1912-02-29

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Thursday, February 29, 1912.

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First Part of the Report of the Fifth Census of Canada.-Hon. Mr. Burrell.

Hon.  J. D.@: HAZEN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No.' 118) to create ' The Biological Board of Canada.'


Some hon. MEMBERS: Explain.


Mr. HAZEN.: This Bill has reference to the work carried on in connection with the biological service. The members of the Biological Board serve without pay and they have been hampered in their work to a considerable extent owing to the system under which the work is now carried on. AH supplies 'and everything of that kind in connection with the different stations have to be ordered by the Department of Marine and Fisheries in the first instance, and these gentleman who are now serving feel that their work is considerably delayed, the season during which the work is carried on being very short. They have not been able to give as good results as they think they could if the system proposed in this Bill were adopted. I took the matter up with the Auditor General and this Bill is the result of a consultation with him. The Bill 'creates a'board to be called ' The Biological Board of Canada ' which shall be under the control of the minister. The board shall 'Consist of two members appointed by the minister, one appointed by each of the universities o.f Dalhousde, Laval, McGill, New Brunswick, Queen's and Toronto, and one to be appointed by each of such other universities (to be named by the minister) as may engage in the work of biological research.
The board shall have charge of all biological stations in Canada, and shall ;have; the conduct and control of investigations of practical and economic problems con-129	'	.
nected with marine and fresh water fisheries, flora and fauna, and such other work as may be assigned to it by the minister. The board shall meet annually at the city oi Ottawa and at such meetings shall elect one member to be chairman and another to be secretary treasurer, who shall hold office until the next annual meeting.
Other meetings of the board shall be held at such places and at such times as are necessary for the work of the board. The board may make by-laws for the conduct of its business, but no by-law shall be in force until it has been approved of by the minister. No member of the board shall receive any payment or emolument for his services, but he shall be repaid all actual, reasonable travelling or other expenses in connection with the work of the board. From the moneys appropriated by parliament for the work of the board which in the present year, will amount to $15,000 or which the board may receive through bequest, donation or the sale of specimens of natural history, the secretary treasurer under direction of the board shall expend such sums as are necessary for the work of the board. A detailed statement of the expenses of the board up to the close of the preceding fiscal year shall be prepared annually by the secretary treasurer, and such statement shall be submitted to and be examined by the Auditor General. A report upon the work done by the board shall be made to the minister a3 soon as possible after the close of each fiscal year.


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Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

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(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. CARVELL:: 1.	Has Mr. Frederick Passmore Gutelius been recently appointed to the National Transcontinental Commission?
2.	Is Mr. Gutelius a British subject?
Mr.'COCHRANE:
1.	No.
2.	Mr. F..F. Gutelius is a British subject.


DISMISSALS, Ac.
Mr. LEMIEUX:: 1.	Have any complaints been made against the postmaster of St. Angele de Laval, county of Nicolet?
If so, has an inquiry been ordered in his case?


Mr. PELLETIER:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


Mr. BOYER:: Is it true that the dismissal of Isidore Chevrier, postmaster at Mount Oscar, M. Daoust, postmaster at Isle Perrot, Sud, and Ophir Legault, postmaster at Isle Perrot, Nord, have been determined on?
2.	If so, for what reasons, and by whose request ?
3.	Will the postmaster have the benefit of an inquiry?


Mr. PELLETIER:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	Answered by No. 1.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: 1.	Has Albert Dunn been dismissed from the Public Works Department?
2.	Was hi9 case investigated by commissioner Chauvin?
3.	What is the report of the commissioner concerning this case?


Mr. MONK:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.
3.	The commissioner reports that proof adduced! establishes that Albert Dunn was selected as a delegate to the Liberal convention of Ottawa in 1910, for a by-election, and1 that he participated, as such delegate in the choice of Mr. Auguste Lemieux as a Liberal candidate; that Albert Dunn was again selected as a delegate to the Liberal convention of Ottawa in 1911, but refused to act as such.
Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax;:
1.	Was Mr. P. S. Hefferman, of the Customs Service, Springhill, N.S., dismissed from office?
2 If so, for what reason was said dismissal made, and upon whose recommendation?


Mr. REID (Grenville):: 1.	Yes.
2.	Mr. P. S. Hefferman, suo-collector of customs at Spring Hill, was dismissed on account of political partisanship, upon the recommendation of the Minister of Customs, based on the statement of the member for the constituency.


Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax):: 1.	Has the preventive officer at Ship Harbour, Halifax county, been removed from office?


Mr. COCHRANE.: 2.	If so, upon what grounds, and by whose request P


Mr. REID (Grenville):: 1 and 2. Mr. G. A. Mosher, acting preventive officer of customs at Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia, has not been dismissed.


Mr. CARVELL:: Has any member of the House of Commons applied for the position of superintendent of the Intercolonial railway, vice Mr. Dubd, dismissed? If so, what is his name?


Mr. COCHRANE:: The department has no information.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: 1.	Have any dismissals been made lately at the Montreal Customs House?
2.	If so, wbat are the names of officials so dismissed, and the causes of tlieir dismissal?


John Dowsley Reid: 1 and 2. Several officials at the Montreal Customs House have lately been granted leave of absence, with pay, until July 1, next, when their services are to be dispensed with, on account of their age and inability to perform the work required of them.' Their names are:-Edmond Beauvais, Ferdinand Carbonneau, Flavien N. Cauchon, A. Constant, Louis H. Lafleur, S. Z. Le-boeuf, H. Lusignan, H. Renaud, Michael M. Scleater, John Stinson, F. A. St. Laurent, Louis St. Martin, Ludger Ste. Marie, T. H. Turton, Joseph H. Therrien.


MILITIA TOURING CARS.
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* Mr. MURPHY:
1.	Has the Department of Militia and Defence given an order for twelve touring cars to the Ford Motor Company?
2.	If so, what will be the total cost of the
twelve cars?	_	_
3.	Were tenders invited for the said cars? If so, who were the tenderers, and what was the total amount of each tender ?
4.	For what purpose are the said touring cars to be used, and by whom?
Mr. HUGHES (Victoria):: 1.	Yes.
2.	$11,419.20.
3.	No. The department bought the cheapest and most suitable car on the market.
4.	By officers commanding and staff of divisions and districts, for inspection duties of local armouries, regiments, and cadet corps organization, thus reducing the cost of these inspections by half and increasing the efficiency doubly.


MONTREAL MILITARY SCHOOL.
Mr. LEMIEUX:: 1.	Does the government intend to build a military school on the island of Montreal?
2.	If so, on wbat part of the island of Montreal will it be built?

3.	Is the site purchased, and at what price?
4.	Who was the owner of it?
5.	Who was the agent who would he employed to purchase the site?
6.	Were the military authorities of Montreal consulted?
7.	What commission has been or will be paid to the agent?
8.	Has the agent who sold the site acted in the name of the owner or of a person who lent his name for the purpose??


Mr. HUGHES (Victoria):: This matter is under consideration.


CONTRACT FOR TIES.
Mr. LEMIEUX:: 1.	Has the Minister of Railways and Canals given any contract for ties at Sayabec, county of Rimouski ? If so, what is the name of the contractor?
2.	What is the amount of said contract, if
any?	1
3.	Have tenders been called for?


Air. COCHRANE:: 1.	Yes. Edouard Smith and Hedwidge Boulay.
2.	Edouard Smith, 10,000 cedar ties at 35 cents each. Hedwidge Boulay, 10,000 cedar ties at 35 cents each.
3.	Yes. Tenders were called on August
5,	1911, by newspaper and poster advertisement.


COMMERCIAL AGENT IN FRANCE.
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Mr. LEMIEUX
Is it the intention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce to appoint a commercial agent in France to succeed to Mr. Anatole Poin-dron ?
Air. FOSTER (Toronto North).: To the question of the hon. member the answer of the Alinister of Trade and Commerce is: no.


MAGDALEN ISLANDS NEWS SERVICE.
John Douglas Hazen: The day before yesterday my hon. friend from Rouville (Air. Le-mieux) asked a question with regard to a wireless news service for the Magdalen Islands, and I promised to obtain some information regarding it. I have now the information, and, if in order, I may say that the Department of Naval Service last year erected a wireless station on the Magdalen Islands, so as to establish communication with Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and also to put these Islands in communication with passing ships and with the various stations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This station is being operated for the department by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada under the same agreement which regulates the operation of other wireless stations in that district. The hon. Postmaster Genera] lately made arrangements 1294
to have a weekly news letter officially prepared for transmission to the Alagdalen Islands, and this letter, which will be composed of about 1,000 words, will be forwarded each week via wireless station at Pictou and at the Magdalen Islands, so as to be available for communication at the Islands on each Sunday. The first message sent last week, consisting of 1,738 words, was received at Pictou at 3 p.m. on Friday, February 23, and had been transmitted to the Magdalen Islands station at 6.30 p.m. of the same day. The hon. the Postmaster General could, no doubt, furnish further details of this service.


Air. LEMIEUX.: Perhaps my hon. friend the Postmaster General will state who prepares the letter, and what is the nature of it.


Mr. PELLETIER.: The letter is not going to be a political letter, if that is what my hon. friend fears. A newspaper man in Quebec will prepare it. It will consist of a summary of the most important events which have taken place during the week, political and otherwise, but will contain nothing from a party point of view. It will be a simple news service for the public at large. The Islands have been for years, as my hon. friend knows, without any means of communication with the outside world for five or six months of the year, and this service is considered to be a boon to them. The news letter will be read to them from the 'pulpits of the Catholic churches every Sunday.


CIVIL SERVICE ACT AMENDA1ENT.
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Mr. PELLETIER moved that the House go into Committee of the Whole to-morrow to consider the following proposed resolution :
Resolved, that it is expedient to amend the Civil Service Act by providing that assistant postmasters in post offices in which the postage collections exceed $1,000,000 may be paid a minimum salary of $2,800, with annual increases of $100 up to a maximum salary of $3,500, and that, if the Governor in Council so determines, such provision may be made applicable to assistant postmasters appointed prior to the first day of April, 1912?
Alotion agreed to.

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House in committee on Bill (No. 32) respecting grain.-Air. Foster (North Toronto).
On sec. 123.-Terminal, Public and Hospital elevators.
George Eulas Foster: (North Toronto) We had some discussion in the committee with reference to clause 123, and several amendments and suggestions were made. As a consequence I have redrafted the clause,

and I will read it to the House as I propose to substitute it for the one in the Bill. The first subsection reads as follows in the old clause:
No person owning, managing, operating or otherwise interested in any terminal elevator shall buy or sell grain at any point in the eastern or western inspection division.
2.	Subsection 1 hereof shall not apply to any person who owns, manages, operates or is otherwise interested in any terminal elevator.
That is the same as it is in the old section.
(a)	Which, with the approval of the Governor in Council, has been leased to the board for operation, or has been leased to any person for operation with the approval of the board, or is managed and operated by persons approved of by the board;-or
That is in substance the same as the subsection in the old clause.
(b)	Which is used or operated in connection with any flour mill situate at the same terminal point as such elevator, provided, however, that such elevator shall be subject to such restrictions and _ regulations as are imposed by the board with the approval of the Governor in Council.
That is the same as in the old clause.
3.	Subsection 1 of this section shall not apply to any person by reason only of the fact that he is an owner or holder of stock or shares in a railway company which owns or operates a terminal elevator which does not as a business buy or sell grain.
4.	If the person mentioned in subsection 2 hereof owns, manages, operates, or is otherwise interested, in any terminal elevator other than a terminal elevator or elevators coming under the provisions of subsection 2 hereof, he shall not he exempt from the provisions of subsection 1 hereof.
That I think meets the suggestion which was made, and some of the objections which were made, and seems to be a reasonable arrangement as far as I can see.


Mr. McCRANEY.: Does the section, as it is now framed, meet the objections which were raised by the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) and which impressed some of us on this side of the House ?


George Eulas Foster: (North Toronto) I do not just remember at the present time what the objection raised by the member for Portage la Prairie was, but I have had the good offices of that hon. gentleman, in conjunction with the member for Brandon, (Mr. Aikins) in framing this clause. I think I may say that it does meet his views.


Mr. OLIVER.: I think we may take it for granted that subsection 4 as suggested, covers the point that was intended Mr. FOSTER (North Toronto).
to be covered by a part of the amendment that was offered by this side of the House.


George Eulas Foster: (North Toronto) Yes, that is the intention.


Frank Oliver: We may also assume that subsection 3 covers the point that was intended to be covered by a suggestion from this side of the House ?


George Eulas Foster: (North Toronto) That is correct.


Frank Oliver: There still remains the fact that there is a part of subsection 1 that- is the last provision in the subsection 2, that was not included in the amendment offered from this side of the House, and is considered objectionable by some hon. gentlemen around me.


George Eulas Foster: What is that?


Frank Oliver: The words, ' or which is managed and operated by persons approved by the board.' That is considered to be leaving a measure of responsibility on the board that is not in accordance with the intent of the section. I am quite aware that these words were introduced in the Senate last session, and are embodied in Bill ' Q ' but they were added to an amendment that was placed before the Senate, and in my judgment, and in the judgment of some of our friends here, they nullify the effect of the previous part of subsection 1. We would therefore, object to the insertion of those words, and we would desire the insertion of the word ' public ' in the first part of the section, so that the prohibition would apply to public as well as to terminal elevators, and the exception would not apply to persons owning and operating elevators, who might be approved by the board. I would be willing to accept my hon. friends view that the operators of public elevators in the eastern inspection division need not be included, hut I would very strongly urge that public elevators in the western inspection division, should be under the same restrictions as terminal elevators.


George Eulas Foster: My hon. friend discussed both those points in the committee before.


Frank Oliver: The one in regard to public elevators, but not the other provision.


George Eulas Foster: I think we debated the question pro, and con, and I do not see that it is possible to embody the views of my hon. friend in this clause. I think that this section, taken as a whole, makes as drastic legislation as is necessary for the attainment of the object in view, and as is advisable for this parliament to enact.


Mr. KNOWLES.: There are certain amendments we would like to move, but it is

impossible to frame the necessary amendments at such short notice. Therefore, I would ask that the Bill again be allowed to stand.


George Eulas Foster: I do not want hon. gentlemen opposite to ask that the Bill again stand. We can pass the measure now, and these amendments can be moved formally just as well, and I think better on the third reading of the Bill.


William Erskine Knowles: I would be quite willing to concur in the minister's suggestion if I could, but there are certain facilities granted to us in committee which we would not enjoy when the third reading of the Bill was moved, and we propose to take advantage of them. I submit that at this moment, we cannot be reasonably asked in so short a time, to study matters out now and frame the amendments which we think are necessary. If the amendments proposed by the minister had been placed in the hands of the member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) a few hours ahead, it would have been different.


George Eulas Foster: Although the hon. gentleman says this is new matter, it does not seem to me so. Three-quarters of it is exactly the same as was in section 123, and what remains of it is chiefly suggestions made by my hon. friend1 himself. I went carefully over the verbiage, and it seems all that is necessary to carry out the idea. The clause as a whole does not carry out the idea of hon. gentlemen opposite, I quite agree. But it seems to me that, when we have been nearly three weeks on this Bill, and as we are anxious to get it before the Senate as soon as possible-it will probably take some time there-the views of hon. gentlemen might well be submitted on the third reading, supported by their speeches, if they wish.


Frank Oliver: I think it fair to say, following what was said by my hon. friend from Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles), cnat, even if this were merely ia question of re^ad-justment of such an important clause as this, an intricate and difficult clause, had the hon. minister intended to push the discussion through to-day, it would seem only fair that hon. members on this side should have had previous notice, so that we could have framed our amendments. However, we are willing to waive that if a little delay is granted. Some other clause might be taken up, and in the meantime we will frame amendments, so that our views may be placed before the committee.


George Eulas Foster: Then, we will let that section stand. That is reasonable.


George Ewan McCraney: I see my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen), in his place, I understand from the Minister
of Trade and Commerce that his new amendment has been submitted to my hon. friend. I was impressed with his (Mr. Meighen's), argument the other night, that neither the section in the Bill, nor the amendment proposed at that time by my hon. friend from Moosejaw would be sufficient to prevent individuals as holders of stock in companies, from being interested in the terminal elevators, and also in the country elevators. As he has been through this Bill, I would like to ask him if he is satisfied that the amendment of the minister gets over the objection that he then raised?


Mr. MEIGHEN.: The minister has not discassed that phase with me at all. Answering the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. McCrainey), frankly I think this amendment does not get over the difficulty but that the objection still remains. This much can be said, that the section as is is now proposed, places obstacles in the way of evading the intention of the section. But these obstacles can be overcome.


George Ewan McCraney: I think the hon. gentleman is correct in his view. It is clear then, that there is only one way of getting over the difficulty which section 123 is intended to meet, and that is by carrying out the announced policy of the government to take over the terminal elevators. If the government did this terminal elevator business, there would be no danger of the same parties being interested in terminal elevators and in country elevators.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: This clause stands.
On section 133-delivery of grain on return of receipt,


George Eulas Foster: This is a section that we discussed and decided to divide into two subsections. Subsection 1 has been passed already. It refers to the loading out at the terminals into vessels. Subsection 2 refers to loading out from the terminals into oars. Hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House, I suppose, 'are fairliy familiar with the situation at Fort William and Port Arthur and with the questions that arise there regarding the speedy and reasonable transport to the east after the season of navigation closes. The intention of the subsection will best be explained by reading it:
Subsection 1 shall apply to the delivery of grain to cars upon the return of any terminal warehouse receipt, provided, however, that the owner of such receipt of the terminal elevator warehouseman shall make demand in writing upon the company to place the necessary number of cars upon the elevator track. Should such demand not be complied with within the said twenty four hours, the owner or warehouseman may ap-| ply to the board-

That is the Board of Grain Commissioners
-who shall thereupon investigate the cage. If upon investigation it is found that the railway company is not using due diligence in providing such number of cars as can be reasonably transported, the board shall thereupon so notify the company. Should the company fail to comply forthwith, the hoard may make application to the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada who shall investigate the complaint and may order the company to forthwith provide the cars deemed reasonable by the board. In case the number of cars ordered by the board of Railway Commissioners is not so furnished, the company shall be responsible for the charges for such extra storage as are fixed by the Railway Board and shall upon demand pay such charges to the board which shall thereupon pay them to the owners of the terminal elevator receipt. The board shall make such regulations for application for and delivery of cars as seem necessary.
The modus openamdi intended to be laid down in that subsection is this: If at Fort William demands are made for the transport of grain 'and the receipts surrendered, the railway company is to comply with these deanaindis, or say whether it will not. If it does not comply with these demands within twenty-four hours, the owners of the receipt can apply to the Board of Grain Commissioners, who will investigate the complaint and decide Whether in their opinion there is reasonable ground for complaint or not, then they shall notify the railway authorities. If the railway authorities will not comply with the notification of the board, then the board is to submit the matter to the Board of Railway Commissioners.
The Board of Railway Commissioners then takes up the question and investigates it, and if it considers that the railway company has not done its duty, it makes an order as to what the railway company is to do and notifies the railway company of that order. Then if the railway company does not carry out the order, it is responsible for the storage on all grain in the warehouses which could have been moved if the reasonable number of cars for transport had been provided. Provision is made by which these changes shall be collected and paid over to the parties who own the receipts. Then the Board of Grain Commissioners is to make regulations as to the orderly and proportional application for cars and their just distribution. I think this is as plain as I can make it.
Now that does not go so far as a section of those interested in the grain trade would like to have it go. The situation is peculiar in this respect, that some elevators are owned by the Canadian Pacific railway itself, and others are connected with the Canadian Pacific railway directly and are run in connection with it. Others are in Mr. FOSTER (N. Toronto).
part belonging to other railway companies, and to elevator companies, or to parties who have no railways and no connection with railways. The situation is complicated by these different conditions. It is therefore, a rather difficult position to handle to the satisfaction of all. If you made the law such that whenever a warehouse certificate was surrendered, and demands were made on the railway for cars, or for haulage power to take them out, then it is easily seen that, with millions of bushels in store, demands could be made on the one railway which was to do the hauling out, which would be absolutely impossible to fulfil; and if the storage were then to cease, that would be a definite and easy method of escaping storage charges on the part of the owners of the grain. As the Canadian Pacific Railway Company has its own great system of railway, from Fort William east, owns the trackage, has millions of bushels of grain in its elevators and on its transit lines, naturally enough it wishes to carry its own peculiar traffic first. It is not, we will say, able even to carry that; it is, therefore, considered to be, and I think reasonably, an injustice to make the Canadian Pacific railway chargeable with the storage of all grain in the elevators, the receipts of which in the terminals have been surrendered, and for which transit has been demanded. Naturally enough they would like to carry their own first. The demand that this shall apply equally to all the elevators, and that the storage charges shall be placed upon the one railway if they are not all carried out after a certain time, would result I think in an injustice under the conditions as they at present exist. If each railway had its independent line of trackage towards the east, then each could take care of the grain freights which particularly belong to its line or to the elevators in connection with its lines. Trouble arises because there are three railways which come down to that point, and then only one which leads out from that point towards the east. So these things have to be taken into consideration.
On the other hand, we have a Railway Act and a Board of Railway Commissioners acting in consonance with that Act and under its provisions, and there is provision mads in that for the acceptance of traffic and for the acceptance of interchangeable traffic from one road to another which is being administered by the Railway Board. This section, if made into law, will facilitate the action of the Railway Board, while not assuming to this Act and to the Board under this Act, any of the authority which belongs to the Railway Commissioners under the Railway Act. They are the commissioners whose busi-

ness it is to regulate, and in order to regulate fairly, they must have the best knowledge of all the conditions. They are the ones to whom the matter is in this section ultimately referred. But it becomes a quick and easy way, in the first place, of avoiding disputes, and in the second place, if there be disputes, of carrying them to a quick fulfillment. If the Grain Board intervenes and has to make an examination, then it will convey its views to the railway company, and if its views are not met, it will carry it at once to the Railway Commission and ask the Railway Commission to act. That is the most reasonable way of settling the difficulty partially, for it will never be settled wholly until we have more lines of exit out. It is at least a reasonable method, and without over drastic or too arbitrary legislation.


Frank Oliver: Do I understand the minister's statement is an explanation of the amendment as he moved it the other day, without change, or is he moving an amendment to that amendment which he moved the other day?


George Eulas Foster: _ I am moving an amendment to subsection 2 of section 133.


Frank Oliver: As it appears in ' Hansard '?


George Eulas Foster: I think there are some slight changes.


Frank Oliver: I would like to have a note of those changes before we leave consideration of the amendment.


George Eulas Foster: The first part of it is even with the first part of subsection 2. The first amendment is to change the expression in the old clause:
If upon investigation it is found that the railway company is not using due diligence in providing a reasonable number of oars.
to
If upon investigation it is found that the railway company is not using due diligence in providing suoh number of cars as can be reasonably transported.
The first amendment seemed faulty in that it dealt only with the providing of cars. The purpose of the ordering of cars is not simply to have them loaded and lie there as storehouses, but to have them loaded and transported, and so I include the transporting of the cars as well as the providing. Then it proceeds:
Should the company fail to comply forthwith the board may make application to the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada-
That is the same as in the old. Then dir ectly after that:
-who shall investigate the complaint and may order the company to forthwith provide the cars deemed reasonable by the board.
That is by the Board of Railway Commissioners. In the last sentence no change is made, except that in the former amendment the extra storage charge was to be fixed by the Board of Grain Commissioners. In this one, it is to be fixed by the Railway Board, that is the Railway Board has the whole investigation and the final authorizing of the instructions. It was thought to be better to leave this matter of the storage compensation or refund, with that same board.


Arthur Meighen: I think I have grasped the prinicple by which the minister hopes to regulate the question of storage at terminals. With what study I have been able to give it, I am disposed to disagree with the method adopted. It appears to me, that it will lay the burden of proof on those who are least able to carry it, that is those who will have to prove that there has not been a due provision of cars will not be in a position to prove their cases, for the reason that to secure evidence they would have to go into the camp of the enemy, which they cannot do. I know the difficulty is complicated by the two sets of operators concerned, that is to say, the Canadian Pacific railway company, which alone has an outlet from Fort William and Port Arthur, and the other companies which have no connection with the east. The terminal elevator companies who are simply storing grain, and who have no control in any way over the railways, are in a somewhat different position from the railway companies, who, themselves, operate elevators. 1 If the amendment is carried then, as I understand, if a shipper of grain desires that the whole, or any part of his lot of grain shall be sent east, he immediately surrenders his warehouse receipts and hands the bill of lading to the owner of the terminal elevator. Under the proposed amendments, the storage charge will not then cease, but it will cease only when the cars necessary to carry out the order of the shipper, are actually provided which may be a week or may be a longer time, after the bill of iading is placed in the hands of the terminal elevator owner. If the owner of die grain considers that his demand for cars has not been reasonably complied with he has an appeal to the Board of Elevator Commissioners, who make an order if they deem the evidence produced is satisfactory. That order practically passes into the hands of the Railway Commission for enforcement, unless it is immediately obeyed by the railway company. The position will then be, that an owner of grain wishing to ship it out of a terminal elevator who deems himself unjustly dealt with, (and

these cases will be and have been very numerous), is compelled to go into the offices of the railway' company to get his evidence in order to prove to the Board of Railway Commissioners that the railway company has not reasonably complied with his demand. It appears to me it would be better to commence the other way, and to shift the burden of proof to the other foot, to say to the railway company owning an elevator:	Until you show to the Board of
Railway Commissioners that you have reasonably satisfied the demand for cars under the circumstances, you shall be entitled to no storage, beyond the time of actual instructions, that is beyond the 24 hours after the bill of lading is placed in your hands. No doubt, as the minister has said, the parties interested will raise the objection that this puts into the hands of the shipper an opportunity to be unreasonable, and always throws the burden of proof on the company, that shipper who desires to avoid paying storage for a large amount of grain can make an unreasonable and sudden demand on the railway company and insist that cars be provided for shipment. But in proportion as such a demand might be unreasonable and sudden, so would it be easy for the railway company to prove its case, before the Board of Railway Commissioners, and in the meantime they would lose nothing; it is not as if they were losing a lien and the probable cost of recovery, because the consignees and owners of these large storages of grain are responsible parties in every case.
The grain will not be far, and the shippers will be at hand and can be recovered from long after they can have made their appeal to the board, and prove their case. My point briefly is: That I think it would be better to put the burden on the company, because the company is in a better position from the nature of the case to discharge that burden and they can more quickly and more easily discharge it if the right is on their side. And if the burden is there, what is going to be the result as far as the public is concerned? It is going to make the railway company, by reason of the fact that the obstacles were in their way, and they had to prove the case, it is going to make them pay more attention to the quick despatch of the grain. I know that the argument I have advanced has not quite as much application to the case of companies who have no control whatever over railway transport, but it appears to me, that with an alteration it can be made to apply there, and still place the burden on the railway company in case these companies place the instructions in the bill of lading, to prove, before they can charge storage on the twenty-four hours after the instructions, that they have not been negligent, that Mr. MEIGHEN.
they have under all the circumstances complied reasonably with the demand. It appears to me we are fast reaching a point when the application of the principle I argue for shall be further applied than even to the case of railway terminals. Out in western Canada, as we have heard almost ad nauseam in this House, the congestion is such, and the railways are so far failing to meet the demand for shipment, that it appears to me we are going to get better results if a heavier burden is put on the companies than at present exists, and that they will be compelled under reasonable conditions, to show-after the farmer proved that he was in a position to load a car and was in a position to live up to his end1 of the transaction-that they did all that could reasonably be asked of them to meet his demand, and that until they discharge that burden they shall be compelled to pay him a demurrage after a reasonable time has elapsed. I do not make any pretence of stating how that principle should be applied or to what extent, but I merely say that in addition to its application at the terminals, where I think it should be applied1 now, we are approaching the time when something of the same kind of method must be adopted in the actual loading and shipment of cars from western Canada. To come back again to the case of the terminal elevators, it must be remembered that the terminal elevator charges to-day are on a very remunerative basis, so far as an outsider can judge, relatively to the charges at transfer and public elevators. They charge three-quarters of a cent, no matter how long the grain is in the elevator, and if we take it by the month their average charges are about four times the charges in the eastern elevators. I understand, although I am not in a position to state it authoritatively, that at the eastern elevators the principle I have been arguing for to be applied here, does obtain, and that storage does -cease twenty-four hours after the bill of lading is in the hands of the company. However, whether it does or not, I maintain it should, and that in the long run we will get better results and will add greatly to the facility with which grain is handled, and to the -quickness of its despatch by the companies, if we put the burden of proof where it should be and where it can, if right is on their side, be most equitably discharged.


Frank Oliver: The amendment as first proposed by the minister was somewhat complicated but still I think it is possible to follow it through. The amendments presented to-day, while I do not suppose they make very serious changes in the purport, make it still more difficult for the ordinary member to follow the sections. I have been very much impressed by the argu-

ment of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen). If the section, as amended has the effect that he understands it to have, I would be strongly inclined to support his proposal to amend it on the lines he suggests. But I think it would be in order for my hon. friend himself to prepare some form of words that would convey the id'ea that he has expressed in such manner as-we may have it before us and see just how far it reaches.


Arthur Meighen: I did not know that this section was coming up and I think it makes quite a reversal of the amendment as proposed. I would be very glad to do what my hon.' friend (Mr. Oliver) asks, especially if it should meet the approval of the minister, but in any case, if I had time, I would do so in order that the two subsections could be placed at issue clearly.


Frank Oliver: I do not wish to commit myself either for or against the suggestions my hon. friend has made, but there seems to be such importance in them that I think it would be fair if they were put before us so that we could realize what their effect would be. I was under the impression that the amendment, as printed in 'Hansard', while it arrived at it by a circuitous method, really had the ultimate effect that the storage ceased either at the time or at twenty-four hours' after the grain was ordered out.


George Eulas Foster: (North Toronto) That is not correct.


Frank Oliver: In the amendment as first introduced was there not a fixed time at which storage would cease after the order was given ?


George Eulas Foster: (North Toronto) Both amendments are alike in that the matter was ultimately referred, unless the views of the Grain Commission prevailed. The Grain Commission looked into the whole matter, and if they had judged that the railway company was in default of a reasonable provision, the Board of Grain Commissioners could fix the reasonable rate of storage at . their own discretion, after taking all the circumstances into consideration. There was ho fixed limit. In this, the only change made is to put that duty upon the Board of Railway Commissioners or rather than upon the Board of Grain Commissioners. With reference to what my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie has said, I want to state that this question is a very difficult question from more points than one, and it is especially made difficult because of the peculiar conditions which to-day and for some time to come must prevail at Fort William. I think that the question of storage is involved in what will become
the final settlement of the whole question and for some reasons I would rather approach it from that side than from the other or from both sides combined.
But that is a matter which I cannot undertake at the present session, and which depends upon other things before we can fairly undertake it. The question of storage rates is one which would be within the discretion of the Grain Commission in conjunction with the Governor in Council.
I do not possess the information, neither does the government nor I suppose any other person, which is necessary to an opinion on that question. After the most careful thought that I can give to the matter, and having regard to all the circumstances of the situation, this measure, while not a complete solution, seems to be the only step towards a solution which it is possible for me to take at the present time. It does not fulfil all the wishes of great interests in the grain trade. It may be that it does rot fulfil the desires of the transport companies- or of the warehousemen, but it is a step in the solution of the question which will, if there is a grievance, give relief, and which, if there is no grievance, will of course leave things as they are. With regard to the question of transport, in the conditions prevailing at Fort William, the Canadian Pacific railway is dcing all that is physically possible I think all reasonable men would say that it has done its share towards a solution of .the question under present conditions. Things physically impossible cannot be done by the Canadian Pacific railway any more than by individuals ot other corporations, and it is never considered reasonable to ask an individual or a corporation to do what it is physically impossible for it to do. The circumstances of the situation have to be taken into account. With reference to the storage conditions aiffi the storage charges, these concern a question by itself, but at terminal points this question is clearly connected with the question of transportation and may be an important factor in arriving at the final solution.


Frank Oliver: Unless we can have the advantage of the assistance of my hon. friend from Piortage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) in drafting an amendment which would convey the ideas he has expressed for the consideration of the committee, I would not feel like delaying the clause on my own account, as I do not feel competent to frame such an amendment. I judge from the remarks of the minister that he is impressed with this question of the grain trade as a matter of transportation and [DOT] storage; but I would like to impress upon his mind that it is not a question of transportation and storage except as leading up to sale and consumption, and that, in

order tha't the sale may take place as negotiated, it is necessary that the goods shall be forwarded in accordance with the arrangement made. So that it is in the las't degree important for the carrying on of the trade that when a dealer makes a sale for delivery within a certain time- and the buyer must always buy expecting delivery within a certain time-that delivery shall be made within that time; in other words, when a car is ordered out it is essential to the carrying on of business, assuming The car to have been ordered in good faith, as the result of a sale having been made by the owner and shipper of the grain, that the car shall be furnished, so that the grain may- go forward and the transaction be closed out. Admitting difficulties on the part of the railway companies, and the impossibility, under certain conditions, of their supplying cars, the suggestion of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie seemed to me to be absolutely fair. He said: From the fact that we wish the cars to go forward, it does not follow that the railway company will necessarily have to lose the storage; but it does follow that it will be for the railway company to show cause why the cars do not go forward. It seems to me that is a contention which it is very difficult to overcome, for the reason he gives, that the shipper is not in a position to bring evidence on his side of the case before the Railway Commission. I would like my hon. friend to frame an amendment that would convey the idea that he has in mind, so that at any rate, we would have it for full consideration and discussion. The principle is important, but the actual practice is also important. The amendment is difficult to follow, and it is made more difficult by the amendments of to-day. A new line of thought has been brought to bear on the question, and it is difficult for the ordinary member to appreciate the situation, unless he sees this new line of thought in black and white.


George Eulas Foster: My hon. fric-nd said that there was something anterior to and in importance over and above storage charges and transport; that was, the sale in the first place, and the delivery in the second place. That is very true, and the seller, if he undertakes in a definite way to deliver at a definite time and under certain conditions to the purchaser, is in duty bound to do it, but between the seller at the other end and the other man, the consignee of the grain, there are uncertainties and contingencies. I do not know what kind of contract the seller makes with the purchaser, or the purchaser with the seller, when he buys the wheat and it is shipped out in his car en route to the ultimate market, we will say to Great Britain. Does he guarantee to the purr Mr. OLIVER.
chaser that it shall be delivered at a certain time?


Arthur Meighen: On or before a certain time.


George Eulas Foster: On or before a certain time. Then he practically has to protect himself by taking into account all difficulties and1 contingencies on the road between the point of shipment and the ultimate point, and one of those contingencies, which is a contingency which is well known, is the situation of storage and transport at Fort William.


Frank Oliver: My point is not the interest of the shipper, it is the condition of the ultimate buyer who buys that grain expecting to receive it at a certain time. If he does not receive it as he expects to receive it, and if that condition becomes frequent, he goes to another market for his grain, and the consequence is injurious to our production all along the line.


George Eulas Foster: That is all very well as an argument for having the means of communication as direct, and as little liable to incident and contingency as possible; but under our conditions, as between the seller yonder and the ultimate purchaser, there can De no hard and fast contract, because a man in his senses would not make it. He thinks he will get it there at a certain time. He might contract to get it there at a certain time, and be under penalty if he does not get it there; but I do not think any purchaser makes a transaction in which he does not himself admit the contingencies which lie between him and the ultimate delivery of the grain. With reference to what my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), said,
I think his position is somewhat mitigated1 by this consideration: Looking at it just in the light of a legal transaction, we will say that it puts a great burden upon the possessor of the warehouse receipt at Fort William to gather up the evidence to present to the commission, and so to prove his case. It would, if the case were carried into a court of law, and exact evidence was demanded over a long period and with reference to a large number of considerations. But we must remember that the Grain Commission is right there. The Grain Commission has the whole situation under its purview, so to speak, and it is not a difficult thing it seems to me-I do not know how the board would work it out, but it does not seem to me to be a difficult thing-for the would-be shipper to make a case before the Grain Commission, nor a very difficult or tedious thing for them to come to a conclusion in the premises. That, I think, mitigates somewhat the objection that the burden of

proof should be placed upon the company rather than upon the would-be shipper. The Grain Commission has this whole matter in charge and under purview, which I thought would make it comparatively easy to have a final judgment in reference to each case as it comes up. I do not imagine that very many cases will come up-they might or they might not-in which the final judgment would have to be made by the Board of Railway Commissioners. If you grant that the company wants to afford all that it possibly can, and that the Railway Board is there to see that a reasonable distribution is made, you have a condition of things which will work for the minimum of disputes, and for the maximum of fair carriage.


Frank Oliver: How would the fact that some of 'the elevators axe not owned by the railroad's and some of them are, work out in practice ? Would there be ta possibility of the railway company favouring their own elevators in the delivery of oars, assuming that the railway company i>s a human institution and subject to the frailties of human nature P How would the condition be affected, as between the outside warehouse and the railway company elevator, assuming the conditions of human frailty which, with all deference, I have suggested ? Does not that make for strength in the suggestion of my hon. friend that the burden of proof should be on the railway ? Does it not add strength to his suggestion as to the difficulty of producing that evidence before the railway company by the warehouseman ?


George Eulas Foster: We have provided a piece of machinery for that, as my hon*. friend will see if he looks at the last clause of the amendment:
The board shall make such regulations for application for and furnishing of cars as may seem necessary.
The board being on the spot makes regulations which govern that matter.


Frank Oliver: But this is when the regulations are not being 'actually lived up to, ox where the warehouseman believes they are not being lived up to, 'and it becomes a question of evidence 'before the Railway Commission. Then the railway company, as my hon. friend has suggested, has all the evidence, and the warehouse that is disconnected from the railway has none.


George Eulas Foster: I think that in this case the Board of Grain^ Commissioners would have all the evidence as to the application for, and the distribution of, oars, because they make tire regulations which shall govern the application.


Frank Oliver: But not as to the possibility of the railway company furnishing
the cars, which, after all, is the final argument.


George Eulas Foster: It is, but I imagine to men who understand railway conditions, when they get at about what is the condition of a iroad and what are the reasonable requirements that may be made, they get at it as all people get at evidence from long knowledge of, and _ great familiarity with, the situation. It is difficult with us. We have a thousand and one different things to do, and we put our minds on. one tiling for an hour and then we go to something else, therefore it becomes very difficult for us to deal in such a way. But constant familiarity with such things .produces a capacity for forming judgment and getting at conclusions which, as my hon. friend knows, are sometimes really wonderful. We must not judge the difficulties in the way of the Railway Commission from our own more limited experience and acquaintanceship with these matters.


Frank Oliver: Might I interject one word here which is hardly connected with this clause. I want to point out that at the last discussion on this Bill, when we were considering the question of car distribution, the question arose, I think, about the power of the Grain Commissioners to order the railway companies to furnish caTs. I then took the point that the Board of Grain Commissioners had not that power. I judge now from the terms of this amendment that, as a matter of fact, the Board of Grain Commissioners has not that power, but that it is vested in the Railway Commission.


George Eulas Foster: I do not think we can mix up our executive power under the Grain Act with the executive power which is delegated to the Board of Railway Commissioners as a body of experts with advantage to both, and in the matteT of the general 'distribution of cars it -has jo be governed, I think, by the Railway Board rather than by the Board of Grain Commissioners.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
iMr. OLIVER. We are now ready to take up section 123, if the minister desires to do so.
On section 123, buying and selling of grain by owners, etc., of terminal elevators.
William Erskine Knowles: I move to add the words ' public or ' after the word ' any ' This will make it read:
No person owning, managing, operating or otherwise interested in any publio or terminal elevator shall buy or sell grain at ary point in the western division.


Mr.   POSTER@North Toronto: I do not know that my hon. friends wish me to undertake an argument against this. We had some talk about it, and in my imperfect way I placed before the committee the views of the government. While I would like to meet the wish of hon. gentlemen opposite, I am obliged to differ with them , in this case. If hon. members have any new light or new arguments, I am still open to be convinced.


Frank Oliver: I do not know that we should delay the committee on this question. We explained the matter to the hon. minister the other day, and if the truth did not convince him then, we can hardly expect that it will now.
Amendment negatived.


William Erskine Knowles: I suppose it would be entered in the proceedings as ' Lost ' on division and so save taking a vote.


George Eulas Foster: Yes, so far as you can take a vote in committee.


William Erskine Knowles: I think we have a majority, anyway.


George Eulas Foster: But majorities should never be oppressive.


William Erskine Knowles: We had some discussion, in which my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) took part, as to whether it was possible to amend this Bill in such a way as to prevent subsidiary companies or other means of evasion being employed. I would like to move to amend this section so as to read:
No person owning, managing, operating or in any way interested in a terminal elevator shall buy or sell or he in any way interested in the buying or selling of grain at any point in the western inspection division.
I think that in this way we cover, or at least come a great deal nearer to completely covering and providing against, ah the means that the ordinary mind might invent of evading this clause. When we provide in the first line ' no person owning, managing, operating or in any way interested in a terminal elevator,' that would cover any person who was a shareholder in any company that owned, managed or operated such an elevator. Now, what we need is to make it equally tight and fast at the other end, and so I propose to add ' or in any way interested in the buying or selling of grain.' I think that would cover the holding of stock in any subsidiary company engaged in this business.


Arthur Meighen: I regret that the energy of my hon. friend from Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) has been employed to so little effect. I cannot see that his amendment will go any further towards meeting Mr. KNOWLES.
the objection than does the section as it stands. And, as I stated when the subject was under discussion before, I do not think that difficulty can be overcome without creating a confusion that would be worse than the present state of affairs. The hon. member's amendment means that no person who deals in any way in grain, or is directly or indirectly interested in dealing in grain, shall be interested directly or indirectly in the handling of grain at a terminal elevator. That, to my mind, is already done by section 123 as it stands. But that does not stop the means of evasion. Take the same illustration that I used before. Five men, A, B, C, D and E, desire to deal in grain and also to act as operators of an elevator. They form two companies, a storage company and a grain company. Now, even under my hon. friend's amendment, these five men can through one company deal in grain and through the other deal in storage. None of these men could do both these things, but they can hold stock in two companies, one of which does one thing and the other of which does the other. Why? Because the grain company is not interested in the storage company, nor is the storage company interested in the grain company.


William Erskine Knowles: But A, B, C, D and E would be interested, as shareholders in both companies, in carrying on both these things.


Arthur Meighen: But A, B and C are stopped, and must sit quietly at home, while the grain company is not stopped.


William Erskine Knowles: But you can penalize them for being interested in that company.


Arthur Meighen: You cannot penalize them when there is no guilt. The grain company is not interested directly or indirectly in the storage company. Because the grain company has shareholders, who are also shareholders in the storage company, you can not say that the grain company is interested in the storage company. The storage company might go into liquidation, and the grain company would not be affected. They are utterly distinct corporations in the eyes of the law.


William Erskine Knowles: Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that if the law says a man shall not be interested in the two companies, that that law is not intra vires?	-


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend does not say that.


William Erskine Knowles: That is exactly what I say.


Arthur Meighen: If he is, he cannot deal in grain.


William Erskine Knowles: He cannot be interested in buying or selling it.


Arthur Meighen: He canot deal in grain, that is quite true. But would my hon. friend say that a man could not be interested in two such companies?


William Erskine Knowles: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Then he is going much further than his amendment goes. I for one, would not be a party to such legislation, if I could help it. Look at the confusion it would land us in. But let me point out that the hon. gentleman's amendment does not go that far. His amendment says that no person who is interested in any sense whatever in the one shall be interested in any sense whatever in the other; that is to say, that no person if he is so interested, can deal in grain. But the company can do it. The company is a distinct entity in the eyes of the law, and unless one company holds shares in the other company, the two companies can go on doing business. Of course, if one company holds shares in the other, then they could not, under the clause as it stands, or under the amendment. Now the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) says: Go on and make it a penalty for a man to own a share in a storage company who also owns a share in an elevator company. He cannot seriously ask us to pass that legislation. He will search the records of any civilized country in vain for any law of that sort. A man can own stock in any company he wants to buy in. Take the case of an innocent party who holds some shares in an elevator company. He finds himself hard up, and desires to sell. He cannot go to John Smith and ask him to buy it, because he would have to look up John Smith's assets to make sure that he does not own shares in the storage company. Also, suppose I own stock in a storage company, and my son holds some stock in an elevator company. I die, and my son becomes the heir, and he at once becomes a criminal in the eyes of the law. It would be utterly absurd. I cannot now bring to my imagination a picture of all the embarrassing situations that would be created, and the confusion that would arise would be much greater than the calamity we are seeking to avert. It seems to me utterly absurd to say that a man could not have so much as one share in a million dollar elevator company, and at the same time have one share in a million dollar grain company. It might be reasonable, if you could do it without too much confusion, to say that no one person shall hold a majority of the shares in both. But that again would be impossible of enforcement. In the first place, the amendment proposed by the hon. member, does not, in any sense, eliminate the objections raised; and secondly, if he went further, as seems to be his intention, it would give rise to a state
of affairs more intolerable than that which now exists.


William Erskine Knowles: It is true that the legislation I suggest would be unusual, but I do not think it would have that absurd effect he thinks it would when he says that the heir of a shareholder in both companies would be automatically criminal.
If men have shares in a storage company and also in a company dealing in grain, let them get out of the one or the other. That is the tenor of 123, and it is no more unreasonable than the legislation of the minister. The minister says that no man can be interested in an elevator and buy one bushel of grain without being criminal. The principle is the same and the philosophy is the same. The member for Portage la Prairie, I suppose, thinks that the minister's legislation would at least be harmless. Eut the minister's legislation is the same kind as my amendment, and with the same motive, only it does not go so far in making provision against clever evasions, which I am endeavouring to prevent. My amendment says that no person who is in any way interested in an elevator shall be in any way interested in buying or selling grain, and that means as a shareholder in either. I think this parliament has power to make it an offence to be interested in buying or selling grain under those circumstances.


Arthur Meighen: Would my hon. friend tell_ the committee what would result supposing A was interested in both?


William Erskine Knowles: I think he would be liable to the penalty under the law. If he becomes a shareholder in a company, it is his business to know what the business of that company is. The amendment says that no person who is in any way interested in an elevator should be in any way interested in the buying or selling of grain; it would, as a matter of law, of course, be that he would have to be aware of the fact that he was wrongfully so holding stock in two companies, as no man can unconsciously commit a crime.


Arthur Meighen: There is no penalty provided in this clause.


William Erskine Knowles: There is a penalty pro- -vided in the Bill for the infraction of any of the provisions of this Grain Act.


Arthur Meighen: Will my hon. friend name the clause ?


William Erskine Knowles: 242 says:
Every person is guilty of an offence and liable to a penalty. . . who, while owning, managing, operating or being otherwise interested in any terminal elevator, buys or sells grain at any point in the western ins-spection division contrary to the provisions of section 123 of this Act.

243 also says that every person guilty of an infraction of this Act is liable to a penalty. I think these two clauses fairly cover my hon. friend's question. My point is that the minister's suggested legislation is of the very kind and the very principle on which my amendment is based, except that my amendment goes to a logical conclusion, and makes it effective.


Mr. MACLEAN.: (South York) Would not state ownership of the terminal elevator make evasion impossible ?


Mr. THOMSON.: Qu'Appelle. Sure.


William Findlay Maclean: Then if the farmers are suffering under these disabilities, should not that be the underlying principle of this Bill ?


Levi Thomson: We are quite satisfied to do that.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member is surely hardly serious in asking the House to enact legislation that would1 have that effect. It would throw on the officers enforcing this law a burden greater than the whole burden of the Criminal Code in Canada to-day. How could they go over the 7,000,000 people in . Canada, and find out if any one of them has a share in each of two companies? If John Brown wished to have stock in two companies he could have his stock in one in his own name, and in the other in his wife's name, and if he had not enough wives, he could have it in the name of any other citizen of Canada.


William Erskine Knowles: Would that argument not apply as well to the legislation proposed by the minister?


Arthur Meighen: The legislation of the minister, if it could be carried into effect, would be reasonably useful. I do not believe that it can be carried into effect.


William Erskine Knowles: The wife business would work just as well in what the minister suggests as in my amendment.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, but the burden of enforcing it would not be so great. The amendment is absurd on its face, because there would be nothing in the way of an intent to violate the provisions1! of this law in a man having a share in each of two companies. To attempt to enforce such a regulation as the hon. gentleman has proposed would be too absurd' for consideration,


William Findlay Maclean: The argument of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen), is against both of these proposals. He has not confidence in either. The only way to effectually Mr. KNOWLES
stop this evil is by complete government control of the terminal elevators.


George Eulas Foster: One step at a time.	>


Levi Thomson: I agree with what the last speaker has said in regard to public ownership, provided it is [DOT] applied to all terminal elevators. Then we would not need this section. The only reason we need it now is that we are not sure we are to have public ownership or operation of all terminal elevators. I do not think the hon. member for Portage la Prairie has answered the objection to his argument raised by the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles). There would' be no more difficulty in enforcing the hon. member's amendment than the section as proposed by the minister. If the principle laid down in the section is correct, then the amendment of my hon. friend is only bringing that principle to its legitimate conclusion, and unless you adopt some such amendment you mignt as well abandon the section. I cannot understand the hon. member (Mr. Meighen) being prepared to vote against the amendment suggested, and1 in favour of tne section as proposed by the minister.
As to the point just raised that the suggested amendment would not be effective, I have tried to follow my hon. friend, but I must say I camiot see its force. I can hardly fancy him raising such an argument in court. Take the illustration he gives. A, B, and C are interested in a terminal elevator, and also in the purchasing business. Suppose that A, B and C are interested in the Saskatchewan Grain Company, buying in the interior, and in the Fort William Terminal Elevator Company. It is quite true that you would not be able to prosecute the Saskatchewan Grain Company und'er this, but why can you not prosecute A, B, and C who may be interested in both companies. They could be prosecuted, they come within the section as it is proposed to be amended.
As to the legislation being unusual, I think the legislation proposed by the minister is unusual, but I do not think that should condemn it. Why condemn legislation because it is unusual? Are we to be continually trailing behind other people? Have we not as much right to originate legislation as any one? In regard to the grain trade, I think we are best qualified and1 in the best position on earth to introduce new legislation. If my hon. friend is worrying about legacies I would have no objection to a clause excepting the recipient of a legacy of stock until he has had time to dispose of it. That is not a serious matter. I would like to see the whole section dropped as utterly useless or else to follow it to its legitimate and

reasonable conclusion, and make it effective.


Mr. SCHAFFNER.: Half a loaf is better than no bread.


Levi Thomson: But when the half loaf crumbles to nothing in your hands, it is useless. You would not get the half loaf after all.


George Ewan McCraney: Judging by what the minister said the other evening when we were considering this section, I was not at all sure that he considered there was a grievance. The operation of the terminal elevators appears to him to have been so satisfactory within the last year or two, at any rate he expressed his satisfaction with it, that I am not sure whether in his own mind he thought any legislation on this point necessary. However, it is in the Bill, and we must take it as it stands. I think my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) is right, that this section will be wholly ineffective to carry out the purpose for which it was intended, if the machinery of two companies may be put into operation, as the hon. member says it may be. I have no doubt that if evasion is intended, it will be accomplished by that method. We ought to decide as to whether we want an effective section or not. If we do we should pass some legislation such as my hon. friend from Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) suggests. If we are not going to pass effective legislation, then we should drop the clause altogether, and perhaps the minister will consider again taking up that policy which was laid down by his leader before the elections, to have the terminal elevators owned by the government, which will afford an effective remedy.


Mr. TURRIFF.: If we are going to do anything to remedy the evil that has existed, and certainly in the minds of the growers of the wheat a very serious evil does exist, the one way to remedy it is to prevent the men who own the terminal elevators from buying and selling any wheat in the interior elevators. Apparently that has been brought home to the minister, because he presents a clause in this Bill ostensibly for the purpose of preventing that, but when we come to look into it we find that in the judgment of a great many members of the House who have given most attention to the matter, this clause will not accomplish what the farmers of the west want and what the minister started out to give them, namely, to prevent the owners of the terminal elevators owning and operating and deaPng in wheat in the interior elevators. If that is really the intention of the minister,
what possible objection can there be to making that clause mean what apparently it was intended to mean at first. Either make the clause accomplish what it is intended to accomplish, or don't try to deceive the farmers of the west by putting in a clause that apparently meets their case when it actually does not. If the gov-eminent is determined not to give that protection to the wheat growers of the west; if the government is determined not to prevent the man who owns a terminal elevator from dealing in wheat in the interior, then drop the clause altogether because as it. is now presented by the minister it will not prevent any single terminal elevator owner from being interested in the elevators in the interior and dealing in grain to whatever extent he likes. This is one of the difficulties the minister finds himself in on account of not carrying out the policy his leader advocated. Throughout the west during Mr. Borden's tour last summer, the right hon. gentleman promised definitely and without any reservation that if he came to power the government would own and operate the terminal elevators as a public utility. If he would carry out that policy now you would get over all the difficulties that arise in these clauses. And, while I must admit that I am not much in favour of government ownership of public utilities yet if there is one thing on the face of this earth that a government should be able to do well, it is to run terminal elevators at Fort William and Port Arthur. It can be done without any loss whatever to the government. The fees charged at the present time for putting the grain through these elevators and storing it will pay the cost of operation, and will also pay interest on the investment, if they are bought or leased on any reasonable terms, as they can be. Here is an opportunity to do what the farmers of the west want and what the leader of the government said he would give them. But, instead of doing that the Minister of Trade and Commerce brings forward a clause that ostensibly is to prevent the owners of terminal elevators from dealing in wheat in the interior, but which does not accomplish that end at all. Either make the clause mean what it purports to mean or wipe it out altogether and not try to hoodwink the farmers of the west. '


Arthur Meighen: The purpose of the clause, as it stands, is to, if possible, obviate the possibility of collusion between the grain man and storage man to the detriment of the public. In seeking to achieve that object, the clause goes to the extent of placing obstacles in the way of such collusion. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) in an endeavour to meet the same end, creates a condition of affairs

that is worse than if we never attempted to remove the difficulty at all, because it places on the statutes, laws that bring about an absurdity. I must say that for my own part I very largely agree with the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean), and with other hon. gentlemen who have stated that if we are to obtain this object in its entirety the only way is by public ownership of the elevators. I am not so recent a convert to that principle as are hon. gentlemen opposite. I can remember when I urged this principle in this House and met with the determined antagonism of the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff), and the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Neely), and of many others of those gentlemen opposite, antagonism not only by their speeches but by their solid party vote. No one welcomes more than I do the step taken Dy the government in the matter; they have adopted the principle of government ownership; they have conceived it their duty to the people of Canada to move not hurriedly, but slowly in the matter, and as they go step by step in the principle of government ownership of elevators they learn as they go, and the advantage will accrue to the people^ of Canada. I believe that a great part of the object to be served by this clause can also be served by forcing the railway companies so far as possible to operate their own elevators, and I earnestly hope that the government will see its way to adopt that principle, and to push to the utmost extent it can, the necessity of these railway companies operating their own elevators instead of leasing them for operation.
But that means the adoption of the principle of government ownership, which they have done, and I am glad to see that they have done it, and, by forcing the railway companies to operate their own elevators, they will meet to a large extent, the object in view, under clause 123; and Sir, I will welcome, as everybody on this side of the House will welcome, the newly-found allegiance of hon. gentlemen opposite, now that they know what the sentiment of western Canada is, in this regard. I will welcome their assistance, and I only regret that we had not the eloquent voice of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Thomson) in the last parliament, because I can see, from the manly stand that he has taken here, that he would not have yielded to the party whip in this House, session after session, but would have been one of the bolters, and would have gone the whole road that was so often threatened to be gone, by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff).


William Findlay Maclean: I do not wish to divert- the debate from where it is at the present moment; but something of the widest national importance-has come Mr. MEIGHEN.
out in this debate. We have laws in this country creating corporations, and these laws are constantly resorted to for the purpose of evading the general law for the protection of the public welfare of this country. We are bound to continue the incorporation of companies by general Act or by special Act, but some day soon we must provide a general law that when an incorporation is used for the purpose of evading a law which is intended to protect the public welfare, or for the purpose of getting ahead of the public; the company doing so, will lose its charter. We shall have to deal with that question at an early day, both from a federal and a provincial point of view.


Mr. BURNHAM.: How would the hon. member deal with that question?


William Findlay Maclean: If a number of men, in order to evade the public law, sought incorporation, when that fact was proved the Act of incorporation would be forfeited.


Frank Oliver: Section 123, now under discussion, was made a part of Bill (Q) of the Senate last session, for the purpose of separating absolutely the business of the storage of grain in terminal elevators from the business of buying grain at country points. The section was framed for this purpose, and the reason was, that it was admitted in the evidence that had been given, that there was no possibility of a government inspection of terminal elevators while they were in the hands of grain dealers, that would effectively prevent the mixing of grades. In the expectation th-at some provision would be made that would have .this effect, section 123 as it was first introduced was framed. What my hon. friend from South York has said is absolutely true. It was recognized by the government at the time that section was framed that the condition which was said to exist must be remedied. It was expected that it could be remedied by a provision such as is contained in this section; but it was thoroughly understood that section 13 of this Bill, which was sections 16 and 17 of Bill Q, was the evident intent of the then government in that matter. The intent is clearly *et out in these two sections, the one being party to the other. So that a certain purpose was intended to be achieved. If it could be achieved under section 123, well and good. There was less disturbance of then existing trade conditions than would occur if advantage were taken of the provisions of section 13. But if on experiment it was found that the provisions of section 123 were not sufficient, then the alternative was 'already embodied in the . Act of government operation of terminal elevators. When the Bill came to the Commons, it was intended that section 123, as it is repeated in the Bill now before the

House, slhould be lamcnded so as to mate it conform more nearly to the principle that it was intended to express. My hon. friend from Portage ia Prairie and his colleagues from the west will remember very distinctly that (they took advantage of the conditions that existed at that time to prevent the Bill from either being amended or being passed in its unamended form.


Mr. LANCASTER.: Did the government move the amendments which the hon. gentleman speaks of in the House ?


Frank Oliver: I did not say the government 'did.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Did any one ?


Frank Oliver: No.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Then how do we know anything about them ?


Frank Oliver: If the hon. member will do me the courtesy of listening to what I say, he will know.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: The hon. gentleman is telling this House that it was intended to make the amendment. Where was the intention manifested ?


Frank Oliver: I am stating a certain intent, and I expect the hon. gentleman to take my word. This section of the Bill comes before this House now in exactly the same form as it came in the previous session, land the House has to face the position now as it faced it then; and it is for those bon. members wiho at that time declared their opposition, to the Bill, because they said that it did not provide for government ownership of elevators, either to secure the amendment of that section so that it will be effective or to declare here and now .for government ownership of terminal elevators.
There is a purpose to be served which every member from the west is well aware of, and I am sure other members of the House as well are aware of. It makes no difference whether that purpose can be served under the principles laid down, or proposed to be laid down, in this section or not. If it cannot be served under the principles laid down, or proposed to be laid down, in this section-and my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) says it cannot- then it is for him, if he supports government ownership, to get up in this House and say so and back his statement with his vote.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) has stated what he meant to do, but he knows, and every member of the House who was here on the 19th of May last year knows, it would have been absolutely impossible to have carried out his intentions.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: He never manifested the intention.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I have not Bill Q. here, but it contained, I think, the same number of clauses that are to be found in the present measure. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) knows very well whether he acted purposely or not-I am not aware as to that-but this Bill was brought down on the 19th of May, tile day upon which this House adjourned, and yet he tells uis he expected this Bill, the criticism of whicfe on his part at least a week has taken, to pass.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: The ex-Minister of the Interior would lead us to believe that his intention was to have the Bill properly criticised and then placed upon the statute hooks of the country so that a grain commission, or any other body of men, could work intelligently under it, all in one day. Certainly we objected to putting the Bill through in one day because it was an absolutely impossible thing !to do, a fact which he certainly knew himself. The hon. gentleman therefore should not be so sensitive when his intentions, as he expressed them, are not taken at their full value.


William Erskine Knowles: The deba'te has had reference to the question as to the stand of members on both sides of the House on the matter of public ownership of terminal elevators. As I take i!t our stand is not so much that we are committed at this moment to the theory, or the principle, of government control and operation of government elevators, as that we are committed to the theory and principle that when a gentleman advocates a certain measure before the people of Canada for their support, and makes solemn -promises as did the Prime Minister, he should carry those promises into effect.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: When did you start to do that?


Mr. BLAIN.: What abou*t free trade?


William Erskine Knowles: When did we start?


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Yes.


William Erskine Knowles: Hon. gentlemen opposite have thrown the taunt across the floor of The House that we did not lower the tariff. The tariff was lowered degree by degree, and a good, substantial reduction in the duties was made. That taunt is used only for political effect by hon. gentlemen opposi'te, including the Conservative member from the prairie provinces.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Did my hon. friend vote for the reduction of the tariff on agricultural implements?


William Erskine Knowles: Where ?


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: In this House,


William Erskine Knowles: Was there ever a vote on it ?


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Certainly there was a vote on it.


William Erskine Knowles: I question the truth of the hon. gentleman's statement. There never was a vote on it. in this House.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I say most definitely that there was a vote taken in this House to reduce the tariff on agricultural implements from 17i to 10 per cent, and the hon. gentleman himself spoke against it.


William Erskine Knowles: It is the old circumstance of our Tory friends.


George Eulas Foster: (North Toronto) Now when was the start made ?


William Erskine Knowles: What my hon. friends lack in argument they make up in noise. I still make the statement that there was not a vote taken on that question in the House. The member for Portage la Prairie (Mr.Meighen) who wishes to interrupt cannot question the accuracy of my statement, because he was not here at that time.


Arthur Meighen: I read your speech.


William Erskine Knowles: Strange though it may be, we got along at that time without the magnificent and wonderful mind of my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), and I think we can get along equally well to-day. I will not cross swords with that hon. gentleman, because his word will not be accepted as against mine when he was not a member of the House at the time. I say again that a vote was not taljen.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman will say he did not speak against that motion I will accept his word for the present.


William Erskine Knowles: I am not dealing with my hon. friend's acceptance of the matter.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


William Erskine Knowles: Hon. gentlemen laugh. The weaker the case is the louder they laugh, and they will laugh a great deal louder before I am through. I make the statement that in this House since the hon. gentleman (Mr. Schaffner) came here -and he was here one year before me- there never has been a vote to reduce the duty on agricultural implements. What my hon. friend is referring to-and he must know it from the records-is this: A more or less politically cowardly move was made in committee-


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: 


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


William Erskine Knowles: I say politically cowardly. I do not accuse the hon. gentleman personally, I say it was cowardly politics to bring up a motion in committee of this House, where hon. members voted on it and did not have any record made as to how they voted. I make the statement still, that there never was in this House on the subject referred to, a vote such as the hon. gentleman speaks of. If he will state that there was a vote in the committee, I will say he is correct.


Mr. LENNOX.: That is mere quibbling.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I still say a vote was taken in this House. Where else would the committee, be ?


William Erskine Knowles: My hon. friend means the building. I suppose ?


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I mean in this par ticular chamber.


William Erskine Knowles: Then if my hon. friend will say a vote taken in this chamber-


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Yes. a vote taken in this particular chamber.


William Erskine Knowles: There is many a thing done in this chamber.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: In this chamber during a session of the House. What more do you want?


William Erskine Knowles: What more do I want, nothing except to repeat what I just said that there has not been any vote in this House such as the hon. gentleman (Mr. Schaffner) stated. If my hon. friends opposite want to haggle over the point they can do so, but the question can be decided by the record. The record shows that the resolution was never voted on in this House, but in committee. And I say it shows political cowardice on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite that they did not dare to divide this House when the question came before it. Had that course been followed, the present Prime Minister and Minister of Trade and Commerce would have voted with us on that occasion, for in the committee they did on that occasion vote with the Liberal party, and practically all the Conservatives on the committee so voted. It was a political dodge to deceive the farmers in the prairie provinces. They were afraid to divide the House on the question, and since that, there has been no opportunity afforded for taking a vote by which hon. gentlemen could place themselves on record. More than that, I want to say, that if on any occasion hon. gentlemen opposite bring up the same cheap clap-trap in order to deceive the farmers, my stand will be with the party which sides with1

the farmer and which has devoted its best efforts in the past to the lowering of the tariff.


Arthur Meighen: Did not the hon. gentleman have a resolution on the order paper to the same effect which he purposely refrained from moving, and so blocked discussion for a year?


William Erskine Knowles: No. I say that is not so.


Haughton Lennox: That is on the record, too.


Mr FOSTER (North Toronto).: Perhaps my non. friend will now come to the amendment.


William Erskine Knowles: 
Edward Arthur Lancaster: Is the hon. gentleman objecting to a beginning being made?


William Erskine Knowles: I object to the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden), coming to my constituency and telling my constituents one thing, and then coming here to Ottawa and doing another.
We have had a number, of promises from these gentlemen who are now in power. I wish to refer to some of them to shew the general system of the present government. Many of their supporters elected in Ontario were elected be-

cause they promised that if the Conservative parity got into power, la Jaw should be passed to legalize the marriages -the hon. member tor Lincoln (Mr. Lancaster) can tell me the wording of it.


Haughton Lennox: Who matte the promise?


William Erskine Knowles: The people of Ontario were promised that if they would vote for these hon. gentlemen-


Haughton Lennox: Where was the promise made?
Mr. KNOWLES-they would insist on there being put through parliament at once an Act legalizing marriages in the province of Quebec. And when it came to voting on the matter, there were five- the famous five, the faltering but faithful five- who voted for it, and the rest voted to hoist the thing over to the old country. A second illustration is the Farmers' Bank; some promised the shareholders of the Farmers' Bank that they would get their money back for them. Vote for us, said the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers), and our government when it comes into power will give you poor farmers back the money that these thieves took from you. Is that promise being carried out? Take another; The double play on the navy question. The members on the other	side from	the	province of
Quebec told the people: Vote for us and at the very first session	the
Navy Bill will be repealed and this whole question settled forever. And we find that, only yesterday, in another place, the leader on the government side there announced that the matter would not be touched this year, and the whole Conservative party in that House, including a minister of the Crown, voted against the repeal of this Navy Act which some gentlemen supporting the government promised would be repealed this session if they came into power, and if not so repealed these gentlemen stated they would resign, but . there is no repeal and the hon. members from Quebec remain with us. And we find this party that has come into power on the strength of promises with regard to Ne Temere, the navy, the Farmers' Bank


Rodolphe Lemieux: The school question.
Mr. KNOWLES-yes, and the school question, and the control and operation of terminal elevators, is not carrying out one of these pladges. They have got the votes, they have fooled the people. What more care they? There is but one exception to their complete failure to carry out their promises. I see the Minister of Finance (Mr. White), is here and in good humour. He has carried out one promise that was made. But the promise was not Mr. KNOWLES.
made to the common people. This was not a promise to the thousands of Protestants in all the Ontario ridings like that other promise, that if they would put out of power the leader of the late government Ontario would have such an ascendancy that the marriage question would be dealt with in a way to please them. It was not a promise made to the poor habitant of Quebec like the one that the Navy Act should be repealed. It was not a promise such as that made to the poor farmer of the northwest, that there should be government ownership and operation of terminal elevators, nor is it their promise to the trusting farmers, with worthless bank stock in his hands. No, this was a promise made to their masters, the manufacturers, that if the party now in power should succeed a Tariff Commission would be established. That is the one and only promise that they have kept.
Amendment negatived.


William Erskine Knowles: 
William Erskine Knowles: I move that section 123 be amended by striking out the words ' or is managed or operated by persons appointed by the board,' wherever they occur at the end of clause (a) in subsection 2, and thereafter.
Amendment negatived on division, and section 123 adopted.


George Eulas Foster: We had some conversation about section 169. After looking into it carefully, I propose that section 169 be dropped.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On section 185,-time allowed for loading,
George Eulas Foster: I move to add at the end of subsection 3:
Nothing in this part shall be construed as requiring the owner of a flat warehouse to insure the grain while in his warehouse.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
On section 208,-conditions respecting carloads to eastern points,
George Eulas Foster: We passed this section, but since then we have passed a clause by which a sample market may be established in Calgary and Winnipeg. I wish to add the words ' and Fort William.' This is to bring Fort William in line with Calgary and Winnipeg as order points.


Mr. BUCHANAN.: I have no objection to that amendment, but I would like to draw the attention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster), to the fact that when the western route is established and it has been practically recognized by the location of a sample market and ithe inspection division at Calgary, there will be three spouts, so to speal^ by which wheat will be carried from the prairies to the Pacific coast. There are two in existence at the present time, the main line of the Canadian Pacific railway, through Calgary and Crowsnest Pass route through southern Alberta. Later on, when the Transcontinental lines are finished, Edmonton will become a point of entrance for wheat going to the Pacific coast. I would suggest to the minister that he locate an inspector in southern Alberta, to inspect grain that might be shipped by way of the Crowsnest Pass railway to the Pacific coast, As most western members are aware at the present time, the Kootenay Central line of the Canadian Pacific railway is uoder construction, and when it is completed it will he possible for grain from the prairie to be carried along the route of the Crowsnest Pass and the Kootenay Central to Golden on the main line and then by way of the main line to Vancouver, cutting out the heavy grade between Calgary and Field on the
main line. A good deal of the grain, I understand from men who are engaged in the transportation business, is certain to be shipped along the Crowsnest Pass route instead of along the main line of the Canadian Pacific railway. I think, therefore, it would be well for the minister to consider the location of an inspector at the city of Lethbridge. Lethbridge is located in the centre of what is known as southern Alberta, it is the centre also of the great wheat district of that province, and it would be a great convenience to the farmers and shippers if they had an inspector at Lethbridge. If the minister would appoint one there he would greatly please the people in that part of the country. Later on, it will no doubt be necessary to appoint an inspector at Edmonton, for the reason that grain will be shipped from the northern part of the province by other routes than by Calgary.


George Eulas Foster: I have heard what my hon. friend has said in support of this proposition. These things may come to be necessary from time to time, and we have met that possibility by taking power in the Act itself for the erection of a subdivision in any part of the western division.


Frank Oliver: Before that section passes I think it would be desirable if the minister would give some explanation of the reason for establishing Fort William on the same footing as Calgary and Winnipeg.


George Eulas Foster: Fort William is included as an order point to meet the necessity and convenience of working a sample market at Fort William. Before long large numbers of cars of grain, instead of passing through Winnipeg on the present routes, will go by northern and southern cut offs, and samples will be taken at those points and brought down to Winnipeg. These oars will go straight through to Fort William. It is necessary to have Fort William as an order point in order that in the interval between those cars having been sampled on these north and south -cuts and their arrival at Fort William the samples may arrive there and the operations of the sample market may be carried on.


Frank Oliver: My information is that the reason why there is not now a sample market in Winnipeg is not any lack in the the law, for provision is made for constituting Winnipeg an order point for the purpose of having a sample market there, but the fact that there has not yet been tributary to Winnipeg a sufficient trade of the class that is necessary for the carrying on of a sample market, and I would think that the attempt to establish a sample market at Fort William will detract from the advantage of a sample market at Winnipeg possibly to such a degree as to

render the establishment of such a market there ineffective or impossible as a practical matter. The minister should consider that, before providing for the establishment of a sample market at Fort Wiliam. He may do more harm than good to the principle of the sample market by unduly multiplying such markets.


George Eulas Foster: I have not lost sight of that, but I do not look for any bad results from this proposal. As to the possibility of-a successful sample market at Fort William, it may be realized at once, or it may be realized later, but we have made provision for it in this section.
I have two other amendments, one to section 247, which provides for the repeal of portions of former Acts included in or superseded by this Act. It is also provided that this Act shall come into force on a day to be fixed by proclamation of the Governor in Council published in the * Canada Gazette.'
Bill reported.
At six o'clock House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


APPOINTMENT OF A TARIFF COMMISSION.
[Stage Direction]
House again in committee on Bill (No. 88) to provide for the appointment of a Tariff Commission.-Mr. White (Leeds).
Mr. WHITE (Leeds).: When the House *was last in committee-, I promised to give attention to certain amendments which were proposed by some hon. gentlemen. The hon. member for Pietou (Mr. Macdonald) suggested 'that there .should be an amendment providing for the payment of the fees of witnesses summoned before the commie-ion, and that I think desirable. I shall move, following a similar clause of the Railway Act, that in the discretion of the commission or commissioners the like -fees or allowances may be paid to witnesses' as if they were summoned to attend before the Exchequer Court. Then, my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) suggested that no person should be compellable to give evidence outsidie of -the province in which he is served with .a summons, and I think that suggestion dis a good one. I have prepared an amendment following the lines of a similar section in the Railway Act, which I shall ask .to have inserted. I may say that my bon. friend (Mr. Maclean) is, I think, satisfied with the wording of the amendment which I have drafted. The other amendment, which was more important than either of .these, came as a suggestion from the bon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair). The only objection I have to his suggestion, after having given it com Mr. OLIVER.
sideration, is that it does not go far enough to carry out the intention of the government respecting the giving of information to parliament. My hon. .friend from Guys-borough, in the course of the discussion, submitted the .following amendment:
All evidence and information taken by the commissioners, not held to he confidential under the provisions of subsection 6 of this section, shall be laid on the table of the House within ten days after the opening of parliament.
I have enlarged on the idea of the hon. member (Mr. Sinclair) and I -submit the following as an amendment:
Whenever a report has been made under this Act, a copy thereof and a copy of the evidence, if any, taken, and all the information obtained, except such evidence and information as is of a confidential character under subsection 8 of the next preceding section, in connection therewith, shall be laid before parliament by the minister, within fifteen days, after the opening of the session thereafter, or within fifteen days after the making of this report, if parliament is then in session.
I believe the hon. member (Mr. Sinclair) will be quite content with that. My amendment embraces not only the report received during recess between sessions, but the reports received during a session of parliament. Then, subsection 5 of section 4 *seems to Ibe limited to the evidence taken, and I think it desirable that information which may toe claimed toy the commission and which might not toe technically considered evidence, if they act cn it in any wav, should also (he submitted with the report. I move to amend the Bill in that direction.


Mr. NESBITT.: What does ^ the clause mean by ' summary manner? '


William Thomas White: I explained that the other night. It would mean without the formality of procedure that characterizes proceedings in a court of record.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: Without pleadings ?


William Thomas White: I am thankful to my ban., friend (Mr. Pugeley) for the suggestion; I think that describes the meaning. I think these -are all the amendments that I was asked to consider.


Mr. McKENZIE.: Is it proposed that the report with the evidence, shall be printed and distributed like other blue-books?


William Thomas White: That would be a matter entirely within the control of the House.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: If the report is merely laid on the table, it is not available to all the members, unless it is printed like any other blue-book.


Mr. BORDEN.: The moment it is laid on the table of the House, the rule can be dispensed with, and printing can Ihe ordered forthwith. I think it would hardly (be advisable to lay down any hard and fast rule in the first instance.


William Pugsley: I think the amendments substantially follow the lines of the suggestions made on this side of the House.


William Thomas White: I may say that the intention of the government always has been, that this information should be laid before the House. My hon. friend from Guysborough suggested an amendment providing in specific terms, that the information and evidence should be laid before the House, within ten days after the opening of the session. The objection we had to that amendment was, that it did not go far enough or as far as we intended to go. Consequently, I am inserting a specific provision to the effect that the report and the findings, with the evidence on which they are based, shall be laid before parliament within 15 days after the opening of the session, or, if received during the session, within 15 days after they have been received.


William Pugsley: The amendments, >1 think, are quite an improvement to the Bill. They do not go as far as we would like to see them go, our contention being that all information, and all the evidence on which the government might act, should be deemed to be of a public character and should be laid before parliament. Of course, if my hon. friend proposes to treat certain evidence as confidential, I do not suppose he could go much further in the matter than he has gone.


Robert Laird Borden: The idea is to leave that subject to the discretion of the commission.
Bill reported with amendments and amendments concurred in.


CIVIL SERVICE ACT AMENDMENT-AUDITOR GENERAL'S OFFICE.
[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 113) to amend the Civil Service Act-Mr. White (Leeds)-read the second time, and House went into committee thereon.
William Thomas White: When introducing this Bill, I explained to the House that it was made necessary toy reason of the provisions of (the amended Civil Service Act under which temporary clerks could only be employed for a period of six months during any fiscal year. A great deal of work devolves upon the Auditor General in the auditing and paying of accounts in connection with the Dominion elections. He has engaged a staff of about twenty temporary clerks, but, having trained them, will find it necessary under the present
law to dispense with their services. The Auditor General informs me that he spoke to the leader of the former government concerning the expediency of bringing in a Bill of this kind, and that the right hon. gentleman consented thereto. I have spoken to the right hon. gentleman on the subject. I think it is obvious that this is an amendment which should be made to the Civil Service Act. The Auditor General informs me that of the twenty extra clerks employed, two had' reached the limit of their engagement, and were discharged. He will require fifteen for the next six months, and a comparatively small number after that until the work is completed. I believe the Bill is entirely non-contentious.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.



SUPPLY-PUBLIC MEANS OF COMMUNICATION.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. WHITE (Leeds) moved that the House go again into Committee of Supply.
['I have not seen the statement of Mr. Justice McDougall, but the Quebec Legislature has provided for a new judicial district to toe called Montcalm, and that until there is a proper court house at the Chef-lieu of Montcalm district, the judge to be appointed shall reside at Hull. It is the intention when we introduce the Bill to provide for the additional judges which are asked for by the different provinces to make provision for the salary of the judge which the legis-ture has determined is required for the\ndistrict of Montcalm, and who is to pre side at Hull, and that was so stated to the Hon. Mr. Justice McDougall.']
Mr. JOSEPH E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton).: Mr. Speaker, before you leave the Chair, I wish to deal with a matter which I brought up for the consideration of the House a few weeks ago. On that occasion I offered a resolution of which I had given notice, in favour of the appointment of a commission to gather information for the use of parliament with regard to telegraphs and telephones. I had reach-<ed the consideration of the subject of parcels post. I have only one suggestion on this subject to give the Postmaster General, and it is that, in my opinion, it would not be wise in the extension of the parcel post system to go beyond establishing it on rural mail and stage routes, and I believe also that the parcels carried should have their origin at the beginning or on the rural mail or stage routes. _
I desire to make a suggestion also with regard to rural free mail delivery. I understand the Postmaster General is about to extend this system to the thickly settled districts. I would urge upon him to take into consideration this fact:	That
while the late government had under consideration the giving of rural free mail delivery to the people in the thickly settled portion of the country, yet just previous to the last election, they were able, for some reason or other to give to the Liberal candidates in the different ridings perfect freedom in establishing free rural mail routes in any part of their ridings. Many of these routes were established some of them in districts that had formerly been accustomed to tri-weekly mail delivered at the post office and under the change the people of these districts found themselves with a daily mail delivered at their doors.

I hope the Postmaster General will examine into the manner in which these routes were established and will see to it that we have some kind of uniform service in the rural districts. I can well understand that a daily mail service to all the people living in the thickly settled rural portions of our country would saddle the post office with greater expense than it could bear. So I would suggest to the Postmaster General that, for the present at least, in districts where there is only a triweekly mail, if they get that mail delivered at their houses instead of at the post office that would be sufficient in most cases without the expense of a daily mail.
Now, a few words with regard to telegraphs. As I said in my previous remarks the present position of the telegraph companies in Canada is that they are receiving the lion's share of the profits that accrue from handling telegraph messages. I gave facts in regard to the charges they are making in different parts of the country. At an early day we should establish government ownership in telegraph lines and have this service made a part of the postal service. And not only should this be done with the telegraphs but with the telephones as well. It would be quite possible to organize a system under which the municipalities would be able to own, control and operate their telephone systems, while the main lines of telegraph, telephone and cable would be carried on as part of the post office service.
At present, go into the small towns and1 you will see a telegraph office under a separate organization, in a separate building, a telephone office in another building under a different organization, and the post office in still another. These ought all to be combined under government control. All our wire systems, whether spoken or written, should be under control and operation by the government. There will be enormous savings in this regard in the matter of efficiency which can be brought about by co-operation. We must remember that the telegraph is a by product of the telephone. There is no doubt in my mind that in the near future a great portion of the correspondence* from one end1 of this country to the other will be done by wire instead of by mail. But the greatest improvement we may expect in the near future will be brought about by the extension of our telephone system. To my mind there is no public utility that is proving of greater service in Canada today, not only in the cities but in the rural districts. It is well organized in the cities, and is capable of being wonderfully extended in the rural districts, it is also the duty of this parliament to assist its extension in every possible way. We ought to combine the telephone, telegraph and cable Mr. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton).
systems, that is, if you want to do the work thoroughly and economically. Take the large trunk lines to the cities and towns, and allow the municipalities to own, control, and operate their own municipal systems and you will then be in a position to give to the people the transmission of their messages at cost. There is no question in my mind that in the near future we will be able to satisfactorily telephone from one side of this continent to the other. I have shown in previous remarks how, on the other side, they are sending telephone messages over a distance of 2,000 miles on the same wire with comparative ease.
This matter is one of vital importance to the rural districts. At the present time it is practically impossible to get the Bell Telephone Company to extend its system into the rural districts, consequently the farmers are compelled to organize companies themselves. There are to-day in the province of Ontario 460 different telephone companies provincially organized, which are chiefly operating in the rural districts. I made some investigation, and I find that ninety per cent of these companies are operating in rural districts, and eighty-five per cent of them are organized by the farmers and men living in rural Ontario, so that they may have the telephone system at their dbors. The local government of the province of Ontario, under their Railway and Municipal Board, have issued statistics to show that without a doubt it is a saving to every farmer who has a telephone in his house of at least $50 a year, and with the 50,000 phones that are in operation, it means $2,50u,000. Five years age there were only 5,000 telephones in the farm houses in the province of Ontario, while to-day we have over 50,000. So you will see that it is a live question in the rural districts. Let me tell you that only twenty per cent of the agricultural lands in our fair province are under cultivation, and1 the population in the rural Ontario, instead of increasing, is actually decreasing. Only last night we heard some hon. gentlemen on this side of the House saying that in county after county the population in the rural districts is rapidly decreasing. According to statistics, there are only 21 counties in the province of Ontario, which have increased in population during the last ten years, while 27 counties have decreased. It is therefore our duty to put forth every effort to keep the people on the farms by offering them every possible advantage and assistance in the development of their respective districts.
I wish to say that the Hydro-Electric Commission which has been doing such splendid work in our province, is a proposition very much along the line of the one I am trying to put before this House

to-night. Only a few years ago twelve municipalities offered the Hydro-Electric Commission 23,000 horse power, while today there are over 30 municipalities in the province of Ontario which have offered to that commission 44,000 horse power that they may come in and develop. The Hydro-Electric Power Commission bring the wires to the municipalities, and this proposition will bring the telephone system to the municipalties as they bring the trunk wires to the municipalities. The municipalties would then own, control and operate their own telephone systems. I may say that I have received assurances from different cities in the Dominion as well as from different organizations supporting the cause I am now placing before parliament. I might add that the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario distinctly state that it would be an advantage for municipalities of our province to own, control and operate their telephone systems, because in that way they would be able to distribute electric power to the farmers in a manner that they cannot possibly do at present on account of the expense of building pole lines. In the province of Ontario 15 of the 460 companies I have referred to are municipally owned telephone systems, run by the municipalities. The clerk of the municipality becomes the secretary of the telephone company, and all charges are collected with the annual tax. I have under my hand a report from one of these municipalities, the municipality of Rochester, in the county of Essex, it is the lowest assessment of any municipality regarding telephone systems that I know of. It places the actual cost of each phone at only $7 per annum. The system has been in operation four years, and in six years more they expect to have the lines all paid for, and that the actual cost of the system after that date will not	exceed $1 per	annum. This
may seem incredible.	But remember
that we have a municipal Act which allows any municipality to borrow money at a low rate of interest in order to establish a telephone company. The municipality assesses the subscribers a small amount on capital account each year until in ten years' time they own the -whole plant. You can readily see that a large number of cities and towns are taking advantage of that municipal Act.
They can obtain from the municipal government power to issue debentures in order, to establish a telephone system in their city, town or rural district, and I am convinced that many cities of Ontario will be only too glad to do this. In the city of Ottawa, I am sure you could find prominent officials ready and willing to undertake the establishment of municipally-owned telephones, if we had public control of the trunk lines of telephones of Canada. Then Ottawa would be able to do away with these unsightly poles on the main streets that are so offensive in this beautiful city. In Australia, power has already been granted to the government to issue debentures and thus raise $10,000,000 for the purchase and extension of the telephone and telegraph systems. Apart from the United States and Honduras we are the only country that does not own, control and operate telegraph systems, and to a great extent the telephone. We had the other night the spectacle of the Minister of Public Works asking this House to vote $23,000 for the payment of rental of telephones used in the government buildings in Ottawa. This amount would go a long way towards defraying the expenses of the central exchange in Ottawa. I was glad to learn that the Minister of Public Works had under consideration the establishment of an exchange by which the different government offices * could be connected with one another without resorting to the public telephone system.
May I say a word with reference to cables connecting Canada and the motherland? I was able to show you a few days ago that we had some 17' trans-Atlantic lines between the mother country and Canada and that all these trans-Atlantic lines are owned, controlled and operated by a company whose head offices are in the city of New York, and the bulk of whose stock is owned in that city. It would be a patriotic thing for this government to establish at an early date a Canadian owned line, or even two lines, between Canada and the motherland. I am informed that the expense of building two cable lines would not exceed $5,000,000, and that we would have business for said lines the very day they were opened; it would not be a game of chance, it would be a business proposition from the very start. The company in the city of New York who made the last purchase of cable lines undertook to pay for the four lines that crossed the Atlantic 34 per cent on $35,000,000 for 99 years, while the actual cost of these four lines could not have exceeded $8,000,000. Thus, it is clear that for many years to come, unless we take some action, we cannot expect to have cheap trans-Atlantic cables. With the present rates, only one per cent of the people on this continent use the cable for any purpose whatever. The small trader or the ordinary citizen of Canada does not make use of the cable, simply because of the expense. If we owned, controlled and operated two cables between Canada and the motherland, the cable tolls would easily be cut in two. Surely it is our duty to secure this great boon. Credit is due

to Sir Sandford Fleming for his splendid work in reference to cables between Canada and Australia-New Zealand, and also his advocacy of cables between Canada and the motherland. A cable can carry 600 messages in one hour, or 1,900 messages in four hours. Most of the cable business is done between ten o'clock in the morning in this country and three o'clock in the afternoon in England. For the balance of the day 374 per cent of the cable plant is idle. Thus it is a wonder to me that the cable companies have not materially reduced the cost of cables during These idle hours. England spends $1,250,000 per annum in cabling to her consuls and ambassadors. Under competition in 1885 and 1886 the present cable rate was reduced to 12 cents a word and cable traffic doubled during those two years which merely goes to show that the cable rates might well be materially reduced.	_
A word with reference to wireless telegraphy. Wonderful strides have been made in wireless telegraphy, not only on this continent but on others. I am satisfied the day is not far distant when wireless telegraphy will be used to send messages from this parliament to practically every daily newspaper in Canada at a very small cost. I am also satisfied that wireless telegraphy is going to be of great service in the Hudson Bay district. We have heard a great deal about the ice and the winds of that route and we are told that these will interfere with the handling of grain to the motherland but if we have established on either side of the channel wireless telegraph stations we will be able to obtain exact information as to the winds and the drift ice, and so will be able to guide vessels through the channel and navigation will be kept open for months longer than it *otherwise would. It is our bounden duty to develop that system not only for the purpose of giving information of this character hut for the protection of life and property at sea. We have had striking examples even within the last few weeks of the saving of life at sea through vessels equipped with 'wireless apparatus being able to send calls for assistance to other vessels.
It is the duty of Canada to undertake the control and operation of our own wireless telegraoh stations, and keen from turning over the productive end of all these systems to companies, while we own and operate the lean end. I quote the following from the Montreal ' Star ' of Saturday, February 3, last, which is instructive:
Canadian Marconi shares sold as high as $1.75 (Montreal equivalent) in London to-day. It startles even the insiders who for months past have considered they were not worth more than $2.00 at the outside. The company Mr. ARMSTRONG (E. Lambton).
has a capital of five million dollars largely water, and some time ago when the shares rose over $3.00, several people were said to have sold out and considered themselves lucky to gelt as much as they did.
Imagine a capitalization of five million dollars, mostly water, and yet we will be asked in the near future to purchase back at an enormous figure from these people a number of the stations they have erected in Canada. It is up to the parliament of Canada to proceed at once to gather information in order that we may have data to go upon in order to purchase or build great lines of communication in our own land which may ultimately become connected with lines in other countries. The total cost of this would not exceed twenty-five million dollars, or just one year's surplus. Then, in five years, when you have completed your trunk system of wire transmission, our post office would be the centre of that great system and incalculable benefits would be conferred upon the Dominion. I sincerely hope the government will grant this commission because I feel confident that if they do so, sufficient statistics will be placed before parliament to convince every member on this side at all events that this great utility should be taken over by the people, and I feel confident that even members on the opposite side of the House would not then dare to oppose such a project.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Does the hon. gentleman know if it is a fact, as reported, that the price of telephones has been raised mat-terially in Winnipeg, since the provincial government took over the system in that province?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I have no desire to be driven into a controversy with reference to what the province of Manitoba has done in this respect. I understand that the price of messages has been increased in the city of Winnipeg, but when you take into consideration the fact that they have extended their lines in the rural districts at an enormous expense and granted to the people living in these districts a low-priced telephone service, you cannot wonder that the people in the city who make large use of the telephones should be called upon to contribute.
Mr, NESBITT. I was only asking for information as to whether it was true or not.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I understand they have increased the cost of messages in the cities to those who are making use of the telephone over a certain given number of messages per day.


Rodolphe Lemieux: 
Rodolphe Lemieux: mediately up went the rates from one shillng to two shillings a word, In 1884 the Commercial Cable Company appeared on the scene with two cables, and offered a one shilling and eight penny rate for business. The allied companies-that is tossy the Anglo-American and other companies- at once dropped their tariff to-the same figure which ruled until the 15th. of May 1886, when the allied companies-after a fruitless effort to come to terms-with the Commercial Cable Company suddenly lowered the rate to sixpence a wiord. Tiiis lasted until 1887, but in 1888 the American Cable merger, or the American Cable Pool as it is called to-day, was formed and the rates were all made uniform and put at the fixed figure of one shilling a word. It has remained at that figure until this very day. Now, Sir, we have in this, two facts outstanding: First that when there are companies operating,, all this competition will bring necessarily a reduction in the rates, and secondly when the companies merged into one pool, as they did in the present instance, we have the existence of a monopoly. So much so-that one of the general managers of the Anglo-American Company discussing in (his annual report in 1902 the socalled urgency, as he stated, of reducing the rates defined what he termed a reasonable-rate. He said it was a rate which the companies could get out of the public without too much complaint. Now that rate of one shilling has been imposed on the public since 1888 whereas previously the companies had been satisfied to do business with a rate of sixpence a word. Now let us see, from the report of the companies, v/hat the effect was of that sixpenny rate from 1886 until 1888. The Anglo-American Company reported to its shareholders at its annual meeting in January 1888, that as a result of the reduction to sixpence the traffic of the allied companies had increased 162 per cent, notwithstanding the serious inroads made by the Commercial Cable Company. Think what this means, Mr. Speaker. That 162 per cent increase means that if the companies were sending 10,000,000 words a year before the reduction to sixpence, within eighteen months after that period they were sending 26,200,000 words. Therefore this reduction in the rates has been most beneficial not only to the public but equally to the.companies interested. Now I claim that the Cable companies with the enlarged business they have enjoyed for several years, now that the public are using more freely the cables across the Atlantic, could to-day at least revert to the old rate of sixpence a word, and I claim that for press messages the -companies could very well reduce their rate to threepence a word. It is very important not only for the manufacturer, and the broker but for the merchant, the

immigrant and even the man on the street that we should have reasonable rates between Canada and Great Britain. I hold no brief for the press, although I pride myself on having been a member of the newspaper fraternity many years ago, but I say-


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Under what name did you write ?


Rodolphe Lemieux: I was a Liberal pressman and I have been a Liberal ever since.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: What signature did you append to the articles you wrote ?


Rodolphe Lemieux: I had none, I would have been paid too highly for that signature. But coming back to the advantage that would accrue to the Canadian press and to the Canadian public through low cable rates I say this: At present the cable despatches that we read in the Canadian morning and evening newspapers are more or less tainted. The press agencies are in the hands of American concerns, and I repeat that the news which we receive from England, the news which we consume daily, is more or less coloured. So much so that when a general election takes place in England, I take this as a case in point-the most important newspapers in Canada-the Toronto ' Globe,' the Toronto ' Mail,' the Montreal ' Star,' the Montreal * Herald,' the Ottawa ' Citizen,' the Ottawa ' Journal,' the Ottawa ' Free Press,' and let me not forget to mention in that array of brilliant newspapers, the Toronto ' World '-are obliged to send special correspondents to England in order to get genuine news from the mother country. I say it is most important,_ not only from the Canadian point of view but from the imperial point of view also, that our newspapers should be supplied directly from the mother country and get the benefit of low cable rates. Some years ago I happened to attend at the Mansion House in London a very important meeting, convened by the _ advocates -of cheap telegraphic communications. It was presided over by a former Governor General, .the Duke of Argyle, and there were present some of the highest authorities in the empire. Members of the Imperial Government, Ex-Governors General, men of the standing of Lord Milner and Lord Stratheona. Lord Curzon was not .present but he wrote a letter to the Chairman in which he stated:
Cheap fares, cheap postal rates, and a cheap and well served press have all played their part in the remarkable growth of Imperial feeling in recent years, but in my opinion a cheap telegraphio service will do more than all these combined.
The Imperial Press Conference was held in London three or four years ago with
great eclat, and produced a great impression throughout the whole British Empire. Must I remind the Postmaster General of the following resolution which was then unanimously adopted:
That for the achievement of better and cheaper electrical communication within the empire, it is one of the essentials that there should be state-owned electric communication between the British islands and Canada across the Atlantic ocean, and also state-control of electric communication across Canada between the Atlantic and Pacific cable service.
Mr. Asquith, who was introduced at that conference by some of our journalists showed himself to be in full sympathy with the aims of the Press Conference as regards the cable situation. As a result of the conference and of the efforts made by the journalists to obtain lower rates, the Pacific cable rates were immediately lowered. The Pacific cable is owned, as we all know, jointly by the Mother Country, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and is under a board that sits in London, the representative of Canada on that board being no less a personage than Lord Stratheona himself. I have not the figures before me, but the reduction on press rates made by the Pacific cable was substantial. It was reduced to nine pence. . Anid, as a result the Eastern Telegraph Company, which is the great rival of the Pacific cable in that portion of the British Empire, immediately reduced its rates, thus bringing about a result which for many years had been sought by the public of Australia.
When I was in England some years ago advocating, not a state-owned cable but a reduction in the cable rates, after some pourparlers with the cable companies, 1 was given to understand that we could obtain, after a certain period of time, a substantial reduction. I always assumed that for the urgent cables the present rate might remain-one shilling a word. But I expected that for the social messages, the non-urgent messages, a clear reduction of sixpence a word would be obtained. I hold that the reduction obtained through the good offices of the Postmaster General of England in his interviews with the cable ecmipagnies is absolutely insufficient and will be of little advantage to the Canadian consumer. My bon. friend (Mr. Pelletier) should therefore strive to obtain further reductions, and I would advise him after the session to go to Great Britain and interview the postal authorities and assert the rights of the Canadian consumer. It is not practical-I will say more, it is not patriotic-that the Canadian and the British people should be, as regards cables across the Atlantic, in the hands of an American monopoly.
Now, if my hon. friend cannot obtain the reduction which we advocated, and

which I expected we would obtain, there is only one solution of the difficulty-we must have a state-owned cable across the Atlantic between Canada and Great Britain, just as we have the Pacific cable from Australia to Vancouver. I may be told that this would mean an extravagant expenditure for Canada. Before the last Imperial Conference I prepared for the use of the Prime Minster (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), who was then leaving Canada, a memorandum on this question. That is, the memorandum was prepared under my direction by one of the ablest officers of the Post Office Department, Mr. Wm. Smith, who has had great experience in such matters and who was even the adviser of the Newfoundland government some years ago on the question of cable and post office. Now, here is the proposition laid before the Prime Minister of that day before he left for the Imperial Conference:
The cost of a. first class cable laid between Canada and Great Britain is placed at $2,000,000,


Rodolphe Lemieux: The actual business passing between Great Britain and Australia by the Pacifio cable last year was 960,000 words. All this business-weut over one or other of the Atlantic cables last year. The Canadian business with Great Britain is not exactly known, but the British post office, in a confidential memorandum written in 1908, placed the business at 2,500,000 words a year. If the rate were made 124 cents per word between Great Britain and eastern Canada, 1 cent a word would be required for the land lines in Great Britain and 24 cents per word for lines in Canada, This would leave 9 cents for the Atlantic cable. At 9 cents a word, the present business would yield a revenue of $311,400. This amount would pay all expenses, which are put on a most liberal scale, and yield a surplus of $18,928. There would at once be a vast increase in the business consequent on the 50 per cent reduction in the charges, and before the first year was over the surplus could not fail to be from $100,000 to $150,000.
Now, I had this very conservative report prepared by one of the experts of Canada, 'and I may say one of the experts in the cable world, Mr. Smith, of the Post Office Department in Canada. We must, not minimize the .ability of our public servants. I consider Mr. Smith as a decided authority on the cable _ question. The figures which I quote this evening have been revised by Sir Samdford Fleming, who is also one of the great authorities in the world on the cable question, and I consider these figures are very conservative. Therefore, if the British Postmaster General and the cable companies cannot come to an agreement whereby a substantial reduction will be given to consumers in Canada, and if the British government declines to b.e a party to joint state-owned cables, then the clear duty o.f His Majesty's government in Canada is to establish a state-owned cable across the Atlantic. $2,200,000 is a very small capital indeed for a country so rich, so prosperous, so intensely Imperial _ as Canada is, with no loss ini perspective, with a large and buoyant revenue indeed, and with a surplus, a thing which I am sure will receive favour by my very conservative friend, the Minister of Finance.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I think I have shown clearly the advantage of having cheap cable rates, From an Imperial point of view, from a purely Canadian point of view, from -a business point of view, we should have cheap telegraphic communication with the mother country. In order to educate properly the Canadian public, in order that tlie wells of information may not be tainted or poisoned, we should have a cheap press rate between Canada and the mother country. The cable companies are in some degree at the mercy of the British Postmaster General, because, -before operating in England, they must have from the British Postmaster General what we call the landing privilege. He holds a big stick in his hands, and it is probably because of that

stick that the other day he forced the cable monopoly to reduce, but in a very small degree, the rates between Canada and th-e mother country. Failing a further reduction, I say that we must have a state-owned cable. Mr. Speaker, I wish to conclude by moving the following motion.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Might I ask the hon. member for Rouivilile (Mr. Lemieux) to be good enough to listen to the position which I was placed in. While I referred several times to the motion I intended to move, yet I sat down without moving it. If the hon. gentleman would be good enough-it is the same-


Rodolphe Lemieux: Before my hon. friend proceeds, I wish to say that I listened with pleasure to him the other day for a whole afternoon, and he gave certainly most interesting information to the House, not only on cable rates, but on telegraphic, telephone and postal rates. I think, however. that he neglected the cables in favour of the other subjects he had discussed. I had taken it upon myself to proffer these few remarks, and at the same time, to give notice to the Postmaster General of the motion which I intended to move. Now my hon. friend from Lambton (Mr. Armstrong) knew that this evening; he preceded me, he made his remarks, I listened to his remarks, and I hope now that he will listen to my motion and vote for it. I move:
That in the opinion of this House steps should he taken by ithe Postmaster General with a view to obtaining a further reduction in cable rates between Canada and Great Britain.


William Findlay Maclean: I have listened to both speeches to-night with a great deal of interest. I sympathise with both speakers, but I go further. I am in favour of immediate action by the Canadian government in the direction of state ownership and state operation of telegraphs, telephones and cables in this country. There is an old Greek proverb that says: ' If you wish to play upon the harp, you must play upon the harp.' If you wish to get a reduction in tolls of this kind, the only way to get them, is to get them, and the way to get them is by state operation and competition with the various companies. They aie monopolists, they are in the position of dividing great profits among themselves; and as long as you say, We ask you, as a favour, to come down in your rates, they will never do it. But if you go after them with competition by the state, you will effect your purpose. As I have stated in this House before, the monopoly that control cables has its centre in London. It was the most powerful monopoly that was known in London, it was able to reach by its enormous influence, more members of parliament and more members of the cabinet in England than any other monopoly. Today it is that powerful in England that it is in a position to check, to control the action even of the Postmaster General of Canada. But something worse than that has happened. The control of the Atlantic cables has passed to the Americans, to the very same Americans who control the telegraph companies in the United States, who control the Bell Telephone company in the United States, and the Bell Telephone in Canada, and who have to-day the Canadian Pacific railway and the Great Northwestern Telegraph companies also in their pool and in alliance with them.
The cable, telegraph and telephone business in Canada and the United States is all under this American control which is in alliance with financial interests in London, it is a great interest with connections in every country and so has been able to influence even the Postmaster General and have him hold his hand. So there is no hope of the reductions we would like to see unless we resort to state competition. As the late Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) has said, it would cost only $2,200,000 to equip a first class cable between Canada and Great Britain. A sinking fund would provide that amount, we would secure immediate reduction in tolls and public control in British hands. It is absurd and shows a lack of national and imperial policy to allow capitalists in another country to control the cable and telegraph system of the British Empire. The Germans would not stand such a thing for a day. The time has come in Canada and in the motherland and in other sister states of the empire, for government control, ownership and operation, of all cables, telegraphs and telephones. If we inaugurated a state-owned cable we would have to control the land lines in the interest of that cable. In England they control the cable companies in a way, they have the whip hand there over the cable companies, but it is not effective. If we had a state-owned cable to England and a state-owned telegraph system in connection with a telephone service, every country in the empire and the motherland itself would be able to give these services for one-third the present rates. This would give the press of the empire a first-class news service. I agree with the quotation that has been read from the Duke of Argyle that the greatest boon would be free telegraph and cable service in the interests of the empire. The only way to create a world-wide public opinion is to have the freest interchange by the press of the expressions of public opinion in the different countries. That to-day is hr possible. The cable despatches to-day are condensed, they should be much longer and fuller and the only possible means of

securing an improved news service is a state-owned cable.
I have pointed out that this principle of state competition with private owned monopoly is the key to the situation in every one of the gTeat public franchises. In Ontario we have found how effective it is in connection with the distribution of electrical energy, in fact it has been found effective wherever it has been tried. I would like to see it tried, I do not want any commission to gather information for me, all I want is to see the thing put in operation. If a state-owned cable were put in operation between Canada and Great Britain to-day I venture to say that all the companies would reduce their prices and be prepared to sell out to the state at a reasonable rate. Let us have immediately a state-owned Canadian and British cable. If we say we want it the mother country cannot refuse to assume one-half the cost, so important would it be in the interests of the empire, of commerce and journalism. As yet we have not come to that view of the situation and that aggressive enterprise which says: In the interest of our country and of the empire we want a state-owned cable between here and the motherland. The Pacific cable which is a state-owned proposition is proving a great success, it is binding Australia to Canada and to the mother country and has proved that a state-owned cable for a long distance and in a zone where there is less business than on the Atlantic can be made to pay its way. The Atlantic zone has such an immense business and is so profitable that if we had one cable to-morrow, we would have to install another before three months.


William Pugsley: How do the rates on the Pacific compare with those on the Atlantic?


Mr MACLEAN (South York).: Comparatively, they are cheaper.


Rodolphe Lemieux: They are actually higher, but. in proportion to the distance they are lower.	.


William Findlay Maclean: For the distance and they are taxed the big end of the earnings for the Atlantic section.


Rodolphe Lemieux: It is a question of average. They are cheaper when you compare the distance.


William Pugsley: You could not take the proportion of distance because when a cable is once laid under the ocean, the only charge is the interest on the capital expenditure.


William Findlay Maclean: The business is not to be compared with the Atlantic zone. There is so much business there, that if we started one cable we would have to have half-a-dozen in a short time Mr. MACLEAN (South York).
and the result would be, that the undertaking would be an immense success. There is no state that does not control its own cables, except Canada, the United States, and one or two others. All the progressive countries of Europe, and they are away ahead of us in progressiveness, own their telephone and telegraph services and some of them have their cable services under the ocean, and they would not depart from that principle, it would be treason to propose in Germany that the land lines or cables should pass out of state control. So with other countries in Europe the efficacy of state ownership has been proved. They talk about cheap telephones in Ontario, but look at the services in Denmark, in Germany, even in Russia. In all European countries there is a good service which is allied with the post office, the centre of communications of all kinds. In that way, the public are saved, they control the whole thing, and the secrecy of the telegraph is maintained. That is an important feature. It is risky for the Empire of Great Britain to be subject to the United States in cabling, to have their messages come under the control of Americans.
If they are told: if you do not do it, Canada will do it, then we will have a state-owned cable and we will get control of our own lines. Two Canadian telegraph lines are in alliance against the Canadian people with this great American monopoly, and the telegraph rates in this country to-day are enormous, and unnecessary, and will be continued as long as we submit to them. The Canadian Pacific railway telegraph charges are twice what they should be, and they are twice in the west what they are in the east and yet the wires are loaded with business. The Railway Commission may bring about some reform, but the only way to bring about a radical cure is to go into competition with them. Let me tell hon. gentlemen what the force of good example does. Immediately after the discussion we had in this House on the parcel post system, the ' New York Tribune ' and other papers said: Here, you legislators at Washington, what are you doing; you are making no headway with the parcel post, Canada has declared in her parliament in favour of a parcel post system connected with the postal department and you had better wake up. Well, since that motion was carried in this parliament, they have become active in the United States; fright has seized the express companies and they are offering to reduce their rates or to sell out. The United States despatches to-day say that a measure has been introduced into Congress to buy out all the express companies in the United States for their actual valuation of thirty-nine million dollars. And, in addition to these physical assets of thirty-nine mil-

lion dollars, the American express companies to-day have in their coffers one hundred and fifty million dollars worth of securities that they have saved after paying enormous dividends to their shareholders.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What is the capitalization of the American companies?


William Findlay Maclean: Oh, it is very small actually. It has been enlarged several times in the way of water, but the companies are controlled by the railway companies over which they operate. I may tell the Postmaster General that if he does not hurry up and get his parcel post system going-and I know he is going to give his energy to it-we will see a splendid parcel post system in the United States before we have it in Canada. In the United States the Interstate Commerce Commission has turned its attention to express rates, and the express companies have been discovered to be guilty of the worst kind of petty larceny from their patrons. It has been found that they have collected double rates time after time. After the rate has been prepaid along comes the driver representing these express monopolies in the United States and he collects a second rate in many cases. The Americans see that to-day they are carrying the parcel post of foreign countries through their own country for one-third the price they have to pay on parcels shipped by the express monopolies and the people of the United States will not long stand that kind of thing. I do not disagree with the suggestion of the hon. member for East Lambton (Mr. Armstrong) that this should be made the subject of inquiry by commission, nor do I disagree with the late Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) that further conferences should take place, but I do say that nothing of that kind will be effective; the only way to get at these companies is for us to get into the business ourselves. The new principle of this twentieth century in connection with these great monopolies owned and controlled by private companies is that, if you cannot buy them out at a. fair price you should go into competition with them. They got their franchises giving them the right to operate in the country and that imposed upon them the duty of dealing out fair treatment to the public and of giving the public a reasonable toll. These companies have failed in their obligation to the people and, having failed, the state is justified in going into competition with them. If we cannot have state ownership, let us have state competition. The cost of stringing telegraph wires across this country is comparatively small, the right of way is easily obtained; we have better poles than are to be found in I 131
any other country in the world; we can make the copper wire here if necessary out of our own copper, and indeed telegraph construction in Canada is so cheap that the companies are ashamed to show what it actually costs in comparison with their capitalization. I declare for state competition, and I declare we should start it now. Start it and watch the coon come down and see how quick he will come down when you announce that you are going into the business. As long as they can put us off with promises of concessions, they will do nothing 3erious. Recently, the public did get a concession, and, strange to say, that concession came one week after the discussion I raised in this House. The coon came down to that extent. It did not happen accidentally; I do not claim the credit for it myself, but I claim that the discussion in this House is entitled to that credit. You will get nothing from those monopolies if you merely say you will negotiate with them. Go into the telephone business and give our farmers cheap phones. I heard reference to-night to the case of Manitoba, and no doubt there have been increases there, and that should be so, but I do believe that the people of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Alberta would not part with their public owned telegraph system on any account.


Mr. LALOR.: What are the telephone charges in Manitoba?


William Findlay Maclean: I can not give the exact figures, but I know that reductions were made when the province took them over, and we would have reductions in Ontario if we had state-owned telephones.


Mr. MACDONALD.: Has not the price been raised in Manitoba?


William Findlay Maclean: Suppose it has?


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: That is not an answer.


William Findlay Maclean: There has been some change in the rate, and the Manitoba government was taunted for not having quite realized what it promised to do.


Frank Oliver: That is a very mild statement of it.


William Findlay Maclean: Well, I will go so far as to admit, if you like, that public ownership in Manitoba has failed, but I will point the hon. gentleman fifty other instances where it has been a great success in other countries.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Name one.


William Findlay Maclean: Denmark is one; seven dollars a year for a telephone to every farmer in Denmark.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Why did you not go further for an example?


William Findlay Maclean: Because that is the best example of public ownership. There is a gentleman who is ashamed of public ownership; he is ashamed of the people of Canada, and he thinks they are not competent to go into the business and be trusted with public affairs of that kind. I am prepared to trust the Canadian people in connection with public ownership; I am ready to say to the people of Canada., take over the terminal elevators. I am prepared to see the people of Canada handle their railways, and this government has its one opportunity to * make good in regard to public ownership in connection with the Intercolonial railway. There is a great national asset we have. It is based on public ownership. It has not done as well as it could do, but it can be made to do well if it is administered in the public interest.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: What do you think they should do about the Intercolonial railway ?


William Findlay Maclean: (South York) I would propose to run it as an absolute public proposition, and to extend it to where the traffic is. Bring it into the province of Ontario, and we make it the greatest railway in Canada. Bring it to Toronto and on to the Detroit river. Put it into Winnipeg. I stood in this House 15 years ago, when the late Mr. Blair was Minister of Railways, and when the proposal was made to build the Rainy River railway in connection with the Canadian Northern, and said that the way to increase the railway accommodation of the west was to make that, line a portion of the Intercolonial, to bring the Intercolonial immediately from Montreal to the Georgian bay, there connect it with boats, build a line around the lakes, carry it to Winnipeg, and from there spread it all over the northwest. If that had been done at that time, the Canadian west would have had a state-owned railway that would have solved all problems. The lines would have been laid out in a scientific way, so as to secure the greatest efficiency all over the country. There is not efficiency in any railway system of the west to-day, because too many of the lines parallel one another.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Is not the Intercolonial all right as it is now ?


William Findlay Maclean: (South York) It could be much better. What is the one way out of the difficulty in connection with Mr. NESBITT.
the coal strike in England to-day ? There is very little hope of a settlement unless the state takes over the coal business. I do not know that I am such a state socialist as to advocate that, but the people of England are coming pretty close to it. At the beginning of this year all the telephone lines in England went into the British post office, and they are now being administered in connection with it. The people's experience of state-owned telegraphs was so good that they took over the telephones, and they must now go into the cable business. They cannot stop at telegraphs and telephones when the cables remain undealt with. To my mind there is nothing for us to do but to get into the business without delay, and to say that we are going to have a state-owned cable. We ought to pass a resolution to that effect this session, and then you would see how the rates would come down. There would be a threepenny rate for all messages between Canada and England.


Mr. CROTHERS.: Is not free trade a remedy for all these things ?


William Findlay Maclean: (South York) Perhaps tlie hon. gentleman can tell us that. There should be a national policy in regard to other things as well as tariffs; but I will not go into that to-night. The more I study this matter in the light of the experience of other countries, the more convinced I am that if you cannot have state ownership, state competition is the one remedy that will bring down tolls. The solution of the northwest railway problem is to put an absolutely state-owned railway in the Canadian west.


Mr. SPEAKER.: Might I remind the hon. member that the question is in regard to cables.


William Findlay Maclean: (South York) The hon. gentleman questioned me in regard to state ownership.


Rodolphe Lemieux: May I b'e allowed to say that I quite agree with my hon. friend in his suggestion that we should 'advocate a state-owned cable, and I might have mentioned it in my amendment; but, as it would involve an expenditure of money, I had to avoid it.


William Findlay Maclean: I apologize, Mr. Speaker, for trespassing on your good mature, and I will conclude by saying that the way to bring about the reform is to get into the business of state ownership.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: 
Rodolphe Lemieux: Why ?


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Because they have no use for it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Because the rates are too high.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Even if the rates were low, they would not use it. I speak as a business mam. Occasionally I send a cablegram, but it is of very little importance to mie whether we have a state-owned cable line or not, because I use the cable so seldom; and as far as 95 per cent of the people of this country are concerned, I do not believe they 'are at >all interested in cheap cable meissages or in >a state-owned cable. They would not use it and it would be of little or no value to them. The same thing applies to the nationalization of the telegraph lines. How many of the people of this country use the telegraph lines ? I venture to say that 90 per cent of the people of this country do not send one telegram in 12 months. They are of no importance to the farmers of this 'Country. Are the telegraph rates high ? You can send a telegram from the town in which I live to Montreal for 25 cents, and you can send a night letter of I think 50 words for 25 cents.
Is there any general demand for anything cheaper than that? Would it be any great advantage to the people of this country that it should be any cheaper? It may be an advantage to a few people who are interested in telegraph lines to a very great extent, but the great majority ot our people are not interested in the question whatever.
I believe that private capital and enterprise should develop, not only the cable and telegraph lines, but the telephone lines as well. In the county which I represent, rural telephone companies have covered the entire district with telephones. They give the farmers a telephone foT $12 per year, and I doubt very much, if in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, where the province owns thjse lines, the telephone service is as cheap, or any cheaper at any rate, than it is throughout. *he province of Ontario, where local telephone companies have been formed, and are operating efficiently. I say, Mr. Speaker, that this question is of very little importance to the great majority of the people. It may be 131 i
on advantage to the few, but it is not an advantage to the many. Gentlemen who corne from the cities., from the commercial centres, may be interested and they do advocate these schemes in the House from time to time, but let me tell the Postmaster General that the farmers of Canada are interested in something of very much more importance to them than projects of this kind, which hare been brought before the House. They are interested to-day in a rural mail delivery.
Some hon MEMBERS. Hear, hear.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: If this government wants to do something in the interest of the farmers, that is a matter which they might properly undertake. The farmers are not even interested so much in the parcel post system concerning which we have heard a great deal. Is there any reason why parcels should be carried from Toronto to Vancouver for the same price as they ;vouid be carried for, from the town in which I live to Toronto? I do not believe the government should go into that business, and compete with the express companies at the same rate throughout the whole of Canada. The former Postmaster General gave the farmers a little taste of what rural mail delivery is like. He adopted a system of rural mail delivery upon the main mail routes, and I want to tell him that the farmers who received their newspapers and letters daily upon these routes are so interested in it, that in other parts of the province-and I can speak more particularly of Ontario than of any other province, because I am more familiar with it-are strongly asking for the benefits or rural mail delivery and they will never be satisfied until they get it.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: I hope that the Postmaster General and the government will not delay any time in giving to the Ontario farmers a proper system of rural mail delivery. Why should they not have it? The farmers contribute to the revenues of Canada to a very great extent, as we all know. They produce the wealth of this country, and it is upon the farmers that we mainly depend in Canada.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would like to remind the hon. gentleman that he is wandering from the question, which is that of cable rates.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Perhaps I am a little out of order in discussing the questions of rural mail delivery and telephone nationalization, but if I have trespassed it is because others have trespassed before me. I want to say in conclusion that the farmers want from this government rural mail delivery in preference to any of these fad's

that we have heard discussed in this House from time to time this session.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I would not have said anything on the subject had not the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean), made the statement that I was opposed to public ownership, because I asked him a question. I did not say that I was opposed to public ownership, but I do say now that I am opposed to any hon. member taking up the time of the House in talking about some fad, talking in generalities and making a lot of statements in support of which he is not prepared to produce one tittle of evidence. I asked the hon. gentleman a question about Denmark, but I doubt whether he knows anything more about that country than he knows about Manitoba, and that is nothing. Even if they do have rural telephones and telegraphs in Denmark for seven dollars, it does not take very much ol a telegraph line to cover the whole burg. Besides that, I doubt, as I said before, whether he knows anything about what they do in Denmark.


William Findlay Maclean: Thank you.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I am opposed to general statements being made without producing facts before a lot of business men such as we are supposed to be in this House.


William Findlay Maclean: Hear, hear.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The hon. gentleman talked about cable rates, but he wandered over many subjects, and it is surprising that he did not touch upon aviation before he concluded. He certainly talked a lot about building railways, and1 that has no connection with cables.


William Findlay Maclean: Hear, hear.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I would not have spoken if the hon. gentleman had not stated that I was opposed to public ownership. I am opposed to public ownership if it is not carried on in a business way. Talk about carrying a thing for nothing, the state cannot do business for nothing any more than can a private corporation. As a matter of fact in regard to telephones the Manitoba authorities had to arrange their rates.


William Findlay Maclean: I did not say they had not done so. I said I admitted1 it.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: You said you did not know anything about it, which I can quite believe. I would like to emphatically endorse what my hon. friend from Haldimand (Mr. Lalor) said, as to what the farmers are interested in The farmers of Ontario, in common with those of the other provinces, help to pay the taxes and they are Mr. LALOR.
making no grumble over it. They are paying their fair proportion and they would like to share in some of the benefits resulting from the progress of the _ country. I hope the Postmaster General will follow up the policy which was inaugurated by his predecessor and make a point of seeing that the farmers get rural mail delivery in a systematic way.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I would like to say a few words with reference to the motion now before the House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The hon. member has exhausted his right to speak a second time.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Surely, Mr. Speaker, I have not exhausted (my right to speak with reference to the .amendment which the member for Rouvi'lle (Mr. Lemieux) has presented to the House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The original motion is for the Speaker to leave the Chair in order that the House may go into Committee of Supply, to which the hon. gentleman has already spoken. An amendment has been moved now, and I think the hon. member having expressed himself on the original motion, it would not be in order for him to speak again.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: But this is supposed to be an amendment is it not? Do I understand, Mr. Speaker, that I have not the privilege of speaking to the amendment offered by the member for Rou-ville?


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Perhaps I may be allowed to make a suggestion. The motion to go into Committee of Supply was made by the Minister of Finance, and my hon. friend from East Lambton, (Mr. Armstrong) spoke to that without proposing any resolution. Then the member for Rouville presented an amendment to the main motion, and I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that by the rules of the House, a new question is before the House on the amendment. I should therefore, think that the hon. member for East Lambton would have the right to speak.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Following the usual practice, the hon. member would have the right to speak, but, unless my memory is very much in fault, it has been ruled in this House that when a motion is made to go into Committee of Supply, and an hon. gentleman has once spoken, on it, he has not the right to speak again upon an amendment to that motion. Personally, I am not opposed to any hon. member speaking, but I would like as far as possible, to facilitate the work of the House, and keep members within the customary usages. Of course, if it is the pleasure of the House to allow the hon. gentleman to proceed, I have no objection whatever.


Mr. HENDERSON.: With regard to what has been the practice, according to my recollection, in a case of this kind, the member for East Lambton would have a perfect right to speak, but I think he would be obliged to confine himself to the amendment. That is the view I take on the point, and I think it has been so ruled by former Speakers.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: No matter who speaks after the amendment is moved, the rule is, that he should confine himself to the amendment.


David Henderson: That is quite correct, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: 
Rodolphe Lemieux: I understand many members of the House would like to speak on this question and, as I am afraid if the hon. gentleman speaks until six o'clock, the question will be automatically out of the order paper, therefore I would ask the hon. member to move the adjournment.
The hon. gentleman knows full well that that matter was left over and that the following day a portion of it was taken- up by another member of this House and dealt with to a certain extent. A little later I withdrew it from the order paper for the purpose of bringing it up on going into supply and dealing with it definitely, according to the motion I had prepared.


Rodolphe Lemieux: On. the occasion, to which he refers the hon. gentleman himself spoke for three hours on the subject.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Mr. *Speaker, it was not two hours. And if the hon. gentleman (Mr. Lemieux) could place on ' Hansard ' more definite and useful material for the benefit of those discussing this question, than I did, I should be glad to give way to him. If, instead of bringing in .an academic motion which on the face of it means nothing, the hon. gentleman had fallen in behind the motion which he knew I expected to place before the House, be would have been supporting something worthy of him. That motion would have declared:
That, in the opinion of this House, a commission should he appointed to investigate the systems of National telegraphs and telephones, wireless telegraphs and cables; also postal conditions, laws and regulations, parcel post, means of collecting and distributing mails, with a view to submitting such data and information to the Post Office Department as would help to improve existing conditions in all the above; and to further inquire into postal facilities in rural districts in other countries in order that a better system of ru-al free mail delivery may be inaugurated.
The labours of this commission would result in gathering such facts and figures that even the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) would be satisfied that the House could deal intelligently with these ' fads ,' as the hon. member foT Hal-dimand (Mr. Lalor) chooses to call them. It is not so many years ago since many of these hon. gentlemen looked upon free rural mail delivery as a fad. The day is not far distant when we, as a parliament.

will be compelled to take up these matters and deal with them definitely. Some hon. members seem to think that national organization of the telegraph and telephone is not in the interest of the people of the rural districts. In the figures I gave the House I showed that theTe were 460 independent telephone companies in the province of Ontario at the mercy of a public corporation that was all-powerful. And instead of our being able to control the trunk lines and connect up these independent companies, giving them long distance rates at cost, these hon. gentlemen are glad to have this concern make the amount of money out of this service that it is making at the present time.
However, I do not wish to take up more time. I have only to say that I am surprised at the ex-Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) not being generous enough to allow me to read the motion which I expected, and which he fully knew I expected and intended, to place before the House this evening.
Hon. Mr. PUGS'LEY.	I believe I
express the opinion of the majority if not of all the members here present when I say that my hon, friend from East Lambton (Mr. Armstrong) has no reason whatever to find fault with the hon. member for Eouville (Mr. Lemieux). The hon. gentleman (Mr. Armstrong) concluded his remarks and took his seat without presenting his motion to the House. My hon. friend from Eouville had every reason to believe that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Armstrong) did not intend to make a motion. So that it was quite in order for my hon. friend from Eouville to make his remarks and to submit his resolution to the House.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Did not I refer several times to the motion I intended to move? And in starting out did not I distinctly state that I was bringing forward the notice of motion to whicv' I had referred some weeks ago in the form of a motion to be placed before the House?


William Pugsley: I was here during a portion of the time my hon. friend was speaking, and certainly I was not impressed with the idea, when he got through with his speech, that he had forgotten anything. I thought he had entirely concluded his speech and done all he intended to do in presenting his views to the House. Then it was quite in order for my hon. friend from Eouville (Mr. Lemieux) to present his motion, after the conclusion of his speech; and it would have been entirely out of order for him to allow his motion to stand and a motion made by the hon. member for East Lambton (Mr. Armstrong) to take its place. The hon. member for East Mr. AEMSTEONG (E. Lambton).
Lambton no doubt unfortunately forgot to make his motion; but that is an accident which may happen to any of us. He may have been a little excited at the moment, his memory may have been overwhelmed by the importance of the subject he was dealing with, and consequently he forgot the important thing-in his own estimation -of submitting his motion to the House. He complains of the amendment of my hon. friend from Eouville as being academic. Well, it is not academic beyond what every private member of this House may say on a subject when he has no power of making a proposition which would involve the expenditure of public money. All my hon. friend could do was to move that in the opinion of this House it was desirable that the cable rates should be still further lowered, and urging the Postmaster General to take steps to that end. That is substantially the motion which I have great pleasure in seconding.
Now during the discussion, remarks have been made in favour of the government proceeding at once to establish a istate-owned cable. I do not wish to be understood, in seconding this motion, as committing myself to the principle of a state-owned cable at the present time. The time may come, and may come sooner perhaps than most of us expect, when it may be in the public interest to establish a state-owned cable, but I do not think that time has yet arrived. The cable companies have responded I think very well to the public demand for a reduction, and they have made a considerable reduction. But if the reduction is not sufficient in the opinion of this government, they have the remedy in their own hands. There are two at least of the cable lines which have their Atlantic termini in Canada, I think more than two. As to those companies at all events having their Atlantic termini in Canada this parliament can legislate, this parliament hag, power to place their "tolls and rates under the 'control of the Board of Bailway Commissioners	who can determine	whatshould be fair and proper rates to allow, just the same as they are now able to control railway rates. It does seem to me that before this country plunges into a very large expense for the establishment of a new cable line, an effort ought to be made to bring these cable companies which have their Atlantic termini in Canada, under the control of the board of Bailway	Commissioners In	1910 an	Actwas	-passed	which made	provision	thatthe	Board	of Eailway	Commissioners
should have control of the rates of cable companies connected with land lines in Canada, and by section 6 of that Act it was provided that the Act should come into force upon similar provision being made by the proper authority in the

United Kingdom and upon proclamation by the Governor in Council. Now it would appear that the government of Great Britain has taken no action towards providing similar legislation. It seems to me that my hon. friend the Postmaster General should communicate with the Imperial authorities upon'the subject, and if they decide that they will not take action along me lines taken by this parliament, then this parliament ought to strike out section 6 of the statute and act upon its own account, act on behalf of the people of Canada, and make provision that in respect of these cable companies their rates must be such as the Board of Railway Commissioners may think reasonable. I think in that way the people of Canada could be assured of reasonable and fair tolls. But before that experiment is tried, without trying the experiment of having these tolls submitted to the Board of Railway Commissioners, I for one would' not be prepared to give any encouragement to the proposition to go to the very large expenditure which would be involved in the establishment and operation of a cable system to be owned by the state.
Reference has been made to a state-owned cable on the Pacific ocean. Now I asked the hon. member for Toronto, how the cable rates upon the Pacific compared with the rates established by the cable companies on the Atlantic, and he stated, I think correctly, that the cable rates from land to land are higher, but the distances are greater, and that it would not be fair to compare the rates arbitrarily without taking into account the distances. But it must be borne in mind that the ocean distance ought not to be a governing factor, because wnen a cable is once laid there are no stations to be maintained on the ocean, there are no expenses to be borne at all except the ordinary expenses of making repairs from time to time. Therefore, one could not expect that the cable rates upon the Pacific would be, in proportion to the distance, so much greater than the rates upon the Atlantic. Whether a cable is owned by a company or whether it is owned by the state, certain tolls must be charged. It cannot be expected that the government would operate a cable at a great loss to the people at large; because, as has been remarked by the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Lalor), it is only a small proportion of the public who use these cables. Reference has been made by the hon. member for Toronto to what he calls excessive telegraph rates. I agree with the hon. gentlemen who have spoken on the subject, that the public has reason, I think, not to be too severe upon the telegraph companies so far as their operations on the land are concerned. I think
the reductions which they have made recently in rates have been reasonable and fair reductions. As he has stated, telegrams can be sent for long distances in Canada at 25 to 30 cents, and lately provision has been made for night lettergrams, which are very cheap indeed, and are found to be a great convenience. I do not wish to take up any more time of the House. I only desired to call attention to the statute we have on the subject, and to suggest to the Postmaster General, if he would allow me to do so, that it might not be inopportune to communicate with the Imperial authorities with a view of suggesting legislation along the same lines as this parliament legislated in 1910; and if the British government decline to take any action, then he should consider the repeal of section 6, and1 allow the Board of Railway Commissioners to deal with the regulation of the rates and tolls of the cable companies which have land lines in Canada.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: I regret that my hon. friend from East Lambton (Mr. Armstrong), has not been able to put his motion in your hands.
My hon. friend has given to this matter such careful attention, he has gone into his subject so fully that I think the country is indebted to him for the numerous facts he has disclosed. I am of opinion that there is a great deal in what he has said which would turn out to be in the public interest. The hon. member for Rou-ville (Mr. Lemieux) has told him he spoke too long. I do not think he has spoken one minute too long. In the whole course of his remarks he has not repeated one thing, he has placed hard facts before us and every hon. member who has heard him has learned something. The rules of the House prevent me from going at any length into the different matters in his original motion except perhaps by way of comparison. I may say to my hon. friend that after hearing his speech of the other day I read it in ' Hansard ' and that the ' Hansard ' of that day has been put on file in the department as a most valuable piece of information. I might suggest that after his instructive speech the commission he wanted to have appointed becomes almost unnecessary because I do not think any commission could give us more information than he has given us in the speech he has made.
As the hon. member for East Lambton (Mr. Armstrong) has said the motion of the hon. member for Rouville is an academic one. I shall not go so far as to say that the hon. member for Rouville has put this motion before the House just for the sake of having the glory of starting this debate; I think his motives are higher than that.

But there is not much in the motion. The steps which the hon. member speaks of in the motion have been taken and I would like the country to believe that my hon. friend has advanced nothing very new tonight. He has gone on the lines on which the Post Office Department has been working for months so I think everybody should keep what belongs to him. What we have we will hold.
I am glad this matter has been brought before the House because it has given the hon. members on both sides an opportunity of discussing this very important question. The matter of cable rates has engaged the attention of preceding governments. It has been the subject of discussion in Imperial Conferences and I am of opinion that it is most important for this country that we secure reasonable cable rates. I have already said and in that I concur with the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Lalor) that there are other things which are more pressing in this country than cheap cable rates. I have said that I was in hopes before long that we would be able to place before the House a system of rural mail delivery which to my mind was much more important than the other subjects mentioned to-night. . I am happy to say that since I then spoke I have had occasion and opportunity of putting before my colleagues in the government this question of rural delivery with the intention of placing it on a more businesslike basis, with less duplication, in short of having something which will appeal to the people afid will serve them better than the existing loose system. I will have occasion before many d^ys to ask the concurrence of this House in the creation of a special branch in the department to attend to this rural mail delivery for which the people are asking. It will cost some little money but the government have come to the conclusion that it will be money well spent. I am bound to say that we shall not go by leaps and bounds in this new policy. We shall have the counties mapped out in a regular way, so as to spend as little money as possible and to have at the same time as complete a service as possible. We shall have to take this matter up carefully and our friends in this House will have to understand that we will not be able to go into all the counties, that we must proceed by degrees and look ahead of us, not look at a particular township or parish, but at what is going to be the route to be followed from the point where we cease work this year and will begin next year, so as to have the whole thing arranged on a businesslike plan.
We have been told that the rural free mail delivery is in great demand. I Mr. PELLETIER
believe in it, the government believes in it, and we will do our best to give the people of this country this rural mail delivery. It will help the people to read more, to know more, to educate themselves, to communicate with one another more frequently, and I think on the whole it will be considered that this government has conferred a boon on the people of this country. This, in my humble opinion, was the first question we had to take up. We are going to do so this session. As to the other points, we will be unable to look into them sufficiently to be able to propose any policy during the course of the present session. During the recess I shall take all the time at my disposal to go very carefully into this question to give every one of these questions mature consideration, and whilst I agree with the hon. member for Haldimand that rural mail delivery is of far more importance than these other matters, because it will give benefits to more people, I do not entirely agree with him as to the cheapness of cable and telegraph rates.
I do not attribute the fault to any particular company, but I am sorry as a Canadian, that our friends in Winnipeg have to get their European news through St. Paul and Minneapolis, and that the citizens of Vancouver have to get their European news through Seattle. If there is any way by which the Canadian people can get news from the old country over telegraph lines on Canadian territory, and through British sources, we will endeavour to bring that condition about. If we succeed in that. I think we will have accomplished something to promote the best interests of all Canada. I believe the telegraph rates are too high; I go so far as to say, they are excessive. We have been told that the farmers do not use the cable and that is true, but the trade of the country uses the cable, and the trade of the country exists for the benefit of the farmers just as well as for any other class, and as the policy of this government is to trade with England, we should have a cheap means of quick communication with the mother country with which we desire to trade. A cheap cable system is one of the missing links in our trade relations with Britain, and we must, in my opinion, do cur utmost to make some progress towards attaining it. On the 4th of March there will be a sitting of the Board of Railway Commissioners m Winnipeg to inquire into some of these important questions and I have appointed counsel to represent my department and to ascertain for us if the telegraph rates are actually excessive. It may be that there is a combine to keep up these rates, and although we are sometimes taunted with being a government of com-

bines, we have in this case, appointed counsel to attend this investigation in the interests of the public, and to place a report (before the House. To the extent that if it is found that the telegraph rates are excessive, I can assure the House that we will come to the relief of the people. I very much regret to say that I have no very great encouragement to give the country to-night as to the redaction in cable rates.
I do not wish to say anything in criticism of the Postmaster General of England, but I am bound to give the facts to this House.
I am in almost constant correspondence with the right hon. Mr. Samuel, and I regret to say that he feels that we should not go any further at present in the direction indicated in the correspondence. I repeat my expression of regret at the attitude taken by Mr. Samuel. I have here an official letter, which I received from the right hon. gentleman lately, and the contents of which I shall communicate to the House. It is as follows:
General Post Office, London,
- 7th February, 1912.
Dear Mr. Pelletier,-In reply to your letter of the 8th ultimo, I need hardly say that I share your view as to the benefits of cheap cable rates.
While, however, I recognize in this connection the advantages which might be expected from a state-owned Atlantic cable, they are, in my opinion, outweighed by the fact that, under present conditions, such a cable would hardly be self-supporting, so that if one were laid any considerable reduction of rates could only be effected at the expense of the general taxpayers. As you are perhaps aware I spoke in some detail on this aspect of the matter during the discussion at the Imperial Conference in the last year.
Since the conference the position has changed in two ways-the projected combination of three of the Trans-Atlantic Cable Companies has become a fact and the reductions in cable rates I foreshadowed have been brought into operation. I do not think that we need regard these reductions as final. No doubt in due course further concessions may be expected without incurring the heavy expense of laying a government cable. This point was touched on in an answer by me in the House of Commons on the 12th of December last of which, as it deals also with the strategic argument for the cable, I inclose a copy.
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd.) HERBERT SAMUEL. Hon. L. P. Pelletier, M.P.
The following are the remarks made by Mr. Samuel in the Imperial House of Commons and which are referred to in his letter:
There are thirteen cables from the United Kingdom to North America and all of them land on Canadian or Newfoundland territory This fact should be borne in mind in connection with the strategic considerations raised by the hon. member's question.
The land lines both in Canada and the United States are in the hands, not of the governments, but of private companies, .and there is no guarantee under existing conditions that a state-owned cable, if laid, would be able to establish connections with the land lines in those countries. On this side, the British Post Office would not be able to supply the cable with such traffic, as the Anglo-American Cable Company is entitled, under an old agreement, to receive all trans-Atlantio cablegrams which are not ordered by the senders to be transmitted by a specified route. The business of the Pacific Cable Board is at present far from sufficient to justify laying an additional cable across the Atlantic in order to carry its traffic alone.
The hon. member's question is inaccurate in that it suggests that all the trans-Atlantic cable system is now under the control of one corporation. The Commercial Cable Company with five cables is not a party to the combination recently formed.
I have established, as a condition of the renewal or transfer of landing licenses, government control of the rates charged by some of the cable companies, and shall extend this control as the licenses of others fail to be renewed. VVhere the control applies rates cannot be raised without the consent of the government, and may be reduced on the demand of the government. The companies have a right of appeal to the Railway and Canal Commissioners if the equity of any proposed reduction is disputed.
In view of all these circumstances and of the substantial reductions now being made in many of the trans-Atlantic rates, His Majesty's government has no present intention of embarking on the large capital expenditure and annual commitments which would be involved in laying a state-owned cable.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that if the right hon. Mr. Samuel has the right, as he undoubtedly has, to practically control the rates, the self-governing colonies of the empire have the right to ask him that those rates shall be so controlled that Canada and the other selfgoverning colonies will not be forced to pay excessive charges. As Postmaster General of Canada I have answered Mr. Samuel, asking him to use his authority to promise easy and cheap communication between the mother country and Canada. I do not think it will be necessary to have a state-owned cable. There are many heavy demands on the public treasury of Canada and in this young country we have to expend a great deal of money to keep pace with the progress of the times*, so that if we can dispense with the expenditure on a state-built cable, the money thus saved could very well be applied elsewhere. I trust that the Postmaster General of England will before long be able to see eye to eye with us on this matter. We desire, as I have said, to trade with the mother country and in order to carry on that trade with

facility we must have cable communication at the cheapest cost possible.
We do not object to have communication with other countries, but this country prefers to have communication in all forms with England. Of course, the day may come, and the day will come, when the mother country will have some kind of reciprocal relations with the colonies. It is not the business of my department to go into the question of reciprocal trade relations ; but we want the government of England and its Postmaster General to help the trade of this country. The British preference has been put on the Statute-book in order that we may have more trade with England, and if we trade with England we have to communicate with England. Business men will not send pressing orders for what they want to buy in England, by means of letters. They have to use the cable, and it seems to me that it would be very much to the interest of both countries that this should be done. If it is not done, this government will have to look into the question. I am not going an" further than that; I am not- authorized to go any further; but I will go as far as to say that the government will look into the question seriously. There is one fact more to which I will briefly refer before resuming my seat. Most of these cable companieg land in Canada or in Newfoundland. They are controlled by foreign capital. I see no reason why there should not be one cable, [DOT]owned by a company of British subjects. I do not object to our neighbours to the south investing their money in this country; on the contrary, I am prepared to invite that; but I think that Canada and England will both desire to have a cable company, and a cable that would not be controlled by foreign capital. I am not prepared to-night to go into this matter at any great length; but the House will, I think, be of opinion that these questions may -well engage the attention of hon. members. I would ask my hon. friend not to press his motion, which I think is too academic, and not practical enough.


Rodolphe Lemieux: In what sense?


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: It is going to be published in the newspapers, and the people who Tead it will say: This gentleman does rot seem to attach much importance to this matter, as he .makes a motion of fine words, but no action.


Rodolphe Lemieux: On the contrary, I ask for action.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: The hon. gentleman says he hopes that steps will be taken, as if steps were not taken now.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Go further.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Steps were taken before the hon. gentleman made his motion,


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: so that I do not see that there is any occasion for it. I do not wish to divide the House on the motion; I would prefer to have the hon. gentleman withdraw it. Under the circumstances, it would have no good effect. The Post Office Department is giving its full attention to this matter, and I do not think there is any necessity of saying that we should take steps. We have done so and will do so, without being invited in any academic way to blow' our trumpet.
House divided on amendment of Mr. Le-mieux.
YEAS:
Messieurs
Beland,	Lafortune,
Bickerdike,	Lanctot,
Boivin,	Lapointe
Bourassa,	(Kamouraska),
Brouillard,	Lemieux,
Brown,	Loggie,
Buchanan,	MacNutt,
Bureau,	McKenzie,
Carvell,	McMillan,
Chisholm (Antigoni6h),Marcile (Bagot), Chisholm (Inverness), Molloy,
Clark (Red Deer),	Nesbitt,
Delisle,
Demers,
Neely,
Oliver,
Devlin,	Pacaud,
Fortier,	Papineau,
Gauthier	Proulx,
(St. Hyacinthe)	Sinclair,
Gauvreau,	Verville,
Hughes (King's,	Warnock and
P.E.I.),	Wilson (Laval).-40.
Lachance,	
	NAYS:
	Messieurs
Achim,	Lalor,
Alguire,	Lennox,
Armstrong (Lambton),Lesperance,	
Arthurs,	Lewis,
Barker,	McKay,
Beattie,	Marshall, -
Bennett (Simcoe),	Middlebro,
Borden,	Munson,
Boulay,	Nantel,
Brabazon,	Nicholson,
Broder,	Paquet,
Burnham,	Paul,
Chabot,	Pelletier,
Clark (Bruce),	Porter,
Clarke (Wellington), Reid (Grenville),	
Clements,	Roche,
Cochrane,	Sevigny,
Coekshutt,	Sexsmith,
Cromwell,	Sharpe (Ontario),
Crothers,	Shepherd,
Davidson,	Smith,
Doherty,	Staples,
Donnelly,	Steel,
Edwards,	Stevens,
Elliot,	Stewart (Hamilton),
Elson,	Stewart (Lunenburg)
Fisher,	Sutherland,
Girard,	Taylor,

Goodeve,	Thomson (Yukon),
Gordon,	Thornton,
Guifbault,	Tremain,
Hazen,	Wallace,
Henderson,	Webster,
Hepburn,	Wilson
Jameson,	(Wentworth) and
Kidd,	Wright.-70.
	PAIRS:
Ministerial.	Opposition.
	Messieurs
White (Leeds),	Emmerson,
Burrell,	Turriff,
I'erley,	Marcil (Bonaventure),
Kemp,	Murphy,
Haggart,	Gordon,
Macdonell,	Guthrie,
Foster (Kings),	Carroll,
Boyce,	Richards,
Stanfield,	Pardee,
Rhodes,	Macdonald, i
Ames,	Less,
Fowler,	Pngsley,
Bristol,	Charlton,
McCurdy,	Maclean (Halifax),
Baker,	Kay,
Wilcox,	Clarke (Essex),
Thoburn,	Robb,
Bowman,	M'cCoig,
Aikins.	Douglas.
Amendment negatived and Bouse went into Committee of Simply.


William Pugsley: I have a general pair with the hon. member for Kings and Albert (Mr. Fowler). He is in the city, but not in the House to-night, and therefore I think my name ought to be erased from the division list.


David Henderson: I am afraid the hon. member for Prince Edward County (Mr. Hepburn) has not been counted.



Rodolphe Lemieux: Before you leave the Chair, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Justice if the statement made by Mr. Justice McDougall yesterday at Hull while presiding over the court was true, that he had interviewed the Minister of Justice and that a new judge was to be appointed at Hull.


Mr. DOHERTY.: I have not seen the statement of Mr. Justice McDougall, but the Quebec Legislature has provided for a new judicial district to toe called Montcalm, and that until there is a proper court house at the Chef-lieu of Montcalm district, the judge to be appointed shall reside at Hull. It is the intention when we introduce the Bill to provide for the additional judges which are asked for by the different provinces to make provision for the salary of the judge which the legis-ture has determined is required for the
district of Montcalm, and who is to pre side at Hull, and that was so stated to the Hon. Mr. Justice McDougall.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee of Supply.
['So I understood. Then we will take up other Bills as far as it may be convenient to hon. members on the other side, and then resume in Supply, with the estimates of the Minister of Railways and Canals.\nMotion agreed to and the House adjourned at 12.55 a. m. Friday.', 'Friday, March 1, 1912.']
Andrew Archibald MacDonald: What supply is to be taken up?


Robert Laird Borden: Railways and canals.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: The Premier knows it has always been the custom previous to going into Committee of Supply on the estimates of the Department of Railways and Canals for the minister to give to the House a statement with reference to the transportation problems of the country generally, and particularly with reference to the Intercolonial railway, and that course has facilitated the passage of Supply. In my recollection in parliament, this is the first time in which it has been proposed to take up Supply on railways and canals without having a statement of that kind. I am quite sure the minister will agree with me in that.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not agree that the practice has been invariable.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Well, if not invariable, it has been the custom during the last eight years, ever since I have been in the House. The questions involved in regard to railway matters, of necessity, require that there should be some statement as to the position of the Intercolonial railway to begin with. It enables hon. members in considering Supply to have beforehand information in succinct form which otherwise could not be elicited except by prolonged questioning.


Mr SINCLAIR.: I agree with cmy right hon. friend from Pictooi that it will no doubt facilitate the business of the House if a general statement could be made by the minister, prior to taking up the railway estiim'atgs. For example, the financial condition of the Intercolonial railway is watched with a great deal of interest by the members of this House as well as by the people of the country. During the time that I have had the honour of a seat in this House it has been the invariable practice for the Minister of Railways to open the consideration of the railway estimates by making suich a statement, which has been regarded as only second in importance to the budget speech of the Finance Minister. I think it would be a mistake to do away with that very laudable practice. Not only do we want to know what has happened in regard to the Intercolonial railway and what the prospects are for the future business year, but we wouild like to be favoured with some information in regard to the deepening of the Welland cand, the deep-

ening of the Georgian Bay carnal, the conr stiuiotion of the Hudson Bay railway, and other matters. lA.11 these questions are looming np and it certainly would he important for the House to be in possession of a general statement setting forth the policy of the government in regard to these great transportation problems.


William Pugsley: I think also, Mr. Chairman,-I do not know whether it was justifiable or not-that there was a general opinion upon this side of the House that if we went into Supply to-night the estimates of the Minister of the Interior would be taken up. I trust the Prime Minister will, particularly as tire hour is quite late, yield to the view that there should be a statement made by the Minister of Railways. Where such a practice has been resorted to year after year for a great many years, we ooone to look upon it almost as the law of parliament. I think that for some ten or twelve years past there never has been an occasion when the House has gone into consideration of the railway estimates without a statement having first been made by the Minister of Railways. But perhaps my hon. friend would even now give us that statement. If not, I am sure that we on this side would cheerfully allow him one day far further preparation in order to make that statement to-morrow. But, speaking seriously, I really do not think my right hon. -friend (Mr. Borden) would be wise in making so radical a departure from what has been the custom during the last ten, twelve, perhaps fifteen, years.


Robert Laird Borden: I can only say that since the House went into committee and up to the present time, my hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Cochrane) has not had much opportunity of making a statement. Further than that, hon. members on the other side seem to be so much impressed with the value of speech that they insist that we shall talk whether we want to or not. I suppose the Minister of Railways and Canals must be permitted to explain his estimates in the way that seems best to himself. It is true that it has been the practice, particularly under the late Minister of Railways and Canals to make a statement explaining the general condition of the Intercolonial railway. It- may be that that course has its advantages in some respects, but I do not know that there is any absolutely inflexible rule that it shall be done on all occasions. As to the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Rogers) he was here in the early part of the evening but has been obliged to leave. If the House had gone into Supply a little earlier his estimates would have been taken up. But we wish to make a little progress. I would suggest Mr. SINCLAIR.
that we might go on and hon. gentlemen can get the information that is available in the way that my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane) who is in charge of tihe department prefers to give it.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Hon members who are interested in the Intercolonial railway did not know that we were going into the Intercolonial railway estimates to-night, and a good many hon. members are not here who would like to be present when these estimates are taken up. Under the circumstances it seems hardly fair to ask us to go on.


Robert Laird Borden: What department would hon memhers like to take up?


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: The House understood that we were going on with the estimates of the Interior Department until they were finished.


Robert Laird Borden: Perhaps we could take up canals.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: I do not know. Our friends from Ontario who are interested in canals are not here.


Frank Oliver: I was certainly under the impression that we were to go on with the Department of the Interior.


Robert Laird Borden: That would have been taken up but for the circumstance to which I have alluded.


William Pugsley: If my hon. friend is determined to go into railway estimates tonight, I think this would be a very proper time to get some information with regard to one of the branch lines of the Intercolonial railway.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Barker).: Better
let me read the resolution first:
Railways and Canals-chargeable to capital Intercolonial railway air brakes to improved triple valves of $7,150.


William Pugsley: I regret that the hon.
member for Kings and Albert (Mr. Fowler) is not present-
Mr.. MACDONALD. If my hon. friend (Mr. Pugsley) will pardon me for a moment -the vote of which this is one item amounts to $4,158,350. Surely, the Prime Minister and Minister of Railways and Canals can hardly expect to get that vote through to-night. The discussion will necessarily he long.


Robert Laird Borden: Is there any other item hon. gentlemen opposite would like to take up?


William Pugsley: I may explain to my hon. friend the Minister of Railways that, as he is no doubt aware from the papers on file in the department, an agreement was
[DOT]4125

made by the ex-Minister of Railways with the Salisbury and Harvey Railway Company some time during the past summer- the exact date will appear from the letter which the ex-Minister of Railways wrote to the president of that railway company. In that letter the ex-minister referred to certain negotiations whirih had taken place with regard to supplying a -quantity of rails, bridge girders and [DOT]other material for a portion of that railway with a view to its being reopened and put in satisfactory operation. In that letter Mr. Graham, the ex-minister, referred to an offer which the company had made to either sell its railway for a sum of money which the company had stated and which is referred to in the letter, or else to lease the road upon terms which bad been presented to the government by a committee of the different branch railways in the maritime provinces. In the letter the ex-minister states that if these terms are acceded to by the company, legislation will be introduced at the then coming session of parliament-that is, the present session-for the purpose of carrying out the arrangement. Now, as I nave said, I regret that my hon. friend from Kings and Albert is not present. But he will read my remarks in ' Hansard ' and will have an opportunity at a later date of making any comment on them that he may desire to make. That hon. gentleman is reported to have made a public statement not long ago in the province of New Brunswick with regard to the railway which certainly is of a very serious character, and reflects so severely not only upon the ex-Minister of Railways, but upon myself and every other member of the government who had anything to do with the arrangements as to require that the facts should be placed on * Hansard,' so that they may go to the country and particularly to that part of New Brunswick the people of which are so intensely interested in this railway and who were for some months before the arrangements were completed, exceedingly anxious that steps should be taken for the opening up of the portion of the railway which had been closed. I find that the hon. member for Kings and Albert is reported in the St. John ' Standard ' as having made a speech at a banquet given to him in the county of Albert. The date is the 14th of November, 1911. This is the report of his remarks:
' The people of Albert county were fooled about the railway. Promises were made by our opponents that were not intended to be fulfilled. Some oar-loads of rails were sent to Salisbury a day or so before the elections and these were to be taken back again in case the government were defeated. There had been no authority for these rails to be loaded or removed from Moncton, and as soon as the elections were over and the government was defeated, arrangements were made to withdraw these rails. I found it necessary to go to Ottawa. I found out that there had been no contract signed or executed in regard to rails for the Salisbury and Albert railway. I made arrangements for those rails and got them forwarded. Then there was trouble about the bridges. I again went to Ottawa and got the bridges, and I have the authority for saying to you that one of these bridges is now on the line and on the 1st December the road will again be in operation its entire length.
Now, my hon. friend will, I am sure, do me the justice to look up the record, and he will find that a bona fide arrangement was made for the delivery of these rails to that railway company. I think you will agree with me, Mr. Chairman, that the charge which the hon. member for Kings and Albert (Mr. Fowler), has made, that it was never intended bona fide to deliver these rails, and that after the government was defeated an order was given to take the rails back, as carrying out the intention which' the government had to deceive the people-that is a charge of a very serious character, and before a member of the House should make a charge so serious, he ought to have all the- facts fully in his possession, and to have the strongest possible justification to make such a charge. Now, I find on looking at the file which the Minister of Railways brought down in answer to my motion, that after that letter of the late Minister of Railways to the company agreeing to their terms, either for the purchase, at a price which was agreed upon, or for the leasing, and engaging to submit legislation at the present session, the matter was followed up by order in council, and an agreement was drawn up by the Department of Justice and submitted in due course to the railway company for signature. ' I happen to know personally, because I had some conferences with Mr. Raymond, who I think, was then the legal partner of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, upon the subject of this agreement. The company had by their telegram, or letters from the manager, agreed to execute a contract. There was, however, some delay, and Mr. Raymond went to the city of New York where he saw the president of the railway company; and as the matter was somewhat urgent by Teason of people being deprived of railway facilities, it was understood1 that Mr. Raymond would wire to me, as the minister representing New Brunswick in the government, and who had taken an active part in endeavouring to get this line of railway opened-it was understood he would wire to me when the contract was signed. After he had gone to New York I received a telegram from him that the contract had been signed by the company, and it was understood that

wfaen it was signed he would1 send it forward to the Deputy Minister of .Railways at Ottawa. I took it for granted that that would be done, and I immediately wired either to the Minister of Railways or to the Deputy Minister of Railways, stating that the contract had been signed and forwarded to-Ottawa, and, asking him to give directions for the delivery of the rails. The department was acting in good faith upon my assurance which I received from Mr. Raymond that the contract had been executed by the company. The contract was dated some time in September, I think. Later on, and after a quantity of rails had been placed upon the cars at Moncton and sent forward for delivery to the railway company, it appeared that Mr. Raymond had neglected to have the contract sent to Ottawa. I remember being in Ottawa after the election, and my attention was called to the matter. I may say that the Minister of Railways made no change in the arrangement by reason of the result of |he election, and everything was going forward just as it had been before the election took place, so far as the delivery of the rails was concerned. On the 5th of October I was informed by Mr. Pottinger, the general manager of the Intercolonial, that the contract had not been received. I find that on the file there is a letter from Mr. Pottinger to Mr. Burpee which I will read:
Moncton, October 5, 1911. T. C. Burpee, Esq.,
Please stop at onoe the delivery of rails and other materials to the Salisbury and Albert railway, as the signed agreement has not yet been received at Ottawa. Please let me know quickly what materials and quantity of each have been delivered.
Yours truly,



[Stage Direction]
Then upon the same day, when I had been informed by Mr. Pottinger that the agreement had not been received1, I wired to Mr. Raymond calling his attention to his assurance that the contract would be at once forwarded to Ottawa, and I received this telegram, a very extraordinary telegram.
St. John, N.B., October 5, 1911. Hon. Wm. Pugsley,
Minister of Public Works,
Ottawa, Ont.
Expect to make another arrangement with new government.	.

[Stage Direction]
To which I replied as follows:
Ottawa, October 5, 1911.
E. P. Raymond,
St. John, N. B.
You must see it is not a question of making another arrangement with new government, hut of carrying out in good faith arrangement made and under which some rails have been Mr. PUGSLEY.
delivered. You distinctly agreed to send' signed agreement to Ottawa, and wired me that it was signed by company. This was clearly for purpose of letting me know that the matter was complete so far as company was concerned.
(Sgd.) WM. PUGSLEY.
Then later, on the 10th of October, I wrote to the Deputy Minister of Railways and Canals as follows:
Ottawa, October 10, 1911.
A. W. Campbell Esq.,
Deputy Minister of Railways and Canals, Ottawa.
Some days ago, when I was informed by Mr. Pottinger and yourself that Mr. Raymond had not sent the agreement re Salisbury Harvey Railway, I wired him to do so, and received the reply hereto annexed. My ans-swer is also annexed hereto. I am greatly surprised at the fact of Mr. Raymond not having sent you the agreement, but if the company accepted any of the rails, they could he compelled to carry out the agreement the 6ame as if they had sent it to you-I am, yours truly,
(Sgd.) WM. PUGSLEY.
Now, when my hon. friend, the present Minister of Railways, came into office he would see these letters on file, and would see that the delay in countermanding the ord'er for delivery of rails was due entirely to the fact that the agreement had not been signed, and not, as the hon. member for Kings and Albert told the electors, that it was in pursuance of a design to make the people believe before the election that the rails would be delivered, and then to have them sent back to Moncton after the election. I am satisfied the Minister of Marine and Fisheries could not have known the condition of the agreement, could not have known what Mr. Raymond had1 promised; because I find that the Minister of Marine and Fisheries sent a telegram on the 12th of October to the Minister of Railways and Canals as follows:
St. John, N.B., October 2, 1911 Hon. Frank Cochrane,
Minister of Railways,
Chateau Frontenac, Que.
Agreement made with late government to supply rails and girders to Salisbury and Albert railway to repair their railway pending the agreement to take over railways by government. Since government resigned management refuses to give any further rails. Kindly instruct Pottinger at Moncton to continue supplying sufficient rails and girders so work can he completed. Will see you in Ottawa Tuesday.
(Sgd.) J. D. HAZEN.
I make no complaint of the telegram sent by the hon. the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. It was a very proper request for him to make as the delivery had been stopped, but I take it for granted that my hon. friend did not know the circumstances under which delivery had been stopped.

On October 14, the Minister of Railways replied to the Minister of Marine as follows:
Ottawa, Oot. 14, 1911.
Hon.  J. D.@: Hazen,
St. John, N.B.
Message received re 'Salisbury and Albert railway. I find upon inquiry that the company has not executed the agreement they promised to, and which it was said they had done. This is reason, I am informed, for non-delivery more rails and girders.
(Sgd.) F. COCHRANE.
It was only about October 26 that the present Minister of Railways was informed that the contract which I had been informed by Mr. Raymond, had been executed in New York in September, had been delivered to the department and thereupon orders were immediately given by the department to resume the delivery of rails in accordance with the original understanding. I think when my hon. friend the member for Kings and Albert (Mr. Fowler) reads these different telegrams, which are all on file in the department, he will come to the conclusion that he did the late Minister of Railways and Canals and myself a great wrong when he charged that the order for delivering these rails had been countermanded after the election simply because the election had gone as it did and that there was never any bona fide intention of delivering these rails. The circumstances are simply as the correspondence discloses. There was the bona fide agreement to deliver the rails. There was the telegram from the solicitor of the company to me that the contract had been signed and the understanding was that it was to be forwrarded immediately to Ottawa. I was advised that the contract was signed, I so informed the department and acting upon that in good faith they gave instructions for the delivery of the material to the railway company. Afterwards, on October 5, they learned that the contract had not been delivered at Ottawa as they had been led to believe it was in course of delivery and for that reason the order for the delivery of the rails and girders was countermanded. Later on, on October 26, when the contract wrns signed as it had been agreed it should be, the present Minister of Railways gave the order for the continuation of the delivery of rails. The hon. member for Kings and Albert not only charges me with bad faith in the matter but he takes to himself all the credit for having obtained the order for the resuming of the delivery of these rails, whereas, as a matter of fact, the order was given when the agreement originally made with the company and which was understood would be executed and forwarded to Ottawa, was actually forwarded in order to protect the department and compel the company to carry out its arrangement.
My hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals will see that by the agreement, legislation is to be obtained during the present session. Unless the legislation is so obtained or unless there is a waiver of that upon the part of the company, I would ask my hon. friend whether it is not worthy of consideration if the company might not say:	Oh, .the government has not carried
out its part of the agreement, it has not obtained the legislation authorizing it either to acquire or to lease the road, and might not the company take a position with regard to payment for the rails which might be detrimental to the public interest?
T think myself, that unless there is some waiver on the part of the company the obligation would be on the government to ask parliament to enact the legislation this session which is provided for in the agreement.


Francis Cochrane: In reply I would say that these rails were shipped before the elections, they were shipped before the contract was signed, but after the department found out that the rails had been shipped, and the contract not signed, they gave orders that the rails should not be unloaded, but should be kept there, and they were not returned to Moncton, they were held there until the contract was signed. I do not know anything about the speech made by the hon. member for Kings and Albert, but I think the hon. member from St. John, (Mr.Pugsley)is wrong in his interpretation of the agreement, As I remember it, they are to pay for these rails, if we do not take over the road, and if we do take over the road, it is to be deducted from the arrangement. So it is unnecessary for us to pass any legislation in reference to it this session.
It has been announced in this House that the promises about the branch lines will be gone into during the vacation, and all those [DOT] that are in the interest of the Intercolonial railway and of the county will be taken over on a fair and equitable basis.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend does not mean to have the committee believe that the order stopping delivery of the Tails was made after he came into office, it was made before he came into office.


Francis Cochrane: No, I did not say that.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman's remarks might be open to that interpretation. The order was made some five days before the late government resigned, and because the arrangement which Mr. Raymond wired me, had been executed had not been delivered to the department,


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Would the minister state the surplus of the Intercolonial railway on the 31st January last?


Francis Cochrane: About $700,000. That is within $5,000 of the exact amount.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: What will be the surplus at the end -of the financial year?


Francis Cochrane: That is a matter that v. ould be purely guesswork. It depends largely on the cost of running trains or how many snowstorms we have, etc. The hon. member knows the weather conditions have a lot to do with the net profits, but we will not be far out when we say about $600,000 or $700,000.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: My hon. friend
should have known before asking the committee to pass the estimates, exactly what the surplus was on January 31, and now at the beginning of the last month of the financial year, he could give us the probable financial results on the 31st of March. I would like the minister before we discuss this matter again, to give us the fullest explanation of what the financial position of the road is, and what it is expected it will be.


Francis Cochrane: The Auditor has just told me that the exact amount up to the 31st of January is $677,000.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: The minister can, without much trouble, tell us what the estimated surplus on the 31st of March will be. There are certain expenditures which can be estimated pretty accurately, the only uncertain element being as to the extent of snowstorms and the cost of removal of snow. Such information as that should be given us in order to discuss the future policy with regard to the Intercolonial railway. Without anticipating what I will say at a future date, I have no hesitation in saying in this House now, as I have said before, that the Intercolonial has no business to have a surplus.


Francis Cochrane: Do you think it has?


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Well, we would like a statement from the minister in regard to that. I have said the same thing to other ministers who were friendly to me politically. I say that every dollar that is reported as a surplus on the Intercolonial railway means so much money taken out of the pockets of the people of the Maritime provinces, and for no good. When you come to deal with the Intercolonial, you are not dealing with a corporate entity such as a private railway company, which at the end of its financial year has so much money, and as to which the directors can consider whether it will be spent in betterments or whether it will be paid in dividends, because, at the end of the financial year if the Intercolonial has a surplus of eight or nine hundred thousand dollars, that money passes into the treasury of the Dominion, Mr. MACDONALD.
away from the Intercolonial, and not a dollar of it is available for running expenses of the railway for the new year. And then, when the people interested in the line press on the minister for increased accommodation or for improved freight rates, the answer is that the surplus of the previous year has passed away from him and has gone into the general treasury, and there is no money left for these betterments. Before we discuss these estimates again 1 wish the minister would give us the result of the operations of the Intercolonial in the way of surpluses for the last three years, and a statement down to date, so far as he has it, and an estimate up to the 31st of March, in so far as it is possible to anticipate. In certain portions of Canada the feeling is that if a Minister of Railways is able to report a surplus on the Intercolonial he has achieved some distinguished feat, for which he is entitled to credit. I do_ not hesitate to say to the Minister of Railways at the inception of his career as minister, as I have said to my own political friends when they occupied the office, that if a Minister of Railways has a surplus on the Intercolonial, it is not to his credit but to his discredit, for the reason that he has discriminated against the people of the maritime provinces in making them pay more than they had necessity to pay.


Francis Cochrane: There will be no objection to bringing down the statement which the hon. gentleman asks for in reference to the surplus on the Intercolonial for the last three years, and also an estimate of the operations of the road up to the 31st of March. In some aspects of the remarks of the hon. member for Pie-tou I thoroughly agree. Of course, it is a question in my own mind whether this is really a surplus or not. It is a question in my mind whether the betterments on the rolling stock have been kept up from year to year in the manner I think they should have been before there is any surplus claimed. I am having a stocktaking made of the Intercolonial railway, especially with reference to the rolling stock, so as to get at some basis on which we can start anew. I also think that the Intercolonial can be so managed that it will not only pay its way but that it will pay . for betterments as well, and that without raising the present rates. I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that the rates on the Intercolonial are lower than on any other railroad of the same mileage.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: I do not know about that. Other Ministers of Railways have said that but it did not work out.


Francis Cochrane: I have made a few comparisons, but, as the hon. gentleman knows what I don't know about the Intercolonial railway would make a much bigger book than what I do know about it. I should think that if I undertook to teli this committee very much about the Intercolonial railway they would consider that I was rather bumptious. I have only been on the road once and then only on a part of the system, and the reason that I did not purpose making a general statement was that I would have to make it largely on what I have been told, not having had an opportunity, from personal experience, of studying the matter myself.


William Pugsley: I represent one of the maritime provinces which is deeply interested in the operations of the Intercolonial railway and I fear I cannot agree either with the Minister of Railways or with the hon. member for Pictou.


Francis Cochrane: I would not expect you to.


William Pugsley: I think myself that if the Intercolonial railway in charging fair and reasonable rates to the people, which the people of the maritime provinces are quite willing to pay, earns a surplus, it is to the credit of the management of that railway. I think it is better for the lower provinces that such surplus should be shown, because when there is no surplus on the Intercolonial railway it has been the practice of persons coming from other parts of Canada to speak of the railway rather as a dead weight upon the people of Canada and to deciare that it ought to be got rid of as soon as possible and handed over to some private company.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: That would not hurt very much.


William Pugsley: Well I think it would. I am very strongly in favour of the Intercolonial railway being kept, owned1, and operated as a government railway.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


William Pugsley: 
Francis Cochrane: Do you not think it ought to go into rolling stock ?


William Pugsley: If you put all the surplus into betterments without treating it 'as a surplus, you do not give the government railway ia fair show, and you add to the 'argument of those who say that it is run at a loss to the people of Canada and that the sooner we get rid of it the better. We ought to make up our minds firmly to hold on to 'the Intercolonial railway forever, to be operated in the interest of the people of Canada.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: How much has been charged up to capital in the operation of [DOT] the Intercolonial railway during the present fiscal year ?


Rodolphe Lemieux: 

The hon. minister is, I 'am sure, anxious to meet requests of this kind.


Francis Cochrane: We have not heard from him.	.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Will the'hon. minister kindlv communicate with Mr. Savoie, who is one of the largest manufacturers along the line?


Francis Cochrane: There has been a good deal of difficulty in getting the cars back from the United States, where the congestion is worse than it is in Canada. In November we had a number of complaints of the shortage of cars for the shipment of lumber and pulipwood, and Mr. Tiffin told me that an. enormous number of our cars were in the United States, and that he was trying to get them back.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is there not a fine imposed for retaining these cars?


Francis Cochrane: There is a fine of 35 cents a day, which the railway companies would rather pay and keep the cars. In regard to the expenditure on capital account, the auditor tells me that during the past year to the 1st of September it amounted to $1,156,207.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: My hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Pugsley) looks at this matter from an entirely different standpoint from those of us who come from the province of Nova Scotia. The province of New Brunswick is fortunate enough to have two transcontinental systems, the Canadian Pacific railway running into the city of St. John and the Grand Trunk Pacific, which is completed to the city of Moncton, as wall as the Intercolonial. That pUovince is -therefore very fortunate in having plenty of railway accommodation which I do not begrudge it in the slightest degree. But in the province of Nova Scotia we have but one railway, giving us communication with the outside world, that is, the Intercolonial, and we have none of the transcontinental systems; and when we want additional railway 'accommodation w-e are compelled to come to- the Minister of Railways and- -ask him to build a branch line. My hon. friend now -tells us: You must show us that 'this is going to make money for the country or we will not talk about a branch line.


Francis Cochrane: I did not say make money, I said pay its way.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: The minister's expression is practically one which means what I said. I only want to point out-and I do not want to continue the discussion tonight, because it is now pretty late-that the member from St. John (Mr. Pugsley), certainly views this question from an entirely different standpoint to that from which I am compelled to view it. I would Mr. LEMIEUX.	!i
suggest to the minister that there is no desire on the part of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House to do -other than discuss these estimates fairly, and, in view of the absence of a number of our friends who wish to speak upon these items, he ought not, perhaps, to proceed further to-night


Francis Cochrane: I am perfectly willing and it will be certainly, a pleasure to furnish all the information as we go along, but I think we ought, to pass a few items before the committee rises.
Ajir-brakes-To improve triple values of $7,150.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Perhaps the minister would tell us what this vote for airbrakes is foil-?


Francis Cochrane: The object of these airbrakes is to improve the feature known as quick service. The K triple valve has additional features, known as quick service uniform rails, and uniform recharge to meet modern conditions of freight service, using less air and being far superior for controlling trains on heavy grades, and is being adopted by a large number of railways. I might say that there was spent last year for the same purpose $3,314.16. The work is done by the staff. These cost about $5.50 each, and the estimate _ this year was to put these brakes on 1,300 frieght cars. It is only following out the policy which has been adopted in the past.


Mr. SINCLAIR.: There have been reports in the newspapers that the minister contemplated some radical changes, in the board of management of the Intercolonial, I would like to know if he has any information to give the House as to his policy in that regard?


Francis Cochrane: I have not seen any of the newspapers which gave currency to such reports, and I have no information to give.


John Howard Sinclair: Will the minister say whether any changes are contemplated?


Francis Cochrane: I have no information m reference to the matter.


John Howard Sinclair: That is a very unsatisfactory answer to my question, for the minister to state that he has no information to give.	.


Francis Cochrane: I can only repeat that answer.


John Howard Sinclair: This railway board was constituted after a great deal of deliberation, and its maintenance became the settled policy of the late government. The board has done very good work, and has been of great service to the country. The minister surely knows whether he intends to continue that board or not, and I should

think ought to be in a position to give us some information.


Francis Cochrane: When the government has made up its mind to change the board it will be very glad to take the House into its confidence.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Does that mean that the government has not made up its mind at the present time to make any change?


Francis Cochrane: Hon. gentlemen draw their own conclusions anyway, no matter what I say and they are at liberty to do the same in this instance.
Bridges-to strengthen, $100,000.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: Where are these bridges to be strengthened?


Francis Cochrane: It is hoped by means of this vote to complete the strengthening of the bridges on the main line of the Intercolonial, and afterwards to proceed with the strengthening of the bridges on the Cape Breton branch.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: In the system of bookkeeping are the two items of betterments and maintenance kept separately, or are they under the heading of maintenance simply?


Francis Cochrane: I understand it is a capital and revenue account.
contention as between the towns that consider they should have the wharf. I received a deputation from both Newcastle and Chatham this last week, and the matter I considered should stand until the proper place was selected where the bridge would be most useful for the country and the railway as well.


Mr. LOGGIE.: The minister refers to the question as to whether the wharf should be located at Chatham or Newcastle. For my own part I cannot see what in the world that would have to do with the vote in the estimates of last year. They are diverting the railway and taking it along the water front. The northwest wind blows very heavily on that side of the river and of course the boom must be filled in. The plans
Tele iJ"0 iiV1* riPraP stone so as to protect the filling. My contention was that if riprap stone were used, it would be impossible to use that portion of the railway for shipping facilities. The location is between two wharfs. We have limited wharf accommodation at Chatham for ocean going shipments. It is expected that large steamers carrying a million or more of deals would load timber coming over the road at that wharf if it were constructed as I suggest.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Would the Minister be able to give the average expenditure on maintenance during say the last four years? I mean a comparison of the amounts expended on the road for maintenance per mile per year during that period?
Chatham-diversion of line and branch to wharf, $160,000.
seemed to me when I was Minister of Public Works that in order to make the branch railways into the town of Chatham of real service to the business people of that place, it was necessary to build a wharf and I had an item of $100,000 placed in the estimates for the purpose of doing that. When the estimates for the Public Works Department were under consideration I called the attention of the Minister of Public Works to the fact that the item of $100,000 had been left out, and if I remember rightly he was not able to tell me what was the intention in regard to it. Has the Minister of Railways com sidered the matter, and does he intend to use any part of this amount of $160,000 tor the terminals, including the wharf, or is it wholly apart from that, and if not what is my hon. friend's intention in regard to the construction of a railway wharf there?


Francis Cochrane: I may say there is not in the amount of $160,000 anything for the wharf.' There has been a good deal of 132i


John Douglas Hazen: I desire to ask a question for information. Where do the ocean steamers that now load deals at Chatham load?


William Stewart Loggie: A large number of ocean steamers load at the wharfs of the timber merchants, but large quantities of deals arriving over the road at present are loaded at the wharf known as the Canada dock.


John Douglas Hazen: Is that a government wharf? Does it belong to the railway?


William Stewart Loggie: Yes. At that dock there is room for only one steamer to load at a time, and often there are steamers with coal for the railway to be unloaded at the same wharf. So, it was considered very important that, when they were constructing this road across this boom, instead of making the front of it of ripTap stone, it should be made of timber. At the time, I did not think it would cost much more- to make it of timber than of stone. It is possible a wharf more cheaply constructed might serve the purpose as well as a wharf built according to the plans prepared1. The very object of diverting the railway to the front of the town was to have shipping facilities, and hon. gentlemen know that success in shipping timber depends largely upon the ease with which it is handled. I would like it very much if the minister would favourably consider my suggestion,

and take up the matter with the Public Works Department, and, if reasonable at all, have a wharf of the dimensions proposed; or, if the cost is considered to be too much, then make plans for a cheaper wharf. What the ex-Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley), said1 is true, that this expenditure was to be made by the Public Works Department for the use of the railway, but to be the property of the Public Works Department. In fact, I think it is the policy of the Railway Department in regard to other wharfs, viz., to hand them over to Public Works Department.	*


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Does the hon. gen-'fleman mean that the side of the railway next the stream was to be constructed so that it could be used as a loading wharf?


William Stewart Loggie: Yes, but if stone were used that could not be done.


Francis Cochrane: I desire to tell the hon. member for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) that I will have the statement he asks for made to-morrow, so far as we .can make it.


Andrew Archibald MacDonald: It was understood that after this item was passed we would adjourn.
Some resolutions reported;
'Mr. BORDEN moved the adjournment of the House.


William Pugsley: What business will be taken up to-morrow?


Robert Laird Borden: We will take up Bills and resolutions as far as possible.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I understood the Postmaster General (Mr. Pelletier) would bring up his Post Office Bill.


Robert Laird Borden: So I understood. Then we will take up other Bills as far as it may be convenient to hon. members on the other side, and then resume in Supply, with the estimates of the Minister of Railways and Canals.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 12.55 a. m. Friday.

Friday, March 1, 1912.