1913-05-13

Mr. E. M. MACDONALD (Pictou) moved:: That the action of Mr. Blondin, the Deputy Speaker, as Chairman of the Com4 mittee of the Whole House, while thei committee was considering Bill No. 21, entitled: 'an Act to authorize measures for increasing the effective Naval Forces of the Empire ', in refusing to permit Mr. Carroll, the member for South Cape Breton, to move to add an additional section to said Bill, and also in declining to put the motion that the Chairman do now leave the Chair, as

9712 moved by Mr. Pugsley, the member for the city of St. John, was a violation of the rules and constituted an infringement of the privileges of this House.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I desire to move the motion, notice of which I gave last evening, with reference to the Deputy Speaker. The conduct of the gentleman who occupies the Chair of this House, either as Speaker or as Deputy Speaker, is a matter of the greatest possible importance to every member. ' That that position should be filled with absolute impartiality and with due regard to the privileges of Parliament is a matter that must be recognized not only by the occupant of the office himself but by every hon. member of this House. Where there has been any failure to live up to the high standard that has been maintained, not only in this House but in the Parliament upon which we pattern our forms, where there has been any lapse or failure to live up to those high standards, I say the result has always been of the most pernicious character in its effect not only immediately, but in the subsequent deliberations of the Parliament or the committee as the case may be and upon the country itself because unless absolute fairness and impartiality, absolute regard for the principles and precedents which are formulated in the rules of Parliament, animate the Speaker of the day or the man who fills that position temporarily, the whole fabric of parliamentary government will be imperilled, and dangers to the body politic will be liable to arise at any time. Hence it is, and feeling how serious and important it is that we in this parliament should recognize these facts, that I rise to move this motion, notice of which I gave last night.
I may be permitted to call to your attention a statement which I find in the English Hansard for 1871 in an address made by Sir Eoundell Palmer, afterwards Lord Sel-borne, in moving the resolution that Mr. Speaker Brand should be elected as Speaker of that Parliament, wherein lie sets out the qualifications of the person who is to fill that high office. He says:
It cannot be a matter of great difficulty to us to realize what the Speaker of this House ought to be. He should be a man of long parliamentary experience and great knowledge, who has habitually paid much attention to the public and also to the private business of Parliament. He should be a man of high personal bearing, of spirit, and of dignity of character such as befits a thorough English gentleman, and such as will make him fit to preside over an assembly which, having to discharge the most august functions of any assembly in the world, has always been proud of bringing to those functions the essential qualities which distinguish gentlemen, qualities without which doubtless it would never be able rightly to discharge Mr. MACDONALD.
those duties. He should be, of course, a man of strict justice and impartiality, beyond impeachment or suspicion. He should be a man of large attainments and of a mind fitted for business. He should be a man of a kindly and genial temperament, of good practical sense, of firmness, and at the same time of sound judgment. He should understand our privileges, and be capable, on all proper occasions, of maintaining them with authority and dignity, and at the same time with wisdom and moderation. He should also be able-especially in the times in which we live-to discharge the still more important and far more difficult duty of maintaining, by moral authority, the order of our debates and the dignity of our proceedings, helping us all; both in seen and in unseen ways, to maintain that self-respect and self-discipline, that mutual respect for each other, and that spirit of obedience to the laws of this Assembly, which are essential to the discharge of the duties of Parliament, and by reason of which Parliament, in the most difficult times, has hitherto been able to discharge those duties to the satisfaction and advantage of the country.
That is a statement in not too glowing language of those qualities which a presiding officer in this Parliament, just as well as in the mother of parliaments, should have and possess at all times in the execution of his duty. Let me say that, occupying as you do the position of First Commoner in this country, your status, while the most important, yet is not in any degree more exacting than the position which your Deputy fills, because in presiding over the deliberations of the Committee of Supply and the various other committees of the House where the House sits as a Whole and the details of particular measures are passed upon, the gentleman who for the time being fills the position of Deputy Speaker has duties to fill which demand from him the. possession of exactly the same qualities which Lord Selborne says should be possessed by the man who fills the higher position of Speaker. Previous to 1885 we had no position of Deputy Speaker in this House but with the advancement and development of the country and the increased business before Parliament, Parliament saw fit to create a distinct and important position to be filled by a gentleman to be known as the Chairman of Committees and Deputy Speaker and ever since that time there has been elected by each Parliament an officer who exercises the rights and authorities which pertain to that particular office and who, actiiig in your stead when you are absent and by reason of the fact that he is, to a certain extent, your vice Chairman has always been regarded as a man who ought to have those qualities which in course of time would make him eligible to ascend the Speaker's chair. In this Parliament that has been the practice. Gentlemen who have filled

the position of Deputy Speaker have advanced to the Speakership by reason of the fact that the House recognized that they possessed the proper qualities for the higher position of Speaker in a subsequent Parliament. The man who occupies that position is a man who should feel that he is there occupying a judicial position. He should not by any possibility take that position because it is given to him to perform certain duties as a political servant, because if the gentleman who is supposed to be the embodiment of courtesy and impartiality and clearheadedness in stormy debates is to be a man who says to himself: I am not here to act as a judge, to hold firmly the balances between the parties but because my political party sent me here, why, Sir, parliamentary government will be demoralized. If there have been times in the history of Parliament when gentlemen have been selected for the position either of Speaker or of Deputy Speaker by reason of the fact that they had rendered some special political service to the party which chose to nominate them, at all times history and the experience of this Parliament will show that was disastrous to Parliament and to the cc untry.
The question is as to whether or not in the proceedings on Friday night the gentleman who happens now to fill the position of Deputy Speaker performed the duty of his office having in mind the high standard which was set for gentlemen occu: pying that position by Lord Selborne thirty years ago. If he did not, it is to the interest of Parliament that we should know it. If he has not come up to that standard. Parliament should deal with the matter accordingly because it is not an important matter for the moment whether he may or may not have done wrong, that is an incident merely. There are cases on record in the history of colonial parliaments and of Imperial parliaments where the House has been called upon to deal with resolutions censuring the gentlemen who filled the position from time to time of the presiding officer for conduct not in accordance with this high standard.
This has been a session in which a measure has been under the consideration of Parliament which hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House must recognize as being among the most important measures that Parliament has ever been called upon to consider. It is a measure which may materially affect for all time to come our relations with the Mother Country. It certainly was put forward with the view of most materially affecting our relations in one important particular, and in the consideration of that measure it was the bounden duty of the gentlemen who for the time being happened to occupy the
position of presiding officers, to preside over the deliberations either of this House or of the committee with that calm deliberation, with that high appreciation of the importance of their positions and with the realization that they were there as judges and not as political appointees, so clearly described in the quotation which I have made. I may say that those are the feelings that should -animate the gentlemen who preside over the deliberations of this body in the consideration of this measure. That being so, let us consider whether or not and wherein the Deputy Speaker fell short in the performance of his duty in his course on Friday last. Apart from any question as to what the rights of Mr. Carroll were or were not under the rules, there was a question of the good faith of the Deputy Speaker in the undertaking and the understanding which was arrived at in the earlier portion of the debate as to what Mr. Carroll's rights were and when he was to be recognized in this House. Sir, if a judge presiding over any one of the courts of law in this country said to counsel who proceeded to make a motion in any particular case that he would hear him at a certain stage later on in that case, and if that counsel approached the judge at the time indicated by him and asked leave to make the application which he had already spoken of in an earlier part of the proceedings, and the judge said to him: I shall not hear you, I do not propose to hear you, I am going on to decide this case without regard to anything you may urge, without regard to any understanding, without regard to the information I gave you in the beginning of this trial that I would hear you in this matter, I am going on to decide this case without hearing you -what would be said about the good faith of the judge who acted in that way in any case, whether of small importance or of great importance? How much more would be said by public opinion in a case where the eyes of the community were focused upon the actions and deliberations of the judge to whom was committed the all important task of holding the balances fairly between the parties litigating before him? In this high court of Parliament we have the right to ask from the gentleman exercising for the time being the position of judge as Deputy Speaker and as Chairman of committees, that same good faith, that same appreciation of the importance of his position which we demand from any judge, no matter whether he is in a high or in a lower court, in the administration of justice in the country.
Now, Sir, what did occur? You will find on page 9690 of ' Hansard ' that the hon. member for South Cape Breton attempted to move and did state to the House his motion by way of amendment in the con-

sideration of Bill 21, an Act to Authorize Measures for Increasing the Effective Naval Forces of the Empire. He proposed in the committee to move that a clause be added to the Bill as section 7. I need not read the clause for the purposes of the argument which I am attempting to make. When he asked to make this motion the Deputy Speaker said:
I think it would he more advisable if the hon. member would defer his motion until we have disposed of clause 6.
In other words, the Deputy Speaker, purporting to act as a judge, just as a judge in a trial of a case would do to counsel, intimated to the gentleman approaching him: I cannot hear you now but when we have disposed of clause 6 come with your motion and I will hear it and dispose of it. That is what the Deputy Speaker said to the member for South Cape Breton. My hon. friend from South Cape Breton after some little discussion said:
That being well understood I shall not encroach further upon the time of the committee.
Referring to the understanding which had been arrived at, that at a later stage, after clause 6 had been disposed of, he would be heard and a right would be given him for the purpose of making his proposition. I need not go into all that took place from that time until my hon. friend from South Cape Breton rose to assert the privilege and the right which he had been informed would be accorded to him at the proper time. As to his absolute right to make the motion after clause 6 had been disposed of, I may point out that it was expressly recognized by my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) when he said he was not disposed to disagree with the argument made by the right hon. the leader of the Opposition, who argued conclusively I think that my hon. friend the member for South Cape Breton was quite in order in making that motion, and that under the rules he had the right to make it. When my hon. friend from South Cape Breton came to claim the privilege and to assert the right which, it had been intimated to him by the Deputy Speaker, would be freely accorded to him after clause 6 had been disposed of, what occurred? Simultaneous with his asking that the right should be given to him, the right hon. the leader of the Government arose. Hon. gentlemen who were in the House will recall the fact that both of these hon. gentlemen were standing on the floor, the hon. member for South Cape Breton prepared to make the motion which he had been told he could make. If the Deputy Speaker had fulfilled his duties according to the high traditions of his office, he would have carried out his pledge to the hon. member for South Cape Breton, and would have accorded him the right to move Mr. MACDONALD.
his motion. But he did not do so. Apart from any other question, I say that the Deputy Speaker was open to censure because he did not do so. Upon whom are we to rely in the fulfilment of our duties in this House? When we come to you openly and frankly, Mr. Speaker, and ask whether we should take this course or that course, you, being for the time the repository of judgment as to the rules of the House, indicate to us what our proper course would be. But what would we say, Sir, if. you told us what we should do and afterwards you turned round without any reason and committed an absolute breach of faith by taking a course entirely different from the one you had indicated? I am sure you feel that such a thing would be impossible in your case. Parliament has the right to demand from the judicial officer who for the time being presides over the committees of this House that he shall fulfil the pledges he makes. That is essential to the carrying on of parliamentary government. Therefore, the Deputy Speaker stands in this position before Parliament, that he broke faith with my hon. friend from South Cape Breton, and did not do what he had undertaken would be done.
Had my hon. friend the member for South Cape Breton the right to move that amendment? My hon. friend from Portage la Prairie is recognized on the other side of the House as being an authority in regard to the interpretation of the rules, and when he undertakes to speak his opinion is received with every respect by hon. gentlemen on this side, though sometimes we do think he strains a point in order to make an argument on behalf of the party with which he is associated. Still, no one doubts his ability, and with regard to the question as to whether, after the first six clauses of the Bill had (been disposedof, my hon. friend from South Cape Breton should proceed to move that a clause to be known as clause 7 should be added, his judgment ought to be worth a good deal. I am not going to repeat the argument made by the right hon. the leader of the Opposition on Friday night. That argument is unanswerable as was the absolutely convincing argument of my hon. friend from Shefford (Mr. Boivin). I wish to call attention to this statement of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie:
I do not know that I have any quarrel, so far as my individual opinion goes, with the interpretation of the rule put forward by the right bon. leader of the Opposition. But what I say is that that has no application here, for this reason. It is true I rose to a point of order when the hon. member for South Cape Breton had the floor. I rose, not because I doubted his right-
That is his right to move his amendment, -but I did object to his rising after the
Prime Minister had moved-
So that my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie, supplementing the argument made by hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, an argument which was absolutely convincing upon the point, conceded that as a matter of party practice, even under the amended rules, my hon. friend from South Cape Breton had the right to move that clause 7 be added to the Bill. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister practically told him that he would be perfectly willing to let my hon. friend from South Cape Breton move his amendment if we undertook to finish the discussion that night. That was the proposition which he made.


Mr. BORDEN:: I do not think that my
hon. friend is stating that correctly. I said I would be prepared to withdraw my motion on that understanding.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The point I am trying to make is that when my right hon. friend the Prime Minister came to deal with this question, he wanted to take advantage of the situation which had been created by the Deputy Speaker at that time, to impose terms upon my hon. friend from South Cape Breton before he was allowed to go on with his amendment. He was perfectly willing to allow the hon. member to move his amendment provided that we should proceed with it at once. The right hon. the Prime Minister was taking advantage of the action of his supporter who happened to be the Deputy Speaker at the time and who, in breach of faith, had ruled that the hon. member for South Cape Breton was out of order, and was preventing him from getting the floor. The result was that, having the right under the rules to move an amendment to Bill No. 21, and having been informed that no exception would be taken to it, but that he would be allowed to move a substantive and important amendment to that Bill to be known as clause 7, my hon. friend from South Cape Breton was prevented from doing so, although his rights were absolute and unquestioned. No hon. gentleman can seriously argue that he had not the right to move that amendment. It may be all very well for my right hon. friend the Prime Minister to say, why did you not move it last night or the day before yesterday? That is a curious position for my right hon. friend to take, that an hon. gentleman who has a perfect right under the rules of Parliament to address Your Honour or the Deputy Speaker, should be elbowed out under those modern innovations that we have, and be told you should have moved that yesterday or the day before yesterday, and because you did not do so then, although you have the right to move it now, we will not allow you to move it. That is where we stand in regard to this matter
What an absurd position it was for the Prime Minister to take: It is inconvenient to hear the hon. member (Mr. Carroll)
now; we are willing to compromise; we will make a deal; if you promise you won't take over two days on the question, we will let you move it. The Prime Minister on account of the erroneous ruling of his Deputy Speaker wanted to make a compromise as to how long we on this side of the House should talk, as a condition of allowing the amendment to be moved; an amendment which my hon. friend (Mr. Carroll) had a perfect right to move.
Another matter for which I think the Deputy Speaker deserves the censure of this House', is, that he ignored the motion of the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) that the Chairman should leave the Chair. The authority for making that motion cannot be questioned; it will be found in Bourinot, page 524. The Deputy Speaker, in regard to that motion, absolutely and completely ignored it, and the position of affairs is that a gentleman who is supposed to possess judicial qualities; whose aim and ambition ought to be to reach the high standard set by Sir Roundell Palmer for British and colonial speakers, not only broke faith with a member of this House in reference to his right to move an amendment, but he absolutely ignored a resolution moved by the hon. member for St. John which was perfectly in order. Whether the privileges and rights of members of this House can be infringed upon in this summary method, is for this House to say. It is for this House to say whether or not gentlemen should continue to occupy these positions in which they are supposed to hold the balance of justice evenly between two sides; who, when they are in the Chair, feel they are there because they have rendered service to a political party or to a wing of that party, and that they are simply filling a government job. If that is to be the standard lived up to hereafter by men who fill these high offices in this Parliament, then I wonder what becomes of all the traditions of British parliamentary institutions. Naval Bills may come and go; the question as to whether this Bill left the committee with an amendment one way or the other is a question only of the present, but the great question, and the question which goes to the very root of parliamentary institution, is, whether there is going to be fair play in this House; whether the men on the left of the Speaker are to feel that they shall receive from the officers who have control of the proceedings in this House that fairness and justice which have always been the pride of English-speaking people. If we are not going to have that in Canada, the sooner we know it the better. It is because I have a deep sense of appreciation of the fact that the Deputy Speaker on Friday night in these two incidents violated parliamentary tradition, acted as a partisan, disregarded the rules of this House, broke his faith with an hon. mem-

ber of this House, that I make this motion and ask the House to adopt it.


Mr. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Portage la Prairie):: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the hon. member for Piet-ou (Mr. Macdonald) should bring forward this motion; surprised, not because the occurrences of last Saturday morning were not of sufficient consequence to warrant further consideration by this Parliament, but surprised they should be reverted to by those who were the guilty parties on that occasion; whose conduct was such that I am sure in after life they will see many causes to regret it. I yield to no hon. member opposite and to no hon. member of this House in my appreciation of the dignity of the position held by you, Mr. Speaker, and held by the Deputy Speaker. I yield to none in appreciation of the onerous duties that devolve upon you, and likewise in appreciation of the respect which the office should be entitled to from every member of Parliament. I say these words from a position of advantage not occupied by the hon. members opposite who shall take part in this debate; a position of advantage especially over the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) who is likely to follow me; and especially over the hon. member for Carle-ton (Mr. Carvell), whom, unfortunately, I do not see in his seat; in that, throughout the time I have occupied a seat in this House I have always paid that deference to the Chair and to the office of the Speaker which I think every hon. gentleman should pay.
The attack now levelled at the Chairman, in respect to his conduct of his duties last Saturday morning, is based, according to the motion of the hon. member for Pic-tou, on three grounds-first: that the Chairman, having appointed a time, in the words of the hon. member, for the hearing of a motion in amendment by the hon. member for South Cape Breton, did not carry out his appointment; second, that he did not, in pursuance of that appointment, see the hon. member for South Cape Breton before he saw the right hon. the Prime Minister; and, third, that he ignored the motion of the hon. member for St. John that the Chairman leave the Chair. I shall discuss these in order. The hon. member for Pictou dilated at great and unnecessary length on the analogy of positions occupied by the Chairman of Committees of the Whole to that of a judge on the bench, and he recalled the fact that very frequently judges upon the bench appoint times for the hearing of counsel, and consequently as a matter of honour, would be compelled to keep that appointment. Surely the hon. member for Pictou does not take the ground that you, Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of Committees of the Whole, has any position of authority Mr. MACDONALD.
over the deliberations of this House at all analagous or equal to that of a judge upon the bench. A judge upon the bench is the sole judge and arbiter of and has the disposal of the time of his court; he can say to a barrister or a litigant: come and he cometh, go and he goeth, and stop and he stoppeth. But, neither the Speaker of this House nor the Chairman of Committees of the Whole, occupies any such position here. He is the arbiter on points of order; but he cannot say: I shall hear so-and-so at such a time, and I shall hear such another member at such another time. He has no such authority. Such authority was not vested in him. If he purports to exercise it, he will find that he is not capable of doing so. Was there any breach of faith, even though the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole last Saturday morning had made an appointment? What are the circumstances? With his usual skill-if I may dignify it by the term-the hon. member for Pictou reads four lines stated by the Chairman of Committee of the Whole; and, with the exercise of the same mysterious quality, he refuses to read the context. What was it that occurred? When section 2 of the Naval Aid Bill was under consideration in Committee of the Whole, and had been under consideration for some time, the hon. member for South Cape Breton recited an amendment which he proposed to add; not content with asking to add it as an amendment to a section, he wanted to add it as an extra section to the Bill. When he had done so, the Chairman spoke as follows:
I think it would he more advisable if the hon. member would defer his motion until we have disposed of clause 6. There is an amendment and a sub-amendment to clause 3.
Was that recognized by the hon. member for South Cape Breton as an appointment, even supposing he, as a lawyer, would think that the Chairman of Committee of the Whole had any power to make an appointment with him? What did the hon. member for South Cape Breton say? He said:
If the Chairman would allow me to make this motion at the end of the consideration of the present clause, I would be only too happy to postpone it.
Not at the end of the consideration of section 6, but at the end of the consideration of section 2. That is what the hon. member for South Cape Breton said. Then the hon. member for the city of St. John (Mr. Pugsley)), who of all members of this House is most scandalized at the conduct of the Chair, added:
I think that is understood.
That is, that it should be moved at the end of the consideration of clause 2, so that

if hon. members had the slightest anxiety to see the proposed amendment moved, they could have arranged to move it, without any difficulty whatever, at the end of the consideration of clause 2. The Chairman apparently did not understand it that way and added the following:
I do not see any rule which would allow me to do so.
Mr. Carroll:	I do not want to he understood as trying to get the Chairman to make a breach of the rules. But I might not have another opportunity to move this motion unless with permission.
Mr. Meighen: As a matter of order, I would suggest to the hon. gentleman that there would be no difficulty about him making a motion immediately after the disposition of the two sub-amendments to clause 2.
Immediately after the sub-amendments were disposed of, there was nothing in the world to prevent the hon. member for South Cape Breton from moving his amendment as an amendment to section 2, providing hon. members opposite allowed it to be disposed of before two o'clock. That is just what they did not want to do. The conduct of the hon. member for South Cape Breton clearly showed that he had no anxiety to move section 7. He only wanted to be put in a position where he could not move it. It was a grievance that he was after. I also pointed out in the same sentence that there were other sections on the disposition of which the hon. member for South Cape Breton could make his motion. Then the Prime Minister, who in veiled but insinuating language is also charged with breach of his agreement. Tose, and what did he say? The Prime Minister said:
I might say to my hon. friend that he could move his amendment to clause 2 before two o'clock, but I do not think he could do so afterwards, and he could do it on the third reading if be desires to do so.
And he can do it.


Mr. CARROLL:: I am going to do it.


Arthur Meighen: Then, where is the
grievance?


William F. Carroll: There will be no grievance if the Bill is sent back to the committee for further consideration.


Arthur Meighen: That is to say, there
will be no grievance, provided he has the power to discuss it not only on the third reading and is able as well to throw it back into the boiling pot of obstruction. Then the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), who appreciated the point raised by my right hon. leader, and who is not slow to appreciate any point, said:
That is the puzzle. He cannot do it after two o'clock, but ho cannot do it before the
clause is disposed of, and if it is not disposed of before two o'clock, he is shut off altogether.
That was the appreciation of the appointment by the right hon. the leader of the Opposition himself.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: No.


Arthur Meighen: You can do anything you please up to two o'clock, but after two o'clock the axe falls.
And after the axe fell at two o'clock, just as the right hon. the leader of the Opposition said it should and would-


Wilfrid Laurier: Not ' should,' but ' would.'


Arthur Meighen: Now they complain because we did not hold the axe for a few hours or a few weeks longer and allow them to move one amendment after the other so as to throw the Bill back just where it was before. That was the understanding. My right hon. leader, however, added:
My right hon. friend would surely be disposed to admit that in nineteen or twenty days we ought to be able to make sufficient progress to enable every amendment to be considered.
I repeat, after the hon. member for South Cape Breton was refused, as he should have been refused, permission to move his amendment at that time, and as he admits himself, he was rightly refused permission to move it-


Mr. PUGSLEY:: No, he does not.


Arthur Meighen: He had five opportunities to move that amendment before two o'clock. He could have allowed section 3 to be voted on and then he could have moved his amendment. He could have done it in five cases before two o'clock, if hon. gentlemen opposite had had the slightest desire to have the amendment moved.
What was the position later on? As usual, the record is against hon. gentlemen opposite. The hon. member for St. John will have a full appreciation of what it means when I tell him that again the Teeord is against him. He has been in that position times without number during his political career. The most of it has been spent in endeavouring to explain away the record. The record shows that immediately after clause 6 was passed, as was absolutely necessary if the spirit of these rules was to be carried out, and this Bill rescued from obstruction, the Prime Minister rose and moved that we report this Bill. The hon. member for Pictou said that I admitted the reasoning of the right hon. the leader of the Opposition to be good to my mind, namely: that, after the consideration of the clauses that had been postponed, the purpose of the notice of motion and the power reposed in the motion, pursuant to that

notice were exhausted and consequently the Bill was where it was before, except for the clauses passed. Very well, but unless the Bill was to be thrown back into obstruction, then the motion to report the Bill had to be moved, and the Prime Minister owed it to the House and to the country to see that he took such steps as were necessary to prevent that dire result. Having given due notice that he would, having plainly stated and agreed with the Tight hon. the leader of the Opposition that no amendments would be allowed after two o'clock, the Prime Minister rose in his place and carried out that agreement; and, forsooth, for doing it he is complained of by the hon. member for St. John and the hon. member for Pictou as having been guilty of a breach of faith. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister's plain statement that no amendments would be allowed after two o'clock, and it has been stated that it was the duty of the Chair to refuse to recognize the right hon. the Prime Minister, and that he should have turned round and recognized the hon. member for South Cape Breton. Now,_ I appeal to the fair-minded members of this House, especially to those who have sat in this House for many years, if it is not the fact that throughout their history, especially before the present Government came into power, throughout the long regime of the right hon. leader of the Opposition, that right hon. gentleman, when leader of the Government, was not on each and every occasion accorded the floor by every Speaker or Chairman whenever he rose, even though another member may have been on his feet. That is due to the leader of the Government. A similar, though perhaps not quite equal courtesy, is due to the leader of the Opposition.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.
Other hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: I invite hon. gentlemen opposite to finish their laugh, because they will have no opportunity to laugh in a moment or two. I say that when the Prime Minister of this country, the leader of the House, rises, though another member rises also, it is the duty of the Chair, it is the duty of the Chair from custom extending back to time immemorial, to recognize the leader of- the House. I say further, that if the right hon. leader of the Opposition rises and any private member of this House- and I might go even further than that- rises with him, it would be due to the position of that right hon. gentleman that the Chair should recognize him. But if the House wishes, for any specific purpose, to take the responsibility from the Chair of recognizing some one else, the House has the machinery to do it under clause 17: there may be occasions for it. But, so far as concerns it being the duty of the Chair-Mr. MEIGHEN.
man of the Committee of the Whole to rocognize a private member as against the leader of the Government, the Chairman would have been derelict in his duty had he done so; he would have done an injustice to this House as well as to the leader of the Government himself. As a matter of fact, the duty of recognizing one hon. member as against another is entirely within the judgment of the Chairman himself subject to these considerations. Whomever he recognizes, he is the sole judge of the responsibility of his office; he elects whom he shall see, and, having elected, it is within the right of no hon. member to criticise his election or his judgment.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: And the hon. member who does so is committing a breach of the privileges of this House, and he himself is liable to the censure which he seeks to level at the Chair.
But it is when we come to the latter end of the resolution that the absurdity becomes so manifest that one can scarcely contain himself in patience to discuss it. Why, the hon. gentleman said the Chairman was committing a breach of his duty when he refused to hear the motion of the hon. member for St. John that he should leave the 'Chair. Now, let us ascertain when that motion was made: and I set about to prove that the Chair had no other course except a more severe one-than to refuse to recognize the motion of the hon. member for St. John-that the mildest punishment that the hon. member for St. John could hope for was to be ignored; and he should be amply satisfied that it was reduced to mere ignoring. The motion was. before the Chair that the Chairman report the Bill, a motion, which under the rule is subject to no debate and must be forthwith uecided, a motion which makes it the one and only duty of the House to decide that motion yea or nay, and in the meantime no other motion can be entertained. I ask the hon. member for St. John-he will follow me Or in any case will speak soon-I ask him .to tell when in the history of the British House or of this House, a motion was placed before the Chair when there was already a motion before the Chair that had to be decided forthwith and without debate. I tell the hon. gentleman, he can not find one; he cannot tell this House where there has been a precedent in either Parliament for such a motion being made as that which he sought to present when there was an undebatable motion pending. Furthermore, what would be the result if we were to allow a motion for the Chairman to leave the Chair when there was a motion to report the Bill, a motion which had to be decided forthwith and without debate? Take a similar case. Suppose that in the Committee of 'the

Whole there was an appeal from the ruling of the Chair; that appeal must be decided without debate. Now, if we assume that the hon. member for St. John could rise before that motion could be decided and move that the Chairman leave the Chair, the effect would be that it never could be decided. Let me repeat: if the hon. member for St. John had any right to move his motion that the Chairman leave the Chair at the time when he sought to move it, when there was a non-debatable motion before the House, he would have the same right to move such a motion when there was an appeal from the ruling ot the Chair, and if he had that right he would prevent a decision of the appeal by the House.


Wilfrid Laurier: Under what
rule is the motion not debatable? Is it under the new rule?


Arthur Meighen: Yes. A motion to report a Bill is not debatable under the new rule, as was proven at the time, in which proof, as I understood, the right hon. leader of the Opposition acquiesced. The right hon. gentleman will remember, that he was about to argue that inasmuch as the new rules were restrictive rules they must be strictly construed, and the first clause of the new rules did not apply to Committees of the Whole at all. He set about to show that the first clause of the new rules did so restrict debate on certain specified motions in the whole House but when I pointed out that the first clause clearly covered and expressed also proceedings in Committee of the Whole, he acquiesced and admitted that I was right.


Wilfrid Laurier: I did not
acquiesce, I kept silent.


Arthur Meighen: I understood the right hon. gentleman to say that I was correct. However, if he was not convinced then, I will set about to convince him now. First of all, the purpose of the first clause of the new rules is to say what motions shall be debatable and what shall not. The first clause is the only clause which limits debate altogether upon motions, that is to say, which sets out which motions shall be debatable and which shall not. The right hon. leader of the Opposition argued that it only applied to the House and not to the Committee of the Whole, I pointed out at the time that he was incorrect, merely through oversight, and that it must apply to Committee of the Whole because it stated that a motion for the adoption, in Committee of the Whole, or of Supply, or of Ways and Means of the resolution, clause, section, preamble or title under consideration shall be debatable. So, it was the clear intention of the clause to cover the proceedings in Committee of the Whole as well as in
the House. I am sure the right hon. gentleman will admit that I am correct up to that point. So, whatever is allowed to be debated under the first clause may be debated whether in the House or in Committee of the Whole, and whatever is not stated to be debatable cannot be debatable either in the House or in Committee of the Whole. Let me show the right hon. gentleman why it provides that a motion to report a Bill is not debatable: It is not there; consequently, it is not debatable. So, a motion was before the House that was not debatable when the hon. member for St. John rose. No other motion than that before the Chair could be entertained, and it was the duty of the Chairman to put that motion. Let me go back to the analogy once more: If the hon. gentleman could rise at that point, he could rise on appeal from the Chair and so defeat the appeal altogether. I say, he cannot show, either in the Mother of Parliaments or in this House, a single instance where a motion for the Chairman to leave the Chair, or a motion to adjourn which has a similar effect, was ever moved when there was a non-debatable motion before the House. So that he has to admit that under no circumstances, after the motion of the right lion, the First Minister was moved, has he any right whatever to move that the Chairman do leave the Chair or to move anything else.


William Pugsley: Can the hon. member
point to a single instance in this House or in the British House of Commons where with reference to the right to move that the Chairman do leave the Chair, any distinction is made between a debatable and a non-debatable motion?


Arthur Meighen: I cannot for the reason that no hon. member of this House or the British House ever attempted to move that the Chairman leave the Chair under s-ioh circumstances


William Pugsley: That is no answer.


Arthur Meighen: It lias not been stated in their rules or in ours that when there was a non-debatable motion presented to the House and nothing else no member should move another motion; it was not stated because I presume it was not anticipated that an hon. member of the devices of the hon. member for St. John would ever have a seat in Parliament. But the case of the hon. member for St. John is worse still. It might have been possible up to the time of putting the question to raise a point of order but the moment a question is put from the Chair he has no right to rise from his seat for any purpose, even to raise a point of order, and I affirm and I appeal to the record, which contains much

to the discomfort of the hon. member, to show that the question was put and the vote was asked for before the hon. member for St. John rose. That is the position he is in in this House.


William Pugsley: The Chairman was in
his seat when I moved the motion.


Arthur Meighen: The record is wrong?


William Pugsley: I state a fact known to every member of this House.


Arthur Meighen: It is not the first time in this House that the hon. member for St. John has been compelled to challenge the record.


Mr. OLIVER:: Yesterday Mr. Speaker
challenged the record.


Arthur Meighen: He did not challenge
it in his own protection. What record?


Frank Oliver: The record of 'Hansard.'


Arthur Meighen: The Journals of this
House are the records of this House, the hon. member for Edmonton knows it.


Frank Oliver: To what record is my hon. friend appealing now?


Arthur Meighen: In so far as votes go, in *so far as the decisions of Parliament go, the record of this House, and the only record, is the Votes and Proceedings, the Journals.


Frank Oliver: Would the hon. member
be good enough to answer me: to what record is he now appealing?


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman had waited a moment, he would not have asked the question. In so far as the decisions of this House go, the Journals are the only record; in so far as the speeches go,
' Hansard ' is the record, and the only record.


Frank Oliver: Will the hon. gentleman answer my question if he has an answer? I ask him to what record he is now appealing.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is so anxious to ask a question that he has not patience to listen to the answer. Now I will have to start over again.


Frank Oliver: You cannot answer, that is why.


Arthur Meighen: I will answer and the hon. member will admit what I say. When we appealed-


Frank Oliver: Answer a straight question, that is all I want.


Arthur Meighen: I will answer in a moment as straight as man was ever answered. When we wish to verify or to prove decisions of this House, negative or affirmative, we go to the official record for Mr. MEIGHEN.
that purpose; we go to the Journals of the House. They are the only official record in that respect. I was not looking for confirmation as to a decision of the House. When we desire information as to the order of speaking, as to What an hon. member says in Parliament, ' Hansard ' is the record. I was appealing for confirmation as to the order of speaking, as to what an hon. gentleman said; so I appealed to ' Hansard,' which is the record, and the only record.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend appeals
to whatever record happens to suit him at the time.


Arthur Meighen: I am in this fortunate position, that in both cases the official record, the correct one, happens to suit me. But what was the position ? The motion had been moved; there had been some points of order raised which I apprehend were capable of being raised, although they were, in my humble judgment, not well taken. But immediately they were decided, the Chairman said:
I am now putting the motion that the Bill he reported.
Some hon. Members: Shame, shame.
Shame, to put a non-debatable motion. (Reading):


The Chairman:: Those in favour of the
motion will please rise.
Mr. Pugsley: I move that you do now leave the chair.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Those in favour of the
motion will please rise.
I cannot refrain from expressing surprise that a party guilty of that intrusion on the rights of the House, that worse than intrusion on the rights of the Chair, should bring to the House the matter for tire purpose of censuring the Chair. The Chair had no recourse except either to call him to order and have him suspended or else to ignore him. The Chair took the milder course, and the hon. gentleman should be happy and content that the Chair took no more stringent course than it did.


William Pugsley: It is a wonder you do
not try to suspend me.


Arthur Meighen: I repeat that no member, looking at the records, will say that the Chairman could possibly have taken a course milder towards the hon. gentleman than he did, and no hon. gentleman will say that the Chairman could possibly have entertained the motion of the hon. member for St. John. In the face of that state of affairs the hon. member for St. John is the gentleman who stands later in this House and openly and in defiance of the courtesies of Parliament, and in defiance of the prerogatives of this House,

common to every Parliament, openly charges the Chair with making a false report.


Mr. BENNETT:: Shame.


Arthur Meighen: Had the Chair been
guilty of an error, the words of the hon. member for St. John would have been utterly unjustifiable, utterly repugnant to the best sense of every hon. member; but inasmuch as the Chair was guilty of no error, inasmuch as the Chair had proceeded only in a strict pursuance of its duty, words fail to describe the scandalous conduct of the hon. member for St. John.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.
Shame.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The language of the
hon. member that the conduct of an hon. member of this House is scandalous, I think, is scarcely parliamentary. Allow me, while I am on my feet, to refer to a word which I hear very often, and which I see has been ruled against in the British Parliament, the word ' shame.' That is not a parliamentary expression which is regarded as allowable.


Mr. GAUVREAU:: They do not know the meaning of it on the other side of the House.


Arthur Meighen: Had you not risen, Mr. Speaker, I was about to substitute the word shameful, taking it from hon. gentlemen opposite.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Take it back.


Arthur Meighen: I shall now substitute-


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order.


Arthur Meighen: I shall substitute the word ' outrageous,' and I do it with due apology for its inadequacy.


Wilfrid Laurier: Do I understand that the word * outrageous ' is parliamentary?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: No.


Wilfrid Laurier: It is not.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I held it was not in my judgment a phrase that should be used as against an hon. member.


Arthur Meighen: My only course-for
I shall not attempt to place in * Hansard ' a word that fails at least to approach the intent of what I have to say-is to acknowledge my incapacity to find a parliamentary word which will express what I wish to say. I say it is impossible to conceive a course of conduct on the part of any hon. member that will go further towards the destruction of the dignity of Parliament,
that will go further towards undermining the whole dignity and responsibility and usefulness of this House, than will the pursuance of conduct such as has been indulged in on the occasion referred to, and yet the hon. member for St. John is the hon. member who suggested to the hon. member for Pictou that, forsooth, the conduct of the Chair on Saturday morning should be brought to the attention of parliament. These hon. gentlemen are prone to refer to the Chairman or to you, Mr. Speaker, as a judge, they like to draw an analogy between the dignified and exalted position of a judge on the bench and the position that you and the Chairman hold; but I would remind the hon. gentleman of this undeniable fact that, had he used towards a judge on the bench the language which he used towards you, Mr. Speaker, and towards the Chairman of committee on Saturday morning, he would not now be sitting as a free man of his House, he would be behind prison walls.


William Pugsley: I rise to a point of order. I ask you to consider whether the statement of the hon. member is in order and in doing so I desire to say that upon any occasion during my long practice at the Bar, when I had reason to find fault with the actions or decisions of a judge, I never hesitated to say so, and I would do so again under the same circumstances.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I do not understand
that the hon. member raised a point of order specially.


William Pugsley: The hon. member said that had I used towards a judge language which I used towards Your Honour I would have ben behind prison bars. I ask you to consider, having regard to the dignity of your position, whether that is a proper statement for a member of this House to make.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It is a comparison
which I, as a layman, cannot appreciate because it would depend upon the rules of the Court and not upon the rules here.


William Pugsley: A slight evidence of your impartiality.


Arthur Meighen: I shall now read, and if the hon. gentleman ha3 returned to a sense of decorum this, I think will disturb him more than anything else I have read. I shall read his own words:
Mr. Pugsley: I desire respectfully to call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the Deputy Speaker has made a false report.
And on one other occasion, if not on two, the hon. member for St. John was guilty on Saturday morning of saying to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Deputy Speaker had made a false report inasmuch as he did not entertain a motion that he

leave the Chair. That was the ground of the false report and I have shown, and the hon. member for St. John I affirm knows, that he had no right whatever at that time to make the motion that he did, that, even if the new rules had never come into effect, the hon. member had no right at all, after the question had been put to a vote and the members had been called on to rise upon that vote to make a motion that the Chairman leave the Chair. He knew it when he made it and in the face of that knowledge and of the consciousness that he was wrong and out of order and the consciousness that the Chairman was right and had to ignore or reprimand him, under those circumstances, he stands before your face and affirms that the Chairman, has made a false report. The hon. member in this House has pleaded long for freedom of speech. We have heard the phrase ' freedom and liberty of speech ' until we are tired of it in this House. The hon. member is not satisfied with liberty of speech, he wants liberty of motion too, he wants to be able to make any motion he likes at any time he likes, to the disturbance of the procedure of Parliament and to the destruction of the prerogatives of this House. But he is not satisfied with liberty of speech and liberty of motion he wants liberty of locomotion too, he wants to be able to march out on the floor of Parliament and stand, it may be with clenched fist, before your face. That is his estimation of the dignity of Parliament and the dignity of debate.
Mr. GEORGE H. BOIVIN (Shefford) : Mr. Speaker, we have just heard from the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) what he considers to be an interpretation, as he said himself, of the spirit of the new rules. I know that he has given up the very difficult task of interpreting the letter of the new rules. He is obliged to admit that the proceedings which disgraced this Parliament on Saturday morning were due to the fact that the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the committee were endeavouring to live up to the spirit of the rules when they could no longer attain their end by interpreting the new rules to the letter.
Let us take first the conduct of the Chairman. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie says that ' Hansard ' should be taken as a record of what a member says. ' Hansard ' should also be taken as a record of when a member speaks. The first thing that we find in ' Hansard ' on May 9, 1913 after the consideration in committee of Bill 21 had been resumed are the words of Mr. Carroll:
Mr. Chairman. I desire to

Mr. Borden: I beg to move that further consideration of sections 3, i

Mr. MEIGHEN.
And they both stopped. Some hon. members cried, 'who has the Floor, Mr. Chairman?' and the Chairman said:
I had not time to call any clause of the Bill and I think it is out of order for any member to rise before that is done. Bill 21, section 2.
The Chairman, called, 'Bill 21, section 2.' He had been asked by the hon. member from South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) and the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) the day before to call Bill 21, section 2, and he would not call it. He said that it was absolutely impossible for this committee to go back to section 2 until somebody had moved that we go back to section 2. The hon. member fox South Renfrew moved that we go back to section 2, and the motion was defeated by a standing vote. The next day, when it suited his convenience, he took the floor away from the hon. member for South Cape Breton and gave it to the Prime Minister, and gave as his reason, that nobody could speak in this House until he had called section 2. That is the consistency of the Chairman of the committee, the hon. Deputy Speaker, and that is the way he started out on the famous afternoon in question. If the hon. member for South Cape Breton had the floor, he certainly had the right at that time to make a speech. The floor was taken away from him, the Prime Minister rose and moved that the further consideration of sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 and the proposed 6th section of this Bill should be the first business of the committee and should not be further postponed. Then, after the motion had been put in French, the hon. member for South Cape Breton was allowed to speak. He made an interesting speech upon the Bill, and wound up by saying that he intended to propose the addition of a clause to the Bill, as section 7.
Whenever practicable, in the construction of the ships provided under this Act, the contractors or builders shall be bound to accept steel and other materials produced in Canada at the current prices for the time being in Canada.
That is a clause which at least deserved the consideration of the committee, and which should not have been turned down as it was by the right hon. the Prime Minister. At that time, the Chairman, perhaps with a semblance of reason, declared that it would be more advisable if the hon. member would defer his motion until we had disposed of clause 6. The hon. member deferred his motion until we had disposed of clause 6, and after doing so, and after once again taking the floor after clause 6 had been disposed of, the floor was taken away from him by the Chairman for the second time and given to the right

lion, the Prime Minister. Did he do it of his own accord? Did he see the Prime Minister first? If he had given the floor to the right hon. the Prime Minister, if he had risen in his place as you sometimes do Mr. Speaker, and had said of his own accord that the Prime Minister had the floor, this discussion might not have arisen to-day. But the hon. member for South Cape Breton was allowed to go on with his speech, the Prime Minister very graciously regained his seat, and it was only when the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) rose to a point of order and told the Chairman that his judgment was wrong and that his eye-sight was bad, that he came to the conclusion that he might have made a mistake, that he remembered he had been told to keep his eyes on the Prime Minister, and that he changed his opinion and gave the floor to the Prime Minister. It is all right to go to ' Hansard ' for what was said and what was done, but unfortunately I sometimes find, as you found yesterday, Mr. Speaker, that 'Hansard' does not report the exact happenings in this House. Everyone remembers that when the hon. member for South Cape Breton on the night in question was addressing the Chair, the hon. member for Portage la Prairie rose to a point of order. His point of order was that the right hon. the Prime Minister should have been recognized first because he had the floor first, but if you look at ' Hansard ' that is not [DOT]what you find:
Mr. Meighen:	I rise to a point of order.
The Chairman : Let the hon. member state his point of order. A point of order is always in order.
Mr. Meighen : My point of order is that the Prime Minister having moved that we report this Bill an amendment cannot be moved.
That was not the point of order raised by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. He pointed out to the Chairman that the Prime Minister had first caught his eye. That was the point of order, and it was because the Prime Minister had first caught his eye that he was to be allowed to speak. After the able argument submitted by the right hon. the leader of the Opposition, he admitted1 that he was not discussing whether the hon. member for South Cape Breton had the right to speak or not, but the fact that the Prime Minister had risen first and had caught the eye of the Chairman. Unfortunately it is corrected in ' Hansard.' Another proof that this is a correction, and a deliberate correction, is the fact that the Chairman himself, after the argument submitted by the leader of the Opposition, by myself and by several other members on this side of the House, rose and	said,	that was not the
point of order	at all. The point
of order raised by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, was whether the Prime Minister had the floor or not, and after giving the right of speech to the hon. member for South Cape Breton, the Chairman swallowed his own decision and said that in his opinion the right hon. Prime Minister had the floor first. Now we say that the conduct is worthy of censure. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie, in a moment of indignation, said that as a rule when the right hon. the Prime Minister rose in his place and another hon. member rose at the same time, it was the duty of the Speaker or Chairman to recognize the Prime Minister, and that if the right hon. the leader of the Opposition rose in his place and another hon. member rose at the same time, it was the duty of the Speaker or Chairman to recognize the right hon. leader of the Opposition. I do not want to go into past history. You, Mr. Speaker, have always followed that rule, but unfortunately for the reputation of this House and of this Government, your ruling has been overridden and the right of speech given to other members. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie says that nobody should suggest to the Chairman or to the Speaker whom he sees first, that the Chairman or the Speaker is the sole judge and the only judge, and that the Chairman or Speaker would be derelict in his duty if he did not give the floor to the hon. member whom he sees first. It must be that the hon. member for Portage la Prairie had a poor opinion of the judgment of my hon. friend from Champlain (Mr. Blondin), it must be that he had a poor opinion of his eyesight, because in spite of the statement made by him to-day, that no man has the right to'suggest to the Speaker or Chairman whom he sees first, and that the Speaker or Chairman is to be the sole^ and only judge, he got up and raised a point of order to call the attention of the Chairman to the fact that he should have seen one hon. member when he saw the other.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. member read from ' Hansard ' where he finds that?


Mr. BOIVIN:: I have read it very carefully, and I find that the words of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, when he
rose to his first point of order, are not recorded in * Hansard.'


An hon. MEMBER:: 'Hansard' is doctored.


Georges Henri Boivin: Another proof that ' Hansard ' was revised before it was supposed to be is the fact that the Chairman of the Committee himself, when he decided the point of order submitted by the hon. member for Portage >la Prairie, declared that the question to be disposed of was the point of oTder as to who had the floor first.


Arthur Meighen: Is the hon. gentleman
prepared on this point to submit to a reference to the original ' Hansard ' notes, which I have never seen?


Georges Henri Boivin: I should not like to delay the proceedings of this House by sending to the Printing Bureau to get the original notes of 'Hansard'; but I am willing to leave it to the recollection of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, as a member of this House, and as a man of honour, whether the words which he pronounced on his first point of order are the exact words recorded in the unrevised ' Hansard.'


Arthur Meighen: I cannot be placed in a position that compels me to be more positive than I now am. I cannot say the words are exact, nor can I see any particulars whatever in which they vary from what I said.


Georges Henri Boivin: I am very grateful to the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. He says that he cannot say that the words in the unrevised ' Hansard ' are exactly what he said at the time, and on the other hand that he cannot see how they vary. I quite understand that it is perhaps somewhat difficult for him to remember the exact words which were pronounced upon that evening of excitement. But the hon. members of this House will remember the expression of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie:	' the Prime
Minister caught your eye.' The statement was so unusual that everyone will remember that the hon. member informed the Chairman that the right hon. the Prime Minister had caught the Chairman's eye. The hon. gentleman begins his argument to-day by saying that the hon. member from South Cape Breton had no grievance and that members on this side of the House had no grievance because the spirit of the rules had been applied. How are we to know what the spirit of the rules is; are we to take the word of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie as to what the spirit of the rules is? Suppose the Government should require to apply these rules for any particular purpose, then the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, if he happens to be in the House, can rise in his seat and say what the spirit of the rules is, and that is what has been done up to the present time, and the spirit of the rules will be always varied to suit the convenience of the Government. The spirit of the rules is one thing and the letter of the rules is another thing. For the purposes of this debate upon the navy, after voting against these rules, after declaring that they are unconstitutional, we are obliged to bow to the will of the majority and to be governed by these rules. But when the Chairman of Committee and the Prime Minister, in an effort to enforce the Mr. BOIVIN.
spirit of the rules, put the letter of the rules entirely to one side, then we have a grievance. We are obliged to be bound by the letter of the rules, but we are not willing to abide by the spirit of the rules as it may be interpreted from time to time by hon. gentlemen opposite. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie claims we have no grievance because the amendment which was to be proposed by my hon. friend (Mr. Carroll) in committee can be proposed as an amendment on the third reading. Let me ask him how can that amendment be discussed on the third reading of the Bill? The hon. gentleman knows that amendments cannot be considered in that form, and that it is absolutely impossible to add the amendment to the Bill in that way. The amendment says that the manufacturers of these ships shall buy in Canada all the material which they possibly can buy here, so as to encourage Canadian industry and Canadian workmanship, and the hon. gentleman tells us that we can consider such an amendment as that on the third reading of the Bill. Of course he believes that is not important anyway, because the Government supporters are going to vote it down, and that they will never allow the Bill to go back into committee believing as they do, that their Bill is perfection itself. If the hon. member for Portage la Prairie will rise in his seat and on behalf of the Government agree to allow this Bill to go back into committee to have this amendment added to it, then, and then only, he would be right in saying we have no grievance. Let me remind him that Bourinot says the only time a new clause can be presented is when the other clauses have been considered; that Bourinot says further, that it is impossible to move a new clause as an amendment to a clause which is already standing in the Bill; that Bourinot also says the only time that clause 7 could be moved was after clause 6 had been considered. At that very time the hon. member for South Cape Breton was prevented from moving his clause, even though there is nothing in these barbarous new rules to justify the taking away of speech from the hon. member. We on this side, surely have a grievance, and we have a perfect right to move this motion of censure upon the officer who is responsible for that grievance.
But that is not all, and that is perhaps not the gravest point in this affair. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie says that the last part of the motion of censure is the most ridiculous part of all. In that last part of the amendment the Deputy Speaker is censured for having reported the Bill when there was before the Chair a motion that the Chairman leave the Chair. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie says that the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair could not be

made because the motion which was then pending before the Chair was not debatable. Where is his authority for that? He was asked by the hon. member for St. John if there is a single British or Canadian precedent for that statement, and he was unable to find a single one. Then the hon. member (Mr. Meighen) was driven to contend that it must be so because no member of the Canadian House of Commons and no member of the British House of Commons had ever before risen and made a motion that the Chairman leave the Chair when a non-debatable motion was before the Chair. In the first place I say that the hon. member does not know and cannot know as to that; in the second place I say that never in any parliament have so many motions been rendered non-debatable as in this present Parliament under the new rules. In fact, no one seems to know what is debatable or what is not debatable. My third contention is that we have a rule which says clearly and openly That the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is always in order and takes precedence over any other motion. The rule does not say it shall take precedence over any debatable motion, but it says it shall take precedence over any motion whatever, and rule 15 has not been amended by the new rules. It might possibly have been amended to suit the convenience of hon. gentlemen opposite if the rules had been submitted to a committee of the House, but the truth is that in their anxiety to apply the gag they forgot all about rule 15. They added an amendment to rule 17 but they forgot to amend rule 15 to keep us from moving that the Chairman leave the Chair when a non-debatable motion was before us. Then the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) says: That is all very well, but the Chairman was in the act of putting the motion and it was because the Chairman was putting the motion that the hon. member for St. John had no right to move that the Chairman leave the Chair. Remember, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Portage la Prairie is the hon. member who sometimes accuses members on this side of the House of reading a few lines of ' Hansard ' and not a full report. He takes ' Hansard 5 and he reads as follows:


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I am now putting the
motion that the Bill be reported.
Some hon. Members: Shame.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Those in favour of the
motion will please rise.
Mr. Pugsley:	I move that you now leave
the Chair.
The hon. member for Portage la Prairie read that, but why did he not read the rest, which is as follows:
Mr. Beland:	Let me make my point of
order, please.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The motion now before the Committee is that I report the Bill. I ask those who are in favour of it to rise.
Some hon. Members: No, we won't rise.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: 

arrangement between the right hon. the Prime Minister, the hon. member for Portage la Prairie and the Chairman of this House to enforce the spirit of the rules when the letter does not suit their convenience.
At one o'clock, House took recess.
House resumed at three o'clock.


Mr. J. A. CURRIE (North Simcoe):: It is not my intention to occupy a great deal of the time of the House in discussing the question which has been the subject of debate during the morning. This session of Parliament has been unduly prolonged and the members on this side have restrained themselves in order that we may bring the business of the House to a conclusion and ascertain whether the country is still governed by a parliamentary majority or by a minority. I am one of those members of the House who regret that it has been necessary for us to change the rules which were the old English rules. In that respect, I think, the leader of the Opposition will agree with me, although many of his followers on previous occasions desired that the rules should be changed. Those of us who have given any study to the rules of the English House of Commons and have studied the workings of this House, must have arrived at the conclusion that, sooner or later, some changes would have to be made in the rules in order that the business of the House might be carried on with greater despatch. During the last Parliament, we had one or two very long debates. Fortunately for the country, the Prime Minister of that day chose to decide the question about reciprocity by taking that question to the people. So far as the Opposition at that time were concerned, in contrast with the position of the present Opposition, there was no necessity for making any change in the rules, for no obstructive tactics were indulged in by the Opposition of that day. I have a distinct recollection that at no time during that debate was the question of obstruction raised, but this session, almost from the very beginning of the debate on the naval question, the hon. member for St. John especially and others also had no hesitation in saying to the House openly that they were going to obstruct ihisi measure and to take advantage of all the rules and procedure of the House in order to carry out their desires in that respect.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would remind the hon. gentleman that he is scarcely keeping very close to the question before the House, which is with regard to the action of the Chairman in committee.


John Allister Currie: I have no desire to wander from the subject, but merely in passing, mentioned that phase of the present sub-Mr. BOIYIN.
ject. Now, matters proceeded, and we have now been about five months discussing this one measure. We have been compelled to change the rules. Those of us who know the old rules know that they were antiquated. In the English House of Commons for over fifty years before Confederation; the question of changing the rules had been discussed. The increasing business of this House, the additional new members, the enlargement of the work of the House, all called for these new rules. Those of us who had considered the question here, felt that the moment any section or individual in this House became tainted with the leprosy of obstruction, that moment we would have to make a change in the rules and adopt such rules as obtain in all other representative houses of th^ character. The question arose as to whether we should carry out the English practice and adopt their form of closure. That practice is all for the moment, without notice, and places the power in the hands of the Speaker to shut off debate. Many years ago Mr. May, who was Speaker of the English House of Commons, discussed this question and laid it down as much better for the House to have a progressive rule and pointed out that the main objection to the form of the English House of Commons rules to-day was that they provided for closure without notice, and suggested that closure should be adopted with notice. So, we have been compelled to change the old rules, and adopt rules providing for progress; not that members on this side had any desire to change them, but because we are compelled by circumstances and the action of hon. members opposite to make the change. The question before the House to-day is on the new rule and whether the Chairman was within his right in denying the motion of the hon. member for Cape Breton South, I must say that every form of obstruction' that could be devised to delay debate has been adopted by the Opposition. We have had long speeches, and then we have had what are called dilatory motions, that is, motions designed mainly to prolong discussion. It is true, there are some forms of dilatory motions which have not yet been thought of by these hon. gentlemen. I do not want to tell them about them. If they had gone into the old rules of the British House, they might have found them. But everything they ever heard of here they have adopted. The dilatory motion before closure was adopted was the most formidable form of obstruction in the British House. Such motions as that the Chairman do now leave the Chair or that the House do adjourn, were such. These motions being debatable, they were discussed by the hour. The first closure rule adopted in the British House of Commons

was in that regard as that no member could move a second - time that the House should adjourn, until some other business had been [DOT] taken up, and so one member could not hold up the House. We have not adopted the English closure rule, but have adopted the rule which gives closure with notice and follows the example of other leading legislative bodies and is a great improvement upon the present rules of the British House. So far as, to the chairmen of committee and Committees of the Whole House are concerned, these rules apply, if I read them right, just as they do to the House itself. In the first section of this rule, notice is taken of motions that may be debatable. These are pertinent to the interests of the legislation of the House and should be debatable. Then this section says: 'All otlrnr motions are not debatable.' For instance, the motion of the hon. member for St. John that the Chairman leave the Chair, would not be debatable either in the House or in Committee of the Whole. The motion to refer back to committee would not be debatable. Any form of dilatory motion, a motion that the committee rise-and even the motion to adjourn the House- would have to be put without debate.
Anyone who has read the record of the proceedings which took place on Friday last must reach but one conclusion, that among hon. members opposite, are a certain number of them who have been constantly struggling for a place in the spotlight, so that it has been a question for the last month or two which of them should have the floor or which should make a motion, or a long tiresome speech. Several of these hon. gentlemen who have been obstructing or delaying the proceedings, decided on Friday last that they were going to create a scene in this House. Compare the speeches and what was done as reported in ' Hansard ' with what has been done in any other country; take the British House of Commons during the most strenuous period when the Irish Nationalists were fighting; nothing of a similar character has ever occurred in a constitutional House such as this. The actions of Tim Healey and John Dillon ware not to be compared with what took place last Friday night. The British House of Commons has always preserved its dignity. For four hundred years, when a member has risen in his place to defy the Speaker, the practice has been to place him at the Bar and, if obdurate, to compel him to ask pardon of the Speaker on his knees. The decorum of the House must be preserved if we are to have free government. Hon. gentlemen opposite desired to create such a scene that a number of them would have to be carried out on stretchers or something of that kind.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It is not permissible
under the rules to impute motives to members of the House.


John Allister Currie: Mr. Speaker, I take hack what I said. I do not know what their intentions were.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John Allister Currie: They carried those intentions in their own hearts, but they evidently were determined to create a scene.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Allister Currie: They did create a scene; and the results, if we look up the record of ' Hansard,' shows that they did create a scene and used language which should not be allowed to appear on the pages of ' Hansard-' It is contrary to the privileges of this House to call a rule of this House ' infamous,' and yet you will find that language in this famous ' Hansard.' You will also find the word ' shame ' used to which attention was called this morning, and, what is more, you will find that other hon. gentlemen rose and made the statement that the report was false. I have observed, Mr. Speaker, that when anything is said with regard to their action, hon. gentlemen opposite are the first to take the floor and ask for your protection, and if they are so fond of your protection they should be sufficiently guarded in their words as not to abuse their privileges by calling into question the-actions of this House or its members.
Now, a word or two with reference to the rules. Thjs hon. House has appointed a learned gentleman who is the custodian of its documents, acts and reminders, and the official who prepares the minutes of the proceedings of the House is the Clerk of the House. The records of the House are entirely different from the reports appearing in ' Hansard ' in this respect, and they show that the actions of the Chairman on the occasion in question were perfectly in order and that the business of the House was carried on in accordance with the ancient forms. But hon. gentlemen, forsooth, raised a great outcry because the ' Hansard ' reporter happened to' make some mistake in his report of the speeches in this House-and I must say, Mr. Speaker, that there is not a member of the House who has not had occasion to make some complaint in this regard, although so far as I am concerned, I have always taken it in a good-natured way. The speech of the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) on the reciprocity question was credited in ' Hansard ' to me; how can we believe ' Hansard '? The hon. member for South Wellington makes a speech on reci-
30.1}

procity, and when I look at ' Hansard ' the next morning I find that that speech is credited to the hon. member for North Sim-coe, so that with regard to any matter of this kind which arises in the House, it is a very questionable procedure for any member to refer to what appears in unrevised ' Hansard.' With regard to the motion of the hon. member for South Cape Breton, the leader of this House had given him several opportunities to get his motion on the Order Paper; there were three or four occasions upon which he could have done so.


Wilfrid Laurier: Not one.


John Allister Currie: 
Wilfrid Laurier: Fair or unfair.


John Allister Currie: Fair or unfair, as the
leader of the Opposition has said. It is not likely to be unfair, and, if the ruling is unfair, the House can be appealed to. To bring forward this motion of censure is going back to a form of obstruction that was adopted in 1902 by the Irish rationalists in the British House of Commons, and it will be remembered that for eighty years previous to that date no case of that kind had occurred in the British House. I say there is no reason for any such resolution, and that this House will be amply justified in voting it down even without venturing upon any discussion of the merits of the question. So far as your position, Mr. Speaker, is concerned, you are not the master of the Hbuse; you are there to apply the rules; you are solely the servant of the House. One of the greatest Speakers in the English House put that matter very clearly before the members when His Majesty King Charles came into the. House and demanded that certain members of the House be pointed out to him. I have here the words used by the Speaker in reply, and it might be well to read them, as I think they will give to hon. gentlemen a clear conception of what the ancient and honourable duties of the Speaker are. After the King had entered the House, and taken the seat of the Speaker, Mr. Speaker Lenthall, when he was asked by the King whether certain members that he had come to apprehend were in the House, and whether he saw any of them, made this reply:
May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased 'to direct me, whose servant I am here, and humbly beg Your Majesty's pardon, that I cannot give any other answer than this, to what Your Majesty is pleased to demand of me.
That, Sir, clearly defines the position of the Speaker of the House. That is the ancient and the present definition. When you or any other Speaker of this or of the British House of Commons, or the Chairman who is Deputy Speaker, in carrying out your duties, proceed along a certain line observing the rules and usages of the House, and give a certain decision, it is very poor politics for any party to move a vote of censure on the Speaker or Chairman and try to make it a party question. The Speaker of this House is non-partisan; the Chairman who sits at the head of the table is non-partisan, so far as this House is concerned. After having sat here for five months, I am sure that the patience of every Chairman and every Speaker must have been sorely tried on different occasions by the actions of hon. gentlemen opposite. The hon. gentleman who has just sat down

said he wished the rules to be interpreted in their proper spirit. If we are to interpret the rules in their proper spirit, the spirit of the ne w rules was that the question then before the House must have been concluded that evening, and that the Bill must have been reported. A number of years ago the rule was that no clause should be added in committee without the consent of the Houap, and 1 doubt very much if that is not the rule tp-day. That being the case, the Chairman of the committee having, as the records show, acted in accordance with the ancient usages of the House, having properly put the question and reported the Bill to the Speaker, I think there is no occasion for censure. There are many old rules of the British House the spirit of which we maintain in this House to-day. Take for instance the rule that an lion, member rising in his place must uncover; that is substantially one of the old English rules. The rule regarding the passing between the Speaker and the Mace was embodied in rule 91 of the British House, and the question of the Speaker's coming in to restore order is also an old British rule. We have listened here for a whole day to the discussion of that question on a motion of censure of the Speaker. The old English rule is that the Speaker has a perfect right to come in and maintain order. Rule 209-the rule that was in the English rules at the time of Confederation, and which had existed for nearly one hundred years, and which we have never withdrawn from our rules-was:
If any sudden disorder should arise in Committee, Mr. Speaker will resume the Chair without any question being put.
That was the rule of the English House of Commons in 1867 and yet hon. gentlemen spent a whole day arguing that it was not and that the Speaker should be censured. You will find many other rules. The right hon. leader of the Opposition wondered how that rule got into the book whereby he was blocked out when he attempted to speak before a motion was made to put the previous question. That rule was, British House of Commons old rule No. 150: 'A motion may be made that any member who had risen ' be now heard ' or ' do now speak.' The rule is one hundred years old. I appeal to hon. gentlemen, now that they have exhausted all the legitimate resources of obstruction, to sit down and help us to make good legislation. 1 have sat in this House as a member of the Opposition, I have made recommendations on various public Bills and they have been accepted. I must say that as far as the Opposition has been concerned during this Parliament no recommendation has been made on a Bill of any kind by them unless in a partisan spirit. I hope that
the partisan spirit will be dropped in committee procedure after this. The late Minister of Railways has had railway Bills before the House, the Opposition has made several recommendations again and again upon railway Bills, some of them he refused, some of them he accepted. There must be some come and go, some level ground upon which both sides of the House must meet on some questions in order that the business of the country may proceed. But if the hon. gentlemen are going to take a position of resistance to all Government legislation in this House, if they are determined not to amend or offer any reasonable suggestions in reference to any measure before the House, except of a' partisan character, the country will size them up and I want to tell them that the people of the country are not quite so slow minded as they seem to think. There is not a man in the country who is not dissatisfied with the long speeches that have been made in this House. That has been a source of laughter and indignation from time to time. When a man unnecessarily continues a dispute in which he is worsted what do the public think? They come to the conclusion that he is a very poor sport. As to the proceedings of the House, the action of the Speaker and the Chairman of committee, to my mind and I feel satisfied in the judgment of the House and this country, has been very, very mild. If anyone considers the great powers in the hands of the Speaker as the mouthpiece of the House and the very great powers in the hands of the Chairman of the committee, he will realize that there are several members-I shall not include all members of the Opposition because the actions of two or three individuals are not approved of by the others-but the actions of two or three members of the Opposition have been such as to bring on them not the endorsation of the people of this country but their indignation. I ask the right hon. leader of the Opposition why he did not take the hon. member for St. John to Toronto and parade him in front of the Liberals of Ontario.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Allister Currie: Let him give us a
reason-


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think the hon. member ought to keep to the question before the House.


John Allister Currie: After listening to such
long discoursive speeches for four months it is very difficult for any member to keep to the question. If the rules had been enforced as rigorously at the beginning of the session as you, Mr. Speaker, are applying them now, the session would have ended two months earlier, and I trust that for the balance of this session hon. members will

bow to your ruling as promptly as I do now and bring their speeches to an end.


Mr. D. D. McKENZIE (Cape Breton North) :: If my duty consisted in replying to the observations of the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) only in so far as they have strict application to the question before the House, my observations would indeed be very brief. I am somewhat disappointed in the wandering excursion of my hon. friend who is usually careful and more or less to the point in his observations. I should have thought that the answer that could be set up to the motion before the House was somewhat prolific of argument and that my hon. friend would not be driven away so far from the real point at issue. I can appreciate my hon. friend coming to the rescue of the Chairman. We find in literature a statement about a thoughtful, educated gentleman who was pondering over the framework of that docile, harmless creature, the jackass, and said: We are fearfully and wonderfully made. The rejoinder was made by some other person:	A fellow-feeling makes us
wondrous kind. There is no doubt this similarity of anatomy and of mental framework brings up a very strong sympathy between the hon. member for North Simcoe and the gentleman who is now more or less on his trial before this House. There are not very many members in this House who have had the hard road to travel in the matter of interpreting the rules and giving to the House their legal opinion on the rules that the hon. member for North Simcoe has had. He has the unenviable distinction with two other hon. gentlemen of this House of trying to make rules in this House on their own authority, on their own ipse dixit, without anything whatever to back them up. The hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. Currie), the hon. member from that university city of Kingston (Mr. Nickle), and my distinguished young and lion, friend from Kent, N.B. (Mr. Robi-doux), have this great distinction to be handed down to their posterity, that they have tried to gag and strangle free speech in this House without the slightest rule to back it up.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Allister Currie: Now, I ask your ruling; is that parliamentary?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I do not think it is strictly parliamentary, but if I were guided by the practice in this House for some time past, I would be inclined to allow it
to pass.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The hon. member from North Simcoe remembers well, and I venture-to think the longest day he lives he will remember the humiliating castigation which he received in this House at the hands of his friends when he undertook to Mr. CURRIE
interpret the rules of this House. My hon. friend had the selecting of his own j ury when he was on trial before this Parliament. I am sure the hon. member on a party question could not get a more desirable, a more friendly, a more biased jury than the hon. gentlemen sitting around him in this House and on the interpretation of the law, which it is the duty ,of the judge to give to the jury, I ^m sure_ that he could not get a more favourable judge than the right hon. gentleman who leads this House. But that judge, unbiased I hope at all times, but particularly unbiased on that occasion, was bound to tell the jury that there was nothing to go to them, that they were bound on the spot to give a verdict of guilty against the hon. gentleman. That is his position as an interpreter of the rules. With that wide spirit of fair play which should characterize a good Scotchman like my hon. friend, that is the record which he has in this House when bringing his great talents to bear on questions of this kind. I submit that when an hon. member on the opposite side comes before you Sir, and gives us a lecture upon what we ought to be, and what interpretation we should give to the rules, he comes not with a free and open mind, but from a fellow feeling to the protection of his friends. My hon. 'friend criticised the observations that were made in this House on Friday night and S&turdav morning. He said that the woTd 'false' was repeatedly uttered. I agree with him that possibly too often language is used in this House that is not calculated to advance and maintain the dignity of Parliament. We sometimes compare this Parliament with the courts of the country. I have every respect for the courts of this country, and I am igiad that for the last two hundred years, we have had judges who have been able to maintain their own dignity and standing and the dignity and standing of the courts. That is a matter of pride to the people and of great credit to the members of the Bar and to those who preside over our courts. But if that dignity and elevation of thought and manner is essential on the Bench, and at the Bar and to the officer of the court, I submit that they should be found in this House in an even higher degree. Cries of 'sit down,' and 'shame,' flung across from one side to the other, are not calculated to enhance the dignity of this House. I wish to call the attention of Mr. Speaker to the fact that in this House if any person is on his feet, who has no right to be standing, it is his duty and the privilege of the Chairman or the Speaker, to tell that hon. gentleman to sit down. That would be more dignified and becoming than for hon. gentlemen to yell 'sit down' to a brother mem-

ber. That is regarded as an insult and will be repelled every time it is done.
All thus is more or less aside from the question. As I understand it, as it has been so ably put before you by the hon. gentleman who moved this motion, the question is whether or not the Chairman of the committee was within his rights and whethflp he carried out the rules of the House in 3*is conduct in the Chair on Friday evening and Saturday morning. It it somewhat characteristic of hon. gentlemen opposite that if we try to discuss any question of a more or less national character, we are at once told: you are insulting the nation, insulting the flag, and insulting the individual. That as dust thrown in our eyes and in the eyes of the people to prevent us from discussing the real question. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, * and I think I speak for every hon. gentleman on this side of the House, that when we discuss the rights which we have in this House, which is the specific motion before us now, we must do so without any particular reference to the personality of the individual who .may be involved in the matter. It is a well-known principle of Christian doctrine that we can denounce sin without maligning the sinner. We have perfect freedom to condemn sin without having anything against the individual who may commit that sin. That, Sir, is the ground I take here. I am not criticising the conduct of the Chairman because of any personal spleen or feeling against that hon. gentleman. Nothing of Idle kind. But we are not to be drawn away from doing our duty in maintaining our rights in ibis House because forsooth some 'person might think we were making some personal reference to the Chairman. Such is not the case. The right of free speech, the right to represent the views of the people who send us here, and the right to carry on the business of the House in a perfectly open minded and free way, are much too important to be interfered with by any scruple as to bringing questions of this kind before the House. For that reason, I am sure that the hon. gentleman who occupies the position of Deputy Speaker, will not for a moment suppose that the bringing up of' this motion has to do with him any more than with any other individual who might have fallen into the error into which we allege he fell on the occasion referred to. 1 submit that the question of whether the hon. member for South Cape Breton could have made a speech or not in moving his motion on Friday, is<iot so very important. What really was important was the legislation which he proposed as part of the Bill before the House. That was the important thing. The hon. member for South Cape Breton represents one of the largest, if not the largest, industrial county
in the Dominion. He is here to forward as far as possible the interests of one of the great industries in his county, and he desired to forward it in connection with a subject that was in line with it. In connection with a Bill creating conditions under which steel ships the property of Canada shall be built either in this country or in the Old Country, he was legitimately and properly arguing that the industries of Canada should benefit by reason of the large expenditure of money, and that a clause should be added to the Bill providing that the industry of his county and the labour of those he represents should be utilized for the purpose of building those ships. I submit that that was a legitimate proposition, that it was his duty to bring it forward, and that it is unjustified and improper to suggest that he was making the motion for the purposes of obstruction. It was a perfectly proper and legitimate amendment. Only a few hours previously, the right hon. the Prime Minister himself* had moved as an amendment the addition of a new clause to the Bill, and if it was consistent and proper for the Prime Minister to do so after the Biil had been weeks and months under discussion, what was to prevent any hon. gentleman on this side of the House, or on the other from coming forward and proposing a seventh clause? I submit, Sir, that the amendment of the hon. member for South Cape Breton was just as legitimate and consistent as clause 6 which the right hon. Prime Minister moved to be added to the Bill.
I might point out that the fact that the Prime Minister introduced clause 6, takes away altogether the argument that undue opposition was offered. The drafting of the Bill was hardly completed when the sixth clause was added; scarcely had ;t left the hands of the draughtsman when -the guillotine and the gag were applied. The question before us is: had the hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. Carroll) the right to move this clause and was it desirable that he should do so. On the evening of the 8th May the Prime Minister gave notice that clauses 2, 3, 4, and 5, and the proposed clause 6 of the Bill would be the first business next day. On the afternoon of the following day the hon. member for South Cape Breton tried to get in his amendment and the Chairman ruled him out, because as he said, the first business would have to he the business of which notice had been given. That, I agree, was a proper ruling. Then began the speeches on the clauses, and we are told that we could have given room for the hon. member (Mr. Carroll) to come in with his motion some time during the day.
I find that on that day eighteen or twenty members spoke and that eight of them were supporters of the Government, and if you take the * Hansard ' columns and

count them you will find I think that as many words were spoken by Government supporters as by the members of the Opposition. The hon. member for South Cape Breton had no power to control the conduct of the House to enable him to get in his amendment. The records show that the Chairman told him that when the business then before the committee was disposed of he could get in with the amendment. I give the Chairman credit for having that in his mind, and I give the Prime Minister credit for good intentions at one stage of the proceedings, because although he did get up to move the motion that the Bill be reported, when Mr. Carroll came to his feet the Prime Minister no doubt thought of the promise made to Mr. Carroll by the Chairman the day before, and he apparently was willing to give way to Mr. Carroll to make his motion had he not been interfered with. But, the member for Portage la Prairie, who seems *to have particular guardianship over the application of the rules of the House for the last month or so, was not satisfied with the course taken by the Prime Minister and he took it upon himself to control the eye and the nerves and the feelings of the Chairman and he told him: you are noticing the Prime Minister and you are not noticing the member from South Cape Breton. Of course when the Prime Minister was reminded of the fact that a certain line had to be followed, whether there was fair play about it or not, he pressed his motion and the hon. member for South Cape Breton was deprived of the right he was promised would be given him. I submit that the Prime Minister, having heard the promise made to the hon. member for South Cape Breton that after clauses 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 were disposed of, the hon. member could make his motion; in any deliberative body where fair play and honourable dealing should be supreme, the Prime Minister wak stopped from interfering with the Chairman in granting that privilege to Mr. Carroll. We are not dummies in this House; we have-the right to express our views here.
I heard the member for North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) giving utterance to a ridiculous suggestion as to how the Speaker of this House should be governed. According to the hon. member, the Speaker is to be told to do certain things and is to be in effect merely a dummy. I never heard of such rules in any parliament, and I am sure they are not rules that govern the Speaker of this House and the Chairman of the committees. I submit to Your Honour that it is your duty to use your intellect and the voice which the Lord has given you, to tell the House how the business is to be conducted. I submit that the proceedings of the other night are deserving Mr. McKenzie.
of censure, when the Chairman refused to give Mr. Carroll the floor and when the Prime Minister pressed his motion without giving any explanation to the House. That is our grievance and that is why we submit that the conduct of the Chair, whether conscious or otherwise, was not a proper recognition of the rights of the members of this House, and therefore we were^bound to bring the matter up in order that we may know what our rights are and how the rules are to be interpreted in the future.
The hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr Meighen) to-day laid down a rule which I never heard in this House before, that is, that if there is a motion before the House which is not debatable, the provisions of rule 15 cannot be invoked. The hon. member has been asked, aye challenged, to produce his authority for such a statement. While I give him credit for usually being very ready with his authority, if authority is available at all, it is clear that he had to let that challenge go by, and he failed to produce any authority for his statement. It is a well understood rule that, when any law or rule is calculated to circumscribe or lessen or curtail the rights and liberties of individuals, it must be strictly interpreted, and every loophole must be construed into giving the widest possible latitude to the individual. The language of the law is that there is no intentment in favour of any such rules and that every intentment is against them. You cannot read any arbitrary intention into rules, unless they show on the face of them that such arbitrary purpose is the true meaning of the rules. Unless there _ is somewhere in this book of rules which govern us, an express rule which takes away the force and effect of rule 15, I am sure that Your Honour will say that that rule must always be regarded as in force. Then there was nothing left for the Chairman to do but to drop everything before him and to put this motion. I am prepared to admit that it was not debatable since the new rules were passed. Very little time would have been lost in putting it, and no effort was made by the hon. member for St. John to debate it. Then why was it not put ? Is there any explanation why a plain, distinct and unequivocal rule of this House was violated ? I am not going to answer for the Chairman, but we must conclude, because it is the logical conclusion that comes from violation of laws in any case/that a man must take the consequences of his action. If a man does a wrong act, the conclusion of wrongful intent must necessarily be drawn from it, as far as that is necessary to carry out the wrong move that was made. I submit that the Chairman, for having refused, without any excuse or ex-

planation, to put that motion under, rule 15, was guilty of violation of his duty as Chairman and is subject to the censure of this House unless there is forthcoming some good and satisfactory explanation for the course which he took on that occasion.
I submit that the course of the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) in moving ,this motion is perfectly justified. I wish to repeat that the Chairman must not for one moment suppose that this is a personal attack upon him. It is simply a question of seeing to it, so far as an Opposition is capable of doing, that our rights and the rights of those who may come after us in this House shall be fully conserved under those rules, and that, whatever rights and privileges we are entitled to, shall be our property and it shall be our privilege to exercise them.
Mr. W. S. M1DDLEBRO (North Grey): Mr. Speaker, the motion before the House is a motion to censure the Deputy Speaker, first for refusing to permit the hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. Carroll) to add an additional section to the Bill. I desire to discuss the matter first as though the new rules had not been passed. In that case, let us see for what Teason the action of the Chairman could be censured. In the first place I submit that, when the Bill was coming out of Committee with the clause that had been added to it by the Premier, it would be quite natural for the Deputy Speaker, irrespective of anything that had been said to the hon. member for South Cape Breton in the afternoon, and irrespective of the new rules, to look to the leader of the Government to see what should be his next proceeding. I think I can say that honestly and fairly; and I believe every one will agree with me that, in a case of that kind, the getting of an important. Bill out of Committee, the Chairman would naturally take such a course. If he did anything else, he would be doing the unexpected, something different from what the Speaker of this House did when, on a previous occasion, he recognized the right hon. the leader of the Opposition. It is not for us to say whether the Speaker was right or not on that occasion. He exercised his own personal privileges and functions when he recognized the leader of the Opposition as against the minister of the Crown. In the present case, the Deputy Speaker did exactly the same thing. From that standpoint alone, had nothing else occurred, the Deputy Speaker was perfectly justified in doing what he did, and to have done anything else would have been more or less of a slight upon the Premier of this country.
In the second place, it is said that there was some sort of a suggestion in the afternoon that the member for South Cape Breton was to have the privilege of moving an amendment. The records do not show
that. On the contrary, if the Deputy Speaker were to follow what was said by the right hon. the leader of the Opposition and by the right hon. the leader of the Government, he would again be perfectly justified in doing what he did. What do we find in ' Hansard '? At page 9690 we find the following remarks made by the Premier:
I might say to my hon. friend that he could move his amendment to clause 2 before two o'clock, but I do not think he could do so afterwards, and he could do it on the third reading if he desires to do so.
That shows clearly and distinctly that the Prime Minister was of the opinion that no man could move an amendment after two o'clock* on Saturday morning. What is the opinion of the right hon. leader of the Opposition? Immediately afterwards, on the same occasion, he said:
That is the puzzle. He cannot do it after two o'clock hut he cannot do it before the clause is disposed of, and if it is not disposed of before two o'clock, he is shut off altogether.
So, we have the admission of the leaders of both sides that the hon. member for Cape Breton South could not move any amendment after two o'clock, and yet this House is asked to censure the Deputy Speaker for not doing that which both leaders said could not be done.
Now, I say that even had the hon. member for Cape Breton South caught the eye of the,Speaker first, got the floor first, and moved his amendment first, yet under the new rules his motion was not debatable or amendable. It is not one of those motions which come within the definition of those which can be debated and so is one of those unnamed motions which can neither be debated nor amended. So, my hon. friend would have been in no better position had he got the floor first and moved his motion. But the question of getting the floor first is of no importance whatever. I make that statement upon the authority of the leader of the Opposition. At page 9810 of ' Hansard ' that right hon. gentleman said:
It is a matter of little importance who rose first.
The 'whole question is, the leader of the Opposition says, had the hon. gentleman a right to move the amendment? So, we can banish the question of who rose first and whether the Chairman was discourteous and so on, for the leader of the Opposition says it is a matter of little importance, and I think so too.
So, we come to the question whether the hon. member for Cape Breton South had the right to make his motion. But we do not need to go that far. We only need to go far enough to find whether we should censure the Deputy Speaker for doing what he did. He could not do otherwise under

the circumstances. He is bound to follow the rules of the House as made, and under the amended rules he would have no right to put the motion my hon. friend from Cape Breton South proposed. Now as to this second part of the motion, whether we should censure the Deputy Speaker for
* -declining to put the motion that the Chairman do now leave the Chair, as moved by Mr. Pugsley, the member for the city of St. John-
The hon. member for the city of St. John should know that, even without invoking the assistance of the new rule, the motion was not in order. In the first place, what did the hon. gentleman attempt to do? The Chairman, sitting in the chair, had put the motion, or called for the yeas and nays. But let me read from ' Hansard ':


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I am now putting the
motion that the Bill be reported.
Some hon. Members: Shame.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Those in favour of the
motion will please rise.
Mr. Pugsley:	I move that you leave the
Chair.
In other words, my hon. friend from St. John is contending that after the motion is proposed for division, he can intervene with a motion. Even under the old rules, it is provided that the rules of the House so far as applicable, shall apply to the committee. So, his contention would be the same as though he were to say that when a vote is being taken on the floor of this House, he would have the right to rise and propose another motion. He knows perfectly well he could not do that. It is absolutely against the old Tules as - it is against the amended rule. I think the hon. gentleman should agree that my 'argument is_ right. If anything further is needed I will quote authority. Rule 7 of this House provides:
When members have been called in, preparatory for division, no further debate is to be permitted.
That rule is applicable to committee, and we had reached the stage of the proceedings in committee equivalent to calling the vote.


Frank Oliver: The hon. gentleman'should be fair to the House, and read the sentences in ' Hansard ' following what he has already read, which have been read here and the argument upon them placed before the House. They absolutely contradict what he is saying.


Mr. MIDDLEBRO:: I am dealing with the simple point as to whether or not a substantive motion can be made at a time when the House is proceeding to count the vote.


Frank Oliver: But the hon. gentleman
will see by ' Hansard ' that the House was Mr. MIDDLEBRO.
not proceeding to count the vote at that time.


William Sora Middlebro: I have taken it from ' Hansard ' at page 9285. I will read on, though it is not necessary for the purposes of my argument:	'
Mr. Beland:	Let me make my point of
order, please.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The motion is now before
the committee that I report the Bill. I ask those in favour of it to rise.
We are in the proceeding of counting the vote. I would like to see what my hon. friend from Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) would say.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Read on.


William Sora Middlebro: Does the hon. gentleman say that when we have got that far, when we are proposing to count the vote, it is competent for an hon. member to rise and put a substantive motion ?


Rodolphe Lemieux: We had not got that
far. Let the hon. member read six lines further.


William Sora Middlebro: Will the hon. gentleman say on his authority as a parliamentarian, that when the Chairman has called-


Wilfrid Laurier: When the
question is regularly put that the members should rise, you cannot move a motion. But on that occasion, when the Chairman said. that the members should rise, we were debating a point oi order raised by the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Beland).


William Sora Middlebro: That is not according to ' Hansard.'


Wilfrid Laurier: Yes, it is.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Read it.


William Sora Middlebro: Merely because hon. members opposite interrupted the regular order of proceedings, that does not derogate from the right of the House to proceed in an orderly way. Otherwise, there need be no end to debate. So, when the hon. member for St. John rose to put a motion, which I think he knew was not in order, the regularity of proceedings had to be maintained. Bourinot, at page 500, says:
The moment the Speaker orders that the members be called in no further debate will be permitted.
And May says:
After the question has first been put, no member is permitted to speak and the debate cannot be reopened after the turning of the sand-glass.
The sand-glass, of course, is not used in this House. So, according to the old rules-


Frank Oliver: If the hon. gentleman
will look at ' Hansard ' a few lines further on, he will see that the question to which he alludes was not the putting of the question-that the question was put afterwards, as ' Hansard ' shows.


William Sora Middlebro: I have to take the
word of the Chairman, and ' Hansard ' shows that he said he was putting the question. During the same debate my right hon. friend, I think, said that the members of the Opposition had not wasted any time in Committee of the Whole.


Wilfrid Laurier: Certainly not.


William Sora Middlebro: Yet the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), not more than a day of two before that, virtually said that the reason why hon. gentlemen opposite had obstructed this Bill for the last two months was that they had been offended in some way because the Government one evening proposed to put through clause 2.


Frank Oliver: I am sure I never said
anything that would bear even approximately the construction put upon my remarks by the hon. gentleman.


William Sora Middlebro: That was my recollection, and I have since looked up ' Hansard ' and corroborated my view. On the 8th of May, the hon. member for Edmonton said:
I would just like to call to the remembrance of the right hon. the Prime (Minister and of the House that arrangements were made between both sides of the House for the vote up to the time when the right hon. the Prime Minister informed the House that it would have to sit until it passed section 2. It was not until my right hon. friend and his followers undertook to manage the business of this House by physical force, by establishing an endurance test in which they .failed, that there was any unwillingness shown on the part of this side of the House to come to an arrangement as to taking the vote.
And the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) said practically the same thing. This, therefore, is a tacit admission that ever since that evening, about two and a half months ago, hon. gentlemen opposite have been fighting this Bill not upon any constitutional principle, not upon any principle of public policy, not in the interests of the people of Canada, 'but upon principles of political expediency only. They have said that they agreed to a vote; if that is the case they must have considered that they had before them all the necessary information and that the matter had been discussed at sufficient length to enable them to vote intelligently. It is evident, therefore, that hon. gentlemen opposite have been fighting this Bill only on the ground of political expediency, following the advice of the rough-housers who have control of the other side of the House.


Frank Oliver: I am quite willing to accept any statement that my hon.	friend desires to
make in regard to the actions and motives of members on this side, but when he assumes to say to the House that we have admitted such and such a thing,
I must certainly protest. My hon. frieni did us the honour of reading ' Hansard,' and I think the House will bear me out that ' Hansard ' does not support his contention.
In regard to the resolution of censure that is now before the House, I do not think it is necessary to dwell upon it at any great length. Two statements of fact are contained in the resolution, and, so far as this discussion has gone, it is within the judgment of the House that those facts have been established. There is no doubt as the hon. member for Shefford (Mr. Boivin) so * well said, that, when our friends on the other side find that the letter of the rules does not suit their purpose, they are prepared to conduct the business of the House according to what they are pleased to call the spirit of the rules. This spirit, as we know, is the spirit of control without regard to right; the assertion of the right of might. Stripped of unnecessary words, that is the position of the Government in this case. For my part, while I entirely support the resolution of censure as applied to the Chairman of -the committee, I do not want to be understood for an instant as applying the motion of censure to the Chairman of the committee and excluding from that censure the Government or their supporters in this House. The action of the Chairman was taken in accordance with the fixed policy of the Government in conducting the business of this House. On that point I want to say that the Opposition has been accused of being the cause of undue delay in conducting the business of the House, and of undue and unwarranted disorder in the House and in the committee. These are serious accusations, and I want to take this opportunity of absolutely denying them and of putting forward as evidence in support of that denial, the charge which is now before the House. We are supposed to be a deliberative body, representing the varied mind of the people of Canada, met here for the purpose of considering matters that are of the greatest importance and interest to the people, subject to certain rules of conduct and debate framed for the purpose of enabling the opinions of the people by their representatives in Parliament to be freely and fully stated. Let me diverge to say that any interference with that right of discussion and debate as applied to Parliament is an attack upon the rights and the liberties of the people who are represented in Parliament. It is with this idea in view that the rules of

Parliament were framed-the rules under which parliamentary business has been conducted in this country for many years. They have been changed from time to time, always with a view to regulating and thereby facilitating the due and proper expression of public opinion on the floor of Parliament. To-day [DOT] we have had a change in the rules and a change in the purpose of the rules; the purpose to-day being not to provide for reasonable debate and discussion in Parliament, but to place in the hands of the Government of the day the power to prevent such discussion. The hon. gentleman from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen), in the numerous statements he has made to the House in regard to these rules-and we are bound to assume that he has made these statements with authority-has freely expressed that principle. He said in effect that if you did not take the power to restrict debate you could not transact the business of the House. Therefore I take it that we have on the rule book to-day a new principle, which principle expresses the right of might and the determination of the Government of the day to override the liberty of the people of Canada by preventing free discussion of matters which concern the welfare of the people of Canada in this Parliament. It is a matter well within the knowledge of the House that the assertion of this principle, this assertion of the right of might, was not because of the obstruction of public business in the way of undue discussion by members on this side of the House. There was never a session of Parliament in which there was less undue delay of public business by undue discussion than in the first session of this Parliament, and as to this session of Parliament, I say there never was a session of this Parliament of Canada in which there was less delay of public business in regard to every matter that has come before us except the one matter of the Naval Aid Bill. The Government never had an excuse, never had the shadow of an excuse.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think the hon. member is wandering away from the question before the House. It is not a question of what the conduct of Parliament has been heretofore, but of a particular course of action which is before the House now, and whether that action was right or wrong.


Frank Oliver: What I wanted to,come to was that the action of the Chairman in, as we assert, violating the rules of the House was a part of the fixed policy of the Government of the day, and that the Government and their supporters are entitled to share in the censure that we believe is properly directed toward the action of the Deputy Speaker; and, in order to prove that, I have been desirous of making my
Mr. OLIVER.
case as plain as possible so that there would be no question about it. However, I take the liberty of asserting that I desire to be absolutely bound by the rules. I am speaking to-day, demanding the protection of the rules of the House, which are framed as well for the protection of the individual and of the minority as for the assertion of the authority of the majority. While I do not wish to discuss the terms or the merits of the new rules, I am desirous of showing the lack of legitimate purpose, according to the statements made on their behalf, that lay behind the introduction of these rules and that they were in fact, an assertion of the right of might and not the result of a desire on the part of the Government to facilitate the proper discussion of public affairs in Parliament. As a matter of fact, the closure rule has been introduced to protect the Government from being compelled to appeal to the country on the question of naval aid, that and that alone.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It seems to me it is not a question why the rules were introduced; the question is, as they are now the rules of the House, whether they have been violated. It does not seem to me necessary to go behind the question to discuss the purpose of having new rules; the question before the House is whether these rules have been properly carried out.


Frank Oliver: May I be permitted to
show that the authorities acting under the Government, before these rules were framed, violated the rules then existing, and that their violation of the practice of Parliament and of the rules of Parliament was the direct and immediate cause of such delay as did occur in tire consideration of the Naval Aid Act and such disorders that occurred in the House? It was the violation of the rules, not the maintenance of the rules, that was the cause of such delay as occurred and of such disorder as occurred. I instance that as a case parallel to that which occurred on Friday night. That is to say I do not want it to be understood that this is a mere matter of whether the Deputy Speaker saw one man or saw another man. If that is all there is in this matter we are losing the time of this House by discussing it at this length. There is more in it than that. There is the question of the protection of the rights of the individual members of this House under the rules of the House, the rights of the minority of the House under the rules of the House. What I wanted to say was that this was not an isolated case, that it was only one of a series of cases, that it was a climax, if I may be permitted to say so, arrived at in pursuance of a distinct and plain policy of the Government of the day as expressed in their rules, in the interpretation of

those rules and in the application of those rules and that they were prepared at anytime to interpret the rules literally when it suited them and in spirit when it suited them, to appeal to the letter to-day and appeal to the spirit to-morrow.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If the hon. member
implies by that, that when interpreting the spirit of the rules they were right, and when interpreting the letter they were wrong, he is clearly imputing improper motives, whichiis not allowable, and could not, of course, be permitted to pass, If he implies that the spirit and letter of the rules are the same, then I could understand him.


Frank Oliver: I think perhaps you
hardly apprehend my point. I do not see how I can arrive at a reason for what we are attempting to do unless I can give lucid and understandable reasons for it. We are asking the House to censure the Deputy Speaker. It must be established that he has committed an error or we are not entitled to censure him; we must declare that he has committed an error of judgment or an error of intent. There is no other recourse, and I am here to say that, judging from the arguments that have been made from time to time by members on the Government side and by the members of the Government in supporting actions that have been taken-I am not criticizing the Deputy Speaker in this particular, but the policy of the Government-that policy has been distinctly to follow the rules when it suited them and to break the rules when it suited them, and it is from the breaking of the rules that there has been delay in discussion and disorder in the House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I must ask the hon.
member to withdraw that, because there can be nothing plainer than this fact that, if they interpret the rules to suit themselves, although they are absolutely wrong in their interpretation, that would be an improper motive. I have here Speaker Peels' decision, which says:
To impute an improper motive is not in order, and should not be allowed.
That is only one of several rulings on exactly the same line. Therefore, it seems to me that if, interpreting the letter of the rules answers their purpose at one time, and at that time they are right, and if at another time they interpret the rules by their spirit and at that time they are wrong, their motive must be an improper one, and of course that cannot be imputed to an hon. gentleman in his conduct in this House.


Frank Oliver: I wish to keep myself entirely in order. I think you will concede,
Mr. Speaker, that I have tried to do so all the time. Might I be permitted to state a succession of facts without imputing motives, and let any conclusion be drawn that may be desired. I revert to the incidents of the introduction of the Naval Aid Bill. The resolution was brought forward, when the second reading came up, and it finally came to a vote. The vote on the resolution was reached by agreement, the vote on the second reading was reached by agreement, and then we went in Committee of the Whole and began to discuss the second section of the Bill. Within three hours after we had begun to discuss the second section of the Bill, we were given to understand that that section must be passed and the House would not be allowed to adjourn until it was passed. We believed that reasonable information, that reasonable opportunity for discussion on that section -upon its merits had not been given, and we felt that we would be doing less than our duty by those we represent if we permitted that section to pass on those terms and after that threat, if I am not out of order in using that word. The, discussion on that second section went on for two weeks, night and day.


Rodolphe Lemieux: An extraordinary proceeding.


Frank Oliver: A most extraordinary
proceeding, a most remarkable proceeding which was not at the option of the Opposition, let it be remembered, but which was at the order of the Government, an order suggested, I presume amongst the members of the Government party, and insisted upon by that party. We were given reasonable liberty of discussion on that clause during the two weeks.


William Pugsley: By keeping it up night and day.


Frank Oliver: I shall not enlarge upon the unparliamentary and undignified character of such proceedings; I merely emphasize the fact that it was at the order of the Government, and on the express word of the Prime Minister that the House of Commons was kept in that position for that length of time.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would like to read the resolution which is before the House, and ask the hon. member to confine himself to that resolution:
Resolved, that the action of Mr. Blondin, the Deputy Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House, while the committee was considering Bill No. 21, entitled, ' an Act to authorize measures for increasing the effective naval forces of the Empire in refusing to permit Mr. Carroll, the member for South Cape Breton, to move to add an additional section to said Bill, and also in declining to put the motion that

the Chairman do now leave the Chair, as moved by Mr. Pugsley, the member for the city of St. John, was a violation of the rules and constituted an infringement of the privileges of this House.
That is the question before the House, and the one to -which the Speaker should direct his attention.


Frank Oliver: I was in the belief, Mr. Speaker, that I was trying to direct the attention of the House to that very question. As I said in the beginning of my remarks, this is not a mere question of whether the Deputy Speaker saw one man or the other first. It is a question which affects the rights of Parliament and the liberties of the people of Canada, In order that we may understand how we should conduct debate under those rules, I think it is desirable that we should get at the very foundation of the action of the Chairman. It was in that regard that I desired to place a certain succession of facts before the House, which facts led up to the action of the Deputy Speaker. I desired to give the different steps upon vrtiich that action was finally taken on Friday night. I would appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to permit me to follow out that line of argument. Even if I am not within the rule, there has been a considerable amount of latitude given in the debate so far, and this question is of such a character and of such importance that if we are to have a fair understanding as to the proper conduct of matters in the House it is desirable that it should be thoroughly discussed at this time and in this place. If I may be permitted, I want to be understood-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order. I think that those hon. gentlemen who. dissent from the ruling of the Chair and advise an hon. member to go on are not acting within the proper lines of conduct in this House. I have only to say that it ought to be the endeavour of the Speaker to have relevancy in discussion observed, and it seems to me that it is scarcely necessary for an hon. member speaking on this motion to go back over the history of occurrences that took place week? or months before this occurrence upon which the question is based. It may be necessary sometimes to go back for illustrations, but I do not see how it can materially affect the discussion of the abstract principle.


Frank Oliver: If you rule, Mr. Speaker, that I must not proceed along those lines I shall certainly bow to your ruling and come to the point at which I desire to arrive, which is that a certain state of facts existed here on Friday night, which resulted in somewhat grave disorder in this House. For that disorder, members on Mr. SPEAKER
this side of the House have Deen specifically blamed, both by hon. members on the other side, and by the press of the country, and what I have been trying to establish, and what I would like very much to have the privilege of establishing, is that such disorder as occurred was brought about not by an enforcement of the rules of the House, but, as we understand the matter by the breaking of the rules of the House. We claim the protection of those rules in carrying on the debates of this House, and in doing so we claim that we are maintaining the right of the people of Canada to have their business in this Parliament transacted in the light of day, fully, freely, clearly and completely. To the extent to which that right is restricted, the rights of the people of Canada are restricted.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: In reference to these
observations I would like to say that there is no rule better defined as to maintaining the amenities of debate, and it does seem to me that it is not becoming to endeavour to incite a member to do what the ruling of the Chair says is not proper.


Frank Oliver: Mr. Speaker, I am sure
that my friends, and you too, Sir, will do me the honour of thinking that I really do not need to be incited. I say that such disorder as occurred on Friday night was because that in the opinion of a large minority of the members of this House their rights and privileges had been unduly interfered with, and they were protesting, not on their own behalf but on behalf of those whom they represent here-and they represent within a very small fraction as many people of the Dominion as do the Conservative majority in this House.
May I allude to the fact that the new rules, the closure rules, the rules which have been made for the purpose of preventing discussion, for the purpose of protecting the Government against being compelled to face the people of Canada in an election- may I say that the excuse for these rules has been that closure rules exist in the Parliament of Great Britain. May I point out, Sir, that there is no parallel between the two cases. I will not allude to the difference in the situation of the Speaker of the English House of Commons and the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons; it is admitted by the leader of the Government and by his friends that owing to that difference it is impossible that we could introduce the same rules here as prevail there. The closure rules were introduced in the English Parliament to overcome deliberate and intentional obstruction of the business of Parliament on the part of an infinitesimal minority of the members. The closure rules have been introduced in this Parlia-

merit, not because of obstruction but in order to protect the Government from being compelled to face the people on a question of such importance and under such circumstances that governmental self-respect would properly have called for an appeal to the people. There is no parallel between the conditions existing in the British House, which were the cause of the introduction of the closure there and the conditions existing in this House. In the British House, although they have closure, it is within the common knowledge of everyone that the Government of the day, with the closure in their hands, have appealed to the people twice within a short period in order to get from the people a mandate on questions that were not more important than the question which is now before this House for our consideration.


Rodolphe Lemieux: They had three elections inside of three years.


Frank Oliver: The attempt to enforce
closure in this House at this time, as it is being enforced-speaking of the rules as they stand-is an attempt of the representatives of a fractional majority of the people of Canada to prevent due discussion by the representatives of almost an equal number of the people. I take it that no such condition was ever imposed upon any parliament under similar circumstances. It is not of that we complain today; it is because the Government having seen fit to establish the right of might: to assert the right of the majority to control irrespective of precedent or equity, having established those rules, they themselves have violated those rules. I was trying to show to you, Mr. Speaker, that those rules had been systematically violated and that their violation had been the cause of the delays in the progress of this session and of such disorder as has occurred during this session. Now, Mr. Speaker, you appealed on Friday night to the members of this House for support in the maintenance of order. Everybody will agree that it is to the interest of every member and to the interest of those whom he represents that there should be order in this Chamber. But what is to be done; what is the remedy if rules are broken by those who are charged with the administration of those rules. I ask you, Sir, how is the decorum of our procedure to be maintained in the House of Commons under these circumstances? It is true that my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) has a solution of this question, and his solution is that whenever a member asserts his belief that he has not been fairly treated, he should be sent to accompany our present state prisoner in the Ottawa jail? I submit, Sir, that such
a suggestion will not commend itself to the wisdom of the House or to your judgment, Mr. Speaker, and is not workable in this modern era. Let me say here and now, Mr. Speaker, with all due deference both to yourself and the governmental majority that, if there is to be decorum of procedure in this House, there must be observance of the rules. These rules must be understood to be on the book for the protection of the rights of the individual and the rights of the minority as well as for the assertion of the rights of the majority. I go no further; but, if this cannot be secured in this Parliament, then there must be recourse.


Robert Laird Borden: I entirely
agree with the statement of my hon. friend (Mr. Oliver), that he is actuated by a sincere desire to observe the rules. On the present occasion he has gone into many matters which did not appear to me to be very relevant, and which did not commend themselves to His Honour the Speaker as very relevant. I am sure my hon. friend will pardon me if I do not follow him into a discussion of those matters which apparently do not touch very closely the question which is now presented for the consideration of the House.
The points which have been raised in this debate have concerned themselves with two questions, one of which might be called the practical question as to how far the hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. Carroll) has been prevented from expressing his views, whether by speech or by motion, with regard to the measure which has occupied the attention of the House so long. The other question, which is set forth in the motion presented by the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), deals with the more or less technical question, though not less important because technical, as to whether or not there has been any breach of the rules, under the circumstances alluded to. I think all hon. members will realize one thing at least, namely, that the hon. member who occupies the position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees has had an unusually trying experience during the present session,^ when, on many*occasions party feeling in this House on both sides has been very greatly aroused. Speaking for myself, after a very thorough and, I hope not biased consideration of his attitude on the occasions when I have had an opportunity of observing it, I believe that he has conducted himself in a dignified and impartial manner, sometimes under conditions which would try any hon. member placed in the same situation.
Let me deal for a moment with the practical question as to the opportunity of the hon. member for South Cape Breton to ex-

press himself by voice or by vote upon this measure. There is no question that the 'hon. member for South Cape Breton had every possible opportunity of doing so. In the first place, this Bill was in committee for eighteen or twenty days. Since the new rules came into force I have always endeavoured, so far as in me lay, to have them carried out in a reasonable and fair spirit towards hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House. I have done so to such an extent that I exposed myself to a distinct rebuke from my hon. friend the member for Bed Deer (Mr. Clark), which, in so far as it reasonably attributed to me any suggestion that hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House had not had abundant opportunity of discussing this measure, I must admit was fairly well merited. My hon. friend from South Cape Breton could have moved his amendment by arrangement with his friends on the other side of the House at any time during those eighteen or twenty days. When he brought the subject to the attention of the committee a few days ago, I pointed out to him, to the right hon. the leader of the Opposition, and to all hon. gentlemen opposite, that, if it were the desire, as apparently _ it was the desire of hon. gentlemen opposite, to compel us to have recourse to the amendments to the rules for the purpose of getting this Bill through committee in any reasonable time, they could still subserve that purpose and at the same time give to the hon. member for South Cape Breton the opportunity which he desired, by merely permitting one of the sub-amendments to be voted upon, whereupon he could immediately have moved another sub-amendment and there could have been no further question about the matter. Am I or am I not speaking the sober truth when I describe the situation to hon. members opposite in that way?


Mr. KNOWLES:: Is it not true that an
additional clause could not be moved until all the others were dealt with?


Robert Laird Borden: My hon. friend does not quite appreciate the point I am making. There was an amendment and a sub-amendment to clause 2. I *m suggesting that, if hon. gentlemen opposite desired to compel us to have recourse to the new rules, it would have been possible for them to subserve that purpose and at the same time to give the hon. member for South Cape Breton the opportunity which he desired, by merely permitting the sub-amendment of the hon. member for Welland (Mr. German) to be voted upon, whereupon immediately the hon. member for South Cape Breton could have moved his motion as a subamendment to the amendment to clause 2. That was the exact situation, and I pointed Mr. BORDEN.
it out in the course of the debate. Apart from all that, it would have been competent to have brought on any of the other sections which were under consideration, in respect of two of which at least there were no sub-amendments. My hon. friend would have been in order, as I understand the rules, to have moved his amendment as a sub-amendment to any of those sections. When the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell) moved his amendment on the night before we adopted the rule of twenty-minute speeches, it would have been within the power of the hon. gentleman, and in perfect consonance with the rules, to have moved his amendment as clause 7 of the Bill. In addition to that, when the motion for the consideration of the Bill as amended came up yesterday, he could have obtained every possible advantage that he could have obtained by making the motion in committee, by merely moving that the Bill be referred back to Committee of the Whole with instructions to add his amendment as clause 7. He still has the opportunity, which as he informs us he intends to exercise, of taking that course on the third reading of the Bill. Under all these circumstances, is it not abundantly apparent, not only that the hon. gentleman has had the opportunity on half a dozen occasions of making the motion to amend the Bill in the sense which he desires, but that he still has that opportunity? And that opportunity is at least as effective to him as it would have been to make his motion in committee-more effective because, in presenting his amendment in that way when Mr. Speaker is in the Chair, he has the opportunity of having recorded the vote of every hon. member, either for or against that motion. Therefore, so far as the argument of hardship is concerned, I cannot say I can appreciate it.
As to the merely technical, but important, question as to the rules, I entirely agree with my hon. friend from Edmonton, who says we must adhere to the rules, and it is our desire and intention to do so. But I do not understand that, after a motion has been made that a Bill be reported, it is possible either to move that the Chairman do leave the Chair or to move any amendment to the motion. That is my appreciation of what the rule means. My hon. friend from St. John challenged that statement, I know. But let me call to his attention what is stated by May, at page 281 of the last edition, the edition of 1906, with respect to the .corresponding motion to adjourn the House when the Speaker is in the Chair. If the House is adjourned when a debate is in progress and the debate is not adjourned, the order becomes a dropped order. Similarly, when the House is in Committee of the Whole and a motion is carried that the Chairman leave the Chair,

the order becomes a dropped order. The motions to a certain extent correspond with each other. May, in the passage to which I have referred, says:
It need scarcely be explained that such a motion cannot be made while a member is speaking, but can only be otiered by a member who, on being called by the Speaker in the course of the debate, is in possession of the House.
So you might apply that principle, which seems a very reasonable and very easily understood principle, to the proceedings of the Committee of the Whole House. Then the motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair can only be made by some member who has been called by the Chairman in the course of the debate and who when so called has possession of the committee. That seems to me a reasonable view of the practice which should be pursued in the one case and in the other.
Now, some criticism has been made upon the action which I took in rising to move that the Chairman do report the Bill. My hon. friend from Beauee (Mr. Beland) wa3 under the impression that such a motion was out of order. I will not weary the House with quotations, but if my hon. friend will look at May, page 391, he will see that that is a motion which was always required by the English rules up to 1888, and the amendment which was then made in the English rules has not yet been made in this House:
Kesohitions agreed to by a committee are upon direction from the committee reported by the Chairman to the House; and, until such report has been made, no reference may be made to it, nor to the 'proceedings of the committee. Formerly, before the Chairman could leave the Chair for that purpose, a formal question was put that he do now leave the Chair; but now, pursuant to the direction given by standing order No. 52, when he has been ordered to make a report to the House, the Chairman leaves the Chair without question put.
We still have the old procedure under which the question must be put, and, if it is to be put, it naturally follows that some person must either formally or informally-and it is often done informally-move that the Chairman do report the Bill; and I rose for the purpose of making that motion. I take full and absolute responsibility for the course I pursued on that occasion, and am ready to meet any attack or proposition of censure which may be brought forward in this House for the course I took.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: As to that motion to
report the Bill, could it be moved after two o'clock?


Robert Laird Borden: It certainly could be moved after two o'clock. The clauses had all been disposed of and the Bill disposed
of, and the only course was to move that the Bill be reported as amended.


Hugh Guthrie: I think all you could do is to pass the clauses.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not agree at all. The Bill had been disposed of, and the proper course to take was to move that the Bill be reported as amended, and I made that motion. I made it with a full sense of the step I was taking, and of any responsibility devolving upon me in regard to it, in view of all the circumstances connected with this Bill, with a reiteration of which I shall not weary the House at this juncture.
Some reference has been made to some supposed discourtesy towards the hon. member for Cape Breton South, as to some pledge that was given to that hon. gentleman. In the early part of that day I had pointed out to the hon. member, that, so far as I was concerned, I did not concede any right on his part to make that motion after two o'clock, and I also pointed out how it would be possible without giving away any of their rights, or their desire to have the new rules enforced, to make this motion. Some hon. gentleman said that hon. gentlemen on that side might not be able to come to an arrangement or agreement among themselves with regard to that. For that I was jn no way responsible. The debate had taken place absolutely irrespective of the section which was under consideration. It had ranged over every possible phase of the Bill, and therefore it could in no way have prejudiced the position of hon. gentlemen if one of the sub-amendments had been disposed of and the hon. member for Cape Breton South had been permitted to make the motion he desired to make.
So far as	the motion to report
the	Bill	as	amended is concerned
I think it is absolutely beyond question that that motion is not debatable. When these rules were before the House in the first instance, my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) asked me to give an illustration of motions that would not be debatable and at page 7579 of unrevised ' Hansard,' in response to his inquiry, I said:
Motions to adjourn a debate, motions to adjourn the House, or *that the Chairman do leave the Chair, or that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again; such motions which ought to be regarded as purely formal, are not under these rules to be debatable, and they are not debatable, sO far as I know, under the rules of any legislative assembly.
So, the matter was made perfectly plain in the first instance. The motion to report the Bill is of the same character. That motion not being debatable, it seems to me abundantly evident on the authority I quoted and for the reasons already given,



that the motion of the hon. member for Cape Breton South was not a motion which could be entertained by the Chairman. Further than that, the motion of my hon. friend from St. John that the Chairman should leave the Chair was not a motion which could be made at that juncture.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Robert Laird Borden: I am glad my right hon. friend agrees with me.


Wilfrid Laurier: I only expressed surprise. I dissent altogether.


Robert Laird Borden: I took my right hon.
friend's observation in the usual course as assenting to the proposition-


Wilfrid Laurier: Very far from it.


Robert Laird Borden: -which I have been presenting to the House. If it is not a correct proposition, of course my right hon. friend will show in what respect it is incorrect. He must go to the length of showing that if any non-debatable motion is presented when the Speaker is in the Chair then it is competent to move at once to adjourn the House.


Wilfrid Laurier: Undoubtedly.


Robert Laird Borden: How does the right hon. gentleman reconcile that with the statement in May? Let us examine that for a moment. He says that when a non-debatable motion is before the House with the Speaker in the Chair it is competent for any hon. member to move to adjourn the House.
That is what my hon. friend said; this is what May says:
It need scarcely be explained that such a motion

That is, a motion to adjourn the House-
-cannot be made while a member is speaking, but can only be offered by a member who, on being called by the Speaker in the course of the debate, is in possession of the House.
Upon a non-debatable motion, there is no debate, and therefore the hon. member could not have been- called upon in the course of the debate.


Mr. DEVLIN:: What does my right hon. friend make of rule 15?
A motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is always in order.


Robert Laird Borden: I make of rule 15 exactly what it says, namely, that it is always in order when the member who proposes to make the motion is in possession of the House, but I say that the member must be in possession of the House before he can make it. Inasmuch as the Mr. BORDEN.
motion is not debatable, and it is not possible for any hon. member to have possession of the House, it is not possible for an hon. member to be called upon in the course of a debate which, according to the premises, is absolutely non-existent. Therefore I venture to submit that, even upon the most technical consideration of the course taken by the Deputy Speaker on the occasion referred to, he was absolutely right. Without reflecting in any way upon the sincerity of the hon. member for St. John or the hon. member for South Cape Breton, I say that the course which they took was marked by irregularity, and that the course taken by my hon. friend the Deputy Speaker of the House was marked by absolute regularity, and was, according to my conception in entire accordance with the true interpretation of the rules of this House.


Georges Henri Boivin: If the position taken by
the right hon. the Prime Minister is correct, would it not have .been much more regular for the Chairman to have ruled the motion out of order before proceeding any further?


Robert Laird Borden: I presume that the course which the Deputy Speaker took on that occasion was equivalent to ruling the motion out of order. My hon. friend will bear in mind that there was a good deal of excitement at the time.


Rodolphe Lemieux: There was an emergency.


Robert Laird Borden: There was a good deal of excitement at the time, and hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House were making themselves very distinctly audible. I think the course the Deputy Speaker took on that occasion was one that might very well have been taken by any hon. member of this House if he were in a similar position. At all events, the point I make is that his course was in entire and absolute accordance with the rules of this House as I understand them. It does seem to me that any question which hon. gentlemen might desire to raise for the purpose of having these rules explained or better understood or debated might have been taken in another way than by introducing a motion of this character. However, we have occupied nearly a day in its consideration, and I do trust that, if it has no other result, it will at least bring about a better understanding of the rules. I repeat that in my judgment the Deputy Speaker was absolutely right in the view he took, and that he is in no way deserving of any censure of this House. On the contrary, he deserves the commendation of this House for the very dignified and forbearing course he took under circumstances that were of a very trying nature.


William Pugsley: My right hon. friend says he thinks

some different course might have been taken than that of making the present motion. I may say to the House that if I had been permitted to take another course, it would, as far as I am concerned, have been more in accordance with my feelings, and, I have no doubt, in accordance with the feelings of the hon. gentleman who has offered this motion. It occurred to me-and my right hon. friend surely cannot have forgotten it-that when the motion was made that the Bill, together with the amendments, be taken into consideration, it would have been quite in order for any member of the House to do as I did, namely, to move that the Bill should not be taken into consideration by the House, but that it should be referred back to the Committee of the Whole House for further consideration. I was not desirous that a vote of censure should be moved against the Deputy Speaker, but I thought it of vital importance, so far as I was concerned, that the question should be considered by the House, that [DOT] the matter should be ventilated, that the rules bearing upon the subject should be examined and the matter brought to the attention of the House and the people of the country. But His Honour the Speaker was of the opinion that no statement of what had taken place in the committee could be made if it in any way called into question the propriety or regularity of the conduct of the Deputy Speaker. His Honour the Speaker called attention- I am sure my right hon. friend will make no complaint if I refer to this-to Bourinot, page 280, which says that if a member wishes to challenge the action of the Speaker-and I take it from His Honour the Speaker that the same rule would apply to the Deputy Speaker-if a member wishes to challenge his action or conduct he must proceed in the usual way, by giving notice of a motion on the subject. In connection with that statement, Bourinot refers to volume 276 of the English ' Hansard,' page 1908, and volume 277, pages 21012. As His Honour the Speaker has referred to this authority on several occasions, I think it is desirable, in order to have a clear understanding of the matter and in justification of the motion that has been made by the hon. member for Pictou, that the instances referred to by Bourinot should be cited and placed on ' Hansard,' so that hon. gentlemen may have an opportunity of considering them. I will quote first from volume 276 of the English ' Hansard,' page 1908:
Mr. A. J. Balfour:	I have not the lea^t
intention of discussing the merits of the Bill, but, simply, the attitude taken by Her Majesty's Government, and I apprehend that that will be strictly in order.
Mr. Speaker:	I can only say, in reply to
the question of the hon. Baronet, that I must defer my answer to it until the case actually 3094
arises. It will then be my duty to say whether the hon. member for Hertford (Mir. A J. Balfour) is in order or not.
Then follows a reference to two Bills relating to legislation regarding the sale of poisons-then a reference to the Indian conference, neither of which matters bear upon the subject. Then there is a heading: 'Parliament; business of the House,' and a question put by Mr. Balfour as to whether it is the intention of the Government to propose a vote on account. This is one of the authorities which Mr. Bourinot, I admit in a most careless manner, refers to as the authority for the statement that a matter like this cannot be brought up if it in any way reflects upon the Speaker or the Chairman.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: May I say to the hon. member that I have looked into these references, and I have come to the conclusion that through some clerical or other error the citations are improperly made-that they refer to another subject.


William Pugsley: Would Your Honour
give me the pages that Bourinot is intending to deal with?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I have not those ipages.


William Pugsley: I shall give the other
pages without reading them. His reference is to pages 810, 811 and 812. They seem to have a little more bearing upon the question but yet no direct bearing and, after all, there is very little which would justify such a statement by Mr. Bourinot. On page 812 where Lord Randolph Churchill says:
The point of order, Sir, is one of some importance and is not so absolutely hypothetic cal as it may appear. A discussion will be raised as soon as possible with respect to the grievance of the Inland Revenue clerks and in the meantime the clerks are prevented by) the Government from approaching hon. members in order to supply them with information in regard to their case. My hon. friend asks why such a prohibition is not a distinct breach of the privileges of this House.
That would have some bearing. (Reading) :
Mr. Speaker: I have no information beford me that such a prohibition has been made.
Lord Randolph Churchill:	I beg to givel
notice that I will, on the earliest opportunity, on going into Committee of Supply or on the vote for the Board of Inland Revenue, call the attention of the House to the general order of the 3rd of January issued by the Board of Inland Revenue, and will move a' resolution inviting the House to express its condemnation of the unwarrantable interference and invasion of the privileges of this House, committed by a public body.
That has some bearing, although a very remote and very distant bearing, on the question as to the proper procedure. However, it is only right that I should call the

attention of the House that it is upon these j two authorities that I was prevented from | making the motion which I made yesterday in which I sought in a different way from the motion which is now before the House to call in question the action of the Chairman of the committee. To me it did seem passing strange that one could not call the attention, as a matter of fact, to what had taken place in committee and urge that there was an error in the proceedings. However I accepted, as I was bound to do and as I did cheerfully, the ruling of His Honour, and it was in consequence of my having been unable to criticise in any way the action of the Chairman that the motion has been made by the hon. member for Pictou which is now before the House. No other course was open to hon. gentlemen who desired in any way to call in question the action of the Chairman. But the motion, it must be borne in mind, cannot be regarded as a motion of personal censure upon the Chairman. It is not that, it is a motion which is clearly applicable whether tile Chairman did what he did unintentionally or intentionally, whether he, through ignorance, violated the rules of the House or whether he violated those rules deliberately or intentionally. The resolution is as follows, and it is very important that hon. gentlemen opposite who might be desirous of seeing that the privileges of the House are not infringed upon and therefore of voting for this resolution should know its exact terms. It is as follows:
Resolved, that the action of Mr. Blondin, the Deputy Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House, iwhile the committee was considering Bill No. 21, entitled, ' an Act to authorize measures for increasing the effective naval forces of the empire 3, in refusing to permit Mr. Carroll, the member for South Cape Breton, to move to add an additional section to said Bill, and also in declining to put the motion that the! Chairman do now leave the Chair, as moved by Mr. Pugsley, the member for the city of St. John, was a violation of the rules and constituted an infringement of the privileges of this House.
That is all. We do not ask the House to censure the Deputy Speaker; but what we do ask the House to determine is that the refusal to allow the member for South Cape Breton to move his amendment and the refusal to allow my motion to be put was a violation of the rules of the House and an infringement of its privileges. First, I shall deal generally with the importance of the subject and I think that no one will dispute that it is of enormous importance to have it ascertained, if possible, what are the rights of the minority. I do not intend to discuss the resolution which has been passed by a majority of the members in this House, a resolution in the framing of which members on this side of the House Mr. PUGSLEY.
have had no part, a resolution in the betterment or improvement of which they had no opportunity of taking any part because, by the extraordinary motion which was moved by my hon. friend the Minister of Marine in moving the previous question, all amendment has been prevented. This resolution can only be looked upon as a resolution of the majority, it cannot be regarded as a rule of the House in the ordinary sense for the reason that since Confederation, beginning in 1868, whenever it became necessary to frame rules for the Government of this House, a committee consisting of members of both sides of the House was appointed to advise Mr. Speaker in the framing of the rules. That course has always been followed from that session down to the time when this extraordinary resolution was passed. It is true that my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) has been able to show that on one or two occasions some unimportant motion, in favour of which no doubt there was a unanimous opinion on both sides of the House, has been adopted without going into committee; but whenever there has been any serious attempt to amend the rules of the House, I say the course has been universally followed from Confederation down to the present .session that a committee consisting of members of both sides of the House has been appointed to assist Mr. Speaker in the revision. The same course was followed in England prior to the Act of Confederation. All that you will find, with the exception, as I have said, of some unimportant matters in regard to which there would necessarily be unanimity of opinion on both sides, committees have been appointed to consider the rules of the House and to report the result of their investigations and their conclusions. I am obliged to discuss the conduct of the Deputy Speaker in the light of the resolution as the majority in this House are the ultimate court of appeal to which any member of the House must appeal. When matters are under consideration by the committee, if the Chairman makes a decision which, in the judgment of any member, is wrong, the appeal is not to the Speaker but to the members of the House. Therefore, the majority of the House, the gentlemen who framed and carried through this kangaroo and guillotine resolution, are the court of appeal to which we must go and we must abide by their judgment for the time being, at all events until their masters and ours have the opportunity of expressing their opinion upon the Government with respect to this closure resolution and with respect to all matters of public business. And, Sir, the time will come, sooner or later, when the final court of appeal, the people of this country, will have the opportunity of parsing judgment. I for one pray

that that time may come quickly. It cannot come too quickly for the proper carrying on of business, so far as Parliament is concerned, nor can it come too quickly, so far as the best interests of the people of Canada are concerned.
With regard to the motion which the hon. member for South Cape Breton desired to make, my right hon. friend the Prime Minister says in efffect: oh, it makes no difference because that hon. member might have induced hon. gentlemen on this side of the House-and I suppose he must have meant hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House as well, because eight of them spoke upon clause 2-to stop speaking, even although they were limited to twenty minutes, have the vote taken on the sub-amendment to clause 2, and then he could have moved his motion as a further sub-amendment to that clause. My right hon. friend says that he might have moved his proposed additional section when the House was considering the amendment which he himself proposed and had carried through the committee, or that he might have moved it on the third reading. But that is not the question. The question is, had the hon. member for South Cape Breton the right to move his proposed section when this Bill was under consideration in the committee? Had he the right to submit that section to the committee so that it could be considered in the ordinary course, and discussed back and forth by the members of this House? If that was his right, then by the action of the Chairman he was unjustly deprived of it. Now, what were the facts, and I will only refer to them briefly because I intend to devote my attention principally to the refusal of the Chairman to recognize the motion which I made, that he should leave the Chair. What were the facts with regard to the section which my hon. friend from South Cape Breton desired to move? To begin with he did not want to move it as an amendment to clause 2. His opinion was that it could not properly be moved as an amendment to clause 2. His opinion was that as it was not relevant to any of those clauses it would properly be submitted as an additional section. He brought the matter to the attention of the Deputy Speaker, and the Deputy Speaker told him that it would be more convenient and a more proper course to move the additional section after sections 1 to 6 had been disposed of. Upon the motion of my right hon. friend, that was the first business for the consideration of the committee. Under the resolution the Prime Minister had the right to make that motion. The motion was made, and therefore no other business could be considered by the committee until those six sections had been first disposed of. But when they were disposed of, my hon. friend (Mr. Carroll), with the knowledge of the Chairman, rose to move the section which he had previously proposed
to be added to the Bill. He had the word of the Chairman, he was addressing the Chairman, and my right hon. friend, having risen, resumed his seat, and the hon. member for South Cape Breton was allowed to proceed for a short time. Then it was that the hon. member for Portage la Prairie rose to assert the right of the Prime Minister to be heard, and it was upon his suggestion that the Chairman ceased to recognize the hon. member for South Cape Breton, and made the statement that the Prime Minister had first caught his eye. By reason of that action of the Deputy Speaker, the hon. member for South Cape Breton was prevented from moving, as he tod a right to do, this additional section in the committee. But it is said that that section could not be moved after two o'clock in the morning. That, Sir, I deny. The guillotine resolution only closes the door against the consideration of sections in regard to which the motion of the Prime Minister was made, and after the guillotine had fallen, so far as those sections .were concerned, I submit that the hon. member for Cape Breton had the right to move the additional section as he proposed to do. I do not wish to elaborate the argument, but I submit that in shutting off the hon. member for South Cape Breton and refusing to allow him to move the section, the Deputy Speaker was acting contrary to the rules of this House.
Now, I come to the second ground upon which I say that the Deputy Speaker acted contrary to, and in violation of, the rules of the House, that is in regard to the motion I made that the Chairman do now leave the Chair. That motion has been compared by my right hon. friend to a motion which may be made while the Speaker is in the Chair, that the House do now adjourn. I admit it is similar to that motion, but it is broader in its character, and it must be dealt with in the light of rule 15, which gives it a much greater effect than the motion that the House adjourn. Let me call your attention to the two rules. There is first the rule in regard to the motion to adjourn. You wjll find that in rule 39.
A motion to adjourn shall always he in order, but no second motion to the same effect shall be made until after some intermediate proceeding has been had.
But when the House is in committee, what is the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair? As I have said, -it is broader in its character and it must be construed according to the language of the rule. Rule 15 is as follows:
A motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is always in order, and shall take precedence of any other motion.
These words are not in the rule providing for the motion to adjourn when the

Speaker is in the Chair. The words, * shall take precedence of any other motion,' do not apply to the motion to adjourn.


William Sora Middlebro: If a motion is always in order, must it not always take precedence of any other question?


William Pugsley: My hon. friend may be right as to that, and, if he is of opinion that it must take effect, let him vote accordingly. But so far as the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is concerned, those who framed the rules desired to leave it beyond the possibility of doubt, to make it clear, so clear that he who runs may read and understand, and it provides that the motion that the Chairman do now leave the Chair is always in order and shall take precedence of any other motion. What does it mean? It means that if there is any other motion before the Chair, the moment the motion is made that the Chairman leave the Chair, it shall take precedence of the other motion. I have before me the English Commons Journals of 1877, which show that the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair came a great many times before the committee and they also show the course that was taken.
The motion was made and the question put that the Chairman do report progress and ask leave to sit again. That motion was defeated whereupon the question was again proposed that the clause stand as part of the Bill.
When that motion was put from the Chair-because the question is not proposed until the Chairman -submits it to the Committee-the motion was immediately made and the question was put: that the Chairman do now leave the Chair. That is the practice which is pursued all through these various proceedings when these alternate motions were made. But, says the Prime Minister: the effect of that motion would have been to supersede the motion which was already before the Chair. So it would, that is the object of it: that is the reason the House of Commons provided long years ago that this motion could be made. It is a motion for the protection of the minority; it is made in order that the voice of the minority on important occasions may be given expression to, and that motion has always been debatable in this House until the present session. My right hon. friend says it is not dabatable under the new rules. I do not care whether it is debatable or not, my point is that it could be moved in the committee. This new rule does not take away the right to move it. I suppose that if my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) who, it is generally supposed, framed these rules for the Government, had thought of it, he would have provided that it could not be moved, as he has intimated that there
Mr. PUGSLEY.
ought to be some provision that if a member questions the ruling of the Chair he ought to be imprisoned. If the hon. gentleman thought of it, he would have provided that if any member of this House dared to question the ruling of the Chair he should be imprisoned for a term of not less than twenty years. The hon. gentleman has said that I got off with flying colours because the Chairman ignored me and that if I got my deserts some severe punishment would have been meted out to me. Fortunately it did not occur to the Government or to the hon. member to frame a resolution so drastic in its character that it would prevent a member of the House from questioning the ruling of the Chairman or of Mr. Speaker.
I submit that the Prime Minister having moved that the Bill be reported, before the division was taken upon that motion it was the.right of any member of the House to move that the Chairman leave the Chair, and had that motion carried, it would have superseded the motion made by the leader of the House. Whether it would carry or not is not the question; the question is as to my right to move the motion at the time I did, and I say that under the rules of the House there can be no question as to that. What took place at the time ? It appears from ' Hansard ' that before the 'Chairman called for the yeas and nays, and when he was about putting the question, I moved that he leave the Chair, and it was the duty of the Chairman to put my motion. I did put the motion that the Chairman now leave the Chair, some few minutes, as appears by ' Hansard,' before the Chairman asked those who were in favour of the motion to say ' yea ' and those against it to say ' nay.' It clearly appears, according to ' Hansard,' that I made the motion in proper time, and that I made it in accordance with rule 15; and it was the duty of the Chairman to recognize my motion and put it to the oommittee.
I say, further, and I say this with a full sense of my responsibility as a member of the House, that the Chairman did actually put to the committee, or proceeded to put to the oommittee, my motion. He said: 'The motion is, shall the 'Chairman leave the Chair.' Whether from his own intuition and without suggestion, I am not prepared to say, but he immediately corrected himself and put the other motion that the Bill be reported. That shows you, and ' Hansard ' also shows, that the motion was before the Chairman; it shows you that the Chairman knew of the motion. I was standing here close to him and it was utterly impossible he could not have heard my motion, and having heard that motion made in accordance with the rules of the House, and without pointing out

to me that he deemed it to be out of order, in violation of the rules of the House, he deliberately ignored the motion; he deliberately violated the rules of the House, and he proceeded to put the motion moved by the Prime Minister that the Bill should be reported.
Unless the majority in this House, who are in the position of final judges in this matter, are prepared to say that the Chairman shall be allowed with impunity to violate the rules of the House, surely they must vote for the motion my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) has presented. If, upon the other hand, they have so little regard for the honour and the dignity of this House; if it be true that they have so little regard for the rights of the minority, that they are prepared to justify the Chairman in deliberately violating the rules, then I take it they will vote against this motion. Whatever be the fate of this motion, we on this side of the House will feel that we have discharged our duty according to the best of our ability. ' Hon. gentlemen opposite may think it is all right for the majority to rule and to break through the usages and precedents of this House, but let me tell them that such a course will not commend itself to the people of Canada. If they are prepared to justify the_ breaking of this rule, why will they not justify equally the breaking of other rules, and if they are prepared to do that, then I ask you, Sir, what was the use of their degrading Parliament by passing the closure resolution? What was the use of that long continuous session extending night and day over fourteen days; why did not they rely upon a Chairman who would be willing to do what they tried to do on that memorable Friday night:	break the rules
and declare the Naval Bill carried ? Why should the Chairman not refuse then, as well as upon the occasion to which we are now referring, to recognize members on this side of the House? Why should he not have just as deliberately turned his back on those who sought to move amendments and have declared the clause carried? Why should he not have proceeded then to clauses 3, 4, and 5, have declared them also carried and have deliberately refused to recognize members on this side of the House? It would have been just as excusable, just as justifiable to have done that as to have acted as he did upon the occasion to which this resolution refers. Therefore, for these reasons which I have endeavoured briefly to present to the House, it seems to me that every hon. gentleman who has a proper regard for the rules and usages of Parliament and for the preservation of the rights of the minority, must feel constrained to vote for the resolution. It does not necessarily imply that the Chairman has deliberately violated the rules of the House; but that he has violated them, whether intentionally or unintentionally, I think goes without saying.
My right hon. friend (Mr. Borden) has sought to make an excuse for the Deputy Speaker upon the ground that this has been a trying session; that upon occasions when the Deputy Speaker was presiding there was excitement and confusion. That is true; but if a Chairman or the presiding officer of any assembly keeps his head and seeks to give fair play to everyone and a reasonable opportunity to the minority to express their views, if he has always before him as a shining light the rules which govern the House and adheres to them and gives to every hon. member the opportunity to avail himself of them to a reasonable extent, then there will be no difficulty.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.



SECOND READING.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 194) for the relief of Sarah Lillian Attwood.-Mr. Meighen.

William Pugsley: Before proceeding to
conclude the remarks which I intend to make upon this motion, I think it proper that I should call the attention of the House to the fact that Your Honour has brought to my notice the decisions of Speakers Denison and Brand of the English House of Commons to the effect that the proper way to challenge a decision of the Speaker or the Chairman is by a motion similar to that now before the House, and that it cannot be done except by motion. I have not bad an opportunity of looking into the decisions, but the notes would indicate good authority for the course which Your Honour has stated to the House as the correct one.
The hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) and also some other hon. gentleman, either the Prime Minister or the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) took the ground that a motion that the Chairman leave the Chair cannot be made when there is a non-debatable motion before the committee. It may be that when the Government framed the resolution they thought it would be desirable that it should so provide, but the resolution does not so provide and leaves rule 15 just as it was before. To carry out the view of these hon. gentlemen it would have been necessary to amend rule 15 so as to read:

A motion for the Chairman to leave the Chair is always in order and shall take precedence of every debatable motion.
But that is not the rule, and that rule has not been amended by the new rule that was adopted. It may be that under a strict construction of the new rule, such a motion is not debatable, but that does not prevent it being put. It is one thing to have a motion debatable and another thing to have the right to place it before the committee, and the right to present that motion has not been taken away; it exists to-day as it has existed for generations in the British House of Commons and in this House. And, just as has always been the case it takes precedence of any other motion.


Mr. PELLETIER:: Even a non-debatable
motion?


William Pugsley: Yes; for the reason that the rule does not say ' non-debatable.' Let me read the rule to the Postmaster General and ask his careful consideration of it,- because I should be sorry to think that a majority of members of this House would sustain a violation o,f the rule. The majority, as I lave said, is the court of appeal, and the court of appeal should not decide a question as a party question, but 'Should endeavour to ascertain and determine what the rule is, an l if there lias been a violation of the rule, the majority should not hesitate to say so. The rule as it has stood for a long time is:
A motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is always in order, and shall take precedence of every other motion.
Now, the Prime Minister has taken the ground that it was necessary for him to move the motion that the Chairman report the Bill. That being so, this motion that the Chairman leave the Chair took precedence over that motion. It superseded that motion for the time being. *


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Does it not strike my hon. friends as reasonable that the wording of rule 15 must be construed as referring to a motion that is under debate?


William Pugsley: Why?


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Because if a motion which is not debatable is put in the hands of the Chair-Speaker or Chairman-that motion must be put forthwith. That being the case, another motion cannot be put in its place.


William Pugsley: Why not? Where would be the difference between that case and the case of a motion which had been fully debated, nobody else wishing to speak on it, and the time having arrived when the question should be put? Before the yeas and nays are called the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is in order. That right is to be taken away.
Mr. PUGSLEY.


Richard Bedford Bennett: How can that be if under the rules no man is to rise after two o'clock?


Mr. BELAND:: Then how did the Prime Minister get up?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Except to
move to report the Bill. That is covered by the practice of Parliament.


Henri Sévérin Béland: There is no 'except'
about it.


William Pugsley: All that the two o'clock rule means is that no member shall rise to speak upon those sections in regard to which the closure notice has been given.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Let the hon. member read the rule? It provides that no member shall rise and the Speaker shall put such motions as may be necessary to give effect to the rule.


William Pugsley: The rule says:
And if such adjourned debate or postponed consideration shall not have been resumed or concluded before two of the clock in the morning, no member shall rise to speak after that hour, but all such questions as must he decided in order to conclude such adjourned debate or postponed consideration shall be decided forthwith.
If my hon. friend from Calgary is right, the only thing that could be done after two o'clock was to conclude the consideration of the six sections then before the committee. If that' be so, the Prime Minister could not move that the Chairman report the Bill, because he had to rise in order to do so. Does it not seem that upon these sections or resolutions, in regard to which the guillotine notice has been given, no member can speak after -two o'clock, and that, with regard to any other question which may be raised, and in respect of which the guillotine notice has not been given, that does not apply? It was quite in order for my right hon. friend to rise and make tire motion which he did after two o'clock; it was quite in order for me to rise and move that the Chairman leave the Chair, although I made the motion after two o'clock, because the two o'clock restriction applies only to those resolutions or sections in regard -to which the minister has given notice.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Did the
notice not cover the Bill in its entirety, and, as it covered the whole of the six sections, was it not obvious that the notice was sufficient to put the Bill out of committee?


William Pugsley: The notice did not begin to cover the Bill.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Oh, yes.


William Pugsley: No, it did not. The
notice was that the consideration of sec-

tions 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 shall be the first order of business, and shall not be further postponed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That covers the whole Bill.


William Pugsley: The notice does not
say the whole Bill; it does not include the title.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Under the interpretation of my hon. friend, the new clause would be inoperative.


William Pugsley: Section 6 ? The Prime Minister gave notice as to that as well.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: I mean the new rule -the closure rule.


William Pugsley: It is entirely operative, but not operative to the extent to which my hon. friend thinks it should be. The trouble with my hon. friend and the gentlemen associated with him is that, having got a taste of blood, they seem to hunger for more. Having been able to get six sections through under closure, they think it a monstrous thing that they cannot do whatever else they think desirable. It is making fine progress to dispose completely of six sections on one day's notice; that shows the kangaroo to be jumping rather fast. In twenty-four hours he jumps through the whole Bill-the kangaroo is a mighty powerful animal.


Richard Bedford Bennett: As a matter of fact, it is not a kangaroo at all.


William Pugsley: Yes, it is; because of
the powerful hind legs of the animal, it leaps ahead with wonderful vigour. How could anything leap ahead more quickly than this Bill during the twenty-four subsequent hours to the notice given by the Prime Minister?


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is not a kangaroo.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: In this case it would be the fox fighting the kangaroo.


William Pugsley: It would be intellect
against brute force. Rule 15 says:	.
A motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is always in order, and shall take precedence of any other motion.
The Prime Minister rose and moved that the Chairman report me Bill, and before the yeas and nays were called upon that motion, I moved that the Chairman leave the Chair. Under rule 15, that motion should have taken precedence over any motion then before the committee. I cannot for the life of me see how it is possible to give any other interpretation to the rule. What did the Chairman do? It has not been suggested by anybody that the Chairman was not aware of my having made the motion. It is admitted that the Chairman
knew that my motion was made, but he deliberately declined to put that motion to the committee, and he did so in violation of the rules of the House.
The hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) made an extraordinary statement just before he concluded his remarks. He referred to the obstruction and disorder, which he said was attributable to the rough-houses.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Rough-housers.


William Pugsley: That is an expression
with which I am not familiar. Let me say to my hon. friend, however, that during the long and somewhat strenuous fight that has been waged from this side of the House against the Naval Bill, the provisions of which we do not believe to be in the best interests either of Canada or of the Empire as a whole, there has been no distinction on this side between one member and another. We have fought together, side by side, in the heartiest comradeship, always animated by a- desire to meet the views of and support the distinguished leader whom we are so proud to follow. I am happy to believe that what has been done on this side of the House has been done with his hearty approval. We have taken the stand which we have, and we have fought the fight as we have on this side of the House, not in the hope of any personal gain or advancement to ourselves, but because we believed from the bottom of our hearts that we were fighting in the best interests of our country and in the best interests of the Empire of which Canada forms so important a part. Now that, after the application of what I shall call, without being unparliamentary, brute force, we have been brought so near the close of the fight,' let me express the hope that, even although we may be powerless to prevent this unjust and improper measure from becoming law, the Government may consider that it will not be desirable to bring this proposed measure into operation. Animated, as I would hope they would be animated, by a feeling of self-respect, I would think that the Government, without any undue delay, would dissolve this Parliament and obtain the opinion of the people in regard to their naval policy.
Reference has been made to the fact that when the Chairman made the report to you, Sir, last Saturday morning, I used harsh language when I said that the Chairman was making to you a false report. It may be that the language was harsh; it may be that in a calmer moment I would have selected other language in which to express the views which I entertained in regard to that report. But when you come to judge my conduct, Mr. Speaker, in making use of that language, I want you to bear in mind that for months the Government have been seeking by means which we on this side of the House consider to be most un-

fair, to have that measure passed; I want you to bear in mind that as long ago as the month of March the Government decided to carry the measure or, at all events, one clause of the measure, before any opportunity was given to the committee to rise. I want you to bear in mind that various Chairmen, I cannot believe acting independently, I cannot believe but what they were acting with the full knowledge and at the request of the Government, even went so far as to seek to violate the existing rules of the House in order to carry the measure through and, Sir, at last, after we had been compelled to stay here in our seats day after day and night after night, fighting for what we believed to be the interests of our country, fighting for the liberty of Parliament, fighting for the rights of the people whom we represent and endeavouring to prevent the rules of the House from being violated, after that, Sir, after that most strenuous attempt to carry the measure through by a violation of the rules, the Prime Minister was compelled to rise in his place and say that under the rules of the House they would not be able to make progress which they had hoped for and had deliberately set out to accomplish. Then, Sir, bearing in mind that in the middle of the fight, in the midst of all the excitement which their conduct had caused, they sought to change the rules of the House which should govern the debate and the progress^ of legislation, bear in mind, Sir, that they did not proceed in the ordinary way by appointing a joint committee to assist Your Honour to revise the rules but determined to do it by a resolution with Your Honour in the Chair. Bear in mind, too, that after the right hon. the leader of the Opposition had risen in his place and Your Honour had recognized him, the Minister of Marine, a member of this Government, was put up for the purpose of preventing my right hon. friend from exercising the right which undoubtedly belonged to him as leader of the Opposition to address the House.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think the hon. member is rather wandering away from the question before the House.


William Pugsley: But I was answering the hon. member for Portage la Prairie who said, and said, if I remember aright, without rebuke from Your Honour, that my course was scandalous in speaking of the Chairman of the. committee as I did.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think the hon. member is not exactly correct there, because I rebuked the hon. member and asked him to withdraw the expression.
Mr. PUGSLEY.


William Pugsley: Upon the objection
of an hon. member on this side of the House and then he was allowed to use the expression ' outrageous ' which is not very different from the expression 'scandalous.' However, that being so, do you not think that I had the right to explain the reason why I used the language? It will take only a moment. At last, when he found the Chairman, the Deputy Speaker of this House, appointed by the Government to that position, deliberately violating the rules governing this House, rule-s which have heretofore prevailed and been respected, can you wonder that I used the language which I did? But my hon. friend has said that if I had used that language to a judge of this land I would have been now behind prison bars, expiating imy offence by being deprived of my liberty. Let me say to my hon. friend that for forty years I have been pleading in the courts of this country and I have pleaded before judges who were fair and impartial and I have pleaded, I regret to say, before judges showing a disposition entirely opposite of_ that and when I found judges who were not animated by a disposition to do fairly by the litigants who came before them, I have never hesitated to tell those judges what I thought of their conduct, and the men pleading at the Bar of this country who would be afraid to tell a judge what he thought of his actions, if those actions were improper and unjust, would be unworthy of the position which he occupies as a member of the Bar of this country. I have never hesitated and have never been afraid to do that. I have a great respect for these 'high and honourable positions, but in my judgment these positions are made lofty and honourable by the manner in which the duties are discharged by those who occupy them for the time being. Let me express the hope that no fear of imprisonment, no fear of any penalty which, by possibility, could ever be imposed upon me, will ever deter me from doing what I deem to be my duty to the people whom I represent and to the people of this country.
Hon. CHARLES J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice): I desire to speak only for a few moments, and during those few moments to devote myself to the question that is now before us. I would be sorry to say one word which might be of a nature to diminish the perfect and complete satisfaction with himself which the hon. gentleman (Mr. Pugsley) has devoted the concluding portion of his remarks to persuading this House he entertains. It did seem a little irrelevant, and there must have been a pressing necessity bearing in upon the mind of -the hon. gentleman when he found it necessary in connection with this motion to protest to us the perfect unanimity and

unquestionable harmony -that, throughout this debate, has prevailed on the other side of the House. That fact-I take his statement to be a fact-is after all perhaps only an illustration of how absolutely deceptive appearances may be; and perhaps the hon. gentleman felt the great necessity of impressing upon us that fact which bore upon him; because, after all, he has some responsibility for some of those appearances which it turned out were so deceptive.
I want to say a few words on what, after all, as I understand, is the one question that presents itself upon this motion. I was glad to note that the hon. gentleman In opening his remarks pointed out that this motion did not necessarily involve the imputation of any blame as for intentional wrongdoing to the Deputy Speaker of this House. I would have been more glad, and it seems to me it would have been more fair upon his part, if he had come forward frankly and disavowed the .intention of Making any such imputation; because, whatever else may be said about this matter, I think that the hon. the Deputy Speaker of this House can, with perfect confidence, rely upon the fact that his conduct, as we all witnessed it on the evening which he was called upon to give the decisions which are now complained of, was that of a man acting with perfect fairness and perfect impartiality in the desire to carry out the rules as he understood them.
Now, the hon. gentlemen dwelt principally upon that allegation of his motion which complains of the action of the Deputy Speaker in refusing to entertain and to put the motion that the committee do now rise, which the hon. gentleman made on the occasion that has given rise to this discussion.


William Pugsley: The motion I made was that the Chairman do now leave the Chair. The difference is quite important.


Mr. DOHERTY:: I beg pardon; the hon. gentleman's motion was that the Chairman do now leave the Chair. He passed over very briefly that portion of the motion which complains of the decision of the Chairman with regard to the motion which the hon. member for South Cape Breton desired to make on that occasion. I am . not surprised that he should have done so. In connection with that motion, something has been said in the way of imputing unfairness, because of the point of order that was raised with regard to it, and because of the decision that was given upon that point of order. So far as complaint has been made, or may be made, on the ground of unfairness, as distinguished from complaints that the rule was not correctly interpreted and applied, it seems to me that that complaint is manifestly and unquestionably without foundation. We all remember that after the hon. member for South Cape Breton had put forward his motion, and after the point of order had been taken that it was not admissible in view of the fact that the right hon. leader of this House had already seized the committee with a motion, and some reference had been made to some occurrences earlier in the day, when it had been suggested that at a later period the hon. member might move the amendment he desired to make, the right hon. leader of this House, as a matter of courtesy, offered to withdraw his motion and allow the hon. member-


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: He did so on conditions.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Will the hon. member tell me what the conditions were?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If you look it up,
you will see.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is not
the point. We do not want courtesy; we want our rights.


Charles Joseph Doherty: That is just the point I want to make. The right hon. gentleman said that he did not want courtesy-that he did not want to have anything by courtesy.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Certainly not.


Charles Joseph Doherty: On what possible
grounds do hon. gentlemen complain of unfairness in being prevented from doing a thing which they were offered an opportunity to do by courtesy, if they will not take that opportunity?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: We only want to do what we have a right to do.


Charles Joseph Doherty: They insist on the
application of the rule.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Charles Joseph Doherty: So that the one question that can arise here is whether the rule was correctly interpreted and applied. There can be no possible question of unfairness in connection with it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: There certainly was.


Charles Joseph Doherty: We were willing to
waive the rule, and surely there could be nothing fairer than that; but hon. gentlemen said no, we must have the rule, and then when it turned out that the rule which they insisted on having applied did not allow the motion to be made, they say it is unfair. Mr. Speaker, it may be open to discussion whether the rule was correctly interpreted or not, but surely there could have been no element of unfairness in the decision upon that rule, or no element of unfairness inspired by a desire to prevent

tile making of an amendment. All fairness was offered to the hon. gentleman and his right hon. leader refused to have it as a matter of courtesy. .
Now, in regard to the question relating to that motion I do not propose to detain the House. If there is anything clear in the rule, which was adopted for the purpose of enabling debate to be closed after a reasonable time, it is that the motion which the right hon. leader of the House had made was a motion not susceptible to debate or amendment, a motion which, under the rule, must imperatively be decided without debate or amendment. That being so, it seems to me that it was the manifest and imperious duty of the Chairman to put that motion without listening to debate, or without affording an opportunity for amendment. But, as I have said, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Pugsley) directed his attention principally to that portion of the motion which complains that the motion he sought to make, that the Chairman do leave the Chair, was not entertained and was not put. He based his argument in support of that complaint upon article 15 of the rules as they now stand, and he seemed to think that there was some distinction or difference under rules 15 and 39 between a motion, made in committee, that the Chairman leave the Chair, and a motion to adjourn the House made before the House. There is a difference in the words. The one provides that the motion for the Chairman to leave the Chair is always in -prder, and ^hall take precedence of any other motion, and the other rule 39, dealing with the motion to adjourn, simply declares it to be always in order, and does not add the other words. I must confess it is difficult for me to see what practical distinction results from this difference in words, because if the motion to adjourn is always in order, it must necessarily follow that it must be received, and the House must proceed to deal with it, even if there be another motion pending. So that while the words are more explicit in one case than in the other, I entirely fail to see that there is any substantial difference between the two provisions. If you look at the authorities, who have interpreted these rules, you will find it laid down absolutely that the one is the equivalent of the other. If you look at page 524 of Bourinot you will find it laid down there. Bourinot says:
Kule 77 of the House of Commons provides: < a motion that the Chairman leave the Chair shall always be in order, and shall take precedence of any other motion/ If this motion (which is equivalent in its effect to a motion for the adjournment of the House) be resolved in the affirmative, the Chairman will at once leave the Chair, and no report being made to the House, the Bill or question disappears' from the order paper.
Mr. DOHERTY.
So we have the one motion declared to be absolutely the equivalent of the other.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Will the hon. minister
read from the previous page, at the bottom, beginning, 'The Speaker will then say'?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The Speaker will then say: ' when shall the committee have leave to sit again ' ? A time will then be appointed for the future sitting of the committee. But if a member -wishes to supersede a question entirely he will move ' that the Chairman do now leave the Chair/
And, if a member wishes to supersede the matter that is before the House when the House is sitting, he will move the adjournment of the House, and if that be carried the question is superseded. As the author says, one motion is the equivalent of the other. That being so, let us look at' what the two motions are; what they are in 'their nature and in their effect, and I think that when we have ascertained that we will see just how completely the effect tought to be attached by the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) to rule 15 gives way, in view of the effect of the amendment to rule 17 under which we were proceeding on the occasion in question. It will not be denied, I think, even by the bon. member (Mr. Pugsley) that rule 15 and every rule contained in the rules of this House is affected by the subsequent passing of this amendment to rule 17, to this extent: that everything in any existing rule which may be found to be inconsistent with the provisions of the amendment to rule 17 is by that amendment repealed and overridden. I do not think that proposition will be disputed for a moment. Not only is the provision amending rule 17 subsequent in time to this rule 15, but it is furthermore a rule dealing with a specific condition of affairs. Rule 15 is a general rule; a rule made in general terms for application generally. The amendment to rule 17 is not merely a subsequently enacted law which therefore repeals -anything inconsistent with it contained in previously existing law, but it is a rule made to have application to and to govern a special and particular case. It is just as elementary a maxim of the interpretation of law, from the point of view of the repealing effect of one law upon another, that a provision made for a specific case overrides a general rule, as it is that a subsequent law overrides previously existing law inconsistent with the provisions of that subsequent law. Let us look at the condition with regard to these motions as it was before the new rule. As the leader of the House pointed out this afternoon, quoting from May, while a motion to adjourn is always in

order, that does not mean that a man may rise when another man has the floor and interrupt him for the purpose of making a motion to adjourn. A motion to adjourn may be made by a person who has been recognized and called upon by the Speaker in the course of the debate. Bourinot says substantially the same thing as the Prime Minister laid down this afternoon, and Bourinot points out just when a motion to adjourn could be made and could be made irrespective of this amendment to rule 17. He says:
A motion for the adjournment of the House may be made while a matter is under discussion or in the interval of proceedings.
There are, therefore, two occasions on which such a motion can be made irrespective of the amendment to our rules; that is to say: while a matter is under discussion or in the interval of proceedings.
In the first case (when the motion is made, when a matter is under discussion) such a motion is in the nature of an amendment, and in the other it is a substantive motion to which a reply is permitted to the member who makes it.
Let us apply that to the situation as it was when the hon. member for St. John started to make his motion that the Chairman leave the Chair. Was that motion made while matter was under discussion? Manifestly not. It was made at a time when a matter was before the committee that was not susceptible of discussion; a matter that under the amendment to rule 17 was not susceptible of discussion and at a time when a motion had been made which under the terms of that rule must be decided. The words are:
-shall be decided without debate or amendment.
So that most certainly it was not made at a time when a matter was under discussion. Was it made during an interval in the proceedings? There was no interval in the proceedings. It was made at a moment when the Chairman was engaged in performing the duty that this rule 17 imperatively imposes upon him. That rule ordered him to have the motion of the Prime Minister decided without debate or amendment. He was proceeding to have that question decided; he had asked for the yeas and nays.


William Pugsley: Oh, no. My motion was before he asked for the yeas and nays.


Charles Joseph Doherty: He asked for the
yeas and nays the second time after he had been interrupted, but the motion was made after he had called for the yeas, and nays the first time.


William Pugsley: No.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Well, we will read it
again from ' Hansard ':


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I am now putting the motion that the Bill be reported.
Some hon Members: Shame.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Those in favour of the motion will please rise.
Mr. Pugsley: I move that you now leave the Chair.


William Pugsley: Read on.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Read on, says the hon. member. Does he mean to say that anything that happened afterwards could alter the fact that when he made the motion the Chairman was engaged in saying: Those who are in favour of the motion will please rise? Will that fact be altered by anything that happened afterwards?


William Pugsley: Will my hon. friend
pardon me. Does he not know that the proper form is:	Those in favour of the
motion will say aye. I had made my motion that the Chairman leave the Chair just before that occurred.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The question had been put.


William Pugsley: Not properly put.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Oh, not properly put;
that is a new argument.


William Pugsley: And therefore, it had not been put at all.


Charles Joseph Doherty: At that time thei e was just one proceeding that could go on, that was the putting of the question. Anything else was a violation of the rule. The rule is absolutely imperative. If the Chairman were not proceeding as best he could in the face of the interruption to put that question, he would be susceptible of censure, because there is an imperative law of Parliament not merely that the Chairman shall put the question and then wait to hear discussion, but that the question shall be decided, that is, the vote taken and the question decided without debate or amendment. Inasmuch as there could be no debate, there was no opportunity for the moving of this motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair during the course of the discussion. Therefore, as pointed out by the right hon. the leader of the House (Mr. Borden) this afternoon, there was no occasion when that motion could be made, because it could only be made during the course of a debate. This rule moreover precludes the Chairman not only from listening to anything in the nature of a debate but from listening to anything in the nature of an amendment.


William Pugsley: Did not my hon. friend read a moment ago from Bourinot a statement that the motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair may be a distinct substantive motion and not an amendment? My motion was not an amendment; it was a distinct substantive motion.


Charles Joseph Doherty: It may be a substantive motion but then it must be made in an interval of the proceedings.


William Pugsley: My motion was made during an interval of the proceedings.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I shall come to that
matter in a moment. I am giving my hon. friend his opportunity. He had two opportunities. The motion might be made during the course of the discussion. I think I have made it abundantly clear that there was no opening for him there, because under the rule there could be no discussion. Not only was this motion not susceptible of being made then as a motion pending a discussion, because there was actually no discussion going on, but the seeking to make this motion was in direct violation of the rule because, as pointed out by Bourinot, the motion itself is in the nature of an amendment, which the rule expressly precludes.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The right hon. gentleman says; hear, hear. Mr. Bourinot will stand the irony of the right hon. gentleman. I think I can stand my own share of it because I think it can be pointed out, so that anyone can see, just how correct Mr. Bourinot is.


William Pugsley: I rise to correct my
hon. friend. Bourinot, from whom he quoted, says that it need not necessarily be in the nature of an amendment, but that it may be in the nature of a substantive motion.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If my hon. friend will possess his sou! in patience, I shall come to that in a moment. Mr. Bourinot says that there are two occasions on Which this motion may be made. It may be made during the course of a discussion and it may be made as a substantive motion. I shall come to the question of a substantive motion in a moment.
This is in respect of the question whether it is made pending a discussion or not. If there be a matter before the House and I rise to move that the Chairman do leave the Chair, is it such a very absurd proposition to say that my motion is in the nature of an amendment ? What is the effect of any amendment P It is to set aside the proposition that is before the House and to substitute something else for it. When a motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair comes in the course of discussion, what is the effect of that motion, if it be not that the House do not adopt the motion that is proposed, but in lieu of it the motion that ' the Chairman do leave the Chair, and that the measure thereby is killed. Mr. Bourinot is clearly right when he says that this
Mr. PUGSLEY.
motion is in the nature of an amendment. I do not say that it makes any particular difference, but perhaps this very instance is the clearest ilustration of how absolutely the motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair may, at all events in effect, be an amendment. What was the motion that was before the committee ? It was tnat the Chairman do report the Bill. That necessarily implied that the Chairman leave the Chair and report the Bill. The motion of the Ihon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) was that the Chairman leave the Chair, dropping the words ' and report the Bill,' so that the motion on its face was to strike out the words and report the Bill.' It was most manifestly and unquestionably in this ease an illustration of the general rule that a motion to adjourn pending a discussion is in the nature of an amendment. Therefore, under rule 17 as amended, that motion was clearly not receivable, not only because there was no debate in the course of which it could be made, but because there could be no amendment to that motion, and the motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair was in the nature of an amendment.
The hon. gentleman says there may be a substantive motion made to adjourn the House.


William Pugsley: I did not say that. I
said that my motion that the Chairman leave the Chair was a substantive motion.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Bourinot deals with
the motion to adjourn as a substantive motion. While it is true that he says that the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is equivalent to a motion to adjourn the House, his remarks immediately following what I read above can only refer to a motion made while a matter is before the committee for the purpose of discussion with the view of arriving at a report to be made to the House. If the hon. gentleman will read a little further, he will see how clearly that is brought out. (Reading):
Motions for the adjournment of the House or of the debate are generally made in the Canadian Houses in the course of a discussion, in order to give an opportunity to members who have already spoken to speak again, or to make certain explanations which, otherwise, they might not be able to make.
Substantive motions for the adjournment of the House ought to be reserved for occasions when it is necessary to discuss questions of gravity. They are not unfrequently proposed in the Canadian Commons with the view of bringing before it some question in which a member is immediately interested.
In other words, the motion which he has in contemplation, when he so speaks of a substantive motion, is the motion provided for in the second and following

paragraphs of rule 39; that is the motion to adjourn that is made for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance. That is not in any way assimilable to the position here. This motion made here was one that purported to be made while a matter was under discussion and consideration. As a matter of fact, at the time that this motion was sought tq be made, there was under consideration before the committee the motion that the Chairman do report the Bill, so that this motion can stand, if it can stand at all, not as a substantive motion to adjourn, but as a motion made in place of another motion pending before the committee with the view of substituting for that motion other action on the part of the committee, which would have the effect of defeating that motion and of killing the measure before the committee. So, for both these reasons-because there was no discussion during which this motion could be made and because this motion was necessarily of the nature of an amendment- the motion which the hon. member sought to make was in direct violation of rule 17, and the Chairman could have no alternative but to refuse to hear the motion or entertain it for a moment.
Now, some suggestion of complaint was made because the Chairman did not proceed to rule the motion out of order, and then go on, if he were right in doing so, to put the question. I submit that, inasmuch as all imputation of discourtesy is repudiated by hon. gentlemen, there is no room for dispute on that point. I do not think that courtesy requires the Chairman to do anything but observe the rule. But, even if it could be suggested that he could haye departed from that to explain to the hon. member that he would not entertain his motion under the circumstance, surely complaint cannot be made on the ground of discourtesy because such an imputation is repudiated by those who have presented this motion.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Does the 'hon. minister understand that I repudiated that? The very ground for my motion this morning was that there had been absolute breach of faith on the part of the Deputy Speaker.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Then, the hon. member for St. John was not speaking by the book when he invited us on this side to vote for the motion because it implied nothing more than that the Deputy Speaker had made a mistake. The motion simply declares that the action of the Deputy Speaker ' was a violation of the rules and constituted an infringement of the privileges of this House/ This is 'another startling instance of the 'perfect agreement' in which hon. members opposite are. The hon. member
for Pictou complains of a breach of faith, but the hon. member for St. John says that the motion implies nothing more than that the Deputy Speaker made a mistake in interpreting the rules.
As I was saying, this motion which was offered by the hon. member for St. John was sought to be made in absolute violation of the rules. It was not made during discussion, and though necessarily of the nature of an amendment, was made in the face of a rule which prohibited amendment. There was no interval in which it could be presented as a substantive motion. The motion had been made. At first the hon. gentleman said the question had not been put; now he says it had not been properly put. But that is immaterial. There was no interval in which the motion could be presented; the Deputy Speaker was proceeding to put the question. If there had been an interval of time it would have been simply due to interruptions, in direct and flagrant violation of the ruling of the Deputy Speaker, by hon. gentlemen on the other side seeking to make motions which they had no right to make and to prevent the proceedings going on. As a matter of reasonable and proper application of the rules it would not be an interval in the proceedings, even if these hon. gentlemen had, by these irregularities and violations of the rules, prevented the Deputy Speaker from getting a hearing to put the question. So, this could not be presented as a substantive motion, because there was no interval when it could be presented. That being so, it was the duty of the Deputy Speaker to proceed and have the question decided, notwithstanding the difficulties in his way. So, it seems to me, it is impossible to say that the action of the Deputy Speaker was in violation of the rules of the House. In no other way could he have carried out the rule, and he would have violated the rule if he had stopped to listen to hon. gentlemen opposite seeking to make propositions which must either have been for the purpose of initiating debate or for the purpose of proposing an amendment or motion in the nature of an amendment. For the rule told him that the question must be decided without debate and without amendment.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Would the hon. gentleman consider that the Prime Minister was in order in making his motion in view of the fact that he had been speaking once before?


Charles Joseph Doherty: One of two things is
true. Either the consideration of the clauses mentioned in the notice of motion had been concluded when the right hon. leader of the House made his motion or they had not been concluded. If they had been concluded, then for the reason which was invoked in support of the Tight of the hon.

member for Cape Breton South to make this motion, the right hon. Prime Minister had the right to make his motion.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Might I suggest that the hon. member for Cape Breton South was speaking on a proposal to add a new clause to the Bill, but that was not the case with the Prime Minister.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Take the other alternative : if the consideration of the clauses had not been completed, then, manifestly, the hon. member for Cape Breton South had no right to make a motion. For the provision of the rule is unmistakable that not only must the consideration of all the clauses themselves be concluded, butr-
-that all such questions as must be decided in order to conclude such adjourned debate or postponed consideration shall be decided forthwith.
If, on the other hand-and I understand this to be the contention of hon. gentlemen opposite the adoption of the clauses concluded the postponed consideration, then, just as fully as it was open to the hon. member for South Cape Breton to make a motion, it was open to the right hon. leader of this House to make a motion, and if the motion of the right hon. the Prime Minister were not a question necessary to be put to conclude the consideration of those clauses, then it was a new motion. So long as the consideration had not been concluded when the clauses were adopted, the hon. member for South Cape Breton could have no standing before this House. If he had a standing before this House or a right to make the motion he did, the right hon. leader of the Government had an equal right to make the motion he made, which, in that interpretation of the rules, was a new motion.
I understood the hon. member for St. John to say that the Chairman had actually put his motion. I only refer to the matter to point out how hard pressed the hon. member was to find an argument when he had to try to rest one upon the slip made and immediately corrected by the Chairman by saying: The motion is that I do now rise-that I do report the Bill. The hon. member for St. John, usually so fertile in resources, and so capable of finding an argument where no other man would think of looking for one-look at what he had to resort t>
in this particular instance. The Deputy Speaker's tongue slipped-


William Pugsley: He caught my voice as veil as my eye.


Charles Joseph Doherty: He did not refer to the hon. member for St. John, but used the expression ' leave the Chair ' instead of the expression ' report the Bill.' The motion was that he leave the Chair and report the Bill-that the committee rise and report Mr. DOHERTY
the Bill. However, I leave to the appreciation of lion, gentlemen of this House that weighty argument; upon which the hon. gentleman insists to such an extent that it only makes us realize the more how completely he feels that without that argument he would have no case.
The hon. member for Pictou interrupted me for the purpose of affirming that he made a deliberate charge of bad faith. I am not going to take up the time of the House in discussing that charge.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Did my hon.
friend hear my statement this morning?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I did not have that
pleasure.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Then my hon.
friend does not know what he is talking
about.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I was proposing to talk only about the statement which the hon. member for Pictou thought fit this evening to interrupt me in order to make.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If you had heard me in the morning you would have heard me argue the matter at length.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not propose to
address myself to the argument which I had the misfortune not to hear this morning, but, as the hon. gentleman has seen fit to interrupt me for the purpose of making that affirmation, I do want to say that whether or not that affirmation is true does not depend on the argument that the hon. gentleman made this morning. That is an affirmation of fact, arid we ali sat here and we all saw and heard what took place. For my part, if 1 were in the position of the Deputy Speaker of this House, I would, so far as any imputation of bad faith is concerned, be perfectly ready to rest my case upon the events as they were seen and heard by every hon. gentleman sitting in this House. If I were in the position of the Deputy Speaker, I would be willing to find my compensation for the belief the hon. member for Pictou may entertain in the fact of my own consciousness, backed up by the opinion of the great majority of the witnesses of what took place, that there was absolutely no foundation for an imputation of that kind. The hon. member for St. John is not accustomed to setting aside points that may be injurious to an adversary when there is anything to be said in support of them, and yet he abandoned this imputation. I can only express my regret in view of what that hon. gentleman thought it proper to ssy in this House, that the hon. member for Pictou found it necessary to make that affirmation.

Sir WILFRID LAUR1ER:	I think all
the members of this House who were present this morning, on this side or the other side, will agree that the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), who has put in your hands, Mr. Speaker, the motion now before the House, presented his views in a fair, temperate, and moderate manner. I am sorry to say that the answer which was given to him was not, in my judgment, fair, temperate, or judicial. This is the more to be regretted because of the fact that the hon. gentleman who rose to answer the hon. member for Pictou was my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen). I do the hon. member for Portage la Prairie the credit of saying that he is a very close and logical reasoner, and that his speeches are always replete with argument and free from invective. On this occasion, however, it was quite the reverse: his speech was replete with invective and barren of argument. But my hon. friend is a lawyer, and he remembered the old adage of the profession, ' if you have no case, abuse the plaintiff's attorney.' My hon. friend, in the opening sentences of his speech-I hope what I say will be without offence-reminded me of a well-known character in one of the works of Charles Dickens, the Artful Dodger, who picked a pocket in a bookstall and, in order to avoid discovery, raised the hue and cry ' stop thief,' thus diverting suspicion from himself and placing it upon poor Oliver Twist, who was an innocent spectator. The first word of my hon. friend was that if anybody was deserving of censure it was not the Deputy Speaker but the hon. member for Pictou himself and those associated with him on this side of the House. In this statement my hon. friend was following the course of the Artful Dodger, in trying to transfer the guilt, if guilt there be, from one side of the House to the other. I think we should discuss this matter in a temperate manner so as to come to a correct conclusion as to what are the rights of members on both sides of the House. The motion which we have to deal with is in these terms:
Resolved, that the action of Mr. Blondin, the Deputy Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House, while the committee was considering Bill No. 21, entitled, ' an Act to authorize measures for increasing the effective naval forces of the Empire,' in refusing to permit Mr. Carroll, the member for South Cape Breton, to move to add an additional section to said Bill, and also in declining to put the motion that the Chairman do now leave the Chair, as moved by Mr. Pugsley, the member for the city of St. John, was a violation of the rule3 and constituted an infringement of the privileges of this House.
Whether or not this motion is well founded, I think I can appeal to the members who were present last Friday; and, if their memory is defective, they may refresh it by referring to ' Hansard.' When the House met on Friday it took up almost immediately Bill No. 21, referred to in this motion, for increasing the effective Naval Forces of the Empire. Immediately on the resumption in committee of the consideration of the Bill, my right hon. friend the leader of the Government moved the motion of which he had given notice the day before, which was in these terms:
That further consideration of the second, third, fourth and fifth sections and the proposed sixth section of this Bill shall he the first business of the committee and shall not be further postponed.
Shortly after the motion had been adopted and therefore had become the rule of the House for the time being, the hon. member for South Cape Breton moved the following motion:
That the following be added to the Bill as section 7:	,
Whenever practicable, in the construction of the ships provided under this Act, the contractors or builders shall be bound to accept steel and other materials produced in Canada at the current prices for the time being in Canada.
The point was taken that this motion could not be moved at that time after the original motion had been passed by the House, and undoubtedly, the point was well taken, because the House had just determined that clauses 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 should be the first business of the committee; and, of course, so long as those clauses had not been disposed of, no addition could be made to the Bill. This point was debated, and the Chairman addressing himself to the hon. member for South Cape Breton, then said:
I think it would be more advisable if the hon. .member would defer his motion until we have disposed of clause 6. There is an amendment and a sub-amendment to clause 3.
If that meant anything, it meant that the hon. member for South Cape Breton could not move his clause until we had disposed of clause 6 and that it would then be open to him to move the proposed clause 7 of which he had given notice.
In view of the discussion which has taken place this morning, it is well that I should call the attention of the House to the opinion which was expressed then and there by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie:
Mr. Meighen:	As a matter of order, I
would suggest to the hon. gentleman that there would be no difficulty about him making a motion immediately after the disposition of the two sub-amendments to clause 2 by way of an amendment and he can do the same with respect to the other clauses.



I beg to differ from the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. My hon. friend from Cape Breton could have moved his motion to any of the clauses of the Bill if it was germane to the subject of such clause.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman
read my remarks slightly incorrectly. I said ' other clauses.'


Wilfrid Laurier: -and he can do 'the same with respect of the other clauses.
I do not see the point. If he could do it with them all.


Arthur Meighen: The significance of it is this, that immediately after the Chairman had suggested moving it after clause 6 had been disposed of, Mr. Carroll himself remarked that he desired to move it after clause 3. Some further remarks took place and I pointed out that it could be moved on clause 2 after the amendment had been disposed of and went on to say that it could be moved as an amendment to clause 3 when the amendment was disposed of.


Wilfrid Laurier: If my hon. friend from Cape Breton had wanted to
make his motion as an amendment, he could have moved it on clause 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, if it had been germane to any of these clauses; but the point is that he did not choose to move an amendment; he had given notice of a new clause, to be clause 7, and there was good reason for it. I have the Bill before me. I doubt if the motion proposed to be made by my hon. friend from Cape Breton would have been germane to any clause. Clause 2 reads:
That further consideration of the second, third, fourth and fifth sections and the proposed sixth section of this Bill shall he the first business of the committee and shall not be further postponed.
I submit to the hon. member for Portage la Prairie that the motion which the hon. member for Cape Breton wanted to move would not have been an amendment germane to this section. Neither would it have been germane to clause 4, which is as follows:
The said ships when constructed and equipped shall be placed by the Governor in Council at the disposal of His Majesty for the common defence of the Empire.
Nor would it have been germane to clause 5, which is as follows:
The said sum shall be paid, used and applied, and the said ships shall be constructed and placed at the disposal of His Majesty subject to such terms, conditions and arrangements as may be agreed upon between the Governor in Council and His Majesty's Government.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
Neither would it have been germane to clause 6, which I have not before me, but which, if I remember aright, provided simply for an accounting for the expenditure. As an amendment it might have been germane to clause 3; I did not say the the reverse. Clause 3 reads as follows:
The said sum shall be used and applied under the direction of the Governor in Council in the construction and equipment of battleships or armoured cruisers of the most modern and powerful type.
But if my hon. friend the member for Cape Breton did not choose to make it an amendment but a substantive clause, who could object to his doing so? He was within his rights. The point is that my hon. friend, having chosen to make his motion one for a substantive clause, clause 7, it could not be moved until clauses from 2 to 6 had been disposed of. As to that it seems'to me there can be no doubt. The motion of my hon. friend could not have been made pending the discussion of these clauses. Then the question arises, could it have been made after the others had been disposed of? I say there is no question that it could have been made. The only question at issue was whether it could have been made after two o'clock in the morning. The hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) has expressed the opinion that no new clause could then be introduced; but I am sure the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Portage la Prairie will agree that, if we had finished the consideration of clauses 2 or 6 before two o'clock in the morning, no objection could have been raised against my hon. friend moving his motion as clause 7. The only question is whether or not my hon. friend could have moved his motion after two o'clock in the morning. It was two o'clock in the morning when we finished the consideration of clauses 2 to 6. Then my hon. friend tried to move his motion, and the question arose, could he move iti after two o'clock in the morning? I must say in all fairness that the Prime Minister doubted, in fact, he affirmed that the motion could not be made after two o'clock in the morning. He said:
I might say to my hon. friend that he could move his amendment to clause 2 before two1 o'clock, but I do not think he could do so afterwards, and he could do it on the third reading if he desires to do so.
The hon. member for Portage la Prairie did me the honour to quote my words and to say that I had approved this dictum of the Prime Minister. It is true that I spoke immediately after the Prime Minister had uttered the remarks that I ha we just quoted. 1 said:
That is the puzzle. He can not do it after two o'clock, but he can not do it before the clause is disposed of, and if it is not dis-,

posed of before two o'clock, be is shut off all-togeffher. You can do anything you please upi two o'clock, but after two o'clock the axe fails.	|
If my hon. friend thinks I said this in approval of what the Prime Minister had said, I am sorry to say that my power of expressing myself is not adequate to my thought. My hon. friend will find, at page 9811, a little colloquy between the Prime Minister and myself in which I expressed my thoughts:
Mr. Borden: My right hon. friend said in reply to that statement: 1 Then, everything is to be shut off at two o'clock.'
Sir Wilfrid Laurier: Not according to the rule, but according to the will of my hon. friend.
Mr. Borden: According to the rule. I had risen, at the conclusion of the last vote, to move that the Bill be reported, and I had a perfect right to rise and make that motion.
It is so clear that I had no intention of saying that I approved of the interpretation put upon the rule [DOT] by the Prime Minister, that this motion could not be made after two o'clock, that when my hon. friend the member for South Cape Breton attempted to move his motion, I took the point of order that he had the right to move it, and we had a long discussion upon it. But the point of order which I raised was not disposed of by the Chairman, and it is still undecided. I made the best argument I could upon it; at ail events,
I think I made a case in favour of the proposition that, after the disposal of clauses 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, my hon. friend the member for South Cape Breton had a perfect right to move an addition to the Bill. The point of order was discussed at some length, when all of a sudden the Chairman interrupted the proceedings to rule upon another point of order. He decided then that the motion of my hon. friend from South Cape Breton could not be entertained, because he had risen after the Prime Minister. The ruling of the Chairman is to be found on page 9819 of ' Hansard,' and -is in these words:


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I was going to explain and to make clear to the committee how the question stood. Before this discussion is permitted to go on there is a question to be disposed of first by the Chairman on his responsibility, and that is the question of who had the floor. It has been said that the hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. Carroll) bad the floor, but it is for the Chairman tb decide. I must say that I saw the Prime Minister first.
It is quite possible that the Chairman saw the Prime Minister first; but, in face of the record, I maintain that if the Chairman saw the Prime Minister first, he gave the floor, not to the Prime Minister, but to the hon. member for South Cape Breton. The record is to be found in the pages of * 310i	. *[DOT]'ijfl
*	* Hansard.' On page 9809, after section 6 " had been agreed to, we find that the Prime J Minister rose and said:
Mr. Borden: I beg to move, Mr. Chairman, . that the Bill be reported as amended.
. Mr. Carroll:	This afternoon I intimated
*	that I proposed to make a motion adding an-r other clause to the Bill.
I claim that then and there the Chair-_ man gave the floor not to the Prime Minister, but to the hon member for South Cape Breton. How do I prove it? I prove it by the fact that at that moment, when the hon. i member for South Cape Breton had the floor, my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie rose to a point of order. The point of order was this:


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Let the hon. member state his point of order. A point of order is always m order.
Mr. Meighen: My point of order is that the : i Minister having moved that we report this Bill an amendment cannot be moved.
If the point of order of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie was that the Prime Minister , having moved that we report the Bill no other amendment should be admitted, it was because the man who then had the floor was the hon. member against whom he moved, the hon. member for bouth Cape Breton. Therefore I conclude that, though it may be that the Chairman had seen the Prime Minister first, he had given a pledge to the hon. member for South Cape Breton, and, having given it, he could not take it from him afterwards. What is the reason that the Chairman gave the floor, not to the Prime Minister, but to the hon. member for South Cape Breton?


Arthur Meighen: Does the right hon.
gentleman contend that because an hon. gentleman said a few words he was expressly given the floor by the Chairman ?


Wilfrid Laurier: Yes, when
that hon. member, who has been speaking a few words and is interrupted by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, has the floor. If he had not the floor my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie would not have raised the point of order against him that he had no right to move his amendment.
It is quite intelligible why the Chairman saw the hon. member for South Cape Breton first, and not the Prime Minister. My hon. friend from Portage la Prairie _ made a statement this morning with which I am disposed to agree. He stated that the first man in this House who had the right to be heard was the right hon. leader of the Government. I have no exception to take to that. He followed that up with the statement that the next man to be heard was the right hon. leader of the Opposition. I agree with that also. But

then my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie thought that there might be reasons, conditions, or circumstances, in which the floor could be given, not to the leader of the Opposition, but to another hon. member. And there may be circumstances-I think I use exactly the language of my hon. friend -in which the floor can be taken away from the leader of the Opposition. Indeed, that has happened before in this very House, and during this very session. But let that pass. I ask my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie, if there are circumstances in which the floor can be taken from the leader of the Opposition, are there not circumstances in which the floor can be taken from the Prime Minister?


Arthur Meighen: I pointed out clearly that the responsibility would be taken by the House, and not by Mr. Speaker, or by the Chairman.


Wilfrid Laurier: But before the House decides the Speaker or the Chairman has to decide. My hon. friend said very truly to-day that the Speaker or the Chairman is the arbiter; it is for him to decide. He can give the floor to any one he sees first. He ought to see the Prime Minister first, and he ought to see the leader of the Opposition next; and, if there are circumstances in which the floor can be taken from either the one or the other, that can be decided. What was the reason why on the present occasion the floor should have been taken away from the Prime Minister and given to the hon. member for South Cape Breton? There has been a good deal of disquisition and special pleading in this House, but there are certain rules which appeal to every man of intelligence and fairness, and which are understood even by those who are not familiar with all the rules. This was the case. Earlier in the day, when my hon. friend from South Cape Breton had moved his amendment, the Chairman had told him this:
I cannot hear you now; I think it would be more advisable if the hon. member would defer his motion until we have disposed of clause 6.
He remembered that. When clause 6 had been disposed of, the hon. member for South Capee Breton rose, the Prime Minister also rose, and the Chairman gave the floor to the hon. member for South Cape Breton. Why? Because he had given his word to the hon. member that he would hear him. That was the reason, I suppose, why he saw the hon. member for South Cape Breton, and not the Prime Minister.
Now, Sir, I submit, in all fairness, that this is an assembly in which the word of a member ought to be his bond. When the Chairman had said to the hon. member for South Cape Breton, I will hear you later when we have
Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
disposed of clause 6, he might well have said to the Prime Minister: It is true that you have the right to be heard first in this House, but I told the hon. member for South Cape Breton earlier in the day that I would hear him, and I will hear him now. That is the point. But the Chairman of the committee, after having given the floor to the hon. member for South Cape Breton, gave it to the Prime Minister. My hon. friend the Minister of Justice did not know how it was that the Chairman had violated the privileges of the House. Here is an instance. After having given a promise to the hon. member for South Cape Breton that he would give him an opportunity to be heard, when the time came to fulfil his pledge, and to hear the hon. member for South Cape Breton, he would not hear him, but, on the contrary, said that he would hear the Prime Minister first.
I can go beyond all these technicalities;
I appeal to the fairness of every gentleman in this House, and I ask, why was not the hon. member for South Cape Breton given the floor and allowed to make his motion? It has been said that the Prime Minister could rise after two o'clock. I do not deny it. But if the Prime Minister could rise after two o'clock, every other member of this House could also do so; and if no member of this House could rise after two o'clock, then the Prime^ Mini^tei had no right to be allowed to rise. The Prime Minister, after all, is only a member of this House, so far as obedience to the rules is concerned, and has no more privilege on the floor of this House than the humblest member on either side. It is said by hon. gentlemen opposite that the hon. member for South Cape Breton had not the right to make this motion. For the purposes of the argument let that be admitted; but at all events the hon. member for South Cape Breton thought he had the right to make the motion, and the duty of the Chairman was to point out to him that he could not make the motion and could net speak because it was after two o'clock. But the Chairman did not do that, and for that reason alone he is liable to the censure of the House.	.
I now pass to the action of the Chairman in refusing to put the motion of the hon member for St. John. There has been a good deal of special pleading on the part of the Minister of Justice on this point; but the question is a very simple one, and all the ingenuity of the Minister of Justice will not convince anybody that the plain English language cannot be understood even by the simplest member of this House. The Minister of Justice has made a long disquisition as to what is the meaning of the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair. Here is the plain letter of the law. and I appeal to my hon. friend (Mr. MAY 13, 1913
Meighen), who understands these matters, if it is not s >;
Rule 15. A motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is always in order.
That is not a motion in amendment; it is a motion in interruption of the proceedings of the House. This very day the Prime Minister said that if that motion had passed it would kill the Bill, which is true, and the Bill would have disappeared from the Order Paper for the time being. But since when has there been denied to the Opposition the right to kill a Bill? Why, that is the very purpose of the motion. An Opposition is allowed to fight a measure with every weapon at its disposal, and one of the weapons placed at its disposal by the rules of the House is this very motion which has often been availed of for that purpose.


Mr. BURRELL:: Would the right hon.
gentleman argue that if the motion that the Chairman leave the Chair is always in order, it is actually in order when the question has been put by the Chair and the vote is being taken?
Sir WILFRID LAUR1ER:	That is another point. The very question which the Minister of Agriculture asks is an admission that I have convinced him that my hon. friend (Mr. Pugsley) had the right to make that motion. Let us examine the circumstances under which the motion was made by the hon. member for St. John. My hon. friends from Portage la Prairie and North Grey have both argued that the motion was made too late, as it had been made after the Chairman had actually called on the-members to vote. If that were so it would go far in favour of the contention of hon. gentlemen opposite; but let us examine what really took place. Those who were here on Saturday morning will remember that there was some confusion in the House, and the proceedings were not as clear as they are just now. We can discuss the matter with much more sang froid now than was the ease on Saturday morning, and we can take things as they really occurred. If the Chairman was confused it is quite understandable; but, confused though he may have been, he had no power to ignore the rights of a member of this House. To understand what took place, it is not sufficient simply to quote one or two sentences from the proceedings, as was done by my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie; we must take the whole of it. I will begin at the top of page 9825 of ' Hansard,' and I read:


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I rule that the point of
order is not well taken, and that no amendment can be made at this stage.
Some hon. Members; Shame.
Mr. Beland:	I want to put a question to
you, Mr. Chairman; under what rule is there a motion to be made that you reDort the Bill?
I always heard you ask the committee, ' Shall 1 reiport the Bill?', which means, has anybody else any other motion to make? You did not say that to-night and if you had said it the member for .South Cape Breton would have risen and made his motion, and you would have accepted it.
The Chairman ; The regular course is that somebody should make a motion that the committee rise, but ordinarily the Chairman assumes the motion has been made, and leaves the Chair without waiting for someone to make it.
Mr. Beland:	With all due respect.
Some hon. Members :	Order.
Mr. Beland:	Allow me a moment. There
is another rule, rule 56, which says:
' The amendments made in committee are reported by the Chairman to the House, which shall receive the same forthwith.'
This means that the Chairman reports the Bill with amendments to the House without any motion.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I am now putting the
motion that the Bill be reported.
Some hon. Members:	Shame.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Those in favour of the motion will please rise.
Mr. Pugsley:	I move that you now leave
the Chair.
Mr. Beland; Let me state my point of order, please.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The motion is now before
the committee that I report the Bill. I ask those who are in favour of it to rise.
Some hon. Members; No, we won't rise.
Some hon. Members; Shame.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Those who are in favour,
of the motion will please say. 'aye.'
Some hon. Members:	Aye. '
Other lion. Members:	No.
Mr. Chairman:	Those in favour of thd
motion will please rise.
That is the whole of what took place. My hon. friend from Beauce (Mr Beland) rose to move another point of order and the Chairman, without disposing of it, said:
The motion is. now before the committee that I report the Bill.


Arthur Meighen: I submit to the right
hon. gentleman that his point is disposed of by the Chairman in the citation he read, when the Chairman said:
The regular course is that somebody should make a motion that the committee rise, but ordinarily the Chairman assumes the motion has. been made, and leaves the Chair without waiting for someone to make it.


John Allister Currie: My right hon. friend
knows that the old rule is that the Chairman does not require any motion that the committee rise.


Henri Sévérin Béland: The point of order I
wished to raise then was that the Prime Minister had no right to make the motion to report the Bill, as he had spoken already.


Wilfrid Laurier: I thank my
hon. friend from-North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) for coming to my support. I always

thought he was fair-minded. He has well answered my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie, that the Chairman, without disposing of the point of order, asked that the members should rise. The Chairman was too impatient. He should have asked first for the yeas and nays. When my hon. friend from St. John saw the turn matters were taking, he moved that the Chairman do leave the Chair. The Chairman ignored the point of order of my hon. friend from Beauee and the motion of my hon. friend from St. John, and simply reported the Bill to the Speaker. No wonder that after that it was stated that the report was false. Who heard the question put by the Chairman on that Saturday morning? Nobody heard it. Is that the way the rules are to be observed? Although my hon. friends opposite are in the majority to-day, they will not always be in the majority. They suppose they will be in power for a long time; but I shall not discuss that now.


Mr. HENDERSON:: A good while.


Wilfrid Laurier: Let it be never so long, there will come a time when hon. members opposite will cross to this side of the House and when the precedents they are now setting will rise against them just as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow. On this side of the House we ask for nothing more than a fair application of the rules.
This brings me back to a statement made by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister over and over again during the last few days: that my hon. friend from South Cape Breton (Mr. Carroll) had many opportunities to make his motion. That is not the point. The question is simply whether or not he had a right to make his motion. We do not want anything except the courtesies usually exchanged between the two sides of the House; but members who value their privileges will not accept courtesies when they have the right on their side.


William F. Carroll: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to enter into this discussion, until I heard the hon. member for Portage la Prairie accuse me this morning of not acting in good faith in making the motion which has given rise to the present resolution. He wanted to impress upon this House, by his language at least, that what I was looking for in trying to press this new clause upon the attention- of the House, was a grievance. There are some characteristics of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie that we on this side of the House admire, but when he undertakes to lecture members on this side, even if they are young and humble, it is not for him to say to them the place or the opportunity when they
Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
are to move resolutions or to act in any other way. I think, and I am going to prove it, that I took the most opportune time that I could possibly have taken for moving this resolution.
I have watched the course of the naval debate. Perhaps no hon. member is more opposed to the passage of this Bill than I am personally, owing to the fact that I owe my presence here to the support which 1 gave to the policy of the Liberal Government on the matter of building the ships in Canada. I thought that the strenuous opposition put up by hon. members on this side of the House to that Bill would lead the right hon. the Prime Minister and the Government to the conclusion that there was such opposition, not only in this House but in the country, to that policy that they would withdraw the Bill. My idea, in the first instance, is that these ships should be constructed in Canada. Until the very moment when the right hon. the Prime Minister moved that he was going to force this Bill through Parliament by closure and the enforcement of the rules which have been introduced this session, I had hoped that the Government would come to the conclusion that this was a most unpopular measure and that they would withdraw it. I take the ground that it is not incumbent upon me or any other hon. member to give reasons why he should introduce a resolution at any particular stage of the proceedings, so long as, when he introduces that resolution, he is right in the manner in which he does so. That is the reason why I resent the lecture of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, in which he endeavours to spread abroad the idea that I was not acting in good faith in moving my amendment. What are the facts? On May 8, the right hon. the Prime Minister gave the following notice:
I beg to give notice that at the next sitting of the Committee of the Whole House upon this Bill I shall move that the further consideration of the second, third, fourth and fifth sections and of the proposed sixth section of this Bill', shall be the first business of the committee and shall not further be postponed.
Previous to that he had moved the further consideration of the proposed section 6 be postponed. Now, the following day, what was before this House? The motion was made that you do leave the Chair and that the House go into Committee of the Whole to consider Bill No. 21. I maintain that there was no particular section of that Bill before the Chairman when he took the Chair that day, and I maintain that he had no right to say that section 2 of the Bill was under consideration. I rose before the Chairman put the motion. I do not pre tend to know everything about the rules of

the House; I do not pretend to know half as much of those rules as the average member of this House; but I believe yet that I was perfectly in order in rising to make my motion before the Chairman said we were to go on with the consideration of section 2, because there was nothing in the procedure of that day or the day before which said that we should go on with the consideration of clause 2 of the Bill.


Arthur Meighen: At page 915 of ' Hansard,' the hon. gentleman distinctly admitted that he was out of order when he made his motion. He said:
I appreciated what you said and realised that you are right and ceased any effort to press my motion.


William F. Carroll: The hon. gentleman is
right, but as usual he does not read the whole record. That had reference to ah attempt I made, before rising to move my resolution after the motion of the right hon. gentleman had been made and after I had finished my twenty minutes discussion. I am referring to the first time I took the floor. At this time what occurred? I said I believed that I was right and that under the rule of the House I could make my motion when the right hon. gentleman took the floor from me that day. I admit that, once the motion of the right hon. gentleman was made, I could not at that time bring on my proposed resolution. And I readily admitted that. I asked the Chairman then, when he ruled me out of order, if I could not move the resolution after clause 2 had been disposed of. It is the contention of the Prime Minister and of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, I understand, that so long as my resolution would be in the shape oi an amendment it could be presented. What did the Chairman say? I said:
Mr. Carroll:	If the Chairman would allow
me to make this motion at the end of the consideration of the present clause

That is clause 2.
-I would be only too happy to postpone it. . . .


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I do not see any rule which would allow me to do so.
That is, that he did not at that time see any rule to allow him to admit my motion after the consideration of clause 2. Whom is an hon. member to take as his guide in the procedure of this House? Is it to be the hon. member for Portage la Prairie who got up at the same time and said I had a right after clause 2 was disposed of to move my motion, or are we to be guided by the Deputy Speaker of this House who was in the Chair at the time and who told me in most specific language that I should have the right after section 6 was disposed of and all the other sections, to move my motion? I took it for granted that the Chairman of the committee at the time was guiding this
House, so far as the procedure was concerned, and I took my cue from him.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman will permit me, he took nothing of the kind for granted, because immediately after I said^that he could move after clause 2, he said':
That being well understood, I shall not encroach further upon the time of the House.


William F. Carroll: I have great deference for the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, but I hope it will not hurt his feelings if I say that I had no reference whatever to his remarks at that time but to the re marks of the Deputy Speaker.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. member


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order. The hon. mem ber for Cape Breton South has the floor.


William F. Carroll: I have made myself
perfectly plain and have answered the hon. gentleman as courteously as I could. I had no reference whatever to his remarks. I say again, I took for granted that the Chairman of the Committee was the person who was to guide me on that particular occasion. Now, the debate went on. I made no further attempt to move my motion. As a matter of fact, sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 were not finished until after two o'clock in the morning. Immediately after section 6 was finished, I rose in my place, and I want to say here, and there is no hon. member who knows it better than the hon. member for Portage la Prai rie, that when I rose in my place and the hon. leader of the Government rose at the same time, the Deputy Speaker never saw the Prime Minister, he turned absolutely around and recognized me, and the right hon. Prime Minister took his seat. I want to say further that, until the hon. member for Portage la Prairie called the attention of the Deputy Speaker, that hon. gentleman did not know that the Prime Minister was on his feet. Now, I want to make myself plain and thoroughly understood. I took it for granted, as I think any hon. member would have taken it for granted, that I should have the right, after clause .6 was disposed of, to make the motion which I had been ready to make when the House met at three o'clock in the afternoon. My hon. friend from North Grey said: Whom would the Chairman be likely to notice first, for whom would he likely have his eye open? I say that in this particular instance he had his eye open for the man who was supposed to move that motion, and whom he had given to understand in the evening had a perfect right to move that motion. And I believe as I say with all confidence, that the Deputy Speaker did notice me risins in my nlace

and did not notice the Prime Minister. And there is no member who knows it better than the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. ' Hansard ' is not very complete on this matter. I am making no objection on that score. ' Hansard ' does not contain all the remarks I made on that night on rising. I do not want to impute any motives; I do not want to say it was done for a purpose-I do not see what purpose it would serve-but I say I was speaking at least one minute before the hon. member for Portage la Prairie rose to speak at all. And, it was well understood in the afternoon that I was to have the floor, I think that the Deputy Speaker recognized me and understood that I should have had the floor. And I think that instead of this resolution being brought against the Deputy Speaker, it should be brought against certain other hon. gentlemen in this House for having misled him.
Coming to the motion that was made by the hon. member for St. John, it is contended on the other side of the House that that motion was out of order. I may say that if that motion was out of order, the Deputy Speaker did not then take the proper course. Under rule 44 of this House it is provided:
Whenever the Speaker is of opinion that a motion offered to the House is contrary ito the roles and privileges of Parliament, he shall apprise the House thereof immediately, before putting the question thereon, and quote the rule or authority applicable to the case.
What does Bourinot say about that?
If a motion be out of order, the Speaker! will call attention to the irregularity, and1 refuse to put it to the House under the thirty-second rule.
Which i3 now rule 44. Why did not the Chairman take that course? Hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House talk of courtesy. While we appreciate courtesy on this side of the House, we more truly appreciate the free exercise of our rights, and it was not only the right but the duty of the Deputy Speaker on that occasion to inform the hon. member for St. John of the fact that he was out of order, instead of ignoring him as he did. His motion was either in order or it wa3 out of order. If it was in order, the Chairman should have put it; if it was out of order, the Chairman should have proceeded, under rule 44, to give his reasons why that motion was not in order. I do not exactly appreciate the distinction which the hon. Minister of Justice was trying to draw between rules 39 and 15 of this House. I doubt very much if he knew it himself when he concluded his remarks. Buie 15 of the House is so framed that the ordinary man would clearly understand it, and I take it for granted that the Minister of Justice who occupies Mr. CARROLL.
such a prominent position in this country, would have no trouble in grasping its meaning. He told us during the course of his remarks that we should read the rules precisely in the language in which they are couched, but afterwards, when he was met by rule 15, he could not read it according to its wording and at the same time give to it the interpretation which he desired to give. Rule 15 is as follows:
A motion that the Chairman leave the Chairi is always in order, and shall take precedence of any other motion.
I do not know that any hon. gentleman of this House could make that rule any plainer than it i3. Then the right hon. Prime Minister said that the hon. member for St. John was not in possession of the House when he made this motion. Most assuredly he was not in possession of the House when he made the motion, and that is the very reason why this motion of censure is offered. He should have put the hon. member for St. John in possession of the House. A member is not in possession of the House until he has made a motion and that motion has been recognized by the Chair. There was, therefore, no possible way in which the hon. member for St. John could have put himself in possession of the House other than by moving, as he did, that the Chairman leave the Chair. It is rather difficult to say what constitutes the catching of the eye of the Chairman or the Speaker in this House at the present time. I always understood, when the Chairman in any deliberative body turned around and listened to the speaker for almost a minute, that that was pretty nearly catching the eye of the Chairman. But that is not catching the eye of the Chairman at all. There is always some difficulty in this House in catching the eye of the Chairman or the Speaker, especially if a number of hon. gentlemen wish to speak, but it strikes me that when it comes to the catching of the illusive reversible eye of a Nationalist-Tory Deputy Speaker by an English-speaking member of this House, the difficulty is almost insurmountable.
I desire to say that in any remarks that I have made in connection with this matter I am not guided by any animus, but solely by the feeling that the rules of this House should be properly interpreted. I do say, however, that it is rather annoying, and that it runs against the grain, when we find that hon. gentlemen who are placed in a position of trust in this House do not give to those rules that fair interpretation which the English language places upon them.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I do not think I
would have troubled the House with any additional remarks upon this subject were it not for the fact that my hon. friend the Minister of Justice seemed to be painfully

shocked because I reiterated a statement
which I made earlier in the day, that this resolution involved a charge of bad faith on the part of the Deputy Speaker in his conduct during the sitting on Friday last. The attitude which my hon. friend the Minister of Justice adopts when any member of this House ventures to say anything about anybody who belongs to his particular flock is becoming one of the most amusing things of this session; and it is a role which the hon. gentleman assumes with very great ability. If any gentleman on this side in the course of a debate attempts to-say anything even less suggestive than the circumstances actually warrant, the Minister of Justice always rushes into the breach, pounces upon this little morsel and magnifies it into a very large and important consideration. . I regret very much that the hon. minister is not present, that 1 might make clear to him-and this I think I made reasonably clear to hon. members of .this House in opening the discussion this morning-what my view was in bringing this motion to the attention of the House. Sir, I did not offer this motion for amusement; I did not move it as a bit of child's-play. I was in the House on Friday evening arid Saturday morning when the Deputy Speaker was presiding over the deliberations of the committee. I saw what transpired; I knew that he had done what he had no right to do, and hence I have offered this motion and ask the House to vote upon it. Why should hon. gentlemen of this House, when they see the rules violated and their privileges taken away, hesitate to express their views in regard to the matter? So far as I am concerned, I do not hesitate to do so. What are the facts in regard to this matter? The Deputy Speaker, the Chairman of committees of this House, gave the word to my hon. friend the member for South Cape Breton on Friday afternoon that, after all the clauses of the Bill were disposed of he would have the right to move the amendment which he mentioned to the committee at that time. Everyody knows, that if we weed out all the discussion, the metaphysical, hairsplitting performances of the hon. member *for Portage la Prairie and the other gentlemen who tried to decloud the issue, that *assurance was given in the afternoon and we have the word of the hon. member for Cape Breton that, relying upon the word of the Deputy Speaker, he rose, understanding that he had recognition from the Deputy Speaker, and proposed to make his amendment in accordance with the understanding and that he was prevented from doing so because the Deputy Speaker did hot allow him. With that state of facts, what is the House going to do? As my right hon. leader pointed out there will be other Speakers here in other days. Do hon. gentlemen opposite wiant that to be the method and the permanent rule of this House in
dealing with committees, are they prepared, simply because they happen to sit on the treasury benches, to adopt such rules, which are to go on record in the Journals of the House, and may hereafter be invoked against them? If they are, then the blood will be on their own heads. But methods of that character are subversive of parliamentary government and of British institutions in this country and when hon. gentlemen attempt to utilize these methods in order to pass legislation which is supposed to be the product of those who are the special guardians of everything that means standing for British institutions, then they and their legislation become a farce in this free country ;and the people are recognizing that fact. What more, Sir? It has been shown by my right hon. leader, in the statement which he made a few moments ago, that the Deputy Speaker deliberately disregarded the point of order raised by my hon. friend from Beauce and the motion which my hon. friend from St. John had a right to inaKe, 'disregarded both df those gentlemen when they had the floor and were addressing him, pointing out to him for his consideration a point of order and a motion which, under the rule, he wa.s bound to deal with. Why did he not put them to the House? Why did he not consider them? Either he was rattled and did not know what he was doing or he was doing it deliberately, there can be only one of two situations. The right hon. the Prime Minister recognized that fact when he pleadingly told us that the hon. gentleman, the Deputy Speaker, had had a great many trying experiences this session, an apologetic way of trying to let the hon. gentleman down. Parliament should not have men in the presiding seats who lose their heads and if such men are put in those seats, the Government and the political party that put them there should take them out and put in men who keep their heads on in those cases. The Prime Minister to-day did not venture, as some of the lesser lights behind him did, to argue that the hon. member for Cape Breton had no right to make the motion; on the contrary, he iterated and reiterated the proposition that the hon. member for South Cape Breton could have got his amendment presented to the House on three other different occasions. Because the hon. member for South Cape Breton could have moved his amendment on three other different occasions, therefore the Deputy Speaker was justified in illegally preventing him from moving it at the time when he did want to move it properly. That is logic, is it not ? Hereafter, if an hon. gentleman on this side wishes to move an amendment, there are a great many occasions when he can do so. He can move an amendment on the


Charles Joseph Doherty: I was paired with the
hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil)
otherwise I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. NORTHRUP:: I was paired with
the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.
Motion negatived.



FIRST READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 197, to incorporate the Glengarry and Stormont Railway Company'.- Mr. Alguire.
Bill No. 201, to amend the Railway Act with respect to the deposit of Plans.-Mr. Ames.
Bill No. 202, respecting the Toronto Terminals Railway Company.-Mr. Currie.
Bill No. 203, respecting Burrard, Westminster Boundary Railway and Navigation Company.-Mr. Taylor.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Rodolphe Lemieux: I would like to ask the hon. the Postmaster General if the statement published in a cable message in the press the day before yesterday is true, in which it is reported that the Postmaster General of Great Britain was coming to Canada to take part in a cable conference?


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: I saw the report in the press, but there is no foundation for it at all. I have pleasure in saying to the House that I hope Mr. Samuel will come here, but, if he does, it will not be for the purpose of having a cable conference.



THIRD READING.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 185, to amend the Government Railways Act.-Mr. Cochrane.

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. C. J. Doherty (Minister of Justice), House went into committee on Bill No. 180, to amend the Supreme Court Act. (Mr. Deputy Speaker in the Chair).
On section 4-dates of sessions:
Charles Joseph Doherty: The Bill stood over the other day for further consideration of the third paragraph of section 32 in the Act, as set forth in clause 4 of the present Bill. That clause provides:
The dates in the preceding subsection, fixed for the beginning of each session, may be varied by the Governor in Council, or by the court, provided that notice shall be given ini the Canada Gazette not less than four weeks before the date which may be fixed for the beginning of any session.

When the Bill was before the committee previously, the right hon. the leader of the Opposition urged against the adoption of this clause, the consideration that in operation it might prove inconvenient to members of the profession engaged before that court. The objection struck me at the time as having considerable force, and, as I have said, the Bill stood over in order to give it further consideration. I have given the matter that further consideration, and I would like to call attention to two points in that regard. I have pointed out that this power conferred upon the court or upon the Governor in Council would be exercised only for grave reasons. I might mention a reason which did not occur to me the other day why it is desirable that this power should be made susceptible of being exercised, and I believe that reason is of sufficient weight to perhaps over-ride the objection offered. At present the dates of the opening of the different terms are fixed and the provision is that the term shall continue until the business before the court has been disposed of, which is to say until the cases before the court have been heard. It has been pointed out to me that it works out in this way: that at a particular term there may lie a much larger number of cases than usual, with the result that the date of the next following term being absolutely fixed, the justices are unable to dispose of the cases heard at one term before they are obliged to begin the hearing of cases in the next term. It is very desirable in the interests of the proper administration of justice that wherever it is possible the cases heard in one term should be disposed of before the justices are called upon to sit in another term and take new oases. It has been pointed out that the last term of the court was unusually prolonged, and that if by reason of the court having to begin at the date fixed it has not disposed of the cases heard in that term, the probability is that some of the cases would necessarily be carried over the long vacation. The objection was urged that this provision might prove of great inconvenience to barristers practising before the court if there was no absolute certainty as to the date of the commencement of the term. I think we can 'trust the court not to exercise this power without grave reason, even though the power be confided in them. This Bill has been some little time before the House, and while I am not in a position to say that it has been communicated to members of the Bar, it is a fact that I have had communications from leading members of the profession endorsing certain of its provisions, and [DOT]there has been no suggestion of objection to this.
Mr. DOHERTY.


Wilfrid Laurier: I cannot say
that I have been convinced by the reasons advanced by the Minister of Justice, but in a matter of this kind I shall have to give way to his opinion. If I understood the minister aright, he stated that the calendar for a certain term may be so charged that that term would actually overlap the next term. That, of course, must be a very rare occurrence.


Charles Joseph Doherty: That is possible, but I am willing to admit it is very improbable. What I said was, that in one instance the term had been so prolonged and such a large number of cases had been heard that the interval between that and the date fixed for the next term was not sufficiently long to enable the judges to adjudicate upon and dispose of all the eases heard in the preceding term. That, of course, would create considerable delay in the decision of cases, because the judges would be obliged to abandon the consideration of the cases already heard and enter upQn the hearing of new cases. It is in the interests of_ the public that every facility should he given for having cases adjudicated upon as promptly as possible after they have been heard.


Wilfrid Laurier: Is that the
only reason why cases are protracted?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am not prepared to
say that is the only reason, but the smaller the number of reasons for protracting cases the better for all concerned.


Mr. D. A. LAFORTUNE (Montcalm):: Mr. Speaker, the h"on. Minister of Justice will allow me to make a few observations on what he has just said. It is certain that the hon. judges-I speak especially for the Bar of the province of Quebec-are overburdened with work; that they have too many cases to adjudicate upon and dispose of. When a term is concluded, another one begins almost immediately after, and,they have not the time to give the necessary attention to the cases already heard.
I agree entirely with what has just declared the hon. minister. But there is another reason, which is that since many years we are vainly asking for a greater number of judges. It is certain that such a state of things works to the detriment of judiciary business, especially in Montreal. We have asked, and we keep constantly asking, since many years, for more judges, as we also ask for them a higher salary; and nothing is done.
The hon. minister, who knows better than any one the state of things to which I refer, because he has practised during a long while in Montreal, where he has also administered justice as a judge, knows that what I say is true. We are on the

verge of a revolt in Montreal, and requests upon requests, petitions upon petitions, follow in an uninterrupted flow towards the. Government, but all that to no avail.
In the present moment, we are obliged to ask judges from the surrounding districts to come to Montreal, so as to aid in the administration of justice.
Lately, I was present at the general meeting of the Bar, and many bitter complaints have been heard about that state of things. The question is heard on all sides: "Why is the Minister of Justice remaining inactive."
There are certainly many lawyers who will feel honored in being called to the Bench. Many members would also esteem that a great favour, if they can decently get away from politics. Is the Government afraid to open up another county?


Charles Joseph Doherty: We might, for instance, open up the county of Montcalm.


David Arthur Lafortune: The hon. Minister of Justice may open this county, where I stand ready to meet him.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: We do not usually call millionaires to the Bench.


David Arthur Lafortune: The Grand Master of the Nationalists came there once with the intention to defeat me, but he had to go away as he came, that is, all his plans came to nought.
The Montreal Bar is clamouring for new judges, and if you do not accede to those wishes you are not giving justice to the Province of Quebec. Business has considerably increased. From a judiciary point of view, the importance of Montreal has now grown to be much more considerable than is generally imagined. We have to wait four or five days before our cases can be heard. Last Friday I was in Montreal to attend to a case which had been entered for that day, and it was only this morning that I have been able to get a hearing.
The Bar of the province of Quebec is the only one of which so little account is taken.
I would like to see the Ontario Bar in the same situation. There would be such a hubbub, that force would be to listen to that grievance. But, for the Quebec Bar, everything is good enough.
I am asking, for the sake of justice, to put an end to such a state of things. Before long, the Minister of Justice will have a deputation of the Bar of Montreal [DOT]call upon him. I have told them the other day: Go to Ottawa, and compel the minister to hear your grievances; set things on fire, if it is necessary . . . Business men go to Ottawa; you must do the same thing; call upon the Minister of Justice, and wake him up, and stir him up.
I am also asking for an increase of salary for judges, because that is absolutely
necessary for the proper administration of justice; as I have been asking since a long while for an increase of the indemnity of the deputation, and you are not doing anything. And you call that rendering justice.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I would remind the hon. member that we are now discussing a Bill which concerns the Supreme Court.


David Arthur Lafortune: However, I hope the hon. Minister of Justice will take in good part my remarks, and that he will see about remedying the evil we are complaining of.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not know that there are so many entreaties, as is stated by my hon. friend, made with the object of increasing the number of judges, at all events as regards the Superior Court. I must say to my hon. friend that, so far as I know, the department has not been petitioned to incease the number of judges.
Moreover, I must draw his attention to the fact that it depends neither on myself, nor on the Government, nor on the Parliament, to take the necessary steps to increase the number of judges; that power lies exclusively in the Legislature of the Province of Quebec; to that Legislature alone belongs the right to ask for an increase in the number of the judges of the Superior Court. That Legislature has already provided for the nomination of three supplementary judges for the Circuit Court, and the hon. member, if I understand the situation, has no cause for complaint as regards the number of judges of that Court, because three judges of the Superior Court have helped the judges of the Circuit Court for the dispatch of judiciary business.
As regards the increase of the number of judges of which he has spoken, I hope to be able, in a couple of days, to tell him what decision the Government has taken on the matter.
In concluding I am happy to see that the hon. member for Montcalm is supporting the Government as regards the question now before this Committee.
Oh section 5-amount in dispute:


Charles Joseph Doherty: I move:
That section 5 be amended by adding at the end of section the words, ' by affidavit or affidavits.'
The section provides that proof may be made in cases where the value of the matter in controversy does not appear on the face of the record. It seemed to me desirable that we should indicate a method whereby that value can be proved.


Mr. GERMAN:: Has the hon. minister
considered the question of appeals from the Supreme Court of Canada to the Judicial

r?:i
Committee of the Privy Council? There is a very strong feeling in Canada that our Supreme Court should be the final court of appeal. After a case has appeared before a trial judge, a divisional court, a court of appeal in a province and has then reached the Supreme Court of the Dominion of Canada, all the law in connection with such a case should be thoroughly known and its value fully considered and digested. I think it should be finally decided there. I quite appreciate the fact that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is, without exception, the grandest tribunal in the world. I had some experience before the Judicial Committee. As constituted, it is composed of the best intellect that Great Britain can produce. Notwithstanding that fact, I think that we have sufficient legal ability in Canada to decide our own cases, and litigants in Canada should not be, in the final result, forced to go to the Judicial Committee, because that means an enormous expense beyond the capabilities of a very large number of litigants. It means that the wealthy litigant can probably win out against the poor one, because the latter cannot afford to pay the necessary fees. The Minister of Justice and the Government would do weir to consider this question carefully. Surely, if the United States Government can have their final court of appeal in their own country, we should be capable of having our final court of appeal in Canada.
The best judges obtainable should be appointed and paid salaries commensurate with their position. As a matter of fact, at the present time judges in this country are not paid salaries equal to what even a mediocre lawyer can earn. How can you expect to get the best legal talent on the Bench unless you pay salaries in accordance with their ability? Our revenues are big enough to justify the employment of the best legal talent in Canada, and to make the Supreme Court the final court of appeal. I ask the hon. the Minister of Justice and his colleagues to see if they cannot bring in a Bill to accomplish that purpose.


Rodolphe Lemieux: If I were speaking only for the province which I represent, with some sixty-four other members in this House, I would say: let us maintain as regards our province the appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, because we have found, in that very high tribunal, justice and a respect for our laws and the precedents which have been created by a long series of judgments in our judicial world. I speak, however, as a Canadian; and I am bound to say that efforts, which are being made and which have been made for many years past, the Imperial Federation movement, will at some future time create, by reaction in this country, such a sentiment as the one which was Mr. GERMAN.
created in Australia at the time of the framing of the constitution of the Commonwealth, when Mr. Chamberlain and the British authorities had to strain everything in order to secure one class of appeals from Australia, namely, in constitutional cases. I am very frank in this matter. If I spoke as one coming from the province of Quebec, I should stand for the appeal to the Privy Council, because our code of laws in the province of Quebec has been, generally speaking, interpreted in a most satisfactory manner by the lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. But I say that this idea of trying to standardize everything or to model everything on the London pattern creates in the Dominion, by way of reaction, a sentiment quite contrary to that contemplated. My hon. friends will know by reading the reports of the various Imperial conferences that efforts have been made to create one appellate court for the Empire. There has been strong resistance offered to that movement, and the project has failed so far. I do not know what are the purposes of the legislation introduced of late by Lord Haldane, although the hon. Minister of Justice the other day gave the House a short synopsis of that legislation. I hope the hon. gentleman will find opportunity to give a fuller explanation. But there is a feeling in the country that attempts are being made to create in that way one appellate tribunal ior the Empire. It is a beautiful dream, but I do not think it can be realized. My hon. friend from Welland has said that the appeals should be restricted, that the number of higher courts was, so to speak, an invitation to litigants, and especially to wealthy litigants, to go to such higher courts at the expense of the poorer litigants. There is some truth in that. But I do not forget that any subject of His Majesty the King has what we call in French, ' l'appel de droit et 1'appel de grace.' Even the poorer and humbler among His Majesty's subjects have the right to appeal to the foot of the Throne. That is one of the safeguards which we at least, who belong to the minority, highly appreciate. I cannot emphasize too much what I stated at the beginning of my remarks, that in our relations with the Mother Country, when everything goes well, it is a good, safe principle to let well enough alone and not to attempt unrealizable schemes such as the creation of one Court of Apnea! for the whole of the Empire. The whole of the British fabric is elastic and adaptable to circumstances. In the Privy Council- I was there myself when I was Solicitor General-I have listened to cases from India, from British Guiana, from Ontario, from Quebec. You have interpreted there the common law of England; the civil code of the province of Quebec; the Dutch

law; the law of Scotland, which differs materially from the common law of England; you have the Roman law; you have the law of the Channel Islands, which is the old Norman law. And the judges hear the cases and listen to the counsel, and I have yet to learn that anybody has had to criticise the reports of the law lords to His Majesty. It is the best safeguard of the British citizenship for any of the subjects of His Majesty the King in any of the colonies or dominions. Therefore, any proposed change is to my mind not desirable, and if too much insistence is put upon it, if the idea of the creation of that unique tribunal for the British Empire is advocated, there will be a reaction in the Dominion. The reaction will not come in my province; it will come in Ontario, as it has already come; it will come in New Brunswick and the other English-speaking provinces. It is as well to let Imperial statesmen know that ' Let well enough alone ' is safe not only when it is used to defeat reciprocity, but even in our relations with the Mother Country from a judicial point of view.


Hon. J. D. HAZEN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries):: What I am going to say 1 say simply from the standpoint of a private member of this House, and I base it on my experience as a member of the Bar of New Brunswick. I do not quite appreciate the force of the argument advanced by my hon. friend from Rouville (Mr. Lemieux), for I see no connection whatever between the question of Imperial federation and the question of appeal by anyone in Canada to the judicial committee of the Privy Council. That appeal is a right we have had not only since Confederation but ever since we had courts in Canada, and to my mind it would be a great misfortune and a great mistake if the right of appeal to the Privy Council should be taken away and final appeals should be to the Supreme Court of Canada. I think the hon. member for Rouville struck the keynote when he said it was the right of any subject to carry his complaint to the fact of the Throne. The courts to which we go with our appeals is named a committee. In the olden times a petition was taken to the King who heard it in council. As time went on, that, of course, became unworkable, and so a Committee of the Privy Council was appointed consisting of men who are most eminent jurists, well trained and learned in the law who now hear these different appeals. I think it is one of the greatest safeguards which any minority or any poor man has in this country that if justice is not done by the courts of this country, they or he can go to a tribunal across the water entirely removed from any local .consideration, as litigants might
think the courts in this country are not removed, and get a decision on the merits of the case.


William Manley German: How can the poor man get there?


John Douglas Hazen: If the hon. gentleman will look over the records of appeals to the Privy Council that have gone from Canada, I think he will find that there have been more decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council against the wealthy corporations and large interests than against the individuals who may have been fighting these corporations.


William Manley German: H^w is the poor man to get to the Committee of the Privy Council?


John Douglas Hazen: I might ask the hon. gentleman how the poor man is to get to the Supreme Court of Canada?


William Manley German: He is in his own country.


John Douglas Hazen: As a matter of fact, the cost of an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada is not inconsiderable. The main who appeals to the court and sustains defeat surely ought to have the right, if he is able to do so, to carry an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which, as I understand, is entirely removed from any local or sectional considerations, and to which there may be imputed no consideration which mijght, perhaps very unjustly, be imputed to the courts of our own country. My hon. friend knows that if a litigant in this country takes an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, he can not then take an appeal to the Privy Council except by obtaining what is called special leave. Before taking a further appeal to the highest appellate court in the land, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, he has to apply fot leave to appeal, and has to show some reason why the appeal should be granted. As a matter of fact, that appeal will not be granted unless the case is one in which there is involved an important constitutional question or some important matter with regard to public policy. So that if an individual, carrying on litigation with a large company, has a judgment in his favour from a court in the province from which he comes, and that company takes an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada and is defeated in that appeal, they cannot take a further appeal to the Privy Council without obtaining special leave, and this leave can only be obtained by showing special reason why some important or constitutional point should be adjudicated upon.


William Manley German: Supposing a poor man gets a judgment against him in the

Supreme Court of Canada after having had a judgment in his favour in the court below, where can he go?


John Douglas Hazen: That depends largely upon the means of the individual. I know cases in my own province, as, for instance, under the Employes' Liability for Injuries Act, under which there is no appeal from the decision of the judge, provided the plaintiff is willing to take proceedings under the provisions of the Act and not at common law. But, all things *considered, I think it would be a very great misfortune for this country if we were to abolish the right to appeal to [DOT]the Privy Council. We all know that although the judges of our courts in Canada are, in most cases, learned, fair-minded and honourable gentlemen, they have occupied various positions in the political and public life of the country, and whether rightly or wrongly, there are litigants who will think, perhaps without good reason, that the judgments given against them have been to some extent unconsciously influenced by tho views held by the judges .when they were in public life, or when they were associated with either of the political parties of the country. I think, under these circumstances, that it is a great privilege for them to have an opportunity of carrying their appeals from the Supreme 'Court- in Canada to the Privy Council in order that they may be adjudicated upon there-and as a rule the judgments of the Privy Council have met with approval in this country. My own experience as a member of the bar leads me to favour strongly the maintenance of the right to appeal to the Privy Council. I think that is the feeling of most of the members of the bar in Canada, and I believe that, if the matter were fairly discussed before the people of the country they would deem it to be a very great mistake if we were by legislation to take away the right that has always existed for any person in Canada to carry an appeal to the Privy Council and get a decision from that body, appointed by His Majesty the King and his advisors in the Cabinet of Great Britain. Whether or not we could take away that right is another matter; I presume it could be done by making a change in the British North America Act, and receiving the sanction oi the Imperial Parliament. I have no doubt that if this Parliament were desirous of making such a change, the Imperial Government would not stand in the way, if it ' were the desire of the Canadian people that the change should be made, subject of course to the exercise of the Royal prerogative. However, so far as the rights of minorities are concerned, and so far as the rights of every citizen of Canada are concerned, I would very much regret the taking of any step which Mr. GERMAN.
would result in abolishing the right to carry an appeal to the Privy Council, which has been established for the purpose of hearing appeals from the courts of the colonial possessions and overseas dominions of His Majesty. The right to carry his appeal to the foot of the throne is one of the great safeguards of the liberty of every British subject.
Mr. LAFORTUNE; I have listened with much interest to what the hon. Minister of Marine has said, and also the hon. member who preceded him. I have now thirty years' experience in the Bar, and I fully concur in what the hon. member for Welland has just said.
When the Supreme 'Court was established, I well remember the discussion which then took place, and I may say that the Court was created in view of abolishing the appeal to the Privy Council. That question of appeal to the Privy Council was seriously discussed at the time, and the 'Supreme Court was established with the object of doing away with that appeal.
At the present time, claims of three or four thousand dollars are reduced to one hundred and ninety-nine dollars so as to prevent the powerful companies against which an appeal is entered to go before the Privy Council. When a case has been heard by the judges of the Superior- Court, and has passed through the Court of Revision and the Court of Appeal, and then, afterwards, goes before the Supreme Court, who will say that such a case has not been then sufficiently discussed?
I must say, of that appeal to the Privy Council, that the remedy is worse than the evil. W'hen a powerful company has lost a case before our courts, it goes to England and enters an appeal before the Privy Council. Very often, that company goes there alone, because its opponent has not the necessary funds to push the case any further before that high jurisdiction, and the appeal is generally allowed in such case, because the discussion is not contradictory. A poor man has not the means to exhaust all the jurisdictions, and he is not always ready, as the powerful companies are, to cross the ocean in order to sustain his contention. It is open to him, it is true, to do so, but he has not the means to do it. I think that our laws and customs are much better interpreted by our own judges, than they could be by foreign judges.
Many jurists object to being called to the Bench, because the salary offered is not sufficient. It even happens that judges will sometimes leave the Bench because the salary is not high enough. Let us pay good salaries and choose the best men; we will have these competent Judges and our laws will be well interpreted. It will then be no longer necessary to cross the ocean.

It is always the question of salary which predominates; in other terms, if we expect to have good services we must pay for them. A country should find the means to compensate properly for services rendered. A few days ago, a salary of $12,500 was voted for an engineer, in the civil service. Must it he said that we deem matter to be more important than intelligence, since we hesitate so much in giving a proper remuneration to our judges. Let us make a choice among our best jurists, and we will have competent judges.
We hear that because a man has been mixed up with politics, his impartiality must be in question. Are we prepared to say that those men have mo conscience? When a man is called to the Bench and becomes a judge, he is there no longer a politician and his conscience becomes his sole guidance.
The remarks made by the hon. member for Welland are perfectly fair and I concur in everything he says. Is it not singular that we should see fit to appeal to some British Lords for the proper interpretation of our customs, of our laws, and our contracts passed between people of our country? I have the greatest admiration for those noble Lords, but, nevertheless, I must say that I have more respect for the judges who live in our midst, and who are acquainted with our usages, our laws and our customs. I prefer to be judged by men who have always lived among us rather than by those hon. gentlemen who live in far-away England.


Mr. PROULX:: I agree with the hon.
member for Welland in regard to civil cases though I think the case of appeal in constitutional cases should be preserved. The right of appeal in ordinary cases has been restricted in Australia, I think there are only constitutional cases going from the courts of Australia to the Privy Council. It is a very heavy expense for a litigant to go before the Privy Council. He has to commence by putting up security for costs. In Quebec I think the security is $2,000. I am not sure what it is in Ontario but I think it is $1,000. That is only the preliminary. Then the litigant has to supply his counsel with funds to make the trip and when the counsel gets across he generally employs another counsel to speak before the Privy Council. I do not suppose that we could pass any legislation here to restrict the right of appeal, because any subject of His Majesty has the right to go to the foot of the Throne. If such legislation was passed, I suppose it w'ould have to be passed by the Imperial Parliament, but this Parliament could petition the Imperial Parliament to pass legislation with respect to the right of appeal in ordinary cases and to preserve it only in constitutional
cases. In criminal cases there is no appeal from the Court of Appeal of the province to the Supreme Court unless there is a disagreement in the Court of Appeal and there is no appeal to the Privy Council unless there has been disagreement among the judges of the Supreme Court. If a subject has less facility to appeal to the Privy Council in a criminal case I do not see why he should have more facility to appeal In a case of ordinary civil rights. I am in favour of retaining the right of appeal only in constitutional cases.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. member for
Welland (Mr. German) has raised a question that affords a very large field for interesting discussion and we have had some such discussion. I would like to point out a couple of things. In the first place, under the law as at present, there is no right of appeal from the judgment of the Supreme Court to the Privy Council. The provision is that there shall be no appeal to any *court constituted by the Imperial Parliament saving only any prerogative right of His Majesty. The wording is:
Saving any Tight which His _ Majesty may be graciously pleased to exercise by virtue of his royal prerogative.
So that, so far as our law is concerned, there is no appeal to the Privy Council as a matter of right from the judgment of the Supreme Court. The Act simply-


David Arthur Lafortune: There should be no
special leave.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There would arise in that, connection very grave questions for consideration. There is the question in the first place could we interfere with any right, His Majesty, in virtue of his prerogative, may be able to exercise, and in the second place, if we could do that, would it be advisable for us to undertake to do it? That matter was very seriously discussed at the time the Act itself was passed and the final result was as I have indicated. The second thing I would like to point out to relieve the apprehension of the hon. member for Rouville of the danger of our being subjected to a right of appeal to some court that may be established in Great Britain, is that our Act has expressly excluded any appeal of that kind to any court that might be constituted in the future; by the provisions of our^ Act such a court is excluded from exercising jurisdiction. The wording of the Act is:
The judgment of the court shall in all cases be final and conclusive and no appeal shall be brought from any judgment or order of the court to any court of appeal established by the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland by which appeals or petitions to His Majesty in Council may be ordered to be heard; saving any right which His Majesty



may be graciously pleased to exercise by virtue of his Royal prerogative.
So that so far as any court which the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland might constitute, we have now express provision on that there shall be no appeal to it and it would require legislation of the Parliament of Canada to grant such an appeal from the judgment of the Supreme Court. It is not in our power to abolish the right of appeal to His Majesty in his Privy Council in regard to appeals from provincial courts. We are in a position to say, and we have said that, saving his Majesty's prerogative, there shall be no appeal from the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada because we created that court and we have the right to determine the effect of its creation. But before there was any Supreme Court or any dominion there was a right of appeal from the final courts of appeal of a province to his Majesty in Council and that is a right of appeal, not a mere matter of going and asking leave, although leave may be granted in cases not specifically provided for under the law. But under the laws of the province there is an appeal from the final court of appeal of the province to His Majesty in his Privy Council; that we could not touch. Every litigant who goes to the Supreme Court makes his choice. He may go direct to his Majesty and not go to the Supreme Court at all or he may go to the Supreme Court, so it is not quite in our hands to determine whether there shall be, generally speaking, any appeal to His Majesty in his Privy Council. We have, so far as judgments of the Supreme Court are concerned, determined that there shall be no right of appeal and there is no right of appeal; but the Act saves any right which His Majesty may be pleased to exercise in virtue of his royal prerogative, so that there is an appeal only in so far as His Majesty, by royal prerogative, has a right to hear any appeal of any one of his subjects and an appeal only when he grants leave and chooses to exercise the right. It would involve a serious question whether we could legislate if we wanted to.


Edmond Proulx: Could the Imperial parliament legislate?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The Imperial parliament legislate to take away the prerogative of His Majesty? I think that any prerogative of His Majesty may disappear by legislation, always provided that His Majesty is a party to that legislation; and, as an abstract question, I believe that this Parliament would have power to legislate and to do away with that right or with that prerogative of His Majesty, because His Majesty is part of this Parliament. No law affecting his prerogative would take effect any more than any other law without his assent. But I also think it is
Mr. DOHERTY.
very probable that if we did pass a law, and it was assented to by the Governor General as representing His Majesty, a serious question would arise as to whether His Majesty might not be advised by the United Kingdom Government to disallow that Act, as it would be within his power to do. If I am not mistaken, I believe that that very question arose, and was discussed, at the time of the enactment of the Supreme Court Act. However all this is something with which we cannot deal in this Bill.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.



THE NATIONAL GALLERY.

[Stage Direction]
In motion of Hon. Robert Rogers (Minister of Public Works) House went into Committee on Bill No. 187, to incorporate the National Gallery of Canada. (Mr. Deputy Speaker in the Chair.)
On section 2-board of trustees:
Mr. GRAHAM:: The question under discussion at the time the committee rose was, if I remember correctly, as to the number to constitute the board. Then, there was in the next clause the question of real estate.


Mr. ROGERS:: I am proposing an amendment to be inserted as clause 4. It will read in this way:
The board shall be composed of not less than three and not more than five members.


Mr. MURPHY:: Why does the hon. minister restrict it to five?


Robert Rogers: Do you not think five
would be enough?


Charles Murphy: Possibly not. Personally, I think the board as at present composed is really a one-man board. It is domniated altogether by Sir Edmund Walker.


Robert Rogers: I think Senator Boyer
and Mr. Shepherd are both very good men.


Charles Murphy: I think you will find that I am right if you consult persons interested in art. For that reason I was going .to make the suggestion that the composition of the board be such that men like Sir William Van Horne or the president of the Royal Academy, or the rector of Laval University, and other people whom I could name, might, in course of time, become members. Unless there are very good reasons for restricting the number to five. I would suggest that the question be left open.


Robert Rogers: There must be some limit. It would be a very poor arrangement to have the number unlimited. I think we had better let it stand at five now, and we can change it next year if we think necessary.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Would the minister accept the suggestion made by the hon. member for East Simcoe (Mr. Bennett) that the gallery be open on Sunday? Since the suggestion was made, the press of the country has taken it up, and has viewed it very favourably. In fact, I have heard no dissenting voice I have read articles in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa papers, all favouring the suggestion that this National Gallery should be open on Sundays, as all the great art collections in Europe are.


Robert Rogers: Personally I entirely
agree with the proposition made by my hon. friend from Simcoe. The matter has not yet been considered, but, so far as my recommendation would go, I would be glad to support it.
Section 2 agreed to.
On section 3-objects and powers of board:


George Perry Graham: There was the question of real estate.


Robert Rogers: I wish to propose an
amendment in the third line from the last, that after the word ' other ' we add the word 'similar.' The clause would then read in this way:
The custody and preservation of the works of art contributed by members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts to the National Gallery under the statute in that behalf; the acquiring by purchase, lease, devise or otherwise, of pictures, statuary, works of art, and other similar property.
And then leave out the balance of the clause.


George Perry Graham: That will cover it.
Section, as amended, agreed .to.
On section 6-expenditure of moneys:


George Perry Graham: I suppose they would
come to Parliament each year and ask for the appropriation of a certain amount for the purposes of the board during that year?


Robert Rogers: Yes, there will be an
amount in the estimates.
Section agreed, to.
On section 8-annual report:


Rodolphe Lemieux: Would such a monument as the one the contract for which was awarded to Mr. Allward, of Toronto, come under the direct jurisdiction of this board ? I think the hon. Minister of Public Works looked after the expenditure of that money in the past.


Robert Rogers: We continue to do sc,
but we ask the board to select.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Has the monument to the memory of King Edward been submitted to the present board ?
311*


Robert Rogers: Yes, they made the
selection.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Some years ago we
gave a contract to Mr. Allward, who, I understand, is a very great sculptor, even a man of genius, for the monument to Baldwin and Lafontaine. Does the minister know what progress has been made with it?


Robert Rogers: It has never been brought to my attention.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Will the hon. minister inquire ?


Robert Rogers: Yes. The preamble of
this Bill states that the National Gallery was established in the year 1880, and, as there is a difference of opinion as to whether it was established in 1880 or 1882. I move that the date be stricken out.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Charles Murphy: I trust the minister
will consider my suggestion before the third reading as to increasing the number of members on this hoard to seven instead of five.


Robert Rogers: I do not object to that. I move that the Bill be amended by making the number seven.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Bill reported as amended; amendments concurred in, and Bill read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. Robert Rogers, the House went into Committee to consider the following proposed resolution:
Resolved, that it is expedient to ratify and confirm an agreement between the Western Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company, Limited, and His Majesty, dated the 9th day of November, 1910, respecting the construction of a dry-dock at the city of Port Arthur, in the province of Ontario, and to authorize the Governor in Council to pay an annual subsidy of three per cent per annum for twenty years upon the sum of $1,258,050, being the cost of the construction of the said dry-dock.
George Perry Graham: I understand that this
resolution is to confirm an agreement entered into in 1909 and is under the statute. I am content to have the resolution passed now, as the matter can be discussed on the second reading of the Bill.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Mr. ROGERS thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 206, to authorize the payment of a subsidy to the Western Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company Limited.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.
On motion of Mr. Rogers, House adjourned at 12.10 a.m. Wednesday.
[Stage Direction]


Wednesday, May 14, 1913.