1911-07-18

THE CENSUS.

Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: In what position is the taking of the census at the present time, has the enumeration been completed, and if so when is it expected that the completed census returns will be ready?


Mr. FISHER.: I cannot reply off hand, but after consultation with the officers I hope to make an announcement to-morrow.



THE SEAL FISHERIES.

Mr. SPROULE.: I saw it stated in the papers some time ago that the negotiations in reference to the seal fisheries had been concluded. Has the government any information to give on this important subject?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: The treaty has been signed, and we expect to be able to lay it on the table at an early date.



CHINESE INVESTIGATION COMMISSION.

Mr. TAYLOR (New Westminster).: Has the report of Mr. Justice Murphy, of the Chinese Investigation Commission at Vancouver been received, and if so will it be laid on the table without an order of the House? I put the question because Bill (No. 147) has stood over at the request of members of the House pending the presentation and consideration of this report. If an order of the House to have it printed has to be moved for, of course it would not be feasible to consider the report now.


Sir ALLEN AYLESWORTH.: The report has been received by the Department of Trade and Commerce, but in the absence of the minister I am not able to say anything in reference to it except that it is under consideration.



THE COPYRIGHT ACT.

Mr. LENNOX.: Can the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) inform us about what time he will proceed with the Act respecting copyright? I want to give that measure some personal attention, and I am reasonably busy now, so that if the minister would say about what time he would bring forward the measure it would facilitate me and others.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I have been in communication with the Rt. Hon. Sidney Buxton who has informed me that he hopes the Bill in the Imperial parliamnet will be passed shortly. As some amendments have been introduced to that Bill it would be

well for us to delay so that our Bill may harmonize with it as far as possible in the shape in which it is finally passed.


Robert Laird Borden: Is it out of committee in the Imperial House?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I think it is still in the committee.


Mr. MACDONELL (Toronto).: Will any opportunity be given to interests who are concerned in that very important measure to present their views to parliament. Since the Bill has been introduced there has been a great deal of public discussion on it in the press and throughout the country. I understand that the imperial Bill was referred to a committee of the House before w iich the interests affected were heard. I also understand that the same proceeding was adopted by the American Congress on their Copyright Bill and also in Germany and other European countries which are in what might be called the copyright family of nations. Does not the minister consider that the Bill should be referred to some tribunal which would receive the opinions and suggestions of those interested?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Before the adjournment, the Bill had practically passed -through Committee of the Whole, but I asked that it should not be reported. Since then 1 have taken great pains to send copies of the Bill and of the debate to everybody who seemed to be at all interested, with the request that they should communicate their views to the department, before parliament reassembled. We have had a few. replies which will receive every consideration. The Bill is still in Committee of the Whole and can thoroughly considered there. I am sure that the hon. members interested will be able to present to the House the views of those whom they represent.



WAYS AND MEANS-THE FENIAN RAIDS VETERANS.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. FIELDING moved that the House go into Committee of Ways and Means.
["I do not know if I am in a position to answer my hon. friend's question without having the papers before me. The government in England and the cable companies agreed that the present rate of 25 cents should remain as it is for urgent messages. My hon. friend knows that during certain hours of the day the cables are busy with messages from the various bourses of the world, and those people do not care whether a message costs 25 cents or even $1 a word. But for the general publie, for social messages and\neven business messages, provided they are not in code or cipher, and provided there is no obligation about their delivery within a specified time, say within 24 hours, the cable companies have agreed to reduce the rate to 12 cents a word. But that is not thought sufficient by the parties who have made the agreement, and at the last Imperial conference the question came up, and it was decided that the British Postmaster General should urge upon the cable companies a still further reduction in their rates, and if they do not yield to the pressure of the government, there is an implied promise that there will be a state owned cable."]
Mr. MIDDLEBRO.: Mr. Speaker, before you leave the chair, I desire to bring to the attention of the House a matter that has been before the government for the last fifteen or sixteen years; that is, the question of the recognition in some substantial manner of the claims of the veterans of 1866 and 1870. I do not intend at this stage to go into the merits or demerits of the claims of the veterans, but I intend to show first of all what steps had been taken by the veterans with a view to having their rights recognized in some manner by this government, In the year 1896. I think, the first deputation waited on Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his government and asked for some Mr. FISHER,
recognition of their claims. In speaking to that deputation, the Prime Minister is reported as follows-I am reading now from ' Hansard ' of the 26th of March, 1906, and quoting from the speech made by the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk):
He would like to find a few facts about the subject under discussion so that he would have a basis to work upon. To begin with, he said, I would like to know about how many men were called out at that time, and if it is the desire of the present delegation that services of all the remaining veterans who. took an laotive part and also in what way it is considered their services would best be recognized.
Further on the Prime Minister is reported as saying:
In making his reply, Mr. Laurier stated that he fully appreciated the strength of the reason that all should be remembered, and and that nothing would give him greater pleasure than laying the claims of the veterans before his colleagues at the next parliament, as he regretted to say it was too late at present to bring it up at the present session.
That would be towards the end of the first session of the present administration. Although between that time and 1905 two other delegations waited on the government, each of which received a favourable reply from the government, neither of which was specific, however, I un4erstand that in 1905 a further large delegation waited on the Prime Minister and Sir Frederick Borden, a delegation evidently composed largely of veterans from the eastern townships of the province of Quebec and some from the province of Ontario. To that delegation the Prime Minister is reported to have replied as follows:
Sir Wilfrid Laurier received much applause when "he rose to reply. Two years ago he had been approached by a smaller deputation on a similar errand, but as the session was far advanced he had been unable to give them a definite answer. He had told them then he hoped to be in a better position next time they came to him. The members had evidently remembered his words, for they had now returned in largely increased numbers. He could hardly claim to be a veteran, as they had called him, for he had only been a volunteer in 1870. When the regiment he belonged to had been mustered the trouble was over. To the victors, he said, belong the spoils, was an expression most of them were familiar with. While the veterans had turned back the invaders in 1866 and 1870 there had been no spoils left. Thirty years after they come to ask from the country some recognition for their services, and he thought some appreciation should be shown. Their services then bad (saved the country from much humiliation, if not worse. Had the invaders not been repelled at the border

much misery would have been caused, although, of course, the country would not have been conquered. What the veterans asked was not much. He could not give a definite answer himself to their request, but he could assure them that he and the ministers with him would be very pleased to report their request to the Privy Council. The meeting closed with three cheers and a 'tiger' for Sir Wilfrid, called for by some enthusiastic veteran.	[DOT]
In the same year the hon. member for Jacques Cartier again brought the matter up in the House, and at page 642 of Hansard of 1905, we find the Prime Minister reported as follows:
I think it is obvious to any one, and my hon. friend (Mr. Monk) will agree with me, that if the veterans of 1866 and 1870 have a claim against anybody, it is the Dominion government, although I do not say that the veterans, from their point of view, have not done well to address themselves to the provincial government. Mr. Gouin, the provincial premier, I do not think went further in his answer than to say that they should first of all address themselves to the Dominion government. This they have done, and the matter is now under consideration. But I must say, and my hon. friend will not be surprised, that up to this moment the government. has had no time to take the matter in 'hand and give it the attention which it will require before we can come to a conclusion.
I may just point out that although the government say they had not time to take the matter into consideration, it is exactly nine years since the veterans first presented their petition to the House. Then the Prime Minister went on to say:
The matter is under consideration, and without making any pledge, I will say that I will give an answer during the present session. When the answer will be given, I am sorry to say that I can give no indication today to my hon. friend, but certainly it will be given during the present session.
Well, the answer was not given during that session. A further deputation waited on the government in 1906 and laid their claims before it, and I find that on that occasion the following reply was mate to them by the Minister of Militia, Sir Frederick Borden:
But since my hon. friend has presented his argument and suggested that homesteads bona fide should be offered to these men who might be willing to go to the Northwest as actual settlers, I am inclined to the opinion that the government would be willing to take that matter into consideration.


Mr. MONK.: They have that privilege now.


Sir FREDERICK BORDEN.: That is what my hon. friend suggested, and I am merely giving him all he asks. I said a moment ogo that some advantages might be given in the way of offering them special privileges to settle in certain communities or in certain
favoured quarters. I have no right, however, to speak for the Minister of the Interior, but I would be disposed to go that far and see whether anything could he done to meet their views in that respect.
In the same debate the right hon. the Prime Minister is quoted as follows:
I dare say these veterans will say to us: We could fight in 1866, we could fight in 1870, but you canot expect that we can take up a pick and shovel and perform the arduous duties of a settler to-day. I can appreciate that answer, and I will say this, that if there is a man who cannot take his homestead we are ready to give it to him. If he has a son who is ready to fulfil the conditions of settlement, the government will be only too glad to give him that recognition. But if it is intended that these lands should be given to the veterans simply for the purpose of selling them to the foreigner, to the despised foreigner who has been mentioned by my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier, that is a thing which 1 think would deserve a little consideration.
Further on the Prime Minister used these words:	[DOT]
This motion comes very late after a lapse of 40 years, but yet it is not too late, and if a plan can be devised by which we can leaven the mass with our own blood and find homesteads for our veterans or their descendants and children, the government would be pre-rpared to consider the question and do its share towards recognizing the men who risked their lives for the defence of the country upon that very important occasion.
I might here remark-that the Prime Minister said that this motion came very late. I would like to point out to him that in the year 1875 the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, then premier of the country, did not think that it was too late, after a period of 65 years, to grant an annual pension of $50,000 to the veterans who had served in the war of 1812. On page 252 of ' Hansard ' of 1875, I find the following:
On item 50-$50,000 to meet the probable amount required for pensions to veterans of the war of 1812*	*
Mr. KIRKPATRICK asked for some explanations. He desired to know whether those who had served for a shorter period, were to be placed on the same footing as those who had served for a long period, and whether all regiments would get a grant, or whether those known as the Glengarry regiment, which, he believed, had been pensioned by the Chelsea hospital authorities, were also to have a share. He also desired to know whether the widows of the veterans of 181-would receive any consideration.
Hon. Mr. CARTWRIGHT said he fesH?d they could, give nothing to the widows. I lie intention of the government was to give to all men in actual service, numbering, he believed, probably about five or six hundred - of course, they could not tell the exact number as some applications had come in which doubtless would not be fortified by the records. Those receiving aid must be at least

seventy-six or seventy-eight years of age, because the great number of those who took part in that war must now be about or over 80. The pensions would be as nearly as possible approaching the amount to those given to the pensioners of the regular army at home.
In reply to Mr. Flesher,
Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE said it was intended that the vote should be taken yearly. -Item passed.
So I would say that the mere fact that the volunteers o'f 1866 and 1870 have not been recognized after 40 years is no answer whatever, but on the contrary is only an argument why, if their claim is just, they should be recognized at this day, because the longer their rights are deferred the stronger their claims become. I would suggest that the Prime Minister follow the precedent of his former colleague and the former prime minister, Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, who thought it was not too late, after 65 years, to recompense those who had fought in the interests of their country.
Prom what I have read, I think it may safely be assumed that a promise was made in 1906 by the Prime Minister and by Sir Frederick Borden that something would be done, and I believe that many members on the Liberal side who at that time voted against the resolution of the hou. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk), did so, believing that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Militia intended to give something substantial to the volunteers. In proof of that, I shall quote from a speech of Mr. Logan, of Hants, then a member of this House, who said:
I feel very much in sympathy with the idea of giving substantial recognition to the men who live and to the heirs of those who have died who fought at this time or who went to the front; and I might have been inclined to have voted in favour of the motion as put before the House if we had not had the .assurance given by the Minister of Militia and the Prime Minister, in reference to considering certain substantial recognition of what these men have done for their country.
So it is quite evident that in 1906, when this motion was before the House, many Liberals voted against it because they believed that the statements of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Militia amounted to a promise to do something
for these veterans, Mr. Logan said further on:
We believe the government will do its duty, with this promise which has been given by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Militia.
And he voted against the resolution. My
^lenl^do?pp0BTeni>
fOTmer member for North Grey, I find used words which
only illustrate his sublime faith in the Mr. MIDDLEBRO.
Prime Minister and anything the Prime Minister might do.


Mr. LA NO AS TE  R.@: That is why he is not here now.


William Sora Middlebro: He is a very fine old gentleman, the only fault he had was that he was a blind follower of the Prime Minister, and would do anything the Prime Minister asked him. That lion, member said:
I would rather trust the somewhat indefinite promises of my hon. friend the Minister of Militia (Sir Frederick Borden) and the l rime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) than to the belated good intentions of hon. gentlemen opposite.
That was five years ago, yet nothing whatever lias been done to implement these promises.
I find that in the following years, with the perseverance and tenacity which they displayed in the rebellion, the veterans ccme back to the Prime Minister. In 1908, the Prime Minister replied to them as follows :
Two years ago I had the honour to receive a delegation of veterans of '66-'70 for the purpose of hearing a petition for recognition at the hands of the government. I did not then see a way of granting the petition. But I gave Mr. Patterson the injunction which I see he has remembered. Gentlemen, you have always been too kind to me. I cannot claim to be a veteran. True, I turned out with the rest, but I did so little that I am almost ashamed to wear my medal. But, gentlemen, there is an old saying that to the victors belong the spoils.
It is a peculiar thing that the Prime Minister has been holding up the spoils to these veterans the whole time, but they have not seen any of them yet. He continued :
After 30 years you come to your countrymen and ask that you may receive a little recognition at the hands of a grateful country- Something should be done. There is no doubt that by your action you saved the WttBtry from humiliation and perhaps worse. What you ask is not very much. But I am only one of the government. There are others here, the Postmaster General, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Militia, and we shall be pleased to present your request to the Privy Council and the Governor General. But, gentlemen, further than this I cannot promise.
The Prime Minister then added:
But do not trust the government.
That was in 1908. In the following teb-ruary they came and in the Toronto Globe,'
of February 5, I find this account of the meeting:
Sir Frederick Borden, after referring [to the medals granted, is reported as follows:

He recognized the value of their services and would promise that the government would act on the petition in a proper manner.


Wilfrid Laurier: He was very much in sympathy with their request. They were of course watch dogs of the treasury, but if the opposition would agree to spending the money he would be strongly tempted to be extravagant. He would be pleased to report to the Governor General the unanimous voice of this meeting and so far as he could discern the unanimous feeling of the House regarding the grant.
The ' Mail and Empire ' the same dale reports the meeting as follows:
Sir Wilfrid Laurier this afternoon promised [DOT]a deputation of men who took part in the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 that he would recommend their request for a grant of land to His Excellency the Governor General at the earliest possible day.
That was in February, 1909, and still the veterans are kept waiting for the spoils which had been promised. Back again they come on December 3, a larger deputation than ever, and, on December 4, I find in the Toronto ' Globe ':
Veterans' requests-Sir Wilfrid's answer is very encouraging-Government already considering scheme of rewarding the men who repulsed the Fenian Raids.
One hundred and fifty Fenian Raid veterans of '66-'70 marched to Parliament Hill at noon to-day, headed by a pipe band, and met Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Frederick Borden, Hon. Sydney Fisher and Hon. L. P. Brodeur. . . They asked either a land grant or pension. Sir Wilfrid Laurier in replying . . . said the government was always disposed to deal in a sympathetic spirit with the men who had stood ready to sacrifice their lives in defence of flag and country; but, while sympathizing with the movement for some tangible recognition of the veterans' claims, he thought there w'ould be some difficulty in deciding just who were entitled to the reward, and he intimated that perhaps it would be well to distinguish between the men who actually went to the front and saw active service and those who were merely under arms at the time of the raids. The matter was seriously engaging the attention of the government, and personally he would be glad if 6ome action could be taken soon to grant a reasonable measure of recognition to the veterans by a grateful country.
Upon that same delegation the member for Wentworth (Mr. Sealey) made these remarks :


Mr.   W.@: 0. Sealey, M.P., believed that if the veterans could agree to take a land grant with the provisions that they or their children would settle on it they would get it immediately.
On the 30th of January, 1910, a question was put upon the Order Paper by the hon. member for North Ontario (Mr. Sharpe) to which the government replied as follows: 303
The government has not come to any conclusion but will at an early day.
Just imagine, fourteen years after they came into power and after they had had it under their very serious consideration for fourteen years, they say that they still have it under their serious consideration. In the meantime there have been three general elections, in every one of which they received the support of the veterans on the assumption that they would get substantial recognition at the hands of the government.
In 1910, during his tour in the west, the Prime Minister is reported to have said:
We have had it under consideration some months and, without making any promises, I can say that something may be done.
Not very specific I admit, but a promise that something may be done. Then from August 10 there were continual interviews by Mr. Patterson with the government for the purpose of ascertaining what the government really intended, and I have here a letter addressed by Mr. Patterson who represents the association, to the Minister of Militia (Sir Frederick Borden) dated April 20, 1910, which is as follows:
Sir Frederick Borden,
Minister of Militia,
Ottawa.
Honourable Sir,-Two weeks ago to-day, in the interview I had with you in your private office, yon stated you would bring the matter of federal grant to the veterans of '66 and '70 before the Privy Council on the following Saturday, lapsing our interview. You said you would push - the matter to a final decision, either a grant or the government would say no. You promised to communicate the results of your intention. Up to the present time I have not had the pleasure of hearing anything from you. Won't you kindly advise me by mail what has been done, or what is the intention, if any? Your reply will be appreciated by the veterans of the Dominion.
Yours faithfully,



[Stage Direction]
In reply to this the Minister of Militia wrote as follows: And this, of course, was before the Prime Minister had taken his western trip in the course of which he said that something might be done:
Ottawa, May 9, 1910.
Dear Captain Patterson,-I must apologize for not having answered sooner your letter of the 28th August, but I am sure you will understand that I have been very busy ever since that date.
I have brought the matter of the veterans up in council on two occasions as promised, but unfortunately there was no time so late in the session to consider it. As I understood the feeling of the council, however, it was that there was a disposition to consider sympa-
[Stage Direction]


thetically the claims of such of the veterans as actually went to the front and took part in repelling the would-be invaders, and with this object in view I feel sure that the Premier would be glad to receive you and any other colleagues whom the veterans might wish to associate with you and to discuss the manner in which this idea might be carried out.
I can only add that I shall be very glad at any time to join the Premier in assisting in such a discussion.
Yours very truly,

Capt.  J. H.@: Patterson.
93 McKenzie ave.,
Ottawa.
I think I am quite justified in saying, in view of the extracts that I have read from the remarks of the Prime Minister and his Minister of Militia, and from the correspondence, that the veterans were promised and had a right to expect some substantial consideration at the hands of this, government. I think I am justified in saying also that the debate of March 26, 1906, when the matter was brought up by the hon. member for Jacques Cartier, showed that it was upon the express understanding that something was going to be done by tire government that many members on the Liberal side of the House voted against the resolution to give same substantial recognition to the veterans.
Apart altogether from the merits of the case, I think nobody will deny that the services to the country rendered by the veterans were rendered at the psychological moment in our history. One occasion was a year before Confederation. At that time there were large numbers of disbanded soldiers in the United States only too willing to fight. And had not our veterans come to the assistance of the country against these disbanded soldiers the destiny of Canada might have been entirely different from what it is. After confederation had been in existence only three years when the second occasion for the veterans to offer their assistance arose. At that time the United States had refused to continue the policy of reciprocity in natural products with this country; and those of the older generation know that at that time there was a very considerable feeling in this country that, because of the action of the United States, Canada would be compelled to throw in her lot with the United States. And, again, I say, the veterans came to the aid of the country at the psychological moment in that respect.
And it was owing at least in part to their action that the country was directed to a different destiny. These men lelt their businesses, their farms, their avocation at the call of duty. Permit me to read a portion of a letter from one of the veterans of that time which will illustrate better than any word I could speak the risks Mr. MIDDLEBRO.	/ [DOT]
these men ran, and the hardships they endured. This is a letter from one veteran to another:
Dear comrade,-It pleases me very much to learn that the veterans of the Fenian Raids of 1866 arid 1870 have formed a national association and are making a fight for recognition of the services which they (or rather we, for remember I am one of those veterans) have rendered our country almost half a century ago. Think of it, Charlie, it is just 45 years and 41 years ago respectively since the word of command ' to arms ' came from our beloved Colonel F. G. Marcliand, the late Prime Minister of the province of Quebec. The moment that command wa6 heard, men in shops dropped their tools, men in stores walked out from behind the counters, men in offices laid down tlieir pens, men on the farms left their ploughs where they stood, donned their uniforms, shouldered their rifles and in less than three hours the 21st .Battalion Richelieu Light Infantry was in line fully supplied with ammunition and ready to start for the front, which we did on the afternoon of the same day. The patriotism shown by the men of the 21st Battalion on that occasion was never equalled by the young men of any country, European or any other country, and the same spirit prevailed among the young men of the province. We cared not for our lives, we took that in one hand, our rifles iu the other and marched out to defend our country or die. ...	.
Many of us are to-day suffering from different ailments as a result of exposure and hardships experienced at that time. But, diu you ever hear any one complain? No, sir, I never have met one sad or dejected heart in all that campaign. Every man felt cheerful and was happy to be where he was and he knew he was doing his duty.
I believe that expresses the sentiment of the men who went to the front at that time. We have bad, since then, two precedents. The veterans of the rebellion of 1885 were given not only medals hut grants of land. The veterans of the South African war were given not only medals tout grants of land. If the grants made to these veterans are just and right, they create a precedent which cannot be ignored by this government. I can see no reason why the veterans of the present day should not be given some substantial recognition. It is not for me to say what form that recognition should take, whether a grant of land or a pension. If a pension, it is to he remembered that most of these men must be close to 80 years of age, and cannot live long. I think it is as little as the government can do to give some substantial recognition to these men who came to the aid of the country in time of stress. I move in amendment:
It is desirable that the government of Canada should recognize in some substantial manner the services rendered during the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 by your Canadian volunteers.


IS, 1911
[Stage Direction]
I use exactly the words used in the resolution of the hon. member for Jacques Cartier in 1906 when the government promised to do something along these lines.
Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Speaker,
'	to express my regret that my hon.
friend and colleague the Minister of Militia (Sir Frederick Borden) is not in his seat to-day. He would have been better able to do iustice to the amendment of my hon. friend than I can attempt to do. The matter is one that I know has been engaging his attention; if my hon. friend from North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) has at 'it the interests of the veterans whose case he has espoused it would, perhaps, be preferable that he should have waited for a day or two until the Minister of Militia were in his seat.


William Sora Middlebro: The Minister of MiJ-tia has already given a reply stating that nothing further will be done whatever.


Wilfrid Laurier: Exactly. And perhaps it would have been better for the hon. gentleman to have a reply from the minister himself. But he has taken his course, and there is nothing to be done but to deal with his motion. The hon. gentleman stated that this question was fifteen or sixteen years old. He is altogether too modest-it is forty or forty-five years old.
My hon. friend invited me to act upon the precedent created by the government of Mr. Mackenzie in 1875, of which government I was a supporter. If there were any argument in that, perhaps my hon. friend would find a better and more adequate argument in the precedent created by the government of Sir John Macdonald who -was in office at the time these raids took place and which dealt with the case at that time. The government of Sir John Macdonald was in office in 1866, and, as he was the first Prime Minister of the Dominion his government was in office immediately after confederation, and until after 1870, the time the second raid took place. The veterans of that time did render valuable service to the country, undoubtedly. Those services were considered when they were fresh in the minds of the people of Canada and of the government of Canada. For reasons which I am not called upon to pass judgment upon, these claims were not entertained.
If the veterans of 1866 did that service for the country which my hon. friend says they did, and which they did emphatically, for some reason which I have not to appreciate-I did not belong to the party which was then in office, and my hon. friend does belong to that party-for some reason, at that time the government did not think it advisable to call upon the people of Canada to give them any recognition for the services they had performed. I
303$
think it is not to be expected that volunteers should give their services for a consideration, they do it simply out of patriotism; and if the government of that day took that position, what reason can be given to-day why we should reverse that judgment? There is, thei'efore, no argument in the fact that if the government in 1875 did recognize services which had been rendered to the country in 1812, we should do the same. We have adopted since then another method; we have now a more humane way of looking at those things. It is not a Conservative government which is in office, it is a Liberal government; but the Liberal government did recognize the services of the men who went to South Africa, and also, I think, the services of the men who went to the front in 1885 We gave them grants of land, and we did it out of the abundance of our heart; the Liberal party supported us in so doing. But I think my hon. friend must have heard echoes coming from the western portion of the community, especially that the policy adopted of giving grants of land to the ' eterans lui<l not turned out very much to the benefit of the country, or to the benefit of the veterans themselves. That is the opinion I express; I would not be disposed to be critical in that matter. I have called the attention of my colleague, the Minister of Militia, more than once to this question. The veterans have been pressing with great persistence to have some recognition made to them. Now, I may say frankly to my hon. friend that for my part, leaving out my own individual point of view, I would not be disposed to treat the application of the veterans according to a universal system; that is, a system that should apply to all. There are degrees of merit in the veterans. Some of them did very little service, if any at all. I know a corps to which I myself belonged was called upon to go to the front, but they did not go, because the trouble was all over before they turned out. But I was given a medal, although I did not deserve it at all. We had no claim for one. But there are men who went to the front and who were engaged in a battle, who bore the burden and heat of the day, and exposed themselves to danger, and that is the class which is entitled to consideration. There were other veterans who were simply called upon to do garrison duty, or picket duty, but were never called to the front. Therefore, I would make a distinction between one class and another. At all events, this condition of things has been engaging the attention of my hon. friend the Minister of Militia. My hon. friend who has made the motion will himself understand that it is not possible to apply the same rule to all cases, and I do not think, if any recognition is to be given,

that the universal recognition implied in this motion should be adopted. The government of the day in 1866 and 1870, I know, did give pensions to those who had been disabled in battle, that was the extent to which the bounty of the government was given at that time. I speak correctly when I say that some of the men who, in 1866 and 1870, were actually engaged in battle and were disabled, were pensioned by the country.


Mr. LANCASTER.: And some of the widows.
SIR WILFRID LAUR1ER. I am not aware that tne widows received pensions, perhaps they did; but I speak of those who were in battle. I know instances In which some received recognition, while others did not. Now my hon. friend would go further. I have only to say to him, and he will agree with me, that if the only_ object^ he has in mind is to come to the assistance of these men, the manner in which he has brought it to the attention of the House, perhaps is not the best calculated to impress the House. In the absence of my hon. colleague, the Minister of Milhia, 1 have only to ask that the motion be not proceeded with, but that it be rejected by the House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It seems to me that the reason given by the Prime Minister for refusing this request is not a very strong one. He says it is not expected that volunteers should give their services for a consideration, and therefore, I presume, he intimates that they are not entitled to a consideration. Had they been regulars, they might have been entitled to it. Now, if he applies that reasoning to the volunteers of 188ft who went out to the west in the service of their country, and who afterwards received gold medals and land grants, he will see that his argument fall's to the ground, or iti carries no weight. Then if he applies it to the volunteers who went out to South Africa and who received land grants, the argument is not a very strong one, nor a very sound one. The right hon. gentleman said that his sympathy was with them, and he had several times expressed his sympathy with them when speaking on this subject. But he never seemed to go beyond that though he was always desirous of pel spading his colleagues that that was the right thing to do, to give the men some substantial grant. I would imagine that the Premier of the government would always bring his colleagues to accept any special request which he desired to make, because otherwise they would not be faithful supporters of the government. When he was telling us how strongly he sympathized with the veterans, it reminded me of what I heard an eminent minister say once who did not reSir WILFRID LAIJRIER.
ceive a very large stipend, that he was always getting the sympathy of his people. He said he remembered a friend of his once who tried to feed a cat on sympathy, and it just lived ten days. Now, I do not think that the veterans will be very grateful for the sympathy the Prime Minister has extended to them, because it will take more, than that to sustain life. I was looking over some answers given in the past with regard to this question, and they are various. One was that the services were rendered before confederation and, therefore, only one portion of the country was interested in the matter. Well, 1866 was but a short time before confederation, and 1871 was after confederation, and what did the government then do? One naturally asks why we should not compensate these veterans by a land grant.
We have recognized the principle of pensions to those who have gone to tlje front in the service of the country; we recognized it in favour of the South African veterans, we recognized it with regard to the men who took part in the rebellion of 1885. Now, if it was a sound principle in those cases it must be sound in this one, Now, what was the first? The first case was when we made a grant of land to the South African veterans. They did not fight to keep people from invading the country, but they fought to sustain the authority of the British Empire, and to put down an insurrection in another part of the empire.
On the other occasion, in 1885, when the volunteers went to the northwest to put down an insurrection there, it was not to prevent invaders from coming into the country, but it was to maintain the authority of the British Empire and to preserve peace in the country. On both these occasions the veterans were recompensed fey grants of land in consideration of their [DOT]services to the country. But in both cases [DOT]it was to put down an insurrection in a portion of the British Empire. Where is the difference between the action of those men iand that of those who took part in preventing marauders from coming into the country to overpower the people, and break down the authority of the government? It eeems to me that if merit there was in each case it was greater in the case of the men who prevented outsiders from coming into the country than in that of the men [DOT]who endeavoured to put down trouble in the country. If there was a justifiable [DOT]reason-and I take it for granted that there was-I believe there was-in giving land *grants to the veterans who went to South Africa to maintain the authority of the British Empire outside of the country altogether, that reason, it seems to me, is *doubly strong in the case of those men who [DOT]prevented our own country from being invaded by marauders. No strong ground has

*been given, as far as I can see, why there [DOT]should not be some better recognition of [DOT]those veterans than has been given up to [DOT]the present time.
There is another feature) of this question [DOT]that has occurred to me in looking over the records of the various occasions upon (which it has 'been before the country and *the House, and it is that the government <were always considering it. They had [DOT]taken it into their consideration-their *careful consideration-but they had never reached a decision. How long does it take [DOT]a man to reach a decision? I could understand that sometimes it takes a woman a (long time, but a man is supposed to be [DOT]made of different stuff, to be actuated by [DOT]different principles, to be able to reach a conclusion after short consideration, and to [DOT]reach a conclusion that is apt to be final. [DOT]But, time after time, when this question [DOT]was before the Prime Minister and the Minister of Militia and Defence, they were [DOT]always considering it-seriously considering it. They denied that they had given a refusal, they denied that they had abandoned hope, they denied that it was not [DOT]their intention to do something for these [DOT]veterans, but they were always considering [DOT]it, and -they have not reached a conclusion [DOT]yet. The remarks of the right hon Prime [DOT]Minister to-day are just about as indefinite [DOT]as bis previous ones. He wants to lead [DOT]these veterans to believe that the sympathy of the government is with them and that it [DOT]is their desire to do something substantial for them, but they believe that they cannot [DOT]do it. Why cannot they? It must be because they cannot get their followers to [DOT]support them. The remarks of the former hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan), [DOT]have been quoted here to the effect that [DOT]he was disposed upon that occasion to vote *for the motion but for the fact that he [DOT]understood that the government were going [DOT]to take the matter up and were likely to [DOT]compensate these veterans. That is the [DOT]statement of one of the right hon. gentleman's own following, who was supposed to be behind the scenes and to know what *was taking place. He got the information, *I presume, privately, which induced him *to vote against this motion. Hon. gentlemen opposite voted against the motion on that ground, yet nothing has been done and the question has remained in abeyance up to the present time. The right hon. the *Prime Minister told my hon. friend from *North Grey (Mr. Middlebro), that he had [DOT]not taken a very opportuhe time to bring [DOT]this question up as the hon. Minister of *Militia and Defence is not here. But, there -is greater than the Minister of Militia and [DOT]Defence here; there is the Prime Minister himself, the man who lays down the policy and who gets his cabinet to carry through (what he wants. Surely he ought to be
'equal to the occasion in the absence of the Minister of Militia, who I assume would *be only too willing to support any proposal that he would make. He should give these Veterans an answer-yes, or no. Let them hnow their fate whatever it is. It is much better for them to be told that there is no hope whatever than to be led to believe and to hope year after year that the government will come to their aid.
It cannot be that the government are afraid of the opposition not supporting a proposition of this kind, because the opposition has put itself on record more than *once in favour of such a prinicple. The opposition would support a grant of this kind in so far as my judgment enables me to speak upon this matter. Therefore, it is a question within the ranks of hon. [DOT]gentlemen opposite, and they must be held individually and collectively responsible if nothing is done, because it is for themselves to say whether anything will or will not be done. They have the power, if they have the desire. They have expressed themselves as having the desire over and over again; why do not they make their action decisive?	_
Mr. SAMUEL BARKER (East Hamilton), 'Mr. Speaker, I said a few words upon this 'subject in 1906, and I spoke on that occasion simply because of words uttered then which have been practically repeated 'by the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) . to-day. I will read what was spoken then and the House will 'see that the Tight- bon. gentleman has hit 'very closely upon the same words to-day. The minister-I need not mention his name -upon that occasion, said:
Surely we are not to establish a precedent that whenever this country is threatened by invasion, such as that of 1866, or whenever a rebellion has to be quelled, our volunteers shall demand payment in land or money.
I considered that a deliberate insult on that occasion to the volunteers. I do not think the Prime Minister has been very happy in using almost the same words today. The volunteers did not turn out in H866 for the purpose of securing a reward tin land or money or anything else; they 'turned out for their country. How different is the conduct of this government from that of the United States government? When they *asked for volunteers at the time of the *war with the south they made no promises of pensions or rewards of any kind. But, [DOT]how did they treat their veterans? Enormous sums " of money were voted and granted freely to their volunteers, some of whom enlisted for only three months at the [DOT]beginning of the war, and all were treated [DOT]alike. Would any politician in America dare to stand up and sneer at the volunteers who took part in that war as men


Mr. J. D. REID (Grenville).: I desire to express my strong sympathy with the amendment now before the House. The town of Prescott where 1 live was one of the most important points during the Fenian invasion. A great many volunteers were stationed there, and while they turned out to fight for their country without hope of reward, yet, they naturally now expect the same recognition as those who fought in the Canadian Northwest and in South Africa. I remember attending one of the veterans' meetings at which the Prime Minister was present and his language then led the veterans to believe that their claims would be recognized at an early date. That was several years ago, but nothing has been done since. Some of the veterans have several times complained to me about the neglect with which they are treated, and I have never hesitated to state that so far as I was concerned, and the Conservative party as well, we would support any reasonable recognition of their services which

the government might propose. But to-day, we have this motion before us and there is not a single man on the Liberal side of the House to get up and say a word on behalf of these men who were out to fight, and to die if need be for their country.
I cannot understand why they have no sympathy with it. Surely there must be some members on the government side who have agreed to support some recognition of the services of the veterans; but so far there does not seem to be one who is willing to take any part. The Prime Minister states that the government might consider some proposition with regard to those who took an active part. The hon. member for Hamilton shows that there should not be any distinction made in that way. There may be some who were wounded, and who might be in need of a pension, but I believe that every volunteer who served for a certain length of time in drilling, and who was prepared and willing to take part in any battle that might take place, should receive the same recognition as those who did take part. I only rose to express my hearty sympathy with the amendment moved by the hon. member for North Grey, and to say that I will support any reasonable recognition of the veterans of 1866 and 1870 that may be brought down by the government.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I want to say a word in protest .of the position taken by the Prime Minister on this matter. I am satisfied that if he took a census of the people of the Niagara district, where the principal invasion referred to by my hon. friend took place, he would find that all those people, whether they were alive at that time or not, would be a unit in favour of this motion, because they know particularly well -what great services were rendered, in a very hurried and very philanthropic as well as patriotic and intelligent way, by those veterans. We in the Niagara district have never been able to understand why something in this respect was not done years ago. The Prime Minister has been quoted as having intimated from time to time that something of a substantial nature would be done. My hon. friend from North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) quoted the language of the Prime Minister, to which the Prime Minister replied, but he made no explanation or denial of the promises he had made. Therefore, I am justified in assuming as absolutely true that the Prime Minister did make the promises that were recited against him by the hon. member for North Grey. If he did, he stands obliged to support the motion. The right hon. gentleman's only reason for opposing the motion to-day is that he does not think it opportune, and -does not approve of the manner in which it is brought up. For the life of me I cannot understand what the Prime
Minister does want done. He makes promises in regard to this matter, and he does not fulfil them; his ministers make promises, and he does not say they should fulfil them, and when a humble member of the opposition undertakes to help him to fulfil them, he wants none of them. He does not want his promises carried out by any one if he does not propose to carry them out himself. If he wanted some excuse for doing this long-delayed justice to these people, he has every excuse in the declarations which have been made by the opposition in this House over and ovpr again for a number of years past, that they were willing to vote for any measuie which would extend some substantial recognition to the class of patriots referred to in this motion. The application of these people no one has dared to reject on the merits. It is not only the veterans who are concerned; the nationality of Canada, the integrity of this -portion of the British Empire and the integrity of the empire as a whole is concerned. If invasion were threatened tomorrow, ten times the number who enlisted on that occasion would be prepared to enlist to protect this country from any invader, but foreign countries will have very little respect for the Dominion if it f&jis to recognize in some substantial way the patriotism shown by these veterans on the occasions to which this motion refers. The example to the rest of the world is a bad one. This country practically insults itself when it refuses- a motion such as that made to-day, after all these years. The government that undertakes to reject such a motion and offers nothing in its place, practically tells the world that it does not care anything about gratitude towards the people who may protect the country. Those of us who were not on hand at that time are just as much interested from a national point of view as the descendants of those who were. We were served by those people, our nationality, and our' integrity as a part of the British Empire were protected by them, and this -country owes it to itself to do justice to the veterans who served it on those occasions. The Prime Minister has not told us why this motion is inopportune. Is it inopportune simply because the Prime Minister has neglected his duty for the last 10 years? Ts it inopportune in the sense that the government is to blame because it is necessary to make the motion at all? Ido not apprehend that this is what the Prime Minister means. I apprehend that he wants to do other business this week instead of dealing with this motion. He does not undertake to deny the promises that were quoted as having been made by him. Therefore, the Prime Minister in 1905 expressed the opinion that- the Dominion government was the right body to be appealed to, and promised attention to the matter during that session and in 1906 his Minister of Militia,


Edward Arthur Lancaster: support this amendment and vote for it. The Prime Minister and his colleagues and supporters have repeatedly given the public to believe that there was no question as to something being done for these veterans, that it was simply a question of what form the grant should take. To-day the Prime Minister says that he understood and the hon. member for North Grey understood that the Munster of Militia had said lately that nothing was going to be done. Then every independent man in this House should vote for this amendment even against the will of the Prime Minister in order to save his own reputation and to demonstrate that if he finds he cannot rely on the promises made by the government he will vote against it. I do not care what the subject may be that principle should apply.
What will happen in regard to this matter if this amendment is voted down? If the majority vote it down it is understood finally by everybody in this House, and by the country, that these veterans are to get no recognition. That is what is to be understood from the words of the Prime Minister when he says that the motion is inopportune. If it has been delayed it has been delayed by the members of the government, not by the veterans or by (the members of the opposition, who have uot hesitated to assume their responsibilities and to assure the government that they would not raise this as a political question against the government either in this House or in the country. The veterans, as well as hon.'gentlemen in this House supporting their claims, have been misled into believing that by delaying and keeping quiet they would get this matter attended to, and now when forebearance and patience have ceased to be a virtue, they are told by the government that they never intended to do anything, that they do not intend to do anything now and that the claim of the veterans will not be recognized.
I must protest against the Prime Minister suggesting that these veterans are looking for remuneration.
The veterans are not looking for remuneration in the sense the Prime Minister would indicate. The patriotism of tnese veterans, and of their descendants and of our people generally, is as it ever was, and will be the same whether this money is paid or land grant given or whether it is not. But here is the point: These men have b'en led to believe all these years after having established their claim, that their services would be given some recognition. They have established their claim morally and one might almost say legally. They mve not established it on the ground of technical legality, that is of making it enforcible in the courts, but they have established it leg-

ally in the sense that the government has recognized other claims that were no better legally. If precedent has anything to do with legality, if a precedent set by the government makes the law outside of this maze the common law outside of this House-then-the young men who might be called upon to take up arms to-morrow have been given to understand that they would have a right to compensation, because they have seen the South African veterans rewarded, not more than they deserve but at all events recognized; and they have seen the volunteers of the rebellion of 1835 recognized in the same way. And alongside that every year has been almost a promise from the Prime Minister or some member of his cabinet that the matter would be attended to and the veterans of 1866 and 1870 recognized. The House was asked to vote down this motion on the ground that it is not wise to bring it forward at this time. The Prime Minister seems to be satisfied that all he has to do is to say that and the majority of the House will vote it down. The majority of this House must take the responsibility. I am going to honour myself by voting for the amendment; and if the majority choose to dishonour themselves and this House and the veterans by voting on the other side, the responsibility rests with them.


Haughton Lennox: The Prime Minister has made it perfectly clear, I think, that he does not intend to do anything in this matter. It is as well that the veterans of 1866 and 1870 should understand from the utterance of the Prime Minister, that, however he may have evaded the issue down to this time, he has made up his mind that he will do nothing for them, and /tie takes this opportunity and means of making that absolutely clear. The reference to the Minister of Militia, of course, is a mere evasion. The Prime Minister is allpowerful in this matter. There is nothing done in his cabinet which is not in entire accord with his view. He controls the whole situation, and he has controlled the situation which has 'brought us down to what has been announced by the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) and concurred in by the Prime Minister, namely, that as the result of cabinet deliberation the Minister of Militia says that nothing will be done. It makes it no stronger for the government to say that Sir John Macdonald should have done something, and would not do anything in reference to these veterans. The Prime .Minister must recognize-the country recognizes-that this defence of the country by the veterans was undertaken at a time when Canada was in a very different position from that which it occupies to-day. If the results to the country did not amply
justify our recognizing these heroes, there would be no one claiming from the government at this time that they should be recognized. Not reward, but patriotism, the Prime Minister says, should be the actuating motive of these men. I quite admit it. And of course patriotism and not desire for reward actuated these men when they went out in defence of the country. At that time they identified themselves in resources, in income, and even in their lives with the future of the country. They succeeded in defending the country and maintaining our position in Canada. And, the country having greatly prospered since, is it not a pity that a generous people should not in some way, having recognized many subsequent heroes, recognize also in some way the heroic action of these men? The Prime Minister speaks of the difficulty of discriminating-he would not reward them all. Those who got ready, those who took up arms, those who responded to the call but had not the . opportunity of fighting, he would not recognize. He would reward only those who were in active service. That may be a logical position, though I do not think so;
I would reward all those who came to the defence of the country at the call of duty. But if the Prime Minister-and he is allpowerful in this matter-has come to the conclusion with his government that they will discriminate, why do they not get at it? Why do they not do something? The Prime Minister says that those who were actually in action in the field of battle, and those only, he would reward; those who were only ready to go he would not reward. Well, why does he not do it? Fifteen years ago this matter was urged upon him. For forty-five years these men have been waiting and entitled to recognition. Why, then, does not the government do something? The Prime Minister has had the matter under that 'serious consideration' of his. When he was in the West last year, and during all the years since he came into power, he has had the matter 'under his serious consideration.' There is nothing to prevent him acting in the matter. Two or three years ago he said: I am in sympathy with you; I think you are en-entitled to something, and I would like to recognize you; I would do it if I could. I (will do it if I can and I will do it if the opposition will allow me. Has the opposition ever prevented him? Has not the opposition been ready, figuratively speaking, to pat him on the back? Have not they proposed resolutions asking him to do something? What is to prevent it? He knows. He could get up and tell us, but he does not do so? I know why he does nothing. It is because there is a certain element he is afraid of. Will he say now that it is not so? He knows that it is so.


Mr. ALLEN.: 
Haughton Lennox: for Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) and the hon. member for Siincoe (Mr. Lennox), who say that the government does not feel that they have a duty to perform in this matter. I wais not here in 1905, and therefore am not acquainted with the discussions -of tnat * time. But I remember in 1909, I think it was, a large deputation of Fenian raid veterans came to interview this government and asked that something he done in recognition of their services. One man suggested one thing, another man suggested another, and still another suggested something else; there seemed to be no common desire on their part, or agreement as to what they did want. The right hon. premier in reply to these men. said: I am in sympathy with you, >and if you will formulate a demand upon which you can all agree something that we can do for you, we will do it. But we cannot do cine tiling for one man and another thing for another. Formulate a straight demand and we will do something. Now I think that is the gist of the whole matter. This government is ready to meet these veterans and do something for them; I am convinced of that myself. If these men will only say wliether they want land or whether they want a jjen-sion, I am convinced the government will meet their views.


William Sora Middlebro: Does the hon, member not know that there has been an answer placed on the paper saying that the government will do absolutely nothing for these veterans?


Henry Edgarton Allen: I do not know it. But I am free to say to the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) that I think if these men will formulate a straight demand as to what they want, the government will do something for them.


Mr. MACLEAN (York).: But the Prime Minister says that if they ask for a land grant it would not be acceptable to the people of the Northwest.


Henry Edgarton Allen: I believe, as I said before, that if this question is brought before the government in a concrete form, the government will do something for these men,
I am thoroughly convinced of that. But this resolution is indefinite, it merely asks the government: What are you going to do? There is no suggestion as to what the government should do, it merely asks that something be done. The government are ready to do something for these veterans,
I am thoroughly convinced of it, if they will only formulate a reasonable and concrete demand.


Mr. TURRIFF.: I would like to ask the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) a question. If I understood him aright, he said that at the time the government of



Sir   J@: Macdonald was in power the country was not in a position to deal liberally with these veterans. The question has been asked whether that reason was given at the time by the Conservative government. I am not posted on the question, and I would like to know. There seems to have been some reason given during the time the Macdonald government was in power why something was not done in response to the request of the veterans, and I would like to know if that was really the reason given.


Haughton Lennox: I did not say exactly that' the country was not in a position to reward these veterans at that time; but I pointed out that the country was not so well able to deal with the matter then as it is now. Our resources were not anything like what they are at the present time. The hon. gentleman asks me what answer the Macdonald government gave to the requests made at that time. I would not profess to give the various answers that may have been given, but I do not understand that the matter ever came up in the same definite and concrete form that it has come up to-day. In fact, I do not think it ever did come up in any definite form before the Macdonald government. But some fifteen years ago it took a definite form, and since that time the question has been vigorously agitated.


Mr. BOYCE.: The remarks of my hon. friend from Sliefford (Mr. Allen) clearly demonstrates to my mind the insincerity of the government in dealing with this question, and the pitiable level to which, by the action of the Prime Minister, this great national question, involving the national honour of Canada, has been dragged down to the lowest level of party politics.	_
What is the position, as illustrated in the very exhaustive speech of the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) in support of this motion? I believe that, as my hon. friend from Shefford (Mr. Allen) is convinced that this is a righteous claim and that these veterans are justly entitled to this recognition, the majority of this House are in favour of the principle of this resolution, and that were it not for the lash applied to them by the Prime Minister in his speech this afternoon there would be a majority in favour of the resolution of the hon. member for North Grey. What a lamentable spectacle has been presented upon a question of national importance in which national honour is involved? Here are a set of men-I do not want to recapitulate the value of the services that they rendered to this country1-who left their homes, and their business, who made great sacrifices of their interests, and at great danger to themselves and privation to their
families, rushed to the border to defend their country against invaders, the country of which we are now so proud, which hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House are never tired of extolling. They ask :in a very moderate way for such recognition as has been given in other instances to other Canadians who have fought in Canada's interests as well as in the interest of the empire. What is the answer that is made to these men? For fifteen years, during the term of the administration of this government, they are put off with different excuses and promises, all of which involve sympathetic consideration of their case. The hon. member for Shefford prefers to believe that this government will give some relief to these veterans although it is upon the records of this House, out of the mouth of the responsible minister the Minister of Militia and Defence-that the government has no such intention at ail, and that in so far as the government is concerned the matter is closed. _ What a sublime faith this one of the Tight hon. gentleman's followers has in his government notwithstanding the fact that they have placed themselves on record as being unwilling to do anything. What position does the hon. member for Shefford find himself in to-day? He is in sympathy with the motion; will he vote for it? No, he will vote for the right hon. leader of the government and why? Because he is subject to the whin. My hon. friend believes and has sought to express the belief that this government will, and should do something for these veterans, and, notwithstanding the fact that the Minister of Militia has said in answer to a definite question that nothin1* will be done, he will vote to reject this motion. It is a lamentable spectacle in connection with a great national question, and a question involving national honour and duty. Not to grant this recognition would be to leave a blot upon the fair escutcheon of Canada, and it is lamentable, I repeat, that a question of this kind cannot be dealt with in this House without the whip of the party being brought into play in order to make the followers of the government vote, as I believe they will vote, contrary to their sympathies in this case.
But, there is another view of this question which strikes me as being somewhat peculiar. We have large tracts of land out in the Northwest; we have thrown these open to settlement upon liberal terms free to who ever will till the ground and otherwise comply with the homestead regulations. The lands of the Northwest have been Used for other purposes, for rewards for those who have served the country and the empire, a fact which has been referred to by my hon. friend from North Grey, and other hon. gentlemen who have followed him. The right hon. leader of the govern-

ment has taken a strangely inconsistent position upon this question. He admits that the men who went to the Northwest in 1885 to quell the rebellion were properly rewarded by grants of land belonging to the government, and he further consents to the giving out large parcels of thfike lands to those of our Canadian boys who answered the call of empire and fought in South Africa in 1889, 1890 and the following year. Where is the consistency of the Prime Minister now in refusing to accept the resolution introduced by my hon. friend from North Grey? The right hon. gentleman does not like to see Canada mixed up in the empire's wars. In London, not long ago, he distinguished himself, (or extinguished himself) in the view of the Candian people, by laying down the proposition, shocking to the consciences and feelings of a number of the empire's citizens, that Canada should not be drawn into the empire's wars without her consent. Yet, Sir, when our boys, responding to the call of the empire, went to South Africa, reluctant as the Prime Minister was on that occasion to give his consent for them to go, and when they came back he rewarded them with federal land grants in the west. What a strange inconsistency is manifested now by the right hon. gentleman? When Canada was in the dawn of its present development, when it was in the twilight of the magnificent prosperity which now blesses it, and which we hope shall hereafter bless it, these men responded to the call of their country for the protection of their homes, our homes, our land, our heritage and rushed to the border willing to lay down their lives if necessary as good Canadians in the cause of Canada, and yet the right hon. leader of the government, out of the great loyalty of his heart, posing as a great Canadian, says that there shall be no reward for these men, no land grant of any kind whatsoever, and calls upon this House to vote down the resolution of my hon. friend from North Grey. That is a strange spectacle for the right hon. gentleman to present to the Canadian people at this time, and in conjunction with the course which he has taken in regard to Canada's position in imperial wars.
It is well to notice what the reasons are that guide the Prime Minister in taking this somewhat questionable stand. Has he given any reason why these men should not be rewarded suitably? No, Sir, he has not, but he has broken straws with reference to the case of the veterans by alluding to the inactivity of the previous government in dealing with the question. What has that to do with the case? For fifteen years the right horn gentleman has jockeyed with the situation, has jollied these veterans, and has given them expressly to believe Mr. BOYCE.
that they would be rewarded in a substantial manner by this government.
Why, at the last moment, should he endeavour by flimsy excuse to avoid the real issue and attempt to throw the responsibility upon his predecessors in office. The question before this House is whether these veterans are going to get long delayed justice; whether the government will recognize the moral claim of these men to recognition, as they have promised. I am strongly in accord with the resolution now before the House, and I think the nonadoption of it would leave a blot upon the fair name of Canada and leave outstanding a national debt of honour which Canada ought to pay. Large grants of land have been made to friends of the government for political purposes; men who have-sat in this House have been enriched tremendously by grants of land from the government obtained through means open to criticism and suspicion. Foreign immigrants are encouraged to come here by offering blocks of free land; steamship and immigration agents have been paid by this government so much per head to induce foreign immigrants to take up the land and till it, but have not the veterans-a greater claim to their own soil? Are not those who have fought for Canada in her dire need entitled to recognition before foreigners who have Ijo be bonused to come here? I earnestly hope that the resolution of my hon. friend (Mr. Middlebro) will receive greater consideration than has been shown it by the Prime Minister. I hope hon. gentlemen opposite will vote iu accordance with their principles and that my hon friend from Shefford (Mr. Allen) will vote in accordance with bis expressed conviction, and by so doing free Canada from a blot on her escutcheon.


Mr. SHARPE (Ontario).: As one closely identified with the Candian militia for overtwenty years and in whose constituency a great many of the veterans reside, I am in favour of the spirit and wording of the resolution which is similar to that moved in 1900 by the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk), and which was voted down by supporters of the government on the understanding that the Prime Minister and Minister of Militia would recognize the claims of the veterans. I quote from page 643, 'Hansard,' 1906, the statement of Mr. Logan, then member for Cumberland:
We have had the experience of some of the members related to-night by the senior member for Hamilton (Mr. Barker) showing the harrowing circumstances under which they laboured. We sympathize with them and I believe that some recognition should lie given them. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Militia have promised that some recognition will be given, and under these circumstances I think it is our duty on this side



[Stage Direction]
of the House to vote against the motion made by the member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk).
We have in these words the distinct understanding that at least one supporter of the government believed that the P rime Minister, and the Minister of Militia would provide some tangible recognition of the claims of the veterans. But, the attitude of the government on this question since 1906 has been uncertain, indefinite, and equivocating; they have led the veterans along, pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp, without ever implementing their promises. To-day the Prime Minister wants to know why the government of Sir John A. Macdonald did not do something, but I tell him that the government of Sir John A. Macdonald looked after the widows and orphans of those killed and pensioned those wounded, and did everything then asked of them. Subsequently in 1896 a Veterans' Association was formed and they pressed their claims on the government, and the government	has	side-stepped the issueever since.	Deputation	after deputation has waited on the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Militia without ever obtaining a definite promise, but to-day the government will be forced to say yes or no to this resolution. I regret the language of the Prime Minister in which he apparently belittled the great services these veterans have rendered to the country. He said that he himself had secured a medal, and did not deserve it, but it does seem extraordin-try that he should make application for a medal if he felt that his services did not entitled him to get one. The men of 1866 and 1870 responded to the call of their country; they endured the hardships of a daily drill from the month of March till the month of June; they came under fire; they made greater sacrifices than some of the volunteers who went to South Africa, and who never set foot on the shores of that country, but whose services were nevertheless recognized by a land grant. The quick response of the men of 1866 and 1870 to the call of their country and their determined resistance to the invading enemy possibly changed the destiny of this country, so that their great services are not to be slighted. I call attention to the treatment accorded to the veterans of 1866 and 1870 by the Ontario government. It would seem to me that the attitude of the federal government is brought about in a measure by the fact that the majority of these veterans lived in the province of Ontario, and this seems another instance of unjust discrimination by the present Dominion government against that province. A great proportion of these veterans came from Ontario, and the edict goes out that their services must not be recognized. The province of Ontario appreciated the services of the veterans of 1866 and 1870 just as they appreciated the services of the South African volunteers. Cap. 6, 1 Edward VII, 1901, provides for a grant of certain lands te the volunteers who served in South Africa and the volunteer militia who served on the frontier in 1865, 1866 and 1870, and it shows that the Ontario government did not discriminate. As the Ontario government appreciated the services of the militia in 1866 and 1870 and the services of the vMun-teers in South Africa, there is no justification for the Dominion government discriminating between the two. Clause 1 of the Ontario Act says:1.	The lieutenant-governor in council may from time to time designate by proclamation within two years after the passing of this Act such lands as he may deem proper for the purposes hereinafter mentioned.
Clause 2 says:
2.	The lands so set apart shall be reserved
for location by any of the following classes of persons, viz.:-	.	.	,,
(,a) Persons resident or domiciled an the province of Ontario who, while so resident or domiciled, were enrolled or enlisted in the province of Ontario or elsewhere for active military service in the South African war, m the years 1899 and 1900.
(d) Persons who were members ol the voi-unteer militia of Canada in Ontario and were [DOT]engaged in active service in .the defence of the frontier of this province m 1865, 1866 or 1870.
Surely if the Ontario government gives recognition to the veterans of 1866 for their services, there is no reason why this government should deny their claims to the generosity of the country. Now, all that the Dominion government has done in con-'ne-ction with this matter is to strike a few medals and hand them out instead of recognizing the claims of these men in some substantial way. As has 'been pointed out by the hon. member for West Algoma (Mr. (Boyce), we have free lands for all classes (Doukhobors, Galicians, and all the polyglot population of Europe; why should not eur government have free land for these veterans who did valuable service for his country? We have free lands granted to *railways as subsidies; we have handed over practically as a free gift to the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company 250,000 acres !of land at $1 an acre. If the government is so prodigal in giving lands and inviting settlers from a distance, why should it not deal generously with the veterans who performed these valuable services? It is a 'debt of honour which the country owes to these men, and theTe is no reason to my jmind why the government should refuse this resolution. I was more than surprised to hear the remarks of the hon. member for jShefford (Mr. Allen). He says, notwithstanding that the government has distinctly and definitely stated that they will not do
[Stage Direction]
anything for these men, he does not believe them. That is an absolutely absurd position for a member of this House to take, unless he has lost all confidence in his leaders. Whoever heard of a member of this House standing up and saying that he .does not believe what the government says in answer to a question of an hon. member? (At last the government have come from .behind the lines of Torres Vedras and announce a policy on this matter, although it has taken them fifteen years to do so; and after they have announced that policy, the hon. member for Shefford says he does not believe that they are going to carry it out, but are going to do something else. Surely that is begging the question. Surely this country is not so ungenerous as to refuse to recognize the men who have defended it. I believe the country would approve the action of the government if they undertake to deal generously with these veterans and do something substantial for them, according to the words of the resolution.
i Mr. R. L. BORDEN. I desire to add a ;very few words to the discussion that has .taken place upon the motion of my hon. friend from North Grey (Mr. Middlebro). As I understand the situation, the veterans of the war of 1812 have already received, about the year 1875, substantial recognition from the people of this country. The same is true of the veterans of the Northwest rebellion of 1885. The same is true of the [DOT]men who went to South Africa in 1900 or 1901. Now', the men for whom consideration is asked by the present resolution are those who responded to the call of their country in 1866 and 1870. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister, during the course of his remarks, was asked, what about the alleged difference between the position of these men and those who went to South Africa in 1900 or 1901, and he said that he would come later on to the question of South Africa; but, as a matter of fact, he concluded his speech without reaching that interesting difference, if any difference exists, which I am not prepared to concede. If there is any difference in the consideration which the country ought to give to the men who fought in 1812 °in 1885, and in 1900 or 1901, on the one hand, and the men who came out in 1866 and 1870 to defend the soil of Canada against an invader, I think that difference ought to be made clear to the House by the Prime Minister, and he has not done it up to the present time. Whatever rights the men who fought in 1866 and 1870 in defence of the soil of their country may have or may not have, I think we will all concede that they have one right at least, that is, to be treated in a straightforward and sincere manner, and not to be humbugged; and I Mr. SHARPE (Ontario).
think it is apparent to any one who looks at the history of this matter from 1896, when a large delegation of these men came to Ottawa, up to the commencement of this session, when apparently a final answer was given by the Minister of Militia and Defence, that they have been humbugged, deliberately humbugged. In 1906, when the hon. member Sor Jacques Cartier (Mr1. Monk) presented his motion to the House in what seemed to me to be a very fair and commendable spirit, he was told by the Prime Minister that he deprecated the spirit in which the motion was brought forward. The Prime Minister on that occasion used such language that the then member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) regarded it as a promise that consideration would be given to these men, and, therefore, he voted against the resolution demanding recognition for them on the ground that he was entitled to rely on the promise of the Prime Minister given to the House. I have the language of the Prime Minister under my hand. I will not read the whole of it. The important words are as follow:
We are told that we should recognize in some substantial manner the service of these men. The government will be prepared to consider any resolution of that kind.
The member for Cumberland declared that he understood these words as a promise. He made that declaration in the hearing of the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister did not dissent from it. From 1906 to the present time nothing has been done. We have the final answer of the government given in this House on the 12th of December, 1910, and that answer is as follows. Mr. Middlebro asked:
Does the government intend during the present session bringing down any legislation with reference to the grant of lands or monev to the veterans of 1866 and 1870?
Frederick William Borden: 
James Davis Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the fact that I am a beneficiary of the action of the government of 18S5, in dealing with the so-called veterans of that year, prompts me to say a few words in support of the proposition to reward those who rendered a much greater service when the country was more in need of the armed service of her sons than it was in 1885 or on the later occasion which we have recognized by grant of this parliament. We have standing between us and the proposal for a commercial invasion of this country, a proposition to reward those who were instrumental in resisting an armed invasion at the time of confederation. We are brought here in the dog days, in the close season for legislation, because of the statement of the government that a promise by a minister of the Crown, an unauthorized promise even, is so sacred that we must go to this extreme means to implement it. We are confronted by this other promise of the First Minister and other ministers that they would do something substantial for the veterans of 1866, and when this proposition is before the House we are told in effect that the word of a minister of the Crown in Canada is of variable value, that it is something substantial when given to ministers of another country seeking to take advantage of Canadian simplicity to prey upon the resources of this country, but that the

word of a minister of the Crown, of the First Minister, is of no value at all wheu given simply to a private soldier of the King who has gone out to active service in defence of his country.
Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that the people of this country will relish the assumption that they are willing to subscribe to the monstrous doctrine that the word of a minister given to an elector of Canada in the hope that it may induce that elector to support this ministry is not of equal value with the word of a minister given to any foreign country. There is a widely-voiced opinion in this country, that this parliament, so far as its governing majority is concerned, is dead, and that we have come to the House at this inopportune season simply to set a date for the obsequies. If anything were needed to justify that popular impression, in which I concur, it is the spectacle presented in this House this afternoon of the majority supporting the government having absolutely nothing to say in defence of the extraordinary position taken by the Prime Minister, their answers to the arguments on this side being simply that which we have had presented to us so often during the last few years-' We have more heads than you have, count them.' And the fact that the silence of these gentlemen has not been prompted by their conviction that everything has been said that should be said in defence of the position that they propose to vote for is well illustrated by the unfortunate break made by the only follower of the right hon. the Prime Minister having the temerity to address the House on this occasion. The right hon. the Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, told us that this matter was settled, that it had been settled by the answers that the Minister of Militia placed upon the records of this House. He says that there is nothing to be done for these veterans. Yet the only one of his supporters who attempted to take part in this debate says that the reason he intends to vote against this motion is that the matter is not settled, that he feels in his heart that the government is going to do that which his leader and the Minister of Militia have told us they have no intention of doing. Mr. Speaker, I leave it to the public-it -seems to be idle to leave it to the House-whether or not this does not indicate the moribund condition of the majority of this Hous" -Uether it does not indicate that we are wasting time in doing anything except setting the date for the obsequies referred to.	,
The Prime Minister, dealing with this subject, referred to one or two obstacles which present themselves to his mind. He referred to the results of the grants of land f?,,, fr veterans which, he said, had done little for the benefit of the country, or of the veterans themselves. With that state-


James Davis Taylor: ment I have no quarrel; I think it is about as true a summary of the effect of an important action of this government as has ever been given on the floor of this House. So far as the veterans of 1866 and 1870 are concerned, it seems to me it is idle as has already been suggested, to offer them grants of land in the Northwest upon the terms of the grants made to other veterans. But why, if we desire to reward these veterans, should we confine ourselves to grants of land in view of our experience with similar grants that we have made. It is well known to the government, and to every member of this House that when you give as a reward to a veteran or any other person a grant of land, the country pays the full value of that land whether the individual to whom it is offered gets the value, or whether he is forced to divide it with some intermediary who may be in a position to deal with, if not settle upon the land. Now, since the country has to pay the full value, why not ensure that the proposed recipient of the grant should have the whole value and not have to share it with the middlemen who have done so much harm in operations of this kind? The Prime Minister, knowing the experience we have had, knowing that it will cost no more to hand out the absolute value to the veterans than to give them grants of land to be preyed upon by speculators, has before him the immediate solution of one of the difficulties that presents itself to his mind. It is only necessary for him to give to the veterans the value, instead of grants of land such as have been shown to be so unprofitable if not unpopular. The right hon. gentleman told us also that we were confronted with a serious difficulty because it would be absurd to offer grants of land to every person who was mustered in connection with the repelling of the Fenian raid. He said there would have to be discrimination. And what we were told by the right hon. gentleman would lead one to believe that in none of the other grants of this kind had we exercised this discrimination. But the record is to the contrary. When we rewarded the veterans of the Northwest campaign of 1885, we did not hand out grants of land and medals to all those who mustered on that occasion. We drew the line at a certain degree of service which should entitle the men to the grant of land. We gave the benefit of the doubt to the volunteer in every case, so that it could not be said that any fine drawn distinctions were made to deprive any man of his reward. Speaking from memory I think the line of distinction in that -case was that all the troops mustered for the occasion who proceeded west of the Lakes were given the reward of a grant of land, while those who were mustered, but remained at home were not given the grant. So, this difficulty with regard to discrimination of which

96-H
the Prime Minister has spoken can easily be overcome by following !the principle adopted in 1885. Yet, though the difficulties he has spoken of can thus be overcome, all the Prime Minister asks of this House is that the proposition be rejected. It is open to him, if he does not like the form of the proposal, to amend it, or to ask the mover to withdraw it on the promise made to the House that he will do . something substantial. There are any num-' ber of courses open to him if he has it in his heart to make good to these veterans the promises made on so many occasions by himself and his colleagues that, in consideration of what they have done for Canada, we should make recognition of these veterans of 1866 and 1870.
Mr. Speaker, I trust that the will of this House may assert itself in a substantial vote in favour of the proposition now before the House.
House divided on amendment (Mr. Mid-dlebro).
YEAS:
Messieurs
Arthurs,
Barker,
Best,
Blain,
Borden (Halifax), Boyce,
Bradbury,
Campbell,
Chisholm (Huron), Cowan,
Crocket,
Doherty,
Edwards,
Fraser,
Goodeve,
Haggart (Winnipeg), Henderson,
Herron,
Jameson,
Kidd,
Lancaster,
Lennox,
Maclean (York, S.), McCall,
Marshall,
Middlebro,
Northrup,
Perley,
I'orter,
Reid (Grenville), Bussell,
Sexsmith,
Sharpe (Ontario), Smyth,
Sproule.
Stanfield,
Taylor (Leeds, Taylor (New Westminster,) Thoburn,
Thornton,
Wallace,
White (Renfrew), Wilcox,
Wilson (Lennox and Addington) and Wright.-45.
NAYS:
Messieurs
Allard,
Allen,
Aylesworth (Sir A 'ie i) Bickerdike,
Black,
Bureau,
Chew,
Clarke (Essex), Conmee,
Delisle,	/
Demers,
Devlin,
Fielding,
Fisher,
Fortier,
McColl,
McIntyre,
McKenzie,
McMillan,
Martin (Montreal, Ste, Mary's), Martin (Wellington), Michaud,
Miller,
Mblloy,
Murphy.
Papineau,
Pardee,
Parent,
Paterson,
Fowke,
Graham,
Hodgins,
Hunt,
King,
Knowles,
Lanctot (Laprairie-Napierville),
Lanctot (Richelieu), Lapointe,
Laurier (Sir Wilfrid) LeBlanc,
Lemieux,
Loggie,
Lovell,
Low,
MacNutt.
M'eCoig,
Proulx,
Pug6ley,
Rivet,
Robb,
Ross (Rimouski), Roy (Montmagny), Sperry.
Templeman,
Todd.
Turcotte (Quebec County),
Turgeon,
Turriff,
Verville.
White (Victoria, Alta.) and Wilson (Laval).-61.
PAIRS:
Messieurs
Ministerial.	Opposition.
Brodeur,	Haggart (Lanark),
Stratton.	Gordon (Nipissing),
Harris,	Beattie.
Talbot,	Owen,
Brown.	Lortie,
Currie (Prince	Armstrong,
Edward), Macdonald,	Rhodes,
McCraney,	M'agrath,
Martin (Regina),	Ames,
Congdon,	Barnard,
Gordon (Kent),	Bristol,
Guthrie,	Broder,
McAllister,	Burrell.
Harty,	Clare,
Kyte.	Crosby,
McLean (Huron),	Crothers, Currie (Simcoe),
McLean (Sunbury),	
Carvell,	Daniel,
McGiverin,	Donnelly,
Neely,	Elson,
Ethier,	Forget,
Borden (Sir F.),	Foster,
Rankin,	Hughes,
Cash,	Lake,
Carrier,	Lalor,
Richards,	Lewis.
German,	Macdonell,
Clark (Red Deer).	McCarthy,
Chisholm (Inverness),	Maddin.
Sinclair,	Meighen,
Tobin.	Monk,
Seguin,	Nantel,
Warburton,	Osier,
Boyer,	Paquet,
Emmerson,	Price,
Nesbitt,	Roche,
Douglas,	Schaffner.
Sealey,	Sharpe (Lisgar),
Schell,	Staples.
Ross (Middlesex),	Stewart,
Beland.	Worthington,
Beaupa riant.	Blondin.


William Sora Middlebro: I would like to ask
if the hon. member	for Thunder Bay and
Rainy River (Mr. Conmee) was in the House and heard the resolution read.


Mr. CONMEE.: I heard the motion put. I was in the House when the motion was put.	I came in to the door of the



House, realized that the vote was on and heard the Speaker's remarks before he took his seat.


Mr. SPEAKER.: The question is on the main motion.


William Sora Middlebro: I saw the hon. member for Thunder Bay and Rainy River come in after you, Mr. Speaker, had concluded reading the motion.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I am afraid the matter cannot, be discussed. The hon. member (Mr. Conmee) says that he heard the motion read.


Some hon. MEMBERS: No, no.


William Sora Middlebro: No, that he heard the motion put.
Amendment (Mr. Middlebro) negatived.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


THE PORCUPINE DISASTER.
[Stage Direction]
^ Mr. W. R. SMYTH (East Algoma). Mr. Speaker, before you leave the Chair I wish to bring to the attention of the House the serious and unparalleled catastrophe that has occurred at Porcupine in northern Ontario, and I would like to ask the government if it is their intention to give any substantial relief. No doubt you have noticed in the public press that private individuals and municipalities, and corporations of different kinds, as well as the government of Ontario, have granted considerable relief to the suffering people of that district. I noticed in the public press this morning that this government had under consideration a measure of relief towards those people who have suffered so terribly in that fearful calamity that happened last week. I know that anything that this government and parliament will do will meet with the approval of every citizen of the Dominion. We have in the past, as you are well aware, contributed largely to similar catastrophes in other parts of the world. From what I know personally of the suffering that has existed and that now exists in Porcupine, I believe the government would be warranted in acting very liberally towards the sufferers. Porcupine is a very important part, not only of the great province of Ontario, but of the Dominion of Canada. Perhaps no other part of this Dominion is advertising Canada to the outside world to the same extent as Porcupine is to-day, and the men who have been the means of this advertising are the men who have suffered, and many of them have lost their lives in Mr. CONMEE.
an effort, no doubt with personal gain in view, but also to the great advantage of our Dominion. I hope the right hon. the First Minister will give us some assurance that it is the intention of the government to aid these sufferers in some substantial manner.
Mr. FIELDING.: I am sure the members of the government as well as all the members of the House have learned with the greatest anxiety of the condition of affairs, at Porcupine, and have the very warmest sympathy with those who have suffered so much in that disaster. We have had representations made to us through a committee of gentlemen in Ottawa particularly but they were not able to give us a very extended report as to the nature of the disaster and the need for assistance. Indeed, it has been represented by gentlemen to whose views we are bound to give consideration, that while the disaster is one of very considerable extent, and attended by many distressing circumstances, there is no immediate need of aid; that is to say, that the aid that has already been given is sufficient for all purposes, and that several weeks perhaps might elapse before we could be fully advised as to the extent of the misfortune and the need of assistance. It is even stated by a prominent gentleman interested in that part of Ontario that every need of the community is now being attended to. However, we quite realize that the information in the possession of the government, as it is in the possession of the public generally, is of a general and somewhat indefinite character, and we think it would be well that we should await some further information before coming to a decision as to what action may be necessary, if necessary, to provide the desired relief. Relief, perhaps in the most useful and substantial form, was sent immediately, in the form of canvas tents, which are being used to cover the people. That I understand has been very useful. Indeed, in itself it involves a very substantial aid. But whether or not the need will arise for further aid is a point on which the government are awaiting further information.


THE TELEGRAPH AND CABLE SERVICES.
William Findlay Maclean: Mr. Speaker, as I see the hon. Postmaster General in his place, I desire to bring to the attention of the House and the country an improvement that could be made by the action of the government in the telegraph and cable services of this country. We have heard a good deal in Canada for some years about public ownership. I believe it is a great principle; I believe it has

great promise and great performance for the public of Canada. We have talked about it for quite a while, and we have realized it in a way.. In the province of Ontario we have realized that principle in a way that justifies it. Public ownership is based on the idea that it will first of all give the public a greatly improved service, and, in the next place, that it will give the public a much cheaper service. Now, that has been denied; but we have to-day the evidence of all Europe, of Australia, of New Zealand, of other countries, that the principle of public ownership is a great success. In Ontario we have tried it, and the very first result of the operation of the HydroElectric Commission in that province has been to cut the price of a widespread public service in two, and to improve the service. In the city of Toronto, where an electric monopoly held up the citizens and gave a very poor service we have to-day the price cut in two, and a service owned and controlled by the people of Toronto, which promises to be an excellent service. In this House itself, where the lighting is by electricity, we make a contract with a private company for a certain candle-power. Do you ever get it? No. There is such an absence of juice, to use a technical term, in the service, that sometimes the lights are not equal to eight candle-power where we have been promised 32. In the city of Hamilton, where there was a monopoly controlled by the Cataract Power Company, the moment there is public ownership, what does the private monopoly say? It says, we will give you as good or a better price than the Hydro-Electric. And so the principle of public ownership has vindicated itself in the province of Ontario in connection with a great system of lighting for all the municipalities of that province. The province of Ontario, whether it is patriotic or not, is to-day selling or is about to sell power to the citizens of the United States for less than they can buy it for elsewhere.


Mr. GRAHAM.: That is reciprocity.


William Findlay Maclean: Yes, but it is a different kind of reciprocity from that which the government is proposing. We have tried public ownership in the Dominion in connection with the Intercolonial railway, but that public ownership was never given an opportunity to make good. Put the Intercolonial railway in competition with other railways; extend it to Toronto, to the Georgian bay, to the Detroit river, and railway rates in the province of Ontario would be cut one-third in a single day, and the government railway would be a success. The Intercolonial railway should have been put into the great Canadian west, and then there would have been a reduction in rates that would have substantially benefited the 304J
people of the west. You cannot vindicate government ownership of railways unless you give the principle a fair chance to vindicate itself. And to-day, even though the Canadian Pacific railway is bound by its contracts to give the people of the west lower freight rates, we are told we must not enforce the law against the Canadian Pacific railway because it would injure the Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern railway. Now, as to the post office, the telegraph, and the cable services. True, we have tried government owned telegraphs in this country, but only in uninhabited parts on the Atlantic coast, on the Pacific coast, and up to the Yukon where public owner-shin had no opportunity to serve the people. The time has come when the post Office Department must take over the telegraphs, or else they must extend the existing government owned wires into a transcontinental service so as to compete with the railway monopoly of telegraphs. The telegraph tolls to-day in the Canadian west are exorbitantly high, and the telegraph company that controls the service in the west is reaping enormous profits. The profits of the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph service in the west ought to be reduced at once, and if we cannot reduce them by form of law we should immediately resort to the establishment of a government owned transcontinental telegraph service. The day has arrived when there ought to be a national transcontinental telegraph service throughout Canada and connecting with all the great cities of the country. Then, in conjunction with that, cable tolls should be reduced, and the effective way to reduce cable tolls is for Canada to establish an Atlantic cable. The business now offering is more than the existing Atlantic cable companies can do; there is room for competition, and I believe that the mere announcement that the government of Canada would adopt the principle of government ownership in cables would result in a reduction from the present commercial rate of 25 cents a word to 5 cents a word, and the business community of the world would be enormously benefited. You may talk of the Steel Trust and other great monopolies, but there is no such powerful monopoly in the world to-day as the Eastern Telegraph Company in England. They largely control the cables all over the world; they are probably the most influential corporation in England, and they have had more influence at government head quarters in England for the last 50 years, and especially with the late government, than any other corporation. Do what you might it has been impossible to get the Eastern Telegraph Company to reduce its exorbitant rates or to improve its service. I believe the Postmaster General (Mr. Le-mieux) has taken part in negotiations held

in England, and that a promise has been made that cable rates would be reduced, but so far the public has derived no benefit in that direction. Perhaps it may come from the present discussion in this House, but anyway, come it should. The principle of government ownership so well vindicated in Onti rio in connection with the distribution of c- fectric power can easily and cheaply be appl id to telegraphs and cables, for it will not !ost much to build one or two cables aero i the Atlantic to start with, and then will fc low a cable to Australasia if that be necessi ,y to control the service on the Pacific. II has been mentioned in the press, and in parliament that a reduction in cable tolls is in sight, but it will not be realized by talking about it; government ownership of the telegraphs and cables is the real cure for the existing evil. Great Britain has adopted the principle in connection with her inland telegraph system, she is adopting it with reference to her telephone system, and Germany, and Russia, and Japan, and China, and Australia, and New Zealand, where their system has been tried would not give up their control for any consideration. Then, government ownership of telegraphs and cables would not only cheapen the rates, but it would widen the area of the effectiveness of the service.
Where there were 3,000 or 4,000 telegraph offices in the mother country they now have 12,000 or 15,000. The improved system has been a great success. We in Canada are to-day paying exorbitant telegraph and cable tolls. We can have them reduced by the application of the principle of public ownership. We can easily get the money to establish the new system and we can insist on the mother country joining with us in the project because Great Britain is now committed to the principle and there is a great imperial reason, there is a great reason of peace behind the proposition which I urge here to-day. We are today discussing arbitration treaties in the world. Great Britain and the United States are binding themselves one to the other in favour of a system of arbitration in place of a resort to war. That idea, which we all welcome, is making great headway but if the principle of arbitration is to govern, it can only realize itself by having the support of a world wide public opinion and a world wide public opinion can only be created by the rapid interchange of public opinion between different countries by means of a cheap cable telegraph service. It is in the interest of this country, in the interest of peace, in the interest of business, in the interest of the empire that there should be cheaper telegraph and cable tolls and we can never get them to the full until the state undertakes to build telegraph lines and to be a party, along with other states of the empire, in the construction and main-Mr. MACLEAN.
tenance of the state-owned cables, if that is the case why is not the principle recognized? It will do everything for the country. It will be a boon to the farmer of the west. Those farmers are told that they want the American market. Perhaps they do. Perhaps the Americans will give it to them off their own bat. By all means let them do so if they wish to, but let tne farmers get relief from the exorbitant telegraph tolls now exacted from them. The railway commission have not yet caught up with all their work, they have not yet reduced the telegraph tolls to any great extent. But those tolls would be reduced at once by the mere threat to start a state owned telegraph system. We have had the fruit now in Ontario; the city of Toronto is about to realize it in connection with its street railway. They proposed to establish a municipal system as they have a right to do in competition with the private owned principle and the moment that was done there was an improvement in the ser -vice, a cheapening in the price and an enlargement in the area of the application of the service. My contention is that the government or the Postmaster General representing the government should tell the people of Canada what all these negotiations up to the present have resulted in and whether we are to have cheaper cable telegraph tolls or whether the government are prepared, if they cannot get it by negotiation, then to. come forward and give tlie people and press of Canada the benefit of a state-owned system. They have given some relief to the press in connection with cable tolls because those tolls were so exorbitant that the newspapers were not able even to transmit the ordinary news of the day between Canada and the mother country. The government is committed to that principle to-day in relation to the press but they have not realized it for the public; the press get a ten cent rate and the government help to pay the difference, but if the government will-establish state owned cables and land lines jointly with the Imperial government, first connecting the great cities of Canada like Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver, the interest on the investment would be easily paid and the telegraph rates would be cut in three. There is a substantial opportunity to benefit the people of all this country by giving them a state owned telegraph and cable service.
It is true the Prime Minister said he is afraid of public ownership. I do not know whether the Postmaster General (Mr. Le-mieux) is also afraid but if he has been afraid in the past he has that living example in Ontario that the moment they embarked in earnest on the project of public ownership applied to the distribution of electricity, one of the greatest blessings in

the world, to the people, the price was cut in two, the service was improved, and distribution was made all over the province. The work has only begun but at the very first inception of it the coon comes down. The late Attorney General of Ontario-1 shall not speak of him by his present title-devoted himself to creating a great monopoly in Ontario in connection with the electric service, especially in connection with the city of Hamilton. It never would amount to anything and the special pleaders now in Hamilton and all over Ontario are say;ng it will not amount to anything, it will not realize itself; but it has realized itself to-day and we in Toronto have had our electric prices cut in two. We have done more than that, we have disciplined the competing companies. They are civil now to the public, they take off their hats and ask what they can do for their customers. They have to do for every city what they do for any one city and if, by competition of the government they are forced to give consideration and to give concessions in one place they must by parity of reasoning give them to other places. So the result of public ownership, this much derided principle, in Ontario to-day is that it has realized itself and yet, it has only started. It is the greatest project that any state has undertaken and is almost the widest exposition of the principle we have seen for a long while. But it has been successful from the start and it comes home to us in this House in connection with the government of Canada to see if we cannot apply that principle of government ownership to the telegraph and cable services of this country and of the empire in such a way as to bring about an improvement and cheapening of these services.
So I would like to -hear some account of these negotiations, a statement of what the result has been or if no result is in sight when the government would be prepared to take up the question of improving the cable service of the country and the land telegraph lines in such a way as to afford substantial benefit to the country, we can do a great deal. We can bring relief to-morrow to the farmers of the west in connection with telegraph tolls and to all Canada in connection with Tailway rates, a still greater question, if we have the courage and the capacity to apply the principle of public ownership to the railway problem of this country.


Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX (Postmaster General).: Mr. Speaker, I would have preferred to have had my hon. friend give me notice of his intention to bring this matter up this evening. However, I will state in a few words how tne question stands in regard to cable rates. First, let me tell him, speaking personally and for myself alone, that I am not so much averse
in many respects to public ownership. As my hon. friend stated, in the older countries such as France, England and Germany and in newer countries from the point of view of civilization, such as Japan, the Post Office Department includes all communications and in those countries telephones, telegraphs and cables are under post office jurisdiction.
In this country, however, we have not yet reached that stage, although there is a strong movement, in some parts of the country in favour of public ownership of this form of public utility. We have, however, made a very important step in that direction by the establishment of the Railway Commission. My hon. friend (Mr. W. F. Maclean) knows that any person can bring before the Railway Commission the telegraph companies or telephone companies, or even the cable companies, if it is believed that their rates are excessive.
My hon. friend stated that there had been some discussion between the Post Office Department in Great Britain and the Canadian Post Office. That is quite true. On two different occasions, it was my duty to discuss with the Postmaster General in England the question of cable rates. There was a strong opinion in this country that the rates should be cut. I found also two friends of cheaper rates in the two Postmasters General with whom I have discussed this matter, Mr. Buxton and Mr. Samuels. Mr. Buxton, who is now president of the Board of Trade, was strongly in favour of cheaper cable communication between Canada and the mother country. Like his predecessor, Mr. Samuels, with whom I had some interviews last year, he agreed that in some way or other means should be found to reduce the rates. We even discussed what schedule of rates should be established. I may say that we reached the following basis in case we were able to bring the cable companies to terms : The actual rate of 25 cents per word was to be maintained for what we called ' urgent cables '. Twelve cents a word was to be charged for the semi-urgent messages. My contention was that we should have another reduction for the press to a rate of six cents a word. Without at all committing my colleagues on the other side of the water, Messrs. Buxton and Samuels, I may say we were practically agreed upon these rates. But in England the cable companies have thousands of shareholders and it was thought that perhaps it would injure vested rights if the government should press too hard on the cable companies in order to bring them to terms. I am passing very rapidly over the various discussions we had; but. later in the session, if my hon. friend will renew his motion, I may bring before the House the papers I have in the denartment relating to the subject, and from these he will gain more information


C643 COMMONS
[Stage Direction]
than I can give him this evening. Last year it was finally agreed that the cable companies should reduce their rates by 12i cents on the semi-urgent messages, provided these messages were not in cipher, and provided also that a certain time should be allowed for delivery.-I think it was 20 or 24 hours. Before recess, I received a letter from Mr. Samuels stating that there remained one country, France, to join in the general agreement made by the various European cable companies. The government of Germany and of Great Britain had agreed. I have not received any further information from Mr. Samuels since that time, but I dare say that in a very short time announcement can be made that a reduction is made from 25 cents a word on ordinary cable messages to 12 cents a word. But I wish to go further than that. My hon. friend is aware that the question was brought up at the last Imperial Conference. Again I say that I am speaking on my own responsibility. I am personally in favour of a state-owned cable between Canada and Great Britain. I am not what some people call a jingo; I am a sane imperialist and I think that if you wish to forge the bonds of union among the different parts of the empire, you must have cheap electric communication so as to make the centre of the empire the nerve centre of the imperial organization. There are objections to that, of course, and I agree that we cannot overcome such objections by a wave of the hand. As my hon. friend is aware, a motion was made in the last Imperial Conference in favour of a state-owned cable. The reduction of which 1 have spoken was referred to by the British Postmaster General, Mr. Samuels, wh'o said that the reduction would be made within a short time. But he committed himself and the British government to a further reduction to be obtained from the cable companies, otherwise a state-owned could would have to be established. I think that is the gist of the resolution adopted by the conference. So, if my hon. friend and the press, who arc very much interested in these matters, and the public generally, will be patient, I think the day ' is not far distant when we shall have cheaper communication by elecricity between Canada and the motherland. I am sure my hon. friend is aware that the question of the land lines is not a great difficulty after all. We have to-day a land line leased for the Pacific cable between Vancouver and Montreal. There is a very little gap between Montreal and Quebec, and from Quebec and the maritime provinces we could use the government telegraphs. It would be a very small matter to provide a cable between the two coun-tne*. According to figures which have been verified by experts it would cost something like $2,000,000 or a little more to establish Mr. LEMIETJX.
cable communication between Canada and Great Britain. Another objection which prevents the home government from committing themselves absolutely to state-owned cables at present is the outlook for Mr. Marconi's invention. Mr. Marconi has been very successful, and it is believed in England that he will go much farther and that perhaps, when he has mastered his invention it will be a much less expensive matter to establish a system of communication between England and Canada than by means of a cable.
I may say to my hon. friend that last year the Imperial government purchased all the rights of the Marconi system in Great Britain; to-day the Marconi stations in England, Ireland and Scotland are the property of the state; and it is intended, when Mr. Marconi has perfected his system, to take full control of the invention. At a later stage of the session, I hope to be able to give the House more information on this question.
Robert Laird Borden: The hon. gentleman says the Imperial government owns the Marconi system and the stations in Great Britain. How is the trans-Atlantic service to be operated? The stations on both sides of the Atlantic will be necessary for the operation. I am asking for information. I was not aware that the Imperial government had purchased the system.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I may, perhaps, qualify my statement by saying that they have purchased the Marconi stations in relation to the navy, they have established a Marconi system on all the ships of the navy, and all the stations in Ireland, England and (Scotland belong to the Imperial government, I read the contract not long ago. But Mr. Marconi, I suppose, has retained some rights as regards the sending of private messages across the Atlantic; but for state purposes and for the purposes of the Admiralty the stations are controlled by the government.


Robert Laird Borden: Has the hon, gentleman a copy of the contract?


Rodolphe Lemieux: I can get one for the hon, gentleman.


Mr. THOBURN.: Did I understand from the Postmaster General that in the event of the cable rate being cut from 25 to 12 cents per word, we are not permitted to use cipher or code words?


Rodolphe Lemieux: That !s the agreement between the Imperial Postmaster General and the various cable companies. I regret not to have the verbatim statement made to me by the Postmaster General, but I will file a copy of it for the benefit of mem-

bers of the House. No cipher message can be used and get the benefit of the reduction.


William Thoburn: Let me point out to the Postmaster General that instead of that being of advantage to the business men of Canada it will be a burden. For instance, there are many code words representing a sentence, say, of ten words. Now, that code word as it stands to-day costs 25 cents, but under the new regulation it will cost $1.20. The reduction in rates will be all right providing cipher and code words are left as they are, otherwise it will be an injury to the business men of Canada instead of a benefit.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I said this was the first agreement made between the Postmaster General in England and the cable companies. But my hon. friend will realize that after the resolution adopted by the conference another step will be taken. The delegates of the various colonies and the Postmaster General in England himself are not satisfied with this reduction, they want a further reduction; if they do not get it they have committed themselves to the establishment of a state-owned cable.


William Findlay Maclean: Supposing these reductions were agreed to between the companies and the government, how long, or would it for any time check the government in the application of the principle of state ownership in connection with cables and telegraphs?


Rodolphe Lemieux: The moment the reduction is accepted, the moment there is no burden on the public, there will be no necessity of state ownership.


John Gillanders Turriff: If that agreement is made between the telegraph companies and the government in Great Britain, would it do away with the present rate of 25 cents per word for code words?


Rodolphe Lemieux: I do not know if I am in a position to answer my hon. friend's question without having the papers before me. The government in England and the cable companies agreed that the present rate of 25 cents should remain as it is for urgent messages. My hon. friend knows that during certain hours of the day the cables are busy with messages from the various bourses of the world, and those people do not care whether a message costs 25 cents or even $1 a word. But for the general publie, for social messages and
even business messages, provided they are not in code or cipher, and provided there is no obligation about their delivery within a specified time, say within 24 hours, the cable companies have agreed to reduce the rate to 12 cents a word. But that is not thought sufficient by the parties who have made the agreement, and at the last Imperial conference the question came up, and it was decided that the British Postmaster General should urge upon the cable companies a still further reduction in their rates, and if they do not yield to the pressure of the government, there is an implied promise that there will be a state owned cable.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House went into committee on Ways and Means.

["The Prime Minister has no fear of the consequences. He has adopted the motto of his distinguished predecessor who said 'After me the deluge.' The Prime Minister laughs, and provided he can persuade his people to give him another term in office it is a matter of indifference to him how many years of repentance will follow their sad experience.\nIn 1867 confederation came, and with dt the hope which had previously been confined to a few ardent patriots-that Canada would become a nation within a nation, and would work out her destiny as such-spread to the mass of our people; and there and then began one of the most courageous and difficult and patriotic enterprises which has ever been witnessed, viz.: the building up upon half a continent, by a handful of people, of a great Dominion, and the overcoming of enormous natural difficulties and disadvantages.\nConsider, for a moment, the difficulties to be overcome. The British North America Act, Canada's constitution, first united Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and provided for the union of Prince Edward Island and British Columbia and the vast territories between British Columbia and Hudson bay and extending from the United States boundary to the Arctic ocean. Canada's task was to weld all these into one Dominion and to provide for its government, and to preserve its autonomy and British connection.\nThe first part of the task has been accomplished. The great territories referred to were added, and the province of Manitoba was formed on the 15th of July, 1870. British Columbia came in on the 20th of July, 1871, and Prince Edward Island on the 1st of July, 1873. This first part was comparatively easy.\nThese were the days when there began to arise in Canada the feeling that we should renew our relationship with the United States our only near neighbours, and that it might be more profitable to us, than to attempt to establish connection with the scattered provinces of Canada across the great gaps then existing. While the people of Nova Scotia for instance, the province represented toy the hon. gentleman respon-"]
William Stevens Fielding: We will take up the motion for the further consideration of the resolutions respecting reciprocity with the United States.


Mr. JAMES ARTHURS (Parry Sound).: When I left this House two months ago I was opposed to this agreement, believing as I did that it would be most injurious to Canada as a whole. I believed that the average elector of Canada, more particularly of Ontario, with which I am better acquainted, was also opposed to this agreement. 1 still believe that I was right in both propositions. I was surprised to find in going through the country, that in many places the Ontario farmer is being deliberately misled as to the scope of this agreement. I find not one but hundreds of farmers who are being taught to believe that this agreement amounts to absolute free trade in all agricultural machinery, and some other articles the farmers use. I may go further and say that the free list as passed by the House of Representatives of the United States, commonly known as the farmers' free list, is being circulated throughout my riding as the offspring of this government, and as a reason for supporting the reciprocity agreement. Now, I w41l take up a little time of the House by reading over a list of manufactured articles which enter into this reciprocity agreement, and the amount of reduction in each case.
I am now reading from the official docu ment, and will be pleased if any hon. gen tleman will correct me if I am wrong.
9G47


James Arthurs: 



[Stage Direction]
Reduction
by
United States.
Reduction
by
Canada.
Cattle	
Less than one year old	
Valued at not more than $14 per head	
Valued at more than $14 per head	
Horses and mules	
Horses over one year old, valued at $50 or less
Horses, N.O. P	
Valued at $150 or less per head	
Valued at over $150	
Swine	
Sheep and lambs	
Less than one year old	
One year old or over	
Other live animals	
Poultry, dead and alive	,	
Alive	
Dead	 ,	
Wheat, per bushel	
Rye		
Oats	n	
Barley h	
Buckwheat u		
Beans, edible, dried, per bushel	
Pease, dried, per bushel	
$2 per head... .
$3.75		
27 per cent ....
$30	
25 per cent. ... $1.50 each	
75c. each	
$1.50 each	
20 per cent....
3c. per lb... . 5c. I, ....
25 cents	
10	
15		
'30		
15	„		
45 ii	
25		
40		
Potatoes, per bushel	
Com (except into Canada for distillation)
Sweet potatoes, per bushel	
Yams	
Turnips	
Onions	
Cabbages	
All other vegetables in their natural state.
25	„		
15c. per bushel..
25 cents	
25 per cent	
25 ii	
40c. per bushel..
2c. each	
25 per cent	
25 per cent.
[Stage Direction]
25 per cent.
IJc. per lb. 25 per cent.
25 per cent. 25	i,
20	,i
12 cents.
10 „
15 ,i 15 „
25 „
20 i,
10 „
30 per cent. 30	..
30	..
30	..
30	.1
If the farmer believes he is going to be benefited by the small reductions which are being made in manufactured articles according to this list, he is absolutely being misled. But this idea is being sedulously spread throughout all Canada to-day. We find large quantities of literature going out from the government side teaching this idea, but we do not find them sending out any literature giving the actual facts. Now,
I intend to oppose this reciprocity agreement for three principal reasons. In the first place, I believe it is unwise for ns Canadians to entangle ourselves at the present time, commercially or otherwise, with the United States. That country has always been our most formidable competitor commercially. I believe the United States has entered into this bargain with the idea that they are getting the best of it, and that in the end it will lead to the annexation of Canada by the United States. In the second place, I believe that no fiscal change as great as this should be entered into by Canada, making such radical change in our tariff conditions, without the people of Canada being consulted. In the third place, I believe the treaty in itself would lie of no benefit to Canada, but would be most injurious to the farmers of this country. and would put many of our Canadian
industries under the control of the trusts of the United States, of which we already have enough of our own. Now I do not mean to say, and I do not think, that hon. gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House are less loyal than those sitting on this side of the House, but I believe they are mistaken. I believe they entered into this agreement without understanding its full import, and I believe that those of them who have studied the question carefully, if it were not for their party loyalty would be absolutely opposed to this agreement at the present time. Now there is no question as to what the Americans think of it. They have shown no hesitation in expressing their opinions, and at the risk of weaTying the House, I would like to quote a few extracts from leading American statesmen showing what they think will be the effect of this agreement. First, I will quote a statement from President Taft: One path leads to practical if not political union with Canada, and the development of the entire North American continent as the heritage and the possession of a great and free people. The other path leads to the hardening into two distinct political entities, two hostile or at least unsympathetic peoples on this continent. It leads to a closer relation between Canada and Great Britain. It means the carrying out of Joseph Chamberlain s
[Stage Direction]
great dream of a British imperial federation, bound together no less by trade than by sentiment, with preferential tariffs on either side, with Canada taking the place of the United States as chief purveyor of food products and manufactures to Great Britain.
To-day England is our best customer, and Canada is our third best customer. But our foreign trade wanes, and that of Canada grows. If we push Canada into England's arms, the trade larrangements between the two will tend more and more to shut us out.
How long will our trade with these two customers last, if reciprocity fails? Our Canadian must drop off, as the east and west channels of her commerce are scoured by us. And Canada will more and more supply English needs in our stead.
Again, speaking on page 8 of the American ' Congressional Record,' we find Mr. Taft saying:
The benefit to our widespread agricultural implement industry from the reduction of Canadian duties in the agreement is clear Similarly the new, widely distributed and expanding motor vehicle industry of the United States is given access to the Dominion market on advantageous terms. . . That the broadening of the sources of food supplies, that the opening of the timber resources of the Dominion to our needs, that the addition to the supply of raw materials, will be limited to no particular section does not require demonstration. The same observation applies to the markets which the Dominion offers us in exchange. As an illustration, it has been found possible to obtain free entry into Canada for fresh fruits and vegetables-a matter of special value to the south and to the Pacific coast in disposing of their products in their season. . . The entire foreign trade of Canada in the last fiscal year, 1910, was $655,000,000. The imports were $376,000,000, and of this amount tire United States contributed more than $223,000,000. The reduction in the duties imposed by Canada will largely increase this amount and give us even a larger share of her market than we now enjoy, great as that is.
Mr. Beveridge, speaking at Washington said:
There must be reciprocity with Canada. Our tariff with the rest of the world does not apply to our northern neighbour. That policy already has driven American manufacturers across the Canadian borders, built vast plants with American capital on Canadian soil, employing Canadian workmen to supply trade, that capital should be kept at home to employ American workingmen to supply Canadian demands. We should admit Canadian wood pulp and Canadian paper free in return for Canada's admitting our agricultural implements, our engines, our pumps and other machinery free. We should freely admit Canadian lumber to American planing mills in return for Canada freely admitting other American manufacturing products to Canadian markets.
Then, we find Senator Sherman saying:
The way to union with Canada is not by hostile legislation; not by acts of retaliation, Mr. ARTHURS.
but by friendly overtures. This union is one of the events that must inevitably come in the future; it will come by the logic of the situation, and no politician or combination of politicians can prevent it. The true policy of this government is to tender freedom in trade and intercourse, and to make this tender in such a fraternal way that it shall be an overture to the Canadian people to become a part of this Republic. . . The settlement of the Northwest territory, the Louisiana and Florida purchases, the annexation of Texas, and the acquisition from Mexico are examples of the adaptation of our form of government for expansion, to absorb and unite, to enrich and build up, to ingraft in our body politic adjacent countries, and while strengthening the older states, confer prosperity and development on the new states admitted into this brotherhood of Republican States. . . With a firm conviction that this consummation most devoutly to be wished is within the womb of destiny, and believing that it is our duty to hasten its coming, I am not willing, for one, to vote for any measure not demanded by national honour that will tend to postpone the good time coming, when the American flag will be the signal and sign ot the union of all the English-speaking peoples of the continent from the Rio Grande to the Arctic ocean.-Senator Sherman in the United States Senate.
I have given you sufficient to show the opinion that the Americans hold as regards the ultimate result of this treaty. There is no question in my mind that the principal aim of the promoters of this treaty on the other side of the line is to divert trade into American channels, gradually to obtain control of Canadian trade, both export and local, and prevent Canada from asking for or receiving a preference from Great Britain. We have had many unsatisfactory experiences in dealing with the United States, and in every case the United States have had the best of the bargain. Only a year ago the United States, through their government, held the big stick over this government, over the same men who negotiated this treaty a few months ago. In passing the Payne-Aldrich treaty at that time it was threatened that they would put an extra duty of 25 per cent on all Canadian goods unless Canada made certain concessions. It is quite true that these concessions did not amount to much but the principle was and is absolutely wrong. We should control our own duties absolutely free from the United States in any way.
There has been absolutely no demand in Canada for this treaty. The people have been and are perfectly satisfied with the conditions as they exist at the present time. There are many electors in past elections, have openly said that there was very little difference between the Conservative and reform parties in so far as their policy was concerned. The Reform party had a platform which was somewhat similar to that of the Conservative party in many respects.

When they came into power in 1896 they practically swallowed the National Policy holus bolus. They kept on the same duties, increased them in some cases and in some cases decreased them a very little. The prosperity of Canada at this present juncture has been entirely owing to the policy put into effect by the Conservatives many years ago.
This idea of tariff stability has been drilled into the people not only by the present opposition-the government at that time- but also by hon. gentlemen who are on the ministerial benches now. I have an extract here from a speech made by the right hon. leader of the government in November, 1910, only a few months ago He said:
The people of the west are now asking for a reduction of duty on certain articles which they consume. That is a very proper subject ot investigation,
[Stage Direction]
Not for any treaty, not for any resolution of this kind, but a proper subject for investigation.
-and we intend to investigate it. But at the proper time.
The hon. gentleman who at the present time is leading the House, the Minister of Finance, in 1906-7, page 287 of Hansard, said:
Our desire has been to encourage a larger degree of tariff stability-not a slavish adherence to every item in the tariff. But we have been desirous that the impression should go abroad that the government were not willing to make changes hastily, that they were rather slow to do anything in that line, and only when a case became of extreme urgency would we undertake to make changes.
Later on he said:
We have, therefore, from time to time resisted many applications for changes, not because in some instances there may not have been something in the argument, but because it was not wise to make changes too often, and if in one or two cases there was some reason perhaps to justify a change I do not think anybody has suffered any serious loss by the delay.
It will be the policy of the government to have that inquiry made throughout the Dominion with the utmost care . . . care will be taken to afford opportunity to every class who wish to present" tlieir views to come and state in what respect they think either that the tariff is right and should he maintained or that it is defective and what changes they believe should be made.
Speaking in another place he said:
When the moment for tariff revision arrives, the public of Canada may rest assured that the government will undertake the work in the spirit of moderation and caution that has prevailed in their past actions in tariff affairs, avoiding the extremes which almost always find advocates, and having regard for
what is best; not for particular industries or particular sections of the country, hut for the interests of the people of the whole of the Dominion.
In another place, also in the year 1906, he said:
Now that we are approaching the question of a general tariff revision, we again wish to keep in mind this idea of tariff stabilty. We do not desire to make radical changes. We feel that the general conditions of Canada today is such that no radical changes in the tariff are called for.
In spite of these declarations the Minister of Finance, on April 6 of this year said in this House:
What we have done is no departure from the policy of Canada; it is in accordance with the policy of Canada for forty years. . .
. . . There is an important difference in the position of the United States government then and now. They were proposing a radical departure from the policy of the country, and they may have needed information of that sort to support their case, but we certainly did not.
They repudiated the promises, such as I have just read, of a tariff commission, and we find the government coming down here with this proposition and asking the country to accept it offhand without any evidence, without any commission, without any knowledge as to the ultimate effect of the agreement, or what effect it will have upon various sections of the country, and we are accused of-I was going to say obstruction -because we do not let this pass without any consideration at all. The Prime Minister at one point said that this was before the country because it was one of the planks of the reform platform of 1893. I thought the reform platform of 1893 was a thing that had passed away long ago but they will revive it once in a while. It may interest some hon. gentlemen to have recalled to their recollection some of the planks of the platform of 1893 which have been allowed to pass into oblivion:
Senate reform.
Reduction of expenditure.
Lower taxation.
Free trade as they have it in England.
These are apparently the principal planks of the platform of 1893.
Edward Arthur Lancaster: Prohibition.


James Arthurs: Prohibition too. I forgot that. We have had three elections in Canada since 1896, and while I have had some active part in all of these elections I have no recollection of any of these planks having been brought forward in any election since 1893. I believe the Conservative elector is perfectly justified in believing them all dead.
9G55

But, there is some reason for the changed attitude of the government, and in looking around I have come to this conclusion. On November 4 of last year an election was held in the United States at which the democratic, or low tariff party, were successful. They obtained control of the House of representatives and they will, I believe, shortly have control of the Senate of the United States. Mr. Taft, President of the United States, elected by the Republican party, and desirous of a second term as president, looked around for some means by which he could obtain a second term. This bright idea struck him and it is a remarkable thing that on or about the same day an election was held in Canada. One of the strongest constituencies held by this government in the province from which they derive their principal support saw fit to repudiate the government's policy upon a very important issue and the Candidate of the government was defeated in Drummond and Arthabaska, Quebec. These things occurred within a day or two of one another.
I honestly believe that the Prime Minister and the government got cold feet as Mr. Taft did and they looked around for some means to cloud the. issue in the coming elections. That is the reason why the time of parliament has been taken up with this proposition. It is strange that during this long debate the members of the government side of the House have been unable to offer any reason for this policy of theirs. The Minister of Finance, though he spoke eloquently in introducing the motion, gave only one side of the story. He told the farmers of 'Canada about the 90,000,000 market in the United States, but he forgot to tell them that these 90 millions would invade their own home market. He did not tell the farmers of Canada that 80 per cent of their products were sold in Canada so long as the tariff continued to protect them, and he did not prove nor could he prove that the Canadian farmers would continue to sell that 80 per cent in the home market if the treaty came into force. The Minister of Finance also forgot to tell our farmers that 13 other countries as well as the United States would be able to compete with them in their home market. Then, the Minister of Customs took 25 minutes to tell the House of the great benefit Canada would derive from the free exportation of talc. I confess that when the Minister of Customs wras speaking I had a vague idea of what talc was, but I was comforted by knowing that the Minister of Customs knew less about it than I did, because he told us it was something to beautify the complexion, whereas the truth is, that it is commercially used for whitening writing paper. I find, however, from the official returns that there are 27 men in the whole Mr. ARTHURS.
of Canada engaged in the talc industry, and that the averages wages paid them is $1.32 a day, which is less than we pay in Northern Ontario for men who work with the pick and shovel. I honestly believe that the Minister of Customs took up the time of the House talking about talc because he had no better argument to offer. Then again he was very eloquent on the fact that the duty on iron ore exported to the United States was to be reduced by 33J per cent and as the present duty is only 15 cents a ton we are to have me magmn-cent concession of 5 cents on each ton of iron ore. These are samples of the argument put up by the Minister of Customs, one of the very men responsible for this Reciprocity agreement. So far as iron ore is concerned, I believe that the best thing that could happen to Canada would be to absolutely prohibit the exportation of iron ore because I believe it should all be manufactured in this country and until we are able to manufacture it w'e ought to keep it here. The people of Ontario have had a lesson right along this line. For years the Conservative party in that province advocated the prohibition of the exportation of sawlogs, but the Liberal goverment resisted it for years until finally they were compelled to adopt that policy. We were told that if such a law w^ent into force, timber limits would not be worth ten cents a square mile. Well, I know something about timber limits; I know something about the conditions then and now, and I know that from the day the prohibition of the export of sawlogs went into force in Ontario up to the present time the price of timber limits has continued to increase. The result of that policy was that labour was employed in Canada, that our Georgian Bay ports were built up, that the Michigan mills engaged in that industry had to be moved to the Canadian side and that the population of the Georgian Bay towns largely increased. I believe, Sir, that the same would work out in regard to the prohibition of the export of iron ore or any other natural resources of that nature, the Prime Minister, as usual, spoke eloquently in favour of reciprocity, but if you study his speech you will find he said absolutely nothing as to the merits of reciprocity. His sole argument was that Sir John Macdonald or Lord Elgin or some one else said something in favour of reciprocity away back in 1854 or 1879. I am free to confess that I do not care a cent about -what Sir John Macdonald or Lord Elgin or any one else said in 1854, and I do not think the average Canadian elector cares either. But if we are to dip into ancient history we need not go as far back as 1879 or 1854 because we have the utterances of the Prime Minister and of the Minister of Finance of recent date which show that not so long ago they wete adverse

to the policy they aie now promoting. Speaking in 1898 the Prime Minister said:
Canada to-day is not in favour of reciprocity. There was a time when. Canadians, beginning with myself, would have given many things to obtain the American market, but thank heaven these days are past and over.
Ten years afterwards in 1908, speaking at the Imperial Conference the right hon. gentleman said:
There was a time when we were wanting, reciprocity with the United States, but our efforts and our offers were put aside and negatived. We have said good-bye to that trade, ard we now put all our hopes on the British trade.
In 1903, when he was proposing the Grand Trunk Pacific Bill we have this further pronouncement from the right hon. gentleman
Such is our duty, it is immediate and imperative. It is not for to-morrow, but of this day, of this hour and of this minute. Heaven grant that it be not already too late; heaven grant that whilst we tarry and dispute, the trade of Canada is not deviated to other channels, and that an ever vigilant competitor does not take to himself the trade that belongs to those who acknowledge Canada as their native or their adopted land. Upon this question we feel that our position is absolutely safe and secure; we feel that it corresponds to the beating of every Canadian heart. Now, sir, we lay it down as a principle, upon which we are to be judged by friend or foe, that we are to have a transcontinental railway, that its terminus must be in Canadian waters, and that the whole line, every inch of it, must be in Canadian territory. We say further that such a line is a necessity of our commercial indepen 1 ence.
What country had the right hon. gentleman in his mind then?
It was evidently the United States, because his argument could apply to no other nation.


Haughton Lennox: He made that clear.


James Arthurs: Then, in 1899 the right hon. the Prime Minister said:
If we know the hearts and minds of our people at present, I think I am not making too wide a statement when I say that the general feeling in Canada to-day is not in favour of reciprocity. There was a time when Canadians would have given many things to obtain the American market, there was a time not long ago, when the market of the great cities of the Union was the only Mr-ket we had for any of our products. But thank Heaven, these days are past and over now. We are not dependent upon the American market as we Were at one time.
In that short extract from the speech of the right hon. gentleman lies the true secret of the difference between the period mentioned from 1866 to 1879, and the present time. At that time we had no railroads, we had little or no canals, our farmers Were absolutely dependent on the United States for a market for their products; we had no other market, we could reach no other. But things are entirely changed now. We have spent millions to build up a railway system and to provide the best facilities for transporting our products, so that at the present time Liverpool is a nearer market for the Dominion of Canada than New York.
A few words in regard to the opinions, or the late opinions, of the Minister of Finance, because he has changed them very often. Speaking in 1899 he said:
Whatever our American friends may have intended by their trade policy, there is one thing that they certainly have done; they have made Canadians more independent and. selfreliant and have caused them to look more steadily than before to their home market and to their markets over the sea, where there is an open door. Especially have our producers given attention to the British market during the past two years, when our trade relations with the mother country have been so developed and increased by the preferential tariff. Therefore, the market of our friends to the south of us is much less important to us than it was a few years ago, and we are better able to do without reciprocity than we have been at any previous time in the history of Canada.
That is the hon. the Minister of Finance.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Not the same man who went to Washington surely.


James Arthurs: The same man, one of them. In 1906, speaking on the Budget, the Minister of Finance said:
The farmer, as a rule, is a low tariff man; but if you ask him whether he wants the duties on agricultural products abolished, he is apt to be a little careful. Some will say yes and others, no. Others will say: Take the duties off agricultural products if you take them off everything else. Well, whenever we have made changes in the schedule of agricultural duties, as a rule they are in the direction of a little increase. We do not want the farmer to say that the changes made are to the disadvantage of the things he himself produces. In fact some farmers are strong advocates of high duties although the general tendency is the other way. Therefore we have not made any changes, and any we have made are in the way of an increase to some extent.
In spite of all these pledges given by different members of the government at different times, the government say they have pledged the honour of Canada to press this measure through parliament without delay-no investigation into prices in Canada, no report on prices in the United States as compared with Canadian prices, no report on the cost of the production of agricultural products in the 12 other coun-

tries whose product under this agreement can come into direct competition with our own in our own home markets. On this account alone I contend that we on this side of the House are justified in opposing by every lawful means the passage of this reciprocity agreement. If the agreement is a good one, it should not be difficult to prove it by a tariff commission and by a full statement of the surrounding facts, and all these facts should be available not only to every member of this House, but to every elector of Canada.
As an example of how unreliable the information sent out by this government is, I would point out that according to Part II of the Canadian Trade Report for the year 1910, Canada imported from the United States last year $12,070,881 worth of dutiable wheat. Now, I would just like to ask the Minister of Customs if he believes that himself.


Mr. PATERSON.: I believe the figures are correct but what did we do with it?


James Arthurs: It does not matter what we did with it. We paid the duty on it, otherwise it should not be in that column.


William Paterson: Does it say so? What is the amount of the duty paid on it?


James Arthurs: There is no amount of duty given. That just shows the unreliability of the whole report.


William Paterson: It came in bond, was held in bond, and went out. We had the carriage.


James Arthurs: Does the Minister mean to tell me that all the wheat that went through Canada in bond in 1910 was $12,000,000 worth?


William Paterson: 
James Arthurs: Total	$18,833,864
In other words, practically seven-eights of our agricultural exports went to Great Britain and only one-eight to the United

States. On the other hand it must be born in mind that during the same term we imported from the United States, both according to their returns and to our own for the two do not differ materially, many more dollars worth of agricultural products than we sold to them, while from Great Britain ,we imported practically nothing in this line. During the years 1907, 1908 and 1909, the United States exported an average of $987,771,761 worth of farm products. They have a balance of trade in favour of their farmers of almost $500,000,
000.	To be exact, during the past year, the farmers of the United States had coming to them from foreign countries $431,231,941 in cash, that is, after deducting from their total exports of farm products their total imports in that line. During the same years the United States exported an average of $31,000,000 worth of farm products to Canada. As our exports to the United States in this line were $12,000,000 there was a balance of trade against the Canadian farmer of $19,000,000. I am quoting the figures of the reports of the United States Department of Agriculture. In order to be fair, instead of taking the figures for one year, I have taken the figures for three years and averaged them. From these reports I find the following:
Average exports of farm produce to Canlona *rom United States, for the years 1907,
1J08, 1909:
Cattle		
Fowl	 Qft'ann	
Horses		
Mules		
*Sheep		
Total live animals.. .	. ..$3,185,000
*Or 53,000 sheep.
Butter, $312,000: cheese, 707,000 lbs.; milk, $97,000; eggs, 923,000 dozen; honey, $16,000; hams, $423,5G1-3,365,888 lbs.; salt pork, $959,192-11'536,113 lbs.; lard, $1,156,978-11,880,929 lbs.; total packing house products, $4,364,946.
Apples, $172,095-53,801 barrels; wheat, 695,-1/3 bushels; flour, $270,053; total grain products, $6,146,821.
Hay, $155,804; vegetables, $761,412; seeds, $1,101,033 (mostly timothy and clover); extract of bark for tanning, $191,350.
To put the matter in short form, according to their trade reports, which, I may say, do not differ in totals very materially from our own, we have imported from the United States of articles coming within this treaty almost two and a half times as much as we have exported to the United States. To show of how little importance the market of the United States is to us on the average I would call your attention to one item, the item of cheese.
During last year we exported $21,481,566 worth of cheese, or an average of about $3 worth per head for every man, woman and child in Canada. During the same year we * Mr. ARTHURS.
exported to the United States $63,390 worth, or an average of a little less than three-quarters of a cent per head. At the same time we imported from the United States
707,000	pounds. The list of imports into Canada as given by the Canadian Trade and Commerce Report is very similar.
I will now give the. figures taken from the Canadian report. The figures which I have quoted have been taken from American reports published by the Department of Agriculture of the United States. These are the figures as given by the Trade and SCom. merce Report of the Dominion of Canada for the year 1910. We imported from the United States animals living to the value of $2,416,207 and during the same period we exported $2,307,125 worth. Our other imports from the United States were as follows:
Grain	$17,525,433
Flour	 565,887
Fish	 601,917
Hides	 1,760,420
Provisions (butter, eggs &
meat)	 3,928,697
Seeds	 1,039,021
Wood products	10,916,532
Or a total, including animals, of $38,764,114 imported into Canada from the United States during the last fiscal year. This does not include many other items which might properly be placed under the heading of agricultural products, such as vegetable oils or greases, or anything of that kind, which I have not taken into consideration in connection with this matter.
Another point to which I would like to call your attention is the fact that Canadian exports of farm products have been and are growing steadily less every year with the exception of cheese and wheat. If these two items are taken out of the list we find that Canadian exports have been growing less and that the home market has been increasing very rapidly during the last term of years. In the matter of butter we find that in 1906, four years ago, we exported 7,086,019 pounds of butter while at the present time we are exporting less than 1,000,000 pounds. Our exports of eggs have almost ceased, our exports of lamb and sheep are practically a thing of the past, and if it were not for the matter of wheat our exports of farm produce would look very small in the list of our total exports. To show that I am not the only one who entertains this opinion I would call to your attention a remark made by the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) on December 13 last. Speaking on cold storage he said:
One thing my hon. friend did not allude to was the poultry production. There is no question whatever that to-day there is a far greater production of eggs and poultry meat than there was ten years ago, and yet the

prices of those things are much higher. Why? Because home consumption has increased more rapidly than home production, and the result is, that the home market for eggs and poultry meat, is better than the export market; consequently, we have practically no export of eggs or poultry to Great Britain, and very little to the United States.
In the matter of eggs, the United States last fall exported between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 dozens and during the same term Canada imported or bought over a million dozens. Our exports of butter have been growing beautifully less and less every year while our imports have been growing very rapidly. In order to prove that I have only to point to the fact that during the first two months of the present year, January and February 1911, our imports of butter have amounted to over half a million dollars worth from foreign countries, while we find that the United States are exporting large quantities of both butter and eggs. The sheep industry is very much on a par with the butter industry. In the report of the American tariff commission we find the following:
While the sheep industry in Canada at the present time is a minor one, the feeding of lambs for market has been an important business in Ontario, as many as 125,000 head having been exported as late as 1907 to the United States and 33,000 the same year to Great Britain. The surplus is now dwindled, however, to such an extent that practically none was received at the Buffalo stockyards during 1910. In fact it is reported that a few American lambs have been shipped from Buffalo to Toronto, indicating that Ontario at the present time is scarcely supplying her own wants in this trade. This is, however, an abnormal condition.
That is according to their report, but we find, according to the daily papers of the day before yesterday, that on the Toronto market ten cents a pound was paid for lamb, live weight, while in Buffalo and Chicago the price was 5 -65 and 7 cents a pound. We find that conditions are changing in that and in many other regards and that the Canadian home market is a very much better market for the Canadian farmer than the market of the United States. As to the horse market, I think it is almost unnecessary for me to go into that question because almost any man who knows anything about the conditions knows that the price of horses especially work horses, at the present time is much higher in Canada than in the United States under the same conditions. I will quote again from the same report as that to which I have just alluded:
As to horses, Canada has no surplus of importance outside of Ontario The agricultural development of the northwestern provinces has put prices of work stock and heavy draft teams at a premium in the territory tributary to Winnipeg. During the spring of 1910 it is stated on good authority that not less than 20,000 horses were sold out of Ontario alone for shipment to the market just mentioned, and prospective loss of this trade is giving Ontario some concern at this time. The five provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta combined have but 1,863,744 head as compared with 1,600,000 head now in the state of Iowa alone.
The same thing applies to milch cows and other cattle in the United States. I have here a tabulated statement sent down with the message of President Taft on reciprocity to the Senate, document 849, in which are given the average prices of cattle, dairy cows, horses, sheep and swine in each state of the American union and also in each province of Canada.
I will not weary the House by giving details, but it gives the average price of horses in the United States covering all States and Territories as $108.19, and the average price of horses in Canada, covering all the Canadian provinces as $133.00, a considerable difference in favour of the Canadian horse. Then, it gives the average prices of other animals as follows:
Dairy cows.. Other cattle Sheep .. . Swine .. ..
Average	Average
price in	price in
United States. Canada. .	$35	79	$43	00.	19	41	31	00.	4	08	6	00.	9	14	11	00
It may be said that the Americans prepared these figures for the purpose of passing the Treaty in their own country, but I point out that they went thoroughly into the question, that they visited every part of Canada and the United States, that they knew the conditions on the ground, and that they had the monthly reports of their consular agents, while we on the Canadian side had absolutely no means of knowing just how the Treaty might work out or what the average price of any of these commodities was. I had intended to demonstrate the Canadian ignorance on the subject by quoting from reports issued by the Minister of Labour, but suffice it to say that when a Minister of the Crown would send out such absolutely foolish reports as to the price of commodities in different parts of Canada it is quite easy to see how absolutely devoid of reliable information the Canadian government was when they entered into this bargain. At page 109 of the American Report, Document 849, the following appears with reference to American horses:
Brices of horses range from $106 to $125 per head in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. In Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota the range is from $111 to $126, and in Montana, Idaho and Washington, from $80 to $108. In eastern Canada prices of horses range from $107 to

I have already referred to the other countries that would come under this agreement without granting to Canada any compensating advantage. We find that Russia, Argentina, Austria-Hungary, Bolivia, Colombia, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and most of the British colonies, including Australia and New Zealand, would enjoy all the benefits of this agreement, the free access of their agricultural products to the markets of Canada, and we could not send one dollar's worth to them without paying heavy duties. Speakers on the other side of the House make very light of this question, and say it does not amount to very much any way. ^r Quote some of the principal exports of these countries. Denmark, during the year ending December 31, 1909, shipped 196,639,220 pounds of butter of a value of $48,320,668. She shipped upwards of $31,000,000 worth of meat, Australia shipped over $15,000,000 worth of meat, and over $11,600,000 of butter. New Zealand shipped $18 000,000 worth of meat, $8,000,000 worth of butter, and $6,000,000 worth of cheese. Argentine shipped upwards of $40,000,000 worth of meat alone and about $1,500,000 worth of butter, and so on. This shows that these countries are actual shippers to the markets of the world. Then it costs just as little to send a pound of meat frqjn Argentine to Halifax as to send it to Liverpool and meat can be delivered in Mon-

9671
treal about as cheaply as in Liverpool provided there is not an adverse duty. On the other hand we cannot ship to Argentine partly because we have no boat lines, no prtoper channels .of commumcaftnon and! partly because we have to meet a heavy import duty. For instance if we wished to ship wheat to France we would have to pay $3.51 a hundred pounds duty, and on lambs 77 cents each. On wheat we have to pay 61.4 cents per hundred pounds, and on barley 26.3 cents a hundred pounds, on potatoes 3.5 cents a hundred pounds, and on butter 2.63 cents per hundred pounds. 11 we wish to ship to Italy we would have to pay on caitle an average duty oi over $6 per head; on wheat 65.80 cents per hundred pounds. Shipping to New Zealand wo would have to pay on wheat 18.2 cents per hundred pounds, on barley 48.6 cents per hundred pounds, on beans 18.2 cents per hundred pounds, on potatoes 21.7 cents per hundred pounds, on butter 20 per cent, on cheese 20 per cent, on eggs 20 per cent, on hay 20 per cent, and so on through a long list of duties which are charged by all these various countries upon Canadian imports, and would continue to be charged should this agreement go into force.
I wish to point out that the abrogation of the old reciprocity treaty of 1854-1856 was a blessing in disguise for Canada, although the Americans abrogated it with the intention of driving Canada into annexation or starvation according to their newspapers. It is true that during the term of that treaty Canada enjoyed a short period of prosperity, but I would point out that during the earlier years of its existence the Crimean war was at its height, and prices reached a level not reached since at any time. Shortly after the close of this war, the American war occurred beginning in 1861. and ending in 1865. In 1866, the year after the close of the war, American conditions having become normal, the treaty was abrogated by the United States, and Canada was told that she would be forced into annexation or starvation. It is quite true that Canada at that time was in pretty bad shape, but it was probably the best thing that ever happened to Canada as a whole, and I firmly believe that had it not been for the abrogation of the treaty in 1866 the federation of Canada would bo still in the distant future. Canada was driven to fall back on her own resources. The men who were then at the head of affairs in Canada, some Conservatives and some Reformers, were forced to consult together, and to devise some means whereby we could trade with one another, benefiting one another instead of being scattered provinces as we were at that time. The building of the Intercolonial railway and the Canadian Pacific railway, the acquisition of the northwest territories by Can-Mr. ARTHURS.
ada are, I believe, directly attributable to the abrogation of that treaty, and our prosperity from that time to the present, has been through that means. We have hundreds of millions of dollars in building the various railways and canals. The cost to Canada as a whole has probably exceeded $600,000,000. We have, according to our Reform friends, spent many millions buikh ing up industries. They have now arrived at a stage where they are practically selfsupporting, and yet we would apparently be willing to cast away all these- advantages to go back to the condition of affairs which existed in 1886, and depend almost entirely, because that is what it amounts to in the end, on the market of the United States.	-
I believe that this treaty or agreement, if it does what is claimed for it by its friends, must inevitably lead to the loss of our commercial independence, and ultimately to annexation to the United States. The fact that some hon. gentlemen opposite are acting in good faith, and do not see any danger does not prove that that dangei does not exist. The man who rocks the boat never sees any danger, and the gun that is not loaded is always the most dangerous. I believe that we should look into this matter more thoroughly, that we should have more time, and that the whole thing should be placed in the hands of an independent commission, a commission of business men, who would discuss it thoroughly among themselves, and bring before parliament a finding which, I believe, would be acceptable to the people of Canada.
I believe it would be wise to postpone this treaty untl the Americans have formally settled their tariff matters and until the people of Canada have had an opportunity to thoroughly digest the proposal. As far as I am personally concerned, as I said in the first place, I believe we have no mandate from the people to pass a matter of this kind or to accept such a treaty as is proposed. I believe that in all these great changes the people should be consulted before anything is done. X am prepared to vote against the resolution and to do anything that lies in my power to defeat it until the people have been consulted. If the people say they are prepared to stand behind the agreement my opposition must necessarily cease, and will cease. But I believe that the true solution of the whole question would be an independent commission. We have got along for fifteen or twenty years very well without reciprocity, and I think we can get along for fifteen or twenty years more without it just as well. I believe the people should have a true statement of the facts. Let the whole matter be laid before the people; let them have an opportunity to form an independent judgment,

and they will come to a wise and independent decision. And I believe their verdict will be that the best course is to allow Canada to go on as in the past and to work out her destiny as part of the British empire with independent control of her own affairs.
An lion. MEMBER. Go on.


James Davis Taylor: 'Go on,' says an hon. gentleman on the other side w'ho has nothing to contribute to the debate except such a bald remark. While I have something to say on this subject, yet, as I have been travelling for six days to reach Ottawa and arrived here only at live o'clock this morning, I do not think it reasonable to ask me to begin an address to the House at twenty minutes to eleven. Therefore, I ask that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.


Wilfrid Laurier: I am sure that my hon. friend (Mr. J. D. Taylor) will not find it extraordinary if we cannot agree to this motion. After a delay of two months we ought surely to proceed with the business of the session.


James Davis Taylor: If I am forced to proceed, of course, I will proceed, but I think this demand upon me will be recognized by the people I represent as a most extraordinary one, I would call the attention of the First Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) and the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson)-who seems to regard this as a joke, but I can assure him that the people I represent do not at all regard as a joke the change he proposes to inflict upon us-to the fact that the Minister from Victoria, British Columbia (Mr. Templeman) is not present, and it seems to me he should be present while the interests of his province are under discussion. The only other member from British Columbia on the government side of the House who has taken part in this discussion is not present. And I think it is unfair to him and to us to ask us to discuss here the statements he has made while he is not here to take his part in the discussion. But, meanwhile there are some subjects which can be laid before the House at the present time with which these hon. gentlemen are not very immediately concerned, but to which it would seem to be advantageous for them to give attention. I have a very valuable text here which should afford food for thought on the part of every member of this House.' It is in the shape of a pamphlet prepared by the Canadian National League and going very fully into this subject. A good many members of the House, no doubt, are familiar with the origin of this Canadian National League and with the literature which it has put out. Hon. members will recall that when this matter
of reciprocity was sprung upon the country no persons were more shocked at the attitude of the government and what was generally regarded as the folly of our ambassadors extraordinary to Washington than were some of the men who, up to that time, had been in the front ranks of the Liberal party in Canada. We found this feeling taking shape in Toronto in a manifesto signed by no less than eighteen leaders of the Liberal party at that important centre, eighteen prominent members of the Liberal party who thought it worth while to declare to the public that this action on the part of the government had finished them with the Liberal party, that they could no longer assist in perpetuating the reign of a government that had proved so false to every principle which it would have led its supporters to believe it professed, that had proven recreant to its duty to the people and that had so shamelessly, I may say, betrayed the trust conferred upon it. So, we have these eighteen Liberals promoting the formation of the Canadian National League and taking part in the dissemination of literature to show the people of Canada precisely what this arrangement means to us. The object of the league is stated in their prospectus:
To oppose the adoption of the proposed Reciprocity Agreement between Canada and the United States of America and to support such measures as will uphold Canadian nationality and British connection, will preserve our fiscal independence and will continue to develop our present national policy of interprovincial and external trade, under which the Dominion has achieved its present prosperity
The basis on which the league has been
formed is: Canadian nationality, British connection and fiscal independence.
Three objects which I am sure must commend themselves to every man in this House, objects worthy of the position which these gentlemen have occupied up. to the present in the ranks of the Liberal party of Canada. The league declares that it is non-partizan in character, that it is opposed to the Laurier government because it believes that in negotiating this agreement with the United States and in endeavouring to have it adopted by parliament, the government is not upholding Canadian nationality and British connection, and is not preserving our fiscal independence. They would be opposed to any government, whether Liberal or Conservative for the same reason, and so I am convinced will the great majority of the electors of Canada oppose any government, whether Liberal or Conservative, which proposes to surrender to the United States our fiscal independence. While opposed to this agreement for the reasons stated, they are opposed to it on patriotic grounds also, because they sav:

We believe that our government failed to appreciate properly the present position and condition of Canada, contrasted with its position land condition when reciprocity would have been welcomed, and that it lost sight of the fact that the principles underlying its own policy for years past are utterly inconsistent with the principles underlying this agreement.
In the present pamphlets, and in those to follow, nothing will be said intentionally to wound the feelings of any one, and no offensive personal allusions will be made. The subject is above party and persons, and will be so kept and treated.
Of this fact we have seen tonight the most convincing evidence read by the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Arthurs), evidence which fully justifies the position taken by the league.
The opposition will be kept up until the people have pronounced upon the question.
Until we have the opportunity we desire of going to the polls, and putting before the people of Canada the question whether they wish for a reciprocal arrangement of this kind, or whether they are content to be bludgeoned by any government in continuing this debate with the idea of forcing this House to consent to something which they would never consent to willingly. This league takes as its first text fihe significant statement of the President of the United States that Canada is at the parting of the ways, and it submits evidence to show that this statement is unfortunately only too true. As this pamphlet says:
Shall we continue along the path which has led us to our present prosperity and to our proud position as the keystone in the arch of a united British Empire; or, shall we take the path that leads to Washington?
Facts which indicates the answer which should be made to this question are set forth in this pamphlet.
When the Hon. Mr. Fielding announced to parliament the reciprocity agreement he alleged, as the chief reason for making it, that ever since confederation Canada has been committed to the policy embodied in the agreement, and earnestly desires it at the present time, that the Conservative party, as well as the Liberal party, was committed to it. He did not attempt, by facts and figures, to prove that upon economic grounds it would he beneficial to Canada; he assumed that it would be so.
Now Mr. Chairman, I would like to call your attention to the fact that not only is the statement true made hy these protesting Liberals that the hon. gentlemen who arranged this agreement have presented to the house no satisfactory reasons why we should adopt it, but that their failure to do so has been accentuated by the extraordinary course of their followers


James Davis Taylor: in parliament who are content to sit still and swallow this, as they have swallowed every other nauseous dose presented to them while they have occupied their present benches.
An examination of the pages of history shows the damaging effect of this arrangement. It is recalled to us how reciprocity damaged the St. Lawrence exports .
From 1854 to 1866 a reciprocity treaty existed between the old province of Canada and the United States of America. This province at that time comprised only Upper Canada and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec). Confederation did not take place till Julv 1st, 1867.
When this treaty was made the province of Canada had a population of approximately 2,100,000; when the treaty was abrogated it had increased to about 2,650,000. Settlement had extended hut a few miles, comparatively, north of the United States boundary in either Upper Canada or Lower Canada. The Grand Trunk railway from Toronto to Montreal was the only railway connecting the two provinces. The Great Western railway from Niagara to Windsor (now part of the Grand Trunk) was the only railway running through Ontario's western peninsula. There were no large factories, and but a small home market, while the population of the United States in 1851 was 26,500,000, and in 1866 it was 36,000,000. Communication across the Atlantic was meagre and expensive.
Showing that under the former reciprocity arrangement the population of the United States made the extraordinary increase, notwithstanding the disturbance of the war of secession, in four years, from 26 millions to 36 millions; while Canada, which, we are told, should benefit so much by reciprocity, made the insignificant increase of from 2,100,000 to 2,600,000. Now Mr. Chairman, I would like once more to call attention to the fact that the minister representing British Columbia in this gov-vernment is not in his place. I protest that it is unfair for the government to force the members from British Columbia to continue this debate when the minister representing that province teels himself physically unfit to occupy his place in the chamber. I say that in a matter of this kind there should not be one rule for a minister and one rule for a private member, that it is a rank injustice to me that after a six days' trip on the train I should be asked to speak now while the minister from my province, the man who, with his colleagues, proposes to saddle this burden upon us, is reposing in his bed. I would ask the government again whether they cannot produce here the body of the Min-nister of Inland Revenue or else consent to adjourm Mr. Chairman. I would ask the first minister or any of his colleagues to say whether they do not think it is a reasonable request that when a matter

of this kind is being discussed of such great interest to our province the minister from that province should at least be present.


Wilfrid Laurier: Go on.


James Davis Taylor: The First Minister says ' go on That is the only answer he will make. I may say that the service rendered by the minister from the province of British Columbia at the pre. sent moment is probably equal to the service that he usually renders to that province and his colleagues have made it apparent that in a matter of this kind his value to the province is regarded as a mere nothing.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Louder.


James Davis Taylor: Now, to resume, if any of those hon. gentlemen who are making those remarks on the other side of the House wish to get on the floor for a while I will have much pleasure in yielding it to them. If they have not the courage to stand up and occupy the floor I would ask that they observe the rules of the House and not make what they intend to be disconcerting remarks disturbing to the trend of thought that I am applying to this discussion. We are led to believe from a study of the results of the reciprocity arrangement of 1854-66 that its effect upon the east and west traffic was a warning which should be a lesson to us. Here are some of the results. The House will pardon me if I spend some time in reading because it is impossible for a man to carry in his head the number of valuable figures which I propose to present during the course of my argument:
Following the treaty, business in and out of the port of Montreal declined.
I would commend that to the consideration of those hon. gentlemen now representing the city of Montreal, who, without giving any reason at all for the faith that is in them, propose voting for this agreement for no other reason than that it is presented to them by the government which is their master.
The carrying trade of the St. Lawrence in 1854 was valued at $33,633,128. In the next year it dropped to $15,208,600.
That is it had shrunk to less than fifty per cent of what it had been before.
The ships' tonnage going to the sea from Montreal and Quebec decreased from 1,487,097 to 870,794 tons, and the value of the exports from $42,000,000 to $28,000,000. On Canadian canals in the first year of the treaty the tolls fell off by 32 per cent.
An examination shows that there was an advance in the price of farm products.
This advance we have often heard of during the course of this discussion, but
it was not entirely, or even to a large extent, due to this treaty with the United States:
The Crimean war . . . began in 1854 and continued during 1855 and 1856, and the price of food stuffs in Europe increased rapidly and persistently-wheat in England went up to $2.50 per bushel. When peace was made, prices fell, until the Civil War in the United States broke out. From 1860 to 1865, because of this war, farming in the United States w'as considerably curtailed, and the market for Calnadian products was correspondingly enlarged.
This in a large measure, if not entirely, accounts for what increase did take place in the prices of Canadian commodities during that period. But no sooner was the war over than a demand arose in the United States for the abrogation of the treaty which some farmers, through jealousy, thought was conferring some benefit upon their Canadian neighbours. This demand was not only from the farmers, but, as on the present occasion, trade relations with Canada were made a foot-ball by the politicians of the United States who entered upon a political cry for the termination of the arrangement, so that by pursuing Canada with a hostile tariff policy they might drive her into closer political relations with them if not indeed into annexation.
In 1866 the United States put up the tariff wall again, and the Canadian farmer was worse off than ever.
The existence of the reciprocity treaty had disarranged the channels of trade just as the adoption of the arrangement or pact now before the House would disarrange all our avenues of trade. Having ceased to look to the British market in the endeavour to cultivate that of their nearer neighbour, Canadian producers had come to rely almost entirely on the United States market. They were sending everything they could across the boundary and impoverishing their land and capital. They received many warnings that they might be shut out of the market which they were told was to be for them a continuous and continuing blessing. Many of them.thought that they were ruined for life and a decided leaning towards annexation arose in many minds. This is the record from history. It is not the vain prophecy of any person attempting to frighten his fellow citizens into opposing something which otherwise they might be inclined to try. But we have the lesson from history that many Canadians were so fearful of the consequences of the abrogation of this treaty that a decided leaning towards annexation with the United States arose in many minds. When we draw this lesson from history it cannot be, said that we are reflecting in any sense upon the Canadians of that day. It is not

regarded as a reflection upon a Canadian or a British subject from the old country, that when he goes to the United States and takes up his residence there, he shortly after takes the oath of allegiance to the American Republic and forswears his allegiance to the British Empire.
That is done by the most loyal of British subjects as a measure of self-protection. Haying gone to the United States to make their jiving there, it would 'be unfair to themselves, it would be unfair to their famines, to persist for a sentimental reason in remaining apart from the people amongst whom they made their living. As with these individuals so it may well be with the Dominion or with a province of Canada. Thus if by an alliance of this kind with the United States we hopelessly commit our trade arrangements to their hands, the time may come when they will be in a position to put such pressure on us that it may become an issue with us as a nation whether we shall do what so many citizens, quite our equals in loyalty to the British Empire, are forced to do as individuals. I commend that to the consideration of these gentlemen, who, when they say anything at all upon this subject, are fond of sneering at what they call the waving of the old flag and professions of lip-loyalty. I ask them whether they see any reason why we as a community should not be proof against what our equals, who have gone to the United States from England, instead of coming first to Canada, have been unable to resist as individuals. I for one do not wish to take the risk; I do not wish to defy the lightning, but while I have a chance I would prefer to take precautions against being struck.
The abrogation of the treaty was a blessing in disguise. It stopped the fatal drain of fertility from the soil. At the very time the movement for confederation was fructifying, it turned the Canadian people once more to the British market, which had grown enormously through the expansion of trade in manufactured goods all over the world.
We were referred early in this discussion to the lectures delivered under the auspices of the Minister of Agriculture-who, also I regret to say is not in the House-in which the people of the Province of Quebec were warned that it was the most disastrous kind of farming to export hay, instead of Taismg cattle and enriching the land. Up to the time the minister had started this crusade the farmers of Quebec had been exporting to the United States this hay which they should have fed to the cattle on their own farms. A similar state of ai?a*rs	during the continuance of
the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 and we are told that the abrogation of the Treaty stopped the fatal drain of fertility from the soil.	|


James Davis Taylor: And now, as a parting gift to the province which has kept them in power this government proposes to facilitate the export of hay. I ask them if they have no higher regard for the interest of that province than to attempt to prolong their term in office by a catch-cry such as reciprocity, upon which they hope to be judged in a rush by the people, to the exclusion of all the sins which otherwise would have been arrayed against them, and as to which they fear condemnation from their fellow-citizens in Quebec as well as their fellow-citizens in the other provinces. The Jfrime Minister laughs.
Sir WILFRID LAUR1ER. Hear, hear.


James Davis Taylor: The Prime Minister has no fear of the consequences. He has adopted the motto of his distinguished predecessor who said 'After me the deluge.' The Prime Minister laughs, and provided he can persuade his people to give him another term in office it is a matter of indifference to him how many years of repentance will follow their sad experience.
In 1867 confederation came, and with dt the hope which had previously been confined to a few ardent patriots-that Canada would become a nation within a nation, and would work out her destiny as such-spread to the mass of our people; and there and then began one of the most courageous and difficult and patriotic enterprises which has ever been witnessed, viz.: the building up upon half a continent, by a handful of people, of a great Dominion, and the overcoming of enormous natural difficulties and disadvantages.
Consider, for a moment, the difficulties to be overcome. The British North America Act, Canada's constitution, first united Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and provided for the union of Prince Edward Island and British Columbia and the vast territories between British Columbia and Hudson bay and extending from the United States boundary to the Arctic ocean. Canada's task was to weld all these into one Dominion and to provide for its government, and to preserve its autonomy and British connection.
The first part of the task has been accomplished. The great territories referred to were added, and the province of Manitoba was formed on the 15th of July, 1870. British Columbia came in on the 20th of July, 1871, and Prince Edward Island on the 1st of July, 1873. This first part was comparatively easy.
These were the days when there began to arise in Canada the feeling that we should renew our relationship with the United States our only near neighbours, and that it might be more profitable to us, than to attempt to establish connection with the scattered provinces of Canada across the great gaps then existing. While the people of Nova Scotia for instance, the province represented toy the hon. gentleman respon-


IS, 1911
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sible for this pact, were still lamenting to a large degree their union with Canada- and if the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding) was doing anything at all at that time no doubt he was helping to voice the plaint of their union with Canada and to satisfy them then as he would satisfy them now that it was more to their profit to trade with the United States than to trade with their sister provinces in the newly formed Dominion. If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding) will excuse me for saying so, it is one of the most sinister features in connection with it, and tends to induce the people of Canada to regard it with suspicion, to regard it as recommended to them, not by one who has at heart the welfare of Canada, but one, who hopelessly biassed as to the impossibility of a happy union of his province with the rest of Canada, would like to round off his career by showing that he has been right all his life, and that those of us having more "hope, greater courage, greater confidence in our ability as Canadians to make all the provinces benefit from the union, have been wrong in our contention of all these years, that we are happier as a united people trading east and west, than we would have been had we followed the advice of the Minister of Finance and his friends in Nova Scotia, and had cut adrift from Canada and continued to trade as before on the best terms his province could arrange with the United States.
The House will pardon me, I hope, if I do not speak with utmost fluency on this occasion, because, while I hope to proceed for a very long time yet on this very interesting subject, as I would be loath to drop it without doing.justice to it, yet it is not conducive to eloquence of ideas or fluency of diction to speak after travelling across the continent-to be called upon to speak up to midnight or afterwards on the very day one has accomplished this journey of
3,000	miles.
I was referring to how nature has favoured trade between the north and the south', and how the fathers of confederation, of whom there are none in this House, had attempted to introduce the east and west principle. While we have never heard much in support of that principle from the hon. Minister of Finance, the right hon. the First Minister has taken a much larger view of the country in which he has risen, and deservedly risen, to so high an eminence, and has at times striven to do the very opposite of what this legislation of his would perform; he has striven to the best of his abilities to develop the east and west principle in Canadian trade. What Canada has accomplished in this direction so far has been accomplished because reciprocity with the United States has not existed Canada could not have accomplished this
had reciprocity been in force. The lessons of history enable us to speak with certainty as to the past, while we can only predict the future. This prediction, however, voiced by the best people in Canada after the most careful consideration, is that the result of the proposed reciprocity agreement will be to check the growth and development of the east and west trade, and the trade between Canada and 'Great Britain, to weaken our British connection, and to render our task of consolidating the scattered provinces of the dominion and preserving our fiscal independence and autonomy, much more difficult. I would like to call the attention of hon, gentlemen opposite to a statement made by their late colleagues, the 18 prominent Liberals who signed the manifesto to which I referred at the beginning of my remarks. These gentlemen are not Tory politicians aching for office; they are not waving the old flag or shouting loyalty because of any affection for the Tory party or because of any desire to put any other party out of power in Canada. They must be credited "with speaking the sentiments of their hearts, as representing the best thought in the Liberal party, the thought that we confidently hope to see indicated when the people get a chance to pronounce on this subject. These gentlemen, speaking in advance of their fellow Liberals who have not yet been heard, said:
We believe that, this reciprocity arrangement will eventually result in our losing our autonomy and in becoming politically a part of the American Union. We are aware that opinions honestly differ on the points; but we ask, why take the risk?
A pertinent question, Mr. Chairman: why take the risk? I am very sorry that our minister from British Columbia is so little interested in this subject that he is not present, that if a messenger was sent for him, he has not been able to get him away from his couch; because I would like to recall to him in this connection what occurred in my own little city only a couple of weeks ago. The pertinent question asked in this pamphlet reminds me of it. Our minister was spellbinding in British Columbia, and the gentlemen on the other side who have been so often thrilled with his eloquence in this House will realize with what tremors we witnessed his approach on our several constituencies. However, we could not control his movements, as we cannqt control them now. He was accompanied by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clarke), to whom the unfortunate fact that he is still engaged in his patriotic mission and is also absent from his place in this House. The hon. minister was a little unequal to the task set before him in the riding of New Westminster. The First
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Minister I know admires that riding, because we gave him a great welcome there last year, and he was pleased to speak with his customary eloquence in the kindest and most flattering terms of the progress he had observed in New Westminster. 1 am sure he had a high opinion of the intelligence of the people of that district, except that he might regard it as a blot on their intelligence that they made the unfortunate choice of their representative at the last election; so he will realize that there was not much encouragement for these two federal spellbinders without drawing in the unwilling services of the deposed leader of the Liberals in British Columbia, tne gentleman who for so many years represented tne district in the legislature and who, no doubt, would at the present moment be a candidate for election to this House were it not that he recognizes that this arrangement makes the prospect of the election of any Liberal there altogether hopeless.
This gentleman, Mr. John Oliver, a farmer, possibly the best informed man in the whole district as to conditions in the district was brought forward to give the best comfort he could to the two spell binders from Ottawa and the best he could say for them was this, that he was losing no sleep because of the issue of reciprocity. It was a matter of indifference to him, the chief witness they could produce from the district, whether or not this reciprocity campaign succeeded, because, he said, we are too prosperous to be affected by it. He said the farmers of this district were never in their history so prosperous, so happy and so contented as they are to-day, and supplementing what he said, I ask with these pamphleteers, why take the risk? That question can produce only one answer from the farmers of the district of New Westminster, from the farmers throughout the length and breadth of British Columbia who see the livelihood of themselves and their families menaced by the proposition, that they shall be delivered over to their comparatively poverty-stricken neighbours across the American boundary. Why take the risk? and echo answers, why? There is no other answer in this House or out of it, except that in a moment of panic the Finance Minister of Canada promised President Taft that if President Taft would forbear imposing the American surtax on Canadian products he would go down representing this government and make the .surrender in which we are now asked to assist.
Reviewing the history of the position of affairs we find that the British North America Act, by section 145, declared that the Intercolonial railway was essential to the consolidation of the union of British North America. This principle of east and west transportation ran through the agreement with British Columbia for it was made an Mr. TAYLOR (New Westminster!
essential part of the union that the Canadian Pacific Railway should be built. And here it is opportune to say that British Columbia had, before the time of her union with Canada, ample experience of free trade with the United States to settle her in advance in opposition to the arrangement now before us. These pioneers of British Columbia who know by their own experience or by what they have heard from their fathers of the results up to 1871 need no other argument than the lesson of their own history for their present opposition and hostility to this arrangement. We had at that time in British Columbia a system of free ports, the idea being that if we could produce the wares of the world free of duty at the ports of Victoria and Nanaimo these ports would develop into great trade centres and would become very great entrepots of commerce. In a way that worked well but it was soon realized that since everything grown'in the United States would come into these two thriving Canadian settlements and that nothing grown on Vancouver Island, then the centre of population of British Columbia, could be admitted to the United States, the whole settlement was drawn over to the American side, and after the Island had become depopulated as a result of the experiment, the people decided that they would depart from their position of isolation from the rest of Canada, that they would invite Canada to make terms of union with them, that they would cease their efforts to trade north and south as this government now invites them to do again, and would begin to develop trade east and west with their fellow-Britishers in the Dominion of Canada. So there came about the union of British Columbia with the rest of Canada. I referred to the help given by the First Minister for a long time in developing this east and west trade. I am reminded that this principle more strongly than ever before, actuated the Laurier government when they committed this parliament and this country to the gigantic task of building the Grand Trunk Pacific and National Transcontinental railway. Upon that occasion Sir Wilfrid said to the House of Commons:
A railway to extend from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to the shores of the Pacific ocean, and to be, every inch of it, on Canadian soil, is a national as well as a commercial necessity. That such a road must he built, that it is, in the language which I have used, a natiolnal and commercial necessity, that it is a corollary of our status as a nation, that it is a requisite of our commercial development is a proposition to which, up to this moment, I have heard no dissent. . [DOT] [DOT] We consider -that it is the duty of all those who -sit within these walls by the will of the people, to provide immediate means whereby the products of those new settlers may find an exit to the ocean at the least possible cost, and whereby, likewise, a market may be

found in this new region for those who toil in the forests, in the fields, in the mines, in the shops of the older provinces. Such is our duty; it is immediate and imperative. It is not for to-morrow, but of this day, of this hour and of this minute.
Let me interrupt the reading of the right hon. gentleman's eloquent words to point out that while we were warned of the momentous necessity of the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific, while it was not for to-morrow, but of this day and of this hour and of this minute, a pressing and imperative duty on the community, in which we could brook no delay in the construction of this road, and the investment of $200,000,000 in its construction, up to this time the road has failed to accomplish its purpose in any degree, it is not yet finished and the construction of the British Columbia portion of it has barely commenced. It therefore seems to me a most extraordinary thing that, having committed us to an expense of $200,000,000 in order to promote the patriotic principle of trade between east and west, the right hon. gentleman should be found apparently forgetting the principles which animated him at that time, and asking us to forget that it is our patriotic duty to encourage trade between east and west; inviting us to send our trade south to Washington, Oregon and California and to draw north from those states the trade which we would so willingly draw from Saskatchewan and Alberta into British Columbia. However, I have been digressing. I trust, Mr Chairman, that you and the Committee will pardon the digression and will not take it amiss that this interruption has taken place in reading the eloquent remarks of the right honorable the first minister. The right hon. gentleman invoked Divine assistance:
Heaven grant that it he not already too late; heaven grant that whilst we tarry and dispute, the trade of Canada is not deviated to other channels, and that an ever vigilant competitor does not take to himself the trade that properly belongs to those who acknowledge Canada as their native or their adopted land.
Was the right hon. gentleman mistaken when he assumed, as he then did assume, that he was a favourite of Providence, that Heaven had granted his prayer even before it was uttered, and that his influence had been such that this calamity had been averted? What are we to think of the pressure which must have been put upon the night hon. gentleman by his colleagues returning from Washington when he was induced to adopt the proposition they brought, notwithstanding the record that he had addressed the House in this language, that he had warned us against the folly of doing that very thing to which they say thev have committed what they
call the honour of Canada. But I say the honour of Canada is not so committed. When two ministers so far forget the duties they owe to Canada, and the responsibility of their office, as to take upon themselves to abandon the principles of their party, to betray their leader, to offer to a foreign and dangerous competitor freedom in our markets which we cannot enjoy in theirs, -I say that when two ministers make a promise of that kind they do not pledge the honour of their country. And I am astonished that a man so astute as the Prime Minister did not do what he had the courage to do in other cases when his colleagues made mistakes-tell them that their connection with the government must forthwith cease. I have been looking at the right hon. gentleman in the hope that he might commit himself, if no more than by an involuntary nod of approval. I am sorry to say I have not seen it, but I am quite sure that in his heart he does feel that that course would have been the course of wisdom and that if he had adopted that course it would not have been necessary for him to adopt, as we are told by the chief party organ he has had to adopt as his rallying cry for the next campaign, a motto which, perhaps is misconstrued in the 'Globe' and which it seems to me might be more fittingly put, 'follow where the white feather leads.' Some hon. gentlemen asked me what it says, I wish I had the 'Globe' here; it puts it more precisely and significantly than I can remember it. But it says we are likely to have in the ensuing election as a substitute for the rallying cry 'Let Laurier finish his work' the motto 'Follow where the white plume leads.' Everybody knows that a plume is a feather. I think it would be proper therefore to say 'follow where the white feather leads.' For, if ever there was a white feather brigade in Canadian' politics we have it in these men who have no argument except political force to advance against the reasons laid before the House by hon. members on this side. Now, I am happier than I was, because I have brought a smile to the countenance of the Prime Minister. The right hon. gentleman was not the only one who wished to build up Canada from east to west at the time of the proposal of the Transcontinental Railway. He had sufficient force to draw with him one who must have been in his heart an unwilling colleague. A significant heading in the pamphlet to which I have referred reads, ' Mr. Fielding for another transcontinental.' It says that Mr. Fielding was equally emphatic as the Prime Minister in his declaration of the prinicple that our trade must be built up from east to west. Hon. members who are familiar with the history of the Finance Minister will realize what an effort it must
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have been on his part and will realize also what pressure must have been brought upon him by circumstances and his right hon. leader. Perhaps it was upon the principle of tit for tat that he was able on this next occasion to lead his leader. I do not expect however, to learn the mysteries of that Council chamber where, as one of the right hon. Prime Minister's distingushed colleagues once remarked they continue to ' fight like blazes.'
I am glad that there is a fairly good congregation present of hon. gentlemen opposite-even though the minister from British Columbia is not among them-and would call their special attention to these remarks of the Minister of Finance, and would ask them to realize what they mean. He says:
It is desirable that we should give our American. brethren to understand that Canada is resolved to work out her independence in these things, that the present proposal will promote this object, and that even if still another railway should he necessary We shall be prepared to construct it.
Now, if I may be permitted to destroy the continuity of this splendid confession of * new faith on the part of the Finance Minister, I would like to remind him that his first railway has not yet been finished. It is true that he has consented to the construction of a second railway to foster the underlying principle of trade between the east and the west. But while he has placed on this country so huge a burden to promote trade between the east and the west, he comes do this House, forgetting, or ignoring, or not deigning to explain, why the conditions of six or seven years ago are so different from the conditions of today, and tells us that these railways are a mistake, that what we want is not railways between the east and the west, but a new chain of railways to carry the trade of Canada north and south, away from its natural channels, for the benefit of our grasping neighbours in the United States. I will read the. rest of that confession of new faith of the Finance Minister:
Tbe attitude that the government has taken upon tbe subject has already attracted much attention across tbe border, and there is much keener appreciation of Canada's independence than ever before. I
I wonder who told him that. I wonder if he had a private communication from President Taft which inspired him to use this language. I wonder if, since he realized the keenness of the American appreciation of Canadian progress without American assistance, it would not have been logical for him to think that it would be a good idea for Canada to proceed on the course which, according to his own statement, had aroused the admiration of our neighbours to the south. I wonder if it Mr. TAYLOR (New Westminster).
did not show a lack of perspicacity on his part that he did not resist the appeal from Washington to walk into the spiders web which the shrewder politicians of the United States had set for him. Now, to show that these gentlemen were in earnest at the time of the projection of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway, I would refer to the steps which they took to ensure that the views they laid before the House might be carried out. In the agreement with the Grand Trunk Pacific railway there is this provision in section 42:
It is hereby declared and agreed between tbe parties to this agreement that the aid herein provided for is granted by the government of Canada for the express purpose of encouraging the transportation of goods through Canadian channels.
' Of encouraging the transportation of goods through Canadian channels.'
The company accepts the aid on these conditions, and agrees that all freight originating, on the line of the railway or its branches, not *specifically routed otherwise by the shipper, shall, when destined for points in Canada, be carried entirely on Canadian territory, or between Canadian inland ports, and that 1_fie through rate on export traffic from the point of origin to the point of destination shall at no time be greater via Canadian ports tlmu via United States ports, and that such traffic, not specifically routed otherwise by the shipper, shall be carried to tbe Canadian ocean ports.
This, Mr. Chairman, shows an intention,, at least, to make an arrangement with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company that would secure for Canada the maximum benefit from the construction of that railway, but what are the conditions now? As is recognized everywhere, the main trade to be carried over the Grand Trunk Pacific is the grain trade of the Northwest. Eliminate that and you have no justification, either for the Grand Trunk Pacific or for the succeeding railway indicated by the Finance Minister at that time, and since realized by the bonusing of the Canadian Northern. Now what becomes of all these arguments with respect to the necessity of this railway to carry this grain east and west, to export it by our Pacific ports on one hand, and by Fort William and Port Arthur on the other? The hon. gentlemen now propose the diversion of that traffic from our own heavily bonused railways to the ports of the United States. I would like the House to consider another aspect of this arrangement in connection with the Grand Trunk Pacific railway. As they well know, there is a very general suspicion that if there were any possibility of doing it the whole burden of the Grand Trunk Pacific would be shifted to the shoulders of the Canadian people by the philanthropic gentlemen who have projected it for the

benefit of the nation. Now if ever there was a provocation to them to raise any quibble as to their payments promised to Canada, that provocation is supplied by the action of the government, taken even before the completion of the road, tending to destroy all the trade which it was intended should earn for the road the money to pay its obligations to Canada.
It seems to me that this is a subject as to which these ministers should deign to say something to the House, for surely this phase of the case impressed itself upon the cabinet when it was considering this arrangement with the United States evein though, as we have been told, it was put through, for better or for worse, in about the time that it takes to perform a marriage ceremony. It would seem that they should have thought of the momentous effect this diversion of trade would have upon their agreement with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, that they should have realized that it would of a certainty have the effect of saddling upon Canada not only the enormous burden which we have assumed in that connection, but the whole burden of the enterprise. That is a subject which might very well be discussed for a day by itself, as to which I feel wholly unequal at this late hour when the hands of the clock stand at midnight. However, no doubt, before this debate finishes, we will hear from some hon. gentleman on the ministerial benches their views of this aspect of the case, their statement as to the liability, if any, which they expect to have to assume towards the Grand Trunk Railway Company because of the breach of contract and of faith involved in diverting the trade from that road.
Nowt, as I said at the outset, there are matters connected with this arrangement affecting the province of British Columbia which I have not touched upon so far, and which I do not desire to touch upon until the minister from that province is in his place in the House. Unless my failure to come up to the standard of parliamentary oratory under the painful circumstances surrounding my speaking to-night has so annoyed hon. members that they do not wish to hear a continuance of my argument, and therefore wish them wound up before the hon. Minister of Inland Revenue awakes from his slumber and returns to his place. I would suggest to the right hon. leader of the House now that as I most earnestly desire to address myself to the minister from British Columbia when he is here, it being now midnight, it is an opportune time to move that the committee rise, and therefore, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would renew my motion that the committee rise and report progress.
Progress reported.
On motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, House adjourned at 12 o'clock, midnight.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, July 19, 1911.