Goderich ' Signal ' shouts ' No quarter for the Canadian Senate,' hut would'nt ' no quarters ' be a quicker way of getting rid of that body?
These are terse, and, it may he, somewhat flippant comments upon the Senate, but you may see what they illustrate. Here is the Goderich ' Signal ' saying that there should be * no quarter for the Canadian Senate.' It means that the Senate is abso-

lutely no use in the opinion of the Goderich ' Signal.' Then the Hamilton ' Spectator ' quotes that on January 24, 1910, and says- and I agree with the ' Spectator-that ' no quarters ' would be a quicker way of getting rid of that body; that is to say, furnish no place for them to meet, do not summon them to attend, and let them have their appointments for life. What the ' Spectator ' means is to leave them so that they do not meddle with the popular chamber by interfering with legislation and by obstructing the progress of the country as they are apt to do and have done in the past. The ' Spectator ' means to say: Do not summon them to Ottawa, do not place before them something to enable them to make pretense that they are legislating; let them live out their lives; let them live as long as they possibly can. We hope that they may live for ever, and I do not think that the country would abject to continuing their indemnity but let them not meddle and let them work themselves out, so that, without waiting very long for it, we would have the consummation that is here desired and there would be no more trouble about it. The Toronto ' Globe,' with all its loyal support of this government, says this about the Senate, writing on January 10, 1911:-
It is to be hoped there is no basis of truth for the statement in the opposition press that the total membership of the Senate is to be 'largely' increased. The Senate is too large already. Reform in the direction of abolishing life senatorships and reducing the membership is long overdue.
There are many such suggestions in favour of the abolition of the Senate. Going through newspapers of different kinds and on different sides of politics you find many arguments and these arguments are well known to the Prime Minister, to the cabinet and to those who could, with the force they have behind them, and even without forcing their views through, but by argument and reasoning, find some solution if there is any solution to be found with regard to the Senate. They could find some means of reforming it. But, the time having gone by for any suggested reformation, I have come to the conclusion that the only successful and practical thing to do is to appeal to His Most Gracious Majesty the King to grant us some means for the abolition of it. Before concluding I ought to put on record some citations from a book which I have had the opportunity of perusing since I spoke upon this question last yean This is a new work upon the subject published last year in England, written by Prof. Harold W. V. Temperley, in London, and entitled ' Senates and upper chambers ':-
I read this book with a good deal of care and I think it my duty to put on record
certain of the opinions it contains, written by a British subject and a friendly critic of Canada. At page 43 the author says:
Practical experience of the difficulty of constituting upper chambers in the Australasian colonies even induced Earl Grey himself to modify his bicameral views (?). He declared their danger to lie in the fact that the division of the legislature into two branches withdrew some of the most able and intelligent men from the lower chamber ' in a community not numerous enough to furnish more than a few persons qualified for such duties.' Even if it did not do this the upper chamber might be composed of mere party men without ability, in which case it must become discredited and weak. He was therefore led into a practical advocacy of single chambers for the colonies (8).
I now consider it to be very doubtful, at least, whether the single legislature (chamber) ought not under any circumstances to be preferred.
This is written in 1910. I quote from page 46:
Since the granting of responsible government the Canadian colonies have never shown much enthusiasm for their upper chambers, which have been abolished in four of the provinces. In the beginning the Australasian colonies adopted two chambers with unanimity, but subsequent experience qualified their enthusiasm. In our third group, the South African colonies, the attachment to the bicameral system has, from the first, been singularly lukewarm. Cape Colony adopted two chambers in the early fifties, and appears to have retained them without much protest after the introduction of responsible government (1872). But the Cape upper chamber, being elective, threatened to challenge the supremacy of the lower house. Its example and claims were not encouraging, and they seem to have impressed the other colonies in South Africa. When Natal petitioned for responsible government she made a determined effort to get rid of an upper chamber altogether, and only yielded to the strong opinion of the Home government in the matter (1893). It is quite clear that the upper chambers in the Transvaal and Orange River colony are only temporary ones in their present character, and it is by no means certain that it was not intended that they should be abolished altogether in the future. As for the federal Senate of South Africa the constitution gives it no special protection after ten years; and ' furthermore (this is an open secret) there was a strong party in the convention in favour of doing without it altogether.' The feeling here shown is more significant than any of the other instances adduced. Whatever may have been thought of single-chamber government in a unitary state, it had always been previously considered that an upper chamber was indispensable for a federal state. If the collective wisdom of South Africa could for a moment seriously contemplate doing without one in the federal constitution, it is quite evident that it absolutely condemns the bicameral system for unitary states, and in this judgment we see the severest criticism that the two-chamber system has hitherto received.

But in any case the general testimony of our other colonies to the worth of the bicameral system must he regarded as a somewhat ungracious one. Nowhere is the upper chamber really imposing in the unitary colonies, in few is it actually powerful, in many it is regarded as a rather tedious relic of a by-gone age. In Canada and South Africa, certainly, it is looked upon as an ancestral relative, whose death would not cause any particular grief to the colonies in question, though they do not care to terminate his existence by speedier means. The Home government stands by acting the part of the family doctor, bidding the eager heirs to have patience, and meanwhile doing its best to keep the aged patient alive by cordials and by encouragement.
Again at page 141 this learned author says:
Whatever the theory, which gave birth to the bicameral system, the working out of that theory has been almost directly contrary to the ideals of its founders. The old idea certainly was that the Upper Chamber should be a ' checking ' Chamber, and should in certain cases possess an absolute veto on the will of the people. The progress of democracy has transformed all that, and this idea now prevails only in the state legislatures of America. There it must indeed be admitted that the Upper Chamber may still be a real checking Chamber, but it is only powerful because democracy has rivetted fetters in itself. The election of state senators and popular representatives on the same tenure, the presence of corruption in the Upper Chamber and of lethargy among the electors has tended in practice to a maintenance of old conditions of which nobody in America really approves. But wherever democracy is progressive, wherever the people become more united and better educated, there the idea of a checking Chamber disappears.
Again at page 224 the author says:
In theory, the Senate of Canada possesses equal powers of legislation with those of the Lower House, except that it cannot originate money Bills. It has, however, full power either to amend or to reject them. In practice, its nominee Senate has not proved very important or effective, largely because it has always been the tool of a party. By 1873 it had been filled with the nominees of the Conservative party, and since then it has been refilled according to the views of the party installed in office. A Liberal member was once appointed by the Conservative premier, Sir John Macdonald, but the present Liberal premier, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, has never departed from the strict party rule. Since it is so obviously the creature of party, such a body cannot evidently have much claim on the reverence of the country. The fact that its members are appointed for life might tend to produce some difficulty when the opposing party gets into office, but the balance is gradually redressed as vacancies appear. None the less, if the present Liberal party had only had a short spell of office, their legislation might have been interfered with. In 1873, when the Liberal party was in power for two years, the Conservative Senate vetoed Mr. LANCASTER.
several measures and provoked considerable complaint at the time from the ministry, though McKenzie subsequently acknowledged that the Senate had used its power to suspend rash and hasty legislation, rather than to check genuinely popular or national measures. Since then their opposition has been more guarded, but a popular agitation against the Senate has been growing, and a desire for its abolition is frequently expressed. No methods of adjustment between the two chambers, other than those by conference or committee, have yet been used. By the constitution, however, it is provided that 'if at any time, on the recommendation of the Governor in Council, the King thinks fit to direct that three or six members be added to the Senate, the Governor in Council may, by summons to three or six qualified persons, as the case may be, representing the three divisions of Canada, add to the Senate accordingly/ In other words, a limited creation of life members for the purpose of 'swamping' can be made. A 'swamping' procedure, when exercised, has everywhere tended to reduce the nominee Senate to impotence, and in Canada this actual result has been attained without this stretch of prerogative. It is difficult to resist Goldwin Smith's conclusion that the Canadian Senate is as nearly a cipher as it is possible for an assembly legally invested with large powers to be. At any rate, the prestige attaching to its federal character has been unable to save the Canadian Senate from that curse of impotence and sterility which seems to settle over all nominee upper chambers in purely unitary states.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I am about to conclude; in view of these opinions expressed by a not unfriendly critic writing last year in London, England, and in view again of the fact that for 14 years this government has made no effort to reform what has been an unsatisfactory state of affairs with regard to the Senate of this country, I have the temerity to move an humble address to His Majestv in the form of the motion placed in your hands.


Mr. A. McCALL (Norfolk).: Mr. Speaker, I wish to offer a few remarks on the question before the House, but I am not vain enough to think that I can suggest a remedy for the condition of things which the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) has placed before us. In his address the hon. gentleman stated that the Prime Minister was unable to find a scheme for the reform of the Senate which met with his approval, out of the many that had been proposed. If I should have the good fortune to offer a means of reform that will meet with the approval of the right hon. gentleman then I shall have spoken to some purpose; at all events I shall make the attempt. I must say that among business men, thoughtful men who are anxious for the progress and development of this country, I have not found any strong sentiment in favour of the total abolition of the Senate. The constitutional difficulties in the way of such a proposal are of

course great. The question of how far a second chamber can steady legislation and can shape it in a proper course to the advantage of the country, is a large one. I think, Sir, that for the purpose of this discussion we must assume that the Senate will continue and that therefore we may direct our attention to some practical plan of reform which will bring the second chamber more in touch with our people and allot to it a more active participation in our legislation. I believe that I voice the opinion of this House when I say that it is desirable that both legislative bodies be kept well in front with the march of thought in the country, and should fairly express and give effect to the best views of the people of Canada. It may be said as an abjection to a second chamber that it may at some period be composed entirely of members of one political school of thought. We on this side of the House trust that that will not happen; but our best hopes may be blasted, and we may see the Senate composed of gentlemen only in sympathy with the dominant party. I believe it is a theory that when a gentleman enters the second chamber he leaves partisanship aside; but I can scarcely hope, from my limited knowledge of those gentlemen, that that will ever be realized. I will even say that should the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. George Taylor) be appointed to the Senate, as we all trust he will be in due time, I doubt if he would wholly forget the battles he fought in the country and in this House, and would not occasionally, when the party spirit ran high, be out for a little blood. It may be, as the hon. member for Lincoln . has said, that the fact that the senators are appointed for life makes them indifferent to the questions which affect the people who are out in the struggle. I believe that is the case.
Summing up the various objections to the Senate, perhaps the strongest that can be urged against it is the life appointment. Old age and bodily weakness comes to all of us; but I think it strikes the average man that there is something peculiarly grotesque in a body of men perhaps one-fourth or more of whom are wholly unfit to discharge legislative duties. It is a condition that I believe the country would rather not have. Understand, I am saying nothing by way of disrespect of the very able gentlemen who form the Senate. However, it is hardly in line with our democratic thought that there should be placemen, men appointed to draw emoluments when they have become unable to discharge the duties of the positions to which they are appointed. I believe that is after all the strongest objection that exists in the minds of public men. If a plan could be devised that would bring the Senate into more activity, that would
secure the appointment of men, not because they have been unsuccessful politicians or because they have contested constituencies and lost, or because they have helped the party in its hour of need, but because they possessed special knowledge of some of the great problems that confront this Canada of ours, we would have a better Senate. We have great problems. Our public affairs become more complex every year. I remember when the tariff question was simply a question of high tariff or low tariff, of 174 per cent or 28 per cent. Now we have every possible shade of tariff-the minimum, the maximum, the preferential, and the favoured nation, and all that sort of thing. A member of this House may come here honestly desirous of studying tariff questions so that he can speak intelligently upon them, and he will spend one or two sessions bqfore he gets the technical knowledge necessary. The same is true of the transportation question, the question of the conservation of our natural resources, and even the greater question of how we shall secure the proper diffusion of wealth and opportunity among all our people and the proper development of our country. All these questions call for men of big brain and big heart, and we ought to have them in one or the other of the governing bodies of this country. In saying this I am not reflecting on the ability of the members of this House; but I make the appeal to hon. gentlemen if it is not possible that men with a larger outlook, a greater viewpoint, could be added to the debating and legislative ability of the Senate. I assume that the average legislative life of a member of the Senate is eighteen years; I think it will be fully that, though I have not made the exact computation. If gentlemen were appointed to the Senate for six years instead of for life, there would be three appointments where there is now one. Six years is a fairly long term, and it would be a -sufficient reward to a gentleman appointed for party services. That would give three times the number of appointments. I am dismissing from this discussion the question of electing senators by the provincial legislatures. The recent, events in the election of senators in the United States have been, I am sure, an object lesson which should satisfy the people of this country for all time to come. I also dismiss the plan of electing senators by large districts. The. burden of discussion and the expense necessary for such elections make that plan unworkable, and under it we would not perhaps secure any better men. The only plan, then, that can be considered is the present one, of appointment, with the change I propose of having three appointments where now there is one. The first appointment might be made, as it has been in the past, by the ministry of the day to reward a faithful supporter

who has done good work in this House and in the country; but to preserve somewhat the balance of power, to prevent the Senate becoming wholly partisan, and to enable the minority to become represented, the next appointment might be made by the hon. leader of the opposition. That makes two of the three appointments. The third appointment then is in the hands of the Prime Minister. Would it be possible that there could be an understanding, a convention or unwritten agreement between the parties, and the great papers representing the parties should agree, that in making the third appointment the Prime Minister should select men who are bulking large in the public service of the country, prominent bankers, prominent newspaper writers, or teachers in our great colleges or railway managers. This country has produced a great many such men, we are bringing them forward all the time, and I believe that men could be got who have been successful in their careers, who would take such an appointment for the honour, not for the emolument. Such men would be of great service to the country and their appointment would have the efiect of making the Senate a continuing body of men of ability. Then the problems that are troubling us now, and we must always have such problems, could be dealt with' by that body with plenty of time, without partisanship, and in that way we could get the best solution of such questions that could possibly be obtained. There may be some difficulty in working out the plan I have suggested, but I believe that it is worthy of some thought, Such men can be obtained and they would bring to the service of the country the special qualities that are needed.
I have expressed my thought on this matter with some hesitation because I realize how great are the questions with which we have to deal. The only solution that could be accepted would be one that could be "brought without disturbing the constitution and without taking an appeal to the King as is proposed in the resolution of my hon..friend (Mr. Lancaster).


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Mr. Speaker, I am rather surprised that my hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) should persist in his resolution as he does. I know that my hon. friend is very persistent in his views, but it seems to me that three times hand running in three different sessions is rather overdoing it. My hon. friend from Lincoln is generally a strong supporter or defender of established rights, but in this case he is trying to upset entirely not only established rights, but a solemn agreement. As I understand it, the Senate of Canada was established at the time of confederation. It was established Mr. McCALL.
largely with a view of protecting as much as possible the interests of the smaller provinces. You know that there is a tendency throughout the world to legislate on the principle that might is right. Therefore, I do not blame the smaller provinces for putting in the agreement of confederation, some clauses by which their rights might be protected. When my hon. friend moves a resolution that this House should appeal to the King in Council or to the imperial parliament to abolish the Senate he apparently does not take into consideration that he could not possibly do that without the consent of these smaller provinces, and of the Senate itself, unless he absolutely overpowers them, and goes over their heads. I am quite sure that even my hon. friend would not ask us to break a solemn pledge even if we have the power. Therefore, the only way that the Senate can be either abolished or reformed, so tar as I can understand, is to get the consent of the Senate itself and of all the provinces before we do anything in the matter, unless we adopt the theory that might is right and override them by appealing to the Crown. The smaller provinces, as I understand it, will insist on the protection that has been provided in the constitution of our country, in the Act of Confederation. My hon. friend says that in Ontario they have but a single House. That is quite true. He also says that no wrong or hurried legislation could be passed through this House without being objected to by some members. I quite believe that might be true, but at the same time the majority would govern. I had the honour of replying to my hon. friend on this question once before, and I then said that so far as I knew the Senate or a second chamber was of advantage to this country and was absolutely necessary to prevent hasty legislation. No matter how that second chamber may be established, I still think a second chamber is absolutely necessary to prevent hasty or undigested legislation or legislation that has not been sufficiently considered before being passed. I have no brief to defend the present Senate, but I believe, as I said once before, that if it is going to be appointed just as capable men can be appointed from the ranks of the party in power as from the ranks of the party in opposition. If there was a vacancy in the Senate now, I am free to confess that I think the party in power should have the right to pick out, and that they can select as good men from their own ranks as they possibly could from the ranks of the opposition, and I am perfectly willing that the nomination should be made in that way. I have no particular fault to find with the present Senate. I have been here but a short time, but I know that a number of very useful Bills have been originated in the Senate, and that

some very capable amendments have been made to Bills that went up from this House. These amendments were perfectly right, and no fault was found with them by this House, which adopted them in most cases without discussion. That shows that the Senate are capable. I do not believe that even my hon. friend would venture to say that the individual members of the Senate are not absolutely capable.
I was much taken with the speech of the hon. member for Norfolk (Mr. McCall) because I think he spoke earnestly and spoke his mind. He made some very excellent suggestions. I do not agree that the senators should be- appointed for only six years; if you are going to continue to nominate, I think the term should certainly be longer than that. I think the term should certainly be longer than six years. As to the suggestion of my hon. friend from Lincoln that the Senate should be abolished, I think, with all due deference to the hon. gentleman, that if he really wishes to write his name upon the pages of history he should apply the time and patience he used in preparing speeches in support of Senate abolition to the discovery of means of reforming the Senate if it needs reform. Personally, I do not say that the present form of the Senate should be particularly changed. If that body is to be reformed, it certainly should be, in my judgment, on democratic lines, by election in some form. *My suggestion would be that a certain number of senators be elected at large for each province, or, if not elected at large, that the senatorial districts be larger-per-, haps twice or three times more extensive- than the constituency of a member of the House of Commons.
The hon. gentleman (Mr. Lancaster) says that he introduced a railway measure that was voted for iby 220 members of this House and by 16 members of the Senate, but that 20 members of the Senate threw out that Bill. I remember the Bill lie speaks of, but, unfortunately for me, I was so green that I did not know it was( going through the House until it was passed. Personally, I was opposed to the Bill, and would have voted against it if I had had sense enough to know that- it was going through the House. I do not know that any other members were in the same position, but I know that there were many who were not in favour of the Bill. I would suggest to the hon. gentleman thatj perhaps, the Senate did not do so badly' in that case.	j


Edward Arthur Lancaster: What I said was that the House passed the Bill unanimously three times. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Nesbitt) was in his seat and did not* raise his voice against it.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: And I have told the hon. gentleman whv. and I am quite frank 86
in my acknowledgment. The hon. gentleman said also something to the effect that those who were in favour of abolishing the Senate were imperialists, or that the imperialists need not be afraid to abolish; the Senate because Great Britain would look after our interests, but that those who were in favour of separation from Great Britain-I think that was the way he put it-would oppose the abolition of the Senate.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I said they might be in favour of it possibly.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I consider that a very wonderful thought on the part of the hon. gentleman. I think it was a great draught on his powers of imagination; I confess that it was too much for me; I could notl follow it. As to the usefulness of the| Senate and our need to have our legisla-1 tion checked, let me once more say that! I am aware that the present Senate hast introduced and sent to this chamber valu-l able legislation and that they have made useful amendments in the Bills sent to them from this House. As to the present; personnel of the Senate, so far as I know, the Senators are as capable, man for man, as members of this House. In one thing I agree with my hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster), and that is that some of the Senators have attained too great an agd to take a useful part in the work of legislation. But it is extremely difficult to fix an age limit, because some men at seventy are better than they were at fifty, some men of seventy-five, with matured minds and wide experience, are better for the work of legislation than other men at sixty-five or less. Therefore. I could not advocate the age limit for the Senate.
I do not think my hon. friend can expect many members of this House to vote for his resolution. Certainly the idea of abolishing the Senate is repugnant to me. I would assist in any way I could a reasonable measure of reform of the Senate, and I believe that the best reform would be by a system of election.


Mr. G. E. McCRANEY (Saskatoon).: , My hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) has spoken very strongly in favour of the abolition of the Senate. Perhaps, as' a younger man, I would have agreed with him; but I must say that my experience in Ottawa has led me to see that a second chamber is a very useful body. I think that any person who has had experience with our Railway Committee, for instance, would come to the conclusion that he would rather have a measure for which he wished deliberate thought considered in the Senate than in our own House. We know, too, that measures which are very useful indeed are introduced in the Senate, and, after mature consideration,



are brought before this House, and that the work of this House is relieved to a very great degree. The reason why we have not had any considerable agitation concerning the Senate, either for its abolition or reform, lies, I think, in the factj that there has been no conflict between the two Houses.
My hon. friend from Lincoln referred to the resolution which was passed by the Liberal convention of 1893. There had been two events which brought to the mind of the Liberal party, at any rate, the advisability of a change in the Senate. Questions had arisen in the House of Commons involving the rights of minorities. In 1882 a monstrous gerrymander Bill was passed by the government of the day, under which the rights of the Liberal minority were taken away, and if ever there was a time calling for the action of the Senate on behalf of a minority it was then, but that opportunity they ignored. On a later occasion, in 1885, the Conservative government introduced a Franchise Act which was framed with the idea of disfranchising a great portion of the Liberal electorate, and it was only by the strenuous lighting of the very able opposition of that day that the designs of the Conservative government were frustrated. I think it was these two instances in which the Senate had not shown themselves to be the protectors of minorities, that led the Liberal party of that day to declare in favour of Senate reform. There has been no agitation in the Conservative party for a reform of the Senate. I am very glad indeed to be able to congratulate the Conservative party that there is a government in power which has never endeavoured to pass measures in this House which would deprive the Conservative party of their rights, and they have never had occasion to complain of the Senate that that body was not according them full protection. I think in the two instances I have given, you find the reasons why the Liberal party of 1893 were strongly in favour of Senate reform. I have said that the reason there is no agitation to-day is because there is no conflict. It lies further in the fact that this is a democratic body. My hon. friend from North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) spoke of making the Senate an elective body, that is to say, a democratic body, by giving it co-equal power with this House of Commons. I think, Sir, that would be a mistake. I think it would be a mistake to create another body with co-equal authority from the people with this House of Commons, because to that degree it would diminish the power and authority of the House of Commons. The seeuriry which we have in Canada to-day for sound legislation lies in the fact that the Senate agrees with the House of Commons. For that reason I think it is desirable that the Mr. McCRANEY.
power of appointment should continue to continue to reside in the government of the day.
I agree with my hon. friend from Norfolk (Mr. McCall) in his suggestion that the change be made in the direction of term appointments, and he suggested a period of six years. For myself I would prefer a longer period, but that is a matter of detail which could be settled rarer on. I think there are many reasons why term appointments would be preferable to life appointments as they now exist. My hon. friend from Norfolk referred to one fact that should be borne in mind, namely, that those who go into the Senate and remain there for a long time are not at their best in attending to whatever duties are laid upon them. After their term of appointment has expired the government of the day would be justified in telling them that there were younger men who could take their places. In many instances no doubt that would not be necessary, because their friends would advise them not to seek their seats again. My hon. friend from Norfolk suggested a way in which the Senate should be appointed in future; he suggested that the leader of the opposition should be called into council, and that representatives of the (press should also ibe consulted. Those are matters which I need not enter into, those are things which could be worked out by the Premier himself if he thought such a plan desirable. I do think however that it is altogether, desirable in the interest of this country that the present life term of senators should be abolished for the future. When a new government come into power the Senate would be brought into correspondence with this chamber in a short time by the method of term appointments. This suggestion which has been made by my hon. friend from Norfolk has exceptional merit in the fact that it is one which would secure, not only the approval of this House, but of the Senate itself. There are many schemes proposed, some of which are impracticable and fanciful, and very few of which would carry in this House. There are a number on both sides of the House who look forward to a seat in the Senate at some time in the future. Fortunately in this country we have government by the government, and I think if the. government took hold of this question and asked this House to carry through such a measure, ensuring the present senators the tenure of their seats during their lifetime, there would. he no difficulty in passing such a measure in both the House of Commons arid the Senate. Some might say that the suggestion does not go far enough. I say let us go that far at least. I 'hope the government 'will bring in a Bill to carry out the suggestion made by my hon. friend from. Norfolk.


Wilfrid Laurier: This is the third time and the third year that my hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) has introduced a resolution to abolish the Senate. This is the third time that he has endeavoured to convince the House that it would be advisable, in the public interest, that we should depart from the principle laid down in the constitutional Act, and lay aside altogether one of the pillars of the state, which were erected by those whom he properly describes as the fathers of confederation. The persistency of my hon. friend in face of adverse results shows that his motives are sincere, and the earnestness with which he has pursued his design commands our respect. At the same time, I may be permitted to observe to my hon. friend that he has approached this question, not from the point of view of any principle, but on the ground that the Senate as at present constituted has not reached that standard of excellence which we had a right to expect from it. That is a view which may be controverted, but I do not here and now enter into any controversy with him upon the point. The question which he has presented to the House and the manner in which he has presented it resolve themselves simplv into this proposition: Is it, or is it not, advisable that the whole legislative authority and power of the country should be reposed in one single chamber, as he suggests; or rather shall continue to be divided under the bicameral system which we have had since confederation? If, in answer-to that question, we look to the experience of the world at large, there can be hut one conclusion, and that conclusion must be adverse to the policy laid down by my hon. friend. I believe that in this he will agree with me-I speak under correction-but I think that what I am going to say is absolutely correct, that I do not know of any country at the present time blessed with sovereign and constitutional power in which is not to be found the bicameral system. I do not know of any civilized country at this moment where they have the legislative powers concentrated in one single body. So far as my information goes, and I think my information is absolutely correct, there is no country that I can think of, at all events, in which they have not the legislative power divided between two bodies. Let me go further, and ask my hon. friend what he understands to be at present the issue in England. Not, perhaps, in the absolute form in which my hon. friend has presented it, but at all events the <iu.pstion is not at present one between two different sets of views-that is to say, the retention or total abolition of the second chamber. I am not avrarp, nor do I believe that at this moment the total abolition of the second chamber, as the hon. gentleman 86*
proposes, is the issue, but what has been proposed is that they shall so check the veto power of the second chamber as to make it of no use and to put an end to it. That is the proposition which is now before the British people, and unless I mistake my hon. friend altogether, I believe that if he were an English elector he would not propose that Great Britain should put an end to the second chamber,


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I certainly would not. I understand the distinction. There they have no other cooling basin than the House of Lords. Here w^e have the Imperial parliament, to which we can appeal, and w'e do not need a Senate.


Wilfrid Laurier: I understand my hon. friend then to say that it is advisable that the legislative power should have a check. He is not proposing that we should have a legislative body altogether without any check. I agree with him in that. So far as we can see it would not be wise that we should have a legislative body absolutely without any check at all. But, he thinks we have a check in this country under our constitution by the power of disallowance. May I be permitted to suggest to my hon. friend that the remedy which he proposes would be far worse than no check at all. The remedy which he proposes of disallowance, if it were exercised at all, would lead to confusion, and even worse than confusion, and to very serious results indeed. I doubt very much that, if the power of disallowance which is now, under our constitution, vested in the British parliament, had been exercised in the way which my hon. friend suggests, the relations between the mother country and this country would have been as cordial as they are at the present time. We in this government also have the power of disallowance over the province of Ontario where they do not have a second chamber. Is my hon. friend prepared to take the stand that he would advise, as a check upon the province of Ontario, disallowance by this government of the legislation of the province of Ontario? Why, Sir, if we were to apply that remedy, which my hon. friend says ought to be applied to Canada by Great Britain, if we were, to apply that check over the legislature of Ontario, my hon. friend would be the first man to protest against the superior power of this government being exercised to set aside the will of the people of Ontario as expressed in their legislature. A few years ago the legislature of Ontario passed an Act which, in my judgment, was very unsound legislation, in the judgment of many others not only on this side but, I believe, on the other side of the House was very unsound legislation. My hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Sir Allen Aylesworth) when

urged to disallow such legislation, would not do so. Why? Because he agreed with the legislation? Far from it; he disagreed with it altogether. He stated that it was a most infamous Act, that it was a direct violation of the rights of private owner-shin, but he said: I will not advise this government to exercise the power' with which they are vested under the constitution to substitute our own wisdom for the will of the people of Ontario as expressed by their legislature. .He went further and said that if it pleases the people of Ontario in their legislature to confiscate private property, if they are prepared to do so by their legislation, the remedv is in the people of Ontario, and not in this government. If the Minister of Justice had advised the government to take the course which my hon. friend has suggested in his speech and to disallow that legislation of the province of Ontario I am much mistaken if my hon. friend the member for Lincoln would not have been one of the first, if not the very first, to rise and protest against the tyranny of the government in thus interfering with the sovereign power of one of the provinces constituting this confederation. Let me apply this same reasoning to the will of the people of Canada as expressed in this House. Suppose we pass a Bill in this House by a narrow majority, if you will, or by a large majority, one of those Bills upon some of those questions which in this country unfortunately at times have aroused a great deal of popular passion and prejudice, and if there were no Senate to check the legislation of this House, and the imperial government were to try to disallow this legislation and substitute their own view of what was right for our own view of what was right, does my hon. friend believe that this would be. conducive to the good-will which we expect to endure for ever between the people of Canada and the people of Great Britain? If my hon. friend wanted to plant seeds of discord, and to bring about the dissolution of the ties which bind us to Great Britain, the remedy which he suggests would be the very remedy that would produce that result.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Will the right hon. gentleman tell me the reason for placing that section in the constitution? It is not there for waste paper.


Wilfrid Laurier: It is not there for waste paper, but I do not believe it has been placed there for any such purpose as my hon. friend has suggested. It was not placed there in order to review our legislation, but simply for extreme cases where this parliament might do something which, in the view of Great Britain, w'ould be injurious to the relations existing between Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
this country and Great Britain. We have
exercised our power only occasionally. Since we have been in office we have never disallowed any legislation except that which we thought interfered with the policy of this government, and the interests of the empire at large. The only legislation which we have disallowed, except in some instances where some legislature had clearly gone beyond the sphere of its jurisdiction, has been the immigration legislation of British Columbia. We did that, because we thought that the legislation of British Columbia in respect to Japanese immigrants would entangle us in difficulties from an imperial point of view. That was the only reason why we did it, and it is for some such purpose that the Sovereign power of Great Britain has been maintained in the constitution. But, Sir, was it ever contemplated by Sir John Macdonald,, or Sir George Brown or any of the fathers of confederation, that the parliament of Great Britain should have the rignt in matters of legislation to substitute their wisdom for ours and that they should be able to say: The parliament of Canada has 'passed legislation on this or that subject which we think to be wrong, and therefore, we shall disallow it. If anything of that kind were attempted long e'er this there would have been strong protest. However, the government of Great Britain have never attempted anything of the kind except on one or two occasions, when the disallowance of our legislation was immediately followed by strong protest from the government and the people of Canada. If my hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster), who I am sure is in earnest in this matter will consider it carefully, I believe he will come to the conclusion that what he proposes would not only be no remedy at all, but that it would prove an element of discord in the happy relations which now exist between us and Great Britain. If there is one thing more certain than another it is that when we obtained responsible government it was with the view that the legislature of this country should be responsible to the people of this country and to nobody else. It was never intended that with respect to the subjects which were entrusted to us by the Act of confederation the Canadian parliament should be responsible to the people of Great Britain and not to the people of Canada. Any departure from that principle would be a thing to be deprecated. Now, Sir, if the considerations which I have presented to my hon. friend be correct, he will I think agree with me that his remedy cannot be accepted. If we must have a check over the legislation passed by the House of Commons, this check is not to be found in Great Britain, but within the purview of our constitution, and consequently in a second chamber. I am rather sorry that the hon. gentleman (Mr. JANUARY 30, 1911
Lancaster) instead of moving such a drastic resolution, did not follow the example of my hon. friend from Norfolk (Mr. McCall), and give us the benefit of some suggestions as to reform of the Senate. I think we are all, on both sides of the House agreed, at the present time, that the constitution of the Senate is susceptible of amendment. Nobody pretends that it is not. But, there was a time when the views of gentlemen supporting the Conservative party were not so decided on the question as they appear to be at this moment. There was a time when they thought the Senate was perfect. Not long after the present government came into office, I remember that Sir Charles Tupper sitting opposite _me said:	Thank
God we have a Senate. That was the occasion when the Senate rejected our proposed railway to the Yukon, and which had it been adopted would I believe have been one of the most useful pieces of legislation ever put on the statute-books.


George Eulas Foster: And on that occasion, many of your own friends, if not yourself, also thanked God there was a Senate.


Wilfrid Laurier: It certainly was not on that occasion.


George Eulas Foster: Yes it was.


Wilfrid Laurier: On that occasion it was Sir Charles Tupper who thanked God there was a Senate.


George Eulas Foster: There was a very good story and fairly well authenticated which said, that a very good friend of the Prime Minister, on the night of the passage of that Bill through the commons or on the eve of the vote which was to take place in the Senate went home and it is said spent many hours at his bedside praying God to put into the minds of the senators the will to defeat that iniquitous Bill which he himself had voted for in the Commons.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is a legend, and cannot have foundation in fact. If ever there was a mistake committed by the Senate of Canada it was when they rejected that Bill, which had it been passed would have afforded Canada access to the Yukon which we have not now except by passing through American territory. In all earnestness I repeat, that if ever there was a mistake committed by the Canadian Senate it was on that occasion. And what did they reject the Bill for? They rejected it because it was supposed at that time that the Yukon was covered with gold, and that we were paying an enormous price for the railway ; whereas it h-as turned out that had the bargain been made the railway would have been built on the best terms obtainable, and better terms than ever again will be obtained. Had my hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster) suggested some plan to reform the Senate I would have thanked
him. The hon. gentleman told us that in 1896 he was in favour of the Senate, but that he has Changed his mind. Well, he is not the only man on the opposite side of the House who has changed his mind, because many of these gentlemen opposite who were against the reform of the Senate before 1896 are in favour of that idea now. However, the difficulty has always been to discover a proper method of reform. It is a question which is open to argument, and speaking for myself personally I am open to conviction upon this point. I am ready to receive any valuable, practical suggestion which may come from either side of the House, but we must all admit that for the last 14 years we have not received any suggestion, which in our opinion leads to a proper reform of the Senate. And, what should be a proper reform of the Senate. First of all, objection was taken to life appointment, and there is a good deal in that objection. For my part, I would rather favour an appointment for a limited time, not six year3 as was suggested by my hon. friend from Norfolk, because I think that term would be altogether too short, but for 12 or 15 years. That would suit me, and if any such suggestion were made I would be ready to consider it. Now, by whom should the appointments to the Senate be made ; should they be nominative or elective? So far as I can see there is no one within the reach of my voice who would favour an elective Senate. We think we have elections enough at the present time, and I have not heard any one to suggest that the senators should be elected by the people. That being so what is the next plan? It has been suggested that the senators should be elected by the local legislatures, and I am free to confess that in my earlier days when my hair was not so white as now, I would have favoured that reform myself. It must be admitted that in the early years of the American republic the Senate of the United States reached a point of excellence which has hardly ever been surpassed in any other country in the world. But, it must be admitted that of late years especially, the appointment of senators by the different states has not worked so satisfactorily as it did in the earlier years of the republic. I would not be prepared to say for all that, that I would be against the appointment by the local legislatures although my enthusiasm in that respect is not as great as it was in my younger days. But, if it were proposed to elect a certain proportion of the Senate by the local legislatures and that we should retain the appointment of another portion in our own hands, perhaps we might find there a proper measure of reform. At all events, the one thing to be kept in mind in any reform of the Senate is, that the different sections of public opinion should be represented on the floor

of the Senate. It may be said, and I have heard it said : Why does not the government itself select senators from the different political parties. Well, I have only to say that the government is composed of men who are very human, and I do not know that whether the appointments were, made by a Conservative or a Liberal government they differed very much in degree as to the mode of selection. It will, of course, always be very difficult to have the different classes of the community properly represented if the nominating power is not centered in one body, but in different 'bodies. We would have that if a part of the electors of the Senate were to be appointed by the local legislatures or some such body. In saying this I am not expressing convictions which are deliberate and final ; but I say that these are all matters for consideration. My hon. friend from Lincoln seemed to be strongly in favour of that 'point of view ; and when he favours us next year with the same subject, he may possibly present us with a scheme of reform, rather than a proposal for the total abolition of the Senate. As my hon. friend knows in advance what will be the result if he presses his motion now, and as he -has elicited the opinion of the House, perhaps he will agree to withdraw it. If not, we shall have to divide the House upon it.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Mr. Speaker, as I understand, there is to be a vote taken on this question. I give that as my reason for making a few observations upon it. Ever since my entrance into this chamber I have watched somewhat closely the history of our own Senate, and have read something of the history of second chambers in other countries. From time to time there has been agitation amongst the electors, in my riding as well as in others, for the abolition of the Senate-by some on the ground that it was too expensive, by others on the ground that it was unnecessary to have a chamber corrective of the House of Commons, and by others upon the ground that the senators, instead of acting as non-partisan, have been in the habit of acting as partisans, and that this would be found to be the case no matter which political party was in power. Therefore, taking an interest in the question, I have watched the career and history of the Senate very closely, and have also read the history of second chambers in other countries, and I agree with the right hon. the Prime Minister that there is no civilized country that I am aware of which has constitutional government that has not a second chamber. If we are to learn from history and experience-and I respectfully submit that these are the most reliable educative sources that we can possibly have-there is only Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
one conclusion with regard to this question that we can reach, that is, ttigl it would not be wise to be without a second chamber. I think that applies just as strongly to Canada, where we profess to have typical constitutional government, as it does to England, the mother of parliaments, or to Germany, or to the United States, or to other countries.	_
The hon. member 'for Lincoln said that at confederation, when we established the second chamber, the conditions were different from what they are now, and the people did not know as much about government and governments, and that was the reason we had a second chamber. Well. I do not think so. At that time men were elected to the Senate just as members of the House of Commons are elected to-day, only they represented larger constituencies. In my own district, one of the first ejections I ever took part in was that in which one of the candidates for the Senate, Sir David L. Macpherson, ran for the Brock and Saugeen division, which included three counties. But what did we find? For the county of Grey there were three members in this House, for the county of Bruce three members, and for the county of Sim-coe two or three members. Yet we found that the senator who represented the larger district composed of these three counties was deliberately antagonized in legislation by the members ele-cted to the Commons for the same counties by the same class of people. It seemed to me that that was not a healthy system, and I think so still. While it might be admissible to elect a limited number to the Senate, I do not think it is a sound principle to have the same electorate elect men to the Senate and also to the Commons, and have them antagonizing each other just as the two political parties do in this House. Then it occurred to me that a limited number of senators ought to be appointed by the provincial legislatures, and I still hold to that idea. Perhaps I was influenced in it by the system that prevails in the United States. I agree with the right hon. the First Minister that in the early history of the United States it was generally conceded that the Senate was a very useful and important body, but it seems to me, as it does to a great many others in this country, that their system has rather degenerated of late years, and might, in the interest of the country, be reformed in some direction as well as our own.
Now, the first question we should settle in our own minds is this: Is or is not a second chamber desirable? I think most readers of the history of constitutional government in other countries will agree with me that it is desirable. If that be so, what should we do if ours is not fulfilling the indications of what a second chamber

should be? We should apply ourselves to the task of bringing that chamber into harmony with the needs of constitutional government. Do we pretend to say it is an impossible task? The man who admits that acknowledges weakness on his part, no man should lie down and say that anything is impossible that can be accomplished in any other part of the world. Most things that at first sight look to us impossible have been solved in different ages of the world by intelligent men who have sincerely .and honestly applied themselves to the task with continuity of purpose, with patience, pluck and perseverance. If we thus apply ourselves to the task of reforming the Senate, that problem will be solved. The present government promised reform, there is no doubt about that, they do not deny it.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: How far have they got in 14 years?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: They have not succeeded and even if they stayed here for off years without succeeding that would not-be an argument that others could not accomplish a reform. Many governments have failed in the attempt to do things which their successors have succeeded in doing. We .should apply ourselves to the task of reforming the Senate and bringing it into harmony with the needs of the country rather than abolish it.
The hon. member defends his argument for its abolition by citing the fact that Ontario has only one chamber, and he asks who is dissatisfied with the legislation in Ontario. I say that during the 33 years that the Hon. Sir Oliver Mowat and his friends were in power, had there been a second chamber very much of the pernicious legislation that was put on the statute-books of that province, to its detriment and de-. struction, and to the injury of its people, would not have been in operation to-day.' There is no doubt of it whatever in my mind. Because it is going on smoothly now and seems to fulfil the indications of the situation-


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.
Mr. SPROULE-according to our honest judgment, whether it be right or wrong. That is not saying that we should always have a second chamber, because for a few years, we think they have done right

Mr. MoCRANEY. Does the hon. gentleman think there should be a second chamber now in Ontario?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I am not debating tliat>
because I would have to travel into a wider field, I am only answering the argu-! ment of my hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr.i Lancaster) which, to my mind, was very-weak. That hon. gentleman says we have)
a corrective power in the veto, and there is no need of a second chamber. As the First Minister said, what Bills do we veto that come up from the provinces? We veto, with one exception, and even that is not exclusive, such Bills as are passed by provincial parliaments outside or partially outside of'their jurisdiction. That is the only legislation the federal parliament dare veto. Would they dare to veto a provincial Bill wholly within the rights of the province? I do not think so, because if they did, the result would be that they might raise such a storm as would cause almost an insurrection or something equally as bad. It was said that we vetoed the British Columbia Bill regarding immigration. It must be remembered that immigration is one of the subjects with which we have to deal, and although there was another question involved in that subject, outside of the fact that Japan is a friendly ally with England, and we could not afford to shut out the Japanese from Canada as a matter of policy, we could have vetoed that Bill on the ground that this parliament had the right to deal with immigration. It would not be wise to depend on the veto power, for if it were exercised we would very soon be in conflict witlj England, we would soon find cause to blame England for interfering with what we regarded as our proper and legitimate rights. For these reasons I am opposed to this resolution. I have always been in favour of a second chamber, and unless conditions in the future are very different from what has tran-t spired in the past in the parliament of this country I shall continue to hold that* view. I think that one of the defects in1 the second chamber has been that too many appointments have been made from certain classes. For instance, there are a great many men in that chamber connected with banks, with loan companies, with financial corporations, and great institutions of that kind, and some with manufacturing corporations. I have not objected to that with regard to the latter because I do not think their proportion is too numerous. I have said that when we send up Bills containing very proper and wise provisions either to restrain or control these corporations, we never succeed in getting them through the second chamber. Why? Because too many presidents of banks, too many men connected with loan companies, insurance companies or other financial corporations or railway corporations, are in the Senate, and they can always influence the Senate to the extent of preventing our Bills from passing. But that can all be remedied by a proper selection. It is not at all an impossible task, in fact to my mind it would be a very easy task. Therefore we need

not urge that as a reason for the abolition of the Senate.
For these reasons I am prepared to vote against the motion. For friendly reasons, 1 would like to support my hon. friend) from Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster), because we agree in nearly everything with which we are associated in parliamentary life, we seem to think very much alike on many lines; but this is one of the things on, which I disagree with him, and I do so because of my honest conviction that the day has not come when this government could or when we should wisely dispense with the second chamber in the parliament of Canada.


William Findlay Maclean: The question of second chamber reform is up for discussion in the mother country of Great Britain. It is also up in the adjoining republic of the United States. It is up even here in Canada in a way because the Senate of the parliament of Canada has recently been discussing how it could become a more useful body. I think that a case has been made out here to-night not for the abolition of the Senate, but for its reform. I believe that if something is not done in the way of reform of the Senate there will be a wider agitation in the country for its abolitiop, because to my mind a Senate appointment for life is an anomaly and will not meet with the approval of the people. A Senate that is constituted almost entirely of one party is an anomaly and is contrary to democratic ideas. Therefore, after the confession the Prime Minister has made to-night, I think it is incumbent upon him to deal with this question. And certainly there have been suggested in the House to-night at least two valuable reforms. One is that the life term for senators should cease immediately, or, at least, as soon as we could get sanction for it, probably with the consent of the Senate. And the second is that the senatorial term should be limited,-I would suggest that the limit be six years with, perhaps, eligibility for re-election. I think also that some senators should be elected by the legislatures and some appointed by the government. But the thing is to deal with the matter. We have been promised this for years. The government have assumed the responsibility of supplying the leadership necessary to put into law what seems to be public opinion, and it can hardly be doubted that public opinion is in favour of some kind of reform of the Senate. The Senate has confessed that they themselves would like to see improvement. The second chamber in England is ready for extensive reform, and that question is now being threshed out there. And, in view of the fact that the government will probably propose, within the next year or two a large increase in the Senate by the addition of new members to represent Mr. SPROULF
the West, it is clear that that proposal when made should be accompanied by some proposal for Senate reform. The address of the hon. member for Norfolk (Mr. McCall) I think commended itself to every member of the House. The change he proposes is not a sweeping change but is in the direction of making the Senate more representative, taking away its one-sided character and fitting it to do better work. The Senate say they wish to do more and better work. And the quantity of legislation now presented in parliament is so vast and the subjects considered so numerous that there should be a better division of labour between the two Houses. My contention is that reform of the Senate is long past due, and some kind of reform should come almost immediately, and certainly in connection with the increase in the Senate of which we hear rumours, rumours that, I believe, have good foundation.
As to the suggestion of the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) that the interests have too large a representation in the Senate, I quite agree with that opinion. When did this democratic government ever propose, for instance, to put a representative of labour in the Senate? In England, there is representation of the labour interests. And I should say that the farming interest is not sufficiently represented in the Senate.	.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: And where are our universities?


William Findlay Maclean: I do not claim super-excellence for the universities, or that they should be represented over other portions of the community, but the working interest and the farming interests should be better represented in the Senate. In the old days we heard a good deal more about representation of the farmers in the Senate than we do to-day. The only men who seem to be considered as candidates for the Senate are those who have served in this House and those identified with the interests. I do not believe in members of this House going to the upper chamber. Reasons may be given for the occasional exception. Or, perhaps, there might be something in the idea that members who have served in certain capacities in this House should ex officio become members of the Senate. But the wholesale appointment of members of this House to the Senate as now carried on does not tend to promote the independence of this House, and it involves a wrong exercise of political patronage which has often been condemned by hon. members opposite. I have been reading an English review which says that, if the upper chamber is not representative and is not equal quality with the other, a gramophone would do for the other House. And that

is what people will be saying-that a gramophone or a rubber stamp would do for a Senate. But the Senate can be made a useful body. The best men in the country should be in it. They should frame Bills and make necessary investigations. The House of Lords in England is a useful body in that respect, and has, time and again, justified its existence by what it has accomplished in this way. I would like to see a reformed second chamber in Canada, taking a larger share of the work of legislation. And the Prime Minister, as I have said, should take this matter up. He said last year in answer to the arguments that I brought forward:	What would you do?
My answer is: if the Prime Minister is not prepared to assume responsibility, let him make way for those who are. I believe he blocks the way. He says he has a mandate-and so he has-to carry on the government. But he has given a pledge to do this work, for his party pledged themselves to reform the Senate. When is the fruit of that promise to appear? It seems further away than ever.


George Eulas Foster: Perhaps that fig tree is barren.


William Findlay Maclean: Perhaps it is. But I will not go so far as to say that, for while there is life there is hope. If the Prime Minister will assume his proper responsibility and propose reform at least in connection with the proposal for an increase of the Senate membership, if that is to come, I think he will have the commendation of the country.


Henry Horton Miller: One word by way of explanation; I think I was the first member of this House to introduce a resolution in favour of the abolition of the Senate. If the present resolution comes to a vote, I shall vote with the mover of the resolution, although I do not agree with all the arguments he has advanced. While I introduced such a resolution some years ago, I am quite ready to say to-day that I do not believe there is that popular and widespread demand in the country for the abolition of the Senate that I had supposed existed. The hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) has said that a movement for the abolition of the Senate would carry to-day bv popular vote. It is probable that such would be the pronouncement of the Canadian people, but I believe that would be largely because of the appeal to the public on the ground of dollars and cents, the money cost of maintaining the Senate. I would not like to see the Senate abolished for such a reason; I do not think at all that it would be a sufficient reason for doing awav with the upper chamber. One of the great reasons why I would like to see the upper House done away with would be that there are among the
senators to-day men who are quite capable of representing constituencies in this House and who would be in this House were they not in the Senate. I believe that men of ability and of business and legislative experience would be of more value to the country in the House of Commons than they are or can be in the Senate. Further, I think there is at least a danger that an upper House composed as it must sometimes be under the present system of men^ a very large majority of whom are upon one side of the political line, may prove an obstruction to legislation. A third reason why I would like to see the upper chamber done away with, and that is by all means the least of the three reasons, is the money cost of maintaining the Senate. As to reforming the Senate, it has always seemed to me, and I have paid a great deal of attention to every method of reform, or any suggestion of reform which I have heard advanced by any person, either in this House, or in books that I have read, that no method I have heard suggested, yet seems to me likely to afford any improvement. I believe the Senate as we have it to-day is better than it would be under any system of suggested reform. However, what we have before us now is not a suggestion of reform, but simply a resolution to abolish.


George Eulas Foster: I do not suppose I can throw any bright light on this matter. But as an old parliamentarian, and now for some time in public life, I have my views with reference to the matter. Two things seem apparent in this recurring discussion year after year. One is that my hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster), whose spirit of combat always rises as difficulties present themselves, will never be wanting in an incentive for his attacks upon the Senate in the line of abolition. The task will always be there, and my hon. friend will always have an obstacle quite sufficient to call forth all his better powers in his attempt to abolish the Senate. The other fact equally apparent is that it gives a yearly opportunity for the leader of the government to express how open he is to conviction-open at both sides, it seems to me, open for any conviction or any suggestion to come in, and equally open to let it fly out into the air. Now, my right hon. friend commenced with saying that the Senate was one of the great pillars of the state. I agree with him in that respect that the Senate theoretically is one of the great pillars of the state. But these pillars of state may become pretty dilapidated, and. on the other hand so strong in sustaining power as to arouse our admiration and enthusiasm when one contemplates them. As an architect looking from his point of view upon

these great pillars of state, one, two or three of them, as may be, I wonder that the feeling does not grow strong within him to repair the damages occasionally and keep these pillars of state up to at least their former greatness, and if possible to idealize them a little, and make them more worthy of the times. He is urged to do that.
My right hon. friend had some fun with members on this side because of their change of views. A number.of years ago, he informs the House, the Tories had every confidence in the Senate, but at present they seem to have had a change of view. My right hon. friend is open to the same sort of rejoinder. It is not more than fifteen or sixteen years ago that my right hon. friend had very strong views with reference to the Senate. At that time he believed that it ought to be either ended or mended, and he inclined to the idea of immediate emendation. But fourteen years have passed by, and my right hon. friend has yet to make his first motion towards carrying out that pledge of the Liberal party, which was well understood in this country to be a pledge to reform the Senate so as to bring it more into accord with the conditions of the present time.
There is no need of speaking about that matter of the Yukon railway, but it might be as well to remind my right hon. friend that although the scheme was thrown out in the Senate there came a time not long after when my right hon. friend, if he had thought this measure was so necessary to the development of this country ajid the opening up of the Yukon, could have carried that proposition with the Senate in his own favour. But my right hon. friend says now that is too late. Why? Because then it was believed that all the country was filled with gold, afterwards it turned out there was no gold there at all. Surely my right hon. friend would not be guided by a number of men who wanted to build a railway and give him a gold brick. So I do not think my right hon. friend was very happy in that allusion. -
For my own part I am not able, I am sorry to say, to support my hon. friend from Lincoln in his motion for the abolition of the Senate. For the present at least I think a second chamber is here to stay, provided it be fairly constituted. I agree a good deal with my hon. friend from York, who said that unless something is done to make the Senate more effective and to bring it more in accord with the conditions of the time, the sentiment for abolition will grow, and it may grow very speedily. I think it is a pity that that conviction should be allowed to spread amongst the people, and I am not sure but that my right hon. friend is responsible therefore in not carrying out his pledges so far as we can see by one Mr. FOSTER.
single effort to reform the Senate. He has contributed to the adverse feeling that is growing in this country against the continuation of the Senate on the present conditions. Each year that passes the confidence and respect of the public in the Senate does not grow stronger, but on the other hand I think becomes weaker and the problem therefore will become more difficult to solve. I do not believe on the other hand that the patronage system is the proper system upon which to base the second great pillar of state. It is not only absurd but absolutely demoralizing to public life to have the 87 or 88 appointments to the Senate of the country absolutely in the hands of one man, the leader of the government, or of the party for the time being. The principle involved is this, that you simply make the Senate a clearing house for party exigencies, you simply make the Senate an extension of the patronage system. It enables you to say to a recalcitrant member; to the man whom you want to do something for you in political life, or for your party or to any one of these men in a hundred different exigencies that come up: There is a place in the Senate for you, if you do thus and so. Gentlemen like the leader of the present government would not approach a man in that blunt way, but there are methods by which this intimation can be made which are just as effective as if it were made in the language I have just used. But, is it not a tremendous absurdity to put into the hands of one man in the working of the concurrent branch of the legislature that appointive power? It is absurd. It is not only absurd but it is demoralizing from the very root up. It is demoralizing to the most straight and honest hearted politician that comes into the leadership of a party, the temptation is too great to be withstood. A man absolutely bends to it sooner or later and ends up by using it to its greatest possibilities. There never was a period in this country when it was being used to its greatest possibilities more than to-day. But my position is exactly the same whether it be used: by one party in power or by the other. It is an absurd, unconstitutional business to take a great trust like that and to make it simply a piece of machinery and enginery for party warfare, and I do not care by whom or by what party it is being carried on. That it is demoralizing does not need any argument from me.
Well, now', are there no methods 'by which the present condition of things could be altered and made better? What are they? I think that rather than face the question of abolition or otherwise, the drift of opinion in this House is as to what methods may 'be adopted towards bettering the present situation. That was a very good argument, a very fine argument, that the Prime Minister used against our looking

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to Great Britain, to the prerogative of the Crown, as a check on the legislation of this House. I cannot agree with my hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) that it is either desirable or sufficient or that it ever could be practically carried out. Two things are against its being carried out. The self-governing responsible parliament here would not put up with it. Blit there is an equally good reason that the King, or the users of the prerogative, would be very shy indeed in using it, so that on one side or the other it would fail in having its effect. Yet, I believe we ought to have a check, and it seems to me the only check we can have is one constituted for ourselves and by ourselves. But, I do not look upon the Senate as being simply a bodv which is to check and revise legislation, for that is largely clerks' work. It is work which can be done with discrimination or otherwise, but it is not a work which requires the highest powers of men and it is not the only or the best work by any means that a Senate could engage in. They are not only to be a check and a supervision upon hasty legislation coming from this House, but we should look forward to a Senate, and we should have a Senate which should become a vital, concurrent part of the legislative machinery of this country, and be able in many respects to give points to the House of Commons, and to do a work .in the legislative work of the country which the House of Commons cannot do. Are we deteriorating in the House of Commons, or are we not? It is not for me to judge of that, each will have his impressions who has had an experience of a longer or shorter time in this House. But, whether we are deteriorating or not this fact seems to me to be true that we spend an enormous deal of time in the House of Commons doing work which is not the best work that we might do. That arises from the fact that party passion and party spirit are at their strongest in the House of Commons that they consequently impose upon us or they seemed to impose upon us the using of a vast deal of time in what does not result in very much good or very much in the way of actual legislation. Now, my idea is that in the Senate you could have a body out of which would be taken the strongly combative partisan and party spirit, which would cultivate a more reasonable frame of mind, which would breathe an atmosphere which was not surcharged with party rancours and party strifes, which would rise above these more petty things, for in reality they are petty, and trivial, and which could devote its time, in that higher, broader and more reasonable atmosphere, to the weightier matters of legislation, of examination, and to the hundred and one lines upon which legislative initiative and afterwards enactment could be made to run. I think that could be 'brought about. I do not see in the Senate to-day, nor have I seen in any day, the same spirit of partisanship as is developed in this House. Whether they be appointed by Tory or Grit the party passions are cooled in the upper House, and they never go to the extent of the wasting of time, and the bickering that they do in the popular branch in the House of Commons. How are you to get that Senate? I have stated that in so far as I am concerned I would absolutely cut out the appointive power for patronage purposes. It is a vicious principle, it cannot be defended on constitutional grounds, and I would cut that out entirely. How then would you get your Senate? The Prime Minister said that he did not know of any person who believed in an elective Senate. He sits every day in Council alongside of a very noted and distinguished colleague of his who is absolutely in favour of an elective Senate-the right hon. Sir Richard Cartwright, Minister of Trade and Commerce. The idea that something ought to 'be done is fully recognized in the Senate itself, and within the last four years they have had very exhaustive and very instructive discussions as to how the Senate could be made better. This discussion was contributed to by Sir Richard Cartwright, and I am free to say that with many of his views I agree in so far as my experience goes. I am in favour then of cutting out the appointive power for patronage purposes. That does not say that I would cut out the appointive power. entirely. I would keep the appointive power, and in looking around I cannot find any source for the application of that power other than the government of the country for the time being.
But, I would restrict the appointive power by two things:	The number to be
appointed should be small and the basis of appointment should be such as would make the Prime Minister ashamed to make it for considerations of party patronage. Under the conditions he would be bound to the country and bound to his own respect, and honour to make these appointments on the basis which had been assigned. [DOT] 1 would give the government of the country the appointment of twelve or fifteen of the senators, but these appointments should be for distinguished service, not patronage appointments at all. Much has been said to-night about the interests being represented in the upper House. There are interests and interests to be represented. You may have bankers in the upper House, and you may have no acknowledged banking authority or expert. A recognized banking authority and expert known in our own country, and better still known the broad world over and

distinguished in that way, would be an acquisition to the upper House which would give it not only dignity, but would give it working power as well. The agricultural interest, it is said, should be represented. So it should, but the agricultural interest which I would have represented would he that expert knowledge of agriculture which makes a man an acknowledged authority in the country. The same with reference to forestry, the same with reference to the fisheries, the same with reference to science, and the same with reference to our universities.


William Melville Martin: How about labour?


George Eulas Foster: There are labour men and labour men. If I were the appointing power I would be the last man to appoint one who was always prating about how much of a labour man he was. I would hunt through this country for the most distinguished and ablest representative of labour ideas in their broader and better forms, and I would put him in the upper House as the representative of labour. So in all these great lines, I would make the appointive power restricted by and based upon representation of distinguished services in these great interests. I will tell you one reason why I would do it. Such men cannot get into the legislature and cannot get into the Senate along the general line of election from the primaries up. They would not attempt it in the first place, and in 99 cases out of 100 they would be defeated if they did attempt it. Their whole training and conception of life makes them Tevolt against the processes by which it seems_, almost alone, a man can work his way up into the legislature of modern countries. For that reason they might be all the more useful, but for that reason I would make their accession to our parliament, through appointment. I have in my mind's eye today, and so has my right hon. friend, men in all these great walks of life who would be an honour to the Senate of Canada, and who would be of vital help to us. Every once in a while we want expert help. We need it in this House, and we get it sometimes. But to have men such as I could name, in all these different spheres, in our legislative halls in the upper House, at the command of the country-and they would willingly give their services-would be a great thing for Canada; to my mind it would be an inestimable blessing. As for the rest of the Senate I would make it all absolutely elective. We talk of our trust of the democracy, and that we are democrats ; then let us trust the democracy. The democracy may not always go right, but in 99 cases out of 100 they are as apt to go right as the Prime Minister of Canada; they would not make many more mistakes than Mr. FOSTER.	'
he makes. But in order to elect them I would not go to the legislative assemblies. I would not like to bedevil the legislative assemblies by putting that strife and contention in their midst. They have had a long experience of that in the United States, and human nature is human nature on both sides of the line, and we know in what extremes human nature has shown its bad features in the election of senators in the United States. To-day the revulsion of feeling is absolute against . that method of election; to-day the majority of the states of the union have travelled so far that it is only required to get a few more states in line when they will have their convention, and when they will substitute the election of senators by the people for election by the legislatures. That is a bitter experience which we may very well profit from. It is no use arguing the question why the 'prize of a senatorship thrown into a legislative assembly may lead to demoralization, and to consequences which we would all deplore. I did at one time think that was the best way; I do not now. I would trust the people to do it, and I would have the senators elected by larger constituencies, and I would have it so arranged that there should be proportionate representation. What in the world is the reason why-and taking the two great political parties in this country the whole country is about evenly divided-what in the world is the reason why we should come to the condition that one political party has nearly all the representatives in the Senate. And, if the bad judgment of the people keeps this government in power veTy much longer, and if nature makes its demands in the future as in the past, it will not be very long before under the policy pursued conscientiously-no, but pursued continuously -by the Prime Minister, there will not be a single representative of the Liberal Conservative party in the Senate. That alone, Sir, will disgust people; that alone serves to make the unfairness of the thing so apparent that it takes away Irom the influence of the Senate, and inclines men's minds to a desire to get rid of it if it cannot be reformed. So that, in the scheme for election by methods which are well known and easily tried, I would put into that Senate on the elective basis-representing very large constituencies so as to prevent to the utmost any fear of wrong means being employed, and very large constituencies would counteract that to a large extent-I would put into that Senate always a possible majority in favour of the government in power while at the same time guarding against these great disparities which discourage one-half of our people, and keep from its proper outlet and influence the energies of nearly one-half of our people in the legis-

lative work of the upper House. Just as it would be to my mind a calamity to keep any one great party too long out of power, because it stunts legislation, and at the same time prevents new recuperative power having its full effect in legislation to the benefit of the country, just so it is deplorable that in the upper House you should have the condition of things I have described. We would in this way I think, have a House in which the parties shall be proportionately represented, in a calmer atmosphere, coming up fresh from the people at least every seven or ten years, and I would not make the period more than ten years or less than seven years.
That would give constant rejuvenation to the Senate. In a country where changes take place with enormous rapidity, where conditions at a given time are totally different in many respects from the conditions five years previous, it would bring into touch with those changing conditions and the newer currents of life, the body in the upper House, and make it vital and strong. These are in part my views. They are not original in any respect. I listened with delight to my hon. friend from Norfolk (Mr. McCall), in the short, terse, clear presentation of just sensible 'ideas for this House, and I think they might well be taken into consideration by virtue of their own wisdom and their spirit as well. I do>not want to move an amendment against my hon. friend from Lincoln. I want him to have that vote squarely, to see how many will stand by him here. But if I had the power of moving an amendment, I would move one like this, and I hand it out as a suggestion to my right hon. friend. It is a business arrangement. Here is the upper House talking about methods of improving the Senate, and ministers of .the Crown there say it must be improved or dire consequences will follow-men in perfect unity with my right hon. friend. Out in the country the strongest organs of public opinion on the side of my right hon. friend are almost daily calling for something to be done. Here is one. The * Free Press ' said not long ago:
The recent deaths of Sir George Drummond and Hon. G. B. Baker reduce the Conservative strength in the Senate to twenty members out of eighty-seven.
Since the Liberals came to power, not quite fourteen years ago, fifty Conservative senators have died and have been replaced by Liberal successors.
The Conservative minority, attenuated Though it is, is larger than the Liberal representation in the Senate in 1896, when the Liberals came into office.
There were then only seven Liberal members of the Senate, and of these there were three whose Liberalism was nominal.
The Conservative twenty will doubtless diminish; and if the death rate of the past
few years keeps up, it will not take many years to wipe out the minority.
That would reduce our method of selecting a second chamber to an absurdity, and might result in an attempt to bring about reform.
A second chamber is without doubt a necessity in any country made up as Canada is, of a federation of the provinces; but there are good grounds for thinking that our system of determining and maintaining a second chamber is about the worst known, at least to the Anglo-Saxon world.
I could quote others equally strong from equally strong organs of public opinion representing-the political faith of my right hon. friend; but there is no use in taking up the time. Then, it seems to me that something ought to be done. My right bon. friend acknowledges that something ought to be done. In a letter sent by Mm to the Hon. James Young not long ago, in which he asked that gentleman, who was pressing upon him the necessity of carrying out the pledge that was made so strongly and so definitely by the Liberal party in 1893, to give him his opinion, these are the words used by my right hon. friend:
Would you be kind enough to send me a synopsis of the Senate reform which you think should be adopted?
Two aspects of the question have to be considered.
First, the mode of appointment. Should it be an election directly by the people, or by any other body, or by some other mode of appointment other than the one now existing?
Second, should the appointment be for life or for a term of years?
The whole difficulty rests in these two questions; are they insoluble? They do not appear to me to be so; but the Prime Minister for fourteen years has not attempted to solve them. For about half of that time he was declaring that that was a pledge and that it would be fulfilled, all others have been fulfilled-which might admit of some argument. But for the last seven years he has not gone even that far; he has only said, I am open to conviction, I want suggestions, but I do not see any way. When are we to see a way? My suggestion would be this, that a joint committee be apointed from both Houses of parliament- 12 good men from this House and 12 good from the other and that they be asked to take into consideration the constitution of the Senate, the methods of appointment and the distribution of the work, and, after a thorough examination and consideration, to report to the government and to both Houses their plan. We would get the wisdom of the two Houses after examination of all the different systems, with a knowledge of the conditions of our own country thoroughly canvasse'd. We would then get their reasoned opinion upon the subject. We might not agree with their plan, but there at least would' have a basis on

which we might work. As I say, I do not propose to offer this as an amendment, but I offer it as a suggestion that may be worthy of consideration.


Mr. F. D. MONK (Jacques Cartier).: Mr. Speaker, as I understand there is going to be a vote. I would like to state why I intend to support the motion. I believe in the bicameral system, particularly under our constitution. But I believe there was a distinct pledge, made by the Liberal party when it was in opposition, to reform the Senate, but this pledge, like others, has not been carried out. What is the mode of constitution of our second chamber? In two words, it is a reward for party services rendered. That is the mildest expression one can apply to the mode of recruiting the second or revising chamber. Is there any better method of organizing that chamber? I do not intend to discuss the many plans that are spoken of, or that are treated in books, but the worst of all is certainly the one that we have in this country. I do not intend to make any reflection on those who sit in that chamber. But I say that to-day the revising, chamber to check hasty legislation, as we imagine the upper chamber ought to be, is constituted in that way; uniformly it is a reward for party service. The reform promised has not been carried out. If it is not carried out I am inclined to support this motion. My right hon. friend is in the position that history has assigned to a pope who was called upon to abolish a great Teligious order. He set out to reform it, and as history informs us he was told by the members of that order that it should remain as it was or cease to be. For my own part, whatever truth there may be in that story, I believe that the Senate, continued as it is under our institutions, is a useless appendage. It is not properly fulfilling its mission. I do not believe in making it elective; I believe it might be recruited under certain rules and principles which would give it the constitution which is desirable as a second and revising chamber, and since it seems impossible to have recourse to, or carry out, that reform, I am inclined to think the proper course to follow is to support the motion of my hon. friend.


Mr. F. T. CONGDON (Yukon Territory).: Mr. Speaker, one phase of this subject, has not been dwelt on during this discussion to the extent it deserves. A federal government is always, of necessity, in the nature of a compromise. It is a compromise between, on the one hand, a single large independent state and on the other a large number of small independent states. That compromise is always effected by an agreement. The agreement in this case has been embodied in our constitution, and all the discussion practically which has taken Mr. FOSTER.
place to date, all the various suggestions as to the mode of constitution of the Senate and the mode of appointing to the Senate were undoubtedly discussed in the Quebec conference, and the result so adopted is the basis upon which the constitution of the Senate now rests. Reading the resolutions as reported,, one finds innumerable amendments, innumerable suggestions put to the vote and all rejected after due consideration. Undoubtedly at that time there was one feature in connection with the Senate that probably obtained undue prominence; that was the idea of strengthening the central government. The Senate of the United States was especially constituted as a limitation and restraint upon the presidential powers, and as representative of the sovereignty of the States, and no doubt the condition of conflict which existed in the United States at the time of the framing of our constitution led, to some extent, to the framing of the constitution as relating to the Senate in a way to secure the strengthening of the central power at the expense of the separate powers. But this Senate, as it exists, is a result of the compromise and agreement by which the various provinces now constituting the Dominion of Canada entered into' that confederation, and it seems to me it would be a very wise thing for this House and for the people of this country to hesitate a very considerable time before in the least they attempt to invalidate, alter or amend that original agreement.
There has been a number of motions before this House tending in that direction. They have all been voted down for the simple reason, in my judgment, that the most overwhelming case must be made of the necessity for such a change before this House should contemplate it or endeavour to undertake it.
The existence of the Senate is, in a measure, the existence in our constitution of that which represents the sovereignty of the different provinces. To my mind, the only reform of the Senate which would render it more effective to-day for the discharge of that duty would be making it possibly more representative of the* provinces than it is at present. It does preserve the sovereignty of the province to this extent that it gives to the various districts equal representation in the Senate and requires the members to come from these different parts. It seems to me that the framers of the constitution were wise in adopting this bi-cameral system. It has been mentioned that in all large constitutional governments since th e world began there has been a second chamber, and if there is a necessity of a second chamber in a single state, there is a double necessity in a confederation such as we have in Canada. There is the neces-

sity of having some power that can, in a measure, prevent any infringement on the sovereign rights of the provinces, which under the confederation agreement have been inserted in this British North America Act. I think further that this House does not sufficiently examine the work of the Senate, in order to find justification for it. The hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) spoke of the demoralizing influences of the appointments to the Senate. I do not think any one can visit that body without finding that they are an extremely moral and respectable body.


George Eulas Foster: I rise to ask my hon. friend if he thinks that is fair tactics. He surely did not understand me as saying that the men who constitute the Senate were immoral and demoralized? I would be verry sorry if he would allow that idea to go out on ' Hansard.'


Frederick Tennyson Congdon: The hon. gentleman said the appointments were made in a demoralizing mode, that it was practically a purchase of them.


George Eulas Foster: I gave my hon. friend a chance to set himself right.


Frederick Tennyson Congdon: And one was that the Senate was appointed in such a manner as to demoralize the gentlemen going into the Senate. If that does not make the men immoral I do not know what does. He also spoke of it as a place filled with rancor or strife. If he visited it he would find neither rancor nor strife, it is the calmest atmosphere to be found in the world and one might almost think it the place where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, because it is as calm and sober as it can be;/ I really believe that if members of this/ House before framing these attacks on the Senate would examine a little more carefully the work done by the Senate, they would not make so many charges. I think that before charges of that kind are made there should be an investigation into the, Senate, and it would be found that in many respects it exercises a revising and a critical influence upon this body, which is for good.
The existence of a second body is to my mind an absolute necessity in our constitution. If it had no other purpose it would serve the purpose well defined and aptly described in the very name of the Norwegian second chamber, which is called the Lagthmg. It is necessary in a country becoming so democratic as this country that we should put some checks upon ourselves in order not to rush too rapidly into hasty legislation. There is great danger in this country of every one with a little fad starting up some movement which may
get on the statute-book and in that way practically frittering away the liberty ot the subject. I believe that many of these things are saved from being placed on the statute-book of this country by the opportunity which is afforded for their consideration in a second chamber. Occasions may arise in the future, where the senatorial body will have an opportunity more largely and in a more important manner to fulfil its functions than it has had in the past. I think the fathers of confederation must have been influenced by the fact that going through the constitutions from the earliest confederation of which we have any knowledge, from the Achaean League down to the American constitution, they found all the best intellects who. had ever been engaged in framing a constitution determined and insistent on having a second chamber. I do not think we should too hastily rush away from the precedents supported by such eminent authorities as the great constitution makers of other countries as well as the able gentleman who made a Senate part of the compromise upon which our own constitution is founded.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I regret that I cannot see my way, as a matter of principle, to adopting the suggestion of the right hon. the Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier) to withdraw this motion. And, not only as a matter of principle do I feel unable to comply, but also because I have heard no'thing to-night to give me an excuse, if I were looking for one, to withdraw this motion. We have heard the Prime Minister, in a somewhat instructive address, tell us some of the history of the matter, and some of the ideas with regard to the constitution of the Senate that have been from time to time put forward. But we have not heard a suggestion from him that even now he intends to take hold of this matter which ought to have been dealt with, certainly, some time within the last fourteen years? It is idle to suppose that gentleman on the left of Mr. Speaker in this House can produce any concrete result or give effect to their suggestions unless the Prime Minister will, with his strength in this House, and in the country, take up these suggestions and undertake to give them effect. And, until somebody else- I would prefer the Prime Minister-makes a concrete motion, I am going to stick to my concrete motion.to abolish the Senate. For it seems to me there is no reason for its continued existence ; and, I think that this is pretty clearly shown even by the speeches o' the gentlemen who support the existence of the Senate. For, to be frank about it, these gentlemen have only tried to apologize for the Senate; they are driven by the stress of the argument to try to find excuses for the Senate's existence. After fourteen years there is a complete

failure to bring about a reform which the gentlemen now in power undertook to then bring about at once. And the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Congdon) asks us, in all seriousness, to go to the Senate chamber and examine their work. Why, it would take a microscope and telescope to find it. It would need two or three people to go there and ring the bells to bring about any movement in the Senate preliminary to having any work done at all. It is because I have examined the iwork of the Senate that I realize that some reformation should be brought about. But, as I have not found any two of the bright minds of this chamber agreeing upon any particular measure of reform, it seems to me that abolition is the only thing that can reasonably be proposed, it seems to have been assumed that if this resolution passes this House, the Senate will be at once abolished. Of course, that is not the case. But, if the resolution is carried, the petition proposed would go to the King, and it would be acted upon in some way. It does not follow that tire prayer of the petition would be granted, but it does follow that some step would be made toward changing the present condition of affairs, whether in the direction of reform or in the direction of abolition. The Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) laughs. He doesn't want anything done apparently. But he knows that what I say is correct-that a motion passed in this House cannot alter the constitution of the country. Some hon. gentlemen, the Prime Minister among them, speak as if we could do something that the home government, imperial parliament could not do-that we could reform while they can only abolish. We cannot amend even in the most infinitesimal way the constitution ; that is the work of the imperial parliament.
In view of the fact that, though the whole evening has been taken up in discussing the subject no one from the Prime Minister down has said that the government intends to take a step toward a reformation that was promised before the present government came inTo office, I should be derelict in my duty if I consented to withdraw the motion.
Motion (Mr. Lancaster) negatived on division.
ADJOURNMENT-BUSINESS OF THE _ HOUSE.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved the adjournment of the House.


George Eulas Foster: Does the Prime Minister intend to go on with Supply after the preliminaries are finished to-morrow?


Wilfrid Laurier: We will take up first the third readings of two Bills, those first on the list-the Bill to amend Mr. LANCASTER.
the Immigration Act and the Bill to prohibit the importation and use of opium and other drugs. After that, Supply.


George Eulas Foster: And the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) knows that the hon. member for West Algoma (Mr. Boyce) intends to propose an amendment.


Wilfrid Laurier: Yes.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I give notice that on the first opportunity afforded on going into Supply I will move:
Tliat the recent mergers of heretofore competing industries and the issue of securities resulting therefrom should be the subject of public investigation, with a view of ascertaining how far such mergers or the methods of carrying them out affect the public interest, either as causing continuing .high prices for the commodities produced, as damaging the reputation of Canadian securities abroad or further as restricting the banking facilities of the country.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 11.25 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, January 31, 1911.