1911-07-26

THE RAILWAY COMMITTEE.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. NESBITT moved that the Select Standing Committee on Railways have leave to sit during the sessions of the House, as recommended in the report of the Committee.
Mr. SPROULE.: Are we trying to revive such resolution passed before the committee this morning. We have only one Bill to deal with and as the next meeting of the committee is called for 10 o'clock instead of 11 o'clock on Tuesday next when the House sits there is no need of this motion.


Mr. NESBITT.: It was recommended by the committee on the 16th of May.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Oh, that was on the eve-of adjournment, and when there were a lot of Bills to be disposed of, but there is only one Bill before us now.


Mr. BLAIN.: I agree with the hon. member (Mr. Sproule) that this motion is absolutely unnecessary under existing conditions. The work before the committee is not heavy now.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The work is not very heavy, but the talk is.


Mr. LANCASTER.: That-one Bill before the committee will have to be carefully considered and it will probably be opposed by nearly all the members of the House when they understand it. I can well understand that certain interests would want this motion to pass, but they are not the interests of the people. If it does pass it will have the effect of compelling members to neglect their duties in the committee or else neglect their duties in this House. This Bill refers to a charter that has been absolutely dead for three years and that never was heard of in the House of Commons until the day before adjournment after we had been in session for six months.


Mr. EMMERSON.: Did this Bill come from the Senate?


Edward Arthur Lancaster: This Bill came from the Senate, but they must have been late

in introducing it in the Senate or else it would have got to this House before it did. It is a Bill entirely in the interests of a private corporation, 'and in view of the urgent public business before the House it can very well wait until next session.


Mr. DEVLIN.: The Bill could have passed the Committee this morning, as the great majority of the committee desired, but upon the request of the hon. member for East Grey and others we consented to allow the Bill to stand over in order that those who might possibly have any interest in opposing it should be notified. We did not touch upon the merits of the Bill this morning.


Mr. MACDONELL (Toronto).: The hon. member (Mr. Devlin) says the majority of the committee were seized of the Bill this morning, and prepared to pass it, but now he says they did not even consider the merits.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: What I said was that the Bill was fully discussed and the majority of the committee quite prepared to pass it, but now these gentlemen opposite want to kill it entirely.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: We are not endeavouring to kill the Bill but we are pointing out that the committee has adjourned until Tuesday next at ten o'clock, which is an hour before the sitting of the House, and we think there is plenty of time to consider the Bill, without passing this motion.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: The hon. member for East Grey will himself speak for an hour against the Bill.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Not at all.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: We will get to eleven o'clock when the House meets and then the committee will have to rise.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I do not think I spoke more than five minutes on the Bill this morning. The consideration of the Bill was adjourned in view of the fact that the committee were notified that the city council of Montreal and the board of trade desired to be heard and had no notice, and that the R. & 0. Co'y had their representatives before the committee saying that only late yesterday did they receive intimation that the Bill would be considered to-day, and they desired to consider carefully whether or not it would prejudicially affect their interests. It is for that reason we asked delay.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It is not a public Bill and the public interest can in no way be affected. The Bill came to us from the Senate and has been before parliament for a considerable time. In view of the attitude some hon. gentlemen assume Mr. LANCASTER.
towards the Bill it would seem to me that in the hour between 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock no progress could be made. It is to give those who oppose the Bill the fullest opportunity to be heard that this motion has been made.


Mr. GOODEVE.: The government has
thought it vitally important to call special morning sittings of the House for the consideration of an important public measure, and under these circumstances it is unfair that members of this House should be prevented attending to their duty here by obtruding on them the consideration of a private Bill in the committee. There is ample time to consider this Bill between ten and eleven in the morning and between two and three in the afternoon, if necessary, when the House is not in session. As a member of the Railway Committee it is unfair that I should be compelled to neglect my important duties in this House with reference to a measure in which my constituents are deeply interested, simply because I am forced to attend a meeting of a committee.


Mr. MIDDLEBRO.: The Railway Committee is composed of practically nearly all the members of the House, and this motion would compel them to neglect their duty in the committee or to be absent when a public measure of vital importance is being considered in the House. The Minister of the Interior told us last night that many measures of great public importance would not pass this session because of insufficient time. He told us that the Grain Bill which was introduced in the interests of the farmers would have to stand aside, that the Bank Act, and important amendments to the Railway Act would not be allowed to go through this session for the same reason.


Mr. OLIVER.: If the hon. member says that I stated that these measures would not be allowed to go through this session because of press of business he misunderstood me entirely. I said that these measures weTe claiming the pressing atten-tion_ of the House, but had been compelled to give way to the discussion of the matter now before the House. I did not convey the impression that they would not be dealt with later on.


William Sora Middlebro: The Minister of the Interior said that these w^re more important than the matter brought up by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, and we all understand him to say they would not b-e able fo get through this session. The minister said that the Bank Act would not go through because of want of time, and so we had to pass an interim Act.


Frank Oliver: I stated the fact with regard to the Bank Act, but Hansard will

bear me out that I did not convey any impression such as the hon. member (Mr. Middlebro) has referred to.


William Sora Middlebro: Does the Minister of the Interior think that the Grain Act, the Bank Act, and the amendments to the Railway Act, are less important than this private Bill?


Frank Oliver: I have not considered ihat question at all.


William Sora Middlebro: Will the minister say that we should give'precedence to this private Bill before these important measures?


Frank Oliver: I have not thought of that.


William Sora Middlebro: Such a proposition as this is entirely unreasonable under existing conditions, and it should not be forced on us.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: I do not know even the title of this Bill, nor what its merits are, nor the matter to which it refers, but hon. gentlemen will realize that there is a more important measure before the House, and that is the reciprocity agreement with the United States. This discussion is not only so much time consumed from the discussion of that important matter, and therefore I would ask my hon. friend (Mr. Nesbitt) not to press the motion but to "withdraw it.
Motion withdrawn



QUESTIONS.

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

Mr. SHARPE (Ontario):: 1.	Referring to the While Book known as Document No. 849, entitled ' Reciprocity with Canada,' being the message from the President of the United States transmitting to the Senate a report from the Tariff Board, and on March 1, 1911, ordered to be printed and laid on the Table of the United States Senate, in which occurs the following passages, viz.:-
(a)	On page 107, ' It is to be noted that the farm prices of more than half of the oat crop of the United States range from $0.27 to $0.35 a bushel, and that the farm prices of about the same proportion of the Canadian crop range from $0.28 to $0.36/
(b)	On page 109, speaking of the prices of
horses, ' In all the Canadian Provinces except Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and Nova Scotia the prices are higher than in any of our states/	_	.	* v
(c)	On page 109, speaking of the prices of dairy cows, ' The highest Canadian price quoted is $48 in Ontario as against $46.50 in Montana, the highest American price/
(d)	On page 110, appears the following table of comparative prices, average value per head in 1910:-
Dy. Other
Horses, cows, cattle. Sheep. Swine.
United States 108.19	35.79	19.41	4.03	9.14Canada	133.	43.00	31.00	6.00	11.00And comparing the State of N.Y. 125.00	39.50	18.20	5.00	11.50


With Ont.   ..@: 133.00	48.00	34.00	7.00	10 00
(e)	On page 110 appears also the following statements:-
' Prices of other cattle vary in the United States from $14.30 a head in Minnesota to $27.40 in Montana, while in Canada the range of prices is from $31 in Saskatchewan to $34 in Ontario.'
' Prices of sheep are m uch lower in the United States than in Canada.'
' Prices of swine are slightly higher in Canada than in the United States.'
(f)	On page 113 appears the following:-
' As to horses Canada has no surplus of importance outside of Ontario.
' During the spring of 1910 it is stated on good authority that not less than 20,000 horses were sold out of Ontario alone for shipment to the market just mentioned, and prospective loss of this trade is giving Ontario some concern at this time. The five provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, combined have but 1,863,744 head as compared with 1,600,000 head now in the state of Iowa alone.'
2.	When was the reciprocity agreement executed by representatives of Canada and the United States?
3.	Were the above statements and figures present to the minds of the Canadian ministers when they executed the agreement on behalf of Canada?
4.	Since the date of the execution of the agreement has the government made any effort to verify the above statements and figures as set out in the United States official document No. 849?
5.	Is the government aware that both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States referred the agreement to committees composed of both political parties, before whom evidence was taken for months as to the possible effect of the agreement on United States interests?
6.	Is it the intention of the government to take any evidence before any committees touching on the relatives prices of farm products in the United States and Canada, or on the effect the agreement may have on Canadian interests ?
7.	Has the government any information now in their possession dealing with the relative prices of farm products in Canada and the United States?


Mr. FIELDING:: 1, 2 and 3. The document referred to shows on its face that it was sent to the Senate of the United States by the President on the 28th of February, 1911, and on March 1 ordered to be printed. Consequently it could not have been in the possession of the Canadian ministers on the 21st of January, the date of the correspondence which constitutes the reciprocity agreement.
4.	Consideration of the statements was not deemed by the government essential to

the consideration of the reciprocity agreement. The desire of all Canadian governments for reciprocity in natural products was clear beyond question and did not require any statistical support.
The quotations from the document contained in the question are incomplete and, in some respects misleading. For example, a quotation in the question reads:-
' Price of sheep are much lower in the United States than in Canada.'
What the document in question says concerning the price of sheep is as follows:-
' Prices of sheep are much lower in the United States than in Canada, due to the fact that Ontario specializes on pedigreed flocks, as appears later on.'
And, later on, on the same subject, the document says:-
' Unfortunately Ontario conditions are such that no fairly comparable figures can be made up. No flocks approaching in size those shown by the Ohio tables are to be found. There is apparently no such thing as exclusive sheep farming known there, except in those instances where farmers are maintaining pure bred stock to be sold at special values for breeding purposes, and costs of production in such cases would range too high to be fairly compared with sheep raising as carried on in the great sheep-rearing counties of the United States.
in another case prices of oats are quoted in the hon. member's inquiry in such a manner as to apparently show that the United States prices range from 27 to 35 cents per bushel, while the Canadian prices range from 28 to 36 cents per bushel. In making this quotation no account is taken of the fact that the American bushel_ is thirty-two pounds, while the Canadian bushel is thirty-four pounds. A fair comparison, even according to the figures quoted, would show that the American prices are a shade higher.
5.	Yes.
6.	No.
7.	The government have now, as they have always had, access to the various agricultural and other journals containing quotations of farm products in Canada and the United States. Some compilations made from these have already been submitted to the House, and there are others which will be brought down immediately.


MARRIAGE LAWS.
Mr. TAYLOR (Leeds):: 1.	Has the parliament of Canada the power to legalize or validate any or every marriage solemnized in Canada?
2.	Does the government consider it desirable that steps should be taken to prevent cruelty and injustice by reason of marriages contracted in good faith before a duly ordained clergyman but afterwards declared invalid?
Mr. FIELDING
3.	Does the government propose to take any steps for this purpose or in this connection?


Sir ALLEN AYLESWORTH:: 1. The question calls for an opinion upon a matter of law in regard to which the government would desire to be advised if necessity arose.	*
2 and 3. The government is of opinion that it has no power or jurisdiction in the premises.


PRODUCTION OF CEMENT.
Mr. SEXSMITH:: What has been the total production of cement in Canada, annually, since 1900?


Mr. FISHER.: The production of cement in Canada in the years 1900-10 is as follows:
	Natural Rock	Portland
Year.	Cement.	Cement.
	brls.	brls.
1900	
125,128	292,1211901	
133,328	317,0661902	
127,931	591,5911903	
92,252	627,741.1901.. .. '.	
56,811	910,3581905	
11,181	1,316,5181906	
8,610	2,139,1611907	
5,775	2,136,0931908	
1,041	2,665,2891909	1,010,180*1910	1,753,975* Subject to	revision.


THE DUMPING CLAUSE.
Angus Claude Macdonell: Is it provided or proposed that the dumping clause in the tariff shall apply to articles enumerated in the schedules to the reciprocity agreement ?


William Stevens Fielding: The agreement referred to contains no reference either to the dumping clause of the Canadian tariff laws or to the somewhat similar provisions of the United States tariff laws. Any questions that may arise with reference to the application of these provisions, on either side, will have to be decided by the customs authorities of the respective countries.


EXPRESS RATES.
Mr. SCHAFFNER:: Has the Board of Railway Commissioners full jurisdiction to regulate and determine the tolls or rates to be charged by all express companies for the carriage and delivery of goods and parcels in Canada?


Mr. GRAHAM.: Yes, under Revised Statutes of Canada of 1906, chapter 37.


THE SEAL FISHERIES TREATY.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: Before the orders of the day are taken up, I would like to ask the right hon. the First Minister whether he is prepared to lay on the table the Seal Fish-

erics treaty and papers and correspondence in connection therewith. I notice that it has been ratified at Washington some days ago.


Wilfrid Laurier: As soon as my hon. friend the Secretary of State comes to the House he will lay the papers on the table. They are ready.


PRECAUTIONS AGAINST CHOLERA.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: I have noticed that some days ago certain cases supposed to be cholera were quarantined below Quebec, and I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he has any information on the subject that he is 'able to communicate to the House so as to relieve the anxiety of the people of the country in regard to this dreaded disease.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: The cases referred to were somewhat suspicious, and the physician in charge detained them for separate examination. A 'bacteriological examination has been made, and the doctors have declared that the disease is not cholera, so that there is no case of quarantine at present.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Are the cases discharged from quarantine, or are they still detained?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: They are still detained to recover from acute dysentery.



PRIVILEGE-MR. PERLEY.

Mr. PERLEY.: I rise to a question of privilege. On the night before last, when I was not in the House, the Minister of Public Works made reference to me personally in connection with some correspondence addressed to the Minister of Finance by the Riordon Paper Company, in which I happen to hold some stock. Considering the statements made in the House by my hon friend the Minister of Finance, I am rather surprised that he should have allowed this correspondence to be used in this way. On the 3rd of February the Minister of Finance said this in this House with regard to correspondence on the subject of reciprocity:
With regard to correspondence respecting reciprocity with the government there is practically none. Many people made representations to the government but beyond a polite *acknowledgment of their letters, there is no correspondence. In some cases these representations, although not marked confidential, are such as I would hardly feel free to bring down because they relate to particular interests that might be, or thought they might be affected by the negotiations, and I could not without their consent publish these.
This matter was discussed a good many times in the House, and I understood that the Minister of Finance was firm in the position that this correspondence was private correspondence.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: Is the hon. gentleman not aware that this correspondence was brought down months ago and is on the files of the House?


George Halsey Perley: I was not aware of that.


William Pugsley: It was from the files that I got it.


George Halsey Perley: Even now I do not understand how that could be done after the remarks made by the Minister of Finance.


Some hon. MEMBERS: It was not brought down.


William Pugsley: It was, months ago.


Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: Was all the private correspondence referred to by the Minister of Finnace brought down?


Mr FIELDING.: There was no private correspondence from anybody brought down -no letter marked private, or which in its nature was private. I do not remember the particular letter referred to. I happened to be engaged when the Minister of Public Works was speaking, and beyond some reference to that company in which the hon. gentleman is interested I did not notice any reference to the letter. But I can only say that if there was anything in that letter intended to be private, I would not have brought it down. I did not give it to the Minister of Public Works. I presume that he must have got it from the public files. I do not know when it was brought down, but up to this moment I have not heard that there has been any objection on the part of the company to its being brought down.


George Halsey Perley: I have no objection to this correspondence being brought down at all. I did not know that it was on file, and I would like the Minister of Public Works to tell me when it was placed on the table of the House and why that was done.


William Pugsley: I do not know why it was brought down. It was brought with a great deal of other correspondence. I happened to see it with a letter from my hon. friend from York (Mr. Crocket) referring to a communication from a large lumber company urging a reduction in the United States duty on shingles, and with letters from people dealing in hay, which were laid on the table of the House a good many months ago.


William Stevens Fielding: If my hon. friend will allow me, I will answer the question why it was brought down. It was brought down in answer to a demand of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster), if I am not mistaken, that all correspondence on this subject should be brought down, and all

the correspondence which either was not marked private or was not, from its very nature obviously intended to be private, has been brought down.


George Halsey Perley: That, I take it, is only another way of saying that the minister has brought down just what he thought fit to bring down, and nothing more. I have no objection to these letters being brought down, but it seems to me the minister ought to have some general rule in these matters and not apply special rules to suit the purposes of the government.


William Stevens Fielding: What rule would the hon. gentleman suggest?


George Halsey Perley: I think that either everything not marked ' private ' should be brought down or nothing should be brought down.


William Stevens Fielding: Can my hon. friend (Mr. Perley) tell me of any case of which he complains? I do not think that in the case of the letter from this company in which the hon. gentleman is said to be interested, that the manager who wrote it ever complained, and I do not think he would complain of our action. There was nothing private in the letter, nor anything to indicate that it was intended to be private.	.


George Halsey Perley: I quite understand that, but it seems to me that all the letters should be treated alike.


William Stevens Fielding: They have been.


George Halsey Perley: Has the hon. minister brought down every letter connected with the reciprocity pact not marked ' private? '


William Stevens Fielding: No.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


George Halsey Perley: How does the hon. gentleman decide?


William Stevens Fielding: I received letters from my colleagues on this side, which though not marked private, were toy their nature manifestly intended as private, and these I did not bring down.


George Halsey Perley: In other words, the government brings down such correspondence as suits its convenience. However, I do not wish the House to think that I have any objection to the bringing down of these letters, or that there is anything in them that might not be made public. But I wish to say, in the first place, I have nothing to do personally with the active management of this compnay. I have so much work to do here that I have not tried to take part in the other. So, I found it necessary to telephone to Montreal to find out regarding these letters. I find that, in the first place, the statement of the Minis-
Mr. FIELDING
ter of Public Works, that this company urged very strongly that a reciprocal arrangement should be entered into, is not in accordance with the letter. This company has a large output of sulphite pulp, and it so happens that the ordinary terms ' pulp ' and ' paper' as used do not include sulphite pulp, and this company simply wished to bring that point to the attention of the government in order that, if any treaty were made with the United States, the wording should be such as to cover sulphite pulp. This company is not a political company nor a Tory concern: it is a Canadian company. And if there were to toe an arrangement with the United States they simply wished to bring proper information to the attention of the government. Now, the Minister of Public Works has said that he has been told that it would mean $90,000 to this company. It is easy for the minister to get up and make that statement. But there can be no foundation for it. This company will certainly derive some advantage, but the information the minister gives, if he has not got it from his inner consciousness must have been given him by somebody who knew nothing about the matter. It is utterly impossible that there should be such a benefit to the company. Further, the minister says that this will come about if the proposed arrangement goes into effect. The pulp and paper clauses depends on the will of the provinces, as this parliament has no power to put this into effect. It is true that if it comes into force immediately, pulp wood from private lands will be affected. But it is well known^ that the greater part of the business done by all these companies is done on Crown lands.
Now, with regard to the hon. minister's (Mr. Pugsley's) personal reference and insinuations regarding myself. I can only say that I am opposed to this reciprocity pact, because I think it is a bad thing for Canada; I am opposed to it on principle. And I extend to the hon. minister my sincere sympathy and pity that he seems utterly unable to understand how any one can regard a public question from any other point of view than the effect upon his own pocket.


William Pugsley: I am very glad to get the information which my hon. friend has given to the House that he has nothing to do with the active management of this company. Otherwise he would know of the very considerable quantities of pulp and paper which this company is to-day shipping to the United States and would realize the great benefits which would accrue to the company if pulp and paper were admitted free to the United States. I presume he knows something of the details of the work of the company.


Robert Laird Borden: Does not the hen. gentleman think that my hon. friend from Argenteuil (Mr. Perley) knows as much about the subject as the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley)?


William Pugsley: The Minister of Public Works has had the very great advantage of reading the admirable letter written by the manager of the Eiordan Paper Mills Company. And I wish to congratulate the hon. gentleman (Mr. Perley) being, as he says simply a stockholder of the company, upon the excellent ability and excellent judgment of the young man who is now in the position of general manager of the Eiordan Company. I do not know that there is any man ;n this country or in the United States engaged in the manufacture of pulp and paper who is more qualified


Robert Laird Borden: If we are going to have a debate on this sub


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden, Halifax) has heard enough?


Robert Laird Borden: On the contrary we have heard too little from the hon. gentleman; we are likely to hear more from him particularly with regard to some of the insinuations he gives out, which insinuations do not come very well from a gentleman with the record in dealings with the treasury of New Brunswick that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Pugsley) has.


William Pugsley: I would ask the hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden, Halifax) not to maike insinuations. I have heard many insinuations in the past not only from the hon. gentleman himself but from others, and I think it is due to the position which the hon. gentleman occupies, that he should make no insinuations against another member of this House. But if he has any statement or charge to make let him make it openly and publicly. And I venture to tell the hon. gentleman


Robert Laird Borden: Mr Speaker


William Pugsley: I am not through yet. I tell the hon. gentleman that if he and the gentlemen associated with him in this parliament, and associated with him politically in the province of New Brunswick, would produce the correspondence and the records which some of them at all events have in their possession, there would. be disclosed to the people of this country and to this House as great a conspiracy against myself as ever was concocted against any public man in this country. I have made the . statement before in the press that this conspiracy was concocted against me, and I have dared the gentlemen whom I have accused to come into the courts against me and bring an action for libel for the charges I made against them. And I tell
the hon. gentleman that if the correspondence which they have in their possession-
I do not say my hon. friend has, but the gentlemen who have been associated with him in this House, and who are allied with him as prominent members of the Conservative party in the province of New Brunswick-if I do not show that they have been guilty of this conspiracy, that they have been guilty of making false reports, and being parties to false reports against myself, I will forfeit my seat as a member of this House.


Robert Laird Borden: I am not referring to any correspondence; I am referring to the records of the legislature of New Brunswick. Since the hon. gentleman wants them produced, I think they can be produced, and he can make his answer with regard to them.


William Pugsley: If there is anything the hon. gentleman can find out he is welcome to it.


Robert Laird Borden: I think perhaps the hon. gentleman will not be so entirely satisfied with the statement of facts with regard to that as he professes to be at the present time. I rose for the reason that the hon. gentleman made a most uncalled for insinuation against the hon. member for Argenteuil (Mr. Perley), and then was proceeding to deal with a matter that was absolutely irrelevant to the question raised by the member for Argenteuil, dealing with the internal affairs of the Eiordan Paper Company. That is what the hon. gentleman was doing, and I said that the insinuation came with very bad grace indeed, and I repeat it from a gentleman having the record m the public life of this country which is possessed by the hon. Minister of Public Works.	.


Mr PUGSLEY.: 
Thomas Simpson Sproule: I rise to a point of order Discussion is not possible on a question of privilege.


Mr SPEAKER.: I would remind the House that the debate is very irregular at this time.


William Pugsley: I was replying to the hon. member for Argenteuil, and I was saying that the letter-


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I think the hon. gentleman is out of order.


William Pugsley: I accept your ruling.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: When a question of privilege is raised the custom of the House is that the member raising it has the floor. I allowed the Minister of Public Works to speak because I thought he was making some personal explanation. Beyond that, the debate was irregular, because there is nothing before the House.



SOREL SHIPYARD, OFFICIAL INQUIRY.

Mr. MONK.: Before the orders of the day are proceeded with I would like to ask again when the report on the Sorel affair will be laid on the table of the House. It is required for the purpose of discussion. I do not know if my hon. friend has acquired the habit of withholding documents.


Mr. LEMIEUX.: I told my hon. friend yesterday that Mr. Boyle, the inspector of agencies, has made an inspection in Sorel and has been there for some time. He has not yet put in his report; he is away from town just now, and is expected back at the beginning of next week, when he will make his report forthwith.



WAYS AND MENAS-DREDGING AT GASPEREAU HARBOUR.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. FIELDING moved that the House go into Committee of Ways and Means.
Mr.  O. S.@: CROCKET (York, N.B.) Before you leave the Chair, I desire to call attention to a matter which has been investigated in the Public Accounts Committee, and which I think deserves the serious consideration of the House. I refer to the contract which was awarded by the Public Works Department to the Marine Dredging and Construction Company for dredging ai the Gaspereau river, New Brunswick. I do not know whether this is another case of a conspiracy to destroy the character of the Minister of Public Works, but I leave it to the members of the House to judge after they have heard the evidence that was adduced before the Public Accounts Committee.


William Pugsley: Would my hon. friend tell me the date of that investigation?


Mr CROCKET.: The investigation was held during the last session of parliament. I think the minister has the documents before him.


William Pugsley: No, I have not.


Mr. CROCKET.: I see the minister has been examining the evidence since he came Mr. SPEAKER.
into the House, so he is just as familiar with the facts as I am. The evidence shows that this contract was illegally awarded to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, which I think the members of the House are aware is owned and controlled by the minister's personal and political friends, Mr. George McAvity and Mr. John A. Moore. The contract was not only awarded illegally to that company, in contravention of the law, but under it the sum of $33,900 was paid to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company for work which the resident district engineer in charge of the work reported was of no value. Now this transaction began, so far as the records of the department disclose, in the month of July, 1908. Previous to that date there had been two reports sent to the Public Works Department upon the proposed work. One of these reports was made by Mr. Day, the resident engineer of the department, on the. 13th day of May, 1903, when that officer estimated that the cost of the proposed work, which was a channel giving twelve feet at low water, would be $168,000. Mr. Day based his estimate on 20 cents a cubic yard. The matter rested then until 1907, when, on the 5th of March, Mr. Geoffrey Stead, Mr. Day's successor as resident engineer, made another report, estimating that the work would require about 330,000 cubic yards to be dredged, costing, at 20 cents, $66,000.


Henry Robert Emmerson: What is the date of that?


Oswald Smith Crocket: March 5, 1907. There the matter rested until the 15th of July, 1908, when the general elections of that year were approaching. Then we find it suddenly revived by this direction from the deputy minister to the then engineer:
Kindly let me know as soon as possible just what quantity of urgent dredging is required at the Gaspereau river.
The resident engineer was accordingly asked by the chief engineer for his estimate of the quantity, on the 16th of July, and on the 17th of July, Mr. Stead sent this telegram to the chief engineer:
In reply to your telegram at Gaspereau river, a cut to give six feet at low water through bar necessitating removing 48,000 cubic yards, barge measurement, is most urgently required. Basin, 350 feet long, 200 feet wide; at wharfs also very necessary, requiring
14,000	cubic yards barge measurement, of dredging.
On the 20th of July the acting deputy minister, Mr. Hunter, instructed the secretary of the department to have advertisements sent out calling for tenders for dredging at Gaspereau river, at Buctouche beach and at Buctouche harbour and at Point du Chene in the province of New Brunswick.

The advertisements issued on the 28th and bears date the 28th of January calling for tenders for dredging at these places. On the 31st of July, three days after the issue of the advertisement calling for tenders, we have this extraordinary telegram received by the chief engineer at Otawa:
Chatham, N.B., July 31, 1908.
To the Chief Engineer, .
Dept, of Public Works, Ottawa, Ont.


John E.: Moore, of St. John, says he has dredge ready to work on Gaspereau river, N.B., and expects to start Monday. Am I authorized to lay out the dredging for him



GEOFFREY STEAD,

[Stage Direction]
Resident Engineer.
Hon. members will observe that although t'he advertisement for tenders was issued and bears date 28th July and called for tenders to be received up to tne 14th of August, on the third day after the issue of that advertisement, the minister's friend Mr. John E. Moore had his dredge upon the site and intended to go to work on Monday, which would be the 2nd day of August, and ten or twelve days before the date fixed for the receipt of tenders. Then, on the 4th of August, Mr. Stead receives this reply to his inquiry of the 31st of July.
August 4, 1908.
Sir,-The work of dredging in the Gaspe-reau river has been given to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, of Saint John, N.B., providing they are willing to accept, in payment, per cubic yard, scow measurement, the lowest price to be obtained by tenders which are now being called for. Kindly place the company's dredge at work immediately, if they accept the conditions. You will please, however, note that the lesser work only is to be engaged upon.
Yours obediently,
(Sgd) Chief Engineer.
Geoffrey Stead, Esq.,
Resident Engineer.
So that the record shows the rather novel and ingenious method which has been adopted by the Public Works Department since my hon. friend took charge of it, of awarding a contract for the performance [DOT]of work and of receiving tenders for that work after the contract has been awarded.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: A very good idea.


An hon. MEMBER.: Evidence of conspiracy.
Mr. CROCKET This would appear to be not evidence of a conspiracy against the character of the Minister of Public Works, but of conspiracy and fraud upon the public treasury of this country with the connivance of the Minister of Public Works. On the same day, the chief engineer informed Mr. Graham, who was Superintendent of Dredging in North Sydney of the awarding of this contract to the Maritime Dredging
and Construction Company, assuming apparently that the Gaspereau river that was referred to was in Cape Breton.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: He was out in his geography.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Now, the 14th of August, was the day fixed by the advertisement for the receipt of tenders and on that day tenders were opened and we find that but one tender was received, it being from the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, to whom the contract had already been awarded, and it was at 90 cents a cubic yard or four and a half times the figure 'estimated by two district engineers of the department. That fact became known to the department on August 14th, but we find that the intimation of that fact to the superintendent of dredging in New Brunswick, Mr. McCordock was deferred to the 29th of September. On the 29th September, the chief engineer advised Mr. W. J. McCordock, superintendent of dredging, St. John, N.B., as follows:
September 29, 1908.
Sir,-The only tender received for dredging in the Gaspereau river was the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, for 90 cents per cubic yard, scow measurement. At the time the tender was received, I thought that this price was considerably more than that for which the contract should be awarded. However, it has been represented to the department, that the conditions are such as to make this price fair and reasonable. I, therefore, have to ask you to go to the Gaspereau river immediately, looking to the circumstances in the case, and report by wire immediately.	,	,,
Yours obediently,
(Sgd.) Chief Engineer. W. J. McCordock, Esq.,
Superintendent of Dredging,
St. John, N.B.
When Mr. Lafleur, the chief engineer was upon the stand he was asked if he could [DOT]state by whom the representation was made to him that on account of the difficulties that had arisen this price was fair and reasonable. The chief engineer could not answer that question. He was asked if he had learned it from the minister and his reply was, that he could not say whether it was the minister or not who informed him of the fact that there were difficulties existing there which made fair and reasonable a price of 90 cents per cubic yard, when the two district engineers on the ground had certified to the department that the work was worth only 20 cents per cubic yard. The next memo, of interest which the file discloses is a telegram which was sent to Mr. Lafleur, the chief engineer by the hon. Minister of Public Works from St. John, on the 3rd of October, and this is the telegram:
Kindly wire instructions to Scammell to visit Gaspereau as	PXJGSLET.

The House will observe that in the meantime the engineer had intimated his opinion that the price of 90 cents, the tender of the Maritime Dredging and Construction 'Company was excessive, and it became
ecessary, therefore, to overcome tne opinion of the resident engineer, so that this telegram signed ' Wm. Pugsley,' is very suggestive upon that point. The telegram to Mr. Lafleur was to wire instructions to Mr. Scammell, not the resident engineer of the district in which the work was being done, but the resident engineer of the district of St. John, and the telegram shows that the minister had intervened personally and arranged with Mr. Scammell for the purpose of visiting Gaspereau, manifestly Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of bolstering up the price which he desired should be paid to his favourite firm the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company. On the 5th of October, two days afterwards, the _ chief engineer telegraphs Mr. Scammell:
Ottawa, October 5, 1908.
J. 1C. Scammell,
Resident Engineer,
St. John, N. B.
Certain difficulties have risen in connection with dredging Gaspereau river. Please see the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, of St. John, who have the contract, and report.
(Sgd.) Chief Engineer.
On the same day the chief engineer telegraphed the Hon. William Pugsley at St. John to say that he had wired Mr. Scammell instructions to visit Gaspereau as arranged, and, as arranged by the minister personally with the resident engineer Mr. Scammell. There the record stands until the 9th of October when we have a communication received by the chief engineer of the department from Mr. McCordock, superintendent of dredging at St. John, passages of which I would like to put on Tecord.	,
Offices, Department of Public Works of Canada-Dredging.
St. John, N.B., 9th October, 1908. 'The Chief Engineer,
Dept, of Public Works,
Ottawa. Ont.
Dear Sir.-I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 29th ult., No. 5G15, as fellows:
Then Mr. McCordock quotes the letter. The letter of the 20th September was the letter notifying the superintendent of dredging for New Brunswick for the first time of the receipt of the tender on the 14th of August some seven or eight weeks previously. After quoting the letter Mr. McCordock continues:
Expecting to receive the papers immediately from Mr. Graham, which you referred bo, I immediately set about seeing where the Gas-Mr. CROCKET.
pereau river was located, to find one in Nova Scotia,

This explains how it was that the first notification is sent by the chief engineer to Mr. Graham, of Cape Breton, there being a Gaspereau river in Cape Breton, and the officers of the department imagined that this river where the work was to be done was in Cape Breton.
-one on the Grand Lake, N.B., and one on the line of the Canadian Pacific railway in Sunbury county, N.B., but no others shown or the charts. I asked Mr. Shewan -and Mr. Scammell if they knew of any other Gaspereau river, and they both looked over the charts with me and said they knew of no other.
Both Mr. Shewan and Mr. Scammell there referred to are resident engineers in New Brunswick, but they were unaware of the existence of this river in which the Minister of Public Works had, six or seven weeks before, his friend Mr. Moore dredging.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend dpes not suggest they were the resident engineers of the district, in which Gaspereau river is situated.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Not at all. They were the resident engineers at St. John, and they ought to be pretty familiar with the work going on in the province of New Brunswick and they were under Mr. McCordock the superintendent of dredging at St. John.
On inquiring of the minister, I found the
work proposed at Port Elgin in Westmoreland connty, N.B., and have visited -and examined the place, and only to-day received from Mr. C. M. Graham the papers you directed would be sent to me.
We have the very peculiar fact that the superintendent of dredging in the province of New Brunswick was not able to ascertain from any of his own engineers or from the department at Ottawa, where this work was going on, and had to resort to the minister personally to ascertain the location of the river.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: He had been running the whole job himself.


William Pugsley: Will my hon. friend (Mr. Crocket) allow me to correct him?


Oswald Smith Crocket: Yes.


William Pugsley: Mr. McCordock was the superintendent of the government dredging, and he had nothing whatever to do with contract dredging and, therefore, this was not at all within Mr. McCordock's jurisdiction.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Mr. McCordock was superintendent of dredging with jurisdiction all over the maritime provinces.

1C210


William Pugsley: Only of government dredging.


Oswald Smith Crocket: What difference does
that make about his not knowing where the river was. If he had nothing to do with contract dredging, why did the minister place the contract dredging under his charge?


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is entirely wrong. This was not in Mr. McCor-dock's charge, but he was appointed as an expert by reason of his having thirty years' experience of government dredging work to go there and examine into the conditions and make a report.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Yes, to make a report upon this contract, because it was not government dredging, and that is the statement I made. Then, Mr. McCordock reports the result of his visit after having discovered the whereabouts of the work.
1 report that up to yesterday 21,268 cubic vaids are reported by the inspector as being removed. In many places in the river there is but two feet of water at low water, and fo move the scows ahead to the spoil from the bucket may be deposited into the scow, first the dredge requires to dredge a trench twenty-five feet wide to eight feet depth at low water, throwing the spoil to one side, then when this trench is dredged a distance, the dredge is removed back to take out the remaining width, 35 feet, and the scow is floated in the trench just made.
I am of the opinon that from the exposed position of the dredging and the detention, from shallow water, and the difficulty in getting coal and water from the shore out two miles to the dredge, where it has to remain ac anchor in all weather, that the amount of ninety cents named in the tender is a fair late per cubic yard.
Notwithstanding that two resident engineer's of the district had previously reported it at 20 cents per cubic yard, which of itself was a very liberal estimate, as I am advised, because the material to be removed consisted of nothing but sand and mud, and residents of the locality state 'that it was not really worth ten cents per cubic yard to remove it.
The contractor claims that he is, by custom, to receive an equivalent in yardage for the time spent in trenching and throwing on one side the spoil taken out of the trench, this to be calculated by the amount removed in the barges and time of dredging the same as compared with that during trenching.
The contractor has removed in 36 days working, 21,264 cubic yards, an average of 596 cubic yards per day, or, counting days not working, making 45 days, an average of 472 cubic yards.
This report will only refer to work on the Gaspereau river, Port Elgin, Westmoreland county, N.B.
I have the honour to be,
Yours obediently,


Sgd.  W. J.@: McCordock, Esq.
Supt. of Dredging,
St. John, N. B.
Now, the next fact of interest which the record discloses is that on the 16th of Octo-oer, the department had no record by which it could determine at headquarters the price of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company's tender.


William Pugsley: That is not correct.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I say that it is correct and that the record shows it, and I propose to put it on ' Hansard ' right now.
Ottawa, October 16, 1908.
Hon. Wm. Pugsley,
Minister of Public Works,
St. John, N.B.
Deputy minister informs me that yon have Maritime Dredging and Construction Company's tender for dredging Gaspereau river, Westmoreland county. Would you kindly let me know prices quoted for ordinary materials and castng over so that progress estimate may be made out and paid.
(Sgd.) Chief Engineer.
Here we have a telegram sent to the Minister of Public Works at St. John, on the 16th October stating thait he himself had in his possession at that time, and had carried in his pocket down to the city of St. John, the tender of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, and that the department had no means of finding out what the price of that tender was, and for that reason they found it necessary to telegraph the minister who had the tender in his pocket down at St. John, and from the minister, and from the minister only, did Mr. Lafleur get his information.


William Pugsley: What the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket), stated was thait up to the 16th of October they had no record in the department.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I said that 1 on ' the 16th of October.


William Pugsley: The record was on file with the department, and was taken by .me to St. John.
Mr1. CROCKET. What I distended to say, and what I am sure I did say, was that ' on ' the 16th of October.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman said ' up ' to the 16th of October.


Oswald Smith Crocket: The minister will not contradict the statement which he made because he cannot, being confronted with this telegram sent to himself.


William Pugsley: I contradict the statement I understood the hon. gentleman to make, namely that up to the 16th of October they had' not the record.


Oswald Smith Crocket: On the same day the minister replies:
St. John, N.B., 16th Oct., 1908.
E. B. Lafleur,
Chief Engineer,
Department of Public Works,
Ottawa.
Price materials Gaspereau river ninety cents. Have mailed tender to deputy
(Sgd.) WM. PUGSLEY.
St. John, N.B., Oct. 16, 1908.
Dear Mr. Hunter,-I return you tender of Maritime Dredging and Construction Company for work at Gaspereau river, &o. I understand that Mr. McCordock has reported that the price asked for Gaspereau is reasonable. X shall be glad if you will confer with the chief engineer and have the necessary recommendation to council prepared.
Yours sincerely,
.	(Sgd.) WILLIAM PUGSLEY.
J. B. Hunter, Esq.,
Deputy Minister of Public Works,
Ottawa.
On the 19th of October there is a report from Mr. Scammell, with whom the minister had personally arranged to visit the ground, with a view to certifying to the fairness 'and reasonableness of this excessive tender, and I will read Mr. Scannell's whole letter:
No. 1821.
Sub]., Dredging Gaspereau river.
Ref., Westmoreland Co., N.B.
Department of Public Works, Canada,
Office, Engineer-in-Charge Dredging, St. John, N.B., 19th October, 1908.
Sir,-In reply to your telegram of the 5tli inst., I saw the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company of St. John, N.B., and visited Gaspereau river on October 7, where a personal inspection was made of the work being done at that place in connection with dredging a channel 60 feet wide to a depth of 8 feet at low water and making a face of from 5 to 7 feet in order to secure^ a passage into the village of Port Elgin, parish of Botsford, Westmoreland county, N.B.
I found the dredge * Iroquois ' at work at that place with a tow boat, ' The Calluna/ and two barges. The work there is progressing with extreme difficulty, which I have reason to believe will increase as the season advances and much time will he lost on account of the high winds as the dredge is very much exposed to easterly and southeasterly gales, and there is no shelter afforded in the* least.
1 found that dredging commenced on August 17, and from the 17th to the 26th, 2,9161 cubic yards were removed, being 34 scows in, nine days or an average of 325 cubic yards per day. Up to September 5, 7,677 cubic yards were removed, or 87 scows in 18 days, being an average of 426 cubic yards per day. During the two days previous to my visit, viz.. October 5 aud 6, I found 1,159 cubic yards removed on the first day or 5 barges, and 1,324 Mr. CROCKET.
cubic yards or 6 barges on the second day, which shows that under favourable working conditions the dredge is capable of doing good work.	,
You will observe, Mr. Speaker, that this favourite firm of the minister's made over $1,100 on the 5th October and over $1,300 on the 6th October. Yet we had a certificate against the first judgment of the engineer of the department that this price was fair and reasonable.
At high water the place of deposit of soil is half a mile, and at low water two miles from: the site of the work, the materials dredged being clay, sand and oyster shells.
Neither the dredge or the tng can get into the creek except on the spring tides and this necessitates the water supply being pumped by a gasolene engine and towed out to tbe dredge at a great expense, this also applies to the coal used.
Under the circumstances it would be fair and reasonable to pay the present rate asf called for under the contract with the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company.
Yours obediently,
(Sgd.) J. K. SCAMMELL,
Resident Engineer.
That is the resident engineer of the St. John district with whom, tbe letter shows, the minister himself, personally, arranged to visit and examine the work with .a view to getting that certificate. On the 26th October, there is a letter from the engineer of the district, covering the county of Westmoreland in which the work is being done, Mr. Stead. He writes to John E. Moore, Esq., manager of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, St. John.
In reply to your letter of the 23rd inst., I have been sending tbe reports of dredging at Port Elgin to Ottawa each week, but several have been returned to me, through a misunderstanding of the reports. I wrote explaining the matter and received a telegram on Saturday asking for the returned reports, which I at once forwarded.
Would you kindly make up your accounts, four copies of each, for dredging during the months of August and September. These must be certified by the inspector, and I will then forward them.
Though I have asked for it, I have had no notification of your having been awarded the contract and do not yet know your price.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) GEOFFREY STEAD, Resident Engineer.
The resident engineer who was certifying these accounts as fair and reasonable on the 26th October, two days after the work was completed, states in his letter to Mr. Moore that he was not aware up to that time of the price of the contract. On October 28 there is a telegram from the chief engineer to Mr. Stead, the resident engineer at Chatham, as follows:
Dredging returns for Gaspereau river work do not state quantity cubic yards cast over.
102] 3

This information required, please forward it immediately.
(Sgd.) Chief Engineer.
Mr. Moore was looking for some funds then, and it became necessary to have some further information. Mr. Stead replies on October 29:
Am on way to Gaspereau river to obtain information re dredging requested in your telegram of 28th inst.
(Sgd.) GEOFFREY STEAD, Resident Engineer.
On the 30th a further telegram from Mr. Stead to Mr. Lafleur:
In reply to your telegram dredging inspector in dredging at Gaspereau river was removed when widening cut and is included in quantities in scow loads given in inspector's reports.
On October 31 the chief engineer wires Mr. Stead:
Telegram re Gaspereau 'river received. Dredging returns do not give number of cubic yards cast over, and that is the information I want. Please wire it immediately.
Stead replies on the 31st October:
In reply to your telegram dredging inspector Gaspereau river kept no account of cubic yards of material cast over. Therefore cannot give exact amount. I estimate about 6,000 cubic yards.
There is the statement of the engineer who was in charge of this work that there was no account kept of the material cast over and the department was dependent upon an estimate made by the resident engineer. On November 4 Mr. Stead is instructed by the chief engineer by telegram to ascertain from the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company their price for casting over at Gaspereau river. On the 6th November Mr. Stead telegraphs Mr Lafleur:
In reply to your telegram, the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company state that two-thirds the barge measurement price is their regular price for casting over. They claim that 8,000 cubic yards were cast over at Gaspereau river.
Although the resident engineer estimated
6,000	cubic yards, the claim of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company of 8,000 yards was recognized and payment recommended to them on that basis. Now, on the 7th November, we have a certificate from the secretary of the Department of Public Works which was required in order to enable some payments to be made to the contracting firm:	[DOT]
I hereby certify:
1.	That tenders were called under date of
the 28tli July, 1908, and were received until August 11, 1908, for the execution of dredging in Gaspereau river, N.B.;	'
2.	That a tender was received from the
Maritime Dredging and Construction Company;	i . "hjis;
3221	.
3.	That this tender being found corfect in every respect was accepted by the department;
4.	That the price of the above bid, viz., ninety (90) cents per cubic yard, was reported by the chief engineer of the Department of Public Works as being fair and reasonable;
5.	That the cost of this dredging is to be charged against the appropriation of $650,000 for dredging maritime provinces;
6.	That on the 4th November, 1908, the chief engineer has recommended that, pending the settlement of the company's account for dredging performed in the Gaspereau river, the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company be paid the sum of $13,700 (thirteen^thousand seven hundred dollars), work to that amount having been performed by them.
And I have signed.
(Sgd.) Secretary, Public Works Dept.
On the 10th November Mr. Stead, the resident engineer who had reported that hg estimated that only 6,000 cubic yards of material were cast over, was directed by the chief engineer of the department to send duly-
Certified accounts in duplicate, favour Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, for 8,000 cubic yards cast over at Gaspereau river, at 60 cents a yard. This should be accompanied by your report stating how figures mentioned were arrived at.
A document on file' shows how this communication became necessary. The Auditor General had smelt a rat and had asked for some inquiry and some explanations. The letter is from the chief engineer to Mr. Stead, dated November 19:
Sir,-I would like you to try to ascertain by soundings and calculating the actual quantity of materials cast over at Gaspereau river, N.B., by the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company. A satisfactory explanation must be given the Auditor General before payment can be made the company. Kindly, therefore, give this matter your careful and immediate attention.
The next document -on file is a copy of the order in council authorizing the contract to be entered into for this work. It is dated 20th November, 1908, nearly one month after the work was completed. This is the order in council:
The Committee of the Privy Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Public Works, advise that authority be given to accept the tender of tile Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, of St. John, N.B., to perform dredging in the Gaspereau river, province of New Brunswick, at the price of ninety cents per cubic yard, scow measurement, the above bid being the only one received in answer to public advertisement. The tenderers have furnished an accepted bank

The word 'cheque' apparently is omitted.
-for $6,000 as security for the due fulfilment of their dredging contracts in the said province. The expenditure in connection with this dredging is properly chargeable to the ap-

propriation of $650,000 for dredging, maritime provinces, granted by parliament at its last session. The chief engineer of the Department of Public Works has reported that the price above quoted is fair and reasonable.
Such contract to be for work done up to close of calendar year.
(Sgd.) RODOLPHE BOUDREAU, Clerk of the Privy Council.
So that we have the peculiar anomaly of an order in council passed upon the recommendation of the Minister of Public Works on the 20th of .November to authorize the department to enter into a contract for work which had been completed on the 24th of October and for which the contract had been actually let on the 4th of August Then we have on the 8th of January a further certificate from the accountant of the department, Mr. Kingston:
This is to certify that the work has been performed by the Maritime Dredging & Construction Company, under their contract with this department, for dredging at Gaspereau river, N.B., to the value of $16,669.60 in excess of all payments, which amount I have been authorized to pay so soon as funds for that purpose shall have been voted by parliament.
And this firm were paid the sum of $33,969 for the performance of the work.^
One other document to which I wish to refer is a letter or Teport from Mr. Stead, the resident engineer, dated the 9th of March, 1909, in which Mr. Stead describes this work as being of no value. The letter is addressed to Mr. Lafleur, the chief engineer, and is as follows :
1 have received your letter No. 8510 of the 4tb March, asking a report on what further diedging is required in the Gaspereau river, Westmoreland county, N.B.
In reply I have to say that last season dredging, to the extent of 33,744 cubic yards at a cost of $33,969.60, was performed by the excavation of a channel 100 feet wide across the estuary of the Gaspereau river, but that the shoaleet point of the estuary had not been affected.
That is the way the copy reads that was furnished to me from the Department of Public Works; but when the original letter was produced, we found that these words were omitted from the copy on the file which was brought down: ' But the shoal-est point of the estuary had not been reached at the close of the season, and [DOT]therefore no improvement in navigation has been effected.' And these words are reported in the proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee. The letter goes on:
Moreover, if the cut is left unfinished, it will probably fill up rapidly.
So that we have the statement of the resident engineer of the department that this work, which had involved an expenditure Mr. CROCKET.
of $33,969, was of no value and resulted ifl nothing more than the digging of a hole which would probably fill up rapidly and which had effected no improvement in navigation.


William Pugsley: No value unless continued.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I may say that it was not continued during the next year until the month of October. A government dredge, I think the ' George Mackenzie,' was sent in and worked a week or two in the month of October, and extended the cut, as reported by the Public Works Department, 500 feet. Everybody in the locality knows that that work was an absolute waste of public funds. It was the laughing stock of that community, the work going on at that time, and I have no hesitation in saying that the only object and the effect of that contract was to put into the pockets of the minister's personal friends, Mr. Mc-Avity and Mr. Moore, the profits of this illegal expenditure, to help them discharge obligations which they had assumed with the Minister of Public Works in connection with the purchase of newspapers in the city of St. J ohn.
Before I leave this return, I want the Plouse to note these facts which have been disclosed by this evidence, produced from the department itself:
1.	The well-timed arrival of the dredge of the minister's friend upon the site of the work within a day or two of the issue of the call for tenders.
2.	The novel and ingenious proceeding of awarding the contract pending the call for tenders on condition that the contract mice should be fixed by the amount of the lowest tender which should be received for work already awarded.
3.	The result of this ingenious proceeding-the receipt of one tender from the contractor who already had the job at 90 cents per cubic yard, 44 times the figure estimated bv two district engineers.
4.	The remarkable promptitude with which the superintendent of dredging in New Brunswick was notified on September 29 of the receipt of this tender on August 14.
5.	The fact that the superintendent of dredging, six or seven weeks after the work had been in progress, found it necessary to apply to the Minister personally to learn its location.
6.	The fact that when the chief engineer intimated his opinion that the price was excessive, the minister personally arranged with the resident engineer of another district to visit the work and report upon the reasonableness of the price.
7.	The fact that upon October 16, the department had re record of the amount' of the Maritime Dredging and Construe-

tion Company's tender, and that when the information was required at headquarters, it was found that the minister had the tender in his pocket at St. John.
8.	The fact that the formal contract was signed on November 7, two weeks after the conclusion of the work.
9.	The fact that the order in council necessary under the statute to authorize the contract to be entered into was passed on November 20, two weeks after the formal contract was executed, and nearly a month after the work was completed.
10.	The fact that on March 9 following the resident engineer of the district reported that the work as left was of no value and effected no improvement in navigation.
Now, I have stated that the awarding of this contract was in contravention of the law of this parliament. In this connection I desire to quote section 36 of the Public Works Act, as follows:
Whenever any works are to be executed under the direction of any department of the government, the minister having charge of such department shall invite tenders by public advertisement for the execution of such works, except in cases,-*
(a)	of pressing emergency in which delay would be injurious to the public interest; or
(b)	in which from the nature of the work it can be more expeditiously and economically executed by the officers and servants of the department; or
(c)	where the estimated cost of the work is less than five thousand- dollars, and it appears to the minister, in view of the nature of the work, that it is not advisable to invite tenders.
2. Whenever in case of any work tenders are required to be or are invited, the minister having charge of the department concerned shall submit all tenders received therefor to the Governor in Council and the contract for the work shall be awarded under the direction of the Governor in Council.
By the documents from .which I have quoted, being documents furnished by the Public Works Department, it is established beyond question that this contract was let in violation of that provision of the Public Works Act. That, I think, justifies my statement that it was an illegal contract, and the report of the engineer, Mr. Stead, of March 9, justifies the expression that it was a wasteful expenditure. This is just one of many matters that have been investigated by the Public Accounts Committee during the last year or two which illustrate the utter laxity, recklessness, illegality and, I think I am justified in saying, corruption which characterize the administration of that department of this government. We have had all sorts of cases investigated during the last two sessions of this parliament. We have had cases galore showing irregularities and crookedness in the awarding of contracts
and the payment of bills. We have had cases exposed where untrue statements were contained in memoranda submitted by the Minister of Public Works to the Governor in Council. We had one case in whici, a contract involving over $1,000,000 was awarded upon an untrue representation to Council, the contract being awarded to this same Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, but at the Dominion Dredging Company's figures, in violation of the law.


Henry Robert Emmerson: What were those figures?


Oswald Smith Crocket: The Dominion Dredging Company's figures were 391 cents per cubic yard and the tender of the Maritime Dredging & Construction Company, 50 cts per cubic yard. The tender was awarded to the Maritime Dredging & Construction Co., at the Dominion Dredging Co.'s lower figure on the statement that tenders had been called for when tenders were not called for.


William Pugsley: I think that when the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket) makes a Statement of that kind he should produce the papers. I challenge him to produce the papers and prove his statement. It is absolutely untrue. Every representation made in the recommendation to council is absolutely correct and is verified by the record.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I will bear in mind the minister's challenge, and on another occasion


Mr. WILSON (Laval).: Do it now.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I will undertake to produce the proof of the statement I make which is absolutely contrary to the statement which the minister has just made. We have had other cases where it was shown that public moneys were expended for the improvement of private property, in one case a private property in which the Minister of Public Works himself was interested as a stockholder. We had another case in which it was shown that public moneys were expended illegally, as in this instance, without a proper tender for the performance of a private work for a company in which another member of this parliament was interested as a stockholder.


William Pugsley: Where was it?


Oswald Smith Crocket: Mr. PUGSLEY. Mr. CROCKET. Mr. PUGSLEY. Mr. CROCKET.
At Bathurst.
What member?
A member of the Senate. What name?
Senator Edwards. We
have had other cases investigated where

dredging was done which was of no possible utility. We have had one case where a rum-seller was appointed a dredging inspector on the personal recommendation of the Minister of Public Works who had to employ a man to write out his dredging Teturns. We have had other cases where dredging contractors started dredging operations without any authority whatever from the department or any one else, and their bills were paid on the recommendation of the Minister of Public Works.


William Pugsley: What cases? Would the hon. gentleman be good enough to give these cases?


Oswald Smith Crocket: One of them, the minister will remember was at Loggieville. He has not forgotten it.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman said 'cases.'


Oswald Smith Crocket: Another was at Bathurst.
Mr PUGSLEY What year?


Oswald Smith Crocket: In 1908.


William Pugsley: Did the hon. gentleman say that had been paid?


Oswald Smith Crocket: I will undertake if opportunity is afforded me, to present a brief in each of these cases and to substantiate every statement I now have made.
Now, I think I have stated enough to show that a condition of affairs prevails in the Public Works Department which is absolutely rotten and alarming. It is, however, precisely what the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) might have expected when, though well aware of the malodorous record of that hon. gentleman in the government of New Brunswick, he called Hon. Wm. Pugsley to Ottawa, and placed him in charge of the greatest spending department of his government. Hon. members of this House have already heard the story of the connection of the Minister of Public Works with the corrupt and illegal payment to his friend George McAvity of the sum of $36,000 as a rake-off in consideration of his political influence with the Public Works Department. Hon. members have also heard in this House the story of the Minister of Public Works' connection wtih the New Brunswick Coal & Railway Compnay, of which he was the managing director and leading spirit, and with reference to which a royal commission appointed by the government of the province of New Brunswick reported that $134,000 of the public money was missing and could not be traced. Hon. gentlemen are also aware-for it has -been, unfolded iii this House-of the minister's connection with the Richibucto Sawdust Wharf steal, by which a favoured political heeler, Mr. Mr. CROCKET.


Thomas O.: Murray was paid by the Public Works Department $5,000 for the Sawdust Wharf which he bought for $700, the evidence in that case showing that over $2,000 of that sum was paid by Murray to a member of the Grit committee in Kent County, in five-dollar and ten-dollar bills a week or two before the last Federal election.
So, I say that the condition of affairs which prevails in the Public Works Department in this country is just exactly what the Prime Minister might- have expected when he called the Hon. Wm. Pugsley to administer that- great spending department. One would have thought that, these exposures having taken place in the matters to which I have referred and in reference to which the House already has the evidence, would serve as a warning to the Prime Minister to keep a more vigilant eye on his Minister of Public Works. But not so. The illegalities and irregularities have been accumulating at such a rate sin-ce the Prime Minister stated that he was 'prouder of Pugsley than ever' that it has become practically impossible for one to follow them. . I have to-day submitted one of the cases which was investigated last year, and which there was no opportunity of presenting to the House during the last session of parliament. There were at least a dozen others equally flagrant and equally indefensible which can be presented, and will be presented if we are afforded an opportunity of doing so before the close of the present session.
Therefore, I move in amendment, seconded by Mr. Barker:
Resolved that the evidence reported by the Public Accounts Committee respecting a payment of $33,969.60 to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company for dredging at Gaspereau river, N.B., as set out at page V 290 of the Auditor General's Report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1909, discloses a wasteful and illegal expenditure of public money which deserves the censure of the House.


Hon.  H. R.@: EMM-ERSON (Westmorland). I think it is a very unfortunate circumstance for my hon. friend who has just taken his seat (Mr. Crocket), that, in order to sustain a charge of misappropriation or misdirection of public money, he has to resort to vilification and abuse, and show an unwarranted animus in order to support the motion which he has just placed in your hands. My hon. friend has indulged, and I regret that it is characteristic of him, in conjecture and suspicion, and I would almost say, if it were parliamentary, in low insinuations against the hon. the Minister of Public Works. My hon. friend says there have been many cases brought out in the Committee of Public Accounts of misdoings of this kind. 1 can only say, with a knowledge of the

facts, with a knowledge of this particular ^case from its very inception. down to the 'present moment, that if they are all as baseless as the one which has been brought to our attention to-day, the right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and his govern ment, and the peoDle of this country, need have no fear with respect to the administration of public works by the present minister. In matters of this character something more is needed, even by the members of this House, than mere insinuation and conjecture; and if it is not needed by hon. members in this House, it is demanded by the people of this country that men who sit in parliament and indulge in nothing but insinuation shall produce some evidence, or stand branded as worse offenders than those whom the hen. gentleman has sought to brand. I am willing to discuss this question upon its merits, and I shall strip it entirely of all extraneous matters of political animus, and leave it with the bare facts. I think I can demonstrate, even to the good sense and judgment of hon. members opposite, that there is nothing whatever in this structure which my hon. friend has sought to erect upon a foundation of sand.
In 1900 I had the honour of being elected as representative of the county of Westmoreland in this House. At that time, and for some years previous, the locality of the harbour of Baie Verte and Port Elgin had claimed the attention of previous representatives of that county, and the condition of those harbours and of the approaches thereto were matters of deep concern. to the people interested. Under a previous government an attempt was made to afford transportation facilities by the erection of a ballast wharf in the open bay at Baie Verte, lying between Baie Verte and Port Elgin, between the streams known as the Baie Verte stream or creek and the stream known as the Gaspereau, which flows down by the village of Port Elgin. This ballast wharf was built there as a sort of loading wharf. There was no possibility of small steamers approaching the landings by the Eiver Gaspereau, or up in the river of Gaspereau, or to approach near the village of Baie Verte. A former government, some twenty-five years ago, constructed this ballast, or load landing wharf, right out in the open, and it was necessary to scow out to that landing. It was thought that they could make improvements affording reasonable transportation and shipping facilities for the people of those communities. That had utterly failed, in fact it had been so constructed that soon afterwards it became a little restive in its position, and began wandering around the bav, and people were afraid that if they put anything upon it it might go adrift.
So after a time it became obsolete as affording shipping facilities. Then the people of Port Elgin thought it was important that dredging should be done, so that vessels drawing at least 12 or 14 feet of water might have access to the wharfs, and to the mills and other industrial establishments in that community. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the village of Port Elgin, while small, has many industrial establishments. In 1903, when the engineer of the department went there to inquire into the matter, it had five sawmills and four fish-curing and fish-smoking industries. At that time it was struggling to be recognized as one of the industrial centres of the county of Westmoreland. To-day it has reached a measure of its ambition, and is steadily improving and developing. Now those were the conditions. It was necessary to afford these facilities for the people, and in 1901, at the first session of parliament, when Mr. Tarte was Minister of Public Works, I brought the matter to his notice, and as a result of my conference with him, he sent officers of his department to make a survey. In February and March, I think, of 1901, Mr. Day, an officer connected with the Department of Public Works in the province of New Brunswick, under the direction of his chief, Mr. Shewan, went to Port Elgin, and there, during the winter months, on the ice, made a thorough survey and borings to ascertain the dredging that would be necessary. The report of that engineer is before this House, and it shows what dredging was necessary. There was at the very mouth of the river a baT, 1,200 to 1,500 feet in width, that would have to be dredged out.
A channel was necessary that they might make use of that and then they have penetrated that bar in order to reach the main channel to Gaspereaux river. He pointed out the necessity of widening the channel of the river and then going up to what is known as the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island drawbridge. There is a railway bridge across the stream, which bridge was supposed to have a draw, which did have a draw and which has one now, but it was necessary that the river should be widened and deepened in order to reach the basin where are the wharfs, private and public, and also to reach the Hickman & Co. mills.


Oswald Smith Crocket: What depth did the engineer recommend at that time the dredging should go to-four feet?


Henry Robert Emmerson: Eight feet. At that time there w'as a little water in the basin at low water, but in the river there was from 4 to 6 feet of water at low water. Here were milling establishments, here j were fishing establishments which requir-

ed shipping facilities. They wanted a depth of water that would enable ordinary schooners and sailing craft to enter the basin in order to enable them to reach the point of shipment.
At one o'clock House took recess.
House resumed at three oclock


Henry Robert Emmerson: When the House took recess I was calling attention to the fact that a survey had been made by the Engineer of the Department of Public Works in the months of February tamd March, 1901 and a report was made to the Department shortly after the' survey was made. A survey was made of the River from Port Elgin to four miles beyond the mouth 'for the purpose of ascertaining the nature, extent, and probable cost of dredging that section of the river and entrance, to make *it navigable for vessels frequenting the place.' The report of the Engineer, together with the plans, was sent to the Department and copies thereof have been uresented to the House. The Gaspereau River takes its rise in Westmorland County, twelve miles or more from the point where it enters Baie Verte on the Southwestern side of Northumberland Strait. The officer of the Department reported that Port Elgin had then, May 1903, between GOO and 700 inhabitants; that it is practically the only town on the River Gaspereau, that it is situated about one mile from the outlet of the river. The engineer says that Port Elgin is situated in the Parish of Botsford, but, as a matter of fact, it is situated in the Parish of Westmoreland, which makes but little difference. It is situated on the line of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island railway about twenty minutes from Sackville on the Intercolonial railway and about seventeen miles from Cape Tourmentime, the Eastern terminus of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Tailway, and the nearest point on the main line to Prince Edward Island. At Cape Tormentine, between 1686 and 1892, a pier was constructed by the Department of Public Works and the Engineer reports:-
The pier is now much used during the season of navigation as a place of shipment for most of the deals cut along the line of the N. B. and P.E.I. railway, and that section of Westmoreland county.
At and in the vicinity of Port Elgin are five saw mills, three cheese factories, four smoked fish factories, several lobster factories, and a number of mercantile stores.
Three miles to the south-west of Port Elgin and at the head of Baie Verte is situated the village of the same name. This with Port Elgin and the intervening section of country has a population of about 2,000. All vessels have to enter and clear at Baie Verte, whether discharging or loading there, at Cape Tormentine or Port Elgin. It is therefore


Mr EMMERSON.: very difficult to separate from the total shipments the actual amount shipped from each of the three places as the entries are made under one port, that of Baie Verte.
From the head of Gaspereau river .to Port Elgin the river is not navigated and otherwise is little used except for log-driving, this during the stages of half tide to high water or vice-versa, there being but little water "t low .tide for that purpose. From Port El-rin to the mouth the channel is narrow (50 to 100 feet) and crooked, and is limited from 1 to 2 feet at low water spring tides. At the n.Luth, there are depths of from 4 to 5 feet, while a short distance outside the mouth, a bar 1,200 to 1,500 feet wide (between the 3 feet contours) is found, on which the limiting depth is 8 feet at low water spring tides.
Beyond the bar from 3 to 5 feet is found at low water while depths of 6, 12 and 15 feet are found in further distances of four-fifths, or,t and four-fifths and three miles respectively.
From the mouth to Port Elgin, the channel is bounded by sand and mud flats elevated fiom 2 to 3 feet above low water, and these are terminated by marsh aDd low lands on ei t her side.
Rumbering, fishing and farming form the principal occupations of the people of the surrounding country.
Of the former, deals, laths, hoards and shooks are the main cut of the mills. The deals are mostly taken by rail to Cape Tormentine and shipped from there while the other materials are exported from Port Elgin by schooner or rail. The value of the lumber shipment from Port Elgin and vicinity is placed at between $140,000 and $150,000 annually.
Of the fisheries, herring, lobster and smelt are the principal catch, the estimated yearly value of which is placed at $180,000. Most of the fish is taken to Sackville by rail and shipped from there again by water.
Of farming, potatoes, hay, cattle, hides, wool, hogs, lambs, poultry, butter and cheese e nstitute 'the exports and are valued at about $40,000 annually.
The imports consist mainly of coal and general merchandise. The shipping owned at Port Elgin in 1901, consisted of 5 schooners, having a draught of from 5 to 11J feet, and a total tonnage of 223, and one tug boat of 25 tons.
About 155 boats, of 4 feet draught, and 20 feet keel are also owned at and in vicinity of Port Elgin, which are engaged principally in lobster and other fisheries.
From 1897 to 1902, the number of vessels ettiering and clearing for Port Elgin and Baie Verte was as follows: 1897, 136; 1898, 101; 1899, 97; 1900, 62; 1901, 41, and 1902, 83. These vessels varied from 25 to 100 tons.
At present, only the smaller vessels can ascend the river to Port Elgin, and then generally at high water.
To improve the enti'anoe and river to admit, of vessels of upwards of 200 tons navigating same, it is asked that a channel 100 feet wide giving depth of 12 ft. at low water he dredged from the 12 ft. contour up to the wharfs at Port Elgin and that a basin 200 ft. wide, giving same depth as the channel, be made-ac the latter plaee between the wharves andi

tilt railway bridge, also that another channel 75 ft. wide giving 8 ft. at low water be dredged from the railway bridge up to what is known as Hickman's Mill wharf, situated 900 ft. above the bridge.
It is claimed that if the above improvements were made, the trade of the place would be considerably increased and that the large amounts of shipments now made over the railway to other points and eventually exported by water would be shipped direct from Port Elgin.
On the plan herewith enclosed is shown in red, a proposed channel 100 feet wide with sides sloping 2 to 1, giving depth of 12 feet at low water, from 500 feet below the railway bridge out to the 12-foot contour, a distance of 3 miles; a basin 325 feet in mean length and 200 feet in width, giving 12 feet at low water, and a channel 75 feet vile, giving depth of 8 feet at low water, extending from the upper side of the railway bridge to Hickman's mill wharf, a distance of 1, *90 ,'eet.
To dredge the proposed basin and channel below the bridge would necessitate the removal of 799,400 cubic yards (barge measuremea...) of mud and clay, and for the channel above the bridge 41,000 cubic yards of the same kin! if material, a total of 810,400 cubic yards, which placed at 20 cents per yard would involve an expenditure of $168,000.	.
In consequence of rock being found underlying the mud and clay bottom, the curvature of the proposed channel is unavoidable as will be seen by referring to the accompanying table of borings.
Figures in blue on the accompanying plan denote depths in feet reduced to low water spring tides. Figures in red denote heights in feet above low water spring tides. (Spring tides rise 9 feet.) Borings are in green, a table of which is attached to this report. Many more soundings and borings were taken than the scale of the plan would admit of being plotted.	t
As most of the deals cut, at and in the vicinity of Port Elgin for the European markets will, no doubt, continue to be taken to and shipped from Cape Tormentine, the vessels that will visit Port Elgin will generally be of the schooner class drawing 5 to 10 feet and engaged in the carrying of small lumber, fish and produce to local and other ports. _
As the improvement asked for is extensive, no doubt much more so than the people of Port Elgin and vicinity think, or the trade warrants, I would suggest, that a channel 100 feet wide be dredged, giving depth of 4 feet at low water, and also a basin at the wharfs, giving same depth and sufficiently wide to admit of vessels turning. This would, I think, be ample improvement for the class of vessels that frequent the port and would reduce the quantity of dredging to about 185,000 cubic yards and the cost to $37,000.
This report contains a recital of the conditions which prevailed at Port Elgin in 1903. Since that time the growth of business in that locality has been large, a number of fishing establishments have been erected-, and yet it will be noted that year by year the numbers of vessels sailing in and out of the port of Port Elgin has decreased. It was alleged by the prominent citizens of that locality that something would have to be done, that the river was filling up with sawdust from mills up the stream, and that it, would -be necessary to remove these obstructions which had- grown year by year, and were the cause, as they alleged, of decreasing the shipping in thait port. They were very anxious indeed that these improvements should be made so that those who had invested money would have advantages which were their due, and' in order that there might be further inducement to the investment of moneys in that locality. Although they did not get this improvement, although there was delay year after year, the business of the place has advanced and grown, and the manufacturers and producers have had, to pay -additional railway freights which has been a handicap to them. Appreciating the situation, familiar with it as I was, I froih time to time, since I had 'the honour and responsibility of representing the county of Westmoreland, have brought this matter to the notice of successive Ministers of Public Works. My first application was made to the Hon. Mr. Tarte. Nothing was done because the cry then was that there were no dredges, the government had too few dredges, and it was impossible to get private owners of dredges to engage in this work. There were then practically none in the maritime provinces. The result was that during Mr. Tarte's regime I failed to accomplish anything in behalf of the people living in that locality. Hon. Mr. Hyman, during his term of office, also found it impossible to get dredges. During the interim, while Hon. Mr. Fisher was acting Minister of Public Works, I besought his interest in the matter, and repeatedly urged it upon his notice. Finally, I secured- an amount in the estimates providing for the commencement of this work based upon the report then in the possession of the department, from which I have just read extracts.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Was there a specific vote for that particular work?


Henry Robert Emmerson: I think it was specifically mentioned in the .estimates in 1906 or 1907. The amount was not expended because of the department's inability to induce any private contractors to engage in the work, and because of the dearth of government-owned dredges. The serious difficulty that suggests itself to any one who looked over the situation was that in order to get a channel through the bar to a width of 1,200 to 1,500 feet, the dredges would have to be out in the open roadstead, a place of very great danger, open to the severe, and sometimes destructive, storms that axe felt in that locality, particularly in the all of the year. It was ail-

most impossible to have the government dredges meet the requirements of the maritime provinces, and so it was difficult to secure a government dredge for work at that point. I would say most frankly to this House that, having, as representative of the people, pledged myself to the carrying out of this work, because I deemed, it to be of great public interest, I was determined that that work should be done. I was strongly (determined that the work .should be attended to. in accordance with the wishes of the people and, I am candid enough to say, in accordance with the assurances that I had repeatedly given to my constituents. The efforts that I had put forth in 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906 and 1907, had been unavailing; but I felt that the time had come when it was necessary, in the public interest, as well as in the keeping of faith with my constituents, and with the public, that this work should be carried on. There were no dredges in the spring of 1907, and I was disappointed again. Although money had been provided, the work could not seemingly be accomplished. In 1908 I went to _ the Minister of Public Works, and I said: This work must be done in the interests of the trade and navigation of that whole section of the shores of Bay Verte, in the interests of over 2,000 people who were engaged in agriculture, fishing, milling and lumbering operations. Efforts were made, and I did have hope, and I knew the Minister of Public Works at that time did have hope, that one of the government dredges could be sent, and would be sent in the early spring. But I was disappointed again, and I came back, because I do like to show some persistence and perseverance in these matters when they are matters of public interest.


Oswald Smith Crocket: And when elections are coming on.


Henry Robert Emmerson: When elections are coming on, I want to stand 'before the electors as one who carries out his promises, and I am not ashamed to say it; and I am afraid that my hon. friend will die of a strange starvation, the starvation of a small nature, if he will bring up a matter of that kind in the face of this report, in the face of the interests and requirements of the port, in the face of the business that was carried on. Should I hold my hand because an election is coming on?
Mr. 'CROCKET. No, plunge it in.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It was an additional incentive, I admit, and I am not hypocritical enough to contend otherwise. I was anxious that if I came before the people of Westmorland again, I should come before them with this feeling, that I had carried out my promises and had been true Mr. EMMERSON,
to .my pledged word, and therefore it w,as that I insisted on the department doing this thing. The action was taken. The government dredge could not get there, and my hon. friend was in a position to secure this particular dredge, and he asked for tenders. It is true that pending the receipt of those tenders he made an arrangement with those people, who were taking a dredge from one section of the coast to another, that they should in the meantime commence this work, and if as the result of the tenders, another corporation should secure the contract, they would go on and engage in the work which they were under contract to do in another section of the province; but that, pending the determination of the call for tenders, they should do the work upon the express condition that they should receive only so much as the amount of the lowest tender, which would be the best way to determine the value of the work and the reasonableness of the price. My hon. friend indulges in conjectures, in small insinuations that -are not worthy of him. that are not worthy of any man in this House. I am not here with' any brief on behalf of the Minister of Public Works, nor on behalf of anyone connected with the Maritime Dredging Company.


Oswald Smith Crocket: The hon. gentleman has said that I indulged in small insinuations. I challenge him to name a single insinuation that I indulged in, in the course of my speech. What I did was to make straight, specific [DOT] statements, which I substantiated from documentary evidence furnished from the files of the Public Works Department. The hon. gentleman may talk as he pleases of small insinuations. I wish he would address himself to the specific statements I made.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I ask your ruling if the statement made by the hon. member is permissible, that my hon. friend was indulging in small insinuations unworthy of him. If I understand the rules correctly, that is not permissible.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The point of order is not well taken.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I ask the hon. member to name a single insinuation that I made.


Henry Robert Emmerson: If my hon. friend will possess his little soul in patience, I will answer. If the speech of my hon. friend, contained anything else than small insinuations, I failed to discover it. But the insinuation which I had in mind was this, that my hon. friend referred to the fact that the Maritime Dredging Company, which had secured an arrangement to do this work, comprised two gentlemen who were

personal and political friends of the hon. Minister of Public Works.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Will the hon. member deny the statement that I made? 1 challenge him or the Minister of Public Works to deny it.


William Pugsley: If the hon. gentleman will explain what he meant by the very eloquent word ' cronies,' I wall answer his question. He said they were cronies of mine.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I stated that the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company was owned and controlled by two personal and political friends


William Pugsley: And cronies.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Yes, and cronies of the Minister of Public Works; and I stated further, that the Minister of Public Works was financially associated with those two men in an important business venture. 1 ask the minister if he will deny that statement.	*


Henry Robert Emmerson: Mr. Speaker, the remarks of the hon. member contained an insinuation. Even if those gentlemen were personal and political friends of the minister, how does that fact in any way affect this matter? It is unworthy of my hon. friend to incorporate that into this matter. It may be a truth, and it is no disgrace to have either of these gentlemen as one's friend; and I hope that my hon, friend can count in the list of his friends gentlemen as high in the opinion of the citizens of St. John, as they are. But I say that in dealing with this matter we should rise above these puny insinuations.
I care not who it is that controls the Maritime Dredging Company, the point is simply this: How was it that tenders were asked for, and why was it that this company was engaged to do the work? Because of the necessity of the work; because I had urged it upon the government, in the interests of my constituents. I cared not who were the contractors. I would have much preferred it had the government been able to send a government dredge. But they did what they could, and the work was commenced. And what was the result? The figure is given at 90 cents peT cubic yard, and that was the amount under the tenders received.


Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).: I desire to ask the hon. gentleman (Mr. Emmerson) a question. He understands this subject very well. Was that price for rock dredging, for boulders or for clay? If that is made known, the public will understand the matter.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It was for the necessary dredging to be done there. I am not
familiar enough with these specifications or the borings or any of the data furnished by the engineers to be able to say just what portion was rock, what portion boulders and what portion clay or other soft material. But that makes no difference. The invitation for tenders, had been issued, and there was nobody else who offered, although it was open to the dredging companies of all Canada to make an offer. Now I state it as a fact, that the dredging there at that time involved great danger to the dredge, the scows, and the steamer in attendance. As a matter of fact this firm lost their steamer in a heavy storm that season. The work had to be done at a season of the year when storms were to be anticipated, and as an actual fact the company did meet with very serious loss. Now, if this were a ' soft ' contract, if it was one by which anybody could put dollars in his pocket would it not be reasonable to expect that this company would wish to continue the contract until the work was completed?
But, as a matter of fact, they left in. the fall and did not come Sack, very much to my regret and to the regret of the people of that locality. They have never come back to this day and decline to continue their work though they had only a small portion of it to complete. I know from the statements of gentlemen upon whom I can rely that the company lost money by engaging in that work. But I was glad to have" had that company operating there, because I was measurably in a .position to show the people that I was true at least to my word on their behalf. As this company would not come back, I urged upon the department the necessity ol sending one of the government dredges. But they were unable to meet my wishes in that respect.-It was not until 1909 that, responding to urgent appeals made not only by myself, but by those who represented the trade interests of that port and by the citizens ^en-erally, the Minister of Public Works -was enabled-disappointing, I believe, some other places-to send the government dredge the ' G. H. McKenzie ' to the point and so continue the work. My hon friend (Mr. Crocket) has dwelt upon the fact that some statements appeared in the evidence that the work done was entirely thrown away. It would have been thrown away unless it had been continued. I am bound to say that unless you cut that sand bar and provide a channel that will carry out the silt that is borne down by the river the money expended would have been absolutely lost to the country, and of no avail to the people whom this improvement was intended to serve. The dredge ' McKenzie ' continued the work there as long as the weather conditions permitted. In 1910, and since then, it was impossible to bring back other dredges, though I have seen to it that

strong efforts in that direction were made. But I believe the work is now being attended to or is about to be attended to with a view to completion. And I want to say to tile Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugs-ley) and his associates in the government, that if it is not completed, they forfeit whatever support I have and I am sure they will forfeit the support of the people in that locality-as, indeed, on such grounds they would forfeit, and would deserve to forfeit, the support of the people of Canada, for where necessary work is to be done and can be done any government neglecting that work should forfeit the support of the people. But I am proud to say that every effort is being made, and that the work will proceed. And I want to tell my hon. friend (Mr. Crocket), though he seeks to give the impression that this is a waste of the public money, and the work was not required, and will he of no service to anybody, but was done by the Minister of Public Works simply to aid some of his friends in the city of St. John, that nothing could be more contrary to the facts. He desires to assail and vituperate the Minister of Public Works. But let him bring facts before this House, and I am sure the House, irrespective of sides, will approve his action. He desires to have a motion passed condemning the Department of Public Works and the government because of the course they have taken in this matter. But when did these facts-he alleges them to he facts-come to his knowledge. In 1909, I believe, the matter was before the Public Accounts Committee. In 1910 last session-the matter was threshed out on this iioor in Committee of Supply. I remember having something to say on the subject myself. Knowing the facts as I did, I confess I thought the case was merely trifling; 1 thought it was brought forward for the purpose of taking up time-and it is open to that suspicion to-day. But, if'it be serious, why has he sat dumb so long this session, and why did he fail to bring forward in the session of 1910 the motion which he now proposes? If the facts justify the charge and the motion, if there is anything mysterious or corrupt or negligent involving misappropriation of the public funds, he should have had the courage to stand forth in this House a year ago, or certainly at some earlier moment of this session, to bring the matter to the attention oi the House and the country.
I can only imagine that my hon. friend is bringing it up to-day for a purpose, it may not be simply for the purpose of obstruction. He may anticipate an election, and at that time he will be going from house to house in the back districts in his county and other sections of New Brunswick, and retailing for facts that Mr. EMMERSON.
which is only to be found in his diseased brain and imagination.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Mr. Speaker, I call your attention to the language which the hon. member for Westmoreland (Mr. Emmerson) has seen fit to use towards a member of this House. So far as I am concerned, I care not what language the hon. gentleman indulges in, having regard to the source from which that language comes. At the same time I am interested in the decorum of this House, and in the maintenance of its dignity.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I was engaged at the moment, and did not hear what was said. What was the expression the hon. gentleman objects to?


Oswald Smith Crocket: He used the expression ' diseased imagination ' or ' diseased brain/ I forget which.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It is true that I am at loss to find language that can properly characterize the attitude 'of my hon. friend.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Come to the point,


Henry Robert Emmerson: I am answering my hon. friend's complaint about the language I made use of. If he complains^ of the expression ' diseased imagination,' 1 may put it a little more mildly, and say that he is affected by a brain storm.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: It is better to allow all personal allusions to remain outside of the debate.


Henry Robert Emmerson: I think my language has been moderate, and there is no one more desirous than I am that decorum in debate, that manliness and courtesy, should prevail in this House. But this is a matter of which I have a personal knowledge as a representative of the people, and when statements are made before the House in order that a wrong impression may go abroad, I feel it my duty to characterize them in .terms that are mild, having regard to the utterances of the hon. gentleman. Because I have suffered from such insinuations, I know just what is the effect of insinuations against public men, whether they are uttered in this House or out of it, as I know what the effect is with respect to the character of men and women when made even by a shake of the head. I would prefer that men should stand up in their places and manfully speak out what they have in their minds, rather than indulge in these insinuations and inferences. -


Mr. HUGHES.: Dont be too hard on the Minister of Public Works.


Henry Robert Emmerson: I do not think it is necessary for my hon. friend (Mr. Hughes) to interject himself into this debate; we

have enough unpleasantness about it now. Bear in mind that the instructions given by the officials of the department to the Maritime Dredging Company were that they should merely do the lesser work, that is in connection with the reports of Mr. Stead. They went there and faithfully performed their work, they earned every dollar that was paid to them, and indeed, as I am informed, they lost by reason of the dangers incidental to the situation of the work.


Mr. MEIGHEN.: There is no evidence of that.


William Pugsley: There is evidence, the statement made on March 10. On my honour as a member of this House, they lost their tug in a storm, and declined to go *back because of the dangerous conditions there.


Arthur Meighen: There is absolutely no evidence.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Now my hon. friend has said that this contract was illegal, and in violation of the Public Works Act. I am bound to say that that is not a correct statement of the case. This was a work of urgency, a work of necessity that justified the sending of dredges there. Has the public treasury of Canada suffered in any way? Men are engaged to do woTk that is absolutely necessary, and upon the best terms possible. How? Not by any hole and corner arrangement between the Minister of Public Works and the contractors, but on public competition throughout Canada. The amount was fixed, and I understand that the 90 cents which was paid applied only to a portion of the work, and that only 60 cents was paid on another portion. I would be glad to see the estimate of the engineer adhered to, if it could be, 20 cents per cubic yard. I can only say that the engineer must have had in his mind dredging within the river banks and within the harbour basin. The bottom of that harbou'r and of that basin consisted largely of silt and sawdust, and sand and clay, and perhaps he thought that his work would all be of that character. But we must remember that the work out on the bar, out in the open roadstead, was of an entirely different class, that it involved greater dangers and greater risks; and I venture to say that because of that fact there were no lower tenders, and because of that fact there were no owners of dredging plants who were disposed to engage in the work. I have understood, and think I can state it as a fact, that since then an earnest attempt has been made to find suitable dredging plant to go on and engage in that woTk. If it is to be put up to tender again, that bar being out of the question, the dredging of that channel through this
bar across the harbour mouth, out in the open bay and roadstead, being finished, 1 think the work can be done much more cheaply within the river and within the harbour and basin.
Now I want to emphasize this fact. There are large industrial establishments there to-day that are handicapped. The Hickman Milling Co., Limited, is a concern doing a very large business. In the manufacture of deals they are compelled, and will be compelled, to avail themselves of the transportation facilities afforded by the railways from Port Elgin to Cape Tormentine, where shipments are made in steamers from the government pier to the ports in Great Britain. Incidental to the manufacture of deals-and there are other mills there, four I believe-incidental to the manufacture of deals for the markets of Great Britain, there is produced a quantity of small scantlings, boards and laths.
These must find markets elsewhere than in Great Britain. Despite the fact that there has been a duty of $1,25 a thousand on lumber going into the United States these people have been obliged to send their surplus in the United States and although they have open to them the market of Newfoundland and the local markets of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, while they avail themselves of all of them, they are still obliged to send a great proportion of their lumber to the United States much to their disadvantage. They are obliged to transport that from Port Elgin by rail at additional expense to Sackvilie and Cape Tormentine and there ship to Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and United States ports. Would it not be an incalculable advantage to them if this dredging were completed? They would be enabled to have their schooners that could sail into the ports of the United States come to their wharf, take in their cargo, and they would thereby save expense and I am glad to say that with the prospect of a reciprocity treaty whereby lumber will go free into the United States and whereby they would have an open door they would have an additional advantage. '
It seems to me that my hon. friend attempts to create a mountain out of a little ant hill so desirous was he of getting at the Minister of Public Works. I am not going to refer, nor need I refer, to any of the courtesies in which he indulged himself in his reference to the Minister of Public Works. The Minister of Public Works is quite able to defend himself and to deal with my hon, friend. We who do not go to the Public Account Committee and who perhaps are not always familiar with what transpires there might be led to assume that there are other transactions which demand at his hands a motion such

as he has proposed to the House this afternoon. But if there is no more in these others which he has hinted at than there is in this my hon. friend certainly has my sympathy because he is attempting to travel up a high hill and a very stony road in his anxiety to get at the Minister of Public Works. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that this motion should be negatived. There is nothing in it. There is nothing in the statements which have been attempted to be alleged as facts. The work is a public work, a public necessity, it has been done by open competition, it has been done faithfully so far and I hope it will be speedily completed.


Mr. J. D. REID (Grenville).: Mr. Speaker, being .a member of the Public Accounts Committee and having been present during this investigation, I feel that I would like to say a few words on this motion moved by my hon. friend from York, New Brunswick (Mr. Crocket). I listened to the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. Emmerson) and I was very much amused. I remember the time when the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) acted as counsel for the hon. member for Westmorland and the result of it was that when the case was ended the Minister of Public Works was Minister and the member for Westmoreland was a member of this House. I wondered as the hon. member was speaking if he was acting in that capacity for the Minister of Public Works and expected that after this debate he would be Minister of Public Works and the Minister o* Public Works would be occupying his seat in the House.
Now, Mr. Speaker, as I followed the hon. member, it seemed to me that he took the whole of the time that he spoke in trying to prove that this work was absolutely necessary. He did not dwell to any extent upon the proposition or try to prove that the amount paid by the government was fair and just. He claims that it was a matter of urgency and that was the reason why it had to be let in the way it was. But, is that not a strange reason t to advance with regard to a work that has stood for eight or nine years? The government did not think it was a work of necessity or urgency until just before the general election and until the Minister of Public Works with Mr. Moore and Mr. McAvity decided that they were going to purchase the St. John Telegraph. Then they decided that it was necessary to do this dredging at Gaspereau and not only at Gaspereau, but also at York Point and St. John. It was decided to do the work as a matter of urgency and that it should be let without tender just before the elections were coming on in order that they should get money enough to buy up the Mr. EMMERSON.
'St. John Telegraph ' so as to convert it from a Conservative newspaper to a newspaper working in the interests of the hon. member of Westmoreland. Is it not a fact that just at this time the hon. member for Westmoreland was afraid that he would lose his seat and the Minister of Public Works wanted to do one kind act and let this contract in order to assist him in his election?


Henry Robert Emmerson: It was a needless alarm in view of my 1,400 majority.


John Dowsley Reid: Another point is that just after the election was over it was not a work of urgency or necessity, but just now when there is an election coming on tlie hon. member for Westmoreland and the Minister have decided that it is very urgent and they are going to start the work again. That is what the hon. member has just stated here a few minutes, ago! What my hon. friend from York, New Brunswick (Mr. Crocket) has stated is this; we have never raised the point as to whether the work was needed or not. That question was not raised. The question that we have raised is: was that contract given by the Minister of Public Works fair and honest? The evidence proves that it was not. In addition to that the hon. member who has just taken his seat has shown what the amount of the contract m.eant. He states that the report of Mr. Day showed one recommendation of 840,000 yards at 20 cents a yard. It was to be a contract that would amount to $168,000 according to his own admission. Here was a contract for $168,000? if at 20 cents a yard which was to be awarded without tender. Then, if the w|ork had been proceeded with on the original estimate of 840,000 cubic yards at 90 cents a yard the total amount of the contract would have been $756,000. That is what the total contract amounted to, but in the end they saw it was going to be too much robbery to take $700,000 out of the public treasury and they reduced it to 185,000 cubic yards at 20 cents a yard, or, they say, that it was a contract for |$37,000. But., 185,000 icubic yards at 90 cents fa yard would amount to $166,500, of a contract that was let without tender.


William Pugsley: Of a contract which was not let.


John Dowsley Reid: Of a contract which was let because there was an allowance of 90 cents a yard for all of that amount.


William Pugsley: Why does my hon. friend make those misstatements? That contract was simply for the amount in the outer bar consisting of 40,000 yards.


John Dowsley Reid: But the contract was for all that was to be dredged there.

It is all right for the Minister of Public Works to make that statement here, but these people had the contract for all the work that was to be done at Gaspereau at 90 cents a yard. That was the contract.
There is something wrong about letting such a contract to a man like John E. Moore, who is running the St. John 'Telegraph' and never was in the dredging business, and knew nothing about it. On July 10th, John E. Moore went to Montreal, purchased a second-hand dredge from the Gilbert people and went straight back to Gaspereau, and on August 4th he is at work on this contract at ninety cents a yard. The minister did not authorize the department to advertise for this work until some time afterwards.


William Pugsley: It was advertised at that very time.


John Dowsley Reid: Yes, but the tenders were not to be received until some time after they were at work


William Pugsley: A few days afterwards.


John Dowsley Reid: Moore was at work on the^ contract before the tenders were opened, "and if any one went there to inspect the work to be done, Moore would tell them he had the contract and ray: If you put in a lower price I will have to take it, so what is the use of cutting me down. Every one knows that most of the contractors are Liberals now, and Moore could tell them: We want this money to help the member for Westmoreland to be elected, and we want to buy the St. John 'Telegraph.' If I understand it aright, the St. John 'Telegraph' is practically owned by John E. Moore, McAvity and the Minister of Public Works.


William Pugsley: I am sorry to say that is not correct as to the Minister of Public Works.


John Dowsley Reid: The Minister of Public Works is interested in it, and here is the money coming from the Gaspereau dredging to buy up the St. John 'Telegraph.' Outside of McAvity and Moore, I would like to know who are in that Maritime Dredging Company. But there was other work given in the same improper way, and with reference to the contract at v'u-k Point, I quote this letter from the renort of the Committee of Public Accounts, 1903, page 315:
St. John, N.B., 28th Oct, 1908.
J. B. Hunter.
Deputy Public Works,
Ottawa, Ont.
Department Railways very anxious to have dredging done immediately at Intercolonial railway, York Point, and Intercolonial railway ballast wharf here. Kindly -advertise for tenders and meantime authorize Maritime. Dredging and Construction Company to proceed with the work on agreement to accept price of
lowest accepted tender. Also have company notified that they may withdraw dredges from Gaspereau and Maquapit as season getting late and cannot work longer this fall.
(Sgd.) WILLIAM PUGSLEY.
Does any member of this House believe that a minister who will let a contract in that way at an exorbitant price, is administering his department in the public interest? He had a report from his engineer saying the work was only worth 20 cents a yard, and yet he gives the contract at 90 cents a yard to one of his personal friends, and from it he will receive personal benefit through the influence of the St. John 'Telegraph,' because the member for Westmoreland and the Minister of Public Works are receiving the benefit of the influence of that paper. I do not believe there is one mem-
>* of this House who will -say that it is fair and just to charge up to the people of this country' that difference between 20 cents and 90 cents a yard for such a purpose. The member for Westmoreland (Mr. Emmerson) censured the member for York (Mr. Crocket) because he did not bring this matter up last session, but he knows it could not be brought up last session because it was before the Public Accounts Committee, and it was only at the end of the session the report was presented to the House.


William Pugsley: It was all discussed in Committee of Supply in November, 1910.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Why was it not brought up earlier this session?


John Dowsley Reid: It does not make any difference when it was brought up. Why did not the member for Westmoreland tell us earlier in the session that he had arranged to have the Gaspereau work gone on with, because there is a general election this year, and he-let it lie idle for the last three or four years?


Henry Robert Emmerson: It would not be correct to say that.


John Dowsley Reid: It would be correct. The hon. member told us that nothing had been done there since the last election.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Excuse me; the Dominion government dredge was working there last year.


John Dowsley Reid: This work was
not going on	-


Henry Robert Emmerson: They have thrown up the contract.


John Dowsley Reid: Who threw it up?


Henry Robert Emmerson: The Maritime Dredging Company


John Dowsley Reid: They threw it up because the contract was going to amount to $700,000, and the Minister of Public Works

knew the people would not stand for that, and he was force.d to have John E. Moore withdraw. The member for Westmoreland admits that if they call for tenders again they will get a much lower price.


Henry Robert Emmerson: I said that the dredging to be done now would be within the harbour, and necessarily the price would be lower. The Maritime Dredging Company had the hard part of the work to do at 90 cents a yard, and any one who does the present work will have a softer snap.


John Dowsley Reid: I never before heard of 90 cents a yard being paid for dredging mud or sand.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Mr. Mayes got 90 cents in the harbour of St. John.


John Dowsley Reid: But it is 30 feet in St. John harbour and only 6 feet at Gaspereau, and that makes [DOT] a great difference.


Henry Robert Emmerson: There is a vast difference between the position as to the danger to the dredges.


John Dowsley Reid: The hon. member is quibbling.


Mr. LOGGIE.: I can tell the hon. member (Mr. Reid) that dredging in five or six feet is more difficult than in thirty feet.


John Dowsley Reid: It is well to hear the hon. member (Mr. Loggie) defending this, because he knows the dredging the Loggie Company got down in Bathurst and Loggieville which was given without tender in the same way, and John E. Moore and Loggie and others are walking around the maritime provinces with money they robbed from the people of this country.


William Stewart Loggie: The hon. member has no proof that dredging was done at Loggieville or Bathurst without tender, unless it was for work under $5,000. There is nothing in the evidence before the Public Accounts Committee to sustain his statement.


John Dowsley Reid: The hon. member's recollection is very bad. It does not matter whether it is $65,000 or $5,000, if it is wrongfully given and they have succeed-in robbing the country the principle is exactly the same. In the Public Works Department we have brought up matters of this kind where there is no question in the eyes of the people of this country that public robbery has been going on, and the Minister of Public Works has taken no steps to stop it. We brought up, for example, the amount expended for the sawdust wharf, where the difference between $700 and $5,000 was robbed from the people of this country through the neglect or influence of the Minister of Public Works, I do not know which, but by one way or Mr. REID (Grenville).
the other, either by the minister in not attending to his business or else by giving this man the option of getting this $4,300.


William Stewart Loggie: Would it not be fair for the hon. gentleman to say that the large part of the difference was repaid to the government for a part of the property sold?


John Dowsley Reid: The way it was repaid was that when the Minister of Public Works was in a hole in the eyes of the people of this country he sent down for the Loggie Dredging Company, and they came up and paid $3,700 for a part of it and it has never been used since.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman is speaking absolutely without evidence when he says that I sent down for the Loggies. There is not a particle of evidence of that, and if we can truly characterize a gentleman who keeps so far away from the truth as my hon. friend by saying that he has a diseased imagination, I think his imagination is even more diseased than that of the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket).


John Dowsley Reid: If I have a diseased imagination the Minister of Public Works must have a diseased brain when he allows such rascality to go on in his department. He tells us he did not send for Loggie. Did he not bring Loggie here as a witness in the Public Accounts Committee? He was subpoenaed by the Minister of Public Works, not bv Mr. Crocket.


William Pugsley: The charge or insinuation made by the hon. gentleman was that I had sent for Mr. Loggie to come here to Ottawa to make a proposition to buy a part of this property. Is that not what the hon. gentleman meant to convey to this House? The hon. gentleman knows there is not a particle of evidence that could give a shadow of foundation for a statement like that.


John Dowsley Reid: What I wish to state to the House is that Mr. Loggie was brought here by the Minister of Public Works to try and prove that the sawdust wharf was worth $5,000. That was what he was brought here for and when he came here the only way in which he could prove it was to get Mr. Loggie to make an offer-of $5,000 or whatever it was.


William Pugsley: He was not brought here, so far as I know, for any such per-pose. It appeared in the evidence that he had said to Mr. Stead that the property, in his judgment, was well worth $5,000, and that he would give more for it, and had made an offer to Mr. Murray for it. That is why the committee subpoenaed Mr. Loggie. I had nothing to do with the subpoena.


John Dowsley Reid: But that was all after the hearing of the evidence was started and the case was before the Public Accounts Committee.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Mr. Loggie did not come till after that.


John Dowsley Reid: Then, of course, Stead was sent by the department to Log-gie because Loggie had been advised of what he was to do. He was to make this offer in order to help the Minister of Public Works out of the hole on the sawdust wharf; there is mo doubt about that at all. So far as the Department of Public Works is concerned, with all this rascality and robbery and thievery, that is going on in that department, we wanted to have an investigation of that department; we asked for one some time ago. I believe it would have been in the interest of the Minister of Public Works to have allowed that investigation, because it would have either-shown that these charges were quite unfounded or the minister would have had to explain it in a different way, because the people of this country believe that the Minister of Public Works either knows something about all this and is allowing it for the purpose of benefiting his friends or for political purposes, or else is interested in it himself. That is the impression that is going all over this country and the minister has not tried, except for some slight explanation here, to explain these serious charges. The very fact of his being interested in the St. John ' Telegraph,' and awarding to John E. Moore, who had never done any dredging before, contracts that would enable Moore to buy out the St. John ' Telegraph' out of the public treasury without his putting in a dollar of his own, is a disgrace to this country.


William Pugsley: I think it is simply scandalous that the hon. gentleman should make statements that have not a particle of evidence to support them. There is not a tittle of evidence anywhere that the owners of the St, John ' Telegraph ' paid for it out of money they received for dredging contracts. If the hon. gentleman had thought that was the case, surely the time for him to make these (statements was before the Committee on Public Accounts, and he should have subpoenaed these people to come here.


John Dowsley Reid: The hon. gentleman knows that iust at the time these things happened the St. John ' Telegraph ' was changed from a Conservative newspaper to a Liberal paper, supported by the Minister of Public Works, and these contracts were all let at the same time at prices which not one man in the Dominion of Canada believes were fair and upright. 323	'
But we have other cases in other departments, and it seems to me that the Prime Minister and other members of the government do not seem to care how much robbery goes on. Even when the hon. *member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmer-son) was Minister of Railways and Canals, look what went on in his department. If his brain is like that of the Minister of Public Works this must have been the time when it got warped or diseased, and he allowed these heelers to get in and rob this country. He remembers the land deals at Halifax when Pearson was down there robbing the country. Then, when they wanted land for the Intercolonial railway, the hon. member sent down for the proprietor of the Halifax Liberal paper, let him get in the scoop and rob the country there.


Henry Robert Emmerson: My hon. friend is again drawing on his imagination, there is not the slightest evidence of anything of that kind.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, no.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It is all very well to say ' oh, no,' but apparently the hon. member has no case, and he now wants to throw mud all around.


John Dowsley Reid: The evidence all came out.


Henry Robert Emmerson: There is no such evidence.


John Dowsley Reid: Pearson was sent for at the time to see about these lands. We wanted an investigation, but we could not get it, hon. members opposite voted us down, and now the hon. member for Westmorland has to come to the defence of the Minister of Public Works because at that time all the hon. members came to his defence and would not allow us to expose the roibbery and rascality that went on in the department he was running at that time. How is it with the other departments? They seem to be all getting in the same way. Seeing that the Minister of Public Works and others are allowed to act in this way, those in charge of other departments think they have the same right. Every one of these spending departments is practically in the same position, and it is impossible to prosecute the offenders because every one of the men guilty of this robbing of the public treasury does so with the knowledge or consent of the minister. ' what is the use of prosecuting them, because they are all like Moore and McAvity, men who are heelers and are putting up the money for the elections. We have seen how the Public Works and Railway Departments are run. But other departments are just as bad. The Minister of. Marine and Fisheries will remember the investigations that were made into his department.

.COMMONS


Mr. TALBOT.: What has that to do *with it?


John Dowsley Reid: It has a lot to do with it. It shows how members like you. are ready to swallow everything, *whether it is public robbery or not, in order to back up these men who allow it to go on. When we had these investigations into the Marine and Fisheries Department, were there any prosecutions? The minister knows that he dare not prosecute, because they would look after him. He was responsible, and I cannot understand how a minister who is sworn to do what is right, will allow this rascality to go on without prosecuting somebody.


Mr. BRODEUR.: The horn, gentleman is absolutely mistaken. Somebody has been prosecuted and put into jail.


John Dowsley Reid: Name one of them. I would like to know who they are.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: If the 'hon. gentleman will consult the record of the proceedings of the court in Quebec last spring he will find the names.
eaux river. I think in all fairness he ought to confine himself to the motion before the House. If we are going to take the vote on reciprocity in the near future


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


John Dowsley Reid: Mr. Speaker, I was referring to the other departments to show that the Minister of Public Works was not alone in allowing robbery and rascality to go on in his department, but that all the spending departments of this government are in the same boat.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: A reference may be made to other departments, but the main question before the Chair is contained in the amendment.


John Dowsley Reid: Mr. Speaker, I intend speaking to the amendment, but it is necessary to refer to the other departments to show how they compare with the Department of Public Works.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: It is also customary, when an amendment is moved in Ways and Means and in Supply for speakers to be confined to the amendment.


John Dowsley Reid: The minister should tell who they are. He did not prosecute Merwin or Roy, the man who padded the lists at Sore! and then left this country.


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: The man is dead and buried.


John Dowsley Reid: He was not dead for a long time afterwards, but he was not prosecuted. Instead of prosecuting him, the minister promoted him to a higher position.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: That is not correct. The man was dismissed.


John Dowsley Reid: He was dismissed because we brought the matter up in this House, and raised so much trouble about it.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The non. gentleman stated that Roy was promoted.


John Dowsley Reid: Wasn't he transferred to Quebec ait the time?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Not at all; he was dismissed.
. Mr. REID (Grenville). When a man robs the country, is dismissal all the action that the minister will take?


William Pugsley: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I think you will agree with me that the hon. gentleman is wandering a long way off from the question before the House. The motion is to go into Committee of _ Ways and Means, and the amendment is to condemn the government for expenditure in the Gasper-


William Pugsley: I would ask you to rule whether or not what the hon. gentleman is doing can be regarded in any sense as an illustration of arguments in support of the amendment before the House. It is nothing but a waste of public time.


John Dowsley Reid: I am illustrating by showing how other departments compare with the Department of Public Works, and I claim that the Minister of Public Works is not doing his duty as a member of the Privy Council, not only with regard to 'his own department but with regard to the other departments for which he is also responsible, for the protection. of the public treasury. To show that he is not doing his duty, but is allowing robbery to go on in this government, let me illustrate with another case. I take the case brought out the other day, in which the Trade and Commerce Department had men in British Columbia, who robbed this country of a million dollars, with the knowledge of the Prime Minister, or ait least with the matter brought to his attention long before there was any prosecution attempted. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Customs, the Minister of Inland Revenue and the Minister of the Interior all had knowledge if this thing, and it was brought up in ;ouncil with the Minister of Public Works here. Was he doing his duty as a minis-;er to allow such a robbery of the people if this country to take place without taking any steps to prosecute? Did he do tiis duty as a minister, so far as the Interior Department was concerned, when a man in the northwest who robbed the
Mr. REID (Grenvill?)

people of money, that was Wagner, was taken on again, and his salary increased from $50 to $100 a month? That is the way they were prosecuted. There is no possibility of the Minister of Public Works prosecuting any man in his department. We know how Merwin and John E. Moore robbed this country, and; then got off scott free. No man can get a contract from his department unless he is a Liberal heeler and a follower of the minister. And he knows there is no possible chance of his toeing prosecuted. There has not [been one case of prosecujtiont See how the tender was let in the Gaspereaux case. The minister says that it was let at public competition. He knows that in that case there was a dredging man who wanted to get some of that work. He came to the department for information on the subject and the department referred him to the engineer in charge. But the engineer in charge knew nothing about it.


William Pugsley: Who was that man?


John Dowsley Reid: Mr. Mayes. Here is the letter:
St. John, N.B., December 18, 1908. Eugene D. Lafleur, Esq.,
Chief Engineer, Department of Public Works, Ottawa.
Dear Sir,-Your favour of 14th inst. received last evening. I called with my son on Mr. Scammell this morning, who you stated would give all information regarding the dredging of York Point and Ballast wharf, St. John. Mr. Scammell informed me that he had not one bit of information to give, that others had inquired and he had given the same answer. I asked him if he was aware that York Point work was being dredged by Mr. Moore's dredge 'Saugus,' for some weeks, and was being dredged this very day and that outside talk said that it was about finished; also that the same dredge had worked some few days on the Ballast wharf work, at the same time the newspapers contained advertisements asking for tenders which close to-day.
There was a man who wanted to put in a tender. If the minister wanted why did not the minister let Mr. Mayes have a form of tender? If he had, Mr. Moore would not have got 90 cents a yard.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman asks why the forms of tender were not sent to Mr. Mayes. I say, the evidence shows that these forms were sent to Mr. Mayes.


John Dowsley Reid: Yes, but why did not the minister give him the information necessary to work out the tender? The minister, through his official may have sent the form but he absolutely refused to- give information to Mr. Mayes which would enable him to judge what was a fair price to put in his tender.
323J


William Pugsley: He was not refused, but was given what information was in the department.	-


John Dowsley Reid: Here is what he says further in his letter:
Mr. Scammell said that he was quite aware-of it but did not understand it. Of course it is perfectly useless for one to tender as it is quite evident that the work was and is intended for Messrs. Moore & Co. It would seem to the ordinary mind that the government might save the expense of advertising.
I regret that you and your officials could noc give the information asked for.
Yours truly,
1	(Sgd.) G. S. MAYES.
Mr. Mayes had dredges and wanted work for them, and was willing to take that work -at a fair price. But, here at Ottawa, and on calling on the engineer in charge, he was refused the information on which to base a tender. Mr. Mo-o-re put in a tender. Now, the minister must admit that in regular course when a tender is put in a deposit accompanies it. But this is the way Mr. Moore tendered:
St. John, N.B., December 17, 1908. Napoleon Tessier, Esq.,
Secretary, Department of Public Works, Ottawa, Out.
Dear Sir,-We herewith inclose our tender for dredging at York Point Slip, St. John, N.B., duly executed by us. We are not inclosing any deposit cheque, as we have this work about completed, and we already have a number of deposits on all the other work which has been awarded to us.
We shall be glad to be advised promptly if our tender is accepted.
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd.) Maritime Dredging and Construction Company.


John E.: Moore,
Manager.
That work was completed and nothing needed to be done but to draw their cheque for the work. Yet they write to know if their tender is- to be accepted. Did any perso-n ever know anything more ridiculous than that? That tender was given verbally by the Minister of Public Works to Mt. John E. Moore, the man who bought the St. John ' Telegraph ' to work in his interest in. that city. There is the story of York Point. But there are several other cases I might mention, all of a similar kind. The Minister of Public Works, for instance, gives a contract either for'a sum of less than $5,000 or on the ground of its great urgency; and we find that in the end it means a contract which, given at the figure of the engineer's recommendation would mean a total of $168,000. And, at the prices that the minister gave these men when they started out, by which the country would have been bound if it had not been stopped by the exposure by the oppo-



IU247 COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
sition in the Public Works Committee, it would have meant a payment of $756,000. This would have meant a loss to the country of $588,000, and that is the amount that the opposition saved by this exposure in one contract.
William Pugsley: When did they expose it?


John Dowsley Reid: Last year, and the minister had to withdraw it and make that company go on with other work.


William Pugsley: If the Public Accounts Committee were the means of stopping it by an exposure in 1910, how does the hon. gentleman account for the tact that they did not resume their work in 1909, the year before these alleged high prices were found?


John Dowsley Reid: They worked up to the fall of 1909.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman is wrong, they worked up to the fall of 1908, and declined to go on with the work in the summer of 1909.


John Dowsley Reid: The minister knows that they had the Gaspereau work, the St. John harbour, and other contracts, and they had not enough dredgeiS to do all their work.


William Pugsley: That is not the point. The hon. gentleman said that I got frightened, because the matter was exposed in the Public Accounts Committee in the year 1910. But this company did no dredging there after the fall of 1908, and in 1909 declined to come back.


John Dowsley Reid: The minister can explain that when he is making his speech. The point I want to know is this: This department gave J. E. Moore work at Gaspereau, York Point, and other places without a tender. That is, the minister gave it himself, and instructed his department that they were to advertise for tenders and give the contract to the lowest bidder. I do not think the minister will dispute that. But when the tenders were asked for the York Point work had not only been begun but completed. In the Gaspereau case they had not done all they intended, but they were working at York Point and other places in order to hold the contracts. There was no rush at Gaspereau and other places, for they had waited for years. But the matter was disposed of in 1910, and you did not see them going back after this exposure. But when the colleagues of the Minister of Public Works saw that this was being exposed, and it was known that it meant a robbery of $588,000, they called a halt on the Minister of Public Works, and he had to tell these people to give some excuse that they could not acce'pt it Mr. REID (Grenville).
again, that it was too hard work and they refused the contract.
In my opinion that is the reason they did not go back again. I know the Minister of Public Works is anxious to try and get out of this in some way, but there is no explanation he can give that will satisfy the people of this country. Those contracts were let by him to men that were never in the dredging business, men who met in Montreal when John E. Moore purchased that dredge and went straight to Gaspereau, on the authority of the Minister of Public Works, and did that work. Then the minister asked for tenders when the work was all completed at one point, and when it was going on at another point. There is no one who will believe that it was an honest, straight and fair contract. People will believe there is something behind the whole deal. And who has benefited from that? It was brought out in the Public Account Committee that John E. Moore was benefited by that. Although he was no dredgeman, he made a lot of money out of it. He purchased the St. John ' Telegraph,' and the Minister of Public Works and his party has benefited by the fact that the St. John ' Telegraph ' was changed from being a Conservative to a Liberal paper. I do not believe it was in the interest of the people of this country that that should be done, and I believe the Minister of Public Works is entitled not only to the censure of this House, but of this country for allowing such a rascally piece of business to go on in his department.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend, the member for Grenville, (Mr. Reid) has such a peculiar mental make-up, if he will Considjer that parliamentary, 15hat it is exceedingly difficult to understand what part of his remarks he wishes us to consider as statements based on facts, what part he means to be conclusions or deductions evolved by this own understanding and what part is pure imagination. The hon. gentleman certainly leaves one in grave doubt as to what part of his argument he desires us to understand is based on fact. He. deals in strong language, certainly; he speaks of robbery, and he even says that John E. Moore has robbed the treasury of this country.


John Dowsley Reid: And iso he has.
Mr. PUGSLEY In what respect?


John Dowsley Reid: I explained it, and if I did not make it plain to the Minister of Public Works I may try again.


William Pugsley: Whatever has been said of myself as Minister of Public Works in awarding the contracts to the Maritime Dredging Company, I think nobody will say lout that the company did what they had a perfect right to do.


John Dowsley Reid: To rob the country?


William Pugsley: The hon gentleman says they were robbing the country. He knows that they simply tendered in the ordinary way for public works, pursuant to public advertisements, and that the contracts were awarded to them. But I think nobody who knows the hon. gentleman, and who has had opportunities of hearing him in this House on different occasions, will take much stock in these wholesale charges which he so glibly makes in a very serious manner. I am sure that after the hon. gentleman has called a man a robber and a thief, if he met him outside he would take his arm and let him understand that he was one of the most decent and honourable fellows in the world. That is the kind *of man the hon. member for Grenville is. Now he stated that it was intended to give a contract to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company for some 700,000 cubic yards of dredging at Gaspereau, and that the only reason why it was not given was that the matter was exposed before the Public Accounts Committee; that the minister became freightened, and therefore did not go on with the intended operation of giving this very large contract to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company. Now, the hon. gentleman made that statement just as positively as he made the other statements to this House. When I pointed out to the hon. gentleman that the Public Accounts Committee did not deal with this matter until the session of 1910; that all the work this company did at Gaspereau was in the summer and fall of 1908, and that left a whole season when dredging operations might have been carried on before the matter came at all under the consideration of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. gentleman did not deem it to be his duty to express any regret for the misstatement which he made. However, I suppose we must not hold him entirely responsible for all his statements, by reason of the conditions which I have mentioned a short time ago with regard to the hon. gentleman's make-up. My hon. friend must have seen that this statement was calculated to mislead the House. Now the facts are that in the summer of 1908 my hon. friend who represents the county of Westmoreland (Mr. Emmerson), as he has stated, represented to me in the strongest possible manner the desirability, indeed the actual necessity, from the standpoint of the public interest, of doing this dredging in the Gaspereau river.


Samuel Hughes: Was he then Minister of Railways?


Mr PUGSLEY.: I -was Minister of Public Works at the time.
Mr. HUGHES The member for Westmoreland was not Minister of Railways then?


Mr PUGSLEY.: Not at that time; the hon. gentleman was in the same position which he occupies to-day as representative of the county of Westmoreland. Now, if hon. members will look at the map they will see that Port Elgin is not in what you might call the zone of dredging contractors. There are no dredge owners in that vicinity, nor within a long distance oi that point. The mouth of the river is very much exposed, and apparently it was that very fact which prevented this dredging work from being done, and caused the delay which took place for a number of years, since 1900, when the member for Westmoreland first began to urge that this work should be done. In 1908 the matter was pressed strongly upon my attention, and I tried to make arrangements for one of the government dredges to go there. There was none available, they were all engaged in other important work. I determined, however, to advertise for tenders, and after tenders were called for, or about the time' I called for tenders, I think it was afterwards, I learned that the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company had bought a dredge called the ' Iroquois,' on the St. Lawrence, and that they were bringing it down to the Bay of Fundy where they expected to carry on dredging operations. Now, in coming down to the Bay of Fundy they had to pass directly by Port Elgin; they had to go through Northumberland straits, and through the Straits of Canso, and round to the Atlantic, and so on around to the Bay of Fundy which was the ultimate destination of their dredge. I had grave fears that, although tenders were being called for, there would be none put in. Now, let me say to those gentlemen who make these attacks upon me, attacks I think without due consideration, that there are many places in different sections of this country where, although tenders for dredging work have been called for year after year for the last three years, no tenders whatever have been put in for those works.
They are considered undesirable or dangerous places, they are very much exposed and there is very great risk of loss to a dredging plant, I could mention two or three places in Nova Scotia. Some of my hon. friends in that province have complained very much that we have delayed going on with dredging works. The reason has been that tenders have been called, and we have not been able to get any tenders for these works. Learning that this dredge was going down to the Bay of lundy, I saw Mr. Moore, who was the president of the Maritime Dredging Company. I told him that the time would be up in a few days, and I

asked him if his company would be willing to put a dredge into the Gaspereau river, commence dredging on this work which was most urgently required and accept an amount no higher than the amount of the lowest tender, explaining that if some other company's tender should be lower than their's they would take their dredge away from there and continue on to the place to which it was destined; that the work would go to the lowest tenderer, and that in the meantime for the few days' work they would do they would accept the price at which the contract "would be awarded. They agreed "to that and there was some correspondence that took place consequent on my seeing the president of the company, which confirms that. I remember that the hon. member for Hamilton (Mr. Barker) when this matter was before the committee on Public Accounts rather took the ground that the company would be entitled to go on and do the work even though there might be another lower tender, that is that they could take the price of the lowest tender and go on and finish the work. There was no such understanding.


Mr. BARKER.: The hon. gentleman's statement is directly contrary to Mr. Moore's understanding at the time. The hon. gentleman is thinking more about it now, perhaps, than he did at that time.


John E.: Moore of St. John says he has dredge ready to work on Gaspereau river, N.B., and expects to start Monday. Am I authorized to lay out the dredging for him.
GEOFFREY STEAD, Resident Engineer.
_ Mr. PUGSLEY. Yes, that is the dredging upon which he was working pending the receipt of tenders. But I affirmed then and I affirm now, and if Mr. Moore had been called before the committee on Public Accounts, he would have verified under oath what I say, that it was clearly understood that they should do the dredging during a few days until the time was up for the receipt of tenders, and that if any other company should tender lower than their tender, that company would be awarded the contract, and they would receive, for the work they did in the meantime, the price of the lowest tenderer. That is a practice which in cases where dredging is urgently required has been pursued by the Department of Public Works ever since the Department of Public Works has been awarding dredging contracts. It was done years ago, so I am informed by the proper officials of my department and done under a Conservative as well as a Liberal government,


Mr. HAGGART (Winnipeg).: Was this arrangement purely verbal as between the government and Mr. Moore?
Mr. PUGSLEY


William Pugsley: It was confirmed by correspondence later and that correspondence is before the committee.


Samuel Barker: Page 241.


William Pugsley: These are the words; following up any conversation the chief engineer sends this letter to Mr. Stead, the resident engineer;
August 4, 1908.
,Sir>-The work of dredging in the Gaspereau river has been given to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, of St. John, N.B., providing they are willing to accept, in payment, per cubic yard, scow measurement, the lowest price to be obtained by tenders which are now being called for. Kindly place the company's dredge at work immediately, if they accept the conditions. You will please, however, note that the lesser work only is to be engaged upon.
Yours obediently,
Chief Engineer.
Geoffrey Stead, Esq.,
Resident Engineer,
Chatham, N.B.
I refer to that for two reasons. In the first place, it was carrying out what was the arrangement between the Maritime Dredging Company and myself, that they should do the work simply temporarily. They said that they would tender upon the work, and if there should be other tenders for a lower figure than their's, the department would naturally award the contract to the lowest tenderers, and they, for the few days' work that they would do in the meantime, would accept the price of the lowest tenderer.


Richard Blain: Will my hon. friend name a case similar to that acted upon by a Conservative administration?


William Pugsley: I cannot at this moment, because I would have to go back over fifteen years. All I can say is that when I became minister I was informed that this was the practice in cases of urgency, and had been the practice for years. I was so informed by the late Deputy Minister, Mr. Goibeil, who had been in the department for a great many years, and I understood it was the practice. Very often it is necessary to get a work done in order to meet public requirements.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: What created the urgency just then? Was it the election?


William Pugsley: Not at all; it was the dredging season. The season was getting well along. My hon. friend from Westmoreland had urged as early as May or June that we should get a dredge at work. I had been unable to do so and I will say to the House frankly that I was afraid that if the Maritime Dredging Company brought their dredge to St. John we would get no

tenders and probably not be able to get the work done that year at all.
This whole matter was fully ventilated before the Committee of Supply in this House in the month of February, 1910, and I desire to add my opinion to that of my hon. friend from the county of Westmoreland that if the hon. member for York, New Brunswick (Mr. Crocket) thought there was anything in this dredging at Gaspereau which was deserving of the censure of this House he should have early in the session, some time between November and the latter part of May, while this House was sitting, taken the necessary steps for the purpose of bringing it before the consideration of the committee. Hon. gentlemen will find that in the month of February, 1910, this matter was brought to the attention of the committee by the hon. member for Hamilton (Mr. Barker) and I then gave a very full statement which will be found on pages 3838, 3839, 3840 and following pages of 'Hansard.' The matter was gone into very fully at that time and now that we have before the House a question of vital importance to the people of this country it does seem to me that, upon reflection, hon. gentlemen will see that it is scarcely in the public interest that they should, by a motion like this, take up a good many hours of the valuable time of the House and so prevent a vote being taken upon the great question of reciprocity in which the people of this country are taking so deep an interest, I feel that I cannot properly take up the time of the House which would be necessary in order to answer the different statements which have been made by the two hon. gentlemen who have spoken upon this amendment because, as I have said, there is not only this important question of reciprocity waiting, but, when it is disposed of, if hon. gentlemen will allow it to go to the vote, and if they desire to get an expression of the opinion of this House, there are other matters such as the question of the branch railways and supply to provide for works of the very greatest importance to the country which should be considered.
If this motion carries, the question that will come before the committee^ is the important question, which has the right of way. I must say a few brief words, however, in answer to the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket). The hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson), has charged him with making unfounded attacks on me. Sir, I am accustomed to attacks of that character from the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket), and from those who have been associated with him. I do not intend to reply to his insinuations. I have learned during a pretty long political career that there are a good many men in this country, as I suppose there are in every country,
wjho seem to love making insinuations, who seem to listen to the tales of slander they hear on the street corners, and who delight wherever they can get an opportunity to tear down the character of men, who stand very much higher in the community than themselves, and who have been more successful in the world than they have been. It is evidence of a mean and contemptible spirit; it is evidence of a small and narrow mind.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Mr. Speaker, is such language within the rules of order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The language itself is not necessarily out of order unless applied to a member of this House. If applied to a member of this House I would think the language unparliamentary.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I thought he was speaking of the editor of the ' Globe.'


William Pugsley: That is my view, Mr. Speaker. As I walk the streets I find it is not desirable to turn and pay attention to every cur which barks at one's heelc That rule I ihave adopted through life and, therefore, I shall go on to deal with the points raised in regard to this dredging matter. The hon. member for York saw fit to convey to this House the impression that this dredging was utterly a waste of public money, and he insinuated, I believe he charged, that this work had been given to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company for the sole purpose of putting money into the hands of Mr. John Moore and Mr. George McAvity, because they were interested in the St. John ' Telegraph ' which was supporting the Liberal party. The hon. member (Mr. Crocket), and the hon. member from Grenville (Mr. Reid), laid great stress on the fact that Mr. John Moore and Mr. George McAvity bought the St. John 'Telegraph' from the Conservative party and turned it into a Liberal newspaper. Well, the * Telegraph ' had for upwards of a quarter of a century been a Liberal newspaper and the Liberals of New Brunswick had for years confidence in it. On one occasion there appeared in New Brunswick one of these gentlemen who get rich quickly and he bought the ' Telegraph ' by some means or other, and turned it over to the Conservative party. These two gentlemen being good Liberals thought it was right to get it back home again and make it a Liberal newspaper. That is all they did.
They are gentlemen of very considerable means, both of them carrying on a very large business. Every one knows the farm of T. McAvity & Sons , of which Mr. Geo. McAvity is now the head. From the Atlantic to the Pacific that firm is known and enjoys in a marked degree the confidence of the business men of Canada. Mr. Johp

E. Moore is a man who has, by his own exertions, risen from a comparatively humble position in the city of St. John, until to-day he is carrying on, and has for a number of years carried on, one of the largest lumber shipping businesses in the maritime provinces if not in the dominion. Mr. John E. Moore stands high in the estimation of the general public, and his reputation is of the very best. Those gentlemen are both Liberals, and that is no crime. They were desirous that this newspaper should be brought into the fold and placed where it properly belonged. Fortunately it happened that this man who had got rich quickly got poor almost as Quickly. While he was very rich, and while he had been taken into the councils of the Conservative party, and while he thought at one time of going over to Scotland and running for the constituency of Dunfermline, he was not fortunate enough to receive a recommendation for knighthood at the hands of the leader of the Unionist party in Great Britain. In that respect he did not attain the height of his hopes and ambition, but he unfortunately for himself lost his money and lie was willing to sell out these newspapers at a reasonable price and they were bought by these two gentlemen. There is not a particle of evidence that one single dollar of the moneys which the Maritime Dredging Company ' obtained for this contract or for any other contract was used for the purchase of these newspapers. If these gentlemen wanted to purchase the newspapers they have ample means of their own to do so. And yet, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket) makes these insinuations without a particle of evidence.


Arthur Meighen: May I ask what the insinuation is?


William Pugsley: The insinuation is that they have been assisted by me as minister to get these contracts for the purpose of enabling them to make large profits iri order that they might buy these newspapers.


Arthur Meighen: That is a direct charge.


William Pugsley: Call it a direct charge if you like.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: It is a natural inference.


William Pugsley: A diseased imagination may draw such an inference. There is not a particle of evidence to sustain a charge of that character. The dredging plant which this company bought cost far and away more money than up to the time of the purchase of these papers, they had received from the government. A good dredging plant is not cheap to buy; we know that the dredge ' Fielding,' which is Mr. PUGSLEY.
now at work in the harbour of St. John, was built at Sorel and cost about half a million dollars. These gentlemen are both experienced business men, and successful business men, and I take it for granted they purchased a good plant to enable them to do efficient work. The hon. gentleman from York made that foundationless statement, and had it not been for the reply of the hon. member for Westmoreland (Mr. Emmerson) he would have induced some members of this House to believe that that work was wholly unnecessary and that it was done simply to benefit the dredging company. Then the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket) said there was further evidence that the work was unnecessary because the resident engineer said it would accomplish no good purpose.
What the resident engineer said was, and hon, gentlemen will find it in the report, that unless this dredging was continued on up into the inner channel, 'and so on towards the town, it would not be of value because it would not be an aid to navigation for the whole distance for which it was desirable that vessels should be able to navigate. That is the same everywhere. Take the harbour of St. John. To-day we are deepening the entrance to the harbour, but if we were to leave that work half finished, or even three-quarters finished, the work we have done would be no benefit to navigation. The strength of a chain is to be measured by the strength of its weakest link and so it is with dredging. If you have a harbour all dredged but 100 feet and that 100 feet has not the requisite depth of water, or is not easy or safe to navigate by vessels drawing the depth of water in the deepest part of the harbour, and it is the line of navigation, your deep harbour is of no value. You must have a channel for vessels to go right up to the point of destination or the dredging is of no value. So it was with Gasper-eau, until the dredging is earned on to the place where the vessels are in the habit of going, the dredging would be of no value. But as a part of the dredging work it was of the greatest value.
The member for York (Mr. Crocket) says that the price was too high, because some people up there tell him it was simply silt and sand and could be done for 10 cents a cubic yard. The complete answer to that is that tenders were invited by public advertisement and the usual time was given.


Mr.   BAEKER@: And you obstructed them.


William Pugsley: We never obstructed them. I stated before the Committee of Public Accounts and before the Committee of Supplj of 1910 that I defied any hon. gentleman opposite to show that any dredging contractor had been debarred from tendering by reason of this company being

temporarily put to work. They cannot do it. They will never be able to show that any contractor was debarred from tendering. The reason we received only one tender was that the work was in a comparatively remote, although a very important locality, that this particular work of dredging the bar was in an 'exposed and dangerous locality and it was not an inviting prospect for dredging contractors. There was only one tender for 90 cents a cubic j ard. The hon. gentleman says we actually let the contract to this company at their tender price when we had a report of the engineer that it was only worth 20 cents per cubic yard. That is a mistake, all that we had in the department was a report of the engineer who had been formerly resident engineer for that district, Mr. Day, a report made in 1903, 'in which he speaks of the quantity of the material to be dredged and he says: Which at 20 cents a cubic yard would amount to a certain sum. When Mr. Stead made his report he did not give his own estimate because he was not called unon to do so,) he referred to the report which Mr. Day, had made some years before.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman give his authority for that?


William Pugsley: Mr. Stead did not give the 20 cents as his own estimate.


Arthur Meighen: At the top of page 247 the verj opposite is stated.


William Pugsley: Mr. Day considered that four feet at low water would be ample and for this depth
180.000	cubic yards of dredging was necessary, costing, at 20 cents, $37,000.
A six-foot channel, giving about 15 feet at extreme high water, is however desired, abd appears to me to be necessary, as it would give about 13 feet at neap high tides which is required for the larger schooners. At your request I sent you on the 5th March, 1907, an estimate of this work which requires about
330.000	cubic yards, costing, at 20 cents, $66,000.


Arthur Meighen: His estimate.


William Pugsley: No, Mr. Day's estimate.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: What was his estimate?


William Pugsley: Mr. Stead is making no estimate. You will observe that in this report, he is taking the survey which Mr. Day had made. Mr. Day is the man who had made the borings and survey some four or five years before.


Samuel Barker: Read the three following lines:


William Pugsley: Q. That refers to Mr. Stead's report of March, 1907?-A. His report of 5th of March, 1907.
Q. In which he also estimated the dredging as worth 20 cents?-A. 20 cents, yes.
This occurs in Mr. Lafleur's evidence, but it does not occur anylvhere in the correspondence. Mr. Lafleur might argue as my hon. friends might that because Mr. Stead sent m that report he was adopting Mr. Day's estimate of the cost.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Stead was asked to make an estimate of the cost and that is his reply.


William Pugsley: I have not been able to see that. He sent in Mr. Day's report and took Mr. Day's estimate of 20 cents. The best test of whether or not that estimate of 20 cents could be relied upon is to be found in what it cost the government dredge ' George Mackenzie,' to do easier work in 1909 at the same harbour. Bear in mind that this company were doing the most difficult 'and dangerous work, the outer bar where it was most exposed and where it would be necessarily more costly. Mr. Day had figured upon a four foot channel at low tide while we were proposing to give a six foot channel at low tide. You will observe that Mr. Stead says that if the old channel were used and dredged out while it would be very crooked yet there would only be dredging of silt and sand whereas, if you made a straight channel you would get into the stiff clay and, of course, that is much more expensive to dredge than ordinary silt that has flown in from the tide within a few years. In 1909, the 'George Mackenzie,' a government dredge, was employed and the actual cost of the operation of that dredge was 41.76 cents, very nearly 42 cents per cubic yard for easier work. I took care when this matter was before the Committee of this House in February. 1910, to get a statement from the proper officials of my department as to what would be the actual cost of the work done by the government dredge ' George Mackenzie ' in the Gaspereau river, if there were to be added to this 42 cents per cube yard a reasonable alowance, such as a contractor would always make for wear and tear, interest upon cost of plant and a reasonable contractor's profit.
Hon. gentlemen will find this in my statement on page 3843 of ' Hansard'-and I am very sorry to go over it again. In reply to the statement of the hon. member for Hamilton that I should not have let the work within the ten days, but should have waited for the opening of the tenders I am reported to have said:
How has the country suffered by that? My hon. friend says that if I had not done that somebodv else might have come in and tendered. But he cannot find the slightest evidence that any contractor was prepared or would have tendered for that work, whether the dredge was at work or not. Is not this the important thing, that I advertised for fenders and nohody evidently wanted to go there to go to work ? And is it not an important fact that, the next year, these people, the

Maritime Dredging Company, having the opportunity to go there to work, did not want to_ go? If it were the 'soft snap' my hon. friend would have the committee believe, would not they have been anxious to go there? But they had had enough of it; they had worked there under most disadvantageous circumstances. And, when we actually put the government dredge to work, we found that a fair and reasonable cost was $1 per cubic yard. Now, * does the hon. member think the price is too great? Does he think that the late W. J. Mc-Cordock gave a fictitious valuation for that work? Will my hon. friend who represents the city of St. John (Mr. Daniel) rise in his place and say that he would not rely on the statement which the late superintendent of dredging made? I do not think he will, for he knew W. J. McCordock as well as I did, and he knows there was not a more careful and conscientious official in the employ of the Dominion than that gentleman. And will he say that Mr. Scammell, an engineer of ability and integrity, would go up there, and, having examined the work, make a false certificate? And would he say that Mr. Stead, who also saw the work, had to go on it day after day, made a false report when he said that it was worth 90 cents a yard?
In another part of my remarks 1 think I made the statemeent that this amount of $1 per yard, which was the cost to tne government of the dredging of the ' George Mackenzie,' making a reasonable allowance for interest on the cost and depreciation of plant, was given to me by the deputy minister; at all events, I remember distinctly that I made the statement as to the official who had given the assurance that the items would amount to $1 per cubic yard. This, I think, completely disposes of the assertion, wholly unwarranted by any evidence, that this work could be done at 20 cents per cubic yard.
Now, to show whether or not we acted with prudence, what did we do after we found that this company was the only tenderer and after it had got the work? The hon. gentleman says, whatever you did do, you did not notify Mr. W. J. McCordock, and that was one of the grounds of his indictment against me. Sir, I pointed out to the hon. member for York, when he was addressing the House, that Mr. McCordock had nothing whatever to do' with the operation of the contract dredges. The superintendents of dredging are confined in their duties absolutely to the work being done by the government dredges, and, therefore, Mr. McCordock would not have any notice of this work awarded to a private company. The man to be notified is the resident engineer. Mr. Stead was the man who laid out the work, and he was the man who was notified. He laid out the work for the contractors, and showed them where they were to begin their dredging. My hon. friend seems to make a great point of the fact that Mr. McCordock did not know where Gaspereau was. Well, as he had nothing to Mr. PUGSLEY.
do with the dredging, he would not be likely to know. The hon. gentleman says that it was strange that I sent Mr. McCordock up there to inspect this dredging, and to consider as to the cost. Do you not think, Mr. Speaker, that that was the most proper thing in the world for me to do? Mr. McCordock was the man who had been in charge of the dredges in the maritime provinces for upwards of thirty years; he had been appointed either by the Conservative government or by the Mackenzie government; he had held office under both governments, and had given satisfaction to all. If there was one man connected with any department of the government who if he erred at all it was on the side of the public interest against the individual, it was the late W. J. McCordock. That was the reputation he had-as close as could be, always looking out for the interest of the government, always cutting down those who had furnished supplies' to the government dredges to the finest possible point. That was the complaint made against him for years under both governments. He was felt to he a safe officer to see that only just bills were paid, and that government interest were protected.


Arthur Meighen: Will the minister explain what his duties were in connection with the government dredges?


William Pugsley: His duties were to see that they carried out the different dredging operations laid out for them, to see that they did the most efficient work possible, to keep control of their operations from week to week, and to make a report as to whether they were working satisfactorily or ndt; also to visit the dredges from time to time, to purchase supplies for them, and to send in regular reports to the department. The superintendent of dredging is supposed to be constantly looking after the business of the government dredges. Mr. McCord ock, with that large dredging experience, was a man who I felt could be absolutely trusted to give a fair judgment on the matter, and I asked the chief engineer to send him to Gaspereau for the purpose of looking into the dredging work being done, to consider all the circumstances, and to report whether or not 90 cents per cubic yard was a fair and reasonable price. The hon. gentleman would, I suppose, have it believed by this House that I had in some way influenced Mr. McCordock. Let me say that I had very little personal acquaintance with the late W. J. McCordock, and I had no communication with him on this subject beyond asking him if he could go and visit Gaspereau, and then the communication was with the chief engineer, who gave him his directions in I writing.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Did the minister try at any time to send this gentleman to do this work as government work, when it was so urgent?


William Pugsley: I did not, and the reason is that two things are necessary in order to do government dredging: One is to have the superintendent, and the other is to have the dredge.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Did you have them?


William Pugsley: No. The dredges were employed in other places.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: This was urgent work.


William Pugsley: So were the others, and it was impossible to take the dredges from them.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Then this was not so urgent as the others?


William Pugsley: The hon. .gentleman has read from Mr. McCordock's report. Let me call your attention to what Mr. McCordock says. After stating what they were doing, he says:
I am of the opinion that from the exposed position of the dredging and the detention from shallow water and the difficulty in getting coal and water from the shore out two miles to the dredge, where it has to remain at anchor in all weather, that the amount of 90 cents named in the tender is a fair rate per cubic yard.
Surely these are considerations which ought fairly to enter into the judgment of a person certifying as to the value of the work. They are considerations which would enter into the judgment of every contractor tendering for the woTk. A contractor looks at many things when tendering.
He looks at the exposed position of the work or otherwise. He makes some soundings for himself usually and learns concerning soundings or borings that have been made. He considers' the quality of the materials to be moved, whether clay, sand or slit, or whether there may be boulders. And a very important question with him is that of a fresh water supply for his dredge and tug, and also the question of the coal supply. He must consider also the question of the distance he has to tow his dredges and barges, both to reach the woTk and to get back into winter quarters after the season is finished. No doubt all these things were taken into consideration, by the Maritime Dredging & Construction. Company, when they tendered at 90 cents for this work. Before we agreed to pay this 90 cents Mr. Scammell, the resident engineer of St. John, a young man who had a good deal of experience under Mr. She-wan, being afterwards in charge of dredging operations for the department, was sent,
at my request, up to- the Gaspereau river for the purpose of looking into conditions and making a report. Let me call attention to what he says. I read, not from the printed copy but from the tiles which, I presume, is the same as my friend has.


Samuel Barker: What date?


William Pugsley: October 19th, 1908.


Samuel Barker: That is after the work was finished.


William Pugsley: No, they were still worMing there. His letter is as follows:-
The Dept, of Public Works, Canada,
Office, Engineer in charge dredging. [DOT]
St. John, N.B., 19th October, 1908.
Sir,-In reply to your telegram of the 5th inst. I saw the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company of St. John, N.B , ana visited Gaspereau river on October 7, where a personal inspection was made of the work being done at that place in connection with dredging a channel 60 feet wide to a depth of 8 feet at low water and making a face ol from 5 to 7 feet in order to secure a passage into the village of Port Elgin, parish of Bots-ford, Westmoreland county, N.B.
You see there is a very considerable difference between dredging to a depth of eight feet at which getting below the surface soil, you strike either hard pan or solid clay, and simply dredging in the channel where there would be only the loose silt carried in by the tide. This estimate of 20 cents had been for dredging to a depth of four feet, and it was based upon the assumption that it would be done by a government dredge, whereas Mr. Scammell says that this Company would go to a depth of 8 feet.
I found the dredge ' Iroquois' at work at that place, with a tow boat ' the Calluna, ana two barges. The work there is progressing with extreme difficulty, which I have reason to believe will increase as the season advances, and much time will be lost on account of the high winds as the dredge is very much exposed to easterly and southeasterly gales, and there is no shelter atford-td in the least.
Again, he says, at the close of his report:-
Neither the dredge nor the tug can get into the creek except on the spring tides and this necessitates the water supply being pumped by a gasoline engine and towed out to the dredge at great expense. This als i applies to the coal used.
Under the circumstances it would be fair and reasonable to pay the present rate as called for under the contract with the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company.
It is all very well for the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket), to say that somebody told him that this dredging could be done more cheaply. And my hon. friend

from Hamilton (Mr. Barker), who is a lawyer and a very excellent lawyer, one I would like to have represent me if I had a case in court,-it is all very well for him tc talk about what dredging is worth. Or it is all very well for me to talk about it. But whose judgment is best, the judgment of these gentlemen or the judgment of the engineers, experienced men, who went upon the ground and saw these dredges at work, saw the difficulties under which they were labouring, these unfavourable conditions as to coal and water supply and who knew what dangers this dredging plant was exposed to m case of a storm, being out in the estuary and outside the shelter that would have been afforded could they have got well into the river?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would like to ask the hon. minister a question. Were not all these things present to the mind of the engineers of the department when they estimated that the dredging could be done at 22 cents a yard?


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Sproule) must not make a mistake about that. This estimate of 20 cents was made before the work was undertaken at all and was made for work to be done by a government dredge.
i Mr. LENNON) What difference does that make?


William Pugsley: Why, it does not take into account the cost of the plant the interest upon investment, the depreciation or


Arthur Meighen: What is the hon. gentleman's authority for that statement?


William Pugsley: My authority is my knowledge as Minister of Public Works.
I know these things are never taken into account.


Mr. LENNOX.: They ought to be.


William Pugsley: They are not. All that is taken into account is the ordinary repairs of the dredging season. Even the large repairs, which in the case of dredges are 'necessary almtost every winter, are not included. The depreciation and wear and tear are not included. No interest on construction is allowed for. The dangers involved in having a dredge in a place like that are not taken into consideration. But ell these things must be taken into consideration by a dredging contractor when he makes a tender for work. My hon. friend from Westmoreland has told us that these contractors lost a tug, wrecked in connection with these dredging operations, and this accident involved a loss of quite a number of thousands of dollars. I have in mind the case of Mr. Connolly who was taking a very valuable dredge from one Mr. PUGSLEY.
part of the Atlantic coast to another and the dredge was wrecked in a storm. The other day at St. Andrews a dredge that was operating under the Dominion Dredging Company, under contract with my department sank through some unexplained reason, and it took a good many days before the dredge could be raised, and it will take a good many days more before its machinery can be put right and the dredge set in operation again. When any expense of that kind occurs, not only is there the loss involved by reason of the wreck itself, but there is also the expense of the crew and the loss on investment. Particularly when a contractor is working in an exposed position he runs the risk of losing his plant or of having it greatly injured. He necessarily takes into consideration also the cost and risk of taking the dredge to the point of operation and, after the season is over i eturning it to winter quarters. And there is another very important matter, and that is the availability of a machine shop for repairs while work is going on. The facilities in this respect at a place like Port Elgin-and particularly when the dredge was working two or three miles out in the roadstead or estuary. would be very different indeed from what they would be in the port of St. John.
Now, I want to repeat what I stated when this matter was before the House in February, 1910, that you cannot judge what the real, fair value of dredging work in one place is from what it costs in another; you cannot form any fair judgment upon the subject. The contractor would, as I have said, have to take all these conditions into consideration, and then after the work is begun, the engineer going upon the spot would be the man who would be able to form the best conclusion. We have the evidence of these two engineers, Mr. Mc-Oordock and Mr. Scammell, verified by Mr. Stead after this work is done, and this certificate of Mr. Scammell, and verified by the chief engineer of the department, who certified, before I presented the recommendation to council, that the price of 90 cents per cubic yard is fair and reasonable. There you have the certificate of Mr. Mc-Cordoclc, who has been thirty years superintendent at St, John; you have the certificate of Mr. Scammell, and you have the certificate of Mr. Stead, the resident engineer, after the work has been done, a certificate based on all these reports, that the price of ninety cents was fair and reasonable. Now, I ask this House if, upon these certificates, it was not my duty to pay to these contractors the amount at which they had tendered to do this work? How could I do otherwise in face of these certificates?


Arthur Meighen: Where is Mr. Stead's report that the price was fair and reasonable?


William Pugsley: You will find it in the accounts which he sent into the department.


Arthur Meighen: That is not in evidence.


William Pugsley: That is not my fault, it is the fault of the gentlemen who were seeking to produce a part of the evidence and not the whole. Now, you will find that this order in council was based upon the certificate by Mr. McCordock; we had that before us; we had the certificate of Mr. Scammell before us; we had also the certificate of Mr. Stead that these prices were fair and reasonable, and we have the certificate of the chief engineer of the department, who had all the certificates before him, that the price wa| a fair and reasonable one. The chief engineer of the department made the final certificate upon which I, as the minister, asked the government to base this order in council.


Alexander Haggart: When the government invite tenders for works, do they not usually have surveys, borings, diagrams, so that they can have an estimate of their own engineers? Was not that done in this instance, or is it the custom of the Public Works Department when they invite tenders for dredging?


William Pugsley: I have stated that four or five years before this dredging was done, in 1903, the late Mr. Day was asked to make borings and to make a report. He reported for a channel four feet deep at low tide, and his estimate was that it would be worth 20 cents per cubic yard. I say that frankly, there is no dispute about that. Then later on, in 1908, Mr. Stead appears to have adopted Mr. Day's estimate. What I say is that that is based, I have no doubt whatever, upon what he thought would be the fair cost of doing the work by a government dredge. Then after the work was done, we have Mr. Stead's certificate, and this would show the conditions under which the work was being done, the exposed situation on which this particular work across the bar was being done. He joined with the others, and forwarded these certificates to the department. You may ask me why Mr. Stead changed his mind. Perhaps he was influenced by Mr. McCordock and Mr. Scammell, because it is a matter of judgment. But it is enough for me that, having sent down these two independent officers of the department and the chief engineer, having got their reports that the prices were fair and reasonable, it seems to me I was quite justified in paying the amount of the tender price. But more than that, we have the further proof that in the following year, even upon the inside work, which was less exposed than this work across the bar, the actual cost of the operation of" the government dredge was 41 cents per cubic yard.


Alexander Haggart: I understand the hon. gentleman to say that at the time he asked for tenders for that work, the department did not have sufficient information to give the contractors; the government was going it blind and the contractors were going it blind, and they estimated the work after it was done.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend must realize that we would have a rep\,*t showing the rate at which the work would have to be done. It was estimated by Mr. Day for a four foot channel. Of course, any difference between the four feet and the six feet we would not know, the contractor would have to take his chances. But that is the engineer's report upon the actual experience of the quality of the material, and also having reference to the exposed condition, and the danger of operating the dredge.
Now, let me call attention to a matter in regard to which I would have supposed that my hon. friend would have made a motion before this House, and that is the dredging of. the Miramichi river. When I first became minister and called for tenders for dredging upon the Miramichi river, the lowest tender was for 60 cents per cubic yard. The lowest tenderer was Mr. W. J. Poupore, a gentleman who has devoted a great deal of attention to dredging matters, and no criticism has been made of that contract being awarded to Mr. Poupore. Mr. Poupore is an experienced contractor, he was formerly the Conservative member for the county of Pontiac, a very worthy gentleman, and a very experienced contractor. But I have heard no criticism upon that contract. Now, there were two descriptions of work in the Miramichi river somewhat corresponding to those in the Gaspereau river. There was what was called the bar and horseshoe. Then inside that there, was the Grand Dune flats, where the dredge operating would not be so much exposed to danger. Mr. Poupore had contracted for the Miramichi work, including the Grand Dune flats, and I was urged strongly to extend the contract. I looked into "the matter very carefully with the thief engineer of my ^department. The chief engineer estimated that the work _ of dredging at the Grand Dune flats outside the bar would be about 45 cents per cubic yard, that was some 15 cents less than we had been paying the year before. I declined, however, to negotiate with the contractor, even at the reduced price. I called for tenders, and in such a way that we could consider the dredging tender for the horseshoe and bar, and for the Grand Dune flats.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: In that case did the minister allow the work to go on preceding the receipt of tenders?


William Pugsley: No.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: What has that to do with this case?


William Pugsley: I expected to get a bouquet from my hon. friend for this,


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I am afraid that I could not give it to my hon. friend under any circumstances.


William Pugsley: Not under any conditions?


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Not for anything that you have ever done.


William Pugsley: That proves how very shortsighted my hon. friend is.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: No, it is because I have kept my eyes open.


William Pugsley: We called for tenders and. got separate tenders as well as joint tenders for the whole of this work. We are doing the work upon the Grand Dune flats at 11 cents per cubic yard as against 60 cents which would have been paid if the whole work had been let together. That is very much less than the estimate of the chief engineer. I do not find fault with the chief engineer. Engineers, as well as architects, are liable to make mistakes. The whole work consists of a million cubic yards and at the engineer's estimate of 45 cents per cubic yard is would have cost the department $450,000. As a matter of fact, we are getting that work done for $110,000 thus saving to this country $340,000. I would have supposed that my hon. friend, the member for York, would have called attention to this as well as to other matters which could not help appealing to any fair minded man, which could not help almost certainly commanding his approval.


Oswald Smith Crocket: Is the hon. gentleman referring to a contract which was let this year?


William Pugsley: Yes, the Grand Dune work.


Oswald Smith Crocket: That is not before the Public Accounts Committee and will not be before next session.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman heard of it because it was brought to his notice during the session. But if the hon. gentleman were to speak of anything in connection with my department or in connection with myself in terms of approval, I am sure it would arouse astonishment amongst his constituents, and you might hear the remark made upon all sides that suddenly the hon. gentleman had grown to a better manhood .and a bigger intellectual condition than that with which they had hitherto credited him, and it would be a very great surprise.
At six o'clock House took recess.
Mr. PUGSLEY
After Kecess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


William Pugsley: Before the dinner hour I had dealt with nearly all the points made by the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket) and the hon. member for Grenville (Mr. Reid) but if I have omitted anything, if hon. gentleman would refer to Hansard for February 1910, they will see that I covered all the points brought up at that time which were I think the same as to-day. I thought it necessary even at the risk of taking up the time of the House, however briefly, to make some reply to-day, and I very much regret being compelled to do so because I feel that the presentation of this motion is clearly only a part of what I regret to observe has been the policy for a considerable time past of the members of the opposition, viz.: to prevent by continuous talking the taking of a vote in this House upon -the great national question of reciprocity. There are_ just two matters remaining to which I shall briefly refer. One is the observation made by the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket) with regard to my having taken the tender with me to the City of St. John. He seriously put that forward as a suspicious circumstance, but the explanation is very simple. The company had done considerable work and they asked for payment on account of it, and as there was only one tender the question arose as to whether the tender price was fair and reasonable, and whether we ought to endeavour to secure some reduction from it or whether we shtould enter into the contract. Before recommending the order in council which would fix the price, I thought it desirable to make full inquiry, and I did not know of any better source from which to get Information, outside the chief engineer of my department, than Mr. McCordock and Mr. Scammell. I took the tender with me from the files of the department. The hon. gentleman Mr. Crocket said that up to the 16th October the records of the department did not show there was any tender upon file, and when I called his attention to that mistake, he stated that what he intended to say was that on the 16th October it was not on file. The chief engineer knew I had the tender with me, and he wired to know what were the conditions of the tender, with regard to the price of dredging.


Samuel Barker: Will the hon. gentleman point to any evidence to show that the tender was ever on the file of the department at Ottawa?


William Pugsley: When the investigation was held before the committee it would be taken for granted it was on file and the

onus would be on those who made a charge to the contrary to prove their contention. However, here is the tender on file here, and addressed by mail to K. C. DeRochers, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Public Works, Ottawa, and stamped by him as received by him, and there you have the strongest possible evidence that the dander was on file. You find that the tender was sent through the post office to the secretary of the department, stamped as having been received by him, and subsequently opened in the ordinary way by the proper officials of the department. Then die hon. member for York attempted to show that either I or the department was so easy with these contractors and so desirous of putting money into itheir pockets, that although the resident engineer certified that in his opinion the quantity of material cast over was 6,000 cubic yards, the minister and the department had taken the estimates made by the contractor in preference, and paid him for 8,000 cubic yards of material cast over. The object of that was to show that we had disregarded the report of the engineer and chosen to accept instead the estimate of the contractor. Now, Sir, when I show you that the estimate of the contractor was not taken but that the certificate of the engineer was accepted, and that the payment was made on 6,000 yards and not
8.000	yards, you will ask whether the hon. member (Mr. Crocket) made that misstatement wilfully ior ignorantly.


Arthur Meighen: What was the statement?


William Pugsley: That the resident, engineer certified for 6,000 yards, that the contractor claimed 8,000 yards, and that the department was not guided by the engineer but accepted the estimate of the contractor.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member made no such statement.


William Pugsley: I say he did make that /Statement >and there are hon. members here who heard it.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for Yiork said that the chief engineer of the department, notwithstanding the estimate of Mr. Stead, directed that it be paid at
8.000	yards instead of 6,000 yards, and he did so direct.


William Pugsley: Now, Sir, when I show you that so far from that being the case the chief engineer acted npon the report of the resident engineer and directed payment for 6,000 yards, you will agree with me that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket) has made a mistake at least.


Arthur Meighen: The telegram of the chief engineer will be found on page 259.


William Pugsley: Here is the letter of the chief engineer to the Deputy Minister of Public Works.
Department of Public Works of Canada,
Chief Engineer's Office, Ottawa, Jan. 7, 1909.
Gaspereau River, N.B.
Sir,-With reference to the dredging performed by the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company during the past season in the Gaspereau river, N.B., certified weekly reports of operations are herewith inclosed showing that the company removed a total quantity of 33,741 yards of material.
In connection with this dredging, the company performed a certain amount of trenching, or casting over, and I have the honour to transmit herewith two reports from Mr. Geoffrey Stead, resident engineer, in which he comes to the conclusion that the quantity east over is 6,000 yards, for which the contractors should be paid at the rate of 60 cents per cubic yard, the amount due them for casting over being therefore $3,600. A certified account for this amount is herewith inclosed, and I have the honour to recommend that it be paid.	.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Sgd.) EUGENE D. LAFLEUR, Chief Engineer.
J. B. Hunter, Esq.,
Deputy Minister^
Department of Public Works,
Ottawa.
Account for $3,600 will require certificate of
chief engineer.
(Sgd.) A. G. K.
8-l-'09.
Does my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) say that that was changed afterwards?


Arthur Meighen: Nio, but I say that on November 10th previously, he wired Mr. Stead directing him to report in favour of
8,000	cubic yards, and $iat is what Mr. Crocket said and it will be found on page 259.


William Pugsley: I do not know of what took place before, but the hon. member (Mr. Crocket) said that 60 cents a yard was paid for 8,000 yards.


Arthur Meighen: He did not make that statement.


William Pugsley: I regret to say that the hon. gentleman made that statement in the face of what he must have known from the papers which are on file such as the letter of the 7th January, 1909 addressed by the chief engineer of the department to the Deputy Minister of Public Works, and also the entry in the Auditor General's Report, showing clearly and distinctly that the amount of material cast over and paid for at the rate of 60 cents per yard was only the 6,030 yards. It is an old saying which I have found to be a very true one in the long experience which I have had in the practice of law in the courts, that when you find a witness reckless in his statements in one .particular, you may judge from that of the value of all his evidence. When you find him in one particular careless as to the truth, you may judge from that of the value of his testimony. And when I find the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket) starting out with a suggestion to this committee that this dredging was wholly useless, of no value whatever to the public, and telling this House deliberately as his solemn judgment that I had put that dredge to work there not in the public interest, not because the dredging was required to afford navigation, hut solely in order to put several thousand dollars into the, pockets of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company,, and when" you find again that he tries either recklessly or for some other reason to convey the impression that we were so anxious to put money into the pockets of Messrs. Moore and McAvitv that we absolutely disregarded the certificate of the resident engineer and paid on the estimate of the contractor, in the face of the letter of January 7th from the resident engineer to the deputy minister, in- the face of further evidence which he had upon the very page of the Auditor General's report to which he refers in this statement, which he has moved, jou, Mr. Speaker, and hon. members of this House will have to judge as to whether the hon. gentleman has been actuated by a desire simply if he could, by whatever means he may be able to command to make a point against a political opponent or whether he has desired to place the true facts before the House and before the country.
I wish to refer to remarks having no bearing on this matter, made by my hon. friend in an effort to prejudice me in the eyes of the members of this House, and the people of the country, referring to certain things which took place or are alleged to have taken place while I was a member of the provincial legislature. I noticed that while I was having a pleasant discusson, not an acrimonious _ discussion, but a courteous discussion with the member for Argenteuil (Mr. Perley) the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden) evidently influenced bv angry Mr. PUGSLEY.
passion caused bj I know not what, rose, to his feet and at once made an insinuation in regard to my conduct as a member of the provincial legislature. Are we to infer from the attitude of these two gentlemen, now that everybody thinks we may be approaching a general election, that they have an intention to try and make this contest a contest of slander? Are we to infer that they intend indulging again, as in 1908, in a policy of raking up all kinds of scandal and throwing mud in every way they can? Let me say that in 1908 they tried that course upon me and upon some of my fellow Liberal candidates in New Brunswick. They signally failed. Let me call their attention to the fact that when they could not defeat me by scandal they tried to defeat me by having false affidavits read at a public meeting held in the city of St. John. They tried by every trick and by every device at their command, by any means, no matter how foul, no matter how unjustifiable, to attack my character, and prejudice me in the eyes of the people of the country. But, Sir, the people who knew me, the people who had watched my career for upwards of a quarter of a century, while I had been in public life, have rallied to my support and my own constituency of the city and county of St. John, returned me to this parliament by a magnificent majority and the people of New Brunswick sent me ten good and sturdy supporters of this government. Let me tell these hon. gentlemen that if they want to repeat that policy of slander, that policy of resorting to false affidavits, let them come on, we are prepared to meet them, and I am prepared again and I am sure my friends are prepared again to trust ourselves to the good judgment and sense of justice of the people of the province of New Brunswick.


Samuel Barker: Mr. Speaker, I shall read again the paragraphs in the Revised Statutes of Canada which ought to govern the conduct of the Minister of Public Works, in the matter with which we have been dealing this afternoon; and I beg most respectfully the attention of this House to the wording of this statute because it is the law defining the obligations of ministers in the conduct of such matters as we are dealing with. The clauses apply not m-erly to the Minister of Public Works, but to the ministers of all departments conducting works on behalf of the public in this Dominion.
Whenever any works are to be executed under the direction of any department of the government, the minister having charge of such department shall invite tenders by public advertisement for the execution of such works except in cases,
(a) of pressing emergency in which delay would be injurious to the public interest.

I need hardly say that no such case is pretended to have been in existence or to have been made out. If it were necessary to go further into that at this moment I would be prepared to do so, but I shall not delay the House with it now.
(b)	In which, from the nature of the work, it can he more expeditiously and economically executed by the officers and servants of the department.
There is no pretence that any such case existed here.
(c)	Where the estimated cost of the work is less than $5,000.
I need not read further because there is no pretence that that case existed.
Whenever, in case of any work, tenders are required to be or are invited, the minister having charge of the department concerned shall submit all tenders received therefor to the Governor in Council, and the contract for tae work shall be awarded under the direction ot the Governor in Council.
The horn, member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson) undertook to lecture gentlemen pn this side of the House for their conduct m discussing this matter.
The discussion on this side is based upon the resolution before the House, which charges two things, and only two things: one is that this work has been performed by the Public Works Department illegally; the other is that in consequence of the illegal method adopted by the minister the cost of this work is more than it ought to have been. No question has been raised as to whether this work ought to have been done, or ought not to have been done, However necessary it might have been to do this work, there was a method prescribed by the statutes as to how the contract should be entered into. We charge that the minister did not follow that, but that he acted illegally, and deliberately and wilfully evaded the statute by every means in his power. Yet we have the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson) coolly charging gentlemen on this side of the House with wasting the time of the House and obstructing reciprocity, and then himself occupying the time of this House for over an hour on a subject which is not referred to in the resolution-the desirability of this work in the interest of the county of Westmoreland. We are not disco iroty of Westmorland. We are not discussing whether it might have been desir-"Sues.aa if the fact that a member wanted the minister to do work in his constituency was an ample justification for an evasion of the law of the land. The hon. member spoke of the unwarranted animus displayed against the minister. Well, I hope I shall say what I have to say without displaying any unwarranted animus or any animus. I know nothing against the minister outside of his public position and his public reputation, and I propose to adhere strictly to this resolution. Then the hon. member for Westmorland waxed very warm on the subject of vilification and abuse, ana immediately entered into vilification and abuse of the hon. gentleman who moved the resolution. He objected to conjecture and suspicion, but before he got through he got so deeply into conjectures and suspicion that he had nothing else to talk about. The hon. gentleman used all the time of his speech, occupying a large part of the afternoon, in discussing what the resolution before the House had nothing to do with.
For a few years past nothing has more engaged the attention of the people of this dominion than the evasion of the public statutes by officials, by men in prominent positions, who have neglected to do what the statutes of the country require them to do.	So much has that agitated the
country, so strongly has it taken hold of the people that the Minister of Finance has before this House a Bill to remedy some of the evils complained of, especially as regards the Banking Act. It has been said that certain men in very high and important positions in the banking community have evaded the duties imposed upon them by the law of the land. We all know that one unfortunate man who neglected his duty in complying with the statutes of the country served his time in the penitentiary. Another unfortunate man, the head of a great institution, is n,ow serving time for having evaded his duties under Acts of Parliament. Are we to treat one class of eases differently from another? If these men go to the penitentiary for evading their statutory duties, why should a minister of the Crown be allowed to set at naught the statutes of the country at his sweet will? That is the point we are here to discuss; that is the object of the resolution. The h&n. gentleman has carefully observed that, no doubt, and he has with equal care avoided referring to it.
Now, I propose not to go into outside discussions. It is my desire to confine my remarks strictly to the resolution, and in doing so I hope it will not be necessary for me to do much more than refer to the actual written testimony in the report of the Committee on Public Accounts. I may have to refer to a word or two of explanation here and there by the witnesses, but the whole story is really set forth in the documents of the department. There is no doubt in my mind that not one of those men who have been punished for evading their statutory duties has been more guilty than the minister is in this case.
The cases in which the minister can act without the order of the Governor in



j
Council are very plainly put, the first is ' a pressing emergency, in which delay would be injurious to the public interest.' I suppose the hon. gentleman would argue that this is such a case. The hon. gentleman has shut himself out from any such pretense. It is absurd to suppose that the hon. gentleman even thought that he was acting under that clause. He acted arbitrarily; his high mightiness the minister did it all, and there was no pretense of an inquiry as to whether there was any emergency in which a few weeks or ten days' or thirty days' delay might cause serious injury to the public. Not at all. The hon. gentleman did this at his own sweet will; that is the only consideration that entered into his mind; and he has absolutely shut .himself out from the pretense that he acted on any other grounds, because after the work was over, after the expenditure was incurred, at the last moment he goes to the Governor in Council and seeks to get from them what he ought to have obtained at first, and he seeks to obtain it 'by a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. I propose to prove that. But I want to be as short as possible, and avoid anything in the shape of vilification which will hurt the feelings of the minister. The first important matter appears at page 239 of the report of the inquiry before the Committee on Public Accounts in a message of 3rd July, 1908.
And just here I would like to point out to this House the fact that our position to-day is very like the position when the minister undertook to let this contract. We are to-day on the eve of the dissolution of the parliament. The day this message was sent forward was the eve of a dissolution. We are likely, to have a general election within three months; some people-many people-say, in October. They actually had the general elections within three months after this message was sent. So we can look sympathetically at this case, and make the application to the proceedings of the minister. Here the first message we have is not from the minister, but from his acting deputy ' J. B. H.'-I suppose, Mr. Hunter. And let me here say that in the remarks I make I do not intend in the least to reflect on the officers of the minister, either his deputy or the chief engineer, Mr. Lafleur. I know very well what a difficult position these men occupy, especially with a powerful minister with a will of his own, and backed with authority, and all else. Such men have to be very careful to obey orders and not inquire too much. Mr. Hunter, on the 3rd of July, sent a written memorandum to the chief engineer, Mr. Lafleur.
Ottawa, July 3, 1908.
Chief Engineer,-Kindly secure a report from resident engineer regarding dredging Mr. BARKER.
at Buctouche, Shediac and Gaspereau (Port Elgin), with a view to sending out a notice to dredge owners asking for tenders.
These three places should be commenced by July 20, and a portion, to be designated by the resident engineer, be finished this season.
*	(Sgd.) J.B.H.,
Acting Deputy Minister.
On the 15th of July there was another message from Mr. Hunter:
Chief Engineer,-Kindly let me know as soon as possible just what quantity of urgent dredging there is at Gaspereau river, N.B.
It is represented all that requires to be done at present is removal of bar at mouth. Please say how much that will be.



J. B. H.

[Stage Direction]
Then, there is a message the following day from Ottawa to the resident engineer New Brunswick. Mr. Lafleur in his evidence said:
On the 16th July, 1908, I wired to Geoffrey Stead, resident engineer, St. John, Chatham, IN .B.:	' Please wire me immediately what
quantity of urgent dredging is required in the Gaspereau river, N.B. It is represented that all that requires to be done is removal of bar at mouth. How much would that be?
He was asked how he knew that that was represented, or as to the necessity for any dredging, but he could not say. Here is the chief engineer of public works, the man who has charge of these things, and he says that ' it is represented,' but he does not know by whom. Here is a quotation from his examination:
Q.-You had no knowledge of that?-A. No official knowledge, because there is nothing in the correspondence before me to show that.
Q. Have you any knowledge, official or otherwise?-A. Not to my memory.
Q. As to, by whom that representation was made?-A. No, sir.
This message, sent on the 16th of July required the resident engineer's report upon the quantity of work that had to be done on the Gaspereau river, a work which we find soon afterwards involves an expenditure of about $34,000. Well, the gentleman at Chatham is able to answer that next morning by telegram. Mr. Stead's reply was written July 17, and is the following:
In reply to your telegram at Gaspereau river, a cut to give six feet at low water through bar necessitating removal 48,000 cubic yards, barge measurement, is most urgently required. Basin 350 feet long, 200 feet wide; at wharfs also very necessary, requiring 14,000 cubic yards, barge measurement, of dredging.
That was a pretty sharp return from the gentleman at Chatham, New Brunswick, as to the requirements of the Gaspereau. It was required from him by his chief in order that he might issue calls for advertisements. And Mr. Lafleur is asked:
Q. You have no knowledge, however, of his visiting the round?-A. I have no knowledge.

Then follows another letter addressed to the secretary of the department by the acting deputy minister, Mr. Hunter, as follows :
20th July, 1908.
Secretary,-Please have advertisements sent out calling for tenders for dredging at Gas-pereau river, Buctouche Beach and Buc-touche harbour and Point Du Chene, in the province of New Brunswick.

[Stage Direction]
Acting Deputy Minister.
Now, as a fact, the advertisement was issued according to that instruction from the acting deputy minister. That advertisement was published in the St. John, New Brunswick newspapers on the 28th July, and it called for tenders by the 14th of August. On the 31st July we find this extraordinary message from the resident engineer at Chatham, N.B., to the chief engineer at Ottawa; you will observe that this is only three days after the advertisement appeared in the newspaper, and eleven days before the tenders were to be put in:
John E.: Moore, St. John

That is the secretary we have heard so much about, of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company.
-says he has a dredge ready to work on Gas-pereau river, N.B., and expects to start Monday. Am I authorized to lay out the dredging for him there?
Now this is going pretty rapidly. Three days after the advertisement is published and eleven days before tenders are due this Mr. Moore has it all arranged-not through the department, because they have no knowledge of it, but with somebody; surely it was not with the hon. member for Westmorland-it could only have been with the Minister of Public Works. Nobody else would have dared to make such an arrangement. The hon. minister wont say he did not make it. And Mr. John E. Moore goes himself to the resident engineer at Chatham, N B., and tells him: I have got the work, I have got my dredge ready, arid I expect to start on Monday next. And this is arranged by the minister who was bound by this statute I have just read and ought to have laid the tenders before the Governor in Council. He meets this contractor, Mr. Moore, who he admits is a friend of his in St. John, where the minister himself resides; he meets this Mr. Moore, and tells him he is to have the contract. Now the minister to-day has made a rather clever variation of what actually took place, no question about it. He has added now on second thought words that were never in the original proposition. He says what he told Mr. Moore was that he could begin the work, and on the 14th when tenders came in, if any other person were to 324J
tender lower that Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore was to withdraw his dredge and the other man would get the work at the cheaper rate. That is what the minister says, but it is absolutely contrary to the fact. Here is the letter of the chief engineer on August 4. He could not have written this letter without the authority of his chief, and we have here the statement in businesslike form exactly what Mr. Moore has been told, not all what the minister states to-day:
Sir,-^The work of dredging in the Gas-pereau river lias been given to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, of St. John, N.B., provided they are willing to accept in payment per cubic yard, scow measurement, the lowest price to be obtained by tenders which are now being called for. Kindly place tlie company's dredge at work immediately if they accept the conditions. You will please, however, note that the lesser work only is to be engaged upon.
Now where is there a word here that if there was a lower tender put in the lower tenderer was to get the work? It was the very opposite. If there was a lower tender they, the Maritime Company, were to take -that price. That is what he says, and the fact is that on the 4th of August he actually gave them the work, the only condition being that they were to accept the price of the lowest tender. The hon. gentleman wishes us to believe he was so anxious to get on with this work between the 4th of August and the 14th, that he wanted to put a dredge at work there, and keep it going for ten days, and that it was to be removed and go away if somebody tendered for less. That is absolutely incorrect. There is the letter written at the time by the chief engineer, undoubtedly by dictation. The work was given at that moment to the Maritime Dredging Company, the only condition being that if there happened to be a lower tender they were to take that. Now I ask hon. gentlemen opposite, there are business men over there, and they understand what this means, they understand the effect of it -I ask if there is an hon. gentleman opposite who believes for a moment that, with Mr. Moore's dredge on the work, with the engineer on the spot placing him in charge of the work, and setting put the the work for him, any other rival dredge owner would go to the trouble and expense of tendering on the 14th of August? Is there an hon. gentleman opposite in business who, if he found a friend of the government, of the minister, a fellow townsman of the minister-I think he objected to the word ' crony ' used by the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket)-but if he found a fellow townsman in charge of the work, if he found him on the 4th of August placed in possession of the work by the resident engineer, would any man of ordin-

ary common sense go to the trouble of putting in a tender at all? It is absurd to pretend such a thing, it is absolutely childish to think that any man in the dredging business, finding a government work, of all work, and a friend of the government in charge-and all these dredge owners know each other, they know who is inside and who is not-to say that a man would go and make a tender under these circumstances is absolutely ridiculous, and the hon. gentleman knows it as well as any one. Now what was the result? It was worse, actually worse, than giving him the contract, and for this reason. Mr. John E. Moore knew that [DOT]not only would he get the contract, but he knew that no other person was going to tender under those circumstances. Then what was the result? Wiry, if John E. Moore, instead of tendering at 90 cents, as he did, had actually had the impudence to tender at $1, he would have got it just the same, he knew that nobody else would get the work. All he had to do was to put in his own tender. Therefore, I submit, it is a reasonable inference that that 90 cents was understood and agreed upon when the arrangement was made for him to put in a tender. I think no one would hesitate to come to that conclusion. 1 think _ if the question was left to a common j ury, and they were asked:	Do you
think it is a reasonable1 inference that when the minister told Moore he could go to work and afterwards tender, it was then agreed the tender should be 90 cents. The jury would answer in the affirmative. Otherwise it would be still worse for the minister, because the man might have put in as much as he liked.


William Pugsley: There is not a particle of evidence to sustain the hon. gentleman's suggestion, not a particle of evidence that I ever knew what the tender was before it was opened. As a matter of fact I did not.


Samuel Barker: I did not say there was evidence, it is a reasonable inference from reading this letter.
I repeat, who would be so densely stupid as to think that there would be another tender? It is monstrous to think that the minister ever expected there would be another tender. He simply said, in effect, whatever your tender is, I will give you that price and if the minister did not agree with him that it would be 90 cents I think it would have been prudent for him to have done so because he might have had to pay more.	'


William Pugsley: Prudent or not, he did not do it.


Samuel Barker: The minister may be faulty in his recollection as to some trifling circumstances.


William Pugsley: Not a bit as to that.


Samuel Barker: 


Samuel Barker: I think it would have been a business act to have taken care at all events that it should not be more than 90 cents. It might have been more and the hon. gentleman would have been bound, as there would have been no other tender. Now there is the letting of this contract. That is the way that this minister thought he was carrying out the statute governing all the departments of this government. He took care that ten days before the advertisements came in the man was in possession of the work, everything was perfectly understood and arranged, anil there was no trouble to the end. The work went on and this trifling job that was entered into-I do not use the word ' job ' in any improper sense-this contract, although there was no actual written contract, involved a sum of $33,969, and the government paid it. Is there any doubt as to that? There is no question at all about it. What is the fact?-that a verbal arrangement, confirmed by the letter of the chief engineer, was the only contract the minister ever entered into while the work was under performance. The whole of that $33,969 was earned and payable upon the word of the minister and no formal, contract whatever was entered into. There is no question at all about that, and the minister cannot deny it. We have the telegram from Mr. Stead that he had been informed that the man was to have the work, and the letter from the chief engineer telling him that he was to have that work, and that with the tender which was put in on the 14th August was the only contract that was entered into; in fact, there was no contract whatever until the gentleman found for some good reason that he had to get an order in council, and then and only then, months after, was a contract prepared. _ That is clear. There is no question about it and it cannot be denied.
Then, the 14th of August was the day for the opening of tenders, and the next thing in order is the memorandum by the assistant secretary of the department for the minister at page 243:
Dredging in New Brunswick.
Buctouehe beach, Buctouche harbour, Gas-pereau river, Point du Chene.
Tenders for above work due Friday, August 14, 1908. One tender received at this office herewith. Appropriation: dredging maritime provinces, $650,000.
We have not taken up the three other cases. We have confined ourselves to Gasper eau river as if he went into all together it would likely be confusing, and this one raises the whole question of this resolution. This witness is asked:
What is the amount of the tender? [DOT]
And the answer is 90 cents per cubic yard for each place included:

Hon. gentlemen can see that it is a much bigger question than -appears from the discussion here. Here is the letter sent by the chief engineer oh September 29. We have heard a -good deal from the minister about the view of his chief engineer as to the reasonableness of the -price for this work. I think this is a very significant letter that I will read:
Sept. 29, 1908.
Sir,-Tlie only tender received for dredging In the Gaspereau river was the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company for 90 cents per cubic yard, scow measurement.
Here are the words of this chief engineer who, it is said, thought the price was reasonable:
At the time the tender was received I thought the price was considerably more than that for which the contract should be awarded.
Yet the hon. gentleman accepted everything because it was recommended by his chief engineer, the gentleman who actually thought the price wias -considerably more than -ought to he given.
However, it has been represented to the department that the condition is such as to make this price fair and reasonable.
He was asked where that representation came from. He did not know; he could not recollect. There was nothing on the files of the department to show where it came from. Here is the question:
You say, however, it has been represented to the department that the condition is such as to make this price fair -and reasonable. By whom was that representation made to the department ?
The chief engineer says:
That I cannot remember at this date.
Q. Did anybody represent that to you?

A. Not to me personally.
Q. Who did represent it to you; from whom did you get that information?-A. I must have had it from some of the officers of the department.
Q. Did you get it from the minister?-A. I cannot say that.
Of course he could not. Who would have expected him to recollect that?
Q. Will you say that you did not get it from the minister?-A. I cannot say that I did not.
There is the evidence of the chief engineer who led the minister to accept the tender, the man who told him that he thought the price was considerably more than ought to be paid. But the engineer yields to it, unwillingly evidently, because it was represented to the department that there were circumstances that' he was not told about, that he knew nothing about, which made it fair -and reasonable. Well, there may have been circumstances to make it -reasonable for somebody, but to say that it was fair and reasonable to the country is
an absolute enormity, there was no justification for such a thing, and it is a ridiculous farce to pretend that there was. I leave for a moment -the routine of the procedure. I will remind the House that this work was finished about October, 1908, just about the time of the election. I think the election was on the 24th October, and that is just about the time that this contractor finished the work and got paid.
Then, as to this work which was so urgent that it had to -be done immediately, here is a report of the chief engineer dated 9th March, 1909.
Chatham, N. B., 9th March, 1909.
Sir,-I have received your letter No. 8510, of the 4th March, asking a report on what further dredging is required in the Gaspereau river, Westmoreland county, New Brunswick. In reply I have to say that last season dredging to the extent of 33,744 cubic yards at a cost of $33,969.60 was performed for the excavation of a channel 100 feet wide across the estuary of the Gaspereau river, hut the shoalest point of the estuary had not been reached at the close of the season, and, -therefore, practically no improvement in navigation has been effected.
Here was $34,000 expended for this so-called urgent work, and we have it set forth here that they actually did not get to the -shallow part at all, and the work done was no good-. That is what the hon. member (Mr. Crocket) said, and not the way the minister put it. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket), said that the way it was left in the autumn of 1908 it was no good.


Oswald Smith Crocket: And the way it is today, it is no good.


Samuel Barker: And it still 'remain-s no good, and it was done in defiance of the statute.


William Pugsley: During the last year, work was -continued -by the government dredge, and while there is still some further work to be done to carry it to the railway -bridge, I am told the -channel is very good to-day, and- that the work has become very beneficial.


Samuel Barker: Here is work done on the minister's own personal order as urgent work, done in defiance of the statute, and the way it was left in 1908 it was absolutely useless. In another part of the evidence it is proven that a part of the shoal left untouched had nine and six-tenths inches of water, and lo, this was to be a navigable harbour. I am confining myself almost entirely to documentary evidence, so that there will be no question about it, and on the 3rd of October, the month in which the general election was held, the contractors were urgently requiring -that they should get paid $34,339 for

this work.' At that particular time they had not quite finished the work, but they wanted to get the money, and we find the Hon. William Pugsley at St. John, New Brunswick, on the 3rd of October, 1908, telegraphing to the chief engineer at Ottawa:
Kindly wire instructions to Scammell to visit Gaspereau, as arranged.
Scammell was wanted down there to get the thing settled up so that the department could pay, and the chief engineer on the 5th of October telegraphed Scammell at St. John, New Brunswick:
Certain difficulties have arisen in connection with dredging Gaspereau river. Please see the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company at St. John, who have the contract, and report.
At that time there was no formal contract signed by anybody, and no pretense of a contract, and nothing but the letter of the chief engineer and the tender. On the 16th of October, just eight days before the election, there was a telegram sent to the Hon. William Pugsley at St. John, New Brunswick. No doubt the minister was down there looking after the elections, and here is a very extraordinary telegram sent to him from Ottawa by his chief engineer :
Deputy Minister informs me that you have Maritime Dredging and Construction Company's tender for dredging Gaspereau river. Would you kindly let me know price quoted for ordinary material and casting over so that progress estimate may be made out and paid.
Just fancy that. Fancy the president of a railway company or any other concern, contractors wanting urgently to be paid $33,000, and he a thousand miles away from his office with the tender in his pocket. It is an extraordinary thing.


William Pugsley: And particularly if he is visiting the locality where the work is going on.


Samuel Barker: I - did not charge that the minister was personally superintending this work.


William Pugsley: It is in the province of New Brunswick.


Samuel Barker: And the minister was at St. John, New Brunswick, the headquarters of this dredging company. Now, this is where the extra came in. There was no price in the tender for the casting over, but they wanted to make an extra charge for it, and it brought that 90 cents a yard pretty close up to a dollar, and the chief engineer at Ottawa wanted to see what that tender was, and just fancy the condition of things in an office where there Mr. BARKER.
was not even an entry in a book as to the terms upon which the contract was let.
The chief engineer oould not find cut what the terms were, because the minister had taken the tender down to St. John. What for, may I ask? Is it anything suspicious for me to ask the minister what he was doing with the tender that belonged to the office at Ottawa, down in St. John?


William Pugsley: I explained that.


Samuel Barker: Will you explain it again.


William Pugsley: I have already done it quite fully.


Samuel Barker: It is not explainable.


William Pugsley: I am sorry if the hon. gentleman did not hear it.


Samuel Barker: What right has a minister to take the public documents, the only evidence of the terms of the tender, away from the office? What right has the minister to go hawking around the country papers belonging to the office, to see the contractors? What does he do it for?


William Pugsley: There is no suggestion in the evidence that I took the tender to see the contractors.


Samuel Barker: I am suggesting that. The chief engineer cannot check the account sent in, he has not the price, there is not an entry in the department showing what that tender was. There is no letter, there is no contract. If the hon. gentleman had entered into a proper contract he would have had the terms there and the chief engineer would have been able to check the account. But the whole thing rested on that tender and the minister had that in St. John.


William Pugsley: I am sorry my hon. fiiend did not hear my explanation. I stated that there was a question with regard to wffiether the department would properly pay to the contractors their tender price of 90 cents. I stated, and it appears also by the evidence that the chief engineer had felt that the price was *somewhat higher than it ought to be. I intended to arrange for Mr. Scammell to visit the work. I took the tender, not in my pocket, as the hon. member for York says, I took it in my official dispatch box, where many other papers coming to me as minister which I have to look over, are always kept. The minister has to take many papers with him, from time to time to examine. I took it for the purpose of conferring with Mr. Scammell with regard to it, and the moment I got word from the chief engineer that he wanted it the record shows it was sent back to the deputy minister.


Samuel Barker: I did not need that admission from the hon. gentleman, because it is here. That is just wihat occurred, they were trying to get the thing settled, these people were claiming extras, claiming for casting over and the chief* engineer could not certify or settle the account. There was no document, that tender was the only thing in the department. That scrap of paper was the only thing the government had and the minister took it off to St. John. That is what I said and I do not think the minister has altered it.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman made the statement that I took it to St. John to the office of the contractors, to show to the contractors. I say that statement is not worthy of my hon. friend in view of there not being a particle of evidence to support it.


Samuel Barker: I admit that I am drawing an inference there. I did not suppose that the minister went to St. John to the head office of the dredging company. If the hon. gentleman says he did not intend to see Moore about it. I will accept his statement but until he does so I do not believe he went there except for the purpose of seeing these men.


William Pugsley: All I can say is I have not the slightest recollection of seeing them on the subject.


Samuel Barker: 
William Pugsley: The hon. member has just read from the evidence that the tender said nothing about the price for casting over. Therefore what could I say about what the price was to be. All I could do was to send the tender back to the officers of the department and allow the officers to work it out for themselves.


Mil BARKER.: All the chief engineer wanted was to have the tender.


William Pugsley: This was sent back to him.
MrV BARKER. In .addition to the 90 cents they were claiming for casting over, and he asked the question 1 material and casting over.' The minister says nothing about the casting over, he says 90 cents.


Henry Robert Emmerson: He sends the tender though.


Samuel Barker: That was a most reckless reply for a business man to -send by telegraph.	.


William Pugsley: Is it ot is it not the case that the hon. gentleman has read from the evidence showing that the tender made no reference to and did not name any price for casting over? Is that not so?


Samuel Barker: Certainly.


William Pugsley: Then if that is so how can my hon. friend say that it was a reckless reply on my part that I made no reference to casting over when the tender itself that I forwarded to the deputy minister said nothing about casting over.


Samuel Barker: When the chief engineer asked for the price of materials and of casting over, to send him the simple answer ' 90 .cents for materials ' was very

apt to mislead him; the matter should not have been left so that there was any question about it. It is a bit of careless work that no competent clerk would be guilty ot.


William Pugsley: Should I have fixed a price for casting over in my reply?


Samuel Barker: YIou should have said there was nothing' about casting over in it.


William Pugsley: I mailed the tender at c-noe


Samuel Barker: On October 16, eight days before the election I find a letter from the minister to his deputy.
I return you tender of the Marine Dredging and Construction Company for work at Gas-pereau river, &c. I understand that Mr. Mc-Cordock has reported that the price asked for Gaspereau is reasonable.
So that the minister was not merely in possession of the tender, but was interviewing the officers down there, and I suppose he argued very strongly with Mr. Met Cordock against allowing that extra. I presume that he would consider that his duty. However, we do not see any evidence of it, and he takes care to inform the department he understands th-at Mr. Mc-Cordock is in favour of it. Then, here comes the point of this letter, written on the 16th of October, when the work was just about finished for the season:-
I shall be glad if you will confer with the chief engineer and have the necessary recommendation to council prepared.
There we begin to see a new feature. It was quite clear by this time that there was some trouble about extras and other things, and that the Auditor General was looming up before the eye of the minister. When he started on this work, there was no necessity for an order in council; but when there came to be a dispute about extras, and the 90 cents got up nearly to a dollar, naturally the minister thought, ' this will go before that awful man the Auditor General,' and visions of the Auditor General directed attention to the necessity of getting up an application to the Governor in Council to cover up this thing; and, here the great farce and humbug of the whole thing comes in. You must remember that the bon. member for Westmorland argued that this was an urgent thing that the minister had a right to do himself, and that there was no question of illegality about it. The whole question we raise is one of legality, and now the minister admits all that we contend, that that work ought never to have been given out until all the tenders and every paper relating to it had been laid before the Governor in Council. Here is what was now prepared for the Governor in Council:


Samuel Barker: Ottawa Nov. 11, 1908.
To His Excellency the Governor in Council: The undersigned has the honour to recommend that authority be given to accept the tender of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, of St. John, N.B., to perform dredging in the Gaspereau river, in the province of New Brunswick, at the price of 90 cents per yard, scow measurement, the above bid being the only one received in answer to public advertisement the tenderers have furnished an accepted bank cheque for $6,000 as a security for the fulfilment of tlieir dredging contracts in the said province. The expenditure iu connection with this dredging is properly chargeable to the appropriation of $650,000. For dredging iu the maritime provinces granted by parliament at its last session.
The chief engineer of the Department of Public Works has reported that the price above quoted is fair and reasonable.
WILLIAM PUGSLEY, Minister of Public Works.
On November 14, 1908, after the work is all done, he gravely asks His Excellency the Governor General to consent to the acceptance of the tender. Most marvellous thing, this-the tender was accepted and the work put into the hands of these men before the tenders were opened; and months afterwards, when they were trying to settle the accounts for payment, he gravely and solemnly makes this request. Two resident engineers, one in 1903 and the other in 1907, had examined the work to see what it would cost if the government proposed to go on with the work, and they both valued it at 20 cents; and here in 1908 the minister solemnly signs a document recommending the acceptance of a tender at 90 cents; and there is no one to tell His Excellency the astounding fact, that the minister had arranged to accept the tender of these people before the time for putting in tenders had elapsed. He says further:
The tenderers have furnished an accepted hank cheque for $6,000 as security for the due fulfilment of their dredging contracts in the said province.
Was that true? On the 14th of November, no contract having been made, he makes that statement.
The expenditure in connection with this dredging is properly chargeable to the appropriation of $650,000 for dredging in the maritime provinces granted by parliament at its last session. The chief engineer of the Department of Public Works has reported that the price above quoted is fair and reasonable.
I have already read what the chief engineer said. He said that when he saw that tender he thought that it was considerably higher than ought to be paid, but he approved of it because somebody had- told him that there *were circumstances not disclosed to make it favourable. Well, we have a little more. This recommendation

of the hon. Minister of Public Works is laid before a committee of the Privy Council and is approved by His Excellency the Governor General on the 20th of November, 1908. This is the recommendation that His Excellency approved:
The Committee of the Privy Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Public Works, advise that authority be given to accept the tender of the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company of St. John, New Brunswick, to perform dredging in the Gas-pereau river, in the province of New Brunswick at the price of 90c. per cubic yard, scow measurement, the above bid being the only one received in answer to public advertisement. The tenderers have furnished an a:-ceptsd bank cheque for $6,000 as security for the due fulfilment of their dredging con [DOT] tracts in the said province. The expenditure in connection with this dredging is properly chargeable to the appropriation of $650,000 for dredging for the maritime provinces granted by parliament at its last session. The chief engineer of the Department of Public Worke has reported that the price above quoted is fair and reasonable.
And here is the most precious bit in the whole lot:
Such contract to be for work done up to the close of the calendar year.
Clearly conveying to the Governor General that he was approving the acceptance of a tender for work that was yet to be done between October and the 31st of December. That was a deliberate taking-in of His Excellency, a deliberate and wilful deception. I wonder what he thinks of his ministers when he is made to approve a document of that kind. One can hardly believe it possible, and yet there is the document. After the work had been proceeded with from July to the middle of November, they go to His Excellency to get his approval of a contract to be entered into to perform the work between then and the end of the year, and he is induced to approve that.
What can His Excellency think of the Minister of Public Works? Can he place reliance in that minister? And it is not only the Minister of Public Works, but also his colleagues, for they must have known it; they could not avoid knowing that that work had already been done and without authority. If that is not the case, then, the Minister of Public Works must have deceived not only His Excellency, but his own colleagues. Surely, he would not betray his colleagues in that recommendation. They must have winked at the whole thing in order to get the money-that was the essential.


William Stewart Loggie: I understood the hon. gentleman (Mr. Barker) to say that the work was' commenced in July. Where is the evidence to be found of that?


Samuel Barker: I am quite willing to be corrected; it was laid out on the 4th of August.


William Stewart Loggie: Where is the evidence that it was commenced on the 4th of August?


Samuel Barker: The evidence shows that the order to lay out the work was on the 4th of August. They must have started about that time, and the work proceded in August, September and October.


William Pugsley: Mr. MeCordock or Mr. Scammell said it commenced on-the 16th of August.


William Stewart Loggie: No, the 17th of August.


Samuel Barker: There is no question about the main facts. On the 4th of August, Mr. Stead got authority to lay out the work for Mr. Moore, and dredging must have begun about that time. He said that he would begin on the Monday following, and it could not be many days after that when he did. I do not care whether it was on the 4th or the 14th. In October there were claims for $34,000. And on the 20th November, though no contract whatever had been signed for this work beyond taking the man's tender, they asked the Governor General to authorize the contract, and they informed the Governor General that the tenderer had put in a cheque for $6,000 to secure the performance of the work already done.
Now, I said that I proposed to confine my remarks practically to this testimony. And on that testimony I would say that the minister deliberately and wilfully evaded the statute governing this department.
I repeat that, and I say that the conduct of which- he has been convicted on this evidence is as bad as the conduct of those bankers who are now serving time in the penitentiary.


Alexander Haggart: I listened with a good deal of interest to the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson), who held a brief for his colleague, the Minister of Public Works. And he followed the usual tactics-'No case; abuse the plaintiff's attorney.' There were the usual charges of exaggeration and insinuation. But it appeared to me, upon an attentive hearing of what has been said * by both sides, that the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket) was. very clear, very distinct and very direct in his charges. He framed an indictment covering a direct charge of maladministration, and every count in that indictment was in unmis-takeable Anglo-Saxon. The parties against whom these charges were directed are the Minister of Public Works and his political friends from the province of New Brunswick. The minister is charged with being

at least an accessory before the fact in that he enabled these political friends of his- and social friends also; I believe they were called cronies-to make money from the public treasury in a way which the statutes forbid. It was not an evasion of the statute which required works of this kind to be let on tender, but it was a direct violation of that statute. The statute says that it must be by tender. The minister (Mr. Pugsley) himself tries to get away from that and to say that this case comes within the exceptance that exceptions are allowed. He says this was a case of urgency and so comes within the exceptions. If that were the case, why in Heaven's name did he advertise for tenders? No doubt after he had determined to give these men that work to do his attention was called to the fact that work of this nature must be given by tender. Was this a case of emergency? We are told by the counsel for the Minister of Public Works that this matter was brought before the late Hon. Mr. Tarte when he was Minister of Public Works and before some of his successors. Was it any more a case of urgency in 1908 than it had been when Mr. Tarte and his successors were in office?


William Pugsley: Will the hon. gentleman (Mr. Haggart, Winnipeg) allow me to correct him? I certainly did not intend that the case should be put under the subsection which provides in cases of emergency the work may be given without calling for tenders. What I claim is that, pending the calling for tenders, when work to be done in the meantime was comparatively small, when there was every reason to anticipate that it would not amount to $5,000-it would not amount to over $2,000 or $3,000- it would be perfectly competent for the minister to let the work temporarily if he thinks it in the public interest to do so, on condition that when the tenders come in the person who performs the work shall ac-oept for it the price at which the contract may be awarded to the lowest tenderer.


Alexander Haggart: The case of works involving small expenditure is another exception, and I believe now that the minister brings it under that head.


William Pugsley: The minister may let a work under $5,000.


Alexander Haggart: But this was for more than $5,000, it was for an indefinite amount.


William Pugsley: But in the meantime it could not possibly amount to $5,000.


Alexander Haggart: What, the whole?


William Pugsley: No, but between the time when the company should go to work and the due-date of the tender. It could not amount to anything like $5,000.


Alexander Haggart: 


Alexander Haggart: 
Arthur Meighen: I cannot affect even to be surprised that no one can be found to come to the rescue of the Minister of Public Works after the debate has proceeded to this hour. The hon. member for the county affected aid rise in his place and endeavoured to justify the conduct of the minister. If it could be said that a loud voice, and a profusion of gestures, and a violent demeanor constitute the elements of argument, then the hon. member for Westmorland [Mr. Emmensonl certainly is a prince at debate. The Minister of Public Works himself emulated his example, but to my mind, he did not exercise even his usual skill in deflecting the argument from the actual issue at stake. One would listen to both these hon. gentlemen and be quite surprised to find that the motion before the Chair was a censure of the Minister of Public Works, and his department on the ground that the evidence before the Public Accounts Committee reveals a wasteful and illegal expenditure of public money in improvements on the Gasper-eau river.	.
Now, what is the situation? First ol all, let me give the House a few dates, and a review of the dates, will make it appear that there is a case that can with difficulty be explained by any one, however ingenious. On the 3rd of July, 1908, it developed in the Department of Public Works that certain dredging in the Gaspereau river was urgently needed, and that there would be immediate public peril if it was not undertaken at once. A note was sent by the deputy of the department
to the chief engineer accordingly, asking him to institute an investigation as to the cost and extent of the work required. Notwithstanding that that note was sent then, it took the department between the 3rd [DOT] and 16th of the month to take the next step, notwithstanding the fact that this public work was so desperately urgent as it was claimed to be at the time. On the 16th another note was sent, asking that the engineer report, and a wire followed it to Gaspereau asking Mr. Geoffrey Stead to report on the 16th of July. Now nothing further is done until the report comes in on the 20th, and that report states that it is very urgent indeed that dredging to the extent of so many cubic yards be done in order to get through a sandbar at the mouth of the Gaspereau river. On the 28th the advertisement for tenders goes out, so that between the 3rd when the urgency developed and the date the advertisement went out, 25 days had elapsed. Advertisements for tenders go out on the 28th, and three days after a wire goes from Mr. Geoffrey Stead that the friends of the Minister of Public Works are right at the point with their dredge, and ready to go to work next day; and not only that they are ready to go to work, but the wire actually states that they expect to go to work.
The minister has not explained to the House what built that expectation in the mind of Mr. John E. Moore. He expected to get the contract the following day, and he could never have seen the advertisement for tenders published. Then, on the 4th of August, four days afterwards, the contract was actually let and this country bound to the contract. The minister has endeavoured to lead the House to understand that all they were authorized to do was to start until tenders were received. The actual fact of the case is set out in the report of his own engineer who says that the contract had been let to them. They had been authorized to do all the work that was intended to be done, namely, all the work required, dredging through the sandbar to the river. They were authorized, the price to be fixed in a certain way, the price to be fixed on the basis of the lowest tender to be received from amongst those already advertised for. This was a perfectly fixed contract to which the minister committed this country and the words of the resolution state that the minister so committed this country illegally to it. The minister tries to get out, from under that by representing that the work was urgent. I stand to say, and the minister can not contradict me-he would not in a court of law-that, no matter how urgent that work, the contract that was let was absolutely illegal. The
Phbhc Works Ant does state that in case of urgency work may be done without tender. That is quite true, but the same

statute says that if tenders are called for then the contract shall be let in accordance with those tenders, and a recommendation to council shall follow the receipt of the tenders. The Act expressly forbids the letting of the contract prior to the receipt of the tender. The letting of this tender can not come under the provision of the Act relating to urgent public works.


William Pugsley: Does my hon. friend take the ground, that, under the statute which authorizes the minister to let a contract, ap,art altogether from the question of urgency, to an amount not exceeding $5,000, the minister could not, pending the date of the receipt of tenders, if he thought it in the public interests to do so, let a man go ito work temporarily on the condition, that, having worked for a few days temporarily for a period extending over -a week or ten days he would accept in payment for it the price of the lowest tender? Does the hon. gentleman say that tile minister could not do that under the statute?


Arthur Meighen: The minister's question is so prolix that I am not certain that I apprehend it. My exposition of the statute will be quite plain to the minister. He certainly could let a contract under $5,000 irrespective of the question of urgency. There is no question about that, but the minister can hardly contend that in letting this contract as it was so let, by the statement of his chief engineer to Mr: Geoffrey Stead on the 4th of August, he was letting a contract under $5,000. Mir. Geoffrey Stead had reported on the character and extent of the work that was urgent, and that was the amount of work that was let according to the letter of the 4th of August.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is a good lawyer, an excellent lawyer, no doubt better than I am, but I would like to know whether, if I am right in my contention that the work was only given to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company temporarily until the date of the 'receipt of tenders, and that would be under $5,000-as a matter of fact it could not have been over a couple of thousand dollars at the Outside

the hon. gentleman says that the minister acted illegally under the statute in giving a contract to do that temporary work on these terms?


Arthur Meighen: I say that the premises that the minister lays down are not true.


William Pugsley: Suppose they are true.


Arthur Meighen: There is absolutely nothing in the course of the contract to show that it was only temporary work.
I will show the minister from the evidence


Arthur Meighen: that there was no temporary letting of a *k&t that word was imported into the discussion simplv to deflect the argument. How could there be a temporary letting of the contract in view of this letter seen on page 241 of the evidence?
August 4, 1908.
The work of dredging in the Gaspereau river has been given to the Maritime Dredging and Construction Company, of St. John, N.B., providing

And the only provision is that they accept for this work the lowest price that in future may be decided by tender.


William Pugsley: That is for work done [DOT] in the meantime.


Arthur Meighen: Does that say part of the work, does that say work done until tenders are received?


William Pugsley: If you are going to let a contract what is the point of calling for tenders? That would be simply a farce if you are doing the whole work.


Haughton Lennox: So it was a farce.


William Pugsley: It was not a farce.


William Stewart Loggie: Will the hon. gentleman allow me to ask him a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS: Louder, louder.


William Stewart Loggie: Suppose the lowest tender would have been 20 cents a yard, would the Maritime Dredging Company have been obliged to continue the work when they had received notice that the department would only pay 20 cents per cubic yard?


Arthur Meighen: At law they certainly would have been obliged to, but in practice certainly the minister never would have made them. Mr. Stead was asked by telegram on the 15th July:
Kindly let me know as soon as possible just what quantity of urgent dredging there is at Gaspereau river, N.B. It is represented all that requires to be done at present is removal of bar at mouth. Please say how much that will be.
That is the telegram to Mr. Stead and Mr. Stead reports the amount as 48,000 cubic yards. Then follows a telegram to Mr. Stead stating that the work has been let. How can the ingenuity of mortals argue into that that only a small part of the work had been let until possibly they would he ousted by a lower tenderer on the 14th August? That is imported into the debate by the Minister of Public Works with a skill in which he is practised and for an object that he surely conceives to be utterly aside from the issue. So that, the contract is let. Then, you are to take the lowest tender and, under the circumstances pictured by the minister himself,

he must have been aware that there could not be any other tender. The me.n are put on the work, they are right in the river and there is no other dredge in sight. Any person who might have a dredge would only have ten days to look it over.. If the minister figures up the dates he will find that is correct, and the minister has painted this as being an isolated spot but of the dredging zone. So, here are men, friends of the minister, xeputed and known throughout the maritime provinces, to be close to him, politically, socially and in every other way, actually at work in that isolated place doing the job, ready to tell anybody that comes that they have the work, away out of the dredging zone and certainly without the danger zone. Under these circumstances does the minister expect that anybody else is going to tender? The minister tells us that he made that arrangement and there is no one else in the world who could have made it. He made the arrangement illegally with that company to go on and do the work, knowing that tenders should have been called for and were called for. So that, the first part of the amendment is established without the possibility of excuse that the contract was illegally awarded.
Now, what is the result of it all? Before I go on with that let me proceed with the dates that I was going to give. The contract is awarded and these men are put to work on the 4th of August. On the 14th tenders are to be received and, as everybody would expect, only one came in.
Whether that ever got to the department or not there is no evidence to be found on the record. The tender came in on the 14th of August and Mr. McCordock who is the officer in New Brunswick to oversee such work is only notified on the 29th of September, when the work has been in progress for six weeks. In the meantime they had notified the resident engineer of the province of Nova Scotia, but all they notified him to do was to tell the company that the contract was theirs. Then, Mr. McCordock, whose duty it is to supervise these works in New Brunswick, on being notified, sets to work to find where the Gaspereau river is. It is remarkable that in the case of this work of such tremendous urgency that unless it be proceeded with at once disaster would overtake the Dominion, the river where the work is to be done is not only utterly unknown to the supervisor of dredging of the province, but to the resident engineers of the government at St. John, both of whom inform Mr. McCordock that they do not know where the Gaspereau river is. The minister tells us that the work was so important that it had been urged on the department for 8 years by the member for the county, and yet no report had ever
been asked for as to whether there was any traffic to warrant the expenditure that would be required. To this hour the department is absolutely without a report to show that there was. any prospect of traffic over that river which would warrant the expenditure of this large sum of public money. True they have two reports to show what the cost would be, but these reports do not seem to be much good because according to the minister they are 600 per cent astray in the estimate. After Mr. McCordock found out where the river was he made a report on the 8th October, and in the meantime he had seen the Minister of Public Works, and Mr. Scammell had seen the Minister of Public Works, and the minister had arranged that Mr. Scammell should make a special report on the Gaspereau river. The fact that these gentlemen had seen the minister is clear from several statements in the letters, but if for no reason it is quite clear from the fact that in their letters after that they always used the words 'fair and reasonable' which constitute a favourite expression from the lips of the minister. The minister is at the city of St. John and from St. John he wires to his officer at Ottawa to wire back to St. John to tell Mr. Scammell to go and make the report as arranged. That is to say, after the price is finally fixed, this gentleman is asked to make a report as to certain difficulties. Now, this difficulty matter is peculiar. The minister has let the contract and has committed the country to the payment of 90 cents a yard for the work. On the 14th of August the lowest tender is in and the price is then fixed at 90 cents a yard once and for all, and the people of Canada have to pay for it. But the minister knew, as everbody down there knew, that the price was exorbitant, and that something would have to be done to explain it before the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee, and so he sets to work to bolster up mis exorbitant price. How he did it is evident from the telegram of his chief engineer, sent to Mr. Scammell on the 5th of October, in which he says that certain difficulties had arisen. What these difficulties were nobody knows yet. The price had been determined on then, and the Maritime Dredging Company could have sued for it, and what these difficulties were or what they had to do with the contract we are at a loss to understand. We do know that the Minister of Public Works knew that the price was exorbitant and that he had to bring in something to bolster it up, and so he represents to his engineer that there are certain difficulties and that he should send someone out to report so that there would be evidence before the Public Accounts Committee as to what a terrible struggle these men had to carry on their

contract. Mr. Scammell and Mr. McCord-ock go out on the work, and ffie minister is in St. John at the same time, and between the three of them they get two reports sent in that the price is fair and reasonable. And the minister thinks he is justified before parliament and the country for having entered into an illegal contract if he is able to produce a report of a couple of his subordinates, saying that the price is fair and reasonable. If that is so what is the good of the statute; what is the use .of asking for tenders on any contract? We might just as well have the statute read that any payment whatever may be made by the Department of Public Works providing two subordinate officers are ready to certify that it is fair and reasonable. What the Department of Public Works should have done was to ascertain in the first place 'by reliable engineers what the work would cost, what would be a fair amount to charge for it, and govern itself in accepting the tender by the report of these reliable engineers. The Minister of Public Works .tries to make the House believe they had only one report, but as a matter of fact they had two reports, namely the report of Mr. Day in 1903, and the report of Mr. Stead in 1907, and each fixing the cost at 20 cents. The Minister of Public Works says that the dredge was exposed in this work, that it was not covered by a mountain or hidden behind rocks or something ,of that sort, and that the difficulties were appalling and justified the price of 90 cents a yard. Well, was not every physical and geographical difficulty on the Gaspereau river just the same at the time the engineers reported that the price should be 20 cents a yard as when the work was given out at 90 cents a yard. Worse than that; the minister says the report only meant that it would cost the government 20 cents a yard if they did the work themselves,^ and while the resolution says that the evidence shows the money was illegally and fraudulently paid out, the minister endeavours to defend himself by reading into the engineer's report something not contained in it.
There is nothing whatever to show that the engineer reported that if the government were to do it, and take no account of interest on capital or operating expenses or wear and tear, it would only cost them 20 cents. In the first place there is nothing to show that, and in the next place if the engineer reported on that basis, the government was not justified in advertising for tenders at all, because he should have had a report on the basis on which tenders were to be called for. That is the only report that would be of value to him, and that is the report he was bound to have if he had done his duty in the department. Put where does the minister stand in this Mr. MEIGHEN..
regard? Does he say he had an engineer who ,rePor^ed 20 cents as the price if it had been done by a government dredge, and took no account of these charges? If he did not take account of that what did he take account of, what did the 20 cents include? I can conceive of nothing which the country would be out except interest on capital, operating expenses, and wear and tear. I state this to the minister that m the minister's estimates, in the reports of his engineers as to what it cost the country; they do include interest on capital, wear and tear and operating expenses. Does the minister deny that?


William Pugsley: Yes.


Mr MEIGHEN.: Then we will take the minister s own statement. Last .spring he gave an estimate to this House as to what it cost government dredges per day. He said it cost, including operating expenses, interest on capital and reasonable wear and tear


William Pugsley: Is the hon. gentleman speaking of the arrangement with regard to the dredge ' International ' with Messrs. Dussault at Quebec?


Arthur Meighen: It makes no difference what the dredge is.


William Pugsley: It does, my hon. friend ought to answer.


Arthur Meighen: The minister stated that in estimating the cost the government took into account wear and tear, operating expenses and interest on capital.


William Pugsley: I was not speaking of the cost of the government dredges, but of a special arrangement which had been made between the department and Messrs. Dussault for the hiring of the dredge ' International,' and stated that we had fixed the rent at a sufficient amount per day to cover all these items, and keep the government absolutely clear in the matter, and if my hon. friend will reflect he will see that is what I was dealing with.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know what dredge he was dealing with


William Pugsley: That is what it was, an entirely different proposition.
Mr. [MEIGHEN-fnor do I care. The minister .stated that in estimating what it cost the government to operate a dredge, they included all these.


William Pugsley: I entirely deny that.
I do not know the record to which my hon. friend refers, but I shall be extremely surprised if it bears that construction.


Arthur Meighen: At page 4780 of ' Hansard,' 1910, the minister gave an estimate of $91 a day, and stated that that

estimate included wages, operating expenses, interest on capital, and wear and tear.


William Pugsley: Quite so, for the dredge ' International.'


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, and does he say that for one dredge the government estimates cost per day on one basis, and for another dredge on another basis?


William Pugsley: In that particular case we were making a special arrangement to lease the dredge ' International ' to Messrs. Dussaulit and Company, and we fixed the amount sufficiently large to cover all the items to which my hon. friend refers. But that is not at all the same as the operating expenses on a dredge which are set forth in the Auditor General's report. That was the special case of the dredge ' International.'


Arthur Meighen: 
William Pugsley: It says sending in the reports of quantities, but not of cost.


Arthur Meighen: He does not say what they are; he simply says he is sending in the reports. The minister himself said he certified to the price.


William Pugsley: Not at that time.


Arthur Meighen: The minister will find that at page 256 of the evidence. Here is the way it reads:
In reply to your letter of the 23rd inst., I have been sending the reports of dredging at Port Elgin to Ottawa each week, but several have lately been returned to me through a misunderstanding of the reports. I wrote explaining the matter .and received a telegram on Saturday asking for the returned reports, which I at once forwarded.
Now, does the minister feel that he was justified in interrupting me to read into that letter something that it certainly does not contain?


William Pugsley: Does not the hon. gentleman see that it must be reports of quantities and not of prices?


Arthur Meighen: If the department were properly run, it might have been. But an engineer who will certify that 90 cents is fair and reasonable after reporting the value of the work at 20 cents would scarcely be above reporting that the price was right, though he did not know what the price was. Do not forget that this was a work of tremendous urgency, that-unless it were done something terrible was going to happen to the hon. jmeimber for Weetmonlfan/d, nhjd' he would be in a bad position in his county. In the light of this urgency, let us reflect for a moment on the position of the hon. member for Westmorland. He tells the House that he had made a promise to his constituents, and that unless tliis_ work was done that promise would be violated, and he says that he had to see that it was done because he wanted to go back to his constituency as a man who had kept his promise. Therefore, his promise to his constituents must have been that he would
103D3

see that that money was spent on the Gas-pereau river. Now, what a state of affairs it is in which an hon. member for a county can make an absolute pledge to his constituents, though he has no authority, no official status, no direct or legal power, that money will actually be spent. Does it mean that the hon. member for Westmorland was in possession of facts that he might reveal unless this were carried out? I venture to say that no member of the House of Commons who had not some bludgeon to hold over the head of the minister would make such a promise to his constituents as the hon. member iof Westmorland made. But he says: 'The work was so urgent that I was .justified in pledging the government and pledging myself.' Was it so urgent? On the 24th of October, two days before the election they stopped the work. They started the work-in August; they could have started it in May ; and they quit it two days before the election, and Mr. Stead in his report of the 9th of March following, said it was not worth a dollar. So that up to the election nothing was done that was of any value to the conistituencv of Westmorland except that the money was spent among some of the people there. Not only that, but in the next year, May passed by in which they might have done work. June, July, August and September went by, and they did not move a foot of earth until the month of October, 1909,. So that $33,969 was sunk and the country got absolutely nothing for it. Not one iota of value had been added to the traffic facilities of the Gaspereau river. They allowed the whole summer of 1909 to go by without doing anything to make the work of any value; but some time in October, we do not know the date, the government put a dredge on and kept it on for nearly two weeks, and took it away on the 28th of October; and from that time to this hour they have left the work just in the shape in which it was. 1,650 feet had been taken out, and 500 feet more were taken out in October. 1909, and the report says that they are not through the bar yet.


William Pugsley: I am sure that the 'hon. member is wrong. I am sure that we had the government dredge working there practically all through the summer season of 1910.
Mr. MiEIGHEN. Does that appear anywhere?


William Pugsley: It appears in the ac-HQ'inta of the Department of Public Works. The report for the year ending the 31st of March, 1911, has not yet been published ; but we kept the government dredge, the ' George Mackenzie,' at work all through last season.


Mr METGHEN.: 


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for Westmorland made the Jstatemeint that nothing had been done since October, 1909, but that something is being done now. Something had been done for two weeks in 1909, but he stated that they were nqt through the bar then.


William Pugsley: I happen to know that in the year 1910 the dredge got away up the river pretty close to the railway bridge.


Arthur Meighen: The Minister of Public Works, on the 4th of August, lets a contract for a work that involves an expenditure of $33,000, has the tenders come in on the 14th of August, has the work completed on the 24th of October, has the contract signed on the 7th of November, and after all that is done recommends to Council that the tender be accepted on the 17th of November, and the Governor in Council on the 20th of November authorizes the signing of a contract that had been signed two weeks before, for a work that had been .ended a monther before. And he justifies that on the urgency of the work; and yet it was left in 1908 in a state in which it was no good, and was not resumed until October, 1909; and now he undertakes to say, in the face, of the statement of the hon. member for Westmorland that they have been doing something this summer.
I do not doubt the statement of the hon. member for Westmorland, that they are geting busy now. The election is close at band, and I have no doubt that the hon. member is still committed to his constituents and has told his constituents that he can make the Minister of Public Works do this; and if the minister does not do it something serious is going to happen. That is the position we are in today. The hon. member for Westmorland spoke for about an hour and a quarter. The charge against the government is that this contract is let in an illegal and highly improper way and that far too much money was spent on the work. And the member for Westmorland thinks he has created a defence when he tells us that there are quite a lot of lobsters to flow over it when it is done and that they raise so many steers in that county every year. He seems to have taken example by the Minister of Justice (Sir Allen Aylesworth) who told us, in trying to defend that notorious and colossal fraud, the Newmarket canal, that a certain number of cattle were raised every year in the county of York, Ontario.	[DOT]
Now the minister has made certain statements with reference to the address of the hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket) I will not vie with the minister or with the hon. member for Westmorland in the use of vituperation or the hurling of epithets. I have never been taught to believe that an

argument is met in that way. I can hardly conceive that the hon. member for Westmoreland feels proud of himself in that, after spending an hour and a quarter in hurling names at the hon. member for York, because, as he stated, that hon. gentleman had made use of low insinuations, yet, when repeatedly challenged he did not state one insinuation that that hon. gentleman had made. Nor could the Minister of Public Works, when challenged name an insinuation that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket) had made. If there ever was a speech made in this House, if there ever was an attack made that was utterly void of insinuation, that was direct, plain and open in every sense, it was that of the hon. member for York to-day. The hon. member takes the sworn evidence and says that that evidence shows fraud and illegality, and he proves it. He says that Mr. John E. Moore and McAvity are two close political associates of the hon. Minister of Public Works. He does not insinuate that they are; he states that they are; and the minister knows it and does not deny it. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Crocket) says that these men got a contract illegally, hurriedly, under most suspicious circumstances, at prices four and a half times what his engineers stated it should be let at. And he says that they took the money-whether the same bills or not does not matter-'and in association with the Minister of Public Works bought the St. John '.Telegraph ' and made it the Liberal organ, instead of a Conservative supporter and so helped him to win the province of New Brunswick. These statements are plain and they are proved and no one denies them.


William Pugsley: I deny them.


Arthur Meighen: Which one does thej minister deny?


William Pugsley: I deny the three or four assertions that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Meighen) has just made.


Oswald Smith Crocket: I have never understood the minister to deny that he was associated with Mr. Moore or Mr. McAvity in a financial way in the purchase of the St. John * Telegraph ' and ' Times.' I ask him now if he denies that?


William Pugsley: I am replying to the statement of the hon. member (Mr. Meighen) who has just been speaking. He, makes three assertions. One was that the, contract was let illegally. The second was that it was let at four times its value- ,


Oswald Smith Crocket: I ask the hon. min


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) has thei floor.


William Pugsley: And I am answering with; the consent of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


William Pugsley: If the hon. gentleman does not consent, I will not speak.


Arthur Meighen: I ask the minister to, tell me the statement of facts I made tbatj is not correct?


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman made the statement that the contract had. been illegally let that it had been let for, four times its value and that the money, was used for the purchase of the ' Tele-^ graph ' in association with the Minister of Public Works. I say there is no foundation for these statements. And the reason I rose is that the hon. gentleman said that nobody denied that these statements were correct:	I deny them absolutely.


Arthur Meighen: I made four statements, and I stand here until I show every one of them to have been correct. The first is not a statement of fact, but is a conclusion of law-that the contract was illegally let. And who will say that a contract is not illegally let which is let after tenders are called for and before the tenders are received? Does the minister say that that is authorized by the Public Works Act?


William Pugsley: What was done in this case is authorized by the Public Works Act.


Arthur Meighen: I say, if it is authorized by the Public Works Act, then we might as well burn that statute.


William Pugsley: I complained that the hon. gentleman said that nobody denied it. I .say I .deny it.


Arthur Meighen: If I stated that the Minister of Public Works would not deny it I did it without appreciation of his character. I made the statement that these men were awarded this contract in that hurried, illegal and suspicious way at prices four and a half times what two of his engineers estimated it should be let at. The evidence absolutely proves that, and there is no contradiction. It is true that the minister got two men afterwards to come and find the difficulties-to find that the wind was blowing, to find that they had to fetch water over I forget how many yards in order to have water to drink, and that they had to fetch coal over a similar distance. But that had nothing on earth to do with the cost or with the fixing of the price, for the price was fixed no matter how far they had to bring the coal, and everybody knows that a dredge, except in a sheltered harbour is exposed to the wind; we do not expect to carry on dredging by



the fireside. It is true, the minister raised the spectre of these difficulties and was able, by the power he wields to bring two men who would testify on that subject. But these statements are not backed up, and they are made under circumstances that reflect no credit on the department. I say these men were given this work at four and a half times what it was estimated it should cost, and that they bought the St. John ' Telegraph ' and bought it in association with the Minister or Public Works. I do not say that they took the same identical bills to make this purchase. I do not know that my case would be particularly stronger if I did. The fact that they got the money and bought the St. John ' Telegraph ' contemporaneously is_ a fact practically undenied. And the minister was associated with them in the purchase and reaped the result. And still the minister ventures to say that all this is covered up, that the multitude of sins is wiped away simply, by the fact that by this corrupt purchase of newspapers in city and county of So. John. He knows New Brunswick he was able to carry the the appeal he made to the people of St. John city; that he would as soon be defeated himself as have his colleague Mr. Pender defeated, and that he would not take it as vindication unless Mr. Pender were elected. And he knows that St. John turned down his appeal and elected the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Daniel). The patent undenied facts, the mere recital of the dates, makes the case that appeals to the people of the country.
I state here that the minister is in no* better position, whether that contract was technically legal or illegal. I say without question that in my opinion it was illegal. I cannot see how anybody can conscientiously say it was not. But if it was not illegal, then we might just as well burn the Public Works Act, because it leaves the Minister of Public Works absolutely free to do just as he chooses under all circumstances. An urgent public work, he says, excuses the whole thing. Why is it urgent? Because, he says, this was the dredging season. The dredging season started two months before. If a public work is urgent because it is the dredging season, then every dredging work in this country is always urgent, because it can only be done in the dredging season. So I repeat, that unless the Minister of Public Works admits the illegality of this Act, he might just as well burn the Public Works Act out and out, because it puts no restraint upon him whatever.
Now, the Minister of Public Works devoted a part of his time to some other reflections. He has a very strange idea. We are here with the evidence before us, and with the resolution which says that the evidence bears out certain facts and con-Mr. MEIGHEN.	*	, j
elusions. The hon. member for York (Mr. Crocket) supports that resolution on the evidence. The Minister of Public Works offers something else. I ask him on what authority he offers it, and he says on his own. Then he goes on in reply, and not only does his reply consist of an attempt to read page after page and sentence after sentence into the evidence, but he also answers by reading his own speeches made some time last spring. Let the Minister of Public Works take the evidence here, let him take the dates, let him reflect on these dates, and he will conclude, in his own heart at least, that it will take a lot more than his 6wn speech and that of the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson) to square himself and his government with the country.
House divided Crocket).	on amendment (Mr
YEAS:	
Messieurs	
Ames,	Kidd,
Armstrong,	Lancaster,
Arthurs,	Lennox,
Barker,	Macdonell,
Barnard,	McCall,
Best,	McCarthy,
Blain,	Maddin,
Blondin,	' Meighen,
Borden (Halifax),	Middlebro,
Bradbury,	Nantel,
Broder,	Osier,
Burrell,	Paquet,
Campbell,	Perley,
Chisholm (Huron),	Porter,
Clare,	Reid (Grenville),
Cowan,	Rhodes,
Crocket, 1	Roche.
Crothers,	Russell,
Currie (Simcoe),	Schaffner.
Doherty,	Sharpe (Lisgar),
Donnelly,	Sharpe (Ontario),
Edwards,	Sproule,
Elson,	Staples,
Fraser,	Taylor (New
Gilbert,	Westminster),
Goodeve,	Thornton,
Haggart (Winnipeg),	W allace.
Henderson,	Wilson (Lennox and
Herron,	Addington) and
Hughes, Jameson,	Wright.-59. 1
NAYS:
Messieurs
Allard,	McIntyre,
Allen,	McKenzie,
Aylesworth (Sir Al'.en),McLean (Huron), Beland,	McMillan,
Black,	Marcile (Bagot),
Borden (Sir F.),	Martin (Montreal,
Boyer,	Ste. Mary's),
Bureau,	Martin (Regina),
Cash,	Martin (Wellington),
Champagne,	Mayrand,
Chisholm (Antigonish).Michaud,
Chisholm (Inverness), Miller,

Clark (Red Deer), Clarke (Essex), Currie (Prince Edward),
Delisle,
Demers,
Devlin,
Dubeau,
Emmerson,
Ethier,
Fielding:,
Fisher,
Fortier,
Fowke,
Gauvreau,
Geoffrion,
Girard,
Hodgins,
Hunt,
Knowles,
Kyte,
Lachance,
Lafortune,
Lanctot (Laprairie-Napierville), Lanctot (Richelieu), Lapointe,
LeBlanc,
Lemieux,
Loggie,
Lovell,	1
Macdonald,
MacNutt,
McAllister,
McCoig,
McColl,
McGiverin,
Molloy,
Nesbitt,
Neely,
Oliver,
Papineau,
Parent,
Paterson,
Pickup,
Proulx,
Prowse,
Pugsley,
Rankin,
Richards,
Rivet,
Ross (Middlesex), Ross (Rimouski), Roy (Dorchester), Roy (Montmagny), Rutan,
Savoie,
Schell,
Seguin,
Smith (Middlesex), Sperry,
Templeman,
Tobin,
Todd,
Turcotte (Nicolet), Turcotte (Quebec County),
Turgeon,
Turiff,
Verville.
White (Victoria, Alta.) and Wilson (Laval).-92.
PAIRS:
Messieurs
Ministerial.	Opposition.
Laurier (Sir Wilfrid), Taylor (Leeds), Brodeur,	Haggart (Lanark),
Graham,	Bristol
Murphy,
King,
Pardee,
Guthrie,
Harty,
Stratton,
Harris,
Talbot,
Sinclair,
Brown,
Low,
Chew,
McCraney,
Car veil,
Bickerdike,
Carrier,
Conmee,
Smith (Nanaimo), Gordon (Kent), Warburton,
McLean (Sunbury), Gervais,
Tolmie,
German,
Meigs.
White (Renfrew), Northrup,
Stanfield,
Foster,
Price,
Gordon (Nipissing), Beattie,
Owen,
Monk,
Lortie,
Tlioburn,
Smyth,
Magrnth,
Daniel,
Marshall,
Wilcox,
Lalor,
Lake,
Worthington,
Stewart,
Crosby,
Forget,
Lewis,
Sexsmith,
Boyce.
Amendment negatived.



WAYS AND TRADE WITH MEANS-RECIPROCAL THE UNITED STATES.

Mr. SAMUEL SHARPE (North Ontario).: Mr. Chairman, when the committee rose last evening, I was discussing some of the economic disadvantages of the reciprocity pact from the view point of Canadian interests. When we consider that the United States people are large producers of the articles that we desire to export the folly of this agreement from the Canadian point of view is self-evident. The United States is really not a customer in the large sense, but a competitor of Canada. I desire to place upon 'Hansard' a list of some of the articles of which the United States is a large exporter to show that so far from being a consumer of Canadian products, the United States offers the least desirable market of all the markets that are open to Canadian shippers:



EXPORTS OF UNITED STATES, 1908.

[Stage Direction]
Wheat and flour ..busb.	151,338,121
Corn	bush.	37,633,040Oatmeal	lbs.	14,823,000Oats	bush.	2,333,817Barley	bush.	8,202,961Flax seed	lbs.	4,277,313Flax or	linseed oil..lbs.	9,303,346Eggs	doz.	5,207,151Butter	lbs.	5,981,265Cheese	lbs.	6,822,842Lard	Pickled pork	1	Ham and shoulders, cured	Bacon	Fresh beef	Salted beef	
Valued at.
[Stage Direction]
Total
[Stage Direction]
The United States people are large exporters of these very articles that the Canadian producers and farmers desire to sell. The price of any article that Canada has to export and any surplus that the United States people have to export is fixed by the European market. The European market governs the price of the surplus of all exporting countries, including Canada. The United States with 100,000,000 people is an exporting country the same as Canada with her 8,000,000 or 10,000,000 people. Consequently it is folly to expect that much advantage will result to the Canadian producer by negotiating a trade treaty with a people who are exporters of the very same commodities as those which we export. Speaking about the market that fixes the price of the surplus products of exporting countries, the Hon. James Wilson, on page 76 of his open letter to the Grange, of February 9, 1911, says:
Motion agreed to, and House went into Committee of Ways and Means.
325J
While Canada is exporting wheat or other grains and the United States is also exporting wheat, there is no particular reason why Cana-
[Stage Direction]
*dian wheat should come here, unless it he that a mixture of Canadian and American wheats may be desirable on the part of our milling exporters, and our millers may find it profitable to handle the Canadian surplus. But the price to the Canadian for his surplus wheat will be substantially the same whether sold in Europe or the United States. However, if the hauling of Canadian wheat by the United States railroads, merchants and mills, has a tendency to reduce the price, it will be reduced to Canadians.
The balance of trade as between Canada and the United States.in regard to the important products of butter, cheese and eggs has been against Canada to a very large extent, showing that the United States people ship more of these commodities into Canada by far than we ship into the United States. Taking the total dairy imports from the United States, we find that in the years 1906

10 they amounted to $745,545 worth, while the exports of Canadian products to the United States amounted to $513,951 worth, an excess of imports from the United States into Canada over exports from Canada to the United States of $231,594 worth. The total value of eggs imported from the United States from 1906 to 1910 was $869,568. The total value of eggs exported to the United States from Canada fox the years 1906 to 1910 was $59,665, an excess of imports from the United States over exports to the United States of $809,903, showing that in the commodities important from the point of view of the Canadian farmer, the United States, notwithstanding our duty, has an immense advantage over the Canadian exporter.
Another economic disadvantage of this agreement arises from the fact that not only the United States and the British Umpire are free to enter into our markets and compete with our home producers, hut twelve other countries, known as the favoured nation countries, may also compete with our farmers. I would like to call the attention of the government to the fact that neither of the. Canadian plenipotentiaries is in his seat listening to the discussion. I do not know whether the hon. member for South Grey (Mr. Miller) is leading the House or whether he is taking the place of the minister of the 'Crown.
_Some hon. MEMBERS. Go on.
Samuel Simpson Sharpe: Australian farmer in raising sheep and cattle owing to the conditions in that country. He said:
My hon. friend is quite right in saying that the number of sheep have decreased in Canada, but when he compares that with the increase in Australia, Argentine, South Africa and other countries, he is drawing a comparison with countries in which the climate and other conditions are entirely different.
Australia, both as regards sheep and cattle, is a ranching country. The cattle there run wild over enormous areas and are not taken care of at all. Sheep are in the same position. They have illimitable expanses for pasturing, which we have not, and they have a climate more suitable for that kind of wild life than ours. Therefore, a comparison between Canada and Australia in this regard is not a fair one.
I venture to express the opinion that the Minister of Customs and the Minister of Finance when they journeyed to Washington to negotiate this treaty had not the slightest conception that the favoured nation treaty clause would be operative in connection with this agreement. The matter was finally investigated, and when the leader of the opposition extracted from the Minister of Finance the facts in regard to this feature, the sentiment of the whole country in regard to this reciprocity agreement changed. It is absolutely unfair and illogical of the ministers to negotiate a treaty of this kind which will open the home markets where the prices are high to these competing countries where the conditions are so different, and this illogical position has brought on the ministers the condemnation of the farmers all over the country. I cannot conceive that the ministers had in their minds that this favoured nation clause would be operative or they would have^ hesitated about putting into effect this illogical, unprofitable and unfair agreement.


Mr. PATERSON.: Do you mean we did not know?


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: I am inclined to believe that it was not present to the minds of the ministers when they negotiated the treaty, basing that view as I do on the lack of information the ministers had in regard to these matters, and their reluctance to disclose this phase of the question. It showed that their consciences bothered them in connection with this matter, and that they were trying to conceal the import and effect of this agreement as they knew it would be a serious matter to the farmers of this country to subject them to the competition of the twelve favoured nations in addition to the farmers of the British Empire, and those of the United States.
As I have pointed out the object of this agreement, as announced by the govern-Mr. SHARPE (Ontariol.
ment, was to secure a market where there w'ere higher prices, but it is shown conclusively that the average prices for the majority of the staple products of the farm are higher in Canada than in the United States, and consequently the whole purpose and object of the agreement falls to the ground. This is the strongest economic objection to this agreement. This information was not present to the ministers because they had not taken the trouble to secure information, they had not sent experts around the country as the United States did. The United States took time by the forelock and sent out experts to prepare lists of comparative prices on the two sides of the line. The United States did not publish these lists until after they had got the two representatives of Canada to sign and attach their signatures to this agreement. If they had done so, these gentlemen would not have signed the agreement because the disadvantage of the agreement from the point of view of the Canadian farmer would be thus shown. We have been unable to extract information from the ministers. Either the Minister of Customs and the Minister of Finance had not the information when they went to Washington or if they had they were afraid to produce it to the House because it would conclusively prove that the prices of Canadian farm products are higher than the prices on the other side. What a parody on the quality of Canadian statesmanship, and the manner in which this treaty was negotiated by our representatives ! Let me read an extract to show how carefully and diligently the plenipotentiaries on the American side, how President Taft zealously sought information before attempting to negotiate a treaty of this importance and magnitude.
On page 113 of the document No. 849 on reciprocity with Canada that was issued by the experts of the United States government, speaking on the importance of the sheep industry, they say:
Coming to sheep we approach a phase of agricultural production that has for several months past been the subject of a painstaking inquiry at the hands of the Tariff Board. Representatives of the hoard have visited some 700 typical farms in the leading sheep-tieeding sections of Ohio, Southern Michigan, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Hampshire and Vermont, obtaining facts and figures concerning cost and prices. The method pursued in obtaining first-hand information as to the cost of keeping sheep was through schedules filled out by expert agents who personally visited the farms studied.
Will the Minister of Customs give the House the names of the experts who were sent out by the Canadian government to ascertain the comparative prices of farm products in Canada and in the United

States? The minister does not answer. They never sent out an expert or an official to ascertain whether the prices of sheep on the Canadian side were , higher or lower than the prices on the American side. What a parody of statesmanship is exhibited by the gentlemen who negotiated this treaty on behalf of Canada as compared with the statesmanship and foresight of the President of the United States! The latter says that for several months past the raising of sheep has been the subject of a painstaking inquiry at the hands of the Tariff Board. Representatives of the board visited 700 representative farms to inquire into this industry. I would like to ask the Minister of Customs whether any of our representatives visited farms to ascertain the cost of raising sheep in order to compare it with the cost of raising sheep on the United States side?


William Paterson: Go on with your
speech.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: I am asking the hon. gentleman for certain information in regard to this treaty.


William Paterson: The hon. gentleman says he has got the information.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: I am asking the hon. gentleman if the government had any officials of the department or any experts visit any farms to ascertain the cost of raising sheep or other live stock in Canada?


William Paterson: I am not playing the obstruction game.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: If that is the best information the Minister of Customs can give the House, I will leave it to the House and the electors throughout the country to judge as to his course.
I desire now to deal with the separate commodities that come within the purview and operation of this treaty. We have heard a great deal on the subject of wheat. When discussing this subject we should remember that there is a difference between winter wheat and spring wheat. I represent an Ontario constituency, in which the farmers are more interested in the production of winter wheat. On page 94 of the book prepared by the experts of the United States government, I find the following comparison of the production and price per bushel of wheat in the United States and in Canada in 1910:
. -	Sprino Wheat.	Winter Wheat.	Production. Bushels.	Price per bushel.	Production. Bushels.	Price per bushel.231,399,000 133,379,600 2,129,000'	$0,898 .738 .891	461,041,000 16,610,000 15,376,000	$0,891 . 87 .882
The difference in price between the fall wheat sold in the United States and the fall wheat sold in Ontario is so small that we are not vitally interested in obtaining the American market for our fall wheat. The prices in the two countries are practically the same. In regard to spring wheat, it has been said, and I think it cannot be contradicted, that the surplus price is fixed by the price in Europe, and if Canada has any surplus it should be ground into flour within our own borders and not shipped to the United States in order to elevate the grade of their wheat and employ their mills and labourers. Prices in the different States vary greatly, and hence the duty does not account for the difference in prices. For instance, in Washington state the average price is 78 cents; in Kansas, 84 cents; in Montana, 86 cents; in Wisconsin, 92 cents; in Vermont, $1.03, and in Maine, $1.02, a difference ranging up to 24 cents between the various States. The average price of fall wheat in Washington state is 78 cents, in New York, 96 cents, a difference of 18 cents.
I might point out that the price of wheat to-day in Winnipeg is higher than the prevailing price in the United States, which, I believe, is accounted for largely by the dread of reciprocity coming into effect. The mere prospect of reciprocity coming into operation has had that result.
It is a matter of importance to ascertain why the people of the United States are so anxious for our wheat. I have in my hand an extract from the Northwest 'Miller,the chief organ of the United States flout and milling trade, published in Minneapolis, and it is very illuminating on this subject. It says:
The future of American milling with Canadian wheat is a grand one. With this enormous and steadily increasing crop flowing into the mills and elevators of the states, a splendid tide of activity and prosperity should follow in its wake. Assured of their future supply of raw material, the mills of America could go forward on their developing course, continuing the march of progress which has brought them to the front.



CHARLES H. BELL.

[Stage Direction]
That throws a flood of light upon the competition that our farmers are being subjected to under existing conditions. I ask, in the name of common sense, what severe competition will they be subjected to if the duty is entirely removed? Now I have in my bands some figures with regard to the butter and egg industry, very important industries, although the Agricultural Department has not encouraged them to any extent. It has neglected that important industry that pays off so many mortgages on farms, and buys so many farms in the province of Ontario. The extract is from the Buffalo and New York 'Commercial,' February 14, 1909. Speaking of the butter and egg industry, it says:
The total exports of butter from Canada to Great Britain in 1909 were 5,353,770 pounds, and to the United States 92,468 pounds. The latest available figures for the United States are contained in the census reports for 1900, when New York state alone produced upwards of 70,000,000 pounds, and the aggregate production of the entire United States was more than a billion pounds. In the year 1909 we imported from Canada less than 100,000 pounds of butter, Canada imported from this country 473,805 pounds. Now when Canada removes her 4 cents a pound duty upon this product who can measure the amount of butter that this wider market will create for our own farmers? It will be our butter that will be flooding the Canadian market instead of this country being overwhelmed with the Canadian articles.	.	.
The egg statistics are equally illuminating. In 1909 Canada's total exports of eggs amounted to about 52,201 dozen. In the same year her imports of eggs aggregated 1,136,120 dozen, so that it appears the country bought twice as much as she exported. The Canadian duty on eggs amounts to 3 cents a dozen, and with this duty removed the burden is on the political farmer to show why be would not be benefited by this greater market instead of being injured by competition. All the eggs that Canada exports in a year would, if sent in'to Erie county, give every inhabitant just about 12 eggs a year or one a month, lhe rest of the United States would depend as usual upon the domestic supply.
COMMON^
Now in regard to the egg industry I want to point out that the imports of eggs in the fiscal year 1911 for home consumption were as follows: From the United States, 2,201,727 dozen; from Great Britain, 12,040 dozen; Hong Kong, 62,012 dozen; other countries, 91,861 dozen. The total quantity of eggs imported was 2,378,640 dozen, with a value of $439,066. What would be the importations into this country if we had
no duty at all on these articles? In connection with these various commodities I desire to place upon ' Hansard ' a table that has been prepared by experts of the United States in regard to horses, dairy cows, other cattle, sheep and swine. I presume, as the hour is late, there will be no objection to the table going on 'Hansard' without being read. The table is as follows1:
-	Horses.	Dairy cows	Other cattle.	Sheep.	Swine.Number of live stock on farms (in 1909)- United States	
. Canada	
, ., Average value per head (in 1910) United States- Maine	
New Hampshire	
Vermont	
New York	
Indiana	
Illinois	
Michigan	
Wisconsin	
Minnesota	
Iowa	
North Dakota	
South Dakota	
Texas	
Montana	
Idaho	
Washington	
Oregon	
Average 	
Canada- Prince Edward Island	
Nova Scotia	
New Brunswick	
,. Quebec	
Ontario	
Manitoba . . Saskatchewan	
Alberta 	
British Columbia	21,010,000 2,132,489	21,801,0h0 2,849,306	47,279,000 4,384,779	57,216,000 2,705,390	47,782,000 2,912,509$ cts. 125 00 106 00 106 00 125	00 122 00 124 00 126	00 121 00 111 00 120 00 114 00 105 00 73 00 80 00 102 00 108 00 103 00	$ cts. 33	00 36 20 34	20 39 50 41	00 42	80 39 50 36 60 33 00 36 00 33 90 33 00 29 £0 46 50 41 40 41 80 39 60	9 cts. 1C 90 20 30 14 40 18 20 24 50 - 26 40 18	50 16 40 14	30 22 20 20	50 21	50 15	30 27 40 21 40 19	90 18 50	$ cts. 3 70 3	70 4	00 5	00 5 20 5 30 4 70 4 50 4	00 5	30 4 00 4 00 2	90 4 20 4 70 3	90 3 70	$ cts. 11 50 11 50 10 00 11 50 10 00 10 90 10	50 11	80 11 50 11 30 11 00 11 10 6 00 10 10 8	70 9	40 8 20108 19	35 79	19 41	4 08	9 14107 00 113 00 131 00 139 00 133 00 107 00 156 00 126 00	32 00 37 00 34 00 31 00 48 00 40	00 41	00 39 00	23 00 29	00 28 00 31 00 34 00 23 00 31 00 30	00	6 00 4	00 5	00 6	00 7 00 7 00 7 00 6 on	10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 10 00 13 00 13 00 12 00Average	133 00	43 00	31 00	6 00	11 00
Samuel Simpson Sharpe: 



LIVE STOCK AND MEATS.

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(Prices quoted January, 1911.)
		Buffalo, N.Y., and Toronto, Canada.			
Commodity.	Price.	Producer's Price.	Wholesale Price.	Highest.	Lowest.	Highest.	Lowest.Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.Beef steers and heifers	A.	$6 20	§4 00	§6 75	§6 25C.	5 65	4 00	6 25	4 50Beef cows	A.	4 80	3 55	5 35	4 00C.	4 75	2 60	5 25	3 00Stockers and feeders	A.	4 75	3 30	5 25	3 75C.	5 00	3 75	5 50	4 25Calves	A.	0 55	5 35	7 25	6 00C.	7 80	2 50	8 50	3 00Per head.	Per head.	Per head.	Per head.Milkers and springers	A.	§61 00	§18 00	$70 00	$20 00C.	71 00	26 00	80 00	30 00Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 Ills.Lambs	A.	$5 90	§4 15	§6 50	§4 75C.	5 70	5 20	6 25	5 75Sheep	A	4 00	2 25	4 50	2 70C.	4 15	2 55	4 65	3 00Hogs	A	7 75	5 40	8 50	0 00C.	9 30	6 50	10 00	7 15Detroit	Mich., and	Windsor, Ontario.	Commodity.	Price.	Producer's Price.	Commission Price.	Highest.	Lowest.	Highest.	Lowrest.Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.Beef rteers and heifers	A.	§5 30	65	§6 00	§4 25C.	5 60	3 95	6 25	4 50Beef cows	A.	4 00	3 00	4 50	3 50c.	4 65	2 50	5 25	3 00Stockers and feeders	A.	4 15	2 45	4 75	3 00C.	4 90	3 70	5 50	4 25Calves	A.	8 75	3 40	9 50	4 00C.	7 25	2 50	8 00	3 00Per head.	Per head.	Per head.	Per head.Milkers and springers	A.	§47 00	§20 00	$55 00	§25 00C.	' 70 00	§25 00	§80 00	30 00Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.Lambs 	A.	§5 60	§3 90	$6 25	§1 50C.	5 65	5 15	6 25	5 75Sheep	A.	4 71	2 00	4 25	2 50C.	4 15	2 55	4 65	3 00Hogs	A.	8 40	5 50	9 15	6 25c.	9 20	6 50	10 00	7 15
LIVE STOCK AND MEATS-Contmurd.
1	Ogdenkburgh, N.Y.	, and Prescott, Can.	Commodity.	Price.	Producer's price.	Wholesale.	Highest.	Lowest.	High.	Low.Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.Beef Cows	A. C. A. C.	$ 5 00 4	50 *4 5	00	$ 3 00 3 00 .50 3 50	$ 5 60 5 00	$ 3 50 3 50Calves	5 60	4 10Milkers and springers	A.	Per head. $ 60 00 65 00	Per head. S 28 00 25 00	Per bead. 8 75 00 75 00	Per head. $ 35 00 30 00c.	Lambs	
Sheep	A. C. A. C. A. C.	Per 100 lbs. $ 5 60 6 60 4 00 4 25 8 00 8 50	Per 100 lbs. $ 5 00 5 50	Per 100 lbs. .? 6 20 7 25	Per 100 lbs. $ 5 50 6 00Hogs 	3 75	4 60	4 257 00	9 20	7 60Burlington, Vt., and Montreal,	Canada.Commodity.	Price.	Producer's.	Wholesale.	High.	Low.	High.	Low.Per head.	Per head.	Per head.	Per head.Milkers and springers	A. C.	S GO 00 63 00	$ 25 00 30 0025 00	rfl) tO UU 75 00	Lambs	Per 100 lbs.	Per 100 lbs.	Per 1,00 lbs. 8 6 50 6 25 4 75 4 75	Per 100 lbs. $ 4 75 6 00 2 75 4 50Sheep	C. A. C.	6 GO	TC 1 0 5 40	4 20	4 00	Commodity.	Total number of Comparisons.	Times Canadian price equal to or above American price.	Producer.	Wholesale.	Producer.	Wholesale.Beef steers and heifers	Beef cows 	1Stockers and feeders	1Calves	2Milkers and springers	3	1	1Lambs....	Sheep	3	2Hogs	43	3
'Average.
[Stage Direction]
DRESSED MEATS. [February, 1911.]

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-	Chicago, 111.	Toronto, Canada.	Montreal, Canada.S9 50 8 00 $8 50-9 00 6 00 10 00-12 00	$9 50 9 00 12 00 9 00 10 50	$9 50-S10 75
8 00- 8 50 12 00-13 00

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-	Buffalo, N.Y.	Toronto, Canada.Beef-	Cts. 14-18 12-14	Cts. 15-25 19-1518-24	2518-20	18-25Lamb- 1^®?	
[DOT] [DOT] * *	12-16	20-2514-32	20-2218-22	50Pork-_	16	17-201* ii	12	11
Consequently you will see, Mr. Chairman, | by the report issued by the United States government, based on information collected by the experts that were sent out for the special purpose of ascertaining prices in Canada as compared with prices in the United States, that all these commodities have a higher price in Canada invariably than they have in the United States. Therefore, I ask upon what ground do the representatives of Canada undertake to negotiate this agreement and designate it as an agreement in the interest of the Canadian farmer.
Now, I come to an all important commodity that is raised on the farm. I refer to horses. The county of North Ontario the north riding of which I have _ the honour to represent is distinguished for many things, generally, but there is one particular industry in which the county of Ontario stands foremost amongst all other counties in the Dominion of Canada, and not only is it foremost amongst all other counties but it stands ahead of every other section of the North American continent as breeding the best quality of farm horses. By way of proof I desire to quote from a paper read by Dr. Rutherford, Live Stock Commissioner, and head of the veterinary department of the
Liberal government here at Ottawa. Speaking at the Fairs Association in Toronto in February, 1911, he said:
In the county of Ontario we find there were in 1906, 113 stallions, of which 106 were registered, two being passed as unsound, while only seven grade stallions, all passed as sound, were discovered by the inspectors. This shows that 92 per cent of the stallions in the county were registered and sound.
No county in the province shows so many stallions and good ones (to say nothing at present of other horses), as does the county of Ontario, which has long been deservedly regarded as the head centre of live stock breeding intelligence oh. the North American continent.
Thus the facts, statements and conclusions of Dr. Rutherford prove the high excellency of this industry in the county of Ontario, an industry which has been developed by the intelligence, ability and brains of residents of the county of Ontario and of such men as the following:
Hackney class:
Hodgkinson & Tisdale	Beaverton.
Graham Bros	 * [DOT] [DOT] [DOT] Claremont.
Standard breed and carriage class t
Hodgkinson & Tisdale	Beaverton.
W. J. Cowan	Canmngton.
Graham Bros	Claremont
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Clydesdale class:
Hodgkinson & Tisdale	Beaverton.
M. J. Cowan	Cannington.
Smith & Richardson	Columbus.
Craliam Bros	Claremont.
John Bright	Myrtle.
and a great many other breeders of standard bred horses. These and others used to grow barley in the old reciprocity days. When the McKinley Bill came in it practically killed that industry, but with that foresight and intelligence that characterize the Canadian breeders all over that county they saw that they had to change their methods. A great many years were spent in this readjustment, and the results have been shown in the splendid tribute that has been paid to the county of Ontario by Dr. Rutherford. Now, after developing this great horse industry and bringing it to its present state of efficiency, the United States come forward and ask us to reciprocate. When the average value of a horse in the United States is $108 and the average price of a horse in Canada is $133 the United States come over to us and say that they would like to reciprocate. The best horse that is raised in North America is raised in the county of Ontario, and the best market for the Canadian horse is the Canadian Northwest. New settlements always require large quantities of horses. Uncle Sam opened up a dozen wests in the past but did he ever reciprocate on those occasions? Did he ever throw open his market to the Canadian horse breeder in those days? Did he ever give us a chance with our horses when he opened up his great west? Not at all. But now that we nave a demand for horses and the average price is higher in Canada than it is in the United States they come forward and propose that we shall have reciprocity. Look at the price of horses in the western states:
The five provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta combined have but 1,863,714 bead as compared with 1,600,000 bead now in the state of Iowa alone.
Then we have a statement from Mr. C.
A.	Burns, one of the best known horse buyers in Ontario, who addressed a letter to the press in which he declares that reciprocity will ruin the horse business in Ontario. I will not trouble the House by reading the whole of the article but he says:
The only protection now of the Ontario farmer is the duty. On a $200 horse, the duty is $65, and on a $150 horse there is a $30 duty at the present time. Remove this duty and let American horses come in here, and make it easy for Canadian buyers to go to the United States markets, and the Ontario farmer will get fully $40 to $90 per head less than he does now for his horses. 1
Some people think that the western farmer wants reciprocity, but I am convinced that it is the American element alone that is crying for reciprocity, and there are a large number of American farmers in the Canadian west. We must preserve Canada for Canadians, and the Ontario farmer will make a big mistake to think that he is going to benefit by reciprocity.
I am convinced that reciprocity as proposed will strike the very heart out of the most conspicuous industry of our country, and one in which our farmers excel before all others on the continent of America. In the next ten years in our west there will be demand for an ever-increasing number of horses, the standard should be maintained, and I for one am not going to be a party to handing over our great Northwest markets to the scrub horses of the border states.
North Dakota	 t,,.
South Dakota	*' "
Texas.. ..	.. .. ,,	t^	<-g
Montana	80
Idaho	 " " " ' ' jpg
Washington		  jo8
ores°?	v.'/.:: 103
Ontario	 jgg
It is not much wonder, when you compare the average price of horses in the United +na;e?i.Wlth the average Price in Canada that those experts inserted in their report the following sentence:
As to horses Canada has no surplus of importance outside of Ontario. The agricultural development of the north western provinces has put prices of work stock and heavy draft teams at a premium in the territory tributary t? Winnipeg. During the spring of 1910 it is
Iniuiai °n good autl"rity	not less than
JU,000 horses were sold out of Ontario alone for shipment to the market just Mentioned, and prospective loss of this trade is giving Ontario some concern at this time.
Samuel Simpson Sharpe: 
Mr. DONNELLY.: As it is now after midnight I desire to move that the committee rise and report progress.


Some hon. MEMBERS: No.


William Stevens Fielding: We have to meet at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 12.28 a.m., Thursday.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, July 27, 1911.