1911-03-14

PRIVILEGE, MR. GOODEVE-LORD STRATHCONA.


Mr. A. S. GOODEVE (Kootenay).: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. On Thursday last, in the course of some remarks on the subject of the reciprocity arrangement, I quoted a statement attributed to Lord Strathcona. Yesterday, the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) read a cable despatch denying that the words quoted had been used by Lord Strathcona. I feel it due to myself to give my authority for making use of that statement. I find it on the front page of the Ottawa ' Evening Journal ' of February 3, 1911, column 7. The item quoted appears under the general title ' British views,' with the sub-heading ' Canadian Press despatch.' And the date line is ' London, February 3.' The quotation I made use of is found in unrevised ' Hansard,' page 5075, and it is absolutely identical with the despatch quoted in the

' Evening Journal ' of the date referred to. It is also quoted in a great many other daily papers throughout Canada. I further took the trouble to inquire of the chief editor of the 'Journal/ Mr. Wilson, who said that, while he could not vouch for the accuracy of the despatch, he could vouch for the fact that it had been published as issued by the Canadian Press Despatch Agency. I find in the volume of estimates of the current year, the year ending March 31, 1912, page 93, this statement that the said Canadian Associated Press had its subsidy increased from $3,000 to $12,000 by the legislation of last session. Taking all this into consideration, I feel that I was amply justified in regarding this despatch as authority for the quotation I made. Desiring to go further in order to be accurate, I wired the general manager of the Canadian Press Despatch Agency, Toronto, as follows :
Ottawa, March 13, 1911.
C. O. Knowles, Manager, Canadian Press Despatch, Toronto, Ont.
The following appeared in the Ottawa ' Evening Journal' of February 3, also in several other daily papers:-
Then follows a quotation word for word of the despatch to which I have referred, after which my telegram proceeds:
Is it correctly quoted? If not, what is full correct quotation as sent out by your despatch ?



A. S. GOODEVE, M.P.

[Stage Direction]
To that message, unfortuately, I have not yet received a reply. I simply desire to make this statement so that it may be seen on what authority I made my quotation.
Mr. FIELDING.: I think it may be safely assumed that some remarks made by some other person have been wrongly attributed to Lord Strathcona. That is the most probable explanation, and it is an error which might easily occur.



WAYS AND MEANS-GRANTS TO VETERANS.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. FIELDING moved that the House go into Committee of Ways and Means.
["Yesterday notice of motion was given by the hon. member for\nNanaimo (Mr. Smith), who is not here at present, to change the name of this company. In his absence, I would move that the section be amended so as to change the name of the company to ' The British Columbia and Central Canada Railway Company.'"]
Mr. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac).: 
Sir FREDERICK BORDEN (Minister of Militia).: Mr. Speaker, this matter is a very simple one. My hon. friend has referred to the fact that land grants have been given to those who served in South Africa in the recent war, but my hon. friend will see in the statute making these grants that it was only given to volunteers who were domiciled in Canada. Precisely the same course was pursued in connection with the grants to the South African volunteers as was pursued with reference to those who served in the Red River expeditionary force. Grants were made to those Canadians who served in the expedition of 1870 under the same rule as the grants to those who served in South Africa. The man to whom my hon. friend refers enlisted as a British soldier and was never anything else than a professional soldier who enlisted in England, and came over here without any idea that he would serve in this particular rebellion. He was called upon to serve in the regular course of his duty. I do not see that we are called upon in any way to make a grant of land to him or to any of the regular troops who served in that expedition. The fact that there are only a few of them left would seem to me to be not a good argument. If there is a principle underlying this we would have to hunt up the heirs of those who have died, and make land grants to them just as to those who survive


John Wesley Edwards: My contention was that consideration should be given to the fact that this gentleman has resided in Canada ever since he obtained his honourable discharge.


Frederick William Borden: That evidently was not considered a sufficient reason at the time or since for granting land to these men. I do not think that at this late date the House of Commons will feel disposed to take up the matter and give a grant of land to this or any other of the regular soldiers who served at that time. My hon. friend has done right to bring the matter up. I have stated the rule under which the grants were given to those who did serve in that expedition, they were given only to those Canadians who left their homes and their regular business in order to aid in the protection of the country and the putting down of the rebellion. That was the special or specific reason. The professional soldier who happened to be in Canada at the time was a part of the British army, he did not participate and the government which was in power at that time did not think that he had any claim to receive a grant.


Mr. BOYCE.: Why does the minister not apply the same principle to the veterans who served in 1866 and 1870?


Frederick William Borden: There were no grants given to British soldiers that I am aware of at that time.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: No, but to Canadian
soldiers.


Frederick William Borden: That is entirely a different question.


Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).: I understand from the Minister of War that grants were given to South African veterans irrespective of what section they belonged to. For instance, quite a number of civilians attached to the Army Service Corps in South Africa were given grants. Am I right in that?


Frederick William Borden: If they were domiciled in Canada.


Morley Currie: I wish to' call the minister's attention to one fact that I should think he would take into consideration in connection with grants to those who participated in the Red River expedition. The minister has stated that the same legislation was adopted in the case of the Red River expedition as was adopted in the case of the South African veterans. I have had occasion to go into that matter and I find that instead of legislation the grants in the case of the Red River expedition were made by order in council. I think the minister now will remember that I am right in that particular.


Frederick William Borden: Very likely.


Morley Currie: The Red River expedition is unique in the history of British expeditionary forces. It is doubtful if history affords an example of a more difficult expedition into an unknown country. The transportation of the expedition was handled by Canadian voyageurs. Possibly 30 or 40 of these men are still living. They went through with the Canadian militia; thev not only took the volunteers from Ontario, hut they also took the British army through. They never lost a man, and they carried the_ provisions with them for hundreds of miles as any one knows who has studied the history of that expedition. Had the same rule applied then as that which applies now these men would all have been enlisted as Army Service Corps men. The minister knows that that unit was added previous to the South African war to the British army and was adopted in Canada. These men would have been forced to bear arms and they were supposed to bear arms all through the expedition. They handled the column which had in charge the transport of the force and their supplies and they did the work well. A great many of them were white men and many of them were residents of the province from which I have the honour to come. I think that if there is any class in a community who have added lustre to Canadian arms it was Mr. BOYCE.
these men, and in view of the fact that the volunteers of a later day who served in a similar capacity in a foreign country have been rewarded with grants of land these members of the force in charge of transportation, and who carried their work on so successfully under the military law should receive the same consideration as their fellow Canadians. I think it is not too late yet for the department to take this question up. Very many of these men have passed away. A few of them are still living and some in such circumstances that a grant of this kind would be of very great value to them. I have one or two in my riding and I know of a few others. Possibly there would not now be more than 50 or 60 survivors of that force. I think the minister will see the strength of the argument I make. These men went from Canada to do exactly what these others did in South Africa-to serve with the transport column, for which the latter received grants of land from the Canadian government. These men, although the regulations with regard to the Army Service Corps were not in force in those days under that name, placed themselves under the military law, and they should be entitled now at this late date to some consideration. I hope the minister will consider it at a very early opportunity and do something for them.


Frederick William Borden: I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that the cases are quite analagous, although I admit there is a similarity. It seems to me that the work done by the voyageurs was more like work that would be done by transportation lines, and there were absolutely no transportation lines at that time in that part of the country. Had the voyageurs been enlisted, of course, they would have been paid and would have received the grant of land. Evidently they did not wish to be enlisted, and so they probably received verv high pay and did so from preference. Besides that, while it is true that the Army Service Corps, so called, has been organized of late years, nevertheless there are always, or very often, men hired by the corps to do work who are not soldiers and so, to a certain extent, a considerable number of these men might have been, even had there been an Army Service Corps in existence at that time, engaged as ordinary employees. However, I think the suggestion that mv hon. friend makes is worth looking into, and I shall be very glad to look up the history in connection with that expedition.



Mr. HUGHES.: Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) if he has received any intimation that the legislature of Bermuda has passed a resolution in favour of annex-

ation with Canada, and if so what is his intention in regard to the matter?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: No communication has been received by us on the subject and therefore no conclusion has been formed upon it.


FISHERIES ON THE GREAT LAKES.
Mr. WILCOX.: Mr. Speaker, I desire to bring to the attention of the government and more especially to the attention of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) and my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Bro-deur) a matter which I think is of considerable importance, a matter which at the present time is agitating the minds of a large portion of the population in that part of the province of Ontario from which I come. I had arranged with my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries to bring this matter before the House yesterday, but to suit my hon. friend's convenience; I postponed it until to-day. It was my intention to deal with this subject at much greater length than I intend to today, for I intended to speak upon the administration of the fisheries on the Great Lakes. But for the reason that a number of my friends who wish to take part in the discussion this afternoon, have kindly consented to my preceding them, I have decided to speak upon the subject as it affects the riding which I have the honour to represent in this House. The question arisen out of what is known as ' a system of uniform and common international regulations for the protection and preservation of food fishes in the international boundary waters of Canada and the United States,' and on the 11th of April, 1908 a treaty was signed in Washington a copy of which is found in the fisheries report of 1910. The title of that treaty as given here is:
A treaty between Great Britain and the United States concerning the fisheries in the waters contiguous to the Dominion of Canada and the United States, signed at Washington on the Uth April, 1908.
Article 2 of that treaty reads:
And it shall be the duty of the International Fisheries Commission within six months after being named to prepare a system of uniform and common international regulations for the protection and preservation of food fishes in each of the waters described.
Article 4 describes particular waters over which the commission shall have jurisdiction, and I take particular exception to the regulations which forbid the carrying on of commercial fishing in the Detroit river. Article 4 of the treaty does not mention the Detroit river itself, although it does describe a number of lakes and rivers and
streams that constitute the international boundary line between the United States and Canada, but it does say:
And such other contiguous waters as may be recommended by the International Fisheries Commission.
By an OTder in council of date 29th May, 1909, Professor Prince, of the Fisheries Department was appointed a commissioner, with full power and jurisdiction on the part of Canada, to make these regulations, and clause 44 of the regulations provides that no nets of any sort shall, for commercial fishing, be used in the Detroit river. So, Mr. Speaker, when these regulations are brought into force, the fishermen on the Detroit river will be deprived of that right which they and their forefathers have enjoyed for 200 years. It does seem to me, unless there is some very good reason to the contrary, that such a course should not be pursued by this government. I. may say for the benefit of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries that the policy which his government is pursuing in respect to the fishermen on the Detroit river, is very different from that laid down by the supporters of his political party when the Liberals were in opposition. In 1895 there were regulations agreed to by the then Minister of Marine and Fisheries in the Conservative government, which regulations provided that for five weeks in the year there should be a close season on the Detroit river, and Mr. William Macgregor, who then represented North Essex spoke in this House, on the 5th of July, 1895, and used these words:
We feel that our people having invested a very large amount of money in the purchase of plant for fishing purposes and then being deprived of the fish are obliged to suffer a great loss. They have not only invested in the land but they have cleared the rivers for the purposes of fishing, and the fact that they have not been able to utilize their means of livelihood has left many of them in debt. They have lost their boats and their docks and many other investments they have made all on account of the extraordinary and ruinous policy of the government of Sir Charles Tapper. Sir Charles Tupper said, 'Canada for the Canadians'; but, Sir, the Hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries has said, 'Canada for the Americans.' It is against the laws of Canada for a Canadian to have white sh in his possession during the close season, ut the government come along and take large quantities of the white fish for the ova, and the fish being killed in the process are sold to the Americans. The Canadians who lived there so long and who enjoyed the fishing formerly, are not nermitted to buy their fish even from our Canadian government; the Americans have that privilege, and we feel that to be a great grievance. Talk about the Czar of Russia and his severity to the Russian Tews. Sir, no Czar of Russia ever treated the Russian .Tews as the neopie of Essex have been tieated by these fishery laws.

That is a citation from a speech delivered by Mr. Macgregor who represented North Essex when a regulation was being put in force only asking the fishermen to cease their operations during the month of November, and for a week or two in October, but to-day by these regulations of which I complain, for twelve months in the year the fishermen will be deprived of carrying on their operations in that river. What is meant by ' a system of uniform and common international regulations '? It is not reciprocal in trade, but it certainly is reciprocal in regulations. Two nations have agreed to a condition that is supposed to work out to the equal advantage of the fishermen on both sides of that river, a term in economics applied to international relationship where two nations mutually agree to a condition that works with equality. Now, what are the conditions which exist in applying these regulations to the fishermen on the Detroit river? There is on the American side, a great city, with a population of half a million people last census, and land has become so dear, that the fishermen cannot buy land to carry on their .operations on the American side, and they are not to-day fishing on the American side.
But this compels 20 fish stations, with 150 fishermen engaged and some $20,000 invested by them, to give up rights which they and their forefathers have enjoyed for the last 150 or 200 years	on
the Canadian side of that river. Let me say to the Prime Minister that that is not fair to those fishermen. They have rights there that ought to be protected. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is no excuse whatever for adopting a regulation which will deprive those people of their rights to carry on their operations on the river. To the mind of some expert in the department, there might be some reason; but I want to say to the Prime Minister, that Professor Prince, who is at the head of the Fisheries Department, does not understand the conditions that exist in the Detroit river. I have here one of his reports, and I am going to read it to my right hon. friend. It is a report made in 1904, when Professor Prince was sent to investigate the conditions among the fishermen on the Detroit river. It is contained in volume 9 of the Sessional Papers of 1904, and is headed, ' Whitefish Close Season on the Detroit River,' and says:
Detroit, it may be mentioned, has one of the greatest fish markets on the continent.
Allow me to interject here that under the trade arrangement which my right hon. friend has entered into with the United States, fish will be free. At the same time, under these fishing regulations our fisher-Mr. WILCOX.
men will be deprived of the right to fish in the Detroit river; therefore the benefits, if any, that would accrue from that free market, will not be for our fishermen who have carried on their operations in the Detroit river for so many years. Professor Prince goes on to say:
And the view that prevails there is entirely in favour of the Canadian policy.
The Canadian policy was five weeks of close season. He continues:
The Canadian side is and always has been the chief resort for the whitefish. . . . Parent fish in rivers and lacustrine waters when ascending to the spawning grounds always take the most direct course and are not easily turned aside, as experienced fishermen are well aware. No more erroneous idea could be entertained than the supposition that white-fish wander aimlessly hither and thither from one side of a river or lake to the other. In these waters, as in other waters, it is certainly not the case that the schools of breeding fish deviate from their usual course and cross from side to side so that fish caught by American fishermen during our close season would be caught by Canadians were they permitted to fish at that time.
The position taken by Professor Prince is that the whitefish in the Detroit river came up from Lake St. Clair, that they keep on the Canadian side of the river, which is 3,000 or 4,000 feet wide, and not more * than a mile at any point, and the whitefish will not cross the international boundary line and go to the other side. Upon this mistaken idea my right hon. friend's officer and his department have bpen making regulations and with this idea Professor Prince goes to Washington; and for some reason that I am unable to ascertain-for the Detroit river was not mentioned in the	treaty-he agreed that
from the day	my right hon. friend
stamps his approval upon these regulations, henceforth and forever, while-they are in force, the fishermen of thg Detroit river must stand back with their arms folded and not any more carry on commercial fishing in that river. This-treaty was signed in Washington on the 11th of April, 1908, and these regulations were signed on the 29th of May, 1909.


Mr. BRODEUR.: Do I understand my hon. friend to say that the Detroit river was not included in the treaty?


Oliver James Wilcox: I understand that the name of the Detroit river is not included in the treaty; but there is a clause which, after mentioning a number of rivers and streams that the treaty does cover, goes on to say: 'and such other contiguous waters as may be recommended.' The Detroit river might be included under the conditions of the treaty; but I take it that the United States government and the gov-

eminent of Great Britain thought that the Detroit river was so insignificant, not as a navigable stream, not for its lack of beauty, but on account of the few fish that were caught in it, that it was not worthy of mention. Professor Prince or the commissioner who might be appointed, was simply given poweT to take in any stream that he might consider advisable; and the Detroit river is one that Professor Prince jumped on as a foxhound would jump on a rabbit.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I think my hon. friend is mistaken. Subsection 9 of the article he has read states that the waters connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron, including Lake St. Clair, are embodied in the treaty.


Oliver James Wilcox: My hon. friend would ;ake it that those waters mean the Detroit river.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Certainly.


Oliver James Wilcox: Well, probably they do; but it would be reasonable to .assume that the commissioners did not consider the Detroit river as important as Lake Ontario or the Niagara river, or they would have distinctly mentioned ' it. Now, the treaty has been negotiated and the regulations have been signed, but they are awaiting the stamp _ of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister before they can be brought into operation. After the regulations were signed there were nine months or more, before I came to represent the riding of North Essex in this House. I brought this matter to the attention of the government on the 4th of May last year. But at that time my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Brodeur) .was not able, on account of illness, to be in the House. However the Bill was passed and clause 15 provides:
The Governor in Council may, by proclamation, bring into force the international regulations prepared by the International Fishery Commission appointed under the treaty signed at Washington on the 11th April, 1908, between Great Britain and the United States concerning the fisheries in waters contiguous to Canada and the United States.
The second section of clause 15 provides:
The Governor in Council may make regulations to secure the due enforcement of the international regulations, may prescribe penalties for the violation of such regulations or of the international regulations, but no such penalty shall exceed the sum of $1,000 and costs or in default of payment imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or in the case of a continued offence, the sum of $20 and costs for each day the offence continues.
So that, under these regulations, my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) may cause to be issued a proclamation which will have this effect, that
my French Canadian friends, who are the chief fishermen in the riding of North Essex, who have been permitted that liberty so many years, should they violate the provisions of those regulations, one or two or half a dozen of those forty men appointed recently will be looking after them, they will be summoned to coiirt, and the penalty prescribed by those regulations will be meted out. Therefore, I would ask the government to give this matter their most serious consideration before they bring down any such regulations.
There is another matter I desire to speak upon, and it is this. I refer to the necessity of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Brodeur) taking the eggs of those white fish and using them for propagation. It is shown in the reports that whitefish in those lakes and streams are decreasing greatly. In fact, the commissioners, who agreed upon those regulations, have agreed that it is of the utmost importance that the eggs of the whitefish should be taken and placed in hatcheries and the fry deposited in the lakes. I have here the bulletin promoting whitefish product in the Great Lakes, published by the American commissioners. On page 681, I find it deals with this as follows:
In studying the relation of the plant of whitefish fry to the catch, it is found that in those lakes or parts of lakes where there has been a large and extensive plant of whitefish fry (30,000 per square mile), there has been a correlated increase in the catch of whitefish (72 per cent); in those lakes or parts of lakes in which there has been a moderate plant of whitefish fry (10,000 per square mile), there has been a slight increase in the catch of whitefish, or the catch has remained nearly constant; and in those lakes or parts of lakes in which there has been a small plant of whitefish fry (2,000 per square mile) or no plant, there has been a reduction in the catch of whitefish (26 per cent).
The collecting of eggs from the whitefish and placing them in the hatcheries would not be such a difficult task. Then we could have the young fry thrown into the lakes. From every authority I have been able to secure, that would be the proper course for the government to pursue. The whitefish caught, according to the Teport of 1910, amounted to:
Lbs.
Lake St. Clair	 29,575
Detroit river	 24,325
Lake Erie	 826,189
Lake Ontario	 773,397
In light waters	 6,880
Total production, as shown by the report 1909-10, was.. .. 1,660,366
From that report I gathered the information that a whitefish will weigh on an average 3 lbs. This would represent simply, by dividing three into the total number of

pounds, 553,451 fish taken out of those lakes in 1910. An authority upon the point informed me that one-half of the fish taken [DOT]would be shiners and would be capable of depositing the usual number of eggs. 553,445 fish taken out of those waters would leave 276,727 fish, capable of depositing their usual number of eggs. I find from the reports of my hon. friend's department that a fish weighing three pounds has a capacity of depositing 30,000 eggs; one weighing three and one-half pounds,
30.000	to 35,000 eggs; and one weighing four pounds can deposit 30,000 to 40,000 eggs. We will suppose that the average fish weighed three pounds capable of depositing
30.000	eggs in those waters. Multiplying
30.000	by the number of fish which we consider capable of depositing that number of eggs, and we have 8,301,814,000 eggs taken from those waters that year. What has the minister of marine done to replenish those waters and make good that loss? I find that 79,000,000 fry were placed in those waters, according to the reports of last year. 8,120,200,000 eggs were taken from those waters which were not replaced. My hon. friend cannot farm the waters in that way. He should collect the eggs and build hatcheries. I understand that we have only one or two hatcheries in Ontario today, vet it is of the utmost importance that the government should add to the number.
There is one at Sandwich. There should be one on Lake Erie; there should be one on Lake Ontario; there should be one at Owen Sound. Consult the reports and you will find that the catch of whitefish in Georgian bay has decreased by hundreds of thousands of pounds in the last few years, but in Lake Erie, where the young white-fish fry have been released from the hatchery at Sandwich, the catch has increased within a few years by four hundred per cent. These facts seem to establish beyond a shadow of doubt the necessity and importance of these hatcheries.
Now, in conclusion-and I have spoken longer than I intended-let me say that if my right hon. friend would establish a hatchery on Lake Erie, would allow the fishermen of Lake Erie to collect the eggs and release the young fish into the lakes; and if he would send his officers to collect the eggs from the fish as they are caught by the fishermen and place these eggs in the Sandwich hatchery, and so set the fishermen of North Essex free from this notorious regulation, he would have much better results. He would not be depriving the fishermen of the rights they have enjoyed for so many years. So, I submit, from the evidence I get from the fishermen-and I am very well acquainted with a number of them-they were given to understand, when the original regulations to which I have referred were brought in, that they were only supposed to give up the right for five weeks Mr. WILCOX.
in the year, and even this was considered by my right hon. friend's supporters, Hon. Mr. McGregor and Hon. Mr. Sutherland, as. a most notorious thing. What can we expect they will say when they are deprived for the whole twelve months of the year of the right of carrying on their operations?
I submit these facts to my right hon. friend-, and ask the government to give the matter their best consideration. And I want to say to the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) that I am not actuated by any political motive in bringing this matter to his attention. I have a real interest in my constituents. I feel that I am the medium through which they speak in this House, and that I should be derelict in my duty if I allowed him to secure approval of these regulations without telling him he was doing wrong. I can remember the occasions when the right hon. gentleman came to North Essex. And I can tell him that he never did come to North Essex but I did him the honour to come out and hear what he said. I can remember the beautiful sentences he uttered-no doubt he can remember them, too. ' There is nothing so dear or sweet to the heart of a man as the land of his birth.' That is a beautiful sentence- that inspired us Canadians in North Essex, and it was one of those with which he appealed to his fellow-countrymen in Tilbury in 1908, to give him one more turn to finish his work. I was sitting only four seats away from him at the time. Little did I think that one of the works that he expected to finish was to deprive my fellow-countrymen and hi3 compatriots of the right, which to them is sacred, of carrying on their fishing operations in that great Detroit river.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: My hon. friend from North Essex (Mr. Wilcox) was kind enough to advise me that he was going to introduce this question yesterday. He said there had been some arrangement made by us previous to yesterday. That is right to some extent, but yesterday we made an arrangement that the matter should be discussed to-day. So, my first word should be a grateful acknowledgment of the kindness of my hon. friend in advising me that he was going to discuss this question of the international regulations concerning the Detroit river. My hon. friend finds fault with one part of the regulations made under the treaty. But he forgets, I think, the great importance to Canada of having a treaty on this subject with the United States. Before this treaty was made-and, unfortunately, it is not yet in force, but I expect it will be in force very soon-while our regulations were passed and carried out by the Dominion government, so that we had one policy applying to the fisheries whether in the maritime provinces or in the great lakes, unfortunately this system did not

exist on the United States side. On the contrary, the regulations on the United States side were under the control of the several states interested. On the Pacific coast, where our fisheries are extensive and valuable, we had to deal with the state of Washington; on the great lakes we had to reckon with regulations made by Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York; in the province of Quebec, in regard to the fisheries of Lake Memphremagog and Lake Champlain, we were affected by the regulations of the states of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire; and as to the fisheries by the sea, regulations were made by the state of Maine. Each state has its own policy and its own ways of dealing with the fisheries. In some states the regulations passed were enforced, and in others they were not. The result was that any efforts we made on the Canadian side to enforce our regulations or protect the fisheries were handicapped. For years and years the question was discussed and agitation carried on on both sides of the line in favour of an agreement by which all the fisheries regulations should be controlled by the same authority. After a long agitation and negotiation, in which we had the co-operation not only of the Canadian people as a whole but of many on the United States side, we succeeded at last in arranging a treaty which has been called the Boundary Waters Fisheries treaty, which was signed on the 11th April, 1908, by Mr. Bryce and Mr. Root.
This treaty provided for the appointment of two commissioners, one by the British authorities and the other by the United States authorities. The British authorities were kind enough to leave the nomination in our hands and we nominated Professor Prince. The Americans appointed Dr. Starr Jordan of the State of California. I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything with regard to the reputation or to maintain the standing of Professor Prince. He has enjoyed a high reputation in the administration of our Canadian fisheries. He is certainly one of the ablest men we have had in Canada and one who knows most concerning our fisheries, and we thought we could not appoint a better man to frame those regulations than the man who had been connected with the administration of the fisheries for a great number of years, who knew exactly the situation in all parts of the country, and who, at the same time, had had an opportunity on different occasions to acquire not only a general knowledge with regard to the fisheries, but also particular knowledge by the fact that he was appointed a commissioner in several instances. I would be sorry to hear that there is any member of this House who fears that in Professor Prince we have not one of the best men we
- [DOT] * -
could secure to fill the position of commissioner under that treaty.


Oliver James Wilcox: I do not want to be understood as disputing the ability of Professor Prince, but I do think he does not understand the conditions that exist in the Detroit river.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I am sorry to differ from my hon. friend in that respect. Professor Prince knew exactly the conditions in the Detroit river. In the years just preceding his appointment he had been investigating the Georgian Bay fisheries, the North Channel fisheries, and also, at the request, if I remember aright, of a great number of fishermen, some of whom may have come from Essex he was appointed to investigate the fisheries in Lake Erie. Consequently I think he was very well informed as to the nature of the fisheries in that locality, and was as competent as any one else to give a good sound judgment upon the fisheries and their extent in those different waters. Outside of that I may perhaps recall to my hon. friend who I know does not wish to throw any party politics into this question, the fact that some years ago an investigation was made by the Canadian authorities on that question of the Detroit river. In 1892 or 1893, under the Conservative government,


Oliver James Wilcox: Is it not a fact that the Hon. Mr. Sutherland, who represented North Essex, and Mr. Wolfe came here in 1908 and asked that the fishermen be released from this regulation, and the department promised to release them and did not do it?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I do not remember exactly to what my hon. friend refers. I shall come later to discuss that phase of the question. I was referring to what had been done by the previous government and trying to show to my hon. friend that in the selection of Professor Prince we have not only appointed a man well versed with respect t-o the question of fisheries generally, but a man acquainted with the particular situation of the fisheries in the Detroit river, who had at his disposal information which was in the department with respect to these fisheries.
In 1893 efforts were made to investigate the Detroit river. A commission was appointed consisting of Dr. Wakeham apd Mr. Rathbun. I do not know Mr. Rathbun, but I know Dr. Wakeham very well. Dr. Wakeham has been connected with the administration of the fisheries for a great many years, he has had a great deal of experience, a great deal of knowledge, and no better man could be appointed for the purpose of making an inquiry into the fisheries. After visiting the Detroit river Commander Wakeham said, when dealing with the question of Canadians not being al-

lowed to fish when commercial operations were being conducted on the opposite side of the line:
At first thought, this may seem to some unreasonable; but when it is known that in most places where our waters join those of the United States, the fisheries on thfe Canadian side are not depleted to anything like the same extent as on the United States side, it is well to consider why this is so, and if we do we must admit that the reason is that the wise restrictions imposed by the department have prevented our fisheries from being exhausted to the same extent that they are on the other side. No thoughtful fisherman considers the absence of regulations on the United States side as wise and prudent. In view of this, I think it behooves us to look sharply after our Fishery Regulations, and the chief of these must be the close season during the spawning period.
We had at that time a situation as follows: On one side of the Detroit river, on the American side, there were no fisheries, the fisheries had been exhausted. Why? Because there was no close season. In this part of the Detroit river the fish of Lake Erie and Lake Huron come and spawn, that is the spawning ground of this lake and the authorities of the State of Michigan were in the habit of letting their fishermen go and fish there during the spawning season. Is there anything more contrary to the interests of the fishermen than that during the spawning period we should allow netting operations? My hon. friend after giving the matter more serious thought and consideration will agree with me that if the fisheries have been destroyed on the American side it is certainly due to the fact that there was no close season under their regulations. How was it on our side? My hon. friend has referred to the fact that, on the Detroit side there is a city of
500,000	and people could not fish there. That is true as far as the city of Detroit is concerned, but as my hon. friend knows the Detroit river is many miles in length. Below the city of Detroit on the American side there were good fishing grounds at one time. Why were they depleted? Because the state authorities of Michigan allowed their fishermen to fish there during the spawning season. The former government in issuing regulations provided for a strict close season which amounted practically to prohibition, although, it was not total prohibition.


Oliver James Wilcox: During what portion of the year was the restriction in force?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: During the time that the spawning was going on.


Oliver James Wilcox: Four weeks.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Well, suppose it was four weeks, will my hon. friend deny that it was during the spawning season?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: 


Oliver James Wilcox: I do not deny that, but there are a number of the minister's statements that I do not admit. For instance, it is contrary to the view expressed by the most practical fishermen we have in that country to say that fish from Lake Huron come to the Detroit river to spawn. The fish of Lake Erie spawn on the shoals and sand bars of Lake Erie. To some extent fish do come to the Detroit river, but less than two per cent of the fish caught are caught in the Detroit river.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: There is no doubt that it is a spawning ground. My hon. friend will not deny that, and whether the fish come from Lake Huron or Lake Erie does not matter very much. Will my hon. friend state that the former government were at fault when they enacted the prohibition of fishing during the spawning season?


Oliver James Wilcox: I will answer that question by saying that my hon. friends- Messrs. McGregor and Allan-spoke at length on this question and they have always taken that position.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: My hon. friend does not answer the question which I am putting to him. I am asking him whether he is willing to admit the former government were at fault in instituting this close season.


Oliver James Wilcox: Yes, I condemn those regulations.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Does my hon. friend favour a close season?


Oliver James Wilcox: I am not taking so much exception to the four weeks close season, but you are prohibiting them from fishing during the whole twelve months in the year.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We will come to that later on. I am discussing the close season as it was instituted by the former government, and I say that the close season proved undoubtedly of some benefit, but perhaps not to the same extent as we might have expected. However, the regulations went into force, and we found that although the Americans could not fish at all on their side, because they had entirely depleted their fisheries, they having permitted their fishermen to fish during tne spawning season, we had fishing on our side. If I understand my hon. friend, he wants to put the Canadian fishermen in the same position as the American fishermen have been put in by their lack of regulation.


Oliver James Wilcox: No.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes.


Oliver James Wilcox: No.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, that is what my hon. friend is contending for. He is blaming this government because of the international regulations which are going to pro-

hibit netting in this river. My hon. friend knows there is no close season under these regulations. I suppose he is aware of that. The only thing that regulation does provide is the prohibition of netting. We are not going to permit, when these regulations are in force, any netting in the Detroit river.


Oliver James Wilcox: My hon. friend is making a close season for twelve months in the year instead of four weeks.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: It may please some of the fishermen for the moment that the fisheries should be depleted, but the government does not exist only for one day or only for one year. _ We have to look to the future, and I say it would be criminal on the part of the government to allow the fisheries of the Detroit river to become depleted in the same way as they have been depleted on the American side. We want to protect the fisheries, we want to protect the fishermen too, and the policy that we are going to adopt is one far more in the interest of the fishermen than that which my hon. friend is trying to have accepted in this country. It may please some of the fishermen, but those who look into the future, those who are interested in the preservation of the fisheries, will say that it is a vvise policy and will stand by it. My hon. friend asks me why we adopt these regulations. I will give him a few reasons. We want first to stop the destruction of spawning whitefish and pickerel in the Detroit river. That is the object of regulation 44. Perhaps before referring to that I may say to the House that in 1902 or 1903 representations were made to us in order to secure the repeal of the close season which had been provided in 1893. We repealed that provision. Those who made the representations said:	On the American
side they have the right to fish at any time in the year, and we are not allowed the same privilege. There was a great deal of force in that argument and our fishermen were, I am sure, more or less affected by the fact that the American fishermen had the right to fish on their side of the river while we did not allow them to fish on our side. That situation brought discontent, and the government thought of repealing this restriction which had been provided for formerly. But now when we are going to obtain from the American authorities the undertaking to prohibit fishing on their side there is no more reason why we should not adopt the same restriction on our side.
. Mr. WILCOX. That is on the Detroit river.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: On the Detroit river. There was some reason at one time when the Americans were allowed to fish on their side of the Detroit river that the Canadian
fishermen should be allowed to fish on our side, but now that we have a treaty, and now that we have by this treaty a provision by which fishing is to be prohibited on both sides we must welcome, in the interests of the country, and in the interests of the fishermen, such a regulation involving as it does the discontinuance of net fishing on both sides. Why should the Detroit river be treated differently from the St. Lawrence?


Oliver James Wilcox: There is no fishing on the American side of the Detroit river.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: There is no fishing on the St. Lawrence? My hon. friend is mistaken. I know some members of the House who are living on the St. Lawrence, and I think they will say that there is a good deal of fishing on the St. Lawrence. I am sorry that my hon. friend from Leeds (Mr. Taylor) is not here; I think he would tell my hon. friend there is some fishing on that part of the St. Lawrence.


Oliver James Wilcox: My hon. friend did not understand me. I say there is no fishing on the American side of the Detroit river for the reason that the land is too valuable, it all being city property. There are a couple of fish hatcheries operated by the State Fish Commission. All the fishing is carried on on the Canadian side where the land is not so valuable.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I misunderstood the hon. gentleman; I thought he referred to the St. Lawrence. There is no more fishing on the American side of the Detroit river, because the Americans had not the necessary restrictions to preserve the fish. In 1904 we repealed the restrictions which were formerly in effect with the result that the catch of white fish in the Detroit river had fallen from 100,070 pounds a year to 24,000 pounds a year. In 1898 the dore caught in the Detroit river amounted to 12,000 pounds, while in 1908 it was only 6,000 pounds, or a reduction of one-half.


Oliver James Wilcox: Has not that condition been general on, the Great Lakes with the exception of Lake Erie?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The reason Lake Erie is not depleted, is because I am glad to say that on the American side the state of Ohio had adopted proper regulations for the protection of the fish. But, in the Detroit river there were no regulations on the American side, and our fishermen having asked us to repeal the restrictions on our side, we did so, with the result that the white fish catch fell from 100,000 pounds to 24,000 pounds, and the catch of dore from 12,000 pounds, to 6,000. Well, if we allowed free fishing without any restriction, it would not be long before the fish would disappear altogether.


Oliver James Wilcox: Does the minister contend that that condition was solely due to the fact that our fishermen were permitted to fish for 4 or 5 weeks in the year?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We prevented fishing during the spawning season, and as the Americans had no restrictions, the result was that the fisheries were depleted in American waters. Last session these regulations were adopted unanimously by this parliament, and not a man in this House dissented to the treaty or to the regulations passed under it. Indeed I may say there was a general feeling of satisfaction that at last we, had reached an agreement with the United States to bring about uniform regulations in international waters. The hon. gentleman, (Mr. Wilcox) takes a small part of the treaty and he says that it will have an injurious effect upon the fishermen of a particular locality. Well, suppose it has, it is only for a time and in the future it is bound to result in the greatest benefit to the ^fishermen of that locality. The treaty will last for four years and the fish in these waters having four years rest, they are bound to replenish, and the fisheries will be still more valuable to the fishermen when this treaty expires. The regulations, though not so severe as I would like to see them, have, nevertheless, for the first time brought the fishery regulations of the United States under the control of a central power which in respect to these contiguous waters, is a most important matter. We adopted these regulations because in the first place they will stop the destruction of spawning whitefish and pickerel in the Detroit river, and no sensible person can take exception to that. I believe that the wise fishermen will say that it is good policy to preserve the spawing grounds. Nay, more, 1 say that if there is a fisherman who is opposed to preserving the spawning grounds, it would be just as well to protect such a man against himself, because he does not know what his best interests are. The second reason for our adopting the regulations is that we may stop the destruction of immature fish which are found in large quantities in the nets in narrow waters like the _ Detroit river, and the catching of which is of no benefit to the fisherman. The third reason is to restore the more valuable species of fish by stopping netting for market during the four years this treaty is in force. I am quite sure that during these four years the fish will be replenished in these waters as they have in other waters where similar regulations existed, and at the end of that period the fisheries will be more valuable to the fishermen than ever before. Now, we need white fish eggs for the hatcheries, Mr. BRODEUR.
and the hon. gentleman admits that hatcheries are a good thing. I am not at all in accord with the views expressed by some American writers, that if you have a sufficient number of hatcheries, you have no need for a license system or a close season or regulation as to the size of the mesh, because the hatcheries will, of themselves, replenish the fisheries. I believe that while the regulations adopted by the commissioners are not up to the standard I would like to see, yet they are a step in the right direction, and I am surprised that .there are Canadians who enter objection to them in any form whatever. I may say that the regulations to which my hon. friend (Mr. Wilcox) takes exception, are not yet in force. The parliament of Canada has unanimously passed a law empowering the Governor in Council, to put these regulations in force when the American authorities have adopted similar regulations. Unfortunately the matter is not yet disposed of. I must say, however, to tne credit of the President of the United States, that some time ago I had a conference with the authorities of the Department of State with regard to this question of enforcing our regulations, and I was promised that in a short time a message would be sent to the Congress suggesting the adoption of those regulations. I am glad to say, from information that I have received, that the President of the United States has sent such a message to the Congress, but unfortunately it was so late in the session that the necessary legislation was not passed; but I hope that this will be done in the next session. I repeat that if my hon. friend wants to be the friend of the fishermen-and I believe he does and is sincere in his motives- let him work with us in the effort to preserve these fisheries which are now so greatly depleted. If we left matters to go on as they are now going, in a.few years, though there might be some fishermen, there would be no fisheries. I think that is not a condition which my hon. friend wants to see in the Detroit river. Let him work with us in the framing of such regulations as are necessary to preserve the fisheries, and if we are successful in having those regulations adopted by the United States authorities, they will be of the greatest benefit to the vast fisheries of this Dominion.


Oliver James Wilcox: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend


Mr. SPEAKER.: The hon. gentleman cannot speak a second time on this motion except by the general consent of the House.


Oliver James Wilcox: I just wish to say that the hon. minister expresses the view that I find fault with the general application of these regulations. I will agree with him that it is a good thing for oanada to have a uniform set of regulations with the United

States; but I find fault with the way in which they apply to the Detroit river.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Why discriminate between the Detroit river and the St. Mary's, the St. Clair or the St. Lawrence?


Oliver James Wilcox: For this reason, that on the south side of the county of Essex the fishermen have a right to fish in Lake Erie as they have always had, while on the north side of the county of Essex, where the fishermen have enjoyed the same privilege, they are now deprived of it. It is only that part of the regulation that applies to the Detroit river that I object to. The hon. minister referred to the question of fishing on the spawning beds. There is a great difference of opinion on the part of the experts on that question. We have high authority in the United States for saying that the best way to propagate these fish is to catch them on the spawning beds and place them in the hatcheries and have the young fry hatched out there.


CAPITALIZATION OF RAILWAYS.
Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York).: *or for the discharge or lawful refunding of its obligations, provided and not otherwise that there shall have been secured from the proper commission an order authorizing such issue, and the amount thereof and stating that, in the opinion of the commission, the use of the capital to be secured by the issue of such stock, bonds, notes or other evidence of indebtedness is reasonably required for the said purposes of the corporation, but_ this provision shall not apply to any lawful issue of stock, to the lawful execution and delivery of any mortgage or to the lawful issue of bonds thereunder, which shall have been duly approved by the Board of Railroad Commissioners before the time when this Act become^ the law. For the purpose of enabling it to determine whether it should issue such an order, the commission shall make such inquiry or investigation, hold such hearings, and examine such witnesses, books, papers, documents or contracts as it may deem of importance in enabling it to reach a determination.


Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: Does that apply purely to increase of capital?


William Findlay Maclean: No new capital of any kind can be secured without the authority from this commission. The railway company show that this increase is necessary for the extension of the road.


Robert Laird Borden: Suppose a new railway is organized in New York state for the building of a new line, would the provisions of this statute apply to its initial capital?


William Findlay Maclean: Yes to everything. Not one dollar of capitalization, no security not even a note issue extending over 12 months, can be issued without the approval of this commission.


Wilfrid Laurier: If a railway is organized in the state of New York, who authorizes the issue of capital?


William Findlay Maclean: This railway
commission also. That does not come within the jurisdiction of the state legislature at all.


Wilfrid Laurier: This applies to bonds only, and not to the stock of a company.


William Findlay Maclean: 
Hon.   A@: Hadley,
President Yale University,
^	New Haven, Conn.
Under the provision of section 16 of the Act of Congress approved June 18, 1910, en-


&quot;5239 COMMONS
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titled ail 'Act to create a commerce court,' and to amend the Act entitled an 'Act to regulate commerce,' approved February 4, 1887, [DOT]as heretofore amended and for other purposes, I hereby appoint you chairman of a 'Commission to investigate questions pertaining to the issuance of stocks and bonds by 'Tailroad corporations, subject to the provisions of the Act to regulate commerce, and the power of Congress to regulate or affect the same.

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-Professor Hadley, of A ale, is known as *one of the ablest publicists of the United -States. Associated with him are other able publicists, and the commission are now dealing with this question. They have had hearings all over the country, and, as far as I can judge, the evidence is all to one effect, and that is that it is absolutely *in the interest of the railroads themselves, of the corporations, of the investors, to have complete regulation and control of securities issued by railroad companies. If you ask me what the ' insurgent ' movement in the United States means, I say it *means a rebellion of the people against -the excessive charges of the railroads and a determined effort to bring about reform. They have come to the conclusion that, to strike the evil at its root, there must be regulation of the finances of the railway. And in the United States it is harder to regulate corporations than it is here; for it is provided under the constitution that in-*vestors must be allowed a fair return on their investment; you cannot injure a man's investment, and if there has been an extravagant issue of securities, the IRailway Commission in the United States is limited by this provision that a reasonable return must be allowed on the investment.
No such law obtains here in Canada fortunately and our commission can Tegulate, but in all fairness the investor ought to be protected and ought to get a reasonable return on his investment. However, before that security issues, it ought to be shown that it is absolutely in the interest of the undertaking, not of some stock operator or Harriman or some one -who wants to make a fortune out of what is called the reorganization of a company. The reason ought to be given and has now to be given in the State of New York, and there is every prospect that the Congress of *he United States will add to the general railway law of that country provisions which will secure control of all railway capital. The same thing has been dealt with by other eminent men in the United States, among them Mr. Woodrow Wilson. "Mr. Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey, is one of the new type of public men who are coming up in the United "States and Canada ought to watch with "the greatest interest the rise of these new public men in the United States who de-Mr. MACLEAN.
vote themselves to public service; I am glad to say that the legal profession is furnishing the greatest number of these men. Governor Wilson is an excellent sample of this type. At his inauguration as Governor of New Jersey the other day he said that the first thing to which he would devote himself in connection with the legislature of New Jersey would be the regulation of the capitalization of companies chartered in that state. Everybody knows that the State of New Jersey has been abused by men getting corporate powers of every kind with enormous capitalization. The State of New Jersey would give any power to any corporation and give capital by the millions, which onl.t meant water. He is of the opinion that the regulation of the capital of railways must be handled in a scientific way by a well-trained commission, and all the leading magazine articles in the United States dealing with the grievances of the people of the United States in connection with railways have taken the ground that the first essential is the regulation of the capitalization of railways. They have seen that the railway grievance has its origin there, and have come to the conclusion, as was expressed by Mr. Kuhn of the great firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who backed Harriman more than any one else, that the regulation of capital lias got to come. The day when one man like Harriman or the Vanderbilts could reorganize a railway with an enormously increased capital and put the increased stock in his own pocket is over. Harriman's last act in reorganizing the railways of Southern California" and the west was to make such an increase in the stock that the orange and fruit men of California have to-day to pay $12,000,000 of increased railway rates because of his reorganization of the railways he acquired. He accumulated an enormous sum in the four or five years by what he called reorganizing companies, getting control, making a great bond issue which he gave to the public who bought them and then putting the money in his pocket. That is the idea of his gigantic financing for his own benefit, but he had also a good idea of reconstructing and reorganizing railroads and his policy and the policy carried out by his successors has had the effect of greatly improving (ho railways, but at the same time greatly increasing the rates on these railroads so that they have become a public grievance to-day.
Now to bring the case right home to us in Canada and to the people who are served by the Canadian Pacific railway in the east or in the west, I would point out that the Canadian Pacific railway in its original charter was allowed to issue I think $25,000,000 of capital. It has now, according to its statement, $150,000,000 of capital

out. It received from the Governor in Council not long ago authority to issue $50,000,000 more capital and $30,000,000 of that has been issued. The Canadian Pacific railway has to-day a capital stock of $180,000,000. It has of 4 per cent preference stock $55,000,000, and of 4 per cent consolidated debenture stock $136,000,000, or about $200,000,000 in stock and $200,000,000 in debentures and bonds. It still has a right to issue $20,000,000 more under authority given to it by the Governor in Council, two or three years ago. My contention is that a great corporation like the Canadian Pacific railway to-day can finance itself and build every mile of railroad it requires on the issue of 4 per cent debenture stock on which only 4 per cent has to be earned. But they are issuing stock on which 14 per cent has been paid for several years now and that is a tiling which should not be allowed. The Canadian Pacific railway is paying by dividends and bonuses to stockholders on the issue of new stock below the market price, as I can prove by stockholders and the market reports, more than 14 per cent a year on their capital stock. Why should not that money or any new money required by the Canadian Pacific railway be obtained by the issue of 4 per cent debentures if they can float them, and that they can float them is evidenced by the experience in the past. The Canadian Pacific railway is in such a good position to-day that it can put out 4 per cent debentures and get all the money it wants, but instead of doing that it asks to have power to increase its stock. Let me tell you what has happened in regard to this last issue of stock. They came to the Governor in Council and got authority to issue $50,000,000 of stock. If there had been a commission here with full power to investigate, as in New York, they would have gone lo the commission and said: 'We want $50,000,000,' 'What for? For the undertaking? '	' Yes.' ' Wholly for
the undertaking and no one else?' ' Yes.' When they had proved that that amount was necessary for the undertaking and wras to be devoted to the undertaking, they would ask what form the security was to be in. The road might say: ' Oh, we would like it in stock.' Stock? What about 4 per cent debentures? You have a great many out now and the public are satisfied with them, the investor is satisfied. You must put the securities in the form of 4 per cent debentures or bonds. Under existing conditions they said:	' We want
stock and the government of the day ir the innocence of their hearts, and I knov they are not fully informed as they hav< many things t.o attend to, although the would have avoided the whole responsibi' ity if they had had a public service coir mission, gave them authority to issue $50 000,000 of stock some two years, $30,000,001.
of that stock was put out on the market a short time ago, and it was all allotted to their own shareholders. Every shareholder had a right to take his proportionate share of this new stock. I raised considerable row about it in this House although I had little support, but my complaint had this effect that the Board of Directors of the Canadian Pacific railway decided to make some concession to public opinion and decided at last to issue to their own shareholders at $125, although the market price then was $175, and the law in England is as it is in the state of New York, that if a company issues stock it must issue it at the market price
It is considered a cripie in this country to compel a railway or any corporation that proposes to issue new stock to put it out at the most money it will bring. So, the Canadian Pacific railway which today serves more of the people of Canada than any other railway, is allowed by a law of this kind to sell its shares to its own shareholders at $125 for a hundred dollar share when on the market those shares would be worth $175 each. As a consequence the $30,000,OCX) of shares that were issued put $37,500,000 into the treasury of the company but put $15,000,000 into the pockets of the shareholders as a bonus. That $15,000,000 should have gone into the treasury and been devoted to the purposes of the undertaking. It wTas a breach of public trust, it was a violation of the rights of the people, it was a violation of the rights of the farmers of the west, who are to-day complaining of the freight rates, that that $15,000,000 should be switched away from the purposes of the undertaking and put into the pockets of the shareholders. What is the result? The stock of the Canadian Pacific railway is worth $215 for a hundred dollar share. Why? Because a rumour has gone abroad that another melon is to be cut, that this remaining $20,000,000 of stock is to be issued at an amount below the mar-ktt value and that that money is going to the shareholders as a bonus instead of being concentrated to the reduction of the rates charged by the Canadian Pacific railway to the people of Canada for the transportation of their products. It is a crime against the consumer. It is the man who has to pay for what is transported over the railway, the farmer of the west, the man who raises the grain, or the man who buys it to use it, who has to suffer. He has to pay for this money 'hat the Canadian Pacific railway share-lrlders have unfairly, unjustly, and most mproperly been allowed to put in their *n pockets. I have here a statement * bich I read in the House once before, md which I can read again, in which a shareholder of the railway said that he had
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found that his Canadian Pacific railway investment had netted him more than 14 per cent per annum for the last five years. That has got to be stopped, and if the Canadian Pacific Railway Board now propose to issue that stock, under the present state of affairs and in view of the cry of the people of the. west that they have a grievance both with regard to the operation of the railway and freight charges, and if they have a grievance that we can regulate, I say that it is the duty of this House to compel the Canadian Pacific railway when they issue that new stock to Dut every dollar of it into the treasury and to devote every dollar of it to the undertaking, either to the building of neV lines or to the reduction of rates. The Canadian Pacific railway, to-day has such enormous profits and resources that it has $20,000,000, or $30,000,000, or $40,000,000 of deposits in the banks of this country. It has even been in a position to lend money to the government of this country. It has become in one case the banker of the government. I do not know whether the people of Canada are aware of that fact. Here is a great corporation which we have created in order to serve the public which has accumulated so much money in the carrying out of its undertaking that it has millions and millions of deposits in the banks. There is no other railway in America that is in the same position. There is no other railway in America but is seeking to borrow money. The Canadian Pacific railway has so much money in its treasury that it could build every line that it requires in the west without issuing another dollar of stock or another debenture. I was in the railway committee to-day, and I found this company applying to issue debentures for branches in the west to the extent of $30,000 a mile, an altogether unnecessary amount. It makes this proposal notwithstanding the immense sums that it has in its treasury, its land grants and all that. My contention is, as I said on the floor of this House the other day, that these enormous assets,, these accumulations, should go back to the people in the shape of reduced rates, and that there should be no issue of capitalization hereafter unless it can be absolutely justified by the facts after it has been laid before a railway commission competent to deal with such a question.
Now, we have undertaken to regulate the rates of the railways in this country. Surely it is a reasonable inference from) that to say that we must regulate the capitalization of the railways. That is the line of argument upon which they are proceeding in the United States to-day, and that is the line of argument to which Mr. MACLEAN.
We ourselves must come. My motion is to the effect that the issue of securities by the railways of this country should first be approved of by a commission. It is not fair to put this duty on the Governor in Council. I do not know whether it was the present or the preceding government that gave that power to the Governor in Council. I am not criticising any one who gave it or criticising any exercise of it that has taken place so much as I am asserting that it must cease, and that in connection with the issue of this $20,000,000 of new stock the scandal shall not be allowed to continue. It is a great scandaUthat the proceeds of stock issued to the public for the benefit of the undertaking should be switched into the pockets of the shareholders. No wonder the stock of the Canadian Pacific railway is going up. No wonder the Dutch investors think this is the greatest investment in the world. But it is at the expense of the people who pay the freight rates of Canada that thev are enabled to cut melons, not only giving these men 7 _per cent on the face of their stock, but giving them a bonus of 7 per cent for five years instead of applying this 7 per cent for the benefit of the people of Canada by way of a reduction in rates. Why, this is a fine investment. No wonder that the Canadian Pacific railway has a fine standing in the money centres of the world. But this is based on a false doctrine, on an unfair procedure, and it discriminates against the public who have to pay the railway rates. The Canadian Pacific railway to-day, by reason of its accumulations, could reduce passenger rates to 2 cents a mile. They could reduce their express rates, they could reduce their telegraph tolls, and they could reduce their freight rates. The freight rates, the telegraph tolls, the express charges, and the passenger rates in the Canadian west and the Canadian east are a great grievance, and they should not continue. Their finances are in such a condition that they could reduce their rates to a very large extent. In fact, I am told that they would like to reduce them only the bogey has been set up in this country that if you reduce the rates of one railway you have to reduce them on all, and as it would hurt some you must not reduce them on any. I do not subscribe to that doctrine. The Canadian Pacific railway is under more absolute control than the others because that wa)s provided for in the original charter. Hereafter there must bs regulation of the issue of securities. My hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals gave me, some time ago, an engagement that h.e woujld look into the matter. Perhaps he has got more light on the subject since. But, it is in the

interest of the transportation of this country and in the interest of lower rates that the regulation of the issue of securities must be taken up and be taken up in the scientific way in which it has been taken up in the United -States, in the way in which it has been taken up by the State of New York, and in the way President Taft proposes to take it up when he gets this report from the specal commissioners who have been appointed to investigate the subject. I have come to the conclusion that if thfi people of the west wish to have their grievances reduced the first thing for them to do is to insist on parliament placing the control of the capitalization of these railways within the hands of our railway commission.
I am quite satisfied that this commission which the government has created, is more competent than either the government itself or a promiscuous body like the railway commission of this House to deal with such a matter. I believe we should follow what is done in England where all securities that are issued are put up to competition and are not left to the whim or advice of company directors to say how they are to be placed. When the Grain Glowers' were here from the west they mentioned incidentally that there were railway grievances in the west although the principal thing they came to complain about, was the tariff, and yet the other day I had to stand up in this House alone fighting for the rights of the people of the Canadian west with the members from that section of the country indifferent to my appeal. However, I got a letter from the west which is one little green spot in a very dark outlook.
Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


William Findlay Maclean: The Prime Minister says ' hear, hear,' but I remember a time when he too was in the wilderness and had not many supporters at his back. I am to-day in the wilderness when urging the rights of the people of the west but the little letter I got was a solace to me and while I read it, I will particularly ask hon. gentlemen who represent western constituencies to listen:


THE NORMANTON GRAIN GROWERS' ASSOCIATION, SASKATCHEWAN.
[Stage Direction]
March 1, 1911.
Sir,-I am directed to forward to you this resolution, which was passed at the last meeting of this association:
Resolved, we the Normanton Grain Growers' Association, wish to set on record our appreciation of your recent address on the floor of the Dominion parliament, on the excessive freight rates now in fore?, and wlii'st assuring you of our admiration and support,
note with regret that you received no support, not even from the western members.
Yours truly,
W. J. LAWLESS, Secretary.
W. F. Maclean, Esq., M.P.,
Ottawa.
The people of the west have grievances against the railways and the root of these grievances is to be found in the system of capitalization which it is time for this parliament to regulate, especially in the case of railroads who are coming along now looking for charters and power to issue capital. My proposal is to put the power of fixing the capital, whether it be stock, bonds, or any other security, under the control of our railway commission, for I believe that the regulation of the capitalization of the railroads is only a complement to the regulation of the rates. We have adopted the principle of regulating railroad rates and as a complement to that, it is absolutely necessary to regulate the caption so that the traffic may not be too much burdened with excessive dividends and excessive returns of other kinds on the stock. Now, I would like to have some supporters for the motion I am about to present to the House; I do not Dresent it as a motion of want of confidence, I urge it solely in the interests of the people of Canada. I move:
That before the said motion pass, this House desires to express the opinion that the control of the capitalization of the railways of Canada should be within the jurisdiction of the Board of Railway Commissioners.
Hon. G. P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals).: I have been much interested in the remarks of my hon. friend concerning' the capitalization of railways, and which of course, will apply to the capitalization of all companies. I do not think it can be denied that capitalization has a great deal to do with the rates charged and what we might call the necessary cost of operating and managing these utilities. The hon. gentleman has made a comparison between tariffs and transportation and they are connected in a sense. The problem of transportation properly solved will do a great deal to minimize the evils which may come through a tariff or the lack of a tariff, depending upon the poipt of view you look at it. In Germany the state-owned (railways are used in large measure as an adjunct to the tariff. If a German manufacturer is in competition with a foreign manufacturer outside of Germany, I am told he is given very cheap rates on his products to the confines of the German Empire, and conversely if a foreign manufacturer is competing with him in the German market, the state owned railway

-puts almost prohibitive freight rates on that foreign manufacturer's goods. In that way the railway rates are made to assist German manufacturers and are an adjunct to the tariff. That may prevail to a certain extent in Canada at the present time, but that is a point I shall not discuss. However, a great deal of fear has been expressed in many quarters that any.,, international board that might have the power to deal with two local rates, one on each side of the line, and making one through Tate, might interfere in a measure with certain privileges that the railways on both sides have, in regard to high or low rates on products coming in or going out of the country.


Mr. LENNOX..: Is it a fact as rumoured that the government has abandoned the idea of an international railway board?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend asks me a very pointed question, and I would not care to answer him ' yes,' or ' no,' on that particular point. At the present time the question of an international arrangement is not being discussed and is not actively engaging the attention of the government.


Haughton Lennox: That is a Lair answer.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend (Mr. Maclean) has referred to rates in western Canada. During a recent trip in the west, I had prepared for me a comparative table of rates on farm products from the interior of western Canada to Port Arthur and Fort William, and of rates from the interior of the western states to Duluth and these were the rates I was discussing in the House when I said that the farmers of the Canadian west had cheaper rates on their products to the Great Lakes than had the farmers of the western states, and I have no reason to change, my mind on that.


William Findlay Maclean: In special instances.


George Perry Graham: I took a list covering the whole of the west, of rates from the large farm product shipping centres and I found that the Canadian farmer had a cheaper rate on his wheat and oats to the Great Lakes at Fort William and Port Arthur than had the American farmer to Duluth.


William Findlay Maclean: Did that include coal?


George Perry Graham: Let me tell my hon. friend that from Fort William or Port Arthur to Winnipeg, although the distance is some miles longer, the rate on coal is 50 cents a ton less than the rate from Duluth to Winnipeg.	.
Mr. GR4.HAM,


William Findlay Maclean: I have the authority of the ' Free Press ' for saying that the coal rates to Winnipeg and the west from the country to the south are greater in Canada than in the States.


George Perry Graham: Winnipeg and the west get their coal largely, I think, by the Great Lakes, and the rate from Port Arthur and Fort William to Winnipeg is $2.50 a ton, while the rate from Duluth to Winnipeg, a shorter distance, and mostly through American territory, is $3 per ton; and the commission has refused to reduce this rate on the ground that it is fair as compared with other rates in American territory. Now, there is a difference in the situation in the United States and in Canada as to capitalization. There is also a difference between Great Britain and Canada in this respect. We are a young country, while these two other countries are comparatively old. In the United States railway charters are granted by letters patent in the various states; in Canada they are granted by Act of parliament; and any dangers there may be from over-capitalization are in the hands of parliament itself. It may be that the time is arriving when other steps ought to be taken; but hitherto the Canadian people and parliament have seen fit to keep in the hands of parliament this question of capitalization when companies are organized. In New York state the capitalization of railways is not for the construction of new lines into new portions of the country; it is for old railways, for the development of terminals, the building of large stations, the changing from steam to electricity, or some such purpose. The conditions are different in Canada, where companies are formed to make the experiment of building new lines into new territories, which may or may not be productive. I am glad to say that they have been productive in the past, and, if we may judge by the course of the Canadian Pacific Railway stock, which is going up every day so that men of ordinary means can hardly reach it, the prospect for transportation companies in Canada in the future is really good. The Canadian Pacific railway 'is in a class all by itself in many ways. This much must be remembered. Although liberal provision was made for the Canadian Pacific railway, although the company got a large grant of land which, owing to the development of Canada, has proved valuable beyond our expectations, no person will deny that in the first place the men who put their money into the Canadian Pacific railway took a mighty big chance.


William Findlay Maclean: How much did they pay for it?


George Perry Graham: They did not pay a great deal, but my hon. friend will remember that at one time in the early history of the

Canadian Pacific railway, it wa3 on the verge of not being worth anything, and if the government of Canada had not come to its assistance, it would have gone into bankruptcy.	.


William Findlay Maclean: How much did they pay for their stock?	[DOT]


George Perry Graham: They put everything they had as financiers and their individual character behind this road, and they made a success of it. In discussing it we should not forget that. I could make a fair argument by saying that it is not altogether unjust that the men who made this experiment should have the first chance to make what profit there was in the investment. I do not see that we ought to give the Canadian Pacific Tailwav more than its share. I am not arguing for the Canadian Pacific railway; but this must be borne in mind, that the greatest benefit that has come to the Canadian Pacific railway has come througli the increase in the value of its real estate. If we were to confine them solely to the profits of the railway, I am not so sure that they would have such a good story to tell. But Canada has become a great country; we have done a great deal to develop the railways- and other transportation facilities of this country, and the lands in western Canada have become valuable far beyond what any one expected. In discussing such questions as this we are very apt to be guided by hindsight. The Canadian Pacific railway has been a great- success, and we are glad of it; but we must not go to the other extreme, and condemn this undertaking merely because it has been a great success. We should bear in mind that the Canadian Pacific railway has been guided through very dangerous times by the aid of the people of Canada; and while we were doing that-, while we were maintaining the credit of the country and making the Canadian Pacific railway a standing advertisement of the greatness and growth of Canada, three-fourths of the railways of the United States have at some period passed into liquidation.
Mr. MACLEAN (York), because of overcapitalization.


George Perry Graham: That may be. If that is the case, the Canadian Pacific railway has not. been guilty, because it has not had the same experience. Seventy-five per cent- of the railways on the continent of America have at some time or other passed into liquidation, and the people who put their money into these railways originally have been wiped out of existence financially. But the Canadian Pacific railway has lost- none of its original stock, and I think it is greatly to the credit of the Dominion of Canada that an enterprise of that kind has been carried through, and that the men and the
women who have invested in it have had a safe investment. I would like to see all the investments made in Canada, whether of foreign or home capital, so successful that we would never have any trouble in getting all the capital we want.


William Findlay Maclean: Does the minister justify, then, the cutting of these melons?


George Perry Graham: I will come to that. My hon. friend's argument has been made from a state law, not a federal law. The new court that has been established by the Congress of the United States has not been established for the purpose of looking after capitalization particularly, and for a very good reason, that most of the railways of the United States get their charters from state authority and not federal authority. This new court has been established-and I think Mr. Knapp is to be a member and perhaps the head of that- court-in order to provide for a speedy judgment in the case of appeals from the decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission. That commission, being able to deal only with interstate traffic, does not occupy the same position as the Dominion Board of Railway Commissioners. When our commissioners give a judgment, there are only two things on which an appeal can be made. An appeal can be made on a question of fact to the Governor in Council or on a question of law to the Supreme Court, but they must first obtain the permission of the board. In the United States the position is altogether different. The parties can go from court to court, and the whole procedure is more cumbersome. In order to get over that difficulty, the federal authorities are establishing a new commerce court, to deal effectively and speedily with all such appeals.
It must also be borne in mind that in a now country like ours there are difficulties in financing not experienced in older countries. We have railways which are being constructed by the Grand Trunk railway, the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the Canadian Northern railway, and to-day the complaint throughout the west is that the railway companies are not pushing their new lines nearly fast enough. If we insist however on their going faster, they must provide more capital.
Mr. MiACLEAN (York). That complaint was made with regard to the Canadian Pacific railway.
' Mr. GRAHAM. It happened that the Canadian Pacific railway was up before the Railway Committee to-day. It all depends on whose Bill is before the committee, and we have to be careful not to do anything that may shake the confidence of the financial world in such undertakings

in this country. I am not speaking as an advocate at all of any railway company. It does not make a particle of difference to me what railway company may be affected. I am not in the position of my hon. friend who can attack a railway or anybody else solely on his individual responsibility, and his responsibility of course to those he represents; but in dealing with a question of this kind, and holding the position in which I am placed at present, I consider that I am responsible .to see -that no injustice as done to any part of the community, not even the railway companies.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


George Perry Graham: We want to let the world know that in this Dominion men who are induced to make investments shall be treated justly and honestly, and also that the people of the country shall not be imposed upon by these companies to whom we give such great- privileges.
But coming to the question as to the granting to our board of railway commissioners the power to deal with capitalization, as I have said, the two systems are before us. In the United States the States themselves-not the federal authority-grant charters to railway companies by letters patent. In Canada the provinces grant charters to local railway companies and the federal authority grants charters to Dominion railway companies by Act of this parliament, and heretofore we have left in the hands of this parliament the right to deal with capitalization. In Canada the increase of capital is largely for the construction of new lines into new territories. In the United States it is largely for terminals or something in connection with old established lines. The conditions in both countries are different; but as my hon. friend points out, we are growing very rapidly in Canada and must soon be looking to the future, because it will not be long before we shall be unable to class ourselves among the young countries. The question ^ to which he has directed our attention is one certainly worthy of being considered. I have discussed it with some of our leading railway men, I have discussed it with the chairman of our Board of Railway Commissioners, I have discussed it with some gentlemen on the other side of the line, and I tell my hon. friend frankly that I have not yet been able to convince myself that Canada is prepared to take the step he recommends at present. Possibly he may be right and I may be going a little carefully, but with the responsibility I feel, speaking for the government and the people of Canada, I think we_ should go slowly. One of our strong points when asking for money from the financiers of the world is to go slowly Mr. GRAHAM.
and not frighten capital, to do nothing to shake the confidence of the people w7ho hold the purse strings. Our credit must be protected and will be. Let us then be careful in whatever we do so that in the future, as in the past, the capitalists of the world will be prepared to furnish the funds, when asked to do so, for any great undertaking Canada may have on hand.
My hon. friend has brought this motion in a peculiar way; and while I say that the question is one I have been considering, I am not convinced the time has yet come for us to make the move he advocates. I am much obliged to him for the information he has given in a matter for such deep interest, but the government could not accept the motion he has submitted. It is not one which we can amend. It is a vote of want of confidence, and it is asking us to adopt, without the investigation we think necessary, a new departure. I think he would do well not to press his motion to division because we all are anxious to do what is best for the people and to guard all the interests at work in the upbuilding of this country. This matter is under consideration. We are considering it, and wondering if it is the best thing to do. I am not yet convinced that this is the proper time to take such a step in advance, but the government has it in mind, and this, as all other questions connected with transportation in the cheapest way for the people, is receiving serious consideration and will continue to receive that consideration in the future.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Eecess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


PRIVATE BILLS.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. SPROULE moved the third reading of Bill (No. 93) to incorporate the Alberta Electric Railway Company.-Mr. McCarthy.
Mr. TURRIFF.: In accordance with the notice I gave, I move that the Bill be referred back to the Committee of the Whole for the purpose of striking out section 14.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House went again into committee on the Bill.
Mr. TURRIFF moved that section 14 be struck out.
Mr. SPROULE.: The hon. member (Mr. McCarthy) -who is in charge of the Bill, is not present, and it would be too bad to amend it during his absence. I move that the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again, allowing the Bill to stand until the hon. gentleman is here.


John Gillanders Turriff: This clause would authorize the company to carry on a coal mining business as well as run a railway. I think such a clause should not be passed. There is no objection to these people taking out a charter for a subsidiary company, and operating a coal mine under that charter, but a law should not be passed authorizing a railway company to own and operate a coal mine. I do not think there is much likelihood that this company will ever start a coal mine, but I do not support in this case, and do not intend to support in any case in the future, the proposal to give a railway company power under its charter to go into the coal mining business.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: This Bill was allowed to stand yesterday because the hon. member who is in charge of it was not present. I agree with much of what the hon. gentleman (Mr. Turriff) has said. I contended against this feature of the Bill when it was in committee. But power similar to this has been given to other railway companies in that western country where coal is so plentiful, and there seems to be no very strong reason why we should grant such powers to one company and refuse them to another. We ought to treat all alike.


John Gillanders Turriff: If it is the desire of the committee to let the Bill stand over until the hon. member who is in charge of it is present, I have no objection.


George Perry Graham: Is the hon. member for Calgary away only for to-day?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: He is away temporarily, I understand.


George Perry Graham: The Bill was allowed to stand the other night because the hon. gentleman was not here. I have no objection to having it stand over again if he will be here the next night.


Mr. STANFIELD.: The non. member for East Hastings (Mr. Northrup) was in charge of the Bill the other night.


George Perry Graham: Yes, but the changes made on that occasion were by arrangement with the promoter. This change is one, 1 understand, which he does not desire to have made. However, if my hon. friend from Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) is willing, we might leave it over until the next private Bills night.
Progress reported.


BRITISH COLUMBIA AND CENTRAL CANADA RAILWAY COMPANY.
[Stage Direction]
House again in committee on Bill (No. 113) to incorporate the Dominion Development Company.-Mr. Smith (Nanaimo).
On section 1-corporate name.
Mr. McCRANEY.: Yesterday notice of motion was given by the hon. member for
Nanaimo (Mr. Smith), who is not here at present, to change the name of this company. In his absence, I would move that the section be amended so as to change the name of the company to ' The British Columbia and Central Canada Railway Company.'


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Bill reported as amended and read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed discussion of the motion of Mr. Fielding that the House go into Committee of Ways and Means and the proposed amendment thereto.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: Mr. Speaker, before this resolution is disposed of, I wish to offer a few observations. 1 have not gone into the subject with sufficient care and analysis to enable me to say whether the tribunal that is proposed to do this work is the best that could be devised, but at least it seems to me to be the best in sight and $iere would apparently be an appropriateness in assigning the duty to that tribunal because of the nature of their work and functions. Their chief duties are to look into the operations of railways, to deal with their tariffs and with disputes between railway companies and the people. The whole nature of their business is calculated to make them experienced in that line. For instance, in determining what is or is not a proper railway charge for freight or passengers, they are necessarily obliged to know how much money is invested in the railway, how much capital has been put into it by the company, and by borrowing or other means, possibly government subventions. I take it that one of their most important duties would be to allow the company to make such freight and passenger charges as would give them a fair remuneration for all the money that they put into that railway and all assistance that they acquire for that railway from certain sources. In my judgment it should not be from all sources, but I say that the Railway Commission would be bound to. look into that carefully before they could intelligently determine the traffic charges that might be imposed. Therefore, if there is any tribunal in the country who ought to be able to analyse the subject it would be the Railway Commission. I am not going to say much about the capitalization of railways at the initial stages because parliament exercises its judgment with Tegard to the capital of a railway which is being incorporated, but we seem to do that in a very perfunctory way. I have often thought that we fix the capital at an arbitrary

amount without intelligent inquiry as to why it should be fixed at that sum. We say it shall be about $10,000 a mile, but if we were asked why it should be $10,000 a mile, I venture to say that not one o) the 170 members of the Railway Committee could say why. Therefore, we have arbitrarily fixed that rate and we do not permit them to go beyond that. A few years ago we gave bonding powers to railways of $15,000 a mile. It was afterwards raised to $20,000, since then it has been raised to $25,000 a mile, and this session of parliament we have given bonding powers of $30,000 a mile, and sometimes more, upon the plea that the_ country through which they must build is expensive to build in, or that the right of way is very dear. But we give very little attention to the bonding powers and do noi exercise much care as to whether they are too high or too low. Therefore, as the min ister says, parliament has in its own hands, the right to say what the bonding power shall he and we have no right to delegate it to the commission, but I do think that the perfunctory way in which we settle this question is an evidence that we do not go into it very carefully, and it would noi be amiss if there, was some other authority that would go into it much more carefully and intelligently.
This motion merely says that the capitalization of railways shall be under the Railway Commission. I think that is the best body to have it under and therefore I have no serious objection to the motion. I think there is not a member of this House who will not admit that the capitalization of railways as at present practised is a growing evil and productive of great injustice in many cases to the users of these railways as well as to many investors in railway stocks, because when new capital is issued it is usually gobbled up by the large stockholders who are often directors and have, therefore, power to allot the stock to themselves and deprive the small investor of the benefit to which he is properly entitled. Take the issue of Canadian Pacific railway stock last spring, Canadian Pacific railway is to-day selling at $214, hut the stockholder*who got that stock at $125 receives $100 to put in his pocket as a bonus. That in ,my judgment is not fair. It is well known that the railway companies in Canada are paying large interest on the money invested in them.
We give them a great deal of assistance to build these railways. The government give them many subventions, subsidies, guarantees of their bonds and help them in many ways. Why do they do it? -for the benefit of the country which needs a better system of transportation, for enabling these railway companies to carry the produce of the country at a moderate rate, Mr. SPROULE.
and so as to indemnify the companies against loss on their investment. As a general thing, is money invested in railways lost? Take the history of the railway charters of Canada for the last quarter of a century or more-if you like for the last thirty or thirty-five years-and how many of these companies have lost money? Take Mackenzie & Mann: when I came into this House thirty-two or thirty-three years ago they were ordinary contractors whose financial means were very limited-I have been told, very small. Then, they commenced to build railways. What are they to-day? I suppose it would be very difficult to state approximately what they are worth, but I think it will be admitted that they are worth many millions of dollars, that they are probably worth $40,000,000, or $60,000,000 or $70,000,000. Could they possibly have made that amount by getting a fair return for their labour? No one will assert that they could. Then, how did they make it-by the assistance that parliament and the municipalities gave them, in the way of subsidies, grants of land, guarantees of stock and bonds and in a hundred other ways that the country can help them in order to ensure them a fair return on their money. If these companies were not getting a fair return for their money I could understand why we should give them the privilege of selling stock and allotting that stock to themselves below its ordinary market value. We gave them this assistance in order to make it practically impossible for them to lose money. We put it within their means to get a return of 10 or 20 and of even 40 or 50 per cent on the money they actually invest in the railway and that being the case there is no justifiable reason in the world why we should allow them to turn around and increase the stock of their railway not for the purpose of putting it into the betterment of the road or of extending the road a number of miles in one direction or the other, but for the purpose of putting it into their own pockets. There is no reason why we should grant them this assistance for the purpose of improving or extending the road, and not compel them to put that stock up for sale so that it will realize its full value in the markets of the country. For instance, if they wanted one hundred thousand dollars and they issued stock in the railway, if that stock were selling like the Canadian Pacific railway is to-day at 214, they would only require to issue less than $50,000 worth, because it would bring them $100,000. If that $100,000 were put into the road the users of the road would only require to pay interest upon that amount, but when they allot that stock to them selves and it is put in at fifty cents on the dollar there is only $50,000 put into the road, and yet the users of the road will be compelled to pay interest on $100,000.

525ft
That is an injustice which should be remedied in some way. That is one of the greatest evils that the country has to contend with to-day and parliament should address itself to the subject so as to find a remedy.
The Minister of Railways and Canals said that we cannot do what the United States have done because we do not charter railways in the same way as they do. He said that they take out letters of incorporation, practically they simply make their plan and file it. I do not know what control Congress has over stock issues, but in the United States they have found by experience that it is not safe to leave this matter in the hands of the companies. They have taken the right to control issues and properlv so. But what difference is there between a railway corporation that gets a charter from us in the ordinary way and one that gets its charter from the United States in the way they grant charters there?-none so far as I can see. We give them the right to sell so much stock, and if that is not enough we give them the right to enlarge their stock as much as they like practically. There is no restraint upon them. Therefore that argument does not hold good. Then the minister said: You are talking about railways in the state of New York, but those are state concerns. He also said that interstate railways would be difficult things to contend with. I have no doubt that they would be, but I think the government of that country will endeavour to overcome that as well and take control of the capitalization of those roads. They have greater difficulties to contend with than we have because of the limited area in which these charter rights are operating. If these railways were under one control fom the Atlantic to the Pacific the question would be much easier to deal with than it is. The very fact that the states are taking up this question and dealing with these companies that are operating in a limited area, and that Congress is extending this control to the interstate railways is the best evidence that the problem that they have to contend with is much harder than the one _we have here, and it is no argument against our doing what is proposed by this motion.
I am heartily in accord with the principle of controlling the stock issues of railways. I think it will have to be done earlier or later and the earlier a remedy is found for these things the easier it will be to find the remedy. As time goes on, as greater interests become involved, as vested rights become stronger and stronger, and corporations become more and more powerful, it is always harder to find a remedy and more difficult to put it in operation. Therefore, the earlier we tackle it the better it will be for ourselves and the country as well.
The country has for a long time been under the impression that this is a pernicious system and members are often asked why parliament does not take it up. That question has been put to me a hundred times. I often say that this is one of the things that it is so hard to find a suitable remedy for that parliament is reluctant to undertake it. But the answer comes: What is the duty of parliament? Is it not to grapple with these problems that affect the interests of the people? Should parliament refrain from doing it because it seems a hard task? Not at all, in my judgment. The harder the task is the more we should apply ourselves to it, and the harder we should endeavour to find a remedy. It is no excuse to say that because the task is a difficult one we should not make an effort to find a remedy. I think we ought to do so, and because there is no better remedy in sight I am disposed to support the proposal contained in this resolution.


Mr. THOMAS BEATTIE (London).: Mr. Speaker, I have no sympathy with this resolution. It seems to me that it has been moved by the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) to suit his own purposes. I bave the best_ opinion of the Canadian Pacific railway.' We have reason as Canadians to be proud of the railway. That stock within my recollection sold for 38 cents on the dollar, and the member for York would not dare to and did not buy thirty-eight cents worth of it, but he comes forward to-day and finds fault with the Canadian Pacific railway. Well, Canada and the British Empire have reason to be proud of the Canadian Pacific railway. No railway has attained the same high position it has, and I venture to predict that if the Canadian Pacific railway would buy that man he would not open his mouth on it.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman must withdraw those words; they are not parliamentary.


Thomas Beattie: I do not wish to be unparliamentary or rude, but I have that opinion of the gentleman.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Thomas Beattie: It is well known he has brought this question up time and time again and what object he has in view, I do not know, but of course it is well known that the hon. gentleman has no love for anything that is good for the country. The hon. gentleman is one of those extraordinary men who finds fault with everything that is good in this country. The Canadian Pacific railway has made its mark in Canada; it has been conducted by wise and honest management and no man in Canada has a right to dare to get up and

say anything against that company. The men who have brought the Canadian Pacific railway to its present success, are worthy men, and if they had been men of a different class we would not have such a splendid railway as we have to-day. The Canadian Pacific .railway has been conducted by wise, honourable, respectable, responsible gentlemen. The hon. gentleman from York does not bear the. best reputation in this world for being honest or straightforward.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. member should not use these expressions; they are not parliamentary.


Thomas Beattie: I will not use them, but I think so all the same.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Thomas Beattie: The hon. member for York came to London some two years ago to oppose me in my election, and I telegraphed him to know what he came for, and he did not answer my telegram, and when I sent to his hotel, he was found locked up in his room and the bell boy could not find him. He had' the audacity to state during the election in North York that I was against public ownership and that that was the reason he opposed me. He had no right to say so, because it was a falsehood. He did not know whether I was in favour of public ownership or not, but I may tell him that I am not against public ownership if it is conducted by honest, straightforward men. He ran for York, and the Conservatives would not oppose him, and the Liberals would not oppose him simply because they were afraid that if they did, he could get in between the two. Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to say anything unparliamentary, but I can tell you that if the Canadian Pacific railway offered him a sum of money you would not hear from him in this House.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: Order, these words must be withdrawn.


Thomas Beattie: All right, Mr. Speaker.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: These words should be withdrawn.


Thomas Beattie: I cannot help stating my opinion.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman must withdraw these words; he cannot be allowed to use such expressions in parliament.


Thomas Beattie: Well, when I find a gentleman going to a public meeting-


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman
must withdraw these words.	1


Thomas Beattie: 


Thomas Beattie: I withdraw them. The hon. gentleman has no right to go to a public meeting in South York and tell a falsehood about me, as he did when he said I was against public ownership and he said that to the mayor of West Toronto. I am strongly opposed to this motion. I think the Canadian Pacific railway is well managed by honourable men and it is a credit to the Dominion and to the British Empire. There is no railway in the United States or any other country that has had the same success as the Canadian Pacific railway has had. Every man that has invested a dollar in it has done well, and all the financial institutions in this country and elsewhere, are delighted with its success. If the hon. gentleman had gone into Canadian Pacific railway he would be the last man to get up here to say a word against it. He has not gone into it and now he tries to do everything h.e can against it. Now, Mr. Speaker, I will conclude, but there are a great many things I would like to say of the hon. gentleman if you would allow me. However, I have great pleasure in voting against this motion.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I declare the amendment negatived.


William Findlay Maclean: Yeas and nays.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The amendment is lost on division.


William Findlay Maclean: All right.
Motion (Mr. Fielding) agreed to and the House went into Committee of Ways and Means.



WAYS AND MEANS-RECIPROCAL TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES.

['Mr. Chairman, if any hon. friend will insist upon it, all I have to say is that this statement was made on the 29th of November last when the hon.\nmember for East Hastings expressed himself strongly in favour of reciprocity. He assured us that he would hold up both hands in favour of such an arrangement.\nI would ask my hon. friend from East Hastings if he will put up one hand in favour of it if it comes to a vote now. In case anybody may think I am not quoting him properly I have taken the page and day when he spoke, so that anybody will see what the hon. gentleman said. The same thing is true of the hon. member for East Huron (Mr. Chisholm) who spoke on November 24, 1910, as reported at pages 258 and 263 of \' Hansard."* The same expression of opinion was given by that hon. gentleman. He thought it would be a splendid thing if we could get it. The only thing that was bothering the hon. member for East Huron was how to get it. He was a man of an independent type-put it before us and I will vote for it! That was the opinion of the hon. member for East Huron. I will expect that the hon. gentleman will show this brand of independence and vote for this agreement if it comps to a vote.\nNow, Mr. Chairman, I have quoted a great many opinions but I have quoted none with greater satisfaction and greater faith than the two last opinions, because, judging from what has been going on around me here for the last three weeks, the fiery eloquence of the hon. member for East Hastings denouncing and condemning this agreement in all the^ moods and tenses, I certainly could not think that he had ever expressed a view in favour of the proposal. Then, having discovered this oasis in the desert, I find there are saints in Caesar\'s house and that from all quarters we are getting support for this agreement. As I said at the commencement it is getting stronger, and gaining strength as the days go by. I am not going to quote from this Manitoba paper called the \' Tribune,\' but I will ask any hon. gentleman to look at it. It is a Winnipeg paper of some repute, I believe, it is dated the 6th March, 1911, and at page 4 hon. gentlemen from Manitoba who are interested no doubt in what is going on in that province, will see resolutions passed at different points in Manitoba by which the legislature is condemned and in which members are condemned to their faces, being present at these meetings, for the course they have taken and told emphatically that they misrepresented the people of Manitoba when they took the course they did take in supporting the resolution introduced by the premier of that province.\nThat is the condition there, and in so far as the maritime provinces, Quebec, and I think the most part of Ontario outside of', "the centres which are on party grounds against us now we have nothing to fear and everything to hope from this bargain. I have here a paper called ' Farm and Home ' published in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Chicago which has a circulation of over one million copies in the United States, and on its front page is an editorial stating that this agreement is a bad thing for the American farmer and gives the Canadian farmer much the best of it, and certainly if it is a bad thing lor the American farmer according to this newspaper, it must be a good thing for our agricultural community. I now, Sir, have gone over the ground as fully and as rapidly as I could, but I presume my hon. friend (Mr. Bradbury) who follows me will be obliged to take the same course as I did the other night and adjourn the debate. He must excuse me for having taken up so much time, but I can assure my hon. friend that I would like to have concluded at an earlier hour in the evening. I am satisfied, Sir, that upon every ground this is an excellent ap-eement for the people of Canada, that it gives them opportunities which otherwise they could not have, that it is letting us in on the ground floor of the trade of a great country with a population of 100,000,000, a country that every day is needing a greater supply of the products which we can produce, and a country which before many years will possibly be in the same position as England is to-day, importing enormous quantities of food stuffs while exporting none, and devoting itself entirely to its great manufacturing industries. ' If that should come to pass, and if Canada for many years to come will be a produceir of such commodities as will be required for the supply of this industrial nation to the south, is it not well that we should get in now, and hold that market and develop it, rather than that we should let the opportunity slip, and give a chance to other countries to occupy the field against us. We are told that Argentine grows the same kind of natural products as we do, and is our competitor, and is it not in our interest to see that the Argentine Republic does not get a foothold in the United States market ahead of us. Would it not be a good thing for us to hold that market as against all the world? I can see no ground on which we have anything to fear or anything to lose, but I can see on the other hand that we have everything to gain. Then, so far as our loyalty is concerned I hardly think it is worth while discussing it at all. As I pointed out the other evening, where are they going to find the traitors, where are they going to find the man who will not be true to the British flag? We are getting too old in this country to cast off our allegiance; we are proud of our flag, we are proud of the history and tradi-Mr. McKENZIE.\ntions of our country, proud of our institutions, proud of being Britishers. What consolation would I or any other Canadian feel in throwing up our caps on the 4th of July? Surely it would take us a long time to get trained to that. We will not try it, and the American people know better than to try to put that yoke over us. We are willing to trade with them, we are willing to develop with them, we are willing to take advantage of the growth and prosperity that would come to us by reason of that trade, but we shall always be true to Canada, true to our own flag, proud of being part and parcel of the greatest empire the world has even seen, an empire on which the sun never sets. I do not think it is worthy of this parliament to discuss such a question as whether or not we will remain true to our own country. We certainly shall. But, while being true to the British Empire we are also as sensible business men bound to take advantage of every trade opportunity that presents itself to make this a great country commercially, and, Sir, as Canada grows in strength, so grows the strength and the standing of the British Empire.\nMr. BRADBURY moved that the committee rise."]
Mr.  D. D.@: McKENZIE (North Cape Breton)	resuming-Mr. Chairman, when I moved the adjournment of the debate on Thursday night last, I was discussing the attitude of the different political parties in Canada towards the coal industry. It is well known that in Ontario and in the western sections of Canada fault is found with the Canadian plenipotentiaries particularly with the Minister of Finance that he did not reduce the coal duty more than he did, while the Conservative press in Nova Scotia and in the east, find fault with him because he reduced that tariff too much, and the argument is there made by our Conservative friends that the Liberal government and the Liberal party are not the friends of that great industry. In this way is capital sought to be made against the government. I was pointing out, Sir, when the debate was adjourned, that on every occasion when the coal industry of Nova Scotia required consideration and protection it received that consideration and

protection from the Minister of Finance and from this government. I was pointing out further that the Conservative party had no claim to any particular guardianship over that great industry and that their history does not give them any warrant to claim that they have done anything in particular for the coal industry in Canada, and particularly in Nova Scotia, where the industry really had its origin. It is contended by members of the Conservative party that the National Policy was largely created originally for the sake of the coal industry and that it has done it much good. But, I would point out that practically throughout the whole life of the National Policy there was a statutory offer that coal would be made free of 'duty in Canada whenever it was made free of duty in the United States, an offer which stood on the statute-books of Canada from 1879 down to 1904, two years before the Conservatives went out of office. That offer was allowed to stand on our statute-books for 16 years by the Conservatives, and no advantage having been taken of it, I suppose they got tired of seeing it there and so they took it off. I also pointed out that in 1890 the Right Hon. Sir John Macdonald then Prime Minister of Canada offered free coal to the United States. Now, I do not think there is any responsible person in this House on the Conservative side who will say that coal should be protected to any greater extent than it will be under this compact if ratified, or protected to any greater extent than it is by the tariff as it stands to-day. When I had the honour of holding a seat in the legislature of Nova Scotia this question of duty on coal was under consideration. As the members who represent the coal counties of Nova Scotia are called to task for their support of this government, and as my own course in that regard is called in question, I wish to point out that the position I am taking to-day on the coal question, is but the position I have always taken. Speaking in the local House over ten years ago, as may be found on page 7 of the Debates of trie Legislature of Nova Scotia for the year 1901, I said: I
I am in favour of duties upon coal, and of bounties upon iron and steel and of everything that is considered to be necessary for the protection of every industry now established or hereafter to be established in the province of Nova Scotia or in the Dominion.
It is not necessary for me to quote anything further from the address I made to the legislature at that time. The short quotation which I have made shows the position which I then took, a position which I still occupy. I submit, therefore, *that it is not fair for hon. gentlemen 166
either in this House or out of it to be claiming for themselves a position in regard to that great industry, in the province of Nova Scotia, in British Columbia, or wherever we have mining coal, to whicri they are not entitled. It is said in the press of Nova Scotia that the Premier of that province, the Hon. G. H. Murray, is not favourable to the coal industry, and that he is in the compact with those who are making the agreement with the United States to ruin the coal industry. The Hon. Mr. Murray has a record on the coal question that puts him beyond any attacks of that kind. When there was some speculation in 1897, when it was not known what the Fielding tariff was going to be in regard to the duties on coal, the Premier of Nova Scotia dissolved the legislature, called upon the people to pass judgment on that question, and nailed his colours to the mast in favour of a tariff sufficient to protect that great industry. The Hon. Mr. Murray, having taken that position at that time and every time since, has made a record for himself that will not bear any adverse criticism to-day from I on. gentlemen who may wish to make political capital out of the slight reduction in the coal duty now proposed.
So far as the present agreement is concerned, I have heard no specific criticism of it from hon. gentlemen on the opposition side. They make the bald statement that it is a bad agreement, that it is going to disturb conditions in this country, that it is a severe blow at the loyalty of the people of this country. But there is no specific criticism of any particular item of the agreement. Nobody has said, here is something that should be in the agreement that is left out, or here is something in it that should not be there. I have heard no gentleman of responsibility, or indeed no member of this House, telling the Minister of Finance that he has not_dealt with the coal industry or the steel industry in the best interest of those industries; and while the hon. gentleman who is responsible for the policy and the destinies of the Conservative party in this House does not venture to say anything against the agreement so far as these industries are concerned, I submit that the press and others outside of this House who speak on the side of that party are stopped from taking that ground. On the question of the tariff generally, the position of the Conservative party is most extraordinary. In 1897, when the Fielding tariff was brought down, Sir Chas. Tapper assailed it on the ground that it was to be the ruin. of every industry, every mine and every other work that, according to him, depended for its existence upon the tariff policy of the' Conservative party. This chorus was taken

1878 to 1896, the country made less progress during that period on the average than it was making up to the time of the inauguration of the National Policy. Giving the figures exactly as they appear upon the blue-book from 1868 to 1878 the increase in trade in that ten year period was $44,175,823, or an average increase per year of $4,417,582. During the period of 18 years when our hon. friends opposite were in power, from 1878 to 1896, the total increase was $66,000,000, making an annual increase of $3,666,666, or about a million dollars less per year during that 18 years than during the ten year period following confederation. That is the record which my hon. friend would have to show if he had confined his calculation to the period when his friends were in power. From 1896 to 1910, the proud period of the regime of my right hon. friend and those he has gathered around him, the increase was $457,000,000, making an average increase per year of not $3,000,000, not $4,000,000, nor four times that, but of $326,-365,711. That is a record of_ increase of which the government, the friends of the government, and the country have reason to be proud and satisfied. But, I do not think the leader of the opposition would be [DOT]satisfied with the advance that was^ made by the country under the regime of his own friends. But if you lump the whole sum, if you put it altogether it makes a good -showing and gives him a better opportunity of saying:	Let well enough alone. I do
not think in all seriousness that the leader of the opposition is sufficiently ambitious for his party or his country when he asks -as, under present conditions, to let well 'enough alone. The whole country may be making fair progress, but I must say that -while I am fairly proud of the conditions In the maritime provinces, and the growth that is going on there, I do not think we have any reason to be satisfied with the progress we are making, and I submit without any hesitation that the progress which is being made in the maritime provinces today is n6t well enough compared with other parts of the country. Within the: last * twenty years we have lost three of our representatives in this House. We have three [DOT]members less from Nova Scotia to-day than we had when the population began to go down, or at least when we were unable to hold our own with the rest of the Dominion. New Brunswick and Prince Edward 'Island have lost members, and, therefore, I submit that the leader of the opposition lias no right to say that we in the maritime provinces- should sit down and say that we are content with the present conditions when we are not holding our own with the *rest of Canada. We have a Tight to expect assistance from that hon. gentleman, and when he has reason to believe, as he has, 'Siat this agreement would help to build up Mr. McKENZIE.
our population,, that it would aid our fishing industry, mining, farming and everything else and give an impetus to our prosperity .as reciprocity did before, that we would hold our representation in parliament, that we would hold our end up better under this arrangement than we do now, he has no warrant to say to the people of the maritime provinces to leave well enough alone, and not put forward an effort to better their condition.
I submit, Sir, talking not very seriously, that if the leader of the opposition wants to apply that doctrine to his own job, to his own position in this country, we have no objection from the Liberal standpoint as far as my hon. friend being leader of the opposition is concerned, because we are quite content to let well enough alone, and to let him occupy his present position, but we are not satisfied to let him apply that doctrine to the trade, commerce and general prosperity of the country. If it comes to that I think my hon. friend should amend his motto and say:	What we have, we 11
hold, and what we have not we are after. That is what I think would suit us better in the maritime provinces, _and generally all over this country. It will not be contended, Sir, in this tremendously large, prosperous and wealthy country that we occupv-wealthy iu natural resources, in area and extent-that we can afford to let well enough alone with a population of only 8,000,000 at the outset when we have a territory capable of supporting a population as large as _ that which the same area is supporting on the other side of the line. Is it not , our duty not to be contented with the growth we are making, but to move along as rapidly as possible, and to build up this country so that without any undue delay we may be benefiting our people side by side with those of the great nation to the -south of us, and placing them in a position of equality in every line of life.
I was going to say something more about the figures quoted by the leader of the opposition and those of other gentlemen, but after all his speech and the speech of the hon. member for North io-ronto (Mr. Foster) are the keynotes to the speeches made by hon. gentlemen on that side of the House. What did the leader of the opposition say in giving evidence of the prosperity of this country? He said that all we had to do was to look at the speeches of the Minister of Finance in support of the budget for the last fourteen years, and we would see evidences of the great prosperity of this country. So that there should be no mistake about where I am quoting the hon. gentleman, this was on the 7th February, and it appears at page 3366 of ' Hansard.' We were invited to look at the history of the budget of the

Liberal party for the last fourteen years for evidences of the prosperity of this country.
It is quite true-in what possibly, from a party standpoint, might be regarded as a moment of weakness in the tactics of the leader of the opposition-that he refers us to the history not of his own party but to the history of the Liberal party. And what is the record that the leader of the opposition invites us to study? It is a proud record for this country and a proud record for the Minister of Finance. Practically the_ first year the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding) was in power he announced a surplus of $1,722,112.33; the next year he announced a surplus of $4,837,149, the next year a surplus of $8,054,714, the next year a surplus of $5,648,333, the next year a surplus of $7,291,388, the next year a surplus of $14,345,166, the next year a surplus of $15,056,984, the next year a. surplus of $7,863,099, the next year a surplus of $12,898,719, the next year a surplus of $16,427,167, the next year a surplus of $19,413,054, the next year a surplus of $1,029,171.97 and the last year for which we have a record a surplus of $22,091,184.47. That is the record to which the leader of the opposition invites us to inquire for evidence of the prosperity of this country. The hon. gentleman took care not to refer us to the records of his own party because there we find deficits and not surpluses. In 1885 the Conservative government had to announce a deficit of $2,240,058, in 1886 a deficit of $5,834,571.87, in 1888 a deficit of $810,031.26, in 1893 a deficit of $1,210,332.45, in 1894 a deficit of $4,153,875.58, in 1896 a deficit of $330,551.31. That, Sir, is the record that was presented to us by the budgets of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) when he was Minister of Finance. I suppose it was quite right for the leader of the opposition to refer us to the speeches of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) for evidences of prosperity, and it is only fair that the people of this country should know what that record is as compared with the record of the Conservative party when they controlled the finances of Canada.
Without breaking away from this subject I come to say a word on the question of the authority of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs to make this arrangement. I hold that when the Liberal party submitted their programme to the country in 1893 and told the people categorically what they intended to do and the subjects with which they would deal if they were placed in power and the Conservatives turned out, then when the people of the country placed Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier's government in office with a knowledge of the things they promised to do I submit that until that programme is exhausted and everything promised by the leaders of the Liberal party carried into effect this government has a mandate from the people with respect to every plank in their platform of 1893. I do not think there is anything illogical in that; I think it is a position that can be sustained before any jury in this country. I would not hesitate to submit to the electors of any county in Canada, that the Liberal government having had a mandate from the people to carry into effect every item in their programme when they came to power, the Liberal party has a perfect right to go on without any further mandate. Our friends of the opposition profess to be very logical in their reasoning and argument and they often say to the leader of the government: Why dont you carry out your promise to reform the Senate for which you have a mandate from the people. Surely if the Liberal party had a mandate in 1896 to reform the Senate on the platform of 1893, it has a mandate to make a trade agreement with the United States because the two propositions were submitted to the people at one and the same time. If our Conservative friends are consistent and logical in saying that the government have a mandate to reform the Senate, wherein lies the strength of their argument that the government have no mandate to carry out a trade agreement with the United States? For my own part I confess I am not very much concerned whether they have that mandate or not. If this is a good agreement, if this is in the best interests of the Canadian people, if it is calculated to develop trade, if it brings about more friendly relations between this country and the United States I am not concerned very much about whether there is a very full mandate given or not. I submit that we have the power as representatives of the people to do everything which in our judgment is for the best interests of the people, and if this is a good agreement in the best interests of the people that is the only thing I am particularly concerned about. And, Sir, I am satisfied that as time goes on, as day by day this question iis discussed in this House and in the provincial legislatures and in the newspapers and on the hustings, the people will better understand this question and so, day by day the policy of the government will become more popular. I be-live, Sir, that if the people of Canada were to-day called upon to pass judgment on this agreement an overwhelming majority of them would decide in its favour. While, it is not necessary for me at this stage to trace the history of the eflort of the Canadian people to obtain better trade relations with the United States, it is possibly encumbent upon me to point out that the Conservative party as well as the

Liberal party have always been advocating better trade arrangements with the neighbouring republic. I have here a quotation from the first budget speech of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) in this House, as found in ' Hansard ' at page 449, volume I of ' Hansard ' of 1889. On that occasion he had reason to refer to the question of trade relations with the United States, and he said:
The government is ready and willing to co.ne to the aid of the country now and implement to the best of its ability this desire whicn is growing and stretching out from the true and solid basis of trade prosperity at home, in a foreign trade with other countries, so that we may compete with foreign countries in the different wares that we make and the different products that we raise. This country and this government has always been desirous of extending its trade to foreign countries. In all honesty and candour that can be maintained and it cannot be denied. No matter what government has been on the Treasury benches, no matter what party has been in power, there has been a continuous and a persistent attempt to cultivate better trade relations between this country and the United States of America in a reciprocity that should be fair and equally beneficial to both countries. The negotiations of 18G6, of 1869, of 1871, and of 1888, all bear testimony to that. But, Sir, if the country to the south of us will not go upon the lines of the late reciprocity treaty, if it will not trade upon lines which are fair and equal to both countries, and if it continues to show, as it has done in the Senate Bill, and as it has in the President's message, delivered only yesterday, its reiterated adherence to the high and strong protective system that it has placed about its trade-then, Sir, it becomes this country to build upon its own foundations, to develop its own vast natural resources, and to further strengthen the internal industries of the country which will enable her to extend her trade into other countries.
The hon. member for North Toronto, the then Minister of Finance, said that the Conservative government were ready and willing, always ready and willing to make trade arrangements with the United States, but if they could not do so, it was their duty to make trade arrangements with other countries. We hear a great deal to-day about looking to Great Britain and to Great Britain only; but if you look at the speech of the hon. member for North Toronto on that occasion, you will find that the other countries which he mentions do not include Great Britain. They were South America, the West Indies, China, Japan, the islands of the South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia-not a word about Great Britain or about any effort to bring about better trade relations with Great Britain. From the same volume, at page 478, I take a quotation from no less a person than Sir Charles Tupper in sup-Mr. McKENZIE.
port of better trade relations with the United States; and what he says in this:
But no matter how they may endeavour to confuse the public mind, the people understand that the Liberal-Conservative party, as a whole, are still ready to make a fair trade arrangement with the United States, whenever the United States are. prepared to enter into such an arrangement. We have said, time and time again, to .Jhe government at Washington; we have said it in all the official correspondence as these gentlemen themselves admit, our plenipotentiaries have said it; and true to that policy, we are not taking an attitude unworthy of Canadians, we are not taking a cringing attitude. I believe we will yet succeed in making a fair arrangement with the Republican government lately installed at Washington, and we will do it as men and as Canadians, just as independent in Canada in reference to our future and our present as the Americans to their credit, are independent in the United States.
On another occasion, in 1888, at page 674 of volume I -of ' Hansard,' of that year, Sir Charles Tupper said:
I may say that I took the opportunity, when delivering my speech on the financial condition of the country a year ago, to draw the attention of the House to the results of that treaty, and I will just call the attention of the House again one moment to a single extract in that speech, in which I referred to the trade results of what is known as the reciprocity treaty of 1851. It will be found that the United States during those twelve years, from 1854 to 1866, exported to British North America home products to the extent of $300,808,370 and foreign products to the extent of $62,379,718, the total exports to British North America being $363,188,088. The imports from the British provinces into the United States during that period amounted to $267,612,131, showing a balance during the twelve years in favour of the United States of $95,575,975. That is to say, that they sent under the operation of that treaty into the British North American provinces over $95,000,000 more than we sent into that country. I have often been at a loss to know how any person in the United States, and much less how any person in Canada could disparage that treaty, or could speak of it. as a onesided treaty, altogether in favour of British North America, and not equally in favour of the United States. I noticed, shortly aftey the delivery of the speech, that the Hon. T. F. Bayard, the Secretary of State of the United States, was interviewed in relation to this question, and, so far as the account of that interview went, I understood him to confirm the accuracy of the figures which I had used on that occasion. I say I have been greatly at a loss to know how, under the circumstances, any person can be found, especially in this country, to treat this as a onesided measure in the interests of Canada. So far as what is known as Canada is concerned, we know that the trade of our country took a very great bound, and that the result of the reciprocity treaty was to give a very sudden and great and steadily continued impetus to our trade with the United States;

but, as 1 said before, the result was to give ] a still greater expansion of trade to the United* States in relation to British North America. I am glad, after spending some three months in Washington, to be able to say that I had very intimate intercourse with gentlemen of different politics holding high positions in the Senate and House of Representatives, that I took many opportunities of discussing this question with them, and that the result is that I did not find one statesman in the United States who expressed his satisfaction with the termination of that treaty. I believe the general expression in that country is that commercially it was a mistake to have terminated that treaty, and that it would have been infinitely better for the United States and for Canada if it had been continued. As I said before, and as I said the other day, I feel it is only right, in passing, to say, that the effort to obtain the freest possible commercial intercourse between Canada and the United States, consistent with the rights and interests of the two governments, is a policy that does not belong to one party alone, but it is the property of both parties in this country. The hon. member for East York showed his hearty appreciation of the value of such a policy, when he was leading his administration, just as much as my right hon. friend showed it on the occasion of going to Washington in 1871, and on all and every occasion when that question has come up for consideration.
I have several otheT quotations right in line with those, and I submit that if trade relations with the United States were very desirable then, they are equally desirable now. But coming down closer to the present day, since we have been told that what happened in 1888, 1889 and 1903 is ancient history, let me show what stand the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) toi k last fall when discussing the trade question in a magazine published in this country. He was then quite aware that negotiations were going on between Canada and the United States; he was quite familiar with the conditions, and could not have been ignorant of the effect his words would have. Do we find him taking any objection to trade relations with the United States in December, 1910? Talking apparently to some representative of the United States, he said:
We owe you much, we admire your enterprise and your wonderful growth, and sympathize with the efforts you are making to grow rightly and develop the best forces of a great democracy. We covet your virtues and try to avoid your faults, individual, municipal and national. If we can make easier channels for trade between the two countries, consistently with the above conditions, we will be glad to co-operate. Meanwhile, as a neighbourly beginning could you not give our products tariff entrance to your market at the same rates which we accord to yours in our markets? You are bigger, older, richer, more skilled, and more populous. What competition should you fear on a basis of equivalent tariffs? If you were to do this it would be
an earnest of good feeling and might dispose us to further converse.
That was the position taken by the hon. gentleman last December. If he then thought that, subject to the conditions he mentioned-all of which are conserved in this agreement-that it was a good thing to negotiate a trade treaty with the United States, surely nothing has happened since to make it so disastrous as he would now make us believe it is. A few weeks after, I cut a clipping from the speech made by the same hon. gentleman in this House, *and I shall read it to show the tremendous contrast between the two deliverances. In the one I have just Tead, he talks in a very friendly way to this representative of the United States about trade relations. But in the speech he made in this House, he said:
They are coming to the parting of the ways. Who? Canada. What ways? One the bread highway that we began to construct in 1867 running transversely across this continent with its east and west lines and ending, for our markets, in the grand old mother country, the emporium of the markets of the world. And what is the other way? It is the way brushed out and trailed by Messrs. Paterson and Fielding, leading off this old and well-beaten highway down amongst unknown obscurities and hazards, but ending in the United States of America. These are the two ways; and we are at the parting of the ways, says President Taft, and something must be done.
You would imagine that reciprocity was the broad way which leadeth to destruction in its most dreadful form and. that the opposite policy is the narrow way which leads to life everlasting. The trouble however, is that my hon. friend is influenced solely by party politics in his last deliveries. In the first instance, he was evidently speaking his mind without prejudice, when he did not expect such an excellent understanding to be arrived at and was off his guard. He .evidently then did not anticipate that the plenipotentiaries of Canada would obtain such an excellent agreement as they did, and, therefore, was taken off his guard and without having any party consideration before his mind. In the other case he was simply trying to make party capital. In the first instance he was showing what is best in the ^interests of the country so far as trade relations are concerned, but in the other he said the country was going to the dogs, and was trying to lead the people to believe that this policy of the government was a Tuinous one.
I have read sufficient quotations from Sir Charles Tupper and the hon. member for North Toronto to show you what their minds were on this question. But what did the right hon. Sir John Macdonald, when he was leader of the government say:

We said to the Americans, we are perfectly willing to deal with you upon equal terms. We are desirous of having a fair reciprocity treaty, hut we will not consent to open our markets to you whilst yours remain closed to us.
It is perfectly clear from all those extracts, that every one of the great leaders of the Conservative party was for reciprocity with the United States. As a climax to all this, let me quote the words of the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden) delivered on the 26th of January last. What did he say, page 2555 of ' Hansard:'
The Conservative party stands to-day, as it has always stood in the past, for the policy of reciprocity within this great British Empire.
Where can* you find in the past of the Conservative party any evidence of this? If the Conservative party had any past, surely that will be found in the speeches of those excellent gentlemen I have quoted and I challenge any one to find anything in that past to show that that party ever stood for reciprocity within the British Empire.
Such a policy was not known and has no well founded existence. As was pointed out by a gentleman in Manitoba the other day, it is the ghost of a corpse buried in Britain at the last general election. That was the language used by a gentleman named Scallion, who is the president of the Grain Growers Association of Manitoba.
I submit, Sir, that there is no such policy, as a practical matter under present conditions, as reciprocity within the empire. A bargain can be made only when two or more parties are willing to enter into it. It is impossible for us to make any trade agreement with the British Empire while the British Empire does not want to enter into .any trade agreement with us that will suit our conditions. Therefore, I submit, this free trade or reciprbcity within the empire is not within the pale of practical politics, and that the people of this country would not be well advised to sit down and twirl their thumbs waiting until the river flowed by or until we could get reciprocity within the empire.
There are many considerations in connection with this agreement which we should take under advisement other than the mere question of dollars and cents. Let me quote the opinion given by so distinguished an American as ex-President Roosevelt:
I feel that we are to be congratulated as a nation upon the likelihood of obtaining a closer reciprocity of tariff and trade relations with Canada. Among all the powers of the earth there is none with which we should desire to be upon more intimate footing of equal rights, to which we should be more closely bound in relations of mutual helpfulness, esteem and good will than in the case of our great neighbour to the north, whose Mr. McKenzie.
prosperity and growth should be a matter of pride to all who dwell on the American continent. I welcome the proposed reciprocity treaty as marking a signal advance in bringing about the closest and most friendly relations between the two countries.
It is no small matter for Canada to get an opinion of that kind from so distinguished a statesman as the ex-President of the United States. I could quote the opinion of the present President and other distinguished men in the United States, if I thought it advisable to do so. I have opinion upon opinion here from the newspapers of Great Britain scouting this idea of disloyalty being involved in this trade agreement. I have already quoted the opinion of Mr. Bryce, the plenipotentiary of Great Britain at Washington, to show that he does not take any stock in that doctrine. I could quote from such 'a strong English paper as the Manchester 1 Guardian ' and other papers of that standing in England that this idea has no justification. Let me quote a few words from an editorial utterance of the London ' Times.' The following appeared in that great newspaper on the 7th of March:
We cannot tell how far the sporadically raised cry of annexation is influencing Canadian opinion, but there is no reason to suppose that the reciprocity agreement would produce any tendency in that direction. On Ithe contrary, bargaining on equal terms with the States might tend to foster rather than diminish the self, reliance and independence of the Canadian people.
That, in short, is about the substance of the opinion of the different English papers as far as I have been able to follow them. We are told that the Americans have no purpose in this arrangement except annexation. A Mr. Bennet moved certain annexation resolutions in Congress. And here is a quotation, from so reputable a paper as the New York ' Times.' I do not know the ' Times' ' politics, but this is, I think, a fair expression of American opinion on the conduct of Mr. Bennet:
(Mr. William S. Bennet, who for a little more than a fortnight longer will represent the Seventeenth New York District in Congress and then retire to private life, has thoroughly justified his defeat at the last election. The impertinent resolution requesting the President to begin negotiations for the annexation of Canada, which he shamelessly introduced Thursday, is an example of a kind of politics that would not astonish anybody if, say, Mr. Macon of Arkansas was the offender. Mr. Bennet, who has hitherto posed as a man of serious character, an energetic if somewhat juvenile statesman looking ti the welfare of his country, has fairly put himself in the blatherskite class. A fine ending to his public career this solicitous friend and supposed confidant of Governor Hughes has made!
The resolution was offered only to be rejected. Its sole purpose is to cause trouble in England and Canada. Probably some of the
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English newspapers which have been opposing Canadian reciprocity will point out that Mr. Bennet's record, until lately, has been fairly good, and that he has won some sort of repute for ability^. He has permitted himself to be used as a catspaw. The reciprocity agreement will prevail in spite of a thousand Rennets. Intelligent Englishmen understand the Bennet kind of politics. There is plenty of the same sort of things in parliament. The measure cannot be beaten in Canada. All the mischief it can accomplish has already been accomplished, and that is not worth worrying about. The voters of the Seventeenth District who elected Mr. Henry George to Congress in November will congratulate themselves on their judgment and foresight.
That is the position taken by the United States on this question, and that was their appreciation of the conduct of this cheap upstart who tried to make trouble in both countries by moving that resolution. I am not going to say that we have any such people in this country, but I think we have people in this House who are making opposition to this agreement that the facts of history will not justify. I hate to weary the House, but I have one quotation more, and it is so important and so directly to the point that I feel obliged to put it on * Hansard.' This is from the Winnipeg ' Free Press,' a newspaper which is supposed to be owned and controlled by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Siftoij). This article appeared in the Winnipeg ' Free Press ' the next day after the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sifton) made his celebrated utterance in this House on the 28th of February last. This is what the paper says, and the people can decide for themselves whether the points are well taken or noj;:
This is a free country and every citizen has a right to make himself beard* when a departure, such as is involved in the acceptance of the reciprocity agreement, is proposed. Nevertheless there are grounds for wondering whether some of the principal objectors have calculated all the possible consequences of the action. Without doubt there is a very considerable volume of independent and disinterested opposition to the agreement. A blind man can see that the agitation to a large degree is not spontaneous. It is being planned, nursed, stage managed, financed and advertised. Who are the men on the job? First, of course, the leaders of the Conservative party who, living up to the full opportunities of their positions are there opposing the government with all the resources at their command. The Toronto machinery of the party is an adept at forming raging and tearing propagandas. Kindly recall the Dundonald affair, the school question and the naval controversy. Each of these agitations started off at a terriffic clip with the 'News' and the 'Telegram' pounding on the big war drums and working up the marching posts to a frenzy. They mostly petered out, it will be recalled, and nobody was a bit worse for all the terriffic cursing in which Brer Willison indulged. If the Toronto Conservatives think this the time and opportunity for another spasm let them have it, as possibly they need one so often to
relieve the pressxire. But it is quite clear that party heat is being powerfully supplemented. Behind this agitation, which starting in Toronto, is involving the industrial and commercial centre of Ontario and is acting and reacting all over Canada, are others and more effective powers. Beyond doubt organized and powerful business interests have thrown the full weight of their enormous influence into the fray to prevent, if possible, the ratification of the agreement. The interests are not difficult to identify. They are chiefly the manufacturers of Ontario. Scratch a manufacturer and you find almost invariably an inveterate foe of reciprocity.
That is the position of the paper said to be owned and controlled by the hon. member for Brandon. I think we can well say that this paper expresses the opinion of the province of Manitoba fairly well. I have here another resolution passed in Manitoba the other day.



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Dea,r Sir,-The following resolution was unanimously passed at a meeting of the executive officers of the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association held on the evening of March 2, 1911, to which we invite your serious attention :-
Whereas the Hon. Clifford Sifton, from his place in the House of Commons, on February 28, claiming to speak for the west, declared that reciprocity with the United States was not in the interest of the -western people;
And whereas the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, the Winnipeg Board of Trade, and the Manitoba legislature, by resolution, have also, in the name of the west, declared against reciprocity ;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the executive officers of the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association emphatically assert that the above mentioned gentleman and public bodies, by their public utterances aud resolutions upon the question of reciprocity have absolutely misrepresented popular opinion in Manitoba ;
And we further declare and reaffirm that the tariff resolution placed before the government by the Canadian Council of Agriculture on December 16, 1910, is a correct representation of the opinions of the people of Manitoba to-day;
And we further declare that the people of Manitoba will not be satisfied with anything short of tlie following action by the Canadian parliament during the present session:-
1.	The ratification of the recijirocity agreement now before parliament;
2.	The complete abolition of duties upon agricultural machinery and implements;
3.	An increase in the British preference to fifty per cent of the general tan if.
Signed on behalf of the executive.
R. C. HENDERS, President.
Winnipeg, Man., March 3, 1911.
I shall not read you a lengthy manifesto published by Mr. Scallion, a gentleman of high standing in Manitoba who has given his political adherence to the opposition, who has been a strong supporter of the Rob-
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lin government, and whose character and business ability cannot be questioned by any Conservative in this House or out of it. He has given his full adhesion to this agreement and has declared himself absolutely opposed to the tactics of the Manitoba legislature and every other machinery put in motion against this contract. I submit that the opinion of Mr. Scallion and of the Grain Growers' Association as represented by Mr. Henders and the other opinions we have seen in the press give us full evidence and full assurance that if any gentleman from Manitoba speaks in this House against this resolution he is not representing the mind of the great province of Manitoba or of the great interests of that province. Now passing through the province of Manitoba I will deal with the resolution that *as before the House in Saskatchewan the other day. I am sure it must have been a startling revelation to our Conservative friends to find so prominent a man as the leader of the opposition of the legislature of that great province coming out fearlessly and openly and declaring himself in favour of this compact. I was in this House in 1905 when there was a great controversy in the west and the great leader in the Conservative party then was Mr. Haultain. He was held up as a great man, but I presume he is no less great a man to-day than he was held to be by the Conservative party in this House when we were asked to follow his lead and take his opinion on the great question in the west in 1905. If he was such a leader then I presume our Conservative friends will be prepared to accept his opinion today. I submit that there is not a man in either of the western provinces who has had a better training in political matters than this hon. gentleman. He was premier of the Northwest Territories for a great number of years and had an opportunity of studying conditions in that country. There is nothing as far as I know or can judge to indicate that he had any other reason in the world for breaking with his party on this subject. I suppose that everything would be the other way. He was the leader of a great party in a great province, and if he had the right end of it by standing by his leaders in this House and in the country I should certainly suppose he would stand by his party. I submit that the evidence is that in coming out in support of this policy he has given his best judgment to what he conceives to be the best interests of his people. In conclusion Mr. Haultain said:
We out here are just as able as the magnates in the east to decide what is patriotic and unpatriotic. I am not prepared to sit at the feet of any of these eastern Gamaliels and study loyalty.
Mr. McKenzie.	.
But that is a sweeping indictment by so able a gentleman as the leader of the opposition in Saskatchewan. He is not going to sit at the feet of Gamaliel Borden, Gamaliel Foster or Gamaliel Whitney or any other Gamaliel from the east; he is prepared to take his own course. He would not even follow the lead of our hon. friend Gamaliel Maclean, who has been addressing the House. I suppose he would put him in the same pot as the other Gamaliels and pursue his own course. I am satisfied that so far as the west is concerned we have the judgment and opinion of as good a man as can be put on the stand in favour of this agreement and against those who for party purposes are opposing it.
I received from a member for the west this afternoon some evidence that seems to me very striking. In the great province of Saskatchewan they have 51 members, local and dominion. I am told, Sir, on the authority of an hon. member from that province that out of 51 there is only one man who is opposing this contract. That one man is the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Lake) in this House. All the rest are in favour of the agreement. That would look as if, should we accept the challenge that is often thrown out to go before the country, that there is at least one province in which we are sure of a very fair majority because there is in that province only one of those who is elected who dare express an opinion against this agreement.
I do not think that there is veTy much more I should say in support of this proposal. I have pointed out that everything in the contract which I have read is in favour of the Canadian people and in favour of fair mutual trade relations between the two countries.
Mr. BLAIN.: How about British Columbia?


Mr. McKENZIE.: I am afraid the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Blain) falls sometimes into the habit of quoting evidence that he is not sure of. I am not going to quote any evidence from British Columbia because I do not happen to have any. I am satisfied to let men speak for British Columbia who know that province better than I do. On general principles I believe that British Columbia is all right. British Columbia is an immense lumbering country and I cannot understand why this arrangement would not be good for that industry. British Columbia is a great coal country and I cannot understand why an arrangement of this kind would not be good for the coal industry. I do not think any man should be called upon to stand for the condition of forcing a trade or industry in a country for which it is not adapted. If there is any condition in British Colum-
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bia which is not suitable to fruit raising, if the conditions are such that a man should give his attention..to something else, or put his capital to better use, I am not going to condemn this agreement because it would perhaps strike a forced situation of that kind, but I say that any industry carried on under conditions that are natural to Canada, that are not forced, should be "suited and assisted by this trade agreement. I hope that the fruit growers of British Columbia will have very much better success in connection with this bargain than they think. If they are trying to raise fruit where they should be raising barley, wheat or cattle, I do not think that they should find any fault if they are obliged to abandon that and go into something that is suited to the province of British Columbia and in which they may have better fortune. I hope their fears will not be realized, and I cannot see any reason why the opening up of a market [DOT]of 90,000,000 or a 100,000,000 people should not put them on a better footing than if they have a market of only 8,000,000 people and a very small part of that 8,000,000 people within range of their trade.
Now, there are some other opinions about this agreement which I wish to quote. These are quotations of hon. members holding seats in this House, and I am afraid that the opinions which these hon. gentlemen have recently expressed haVe not been consistent with those which they expressed at an earlier stage in the session. I quote here an opinion which will be found in ' Hansard ', page 408, 29th of November, 1910. It is the opinion of the hon. member for East Hastings (Mr. Northrup) given while speaking in the debate on the address. He is taking the address paragraph by paragraph and he takes this paragraph:
An arrangement may be made which will admit many of the products of the United States in on satisfactory terms.


Mr. BRADBURY.: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point or order. I do not think an hon. member Ts allowed to quote from a past debate in this House.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I am not ignorant of this rule, Mr. Chairman, and if my. hon. friend insists upon it, I suppose that I will be obliged not to refer to it.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: A passing reference to a debate at an earlier period of the session would probably not be out of order, but the rule is, that a reference to a previous debate is not in order.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Mr. Chairman, if any hon. friend will insist upon it, all I have to say is that this statement was made on the 29th of November last when the hon.
member for East Hastings expressed himself strongly in favour of reciprocity. He assured us that he would hold up both hands in favour of such an arrangement.
I would ask my hon. friend from East Hastings if he will put up one hand in favour of it if it comes to a vote now. In case anybody may think I am not quoting him properly I have taken the page and day when he spoke, so that anybody will see what the hon. gentleman said. The same thing is true of the hon. member for East Huron (Mr. Chisholm) who spoke on November 24, 1910, as reported at pages 258 and 263 of ' Hansard."* The same expression of opinion was given by that hon. gentleman. He thought it would be a splendid thing if we could get it. The only thing that was bothering the hon. member for East Huron was how to get it. He was a man of an independent type-put it before us and I will vote for it! That was the opinion of the hon. member for East Huron. I will expect that the hon. gentleman will show this brand of independence and vote for this agreement if it comps to a vote.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I have quoted a great many opinions but I have quoted none with greater satisfaction and greater faith than the two last opinions, because, judging from what has been going on around me here for the last three weeks, the fiery eloquence of the hon. member for East Hastings denouncing and condemning this agreement in all the^ moods and tenses, I certainly could not think that he had ever expressed a view in favour of the proposal. Then, having discovered this oasis in the desert, I find there are saints in Caesar's house and that from all quarters we are getting support for this agreement. As I said at the commencement it is getting stronger, and gaining strength as the days go by. I am not going to quote from this Manitoba paper called the ' Tribune,' but I will ask any hon. gentleman to look at it. It is a Winnipeg paper of some repute, I believe, it is dated the 6th March, 1911, and at page 4 hon. gentlemen from Manitoba who are interested no doubt in what is going on in that province, will see resolutions passed at different points in Manitoba by which the legislature is condemned and in which members are condemned to their faces, being present at these meetings, for the course they have taken and told emphatically that they misrepresented the people of Manitoba when they took the course they did take in supporting the resolution introduced by the premier of that province.
That is the condition there, and in so far as the maritime provinces, Quebec, and I think the most part of Ontario outside of

the centres which are on party grounds against us now we have nothing to fear and everything to hope from this bargain. I have here a paper called ' Farm and Home ' published in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Chicago which has a circulation of over one million copies in the United States, and on its front page is an editorial stating that this agreement is a bad thing for the American farmer and gives the Canadian farmer much the best of it, and certainly if it is a bad thing lor the American farmer according to this newspaper, it must be a good thing for our agricultural community. I now, Sir, have gone over the ground as fully and as rapidly as I could, but I presume my hon. friend (Mr. Bradbury) who follows me will be obliged to take the same course as I did the other night and adjourn the debate. He must excuse me for having taken up so much time, but I can assure my hon. friend that I would like to have concluded at an earlier hour in the evening. I am satisfied, Sir, that upon every ground this is an excellent ap-eement for the people of Canada, that it gives them opportunities which otherwise they could not have, that it is letting us in on the ground floor of the trade of a great country with a population of 100,000,000, a country that every day is needing a greater supply of the products which we can produce, and a country which before many years will possibly be in the same position as England is to-day, importing enormous quantities of food stuffs while exporting none, and devoting itself entirely to its great manufacturing industries. ' If that should come to pass, and if Canada for many years to come will be a produceir of such commodities as will be required for the supply of this industrial nation to the south, is it not well that we should get in now, and hold that market and develop it, rather than that we should let the opportunity slip, and give a chance to other countries to occupy the field against us. We are told that Argentine grows the same kind of natural products as we do, and is our competitor, and is it not in our interest to see that the Argentine Republic does not get a foothold in the United States market ahead of us. Would it not be a good thing for us to hold that market as against all the world? I can see no ground on which we have anything to fear or anything to lose, but I can see on the other hand that we have everything to gain. Then, so far as our loyalty is concerned I hardly think it is worth while discussing it at all. As I pointed out the other evening, where are they going to find the traitors, where are they going to find the man who will not be true to the British flag? We are getting too old in this country to cast off our allegiance; we are proud of our flag, we are proud of the history and tradi-Mr. McKENZIE.
tions of our country, proud of our institutions, proud of being Britishers. What consolation would I or any other Canadian feel in throwing up our caps on the 4th of July? Surely it would take us a long time to get trained to that. We will not try it, and the American people know better than to try to put that yoke over us. We are willing to trade with them, we are willing to develop with them, we are willing to take advantage of the growth and prosperity that would come to us by reason of that trade, but we shall always be true to Canada, true to our own flag, proud of being part and parcel of the greatest empire the world has even seen, an empire on which the sun never sets. I do not think it is worthy of this parliament to discuss such a question as whether or not we will remain true to our own country. We certainly shall. But, while being true to the British Empire we are also as sensible business men bound to take advantage of every trade opportunity that presents itself to make this a great country commercially, and, Sir, as Canada grows in strength, so grows the strength and the standing of the British Empire.
Mr. BRADBURY moved that the committee rise.


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Motion agreed to.
On motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 10.46 p.m.
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Wednesday, March 15, 1911.