1914-05-07

Mr. BORDEN:: I beg to lay on the table the following papers:
1. Copy of a trust mortgage of October 4, 1911, between the Canadian Northern Railway Company and the Guardian Trust Company, Limited, and the British Empire Trust Company, Limited, and Hi's Majesty the King and the Canadian Northern Railway Company;

2.	A statement setting forth a list of companies whose total issued stock is owned by the Canadian Northern Kailway Company;
3.	A statement setting forth a list of companies whose total issued stock is to be transferred to the Canadian Northern Railway Company;
4.	A statement setting forth a list of companies in which a controlling interest is to be transferred to the Canadian Northern Railway Company.
I beg also to lay on the table three copies of the second report of the auditors who were employed by the Government in making inquiries into certain affairs of the Canadian Northern Railway Company and other companies constituting the Canadian Northern Railway system.
There are also some (additional copies of papers already brought down which I place on .the table for the eoinvemianioe of members :
A. statement of the capital stock authorized and issued in the companies set out in the first schedule.
Also some additional copies of the engineers' .statement of the estimated cost of betterments.
Further copies of correspondence, including official application and detailed statement showing the particulars of capitalization, earnings and cost of building.
Two additional copies of the first auditors report which 1 _laid on the table yesterday.	_
Two	second auditors'
These
atic order,	__
see to it that they are placed Tn order.
the granting of aid to the Canadian Northern Railway system.



COMPANIES ACT AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. LOUIS CODERRE (Secretary of State) moved for leave to introduce Bill No.
177,	to amend the Companies Act. He said: This Bill is designed to provide certain
amendments to the Companies' Act which are considered to bo necessary Section 2 provides that companies incorporated under the Companies Act shall be entitled to issue share warrants and section 3 provides that companies shall be authorized to permit the issue of debentures and debenture stock to the amount of $100. It has been suggested to the Department by a number of persons interested in obtaining money from Europe foT investment in Canadian enterprises that laTgeT sums for investment may be obtained if authority is given to issue debentures in smaller amounts. It is also provided that companies shall have the power to re-issue debentures. These are the main features of the proposed amendments to the Companies Act.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice) moved for leave to introduce Bill No.
178,	to -amend the Prisons and Reformatories Act. He said:
The purpose of this Bill is simply to substitute the word ' Truro ' for the word ' Halifax ' in order properly to indicate the location of the Nova Scotia reformatory, which has been changed from Halifax to Truro.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Does this complete the information that the Government is to bring down with regard to this matter, or is there something yet to be brought down?


Robert Laird Borden: My (right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) alluded to a trust deed of December 28, 1913. I cannot get information as to that.
I also lay upon the table of the House the correspondence to which I alluded a moment ago, consisting of a telegram from the Premier of Nova Scotia, a telegram from the Premier of British Columbia, a cablegram from the Premier of Alberta and a letter from the acting Premier of Saskatchewan-all in regard to


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 179, to amend the Criminal Code. He said: The purpose of this Bill is to constitute it an offence, and subject to a penalty, knowingly to publish or cause to be published any advertisement for promoting the disposal or sale of property of any kind, containing any false statement. It has been represented that there have come into existence very wide-spread abuses in connection with the advertising of properties for sale, more particularly with regard to the advertising for sale of real property.
[Stage Direction]
The Act, of course, does not purport to go further than to make it an offence for a person knowingly to make a statement representing something to be a fact which is not a fact.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

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

Mr. MACNUTT:: 1.	Referring to question No. 9 on Thursday, April 30, who were the others mentioned in paragraph 2 of the answer as made by the Postmaster General?
2.	What action has the Department of Public Works taken or proposes to take, and what reply has been made to communications on the same subject referred to that department?


Mr. ROGERS:: No requests nor petitions received direct by the Department of Public Works. No action will be taken, at least for the present.


QUEBEC HARBOUR APPLIANCES. '
Mr. LEMIEUX:: What was the difference between the lowest Canadian tenders and the lowest British tenders for each of the following appliances purchased abroad for the Quebec Harbour Commission, namely: the crane, the dredge, floating grain elevator and service boat?


Mr. HAZEN:: (a)	British tender was $16,533 lower than Canadian for the Crane.
(b)	No Canadian firms were invited to tender for this dredge.
(c)	For the floating grain elevator offers
were only received for the elevating machinery. No Canadian tenders for the plant.	,
(d)	For the service boat no suitable offers were received from Canadian firms, only second-hand boats being offered.


POINTE FORTUNE WHARF.
[Stage Direction]
6. Who supplied the material and what is the amount and the nature of their accounts respectively?
Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	In 1912-1913,	$244.79; in 1913-1914,
$996.94; $1,241.73.
2.	Day's labour.
3.	Under supervision of district engineer Michaud.
4.	George Lalonde: 1912-1913, 18 days at $3, $54; 1913-1914, 26 days at $3, $78; $132.
5.	1912-1914: Edmond D. iSeguin, carpenter, 18 days at $2, $36; Alfred Dubois, carpenter, 17 days at $2, $34; J. B. Campeau, labourer, 9 days at $1.50, $13.50; Omer Lalonde, carter, 9 days at $2.50, $22.50; $106.
1913-1914: Joseph Champagne, carpenter, 26 days at $2.50, $65; O. Campeau, 25 days at $2.50, $62.50; A. Bertrand, 17 days at $2.50, $42.50; O. Roy, 25 days at $2.50, $62.50; M. Roy, 20 days at $2.50, $50; A. Gauthier, 13 days at $2.25,	$29.25; E.
Lauzon, 24 days at $2, $48; J. Fournier, 22 days at $2, $44; L. Gilardeau, 10 days at'$2, $20; M. Desormeau, 11 days at $2. $22: D. Campeau, labourer, 24 days at $1.50, $36;
O.	Boileau, labourer, 13 days at $1.50, $19.50; $501.25.
6.	1912-1913: The Grier Timber Company, lumber, $11.44; the Ottawa River Navigation Company, freight charges, $4; Alphonse Dugas, smithwork, $3.85; George Lalonde, sr., hardware, $6; George Dansereau, lumber, $59.50; $84.79.
1913-1914: T. Huinsley, stone, $44.25; B. Fournier cartage^^j^^hoase Dugas,
'* ' >ork, V	1i:i >
* 1 v. a re
'[DOT] [DOT]- jM	:\ I.-I;
ber,


VICTORIA RIFLE RANGE.
Mr. SINCLAIR:: 1.	Is the Government constructing a rifle range in the vicinity of Victoria, B.C. ?
2.	If so, what is the area of the land acquired for the purpose and what sum was paid for it.
3.	From whom was it purchased, and when?


*Mr. BOYER:: 1.	What total sum has been spent for the repairing of Pointe Fortune wharf?
2.	Who had the contract for that work?
3.	Who supervised the work?
4.	What was the foreman's salary and the number of work days and the total amount paid to him?
5.	What are the names, the number of days and the amount paid each of the other men who have worked in the repairing, together with the names of the carters and the daily salary of each of them?

Mr. SAM. HUGHES:
1.	It is proposed to construct a new rifle range in the vicinity of Victoria, B.C., and land has been cleared preparatory to commencing construction.
2.	442-28 acres have to date been acquired for the sum of $101,423 (including interest charges amounting to $3,451).
3.	Ronald A. C. Grant, Arthur Lineham and Eleanor Lineham. Property purchased February 26, 1913.


VANCOUVER ISLAND ENGINEER.
Mr. SINCLAIR:: 1.	Is J. S. Maclachlan resident engineer for
the Public Works Department on Vancouver Island?	,,
2.	If so, what is his salary? If not, when [DOT]did he cease to act in that capacity, and what is his present position?
3.	Is Mr. Garnet Hughes in the service of the Government on Vancouver Island?
4.	If so, what is his position, and what is his salary?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	No.	.
2.	$3,000 a year; 9th April, 1914, was appointed resident engineer on Victoria harbour works.
3.	Yes.
4.	District engineer for Vancouver Island, salary $3,000 a year.


SHIPPING ACCIDENT AT QUEBEC.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Mr. MARCIL:: The Minister of Marine will pardon me if I call his attention to the accident that happened to the steamer Saturnia in the harbour of Quebec. I have a letter from an old acquaintance, David Taylor, the master in charge of the ship at the time. He has been in charge of steamers coming to the St. Lawrence for twenty-one years. He says in his letter that there was no lightship or buoys placed in position to mark the channel, as is customary. I merely mention this fact to follow up the question put by the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) in connection with the investigation into the wreck, hoping that no injustice will be done to Captain Taylor.


John Douglas Hazen: The investigation has been held by the Wreck Commissioner assisted by two nautical assessors. I expect the report will be filed to-morrow. In the meantime, I understand from my deputy minister that the opinion ojf Captain Lindsay and the nautical assessors is that the fact that the lightship at the Traverse was not in position was not in any way a factor in the accident which occurred.


Charles Marcil: The boat at the time was in charge of a duly licensed pilot, Jules Lachance.


John Douglas Hazen: In view of the interest which has been aroused by this accident, a question having previously been asked by the hon. member for Rouville, as soon as the judgment of the Wreck Commissioner's Court reaches me I shall lay it on the table of the House.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply. Mir. Blondin in the Chair.
Hon. SAM. HUGHES (Minister of Militia and Defence): It has been my privilege on two previous occasions to submit in advance to the members of the House a detailed statement in connection with the Militia Estimates. In accordance wtih my practice on two previous occasions about a week ago I sent every member of the House a detailed explanation of these Estimates, giving particulars as far as possible. I feel that it is only courteous to do so. The charge has been made in times gone by, that the Militia Estimates have been held up to the last days of the session and then rushed through without any notice being given. I am a little nervous in presenting these Estimates-
['That proves nothing. I believe that in Woodstock they might have been willing to give a site to have a $40,000 or $50,000 drill-hall built there. Cities and towns want expensive buildings erected in their localities. That is why this is supposed to be such a drawing card for the Government and their supporters. Instead of erecting a $10,000 or $12,000 drill-hall they put up buildings costing $100,000, $150,12 p.m. 000, $200,000 and $300,000 in various places. I do not wonder that when they provide buildings of that kind municipalities offer free sites. The site may have cost the municipality nothing. When the armouries are built in some of these places the minister will find a great difficulty in forming corps to fill them. In many instances it will be absolutely impossible for him to find corps to occupy these armouries. Then, it is absolutely absurd to talk about turning these armouries into pleasure resorts. Why should the Government spend money in erecting armouries to be used as pleasure resorts? The minister talks about keeping the boys\n\nand girls off the streets and away from the movies. That is worse than absurd. If my hon. friend will come to Woodstock as my guest, I will go down, the street with him on [Saturday night and he will see how many boys and girls there are at the armouries and how many at the movies. I will bet him a box of good cigars that he will not have much trouble in counting them at the armoury while he will have a lot of trouble in counting them on the street coming out of the movies. My bon. friend talks about teaching the boys and girls manners. That is all tommy-rot, or, as the Indian says, walla walla. My hon. friend is all right as long a3 he keeps himself under reasonable control. I believe that the people will be with him as long as he controls his vast enthusiasm on this question, comes down here with a common sense proposition and does for the people what is necessary with regard to militia affairs and nothing more.\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Mr. Borden, the House adjourned at 12.03 a.m. Friday.\nFriday, May 8, 1914.']
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Mr. HUGHES:: -owing to the fact that we are drawing near to the end of a century of peace between Canada and the United States. The columns of the press, and the atmosphere generally, is so full of platitudes about peace that the poor (fellow who wishes to keep up the militia is regarded as almost a blood-thirsty mortal who is not entitled to any consideration. However, I have more or less confidence! when I review the first few years of this great century of peace. I find, despite the cry of peace, of which we hear so much to-day, that the first thirteen years of this century have witnessed appalling wars: the South African waT; the Phillipine war; the Cuban war; the Russo-Japanese war; the Turko-Italian war; the Moroccan-French war: the Somaliland war; the Balkan-BulgaTian-Servian-Greek war; the Mexican war; the German South West African war; and the wars in China, Tibet and of the United States in Cuba, and now the war of the United States in Mexico.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Do not forget the Ulster war.


James Joseph Hughes: It is not on yet. My
hon. friend from Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) will doubtless watch with interest, and from a long range, the Ulster war when it comes on. I might point out to the hon. member that the Ulster men are of the same class as those who followed Stonewall Jackson-


Mr. DEVLIN:: Down in Virginia?


James Joseph Hughes: Yes, down in Virginia.
And if hon. gentlemen want to form an

opinion as to how the Ulster men will fight, let them read the record of Stonewall Jackson's division in the American Civil war. A strange incident recently occurred in connection with the Mexican war. In this country we have been more or less interested in the peace agitation. It was only a few years ago that we had some distinguished Americans, accompanied by distinguished Canadians, occupying the pulpits and platforms of the country preaching peace on the eve	of an	election, the objectevidently being to further the question	of free	trade between Canada
and the United States. This peace organization of the United States is the only institution I know of that has endorsed the incipient war of the United States on Mexico. Before the very first shot was fired this organization forgot its principles, and, in place of imploring the Government to hold its hand and to submit the matter to arbitration, they immediately wired President Wilson as follows:
Our league is an ardent peace organization, but not of the ' peace at any price ' kind.
Of course, the peace at any price kind would involve some great national principle, having for its object the uplifting of humanity; and I presume the question as to who fired the first salute would constitute a casus belli worthy of the endorsation of this great peace organization.
Turning to our own border, I do not think there is any great evidence of the human mind being in a position to guarantee perpetual peace in Canada. In this House we occasionally have illustrations that the human mind is not so disciplined, even amongst gentlemen who are supposed to be the highest in the land, as to guarantee internal peace. I have not the slightest doubt that some hon. gentlemen opposite will have the hardihood to even criticise my Estimates when they come up. Let us look for a moment at our courts of law and the convictions made in the Dominion of Canada. In 1911-12 alone, 113,260 persons in the Dominion of Canada were convicted in the courts of this country. The cost of the administration of justice in Canada the year before last-last year's figures have not yet been published -was a little in advance of the cost of the whole militia. The cost of administering justice in Canada in 1911-12 was $9,420,000, which is slightly in excess of the cost of the militia of the whole country. The customs and excise returns show that the [Mr. Sam. Hughes. I
customs duties on liquors in 1912-13 amounted to $9,270,600, and the excise duties, $11,488,104, or a total of $20,758,704. On tobaccos, customs duties amounted to $1,551,109, and the excise duties to $9,794,450, or a total of $11,345,559; making a grand total for liquors and tobaccos of $32,104,263. I do not necessarily imply that these breed criminals, but such figures are generally considered a fair indication, of the moral standard of a community. I might refer to strikes. It is no use disguising the fact that a strike is an incipient civil war. Strikes have happened in every part of the country, and troops have had to be turned out to preserve order. At the present time the troops are still under arms in British Columbia in order to preserve law and order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: That is a fine state of things under Tory rule.


James Joseph Hughes: I want my good friend
to observe that law and order are preserved under Tory rule. However, Sir, iliet uis hope, in regard to this century, ' a bad beginning may bring a good ending.' The ground must be prepared for peace, as an Irishman once said, as well as for potatoes.	You must lay the foundation deep and strong in the hearts and intellects not only of one community, but in all communities, in order to preserve peace. That condition of affairs has not been reached in any country, much less in our country. That is a condition, as Robbie Burns said, that involves two parties:
Nae mon can be at peace unless his neighbour let him.
The condition involves education, culture, gentleness, firmness, self-control, obedience -that is the power or capacity to obey- control or power to command others, responsibility and individuality. These have been defined as the triumph through wisdom and reason of sound principles of human government. Peace is also a condition brought about by the knowledge on the part of those concerned that each party comes of a race who are careful to know and value sacred rights, who will seek every honourable means of settling differences, but who, in case an opponent should be determined to be domineering, unjust, dishonourable or repressive, would know how to defend the honour of home, of loved ones and country, and who, in defence of those sacred heritages, would willingly sacrifice each his own life. The essentials, therefore, of peace are discipline on the part of the

people; training in self-defence; manoeuvring, shooting straight, withstanding fatigue, privations, etc.; stout hearts and stubborn wills; preparedness, arms, equipment, stores, etc. The great peace advocate, who heroically passed away on that awful night amid the icy waters, on the Titantic, Mr. W. T. Stead, said:
When a nation shall have reached the point where every citizen feels it is his duty and privilege to he trained for the defence of the fatherland, it will become a greater, a saner and more efficient people.
That is the aim and object which I have in view, and my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, I believe, holds similar views. Another prominent writer, Major Stewart L. Murray, said:
A great power cannot escape adequate payment for national defence. It Is not a matter of what we choose to pay. It Is a matter of what we must pay, even in the form of adequate preparation for victory; or later in the form of a war indemnity for defeat.
The country that is overrun or invaded is the country that suffers. While a country that is invaded and devastated undoubtedly suffers much, it is on the other hand an historical fact that it is the country which has not been invaded which eventually comes to the front. I might point out in that regard, to meet the arguments that aTe sometimes advanced, that the gTeat upheavals in literary effort and production <and intellectual development have invariably followed great wars by which, although the invaded countries have been practically ruined for the time being, yet aJll have risen thereafter to hitherto undreamed of heights of literary and intellectual splendour, as instance the Augustan age, the Renaissance, the Elizabethan period and the Reformation. These periods of intellectual activity followed closely upon great wars. Mr. Harold F. Wyatt says:
The discovery that Christianity is incompatible with military spirit is made only among decaying peoples. While a nation is still vigorous, while its population is still expanding, while the blood in its veins is strong, then on this head no scruples are felt. But when its energies begin to wither, wlien self-indulgence takes the place of self-sacrifice, when its sons and daughters become degenerate, then it is that a spurious and bastard humanitarianism masqueradiiig as religion declares war to he an anachronism and a barbarous sin.
Lord Roberts, on the same lines, says:
The dramatic three weeks' campaign which ended in the complete collapse of the Turkish army shows, with a ruthless logic, the effect of apathy and unpreparedness. . . The ghastly accounts of the slaughter that has transformed
Albania into a shambles should surely bring home to us what war in a country may mean to that country. . . The . clays of muddling through a war . . . are over. Bet me implore you, as a soldier of more than fifty years' service, who knows what war was and what it is now, not to be led away by any such dangerous beliefs.
Instance after instance might he quoted to show that countries that have progressed and pr ispered are countries that have ibeen visited by war. The great Maehia-velli said:
All the armed prophets have conquered; all the unarmed have perished.
We have Eliza Cook saying:
Never trust the soft breathing that preaches of Peace.
With a pledge-giving lip and a smile-lighted eye-
Hear it all with good will, but he provident still-*
With men that are earnest and pbwder that's dry.
The German Chancellor recently said:
As long as men are men and States are States, the question of limiting armaments will remain insoluble.
Therefore, I am sorry that I have to fall in with the ranks of those who believe that universal peace is yet far off, and that wars wiir continue to devastate, and that just as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so eternal readiness to defend loved ones, home and country, is the price of peace. Ex-President Roosevelt has been more or less laughed at, but nevertheless the old gentleman keeps up his pace through the world and keeps his hat on his head fairly well in spite of the sneers and criticisms of minor intellects. Mr. Roosevelt has been recently oil a trip to South America and he has pointed out that the only two countries where he found anything like a stable form of civilized or constitutional government are Argentina and Chile. He attributes that entirely to the fact that these, two peoples have fairly respectable militia systems and are trained in self-control and self-development. In case of war, the farmers and shippers of this country would lose more in a month than preparedness for war would cost them in a generation. 'My hon. friend (Mr. Devlin) has pointed out the fact that I went on a junket to Virginia recently. I did take a junket through Virginia.


An hon. MEMBER:: How did you find
it?


James Joseph Hughes: I liked it very well, and I would recommend my hon. friend to go. Let me point out that Virginia was the scene of many battles in the great American Civil War, and that while the portions of the country that were actually devastated, where houses were burned and farms destroyed, have not yet recovered their former status, all those parts of the country that were not actually invaded, long, long ago recovered; in fact, their recovery was almost immediate. I read a letter in this House once from a former Canadian resident in New York, pointing out the imperative need of the people of this country being ready to repel any invasion coming from whatever quarter it might, and I agree that it is our duty to maintain such a state of preparedness.
Civilization depends on liberty. There can be no civilization without liberty, no liberty without law and order, no law and order without power-[DOT]


Rodolphe Lemieux: Powder.


James Joseph Hughes: 
Mr. CARVELL:: The Ross rifle.


James Joseph Hughes: Yes. I believe my predecessor would even have 4 p.m. endorsed the bounty to the Nova Scotia veterans.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have my doubts.


James Joseph Hughes: My hon. friend will
excuse me for touching a tender spot. The memories of last night seem still too fresh. These cadet corps were organized on ,a small scale; they were not systematized. We are now endeavouring to systematize them throughout the length and breadth of the country. During the last year we have drilled, equipped and inspected 44,680 cadets, of whom it is estimated that upwards of 30,000 are sixteen years of age and upwards. When I point out that many of the men who fought in the ranks at Alma, especially in the Welsh regiments who fought at Waterloo, who fought during the American war, were sixteen years of age and upwards-Wolfe himself was only .fifteen when he entered the army-it will be seen that boys of sixteen years of age and upwards make very good soldiers, and it will be realized what an asset these cadets are for the defence of the Dominion of Canada. Any commercial traveller in Canada will tell you pretty accurately what towns have cadet corps by the manhood, straightforward, cleanly bearing of the young boys and young ladies in those towns. I have no hesitation in saying that I aspire to raise the character of these boys and girls throughout this Dominion.


Charles Marcil: What about the province of Quebec?


James Joseph Hughes: In the province of Quebec, that everybody is afraid to touch even with a pair of tongs,, we have 16,320 cadets trained in the secondary schools and colleges and senior primary schools. I, a fire-eating Orangeman, inspected 4,800 French-Canadian boys in the city of Montreal, and there were 160 priests there also. These boys are a credit to any country ; and it is my purpose, if I can get away, to go down to Montreal on Saturday with brother John and watch him review 500 boys in one institution there. If any of my hon. friends come along with me, they will see four battalions of cadets in Mont St. Louis college fit to take the field to-morrow and to handle rifles with any ordinary regiment. In addition to this we have trained 12,000 teachers during the last year or two. Our object in training these teachers is that they may take their classes and train them in squad drill. I have seen 1,800 children of five years and upwards, come out of a school and march around, forming two deep and four deep, and scarcely a child out of step. These have all been trained by lady teachers. We believe in training people when they are young, because no man can become a good base-ball player or cricket player or lacrosse player unless he learns the game when he is a boy. When he is grown up, he has not the activity and suppleness of the muscles necessary for the development of perfection in the science. We have a large number of trained teachers in every large centre in Canada to-day; they train the teachers in the schools who in turn train the children, and thus the *country is saved a great deal of expense in not having to send instructors to these places. Since I have assumed office 12,000 have taken cadet certificates, and 17,000 officers and teachers in Canada have been given military certificates. It is unnecessary for me to go into the details. Our instructional staff now numbers 251 persons.
Now, coming to the question of drill-halls It is true we have indulged in the construction of these buildings, and criticism has been made, some kindly and some unkindly. But let me remind hon. members of what Barnum once said-that he spent 375,000 in publishing condemnations of his own show and $750,000 in positively advertising it. And he said: I get ten times the value from the $75,000 than I do from the $750,000, for the condemnation is widely copied and is discussed everywhere, but the advertisement is just the same for nobody pays a particle of attention to the adverse criticism. So, in this drill-hall business, adverse and even unkind criticism only helps the popularity of this policy. Not' more than a thousand years ago certain gentlemen in a political campaign indulged in criticisms of drill-halls, but since the people have had time to settle down to an understanding of the situation the public generally, including the farmers, are becoming strongly

favourable to this policy of drill-halls. Six weeks ago I had a deputation of eighty-five representatives from a town in a farming locality, many of them farmers, asking for a drill-hall. I asked one of these farmers: Why are you interested in this? And he said:	I have my son to think of; why
should he grow up without the opportunity for physical development and training that is afforded to the boys in the towns? Why should not we have some place for Saturdays or week evenings to which our boys could go for drill under the direction of your drill instructor? I want to tell this House and the community at large that in the Militia Department we have applications for over a thousand drill-halls, and we can only supply twenty-five of them this year.


Charles Marcil: Are these drill-halls for
the general use of the community?
, Mr. HUGHES: I am glad my hon. friend mentioned that point. The policy is to have them primarily for the use of the militia and cadet corps, but they are there for the use of any other organization that wants them for similar purposes. They can be thrown open also for any town gathering where there is no hall-any philanthropic or patriotic meeting, any meeting of a farmers' association and other gatherings of that kind as a friend near me suggests they are there for any laudable public use.


Charles Marcil: Are they given free?


James Joseph Hughes: So far as we are concerned, they are always given free. But I suppose there is a local charge for cleaning them up and that kind of thing.


Charles Marcil: The hon. minister should have no difficulty in finding places to accept drill halls all over the country, on those conditions.


James Joseph Hughes: That is what I want to do if I can get the' money. And I am coming to that in a minute-I will show my hon. friend how we are going to get that money. An hon. gentleman near me asks if these drill halls aie allowed to be used for political purposes. I say, certainly- let them be used by either party. Suppose that in a town there is no suitable ball and this is visited by an ex-minister of the Crown or a member of Parliament who is to deliver an address, why should not he speak in the drill hall? If my hon. friend from Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) comes to my town, for instance, to address the free and independent electors there, he will find the drill hall available for his use.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I might get one of the
hon. minister's automobiles, too.


James Joseph Hughes: I should be glad to give the hon. gentleman a ride in mine. But the automobiles of the Militia Department are such cheap ones-$550 and $750-that a gentleman of his position, one accustomed to the $6,000 and $8,000 automobiles, would find it rather beneath his dignity, I fear, to ride in one of ours. The one in which he stuck in the Modder river and where he waived his hand and said: Get out you men from other colonies and pull me out, was one of the high price kind, I assume, so he would hardly be satisfied with the seven hundred dollar automobile which the Minister of Militia is content to use.
Let me point out that since Confederation in Canada, drill halls have cost the tremendous sum of $4,900,000 all told. In the fifty years, almost, of the Canadian Confederation, the whole cost of drill halls has been less than $5,000,000. Why, Toronto alone, one city, is putting in new schools this year to the amount of $3,000,000, and Canada, throughout its whole territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the course of forty years has spent less than $5,000,000 on drill halls.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Does not the hon. minister think that schools are better than drill halls?


James Joseph Hughes: Both are necessary; the drill hall is the secondary and continuation school for the public school of the village. Go into any town in Canada, and what do you find? You find boys and girls running the streets uncontrolled, and going into these nickel shows-what do they call them?


An hon. MEMBER:: Movies.


James Joseph Hughes: I say the boys and girls are running the streets uncontrolled. But ask my hon. friend from East Lambton (Mr. Armstrong), ask any of these hon. gentlemen who has a drill hall erected in his place where the caretaker has been long enough employed to get the work going, and you will find that they have a cadet corps which the boys join with enthusiasm and have an opportunity for development in gymnastics and physical drill. These drill halls become the centres for the whole community.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I may tell the hon.
minister that in my town even the band is not allowed to get in the drill hall. They

have to fight the minister to get even room there.	1


James Joseph Hughes: I did not erect the drill hall there.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: But you are in control
of it now.


James Joseph Hughes: Yes, and this summer I intend to devote some attention to that part of the world, which seems to have gone tother end around; I do not know why, whether it is the effect of the ruling genius there or not. I am going to visit it this summer, and I will ask my hon. friend to help me-he is not half a bad fellow if you can keep him cool.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: You will revise many of your ideals when you get there.


James Joseph Hughes: Oh, I have met 'harder shells ' than my hon. friend. I have been a great hand to win representatives of the people to a right mind of thinking, and I do not doubt that I shall be able to bring him around, and we shall be able to agree about that drill hall.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The first thing is to get rid of your caretaker.


James Joseph Hughes: I am going to talk about the caretaker, too. I intend that the caretakers shall be men who can instruct and look after the affairs of the drill halls properly. He is not the only one who will go if found unfitted for these duties, and this regardless of party. I have stated that the amount spent by Canada on drill halls since Confederation was $4,900,000. Between June, 1896, and October 1911, the period of office of hon. gentlemen opposite, there were erected drill halls at a cost of $2,974,000. So, the Liberal party saw the need of drill halls; the difficulty was that they did not develop along the right lines and push the system to a more successful conclusion.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How many years was
that?


James Joseph Hughes: Let the hon. gentleman
subtract 1896 from 1911, and he will have it. Perhaps the hon. gentleman on his right {Mr. Marcil), will help him on that question of subtraction. Now, since 1911, the Conservative party have constructed fifty drill halls, and spent upon them $2,367,000.
An hon., MEMBER: Not bad.


James Joseph Hughes: I am sorry it is not much more, but we are doing our best. Now, look across the border; and take the state of New York which has a population about 215
equal to that of the Dominion of Canada. But instead of having 100,000 trained people, they have only 16,000. Their method over there is that the Adjutant General and other officers of the State hold a meeting to decide whether a drill hall in a certain place is necessary and they order that a building costing a certain amount and of a certain capacity shall be erected. In New York state alone they have spent $40,000,000 on drill halls and $10,000,000 on equipment, $50,000,000, or ten times as much as is invested in drill-halls in the whole of the Dominion of Canada. So ardent are the people of this country to have their children drilled in these drill-halls and to have the opportunity of using the halls for philanthropic and other gatherings, and that in hundreds of instances we are offered free sites. The city of Edmonton has given us an entire square. The 'hon. member for Mobsejaw (Mr. Knowles) knows what a splendid site his city has contributed. The hon. gentleman has recommended a fairly good caretaker, although he is a Grit, and, crime of crimes, he has had the audacity and the hardihood to recommend an honorary colonel.


Mr. KNOWLES:: I did not recommend
an honorary colonel.


James Joseph Hughes: The hon. gentleman himself spoke to me about it, and gave me all the details.


William Erskine Knowles: The minister sent a man named Colonel Williams, who is connected with the Militia Department, to see me. He said he was instructed by the Minister of Militia to introduce himself to me, and he asked my views on the suitability of this gentleman as an honorary colonel. I was pleased to speak very highly of the gentleman whom the hon. minister's officer in command had recommended.


James Joseph Hughes: The hon. gentleman will remember that he spoke to me about this matter one day in the corridor.


William Erskine Knowles: That is correct, but I did not recommend the gentleman in question.


James Joseph Hughes: All right, if the hon. gentleman repudiates it.


William Erskine Knowles: I repudiate nothing but the minister's incorrect statement.


James Joseph Hughes: The minister has made no incorrect statement. I say that in the corridor the hon. member for Moosejaw spoke to me and asked me to appoint this gentleman.


William Erskine Knowles: I said that I did not. The minister initiated the conversation in the corridor.


James Joseph Hughes: Is the hon. gentleman rising to a point of order?


William Erskine Knowles: No, a question of privilege.
Mr. HUGHE'S: Then, I shall not make way.


William Erskine Knowles: Well, ,a point of order,
then.


James Joseph Hughes: Very well, I'll make way.


William Erskine Knowles: I wish to state what did occur in the corridor. At that time I mentioned to the minister . that his officer commanding had, many months ago, so I was informed, made a recommendation under the instructions of his superior and the minister, and I said that the fact that nothing was being done was occasioning a good deal of comment. The minister then asked me about the qualifications of the gentleman, and I told him that he was worthy of the position. The minister later asked Mr. ETratt, president of the 'Conservative Association for the province of Saskatchewan, if Hitchcock was a good man, and Mr. Erratt confirmed what I had said about him.


James Joseph Hughes: The hon. member merely confirms what I have said; he came to me and gave me the information I did not ask for it.
Although the caretakers appointed in the past have been, generally speaking, good men, they have not been capable in all cases of drilling the youths of the villages and towns; in other words, they have not been in all respects suited for the position. It i's our intention to appoint only men who are capable of drilling the youths of the country, and it is our hopethat within a year we will have a good system in vogue in that regard.
The cost of these drill-halls has been much criticised. Let me point out that the cost of each mile of the Transconti1-nental railway would build ten drill-halls; in other words, we could have had one drill-hall every 170 yards from the Atlantic to the Pacific if- we had put into drill-halls

the money spent upon the National Transcontinental railway. I am not saying that this would be a good expenditure of money, but, if properly distributed throughout the country, a few drill-halls built with some of this money would have done' no harm. The money spent upon the Newmarket canal would have built 100 splendid drill-halls. The expenditure upon useless dredging, useless wharfs and useless breakwaters would have built at least 1,500 drill-halls. AH I want to build this year is 50 drill-halls. The cost of the Quebec bridge would represent fully 1,000 drill-halls. Even the sawdust wharf would represent * two, and the late lamented technical commission would represent ten.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What about the Fort
Frances post office site?


James Joseph Hughes: That is not in my line. The Fort Frances locks expenditure would have built eighteen or twenty drill-halls, and the Logan's farm and St. Helen's Island deal would build and maintain all the drill-halls and rifle ranges that Canada will require for the next 100 years. The expenditure upon the Toronto exhibition grounds would provide forty or fifty of the best-drill halls and fully 200 of the middle-class drill-halls. The land that has been alienated from the Militia Department in Quebec alone would represent at least 600 drill-halls. Some of my friends are perhaps, not aware that St. Helen's island, that beautiful historic spot in the St. Lawrence opposite the city of Montreal, was handed over to that city for $200,000, whereas 117 acres, Lafontaine park, was handed over to the city of Montreal and not a dollar of revenue, except one dollar a year, came to the Dominion Treasury from it.


Charles Marcil: Is it not true that both of these properties have been applied to the very best purposes, that is, public parks for the women and children of the city?


James Joseph Hughes: Then let Montreal buy her parks the same as the town of Lindsay buys her parks. The Militia Department of Canada is not going to buy parks for the people of Montreal or Toronto or any other place; and although the Militia Department handed over to the city of Montreal Lafontaine park, nominally that it might be used for park purposes, the city of Montreal, until I brought them to time, hesitated to allow the militia of Montreal,

their own citizens, to drill on Fletcher's field.
Mr. MARCH.:	The opinion prevails in
Montreal that both these parks are used for the best purpose.


James Joseph Hughes: I have no doubt. I do not know of any grafting institution anywhere that would not accept anything when it could get it for nothing, when it could get it on a sideshow and rob the Militia Department of it, and then use us as though we were mendicants.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: You have to go fifteen
miles out of the city to get your barracks.


James Joseph Hughes: Twelve miles. My
hon. friend, with his characteristic persistence, is wrong again. These same properties in Montreal would build one thousand drill-halls of regimental size and five thousand five hundred of medium size; and all that Canada will want for the next five years will be fifteen hundred.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What about the decision of the minister as to the rifle range in Ottawa?


James Joseph Hughes: It is generally known, especially to the militia men, that the old ranges at Rockliffe are inadequate. They were inadequate in my predecessor's time. He was doing his best to meet the difficulty, but the growth was very great; he had a plan to enlarge the ranges although he could not enlarge them sufficiently. So when I came into office I immediately took the matter up with the riflemen of the community and we have secured ranges west of the city.


Rodolphe Lemieux: From whom?


James Joseph Hughes: From the farmers, I do not know who they are.


Mr. GERMAN:: What is the matter with the Rockliffe ranges?


James Joseph Hughes: The Rockcliffe rifle
range has an area of 445 acres. It was nearly seven miles from the centre of the city of Ottawa. We could get only sixty-nine targets there, and in order to carry on the Dominion of Canada matches we had to begin shooting early in the morning, before the mists had risen from the ground and continue until late at night, until almost sunset, so that the men shooting early and late had no show. Moreover, in case of a rainstorm the matches had to be abandoned.


William Manley German: They can get the full distance?


James Joseph Hughes: Yes, 1,000 yards, a
short range.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The Rockliffe ranges are not seven miles from the post office.


James Joseph Hughes: I am taking from Dun-donald park, the centre of population. It is about seven miles from Dundonald park to Rockliffe range.


Mr. MURPHY:: Early in the session the hon. member answered a question, and said that the Connaught range was twelve miles by the travelled road.


James Joseph Hughes: From the post office.


Charles Murphy: There is not a mile difference from the post office to Dundonald park.


James Joseph Hughes: That makes two miles.


Charles Murphy: It might make five for the minister, but for an ordinary man it would not make more than one.


James Joseph Hughes: If we add one mile to the five and take it off the other, it just makes two miles difference. The Connaught rifle range is situated in the township of South March, a few miles beyond Britannia. The area is 2,662 acres. It is ten miles from Dundonald park by road, and a little less by rail. We will have 528 targets when it is completed, and I may say that thus far we have expended $224,000 on the property.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How much did you pay for the site?


James Joseph Hughes: 


William Manley German: How many targets are there at Rockliffe?


James Joseph Hughes: There are sixty -nine.
The present value of the property at Rockliffe is estimated at $1,350,000, and some estimate it as high as $1,750,000; so that it is a transfer of accounts.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is the Rockliffe range for sale?


James Joseph Hughes: It has not been considered by the Cabinet at all.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Does the minister know how many farms there are in the Connaught range?


James Joseph Hughes: No; but I shall get the information. The Connaught ranges will cost, all told, upwards of $500,000.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is there a townsite near the Connaught range?


James Joseph Hughes: No.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What is the nearest town?


James Joseph Hughes: I think Britannia is not far away.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Is not Britannia about twelve miles from that Connaught range?


James Joseph Hughes: Oh, no; about three miles air line, or four miles by road.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How far is it from Borden City ?


James Joseph Hughes: I do not know.


Rodolphe Lemieux: That is the new town-site ?


James Joseph Hughes: That is a new town. It could not be better named.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I do not object to the name.


James Joseph Hughes: This is a transfer of accounts. Supposing we had wished to keep the money out of the Estimates-although we are not doing it, we voted it-and had sold the present Rockliffe range and followed the very proper custom of my predecessor and the right hon. leader of the Opposition by placing this money to the credit of the Militia Department for construction of this range, we would have been able to construct three ranges, or at least two and a half, out of the money which we would have received from the sale of the Rockliffe rifle range.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How much ?


James Joseph Hughes: I have been asked if I would take 31,350,000 for it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: From whom ?


James Joseph Hughes: I am not going to
say. Perhaps the hon. gentleman would like to know the colour of his hair.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I do not think that is a proper answer from the minister. He says he has had an offer for the sale of the Rockliffe range. I want to know from whom.


James Joseph Hughes: I said I was asked if I would take it.


Charles Marcil: Would it not be more satisfactory to sell a large property like that by public auction ?


James Joseph Hughes: The rule of the department is that they must be sold by public tender.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: And bought by private
sale ?


James Joseph Hughes: Oh, yes. It would
not be well to go and buy ranges by public arrangement, it would be like duck-hunting with a brass band.
Another important matter which we have before the department is the training of officers. In order to secure a splendid lot of officers in the service we have developed officers' training corps in connection with the universities and some of the larger institutions of the land. In connection with McGill university, Lord Strathcona, before his death, handed over a sum of nearly $100,000 wherewith to purchase a site for a drill hall adjacent to McGill university. There is an officers' training corps in connection with McGill University. Canon Dauth of Laval University, Montreal, has already organized five companies. These companies are made up of 450 of the students who are training for law, medicine, and the professions. He promised me that before the end of the year he would have 800 or 900 in training. In connection with Queen's University, I might say that an old friend of that institution-a	distinguished graduate of the Royal Military College and an engineer of note-has presented Queen's University with ground on which the Government is supposed to erect a drill hall. He has also presented ground on which to erect residence buildings. Altogether, it is costing him $600,000 of his own money. That is the spirit that is abroad in the community to-day. Laval, McGill, Queen's, Dalhousie, the British Columbia University, Sackville University-the president of which, I may say, came all the way to Ottawa in connection with organizing an officers' training corps-Toronto, Manitoba, and Edmonton-all these universities are making arrangements for the establishment of officers' training corps. They have found the effect of discipline on the students so splendid that they are going more and more into it in the future. These young gentlemen will go out into the country as lawyers, doctors, leading business men-they will be educated gentlemen, at all events-and although maybe having no intention of becoming military men, they will gravitate towards some military company, and the country will have the benefit of their services. That is my policy in connection with university officers' training corps. It costs the country very little. There is no harm in my mentioning that Colonel Leonard is the gentleman who is

making that gilt to Queen's University. The students will reside in the buildings he will erect, and the Government will pay just what we would pay at our schools of instruction. We will furnish the instructors, and the country will get the benefit of the services of these young gentlemen of the best calibre. We also hold classes for those men in the villages throughout the country who are so busy that they cannot take the time to go to camp, and an officer or sergeant goes down to those localities and puts the men into shape, so that we are getting all the practical benefit of schools at a minimum of expense. We have also musketry schools all over the country where officers are trained in the art of teaching the rudiments of musketry. We have also cadet instructors, and the Royal Military College, as usual, is doing splendid work. There is another matter to which I have given a little attention, and which has been more or less belittled by our friends opposite-for what reason I do not know. It is not always the man who wears a uniform that becomes a great warrior. Clive, Nicholson, Lawton, Wood of the United States army, were all civilians. General Wood was a doctor, and a doctor is not generally expected to be a great waTrior. Many of the best soldiers in history were civilians. Stonewall Jackson was a university professor.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: You are a civilian yourself.


James Joseph Hughes: Certainly; that is the very point I am making. I remember in my old athletic days the question arose a.s to whether or not an amateur lacrosse team was as good as a professional team, and I want to tell my hon. friend that the boys of the city of Toronto proved on many a hard-fought field that the amateur can meet the professional any day, and I have no hesitation in saying that the same thing applies to the army. Some gentlemen say you cannot have a democratic army. I admit that you cannot have a democratic standing army, but you can have a democratic militia. If it is properly trained from the earliest years of school life, and the training is carried on afterwards, there is no reason why you should not have a democratic army, the equal, if not the superior, of any standing army in the world.
Hon. gentlemen have pointed with more or less ridicule to the honorary colonels. I do not mind criticism; I am an old campaigner, and I can take my knocks. Some hon. gentlemen opposite are always taking left handed shots at Sir Frederick Borden
every time they can get a crack at him over my shoulders. Sir Frederick, I am free to [DOT]say, is far in advance, if not of all gentlemen on the other side, at least of the carping critics. I want to point out to my hon. friends that Sir Frederick Borden committed a terrible crime. He appointed 194 men without previous rank as honorary colonels, and 70 of those who had had previous rank, or a total of 174. My worthy predecessor, a tip-top fellow, appointed that number of honorary colonels to the militia of Canada.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: In how many years?


James Joseph Hughes: I must again refer my hon. friend to the mathematician of his party. My hon. friend from Carleton, I will not say the unworthy representative of that constituency, is always trying to get in a left hander at the militia. What did the late Minister of Militia ever do to my hon. friend that he has a crack at the militia every chance; and he nearly always ends with a dig at my predecessor. What has been the trouble? Were their minds not in harmony? Sir Frederick Borden, I say, deserves credit for appointing 174 honorary colonels and I do not think I am deserving of condemnation for appointing 45 without previous rank and 40 with previous rank, or a total of 85. I have looked around the country as Roosevelt did when he appointed General Wood. When I can get a man at the head of a railway to accept a position in the transport service, I follow the custom in England and am glad to get him. They see to the transportation of troops to camp and are willing to give their personal attention to organizing the transport of troops. It is the first time in the history of Canada that we have got these men, and I think I am deserving of nothing but praise for making these gentlemen honorary colonels. Take the case of Rev. Dr. McMillan, of Halifax. He was chaplain of my own regiment, I trained him.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Did you train him in theology or in military science?


James Joseph Hughes: I think that possibly I influenced him in both by my frank and open way in life, showing him that it was passible for a man to be a man and still be a soldier and 1 think that I possibly broadened him and made him a bigger man. So it is with Rev. Dr. Johnston, of the American Presbyterian Church, Montreal, another old chaplain of my own regiment. I have had the honour to make gentlemen of this class honorary lieutenant-

colonels because they understand the cadet business and the training of the youth of the country. Everything I have done in this connection has always been with that object in view. I made Sir Glenholme Fal-conbridge an honorary lieutenant-colonel. Some of my friends belittle him. Sir Glenholme Falconbridge has a military school training and he obtained >a certificate long years ago which entitled him to the command of a regiment. He served in the Queen's Own before and after the Fenian raid. He has served his country in various ways and he has given a great deal of attention to the cadet work. I could name almost every other man who is on the list in connection with the deep interest he has taken in the service. I have no apology to make and I make none. I made George Ham an honorary colonel the other day.


Charles Marcil: That was the most popular appointment on the list.


James Joseph Hughes: If my hon. friend will take a little interest in the cadet move^ ment we will keep our eye on him and bring him forward. It is like the 'Senate; whenever I hear a man condemning the Senate and making speeches against it I say:	That man will be over there in a
year or two. Whenever I find a man condemning the cadet corps, it is not more than a day or two before some of his friends come around and say: Could you not make Emmerson an honorary colonel?
Coming now to the active militia,. I may say that the active militia is divided into two classes, the permanent corps and the non-permanent, the permanent corps consisting of 3,021 officers and men and the non-permanent force consisting of 74,606 officers and men. We hear a great deal about militarism in Canada. I have never been an advocate of a permanent or standing army except for instructional purposes. I am reducing the permanent force. I inherited, in the permanent force, an army service corps which was in size 25 per cent of the army service corps that the whole of the British army has. I am reducing that. I am putting men in other employment and I have made up my mind that I will not have a large number of men in our army service corps about the country. The danger to the country is from the permanent end of the military forces, not the non-permanent end. In the permanent service men are taken out of continuous em-

pioyment, they are taken from the other services of the country and they become a special and privileged class while the great majority of the people are untrained. Under these circumstances people are like men standing around the edge of a football field-mere rooters watching the regulars go by. With a permanent army, in a time of crisis in the nation's history, there is danger, unless the officers are constitutionally trained, of the officers and men obeying the mandate of some oligarchic government, autocratic Upper House, or Divine right ruler.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What do you mean by that ?


James Joseph Hughes: My hon. friend can read and he can exercise his intellectual powers. In olden times home training fitted men for the army. To-day it does not. In olden times every boy could handle the quarter-staff and the single stick. To-day the service is very different; the sword is no more used, but the long-range rifle in the hands of the straight shooter is what counts. We must have the militia spirit if we want to have a proper militia sys-! tem, because we could not, in a country such as Canada, afford to maintain a large standing army. The non-permanent militia of the country represent the people at large. It is file right and duty oi every citizen to demand to be trained. Counting corps organized and those asking to be equipped, we have 78,000 men. There is a regiment in Hull, 'another in Maison-neuve, another in Sault Ste. Marie, another in Toronto, and regiments all over Canada, organized and officers selected for them, but we have not the armament, the equipment or the money to enable them to be trained. There are cavalry regiments waiting. There is a regiment in Prince Edward Island, and there are regiments in other places, but we have not the equipment which would be required to put men into harness. Otherwise, instead of having 78,000, I would have 150,000 men and 40,000 cadets. It is the right of every citizen to demand to be trained, and it is the right of every government to meet the citizens, in so far as possible, in their demand to be trained. If you have trained the manhood of the nation, you need never foe afraid of any coup d'etat on the part of any standing army. It is our boys scattered up and down the country, on the, concessions and side lines, and behind the.

counters that we must rely upon, aad if they are properly trained we need never be afraid of any autocratic demagogue trying to get control of the Government by means of a coup d'etat. There is no money which .so readily reaches the people as money appropriated for militia purposes. The following statement shows the strength of active militia from 1909 to 1913:
1909.	Officers	
Men	Established. 	
3,546 	40,197	Trained 2,904 33,3201910.	Officers	43,742 	
4,874	36,224 3,621Men	
52,820	40,5211911.	Officers	57,694 	
4,942	44,142 3,505Men	
55,239	41,20560,181	44,7101912.	Officers	
5,259	3,763Men	61,103	44,4501913.	Officers	66,362 	
5,615	48,213 4,300Men	
68,991	53,22774,606	57,527
Long years ago-in 1841-in Upper and Lower Canada alone they trained 235,000 men. Upper Canada had 118,000 and Lower Canada 117,000 men regularly trained at their own expense, equipped with their' own weapons, and turned out four times a year for drill. The year previous to that upon which I took office, my predecessor had drilled 44,710 men, and there were 60,000 men enrolled. Last year we drilled 57,527 men, and there were enrolled 74,606. We exempted about 17,000 from drill. To summarize our militia force, we
have in Canada:
Permanent corps lor 1913	 3,021
Non-permanent	 74,606
Total	for	1913	 77,627
Cadets	 44,680
Civilian rifle associations	 23,880
Reserves, volunteers, Canadian and
British	 500,000
Corps organized and asking to be
equipped	 78,000
Total	 724,187
To these add:
Teachers and cadet instructors trained
since October, 1911	 12,000
Grand total	 736,187
These have been trained for the defence of the country. Now, I come to the question of cost. At Confederation the principle was laid down that a maximum of 10 per cent and a minimum of 8} per cent
of the revenue, or one-tenth maximum and		
one-twelfth minimum, should		be devoted
to militia and defence. The following		
figures will show how this principle has		
been carried out:		
		Per cent
	Per cent	Customs
	Revenue.	, and Excise.
1905-6	. . 7J	101908-9	.. Si	11J1910-11	. . 6	81911-12	. . 55	n1912-13	.. 58	71913-14	. . 58	7The percentage of	revenue expended on	the militia last year	is the lowest percent-	age that has been	expended	in any one
year in our history.
When I took office, I found an overdraft of $649,508 on the 31st of March, 1912, which could not be paid because the money had not been voted. I am not finding any fault on account of this; I am not casting any blame on my predecessor, because every hon. member in the House at that time, even the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux), endorsed my predecessor's policy. During the few months that I was in office that year, I paid $702,979 on back accounts. I found also-and I want my hon. friends opposite to observe this-orders placed by my predecessor chiefly in following up iSir John French's report, amounting to $4,044,493, a load on my back that had to be paid to preserve the honour of the country. I am not finding any fault with this, because every hon. member endorsed my predecessor's action. This sum was not provided for. It had to be paid in three years; I am paying if, and I am not kicking about it.


Mr. EMMERSON:: Pretty hard on your bank account.


James Joseph Hughes: I will draw on my
hon; friend when I want any money. This matter would never have been brought up by me in this House had it not been for attacks made on me by one or two subordinate members outside the House. Of this sum of $4,044,493, not one cent of which was for orders placed by myself, I have paid $2,079,797, and the first shipment of cannon came to hand only about two days ago, although the orders were placed three years ago. I have been paying for these contracts during the past three years, and have been damned as an extravagant Minister of M:'itia when I have been paying the debts of my predecessor.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Will the hon. minister give the details of ue $649,508 of an overdraft?


James Joseph Hughes: Ordnance, equipment,


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Will the minister give a little more detail than that? .


James Joseph Hughes: The whole thing is
in an account. There were certain quantities of ordnance, equipment, clothing, etc., ordered.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Have the goods been delivered?


James Joseph Hughes: They were long ago
delivered.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Were they delivered when my hon. friend took office?


James Joseph Hughes: Yes. I paid $702,979
that year. I am not complaining; I am not finding fault; I am merely explaining why these Estimates seem large.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Was not that on account of the Main Estimates not being voted before the election in 1911?


James Joseph Hughes: No. These debts had been contracted and had to be paid.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: But they were paid out of the Estimates of that year.
5 m	Mr. HUGHES:	The $649,508
'	was not paid.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The money had not been voted; that was the trouble.


James Joseph Hughes: The money for 1911-12
was not voted by me; the debt was contracted by my predecessor.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: When my hon. friend
took office, a certain portion of the Estimates for 1911 had been voted, I think five-twelfths or seven-twelfths. After my hon. friend took office, the balance of that year's Estimates were voted by him?


James Joseph Hughes: Yes.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Is it not a fact that my hon. friend paid the $702,979 after he came into office out of the balance of that year's Estimates?


James Joseph Hughes: No, the debt was
there. The House voted whatever balance was to vote and it went to pay these debts.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend is not
answering the question. Was not this sum of $702,979 paid out of the Estimates voted in 1911?


James Joseph Hughes: Yes.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Well, that is the end of the whole thing.


James Joseph Hughes: That is what I am trying to put into my hon. friend's head.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend said
that he had a debt to pay, whereas he paid only his own debts out of the appropriations voted by Parliament.


James Joseph Hughes: I want my hon. friend
to understand that he got a lesson in bluffing last night, and he will get another to-day. The Estimates were presented to the House by Sir Frederick Borden and not by Sam. Hughes.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: And you paid your bills out of the balance of the Estimates voted?


James Joseph Hughes: No. We paid some money out of the sums asked for by my predecessor.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: And now you leave the impression that you had a deficit.


James Joseph Hughes: Nothing of the kind. I found that my predecessor had asked only for certain sums of money that had been paid, and that $649,508 above that had not been voted.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: And we voted that for the year 1911 and paid the bills. ,


James Joseph Hughes: You did not. Not a
dollar of it was voted in 1911.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I say we voted it for the year 1911.


James Joseph Hughes: No.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I know that we came back here in 1911. My hon. friend talks about bluffing. He will find it just as well not to use that word. My hon. friend knows that we came back here in 1911 and voted seven-twelfths of the Estimates for 1911-12. Is that right?


James Joseph Hughes: You are making the
*speech.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am asking my hon. friend. I want my hon. friend to answer the question. Did not we in 1912 vote-


James Joseph Hughes: You were not in power
in 1912.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend will not facilitate the passing of his Estimates by any such conduct as this. Will my hon. friend, or will he not, answer my question?


The CHAIRMAN:: Order. The hon.
minister has the floor.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I want the minister to say whether or not he will answer my question.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I want the minister to answer. Will he answer my question or not? ,
Mr. SAM. HUGHES: Militia and Defence-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I knew the hon. minister could not answer it. He knows he is trying to bluff the House; and when his bluff is called, he is not man enough to answer it. That is the trouble with the minister.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I must remind the hon. member that the hon. minister has the floor.


James Joseph Hughes: I will repeat it again.
I do not expect to convince the hon. member for Carleton, because a colleague of his opposite, not a thousand years ago, said that my hon. friend was unbalanced on the top story. I will repeat it again in ease there may be some hon. gentleman nearly as dense as my hon. friend is, who does not understand it. My predecessor voted certain Estimates in 1911-12. Whether or not they were all passed makes no difference. After I came into office, out of the moneys, no matter where they came from, we paid $702,979, although probably there had been some moneys paid previously to that. That year's vote was not sufficient by $649,508 to pay all the moneys that were due that year, and therefore there was an overhang.


Wilfrid Laurier: How did the
hon. gentleman pay it if he had not the appropriation?
. Mr. HUGHES: I paid it the next year, and had an appropriation for it.


Wilfrid Laurier: That appropriation must have been passed.


James Joseph Hughes: Let not the right hon.
gentleman indulge in quibbling. He knows the Ordnance accounts; he has gone into that before.


Wilfrid Laurier: What I contend is that-


James Joseph Hughes: 1 do not wish to be discourteous, but I have the floor and I intend to get a fair hearing. My right hon. friend knows that Sir Frederick Borden ordered,
in the summer of 1911, four million dollars' worth of armaments and equipment for this country, and he knows that I have been paying that ever since.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon. friend could not pay it unless he had an appropriation for it.


James Joseph Hughes: It was a debt on current account, and the right hon. gentleman knows all about it; if not, I will enlighten him and the House too.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Let us understand what the hon. member is talking about; let us make it clear.


James Joseph Hughes: To a great financier like- Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Mr. NESBITT:: The minister will not get his Estimates through in that way.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: All I ask the hon. minister to do is to make himself intelligible to the House;-or the question he is discussing intelligible to the House-or else abandon this style of his speech.


James Joseph Hughes: I know this is distasteful to these hon. gentlemen. They have been talking about the extravagance of the Militia Department, and they do not care for these figures. Now, I want to point out to them that there was this debt of $649,000, the money for which my predecessor should have asked, and which I have had to pay.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The hon. gentleman says it is a small matter; why, then, does he make such a fuss about it?


James Joseph Hughes: I will show later this
is part of the account. No, I will give it now. In 1911-2-that was my predecessor's year-the	militia payments
amounted to $7,729,948.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The hon. minister might tell us what the Estimates were.


James Joseph Hughes: I do not know. They
exceeded that, but I have not the figures.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: But that would show
exactly what we want to get at.


James Joseph Hughes: The hon. gentleman will have to look them up.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The minister should
have these figures.


James Joseph Hughes: Add to these payments
$649,000 for the goods which were delivered under my predecessor's order, and we find that the payments for the year should have been $8,379,000.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Has not the minister got the Estimates there? We are asking a fair question.


James Joseph Hughes: The question of the
Estimates has nothing to do with it.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Why not?


James Joseph Hughes: If it had anything to do with it, the hon. gentleman can show it when his turn comes to speak. Now, this overdraft was for armament and equipment alone, and does not include minor accounts nor anything on account of the $4,000,000 for armament ordered in the summer of 1911. When I took office the equipment in the stores was practically exhausted. We had not enough uniforms in all Canada to furnish two regiments; not enough equipment for one. Therefore, we have been obliged to build up from that time. The stores were exhausted, I suppose, on account of the South African war. Now, there were other expenditures which my predecessor did not have to face and which should be allowed for if one is to reach a fair basis of comparison. There was an increase of upwards of twenty-five per cent in the force, thus necessitating a considerably larger expenditure. The pay for both horses and men was increased- for the horses twenty-five cents per day. The city corps have been brought out to camp for several days extra. The cadet corps have been developed; 12,000 teachers have been trained; the instruction staff has been greatly increased; and drill halls and rifle ranges have been provided wherever possible. Let me summarize this explanation in the following financial statement: 1911-12-last Liberal year cost $7,729,948
Add-'Overhang'	 649,508
Total	 $8,379,456
1912-13-first Tory year .. .. $10,272,759 Deduct-
Fenian bounty. .	$ 991,600
'Overhang' . . . .	649,508
1/3 Overdraft . .	1,333,333
Connaught Rifle
Range ..	..	250,000Total ....	$3,224,441	3,224,441Real amount for 1912-13 .. ..	$7,048,318
Thus the expenditure for 1912-13, was really only 4i per cent of the revenue. There is an item of about $125,000 for a new rifle range in Victoria, B.C., that is a transferance of account. We have a range in this city worth $1,000,000. It is dangerous and the city wants to get rid of it. The city of Victoria has a valuable 
property which it has given to the Public Works; and the plan was the Public Works would build the rifle ranges or furnish the money therefor. But the funds have not been so furnished. I demanded of the Public Works Department that they build my rifle range and charge it up, but I have not got a dollar. So, the Militia Department is building that range though we have a rifle range in the city and the charge should be made a matter of transfer of account.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is the rifle range at
Victoria to be used as a public park?


James Joseph Hughes: The old one, yes.
That is what they want. They have given the Public Works Department of this country nearly a million dollars worth of property. Our rifle range was to go to the Public Works Department.	The Public
Works Department, it is supposed, will swap the two properties.


Rodolphe Lemieux: At what do you value yours?


James Joseph Hughes: Three quarters of a
million, and I am going to get it out of the Public Works Department.	No	matter
whether it is a city corporation or another department, I intend to fight for the Militia Department after this-and I have been doing it all along. So, it will be seen, according to the figures I have given, that my expenditure on a comparative basis as between my predecessor and myself is not very much greater than his. I am not finding fault with what was done. I cheerfully endorse the spending of this $4,000,000, 'though I knew nothing about it. Sir Frederick Borden explained that it was the necessary result of the adoption of General French's report; and I am not going to criticise my predecessor for having obeyed the order of the House in buying these arms, etc.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Will the minister give
details of this equipment.


James Joseph Hughes: I have not got it here.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Could the minister not give it generally.


James Joseph Hughes: I will come to it in
a moment. I have here the statement of these extraordinary expenditures for the financial year 1912-1913:
Extras-
Fenian Raid Bounty	 $ 991,600
Overdraft, 1911	 649,508
1/3 of $4,000,000	 1.333,333
Increase in militia	 550,000
City Corps in camp	 200,000

Increase pay-
Men and horses	 $	80,000
Cadets and teachers	 350,000
Drill-halls	 530,000
Connaught Rifle Range . . [DOT] [DOT]	235,000
Extra clothing, etc	 500,000
Total	 $5,419,441
The expenditure tor that year was $10,272,759. If we deduct these extraordinary expenditures of $5,419,441, we ascertain the expenditure on the same basis as that made by my predecessor. We find, therefore, that the relative net expenditure for 1912-1913 was $4,853,318.
Last year the following classes were trained: permanent, 3,000; non-permanent, 57,527; cadets, 44,1380; teachers, 12,000; a total of 117,207 persons.


Mr. PARDEE:: The minister mentioned the sum of $4,000,000; did he arrive at that by a process of elimination, or is that what the whole militia is costing this year?


James Joseph Hughes: I am giving these
figures only for purposes of comparison. As the hon. gentleman has indulged in criticism of the alleged extravagance of the Militia Department, I am making a comparison of previous expenditures with expenditures under this Administration. After deducting extras, of which I have given a list, I find that the expenditure is only $4,000,000.
Mr. EMMERlSON: The hon. gentleman is simply making a tu quoque argument.


James Joseph Hughes: I know that hon. gentlemen of the Committee will be interested in information regarding the inspections made by Sir John French in 1910 and Sir Ian Hamilton in 1912. Sir John French made twenty inspections; Sir Ian Hamilton thirty-one. Sir John French inspected 105 units; Sir Ian Hamilton, 190.	19,611 troops were inspected by Sir John French, and 37,401 by Sir Ian Hamilton. The cost of the inspections made by Sir John French was $10,992.88. The Department of Railways and Canals supplied free the cars necessary for Sir John French and staff; hence there is no charge for these in 1910. The cost of the inspection made by Sir Ian Hamilton was $20,740. Inasmuch as the Department of Railways and Canals had not cars available for General Sir Ian Hamilton and party, these had to be hired from the Canadian Pacific railway and the Pullman Company.


Mr. PROULX:: Was there a special train?


James Joseph Hughes: Sir John French travelled 3,633 miles.


Edmond Proulx: I am asking the hon.
member a question. Did Sir Ian Hamilton and party travel in a special train?


James Joseph Hughes: I will be glad to answer any questions gentlemen on the other side ask. Sir Ian Halmilton travelled 13,081 miles.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I rise to a point of order. [DOT]The hon. gentleman says that he will answer any questions asked by gentlemen on this side, yet he has not answered the question asked by the hon. member for Prescott. -


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I understand that the point of order is that the hon. member for Prescott has asked the minister a question, which has not been answered. The rule says that any member who has the floor is at liberty to answer or not to answer any question which is asked of him. If the minister does not answer the question, we must understand that he does not desire to do so. ,
Mr. CARVELL; We understand that he did not mean what he said.


James Joseph Hughes: Owing to the fact that the camps of training were laid out in the worst possible manner, to economize time, a great deal of additional and unnecessary time and travel weTe rendered obligatory in order to enable Sir Ian Hamilton to see the various bodies of troops. I now wish to give to the committee the recommendations of Sir John French, Sir Percy Lake and Sir Ian Hamilton with regard to guns. The following guns were recommended by Sir John French and Sir Percy Lake:
13 pr	 24
13 pr	  220
Howitzers	 72
Heavy	 24
The following were delivered up to October, 1911:
13 pr	 24
IS pr	100
Howitzers	 8
Heavy	 24
No guns have been delivered since October, 1911. I want to be distinctly understood as not finding fault with or criticising my predecessor. This House endorsed Sir John French's report when it was made, and I take my full share of responsibility in that connection. The comparisons I have made are presented merely with a view to showing that I am bearing the cost of orders placed before I took office and that if my 
predecessor were still in power he would have to increase his Estimates the same as I am doing. The distribution of rifles has been as follows:
Short Ross-
Issued to troops and cadets	 54,286
On ordnance charge	 5,725
60,011
Note.-Of those, approximately 40,000 are fitted with aperture sights.
Long Ross-*
Issued to troops	 8,960
On ordnance charge	 3,429
12,389
Note.-These rifles are supplied with bridges on which rear aperture sights may be fitted when available.
Mark III-
On order	 1	 20,000
Note.

These rifles are being fitted with rear aperture sights and are now being delivered.
I think since I came into office I have ordered one batch of ten thousand. There is an order due last November and I only learned yesterday that I had never put the Order in Council through. There should be ten thousand every year and I have only given one order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Has that Order in Council been passed?


James Joseph Hughes: No, not yet.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What is the price of the rifle?


James Joseph Hughes: It is $26.90 I think. I shall give these particulars later. I wish to discuss the subject of European visits.


Rodolphe Lemieux: South African visits.


James Joseph Hughes: South African visits? I
have not been to China and Japan yet, but I am going and will come back wearing my hair the proper way.
Annually, for a number of years, my predecessor sent military officers to the old land. In 1907-8, seven officers and six noncommissioned officers were sent. They cost the country $26,772 or two and a half ordinary good town drill-halls. In 1908-9, my predecessor sent six officers and six noncommissioned officers. Mark you, these were all of the permanent force and these moneys were voted by this Parliament, my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition being then Prime Minister, supported by hon. gentlemen opposite. For these six officers and six non-commissioned officers the cost in 1908-9 was $32,601, or three drill-halls and a half.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Would the minister say how long the officers remained in England?
iMr. HUGHES:	Yes, later on I shall.
If the hon. gentleman will let me proceed in my own way I shall be delighted to do it.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: We will have to if he
will not give the information.


James Joseph Hughes: I shall give the information but I shall give it in my own way. We may as well understand one another from the drop of the hat. For 190910, seven officers and six non-commissioned officers cost $20,315; a moderate sum, only two drill-halls. In 1910-11, fifteen officers and six non-commissioned officers cost $46,082. These men were sent to England by my predecessor in office. I am not finding fault with him for that, I endorse him, and I am man enough to back him up for doing it; I am not coward enough to turn around and criticise him now that he is out of power for doing this, because he did it in the best interests of the force. I backed him then and I back him to-day. I varied the programme slightly.


Charles Marcil: Is it not a fact that the hon. gentleman's predecessor in office did more for the Militia Department than any other Minister of Militia ever did before?


James Joseph Hughes: That is a relative question. It is like asking a fellow which is the more beautiful girl when both are present. I shall say this much for my predecessor, that he was a mighty good Minister of Militia. I have said that before and I will say it here.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Perhaps my hon.
friend will explain for wha/t reason the officers went over?


James Joseph Hughes: For training, just to learn. If hon. gentlemen will allow me I want to present my statements in my own logical way. I like to do things logically.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Your own logic.


James Joseph Hughes: That is all right, I go
through the world that wiay. I do not go through the world engineered by any other fellow. In 1911-12, for twelve officers and six non-commissioned officers, my predecessor paid $38,729 of the money of the people of Canada and I endorsed him in it and I endorse him to-day. That is four drill halls. In 1912-13, the first year I was in office, this jumped up to $44,707; but every officer who was sent bad been picked and billed to go by my predecessor and I carried out the
bill. I shall tell you how I showed my loyalty to my predecessor as I would to any man whom I succeeded. One officer had stood at the polls at Halifax and had turned all the votes he could from my right hon. leader (Mr. Borden), had canvassed against him and got men out of the way whom he could not influence against him.
I should have dismissed the fellow from the force. I did not do it, he was a good officer.


Henry Robert Emmerson: You applied the golden rule?
) Mr. HUGHES: No, I did not; I gave him a lecture.


Mr. GRAHAM:: You gave him the worse punishment of the two.


James Joseph Hughes: I brought him to Ottawa.


Mr. KYTE:: Slow torture.


Henry Robert Emmerson: What did the Postmaster General say about it?


James Joseph Hughes: I brought him to
Ottawa. He saw his mistake and I forgave him, but I sent him back to his regiment. He was a good officer but a foolish misguided fellow in politics. He was brought before me, I showed him his error and sent him back to his regiment. I found out that he was one of those billed to go to England, and although the department had been largely loaded up by friends of the Administration of hon. gentlemen opposite, I sent that fellow .to England to take his course, and his expenses form part of the $44,000 rolled up here. The next year, 1913-14, I changed the programme and the cost of sending officers to England was reduced to $10,000. These officers went over from the permanent force. I am not saying one word against the permanent force. The officers are splendid fellows as a rule, tip-top fellows; but I want the House to understand that the Dominion of Canada has too long educated these men. The farmers and taxpayers of Canada have been educating the permanent officers for a good many years. We send them to the schools, we take them in as novices, we send them for the long course in England. I claim that this course could be as well administered here and accordingly we brought out

for my predecessor had adapted this plan and we carried it on-we brought out officers for especially training these men. We let the officers who are being trained carry on their work in the regiment in the ordinary service at the same time that they were

taking their instru'ctiion and in this way we saved money. The permanent force in Canada are but a handful, some three thousand, many of them are utilized as servants. The officers, nice young fellows, would not officer more than a couple of regiments. The men who would have to do the fighting, who have done the fighting, are largely the nonpermanent officers and non-permanent men of this country. I looked around from the Atlantic to the Pacific, I saw men of worth, education, stand and culture like my hon. friend from Woodstock, N.B. (Mr. Carvell), and myself and a lot more of us who had given their time, energy and skill for years-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am not in your class.


James Joseph Hughes: I was going to bring you up to my level. I could give the names of officers who have spent $50,000 on their regiments, and who annually spend $5,000 to $10,000 on the militia. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, farmers, business men, and preachers-for we get some of them-are the men who officer the militia of this country. I made up my mind that the young permanent corps fellows, splendid boys though they he, were not going to be the only ones to have an opportunity of studying the militia of other lands. The first year I had a chance, I sent over seven officers and two non-commissioned officers to the British manoeuvres. The success of the experiment was splendid. The cost was $6,800, and they watched the British and French manoeuvres for weeks. In 1913-14, sixteen non-permanent officers and five permanent officers went over at a cost of $24,620.33-two drill-halls and a half. They saw the British manoeuvres, the French and the Swiss manoeuvres. The officers who went over were chosen from all parts of Canada, regardless of politics. There was, I tjiink, one more Grit than Tory in the party.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Did you go to Belgium?


James Joseph Hughes: Yes, personally.


Charles Marcil: Were you recognized as Canadians or Britishers?


James Joseph Hughes: I do not know what the hon. gentleman means.


Charles Marcil: Were you recognized as British officers?


James Joseph Hughes: They knew we were
Canadians, but of course my hon. friend is aware that the arrangements were made through the British authorities.

We are British officers, although we are Canadians. I am a British officer. We were received with the utmost courtesy. I might point out that at these foreign manoeuvres only two officers are allowed in uniform from each country, and the rest go in mufti.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I am told that my hon. friend was taken for Kitchener.


James Joseph Hughes: I take that as a compliment; I certainly was not taken for the Emperor of Japan. The officers owed much to the kindness of General French, General Hamilton and General Ellison. General Ellison was a very old friend to the Swiss and his kindness made the way smooth for us. Every officer from Canada received the most courteous treatment everywhere, I am glad to say.
In regard to Switzerland, I have been studying with a great deal of interest the militia system of that country for the past two years. In that country the service is obligatory and universal. There are three classes: the Elite, comprised of men between twenty and thirty-two years of age; the Landwehr, thirty-three to forty years; and the Landsturm, forty-one to forty-eight years. The administration is partly by cantons, and partly by the Confederation. There is a non-training tax. I want to emphasize that point. Every man, rich or poor, who does not train has to pay 6 francs a year, and an additional li francs for each 1,000 francs of net property and 100 francs net income. In 1911 the Swiss people paid 44,777,894.15 francs towards the militia out of a total expenditure of 172,439,221 francs. That is in Confederation taxes alone.	The amount spent on the militia represents 26 per cent of the total expenditure of the country. The rifle ranges, and organizations of that sort, are paid for by the cantons. The total force in 1911 was 408,600,851; made up of 142,054 men in the Elite; 69,513 in the Landwehr; 68,579 in the Landsturm; and 206,705 in the Complementary. I think the oath of the Swiss soldier will stand repeating:
L,e serment de fidfilitfi au drapeau est prete selon la foririule suivante:
'Les officiers, sous-offlclers ou soldats jurent ou promettent solennellement:
'He rester fidSles 8, la Confederation; de sacrifler leur vie pour la defense de la patrie et de sa constitution; de ne jamais abandonner les drapeaux; de se conformer strictement aux lois militaires; d'obeir scrupuleusement et ponctuellement aux ordres de leurs chefs; de maintenir et d'observer une discipline severe et de faire tout ce que l'honneur et la liberte de la patrie exigent d'eux.'

Or, in English:
Officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers, swear, or promise, solemnly to remain faithful to the Confederation; each to sacrifice his life for the defence of the country and of its Constitution ; never to abandon the colours; to conform strictly to military law; to obey scrupulously and punctually the orders of superior officers; to maintain and observe a rigid discipline and to do everything which the honour and the freedom of the country require of them.
In passing, I might say that all the officers who went over to the British manoeuvres were men of high standing in their local communities. Since their return they have given, regularly, lectures to the various corps in the country-a thing never done before, and in that way the whole militia is getting the benefit of their experience at the foreign manoeuvres.
The Dominion arsenal has been revised. Without going into details, I might say we found defects in the ammunition. Accidents were occurring all the time, and two of the very best experts were brought over from the war office to look over the arsenal. In brief, their report was as follows: No adequate inspection; twelve million rounds of rifle ammunition was ordered to he destroyed as unfit; eighteen-pounder quickfiring ammunition was found to be defective, the loss on these eighteen-pounders amounting to $100,000; there was no cordite for 6 months during which time bullets and cases were made; seven thousand eighteen-pounder shells had been completed, and 20,000 partly so, but only one was found to be properly shaped; 75 were selected for the firing test, lEj of which would not enter the gun at all; one burst within the gun and nearly spoiled it-a $7,000 gun. New dies and machinery have been put in and the very best ammunition is now being turned out. I would ask the House to call it six o'clock. I wish to thank hon. gentlemen very much for their patience.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Would the minister
answer the questions which I asked of him as he so kindly promised?


James Joseph Hughes: I have taken a note of the questions.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is as to the time the officers remained in England during the years 1907-8-9-10.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
The Committee resumed at eight o'clock, Mr. Blondin in the chair.
Militia and Defence-allowances, active militia, $123,000.


Edmond Proulx: Before we proceed to any item, I desire to say that the minister this afternoon said that he courted any question we wanted to put to him from this side of the House. I rose a few times to put some questions to the minister and he did not pay any attention to me. I have been informed that he said that he would answer only questions put by gentlemen. I would like to know whether or not he made that statement.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Answer.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order. I think
the hon. member should speak to the question.


Edmond Proulx: I put some questions to the hon. minister this afternoon and he did not pay any attention to me. I am told that he said that he would answer only questions put by gentlemen. I want to know whether or not he made that statement.


James Joseph Hughes: I do not find the item in the Estimates.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I hardly think that you, Mr. Chairman, should encourage the Minister of Militia not to answer the question of my hon. friend from Prescott. It is surely a fair question and it does not matter whether or not it is pertinent to the item before us; it is certainly deserving of a reply. My own impression is that the hon. minister did not make the remark which the hon. member for Prescott has been advised was made by the minister, but it would be assuring to have the minister say that he did not make that remark.


James Joseph Hughes: I will not answer any
such question put in any such tone.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I hope my hon. friend
the minister will not take this course. He evidently is labouring under a very grave delusion. He has invited the members of the Opposition to be here; and while we realize that the minister is running the affairs of the Militia Department at the present time, surely he does not deny the right of members'of the Opposition, when they are invited to be here, to ask him questions. I do not know just what object the minister had this afternoon in treating the member for Prescott as he did. I called his attention in a gentlemanly manner to the fact that the hon. member for Prescott had asked him a question and that he had not answered it. No matter whether or not the minister has some feeling against the hon.

member for Prescott, the hon. member for Prescott is a member of this House and the minister, I think, is approaching this matter from entirely wrong premises. He seems to have the idea that the moment a member of the Opposition asks him a question, it is a signa^. for (battle and he must fire some pert reply at him. We do not ask the minister questions with that object in view, and surely he does not want us to reply in kind. I do not want to threaten the minister, but the course he is taking does not lead to a proper discussion of his Estimates. When the minister is asking us to vote ten or eleven million dollars, surely he must admit the right of members of the Opposition to ask questions. I appeal to the minister to forget any feeling he may have and to forget the fact that he has done what perhaps no other minister has done in the history of Canada, namely, sent out a notice to' every member of the Opposition to be here, which is practically a challenge:	Come
along now and I will insult you, because that is evidently the way in which it appeals to us. The minister may say that he has not that object in view. If he does, we will accept his statement, and we shall be glad to have him take that ground. We do not want to feel that the minister has tried to insult us, but when any member of the Opposition asks the minister a fair question, he is entitled to a fair answer, regardless of any personal feeling the minister may have toward that member. I think that is a fair proposition.
The minister this afternoon took occasion to tell me that I was bluffing him: I was not doing so; I was trying to get information. I do not want to reveal any personal matters, but I had a conversation with the minister about this very matter before, and I think the minister will remember the occasion. I went to the gentleman who was responsible at the time and asked him about it, and he told me there was nothing in it. I want the information. I do not care if Sir Frederick Borden left a debt of $2,000,000; that is Sir Frederick Borden's business, and the minister is perfectly justified in giving the facts to Parliament. We do not want the minister to gloss over anything that took place in the regime of his predecessor; we want him to .give the facts. I had a right to ask the minister the question, and I had
[Mr. Carvell.J
a right to receive a fair answer, and I do not want to be charged with bluffing when I ask the minister a fair question. I am not threatening; I want the minister to get that idea out of his mind once and for all. I am only trying to present this 'proposition to him; and the minister ought to get rid of all his bellicose ideas and realize that he is not the Minister of War to-night, but a minister of the Government, coming here to ask Parliament to vote him ten or eleven million dollars, and that the members of the Opposition have a right to ask him questions and receive reasonable and courteous replies. The minister stated to me that he would be pleased to answer any question put by any gentleman. I do not mean to say that the minister intended to convey any insulting reference to the hon. member for Prescott. I must say that, when the answer was given to me, it- did not so impress me; and I do not think the minister intended to take that course; but it evidently impressed the member for Prescott in an entirely different manner. The minister made that statement; and I think it is only fair to himself, let alone the hon. member for Prescott, that he should tell the hon. member whether he intended to apply that remark to him in an insulting manner or whether it was only said in a courteous way.


James Joseph Hughes: I am obliged for the very nice lecture I have just received-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: There you are again.


James Joseph Hughes: What right has the
hon. member to stand up and lecture me? I have answered every question that has been put to me this afternoon.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Save one.


James Joseph Hughes: I had not the data at hand in regard to that one; I have it now. I have answered every question that any gentleman has asked me this afternoon. I need not have answered any question at all when I was making my remarks. I was in the midst of an idea when the right hon. leader of the Opposition sought to ask me a question; but as he was interrupting the thread of my argument at the time, I asked him to wait until I got through with my line of thought. The hon. member for Carleton is not in a position to lecture me. He got up once or twice this afternoon to make a speech, if I remember aright-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No.


James Joseph Hughes: Well, a miniature
speech we can call it. I will answer any question courteously put to me; but I must decline the right of anybody to catechize me as to what sort of temper I was in, or whether I made a statement in this manner or in that manner; my language will speak for itself. I think the hon. member will search i*n vain the annals of this House for the record of any man who has been more ready to furnish information and data to his opponents than myself. During the three years that I have been presenting the Militia Estimates, the items were sent out every time to every; hon. member in advance, so that they could have the fullest opportunity of getting posted as to the facts.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend is in error. The same course was pursued by his predecessor.


James Joseph Hughes: In general, not in detail. I have all the reports.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: There was a document of some kind.


James Joseph Hughes: Yes, a general document, but my information was sent out in detail, giving every vote.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is a matter of degree.


James Joseph Hughes: Yes, but I sent out the information, showing that I was anxious to inform the House and the country as to the matters of my department. I have come here and shown frankly that I endorsed every vote that Sir Frederick Borden asked for. I am not finding fault with that; I have brought this matter up merely to show that, no matter who was in charge of the Militia Department, these accounts had to be paid.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The minister has indeed been vetry generous in answering questions, but the complaint of the hon. member for Prescott is a rather personal one and I think the minister should give it his attention.


James Joseph Hughes: If it is a personal
matter, let the hon. member come to me personally and I will talk to him.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I must remind hon. members that the rule is that the point of order or objection to any word must be taken immediately upon its being spoken.
I myself did not hear the word, but the 216
rule as laid down by Bourinot is as I have said and I rule accordingly.


Edmond Proulx: I put a fair question to the minister this afternoon; I will put it to him again and I hope he will answer it. He was speaking about the travelling expenses of iSir Ian Hamilton and himself last summer and, he was comparing them with the expenses of the trip of Sir John French. I asked him whether ot not he travelled with Sir Ian Hamilton in a special train and he declined to answer my question. Will the minister answer the question now?


James Joseph Hughes: Sir Ian Hamilton travelled with me in a special train.


Edmond Proulx: How much did the hon. gentleman pay for that special train?


James Joseph Hughes: I gave the figures this
afternoon.


Edmond Proulx: The figures were given in a lump sum; I would like to know what was the cost of this special train?


James Joseph Hughes: The figures have been
given two or three times during this session, in answer to questions.


Edmond Proulx: Can the minister not give me the information now?


James Joseph Hughes: I will get the information for the hon. gentleman when we take up the item.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I am confronted with a difficult question. I would like to know whether it is the desire of the committee to have a general discussion, or whether we shall proceed item by item.


James Joseph Hughes: Having given my general statement this afternoon, I am now ready to be interrupted just as often as hon. gentlemen desire to ask questions. I will endeavour to answer their questions, as I have always done, frankly and squarely, with no turning corners and with no equivocation whatever.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I must insist on having the decision of the committee, because I am in a difficult position. The rule says that speeches in Committee of the Whole must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under discussion.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Would it not be a very grave error on the part of this committee to depart from the rule which has been adhered to, according to my recollection, for the last ten years? The rule has always



been in our book of rules, but we have never been absolutely confined to the single item under discussion. A wide range of discussion is allowed, and I do not think the Minister of Militia will take the ground that tve are to be absolutely bound down to the item under discussion.


James Joseph Hughes: Last year and other
years there was always a great deal of rambling over almost everything.


William Erskine Knowles: I do not think we should have this as a matter of grace or favour from the minister. We do not want any favours from this minister, conversation in the corridor used in public addresses to the contrary notwithstanding. I do not wish to reflect upon your action in raising the point, Mr. Chairman, but it seems to me to be very strange that it should be necessary to have the decision of the committee formally declared in this matter when the wide discussion of Estimates has been the custom, to my knowledge, for nine sessions. If the Chair were anxious to comply with the rules, would it not have been more in order to say: have we the unanimous consent of the committee to go on with these Estimates to-day, it being Thursday, and the Estimates not having been previously taken up? I wish to place myself on record as contending that we have the right, according to custom almost from time immemorial in this House, to ask the minister at the opening of his Estimates any question with regard to the expenditures of his department,


Mr. McCREA:: I asked the minister some questions in connection with the renting or purchasing of property in Sherbrooke from Mrs. A. N. Worthington, and I got the reply that the property was leased at a rental of $100 a month and was being used for temporary quarters. For what purpose are those quarters to be used ?


James Joseph Hughes: As the hon. member knows, the armoury part of the drill hall of the 53rd regiment is not yet ready. The old court house is to be fitted up for that purpose, and in the meantime the officers, non-commissioned officers and band must have other quarters. These rooms have been rented for that purpose.


Francis N. McCrea: Are the men going to drill there ?


James Joseph Hughes: They are to. have their lectures and meetings there, the same as they do in drill halls.


Francis N. McCrea: Are these premises to be used, according to military terms, as an

officers' mess, or what I would call an officers' club ? For what purpose are they to be used ?


James Joseph Hughes: In every drill hall
in Canada they have rooms for the purpose of holding meetings, lectures and so on, and where the drill hall does not provide that accommodation, we rent premises outside. They are used by the officers for lecture purposes, for examination purposes, for studying and, I presume, for conversation and smoking.


Francis N. McCrea: The St. George's Club building was burned last fall, and the club moved into this building and are now, or were until lately, occupying it. Have any arrangements been made with the St. George's club to remain there, and if so, on what terms ?


James Joseph Hughes: I understand that the club has given notive to vacate the premises and allow the officers to take charge.


Francis N. McCrea: How soon ?


James Joseph Hughes: I do not know the details, but I can find out.


Francis N. McCrea: My information from people in Sherbrooke is that the members of the St. George club are to remain there as the guests of the officers of the 53rd regiment until such time as they have rebuilt their own building. Is that correct ?


James Joseph Hughes: I have never heard
of it, but I will look into the matter.


Francis N. McCrea: When was this building rented from Mrs. Worthington ?


James Joseph Hughes: Very recently; within
the last few weeks.


Francis N. McCrea: Permit me to ask again whether or not these premises are to be used for what is called in military terms an officers' mess ?


James Joseph Hughes: It is used identically for the same purposes as similar rooms are used in drill halls: for the holding of meetings and for any legitimate purpose in connection with the regiment.


Francis N. McCrea: This building, I believe, has been used as an officers' mess, or officers' club. It is also used, and has been since last December, by the St. George's Club, and I understand and believe they are still occupying it. My information was they were invited to remain there as guests of the 53rd Regiment until they had rebuilt their own building.

I am not jealous of this, nor do I think the recompense is more than the St. ,George's Club deserves, for I think they are worthy of nearly everything the Conservative party can do for them, because that institution has been a Conservative committee room ever since I knew anything about it, and I assume it is yet. But -what I am a little inquisitive about is whether it is necessary to have a place of this kind or not. We have two drill-hal'ls in the city of Sherbrooke, and a good deal of military equipment. I am inclined to think that the expenditure of public money for an officers' club is not quite the best use of public money, even for military purposes. I think the people of the county of Sherbrooke will tell you so when the proper time comes. The city of Sherbrooke has a population of less than 20,000. We have two pretty expensive drill-halls, as I have said, one with a complete armoury, and the other is to have an up-to-date armoury in every respect. Now, militarism may be a good thing, but I do not know that a population of nearly
20,000	needs two drill-halls. Besides these, the militia occupy two other buildings. In the Brooks block, they are using the upper stories, as well as an apartment downstairs, for which they pay $75 per month, and they rent this property from Mrs. Worthington, for which they pay $100 per month. I think that public money could be spent to better advantage. If, for instance, the same amount were devoted to teaching the people how to farm properly, it would serve a better purpose than spending it on militarism. I am not inclined to find a great deal of fault politically, because I think this will do more good to me than to the party it was intended to help. But politics is not a thing in which I make my living nor is it a thing in which I am much interested. My business here is to give the Government my advice and opinion; and my advice and opinion is that it would be well for the Prime Minister to pay a little attention to the militia administration.
The Minister of Militia, this afternoon, referring to an answer I had made to him, said that I had just woke up. Perhaps I have; and perhaps I have taken longer to wake up than I ought. But I think he will find that a lot of other people have waked up, and are waking up. They say that a word to the wise is sufficient; and I will just take the minister into my confidence to the extent of telling him that I do 216J
not think his militarism is quite as popular in the county of Sherbrooke as he believes it to be. I would advise him to go slow and be careful. The minister also said that it was a necessary part of the training of young men to teach them to shoot straight in case of trouble. I do not know whether the people who attend that club will be able to shoot straight when the time comes or not. My impression is they will not.


James Joseph Hughes: The hon member has proven himself a veritable warrior-blackguarding the St. George's club behind their backs.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Joseph Hughes: I know nothing about it; never knew there was -such a dub in existence, and do not know it yet.


William Erskine Knowles: I rise to a point of order. I ask whether if i't is in order even for a minister of the Crown to say that an hon. member of this House ' blackguards ' anybody. And if that expression is unparliamentary I ask that the minister be commanded to take it back.


James Joseph Hughes: Mr. Chairman-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Chair.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The minister has a
right to speak to the point of order.


James Joseph Hughes: I did not charge any man with blackguarding-


William Erskine Knowles: What did you say?


James Joseph Hughes: The hon. gentleman
can find that out from the ' Hansard '. The hon. member has seen fit to take a certain course-


William Erskine Knowles: The hon. minister can speak to the point of order, but he cannot speak on other matters until the Chair has ruled. My point is this:	That the Minister of Militia did say of the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea) that he had blackguarded the St. George's, club behind their backs.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Do I understand that the words have been used?


James Joseph Hughes: You heard what I said.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I am afraid the word ' blackguard ' applied to any hon. member of this House is pretty strong language. It is better that it should not be used in this House.

Some lion. MEMBERS: Withdraw. Take it back.


James Joseph Hughes: I have not used the *word with reference to any member of this House.


William Erskine Knowles: I ask your ruling, Mr. Chairman. I say that in my hearing the hon. minister used the expression in^ regard to the hon. member for Sherbrooke ' blackguarding the St. George's club behind their backs '.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The minister had better explain what he meant and to whom he applied the word. If the word was applied to the hon. member, I must repeat, it should not be used in this House and should be taken back.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Chair.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order. I understand the minister says he did not apply the word to the hon. member.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: He did.


William Erskine Knowles: My point of order is- But I see the minister has risen, does he wish to speak to the point of order?
Mr. HUGHES': I am not speaking to a point of order.


William Erskine Knowles: Then, I am not through with it, Mr. Chairman. It is not enough for you to rule that the expression should be withdrawn, but it is your duty to compel its withdrawal. If a member commits a breach of parliamentary decorum, he cannot evade or escape the ruling of the Chair by saying that he did not say what every member heard him say. As he has used the expression-as you heard him use it- it is not only your duty to rule it out of order as unparliamentary, but it is equally and imperatively your duty to command him to take it back.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: May I be allowed to analyse briefly what the minister said. Perhaps ihe does not have a full appreciation of the significance of the language he used and, I say that in all charity. What we heard on this side was a charge on the part of the minister that the hon. member for Sherbrooke had blackguarded the St. George's club of his town of Sherbrooke-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Behind their
backs.	'


Michael Clark: 
Pierre Édouard Blondin: There is a rule"which says that whatever a member says in explanation, whether relating to the words or to the meaning of his speech, is to be taken as true and not afterwards called into question. It is true that I have heard the word ' blackguard,* but the fact that the minister said that he did not apply the word to the hon. member falls under this rule, and I think even if it could be interpreted in the way some members interpret it, it can be taken as having been taken back.


James Joseph Hughes: The hon. member has referred to the renting of these halls. He knows as well as any one that there are two regiments in Sherbrooke, and he knows as well as any one the cause of the difficulty that has arisen in the city of Sherbrooke. One is a very excellent French-Canadian regiment.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: What was your ruling, Mr. Chairman?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I ruled that the hon. minister having declared that he did not apply the words to the hon. member for Sherbrooke, the point of order is settled.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: To whom did he apply them ?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have been listening
attentively, and I have not yet heard the minister say that he did not apply these words to the hon. member for Sherbrooke.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The question is settled.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I think the minister has almost attempted to deny having used these words. We all know he did use them. His friends behind him as well as	members on this side
know that he did use the words. If the minister wants to make an explanation according to your ruling, and say that he did not apply them to the member for Sherbrooke, possibly he would have the right to do so. I feel that we ought to have this matter settled, and the minister has no

more right in this House than a common member. Surely the minister does not want to transgress the rules of debate. I think it is his duty to explain exactly what he did mean by the word he used.


James Joseph Hughes: I have stated that I did not apply the words to the hon. member for Sherbrooke, and that ends the matter as far as I am concerned.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: To whom did you apply them?


James Joseph Hughes: I am not called upon
to say.


William Erskine Knowles: On the point of order-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I consider that the point of order is settled.


William Erskine Knowles: No; I have the right to appeal; but before appealing-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: It is perfectly in order to appeal-


William Erskine Knowles: Before appealing, I wish to ask the Prime Minister, who is regarded on this side of the House as in every way a perfect gentleman, if he will give to us an expression of his opinion as to the propriety of the language used by his Minister of Militia with regard to the hon.- member for Sherbrooke. The Prime Minister is responsible for the decorum in this House and I ask him, partly out of kindness for the Minister of Militia himself, to give us an expression of his opinion of that language.


Robert Laird Borden: As I understood the Minister of Militia he said he did not apply any such expression to any hon. member in this House.


William Erskine Knowles: Did you believe him.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order.


Robert Laird Borden: My hon. friend knows
that the significance of the words of any member of this House must be taken according to his intention as declared. He has declared that he did not apply any such expression or intend to apply any such expression to any hon. member in this House.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Why did he use it?


William Erskine Knowles: The Prime Minister has not told us all he thinks about it.


James Joseph Hughes: The member for Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea) knows the reason for th'e new regiment there. One is French-
Canadian and the other is English. The 53rd had no drill-hall, they were occupying the drill-hall in the French-Canadian end of the town and in order to get rid of the difficulty created not by me but by my predecessor-I do not know whether my hon. friend -was instrumental in having the matter arranged-at all events it was done under the rule of my predecessor the French-Canadian regiment, the 54th, a very excellent regiment, was placed at the upper end of the town in the new drill hall. The 53rd were going to occupy it at certain times until their own drill-hall would be ready. Their own drill-hall was not ready, and the armouries, as the hon. gentleman knows, were not ready. They had good quarters in the old drill-hall. It would have been unfair to have asked them to leave this old drill-hall, to give up the rooms where the officers held their meetings and go uptown where they 'had no rooms to go to. In other words, the department having moved them out of the old drill-hall, had to put them into the armouries where they would have offices. These are the offices fOT the new regiment, the 53rd and it is the intention to occupy these until the old building has been placed in a condition to be used as offices for the 53rd Regiment. The hon. member knows that as well as any one and I fail to see the motive for his action to-night. I have never heard, of any other purpose until to-night.


Mr. TOBIN:: I might say to the Minister of Militia that the people of the Eastern Townships are surprised at the minister, after saying that he is abolishing liquor in all camps throughout this Dominion, allowing his officers to have rooms in the St. George's Club and pay rent for same. The St. George's Club is known in the city of Sherbrooke as a Tory organization. The minister says that he does not know what the St. George's Club is. I am surprised that he would come before this House of intelligent men and make such a statement. In the city of Sherbrooke, as the minister has explained, there are two large drill-halls built at a very large expense. After the St. George's Club was burned last fall, they rented the premises of Mrs. Worthington. I suppose they found it hard to keep up the expense and they asked the minister to help bear the expense. In that club they serve something besides cold water. The minister knows it and if he does not he should know it. Two years ago the minister was down in the city of Sherbrooke. Will he say he did not go to-the St. George's Club?
[DOT]3426


James Joseph Hughes: I went to some club and had a luncheon; I do not know where it was.


Edmund William Tobin: And you know whether they served some whisky blanc there. I am surprised when the minister says he did not know that there was such a club. Now he has to admit it.
Mr. SAM. HUGHES: The hon. member has put words in my mouth that I did not use. I never heard of the St. George's in my life before to-night, and I never knew that liquor was sold in the club. I presume that, following the custom of clubs throughout Canada, liquor may be sold in it. I am not running the clubs, I am running the militia of Canada. When the officers rent a building I can assure the House that we look after it, and if there is any such condition of affairs, if the St. George's Club is using the quarters of the 53rd Regiment, inquiry will be made and action will be taken.


Edmund William Tobin: Will the minister say that they have not rooms enough in the two drill-halls in Sherbrooke for the accommodation of both battalions? Or is it just for a gentlemen's mess? We do not want that in the Eastern Townships. We are willing to spend a certain amount on the militia, but we are not willing to have the minister pay out money to have gentlemen's clubs. I am -surprised. I understood the Minister of Militia to be working always for the interests of the militia and a lot of our young men in the Eastern Townships do not approve of such action as this.
Mr. MeCREA:	The minister says that
Mrs. Worthington's property has been rented for offices for the 53rd. Is he aware that the upper flat in the Brooks block, which was rented by the department some time before Mrs. Worthington's property, would make splendid offices? That upper flat was used as the city hall of Sherbrooke up to within a couple of years ago, and answered the purpose very well. They had all the room they wanted. The minister would have us believe that Mrs. Worthington's property is used not for an officers' mess, but for offices where the men can transact their business.
Mr. SAM. HUGHES: I do not know what the Brooks block is. We have two apartments in the city of Sherbrooke. One is where the non-commissioned officers have their classes, 'and the other is for the 
officers. If the hon. member knows of any more buildings we have in Sherbrooke I woull like to know it. I remember distinctly that these buildings were rented only temporarily.


Mr. BOIVIN:: Until what time?


James Joseph Hughes: Until our other quarters are ready.


Georges Henri Boivin: When will that be?


James Joseph Hughes: During this year, I hope.


Edmund William Tobin: If liquor is sold there will you stop paying rent?


James Joseph Hughes: Not at all. I may as well tell the House that liquor is not used in camps of instruction. This is not a camp of instruction, but if I find the use of liquor, which was tolerated by my predecessors from time immemorial, being abused by the officers in any drill-hall they will quickly walk out of that building.


Edmund William Tobin: The minister knows that
the St. George's club is in the same building.


James Joseph Hughes: I do not know anything about it.


Edmund William Tobin: I can vouch for it. One of the militia men told me that the St. George's club serves whisky, and all kinds of liquor. They have a, good time there and I do not blame them, but I do not think it is right that the department should pay $100 a month rent for those rooms. Now that the minister knows that the St. George's club occupies part of that building I think he should see to it that the officers leave the building.
Mr. SAM. HUGHES: I have already assured the House that I know nothing whatever about any club, and the House may rest assured that if we find any liquor being used excessively or improperly in the buildings we pay rent for, it shall be stopped immediately; but in the first place I shall require some evidence, and at the present time I have no evidence of it whatever.


Francis N. McCrea: Who rented this building, and who is it rented from?


James Joseph Hughes: The building was rented on petition of the officers I expect through Colonel Denison, the commanding officer. It was rented from Mrs. Worthington.


Francis N. McCrea: Does the minister mean to tell me that Mrs. Worthington, who had already rented that property to the St. George's Club, who are now occupying the building, would rent it over again to the department without saying anything about it?


James Joseph Hughes: I know nothing about
it further than that the building was asked for by our officers, and that Mrs. Worthington wrote a letter requesting the department to take the building. The building was rented in the ordinary Tegular way.


Edmund William Tobin: Did not the minister state some time ago that he had not only rented that building, but bought it from Mrs. Worthington?


Mr HUGHES:: Never.


Edmund William Tobin: I am surprised at the minister saying that. He told some gentlemen who asked him about it the other day that his department had bought it. I have no objections to him buying it, but what I do object to is that the minister should allow his officers to remain in the same building as the St. George's Club, after he has been going up and down this country trying to catch votes from the temperance . people by saying that he will not allow whisky to be sold in canteens. I think it is about time the minister should be shown up in his true colours. At two meetings I attended in the Eastern Townships, I heard the hon. minister's friends making a point of that, and trying to catch the votes of the temperance people. The minister surely remembers going to Sherbrooke in 1912, during the provincial election campaign, and promising some of the electors that he would build a drill-hall there if they would elect his friend. The people, however, elected a good Liberal, and the minister's friend was defeated. The minister went to the St. George s Club then, and he knows that they are serving not only white whisky, but different kinds of wine.


James Joseph Hughes: If the hon. member means to say that I visited Srerbrooke in connection with a provincial election, he is stating what is deliberately untrue. Does the hon. member mean to say that I took part in that provincial election? If he does, he is stating something for which there is absolutely no foundation.


Edmund William Tobin: Do you want me to answer that question?


James Joseph Hughes: Moreover, I never saw
liquor at any club in Sherbrooke. I. had dinner at a club there one day-I do not know whether it was the St. George's club or not-tout there was no liquor used in my presence on that occasion.


Edmund William Tobin: We had a provincial election in the province of Quebec in May, 1912, and shortly before that election the hon. minister visited Sherbrooke. He promised them almost everything if they would elect his friend. I do not know if he came down purposely to take part in the provincial election, but he was there and made those promises at that time. He went to St. George's club, and then he stated to-night that he did not know what St. George's club was. I do not want to insinuate that the minister took too much whisky blanc, but I know they had some there, and he knows it, too.
Mr. SAM. HUGHES: I was not there at night.


Mr. CROMWELL:: I would like to throw some light on St. George's club. I do not think the hon. member for Richmond and Wolfe (Mr. Tobin) has any right to throw slurs on the members of St. George's club. They are just as respectable people as exist in the eastern townships. There are in almost every club, for the use of its members, wines and liquors, and every member of this House knows it; but there is no liquor in St. George's club for distribution or for sale, or for any visitors to go in and partake of unless it is at the invitation of a member of the club. The house that was owned by Mrs. Worthington has been rented by St. George's club since the time of the burning down of the St. George's club house. As far as I know, it is still occupied, or partially occupied, by St. George's club. I think they intend to use it for the officers of the 53rd. I repeat that the members of St. George's club are as respectable a body of people as live in the Eastern Townships.


Edmund William Tobin: I have not said that the members of St. George's club are not respectable. I can tell my hon. friend from Compton (Mr. Cromwell) that I was a member of that club for about ten years, and that I resigned last January. I knew what they served there, and it is a respectable place to go to. But when we have a

Minister of Militia who goes from one end of the country to the other preaching temperance, receiving telegrams of congratulation, addressing the temperance ladies throughout the Dominion, and having him pass resolutions commending him for his pronounced determination to stop the sale of wines and liquors in the canteens at the summer drill camps, when he goes down to the city of Sherbrooke and leases as officers' quarters this club in which they serve all kinds of wines and liquors, and when he comes back here and says he does not know anything about St. George's club, I think it is about time that the people should know it. He is sailing under false colors. I have no objection to a man taking a drink of -whisky. The hon. member for Compton cannot say that St. George's club is not known to be a pretty good Tory organization. That is why I resigned from it.


James Joseph Hughes: It is not worth while pursuing the matter any further. I do not mean to say that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Tobin) is deliberately making a statement that he knows to be untrue, but he states what is absolutely without foundation when he says that I was at this club and saw-liquor used there. Even if such were the ease, it would not be my place, when I was a guest at a public institution, to interfere. I have nothing to do with St. George's club, I never heard of it and was never associated with it. We have rented a building for the officers, but St. George's club has nothing to do with it that I am aware of and if it is found that there are any civilians using that club all I can say is that they will very soon cease using it.


Edmund William Tobin: The hon. member for Compton, imagining the minister to be very innocent, must have rented the building for the minister's department without telling him anything about St. George's club being there. I hope the minister will see to it that his officers move from the building.


Frederick Robert Cromwell: The hon. member for Richmond and Wolfe has stated that I must have rented the building occupied by St. George's club for the minister. If I had rented the building for the minister it would have been perfectly right, because I could rent a building as well as any man from the Eastern Townships. But I want to repudiate the insinuation of the hon. gentleman that the St. George's club was an institution which sold liquor. I have been in St. George's club a great many times and I have never seen such a thing take place 
there in my life. When I said that St. George's club was as respectable a club as was to be found in tre Eastern Townships I was speaking of the present time; I was not going back to the resignation of any member of the club.


Edmund William Tobin: If the hon. gentleman says that he did not know that they served any liquor at that club, he was not there at the time.


James Joseph Hughes: It is the custom of clubs all over Canada to sell liquor. The leader of the Liberal Opposition in Ontario, who, I believe, is a distinguished temperance man for political purposes, is a member of the Ontario club, which sells liquor.


Mr. J. D. REID:: President of it.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: The minister has just
referred to the leader of the Opposition in the province of Ontario. True it is he belongs to the Ontario club where liquor is sold but I do not believe that even the minister wilt stand in his place and say that Mr. Rowell is anything but a most consistent temperance man.
9 p.m. Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.
( Mr- PARDEE. Hon. gentlemen may say oh, oh,' but there is no one who can say that N. W. Rowell is not a most consistent temperance man or one who does not live up to the tenets -that he preaches to a degree that perhaps no other man in public life in Canada does to-day. The Minister of Militia has opened up a discussion here upon the militia question in Canada. And he has opened it very widely. He has asked us to come and we are here. He has given us a statement as to how the militia expenditure has been carried on since 1911. I think that hon. members on both sides of the House will agree that from the 'beginning to the end of the minister's remarks they breathe nothing but militancy. It was fight from the beginning, it was fight to the end. You would have thought that the people of Canada were an absolutely warlike people looking for war and trouble instead of devoting themselves to the arts of peace. There was nothing about beating the sword into the ploughshare with the Minister of Militia. With him it was to sharpen the sword on the grindstone and to find a head to cut off and let it fall into -the basket. His attitude was: where is the man who will knock that chip off my shoulder and let Canada and the empire go for him! The minister has several times devoured

Germany almost before breakfast. The latest thing to which he has turned his attention and that of the Militia Department is the eating up of Ireland and all those who do not believe in her cause. Ever since the year 1911, when the Conservative party came into power and when the hon. minister took over the management of the Militia Department-and I say it in all honesty and sincerity-the Minister of Militia has not been as hoping to build up a militia which may be and which ought to be useful; he has been simply building up a militia which may be called out for war at any minute. His idea is absolutely wrong and it is not a good idea for the young people of Canada to grow up with.
I am in favour of the militia; but a minister, who is in charge of the Militia Department of the Dominion of Canada, and who is building up a militia day in and day out along the lines that perhaps to-morrow we shall be at war with somebody, has not got the right idea in mind and is imbuing the spirit of war into the souls of the people of this Dominion. There is no question about the necessity of a militia; but why we should expend on militia the enormous sums that we are expending to-day, is more than I can understand. Canada is a young and growing country, and "we need the $14,000,000 that the minister purposes spending upon militia in the year 1914-5 more for the development of this country than for the purposes to which the Minister of Militia intends putting it.
I would like to give a few figures to the House to show how much has been spent upon the militia since 1911. The hon. Minister of Militia practically stated this afternoon that the people of Canada were quite willing to be taxed for militia expenditures and to be taxed liberally. I take absolute issue with him upon that point. The people of Canada are perfectly willing and satisfied that they should be taxed to a moderate degree in so far as militia expenditures are concerned; but I believe the people have shown that they are not content that they should be taxed to the extent that the Minister of Militia is taxing them to-day. The hon. minister this afternoon compared the expenditures of his predecessor, Sir Frederick Borden, with his own expenditures since 1911. I was unable to follow his argument. Perhaps it was due to my own denseness, but by some subtle jugglery of figures he showed that there was a difference of only $4,000,000 between himself and his predecessor.


James Joseph Hughes: In my favour.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: Let us see whether that statement holds good. I have a list of the expenditures upon the militia from 1896 to 1911. During that period the total expenditure by the Liberal Government was $63,134,120.


Mr. WARNOCK:: What was the expenditure in 1896?


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: $2,478,179. The total
expenditure in 1911, the last year of Liberal rule, was $7,009,822, and the total expenditure under thei Liberal rule from 1896 to 1911, fifteen years, was $63,134,120, the total expenditure of the hon. Minister of Militia under this Conservative Government from 1911 to the year 1914, three years, was $43,102,987.


James Joseph Hughes: Is the hon. member counting 1910-1911 as the last year of the Liberal Administration, or is he counting that the Liberals are responsible for the expenditure in 1911-1912?


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: I am counting 1910-1911, and 1911 with $7,009,822, as the last year of Liberal expenditure. The figures for
1914-1915 are as follows:
Main Estimates	$10,845,400
Supplementary Estimates	 339,975
Statutory pay to military members of Militia Council and Inspector
General	 21,000
Items in Public Works Estimates to be spent on drill halls, armouries, etc	 2,355,000
Total	$13,561,375
The hon. Minister of Militia says that his expenditure is $4,000,000 less than that of his predecessor. Although he will explain that perhaps to the satisfaction of hon. gentlemen on -his own side of the House, he will not explain it to the satisfaction of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House or of the people of the Dominion of Canada, if the expenditure in 1910-1911 under the Liberal Administration was $7,009,822 and in 1914-1915 under the Conservative Administration, $13,561,375.


Mr. CURRIE:: The hon. gentleman, in
stating the expenditure of the preceding regime, omitted to note the fact that all the drill-halls and public buildings in connection with the militia were charged to public works.


Mr. MACDONALD:: So they are now.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: So they are now. I am
including them in the statement I have

made of $2,355,000. You cannot get away from it; it is there in the Public Accounts, it is there in the Estimates. I have given correctly the amount that is being expended for militia in the Dominion of Canada to-day and it represents $2 a head. The minister comes and tells us-it is a pretty story and reads almost like a poem -that he is establishing drill-halls everywhere, and concerning every public expenditure from 1896 down to the present time, whether for the Grand Trunk Pacific or anything else, the minister sees in that expenditure Jwhat was purchased or accomplished but the number of drill-halls that might have been constructed with the money. His mind is obsessed with drill-halls; it is absolutely taken up with soldiers and drill. He can go no further and see no further. He does not seem to realize that what the people want is a fair expenditure for militia, but iwhat they want still more is to have the revenues of this Dominion used for the development of our latent resources and not for the promotion of a warlike spirit. The Minister of Militia wholly mistakes the temper and idea of the people of Canada if he continues on the same line he. has been following since 1911. Why, let us look where these sums for drill-halls have been expended. He has spent in the province of Ontario alone upon drill-ha'ls $1,154,800, and he has put them in the following places:	Kincardine, Mount Forest, Wingham, Watford-small places ranging from two to six thousand people. These drill-halls he put up, he tells us, that the	young	men	might	meet atnight to receive physical instruction, that	they	might receive	education
along the lines of drill; and above all, as we may judge from what we know of this chivalrous Minister of Militia, that they may meet the young ladies and see that a good time is had during the evening. Bui take the whole list, and you will find that with the exception of two places in the province of Ontario, these drill halls for the culture of the youth and beauty-as the minister put it-of the province, had been established where Tory candidates were returned in 1911. As to the rest of the places, why, the young people may grow up stunted, untrained, undrilled, but the minister's answer is: You returned a Grit candidate and are without the pale.


James Joseph Hughes: If I may be permitted a question, would the hon. gentleman 
name a riding in Ontario represented by a Grit where a drill ball could be put?


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: Sarnia. The site has been bought and paid for; it is lying there,-but a Grit was returned and so the minister will not build the drill hall. That is as near home as I know, and the minister can take what comfort out of it he may; it is a shining example of a Grit representative and no armoury.


James Joseph Hughes: May I ask another question?


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: Certainly.


James Joseph Hughes: Would he undertake
to draw for this House, or have some one else draw, a plan for the site at Sarnia? It is like a pismire, narrow in the middle and large at either end, fronting on two streets.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: It may be, but if you are to take that description of it politically, it remarkably resembles himself.. He asked for an example, and I have given him one. And so you have it all along the line-for the Grits nothing, for the Tories culture and drill halls. I do not know how it is in British Columbia; one would1 naturally suppose there must be a drill hall there on every side line. However that may be, certain it is that it is,absolutely true that the minister stands here to-day and justifies his huge expenditure on drill halls since 1911 by telling us that he wishes the youth of this country to be brought up in a proper way, to receive physical drill, mental drill, and moral drill-


Edward Walter Nesbitt: And spiritual drill.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: Yes, so he said, and I am indebted to my hon. friend for that word. But the cold fact remains, and he cannot get away from it, that though he preaches this lofty doctrine, he practises it only so far as ridings that have returned Tories are concerned. It is a lovely sight, this man of beautiful ideals whose spirit soars above the clouds when he thinks out these Utopian plans. We cannot but feel that if long ago he had been allowed to come into this mundane sphere and arrange for the culture of the young people-especially during the last fifteen years-he would have so greatly affected the career of the Dominion. Yet he only spends the public money where his henchmen are true to his party.
Mr. GERALD V. WHITE: What about the drill-hall in South Renfrew.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: I |Said there were two exceptions. My hon. friend evidently does not know his own county.


Mr. WHITE:: I know it better than the hon. gentleman does.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: I have had some experience of it, and the hon. gentleman was not in the running. I believe the minister said in the course of his remarks this afternoon that about 73,000 men belonged to the militia of the Dominion of Canada,
Mr. SAM. HUGHES:	There are 77,000
regular militia, not counting cadets.
Mr. PARDEE. I understood the hon. minister to say 73,000. The Minister of Militia has a force of 73,000 men, some of them, I take it, volunteers, few of them on the permanent force and many of them honorary colonels. With a permanent force of about 73,000 men and the remainder volunteers, who are called out annually to drill, and who, I understand, are no expense to the country except during the time of that annual drill, it appears to me, and to many people in the Dominon with Whom I have discussed this matter, to he an extraordinary thing that the headquarters staff and the expenses of its upkeep should assume such tremendous proportions. Expenditures upon the headquarters staff of the militia to March 31, 1913, amounted to $103,309.37 and this year the hon. Minister of Militia is asking for $205,000. To expend upon this staff, most of whom, I take it, live in the city of Ottawa, some in Toronto, some in London, and some in the northern divisions, that large sum for the supervision of 70,000 volunteers and 3,000 regulars; to expend that money in salaries and gold lace is nothing more or less than an unwarranted taxation of the people of Canada. Here are some of the salaries; I shall read only a few of them:
Major General C. C. Mackenzie, Chief of General Staff, $7,500 ; Major General Macdonald, $4,000; Majer General Lessard, $3,000; Colonel Williams, $3,000; Colonel Rutherford, $4,000 ; Colonel Biggar, $3,500.
These amounts, together with expenditures for travelling expenses and upkeep of the general headquarters staff, run up to an enormous total. It would seem to me that that expenditure is wholly unwarranted.


Mr. W. H. BENNETT:: What has the increase been since 1911?


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: I do not know. Let me say in conclusion that, having regard to
the militia expenditures and to the whole facts	of the matter, it is apparent, as I said in a speech not long ago, that the present Minister of Militia has gone more or less military mad.	He is absolutely obsessed with
militarism; it is his one thought and aim from the time he gets up in the morning until he goes to bed at night. I am wholly in favour of a militia; I believe that the young men of our country should be properly taught, but I am absolutely opposed to a militia which is not commensurate with the needs of the country in every respect.
I do believe that if the minister is well advised he will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor; he will dispel from his mind the idea that we should continually prepare for war with an absolutely unseen foe. If he is well advised he will devote the resources of this country more to the arts of peace than to the arts of war and thereby bring credit to himself and vastly more satisfaction to the people of the Dominion of Canada.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Can the minister now give me the information he promised me this afternoon with regard to the length of time the officers remained in Europe in the years 1907, 1908 and 1909 and 1910?


James Joseph Hughes: In some cases they spent two or three months of the year, sometimes longer.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Would the average for the years mentioned be six or eight months?	.


James Joseph Hughes: I should imagine that
would be the average.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: As I understand it, they were taking a staff course.


James Joseph Hughes: Some were taking the
staff course, some minor courses.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Does my hon. friend consider there is any fair comparison between men who seriously go to a college or institution of knowledge to become proficient in their profession, which we must assume was the object of their going in previous years, and the exhibition which the Canadian officers made last year in junketting through Europe with a lot of ladies in automobiles? My hon. friend comes to this House and wants to make the people of this country believe that because they did not spend as much money last year as during a number of previous years, they should be commended. I tell my hon.

friend, following up the line of argument advanced by the hon. member for Lambton, while I do object to the expenditure of this enormous amount of money I object even more strongly to the manner in which it is being expended. When I think of the Minister of Militia of Canada, a man who ought to set an example to the rest of the people of Canada, going through Europe as he went last year, even as shown by the return brought down here-and I imagine we have only a little of the story-every Canadian ought to blush with shame to think of such a thing. He takes twenty or twenty-one officers. He says they are members of the ordinary active militia. They went to Europe. I do not know how long they stayed in England but they went to France and they had the automobiles from the 2nd of September until the middle of October.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How much per day?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I find from the return
that they paid altogether some $7,000 or $8,000 for these automobiles. Just think of it, a lot of Canadian officers going over there and travelling all over Europe with a fleet of automobiles at an expenditure of $7,000 or $8,000! My hon. friend says they saw the manoeuvres and learned so much about the art of war. My hon. friend does not believe that; he knows they did not learn anything about the art of war. He knows it was only a lot of his Tory officers and friends whom he took over there to have a good time, and the people of this country are paying the bill. I am not justifying the amounts of money spent in previous years; I think too much has been expended on the militia in previous years, and I have tried to make that plain every time I have spoken in this House. I do not altogether justify it. I think if $35,000 or $40,000 was spent in sending officers to the other side, the money might have been nearly wasted but they were at least attempting to do something. When my hon. friend went to Europe last year with his friends they were not attempting to do anything except to have a good time. My hon. friend -says it cost $24,000. As I figure from the return it cost nearly $35,000. There is an expenditure of $24,262 given in the return; but in addition to that the officers were paid, according to their rank, practically $4,000, and they had $10 a day each for allowance. That brings it up to $34,000 or $35,000.


James Joseph Hughes: Those items are included in the $24,000.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am glad to know that. The way the question was answered, one would be led to believe that these items were in addition to the $24,000. Now, what earthly military knowledge could my hon. friend and his political friends obtain in scooting from France to Switzerland, from Switzerland to Germany, from Germany to Belgium, and from Belgium back to France with a lot of automobiles and having a glorious good time ? What earthly military knowledge could they gain in a series of excursions like that ?


Mr. BLAIN:: My hon. friend has twice repeated that these officers were political friends of the Minister of Militia. My hon. friend has forgotten that the minister stated this afternoon that there were more Liberals than Conservatives in the party.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I did not hear the minister make that statement.


Richard Blain: He did make that statement.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I think my hon. friend must be in error. .


Richard Blain: I am not in error. The minister made the statement this afternoon that there was a majority of Liberals in the company that went to the old country last year!


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I shall ask the minister.


William Manley German: Perhaps the minister might explain what military advantage was gained by the expenditure of $24,000.


James Joseph Hughes: I never inquired into the politics of the members of the party. I knew that Colonel McLeod was a Tory, and Dave Watson of Quebec. I have been informed that there were one more Liberals than Tories. I am very sorry; I should have had more Tories-but they were good fellows.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I was right, the hon. member did not say that before.


Richard Blain: He said it this afternoon. It was on the strength of his statement that I corrected my hon. friend.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend also says that he never inquired into their politics. He told about one gentleman from Halifax who had taken an active part against the Premier at the polls. I assume in that case he must have been a Liberal. He brought the officer up here and gave him a lecture and told him to go back home and be good and then took him on this trip. My hon. friend wants the people to believe that these officers have received

some military training, that they have learned something about the art of war. My hon. friend does not believe that. There is not a man sitting behind him who believes that. The officers who went there would not, on their honour, state that they believed it, because they know better. No matter who they may be they know that they simply went over there and had a good time at the country's expense. I was amused not long ago when the Minister of Trade and Commerce, a gentleman whom I think would like to administer the affairs of the country on an economical basis, was discussing subsidies to the steamship lines. There were two little steamship lines running out of Pictou, one I think to Cape Breton and one to Antigonish, the subsidies coming to $3,000 or $4,000 altogether. The minister thought he could save $1,000 of this and amalgamated them. It was pointed out that it was a mistake and caused all sorts of trouble and the minister admitted it, he said the darn thing had given him more trouble than anything he had ever had to deal with. I thought then that he should have handed it over to the Minister of Militia who does not economize on a few thousand dollars, but talks in hundreds of thousands of dollars. He sizes up everything in the way of expenditure by drill-halls and tens of thousands of dollars. The hon. member for Lambton has pointed out that the minister had gone militia mad I think his own friends will admit that; it has become a mania with the hon. gentleman. If we can believe what he tells us this afternoon he is willing to spend half the revenue of Canada on the militia if we will give him the money to expend. He sees the force of our criticism. He has been getting hauled over the coals by his own friends or he would not have made the speech he did to-day, because his whole speech was a justification for his expenditure. He went through some jugglery of figures to try to show that he did not spend as much as the former minister. I could not follow him, probably that is my misfortune. There is no doubt that the minister's statement was plain, but I am satisfied that no member of this House understood him any more than my hon. friend from Lambton and I could. Does the Minister of Militia think that he can convince any reasonable elector in the Dominion of Canada that he has spent $4,000,000 less in the last year than his predecessor did on the militia? That is what he says. He does not believe it, he knows it is not true. He knows that from the public accounts he
will find that in the year 1911, $6,868,000 was expended on the militia and in 1913 they spent $9,114,533, and this year, outside of his drill-halls which are being paid for by the public Works Department, he is asking for $10,867,000; and he hopes that some man in the country will be fool enough to believe him when he makes the statement that in 1911-12 he spent $4,000,000 less than his predecessor. This is only a sample of the kind of argument my hon. friend puts up, and which he is compelled to put up in order to satisfy the grumblings of the people behind him; because, if the truth were known, members on the Government side of the House are just as much disgusted as gentlemen on this side. If this money was being honestly expended for the benefit of the people it would not be so bad. My hon. friend said this afternoon that no money gets back into the pockets of the people so quickly as money spent on the militia. That is true as regards money that goes to the real militia, but my hon. friend took care not to tell us just how much goes to the real militia. Just look at his Estimates. He only wants $2,000,000 for annual drill; that is for the real men; the
74,000	in the active militia, and he is spending nearly $14,000,000 altogether. It is true he is spending $2,300,000 for the permanent force, but so far as the active militia is concerned he is only asking for $2,000,000. In addition to that theTe is something for clothing-an item of $800,600; that would include both the permanent and the active forces. Then there is something for contingencies. The difficulty with my hon. friend is that he has a permanent staff big enough for an army of half a million men. That is the whole trouble. Two hundred and five thousand dollars goes on fuss and feathers, for a lot of men living on the country who are not earning a dollar, and not contributing a dollar to the wealth of the country; men who aTe getting salanes which would be princely in any other walk of life. I want to tell my hon. friend that he had better set the whole lot of these gentlemen to earning their own living. He has to have a certain numbeT of officials, I admit, but to spend $205,000 to keep officers, who do nothing, in gold lace, is absurd. The money would be far better expended in the ordinary walks of peace. Take here at Ottawa: $89,000, according to the statement placed in our hands, is to be spent on the permanent staff in Ottawa alone. When you go down on Slater street you would almost think that we were in the midst of an active campaign. About every other man you

see is going around with brass buttons and gold lace. Do you think, Mr. Chairman, that in a country where we have the ordinary civil officers there is any need of these men going around in uniform? It is no wonder the minister laughs, he is ashamed of it himself?


John Douglas Hazen: Can the hon. member tell the House whether this permanent staff is any larger to-day than when the present minister took office?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not know how
much larger it is, but I want to tell the Min:ster of Marine and Fisheries that I am not excusing the former minister. I have said that here a good many times. The permanent staff of this country is a disgrace to Canada, and they have so many of these officers that they cannot even do the business of the country. I know what I am talking about. Unfortunately I have a little business to do with the Department of Militia. A company of which I am a director has to render a bill to these gentlemen once a month. It is only a small amount, about $8 or $10, but the moment a dispute arises we always figure on firing the whole thing away because the account would cost more to collect than it is worth. It takes two or three months to get a little $5 account settled, and the reason is this: They have so many of these officers that they have to provide something for them to do. The moment any business comes in it has to go through the whole machinery; it goes through half a dozen officers' hands and through half a dozen different offices. It goes from Woodstock to Fredericton, and from Fredericton to Halifax, and from there to Ottawa, and the Lord knows where after that; and it is weeks and months before you get the thing back. This has to be done in order to justify the existence of these gentlemen. If they were not given something to do there would be trouble. Just let me give an illustration of how they provide work for these officials. This is something that took place at the headquarters staff on Slater street. Not very long ago a gentleman wrote a very polite note to the department asking for a map or plan of some kind. Without giving names, I have here the exact transcript of the thing as it came back:
Letter passed through five stages.
1.	Letter received in department and noted.

2.	Letter endorsed thus:
'D.G.F.S.-For action' and then passed on.
3.	Letter next endorsed thus:
'A.D.M.S.-For action please-G.E.M ' D.G.F.S.
and again passed on.
4.	L- tter next endorsed thus:
'D G.E.S.-Sent to-day-
'M. Anderson, Major Assistant,
Director of Military Surveys.' and once more passed on.
5.	Letter next endorsed thus:
'To note Min. 4.'
'G. S. Maunsell, Lt.-Col. R. E. D.G.E.S.' and then returned with the map.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Have you a key to the abbreviations?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No.


John Allister Currie: Does the hon. gentleman say what the correspondent was asking for?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: A map.


John Allister Currie: It is the rule to refuse to give military plans to any person.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend can talk after a little while. This gentleman was not asking for any secrets; he was not a traitor or a rebel; he was not trying to get into the secrets of the department; he was a loyal member of Parliament, who i's sitting not more than a hundred feet away from where I stand.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Was he a Nationalist?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No.


John Allister Currie: I happen to be an officer of the militia and a commanding officer. If any maps are issued to me, for any reason, I have to return them to the department immediately they are done with. I think that is a very good thing. Topographical ' maps of this country, plans of fortresses-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I object to my hon. friend making a speech. He need not get excited; he will have a chance later on. I did not say that this man was asking for a topographical map or for a plan of a fortress; it was only a little bit of a blue print, something which he had a perfect right to get, and the fact that he got it is the best evidence that it was all right. The minister's officers would not have given it to him if it had not been all right.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The fortress was taken.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, i-t was protected. The man got the map all right, but, instead

of getting it by the next mail, as in the case of any ordinary bnsiness concern, he had to wait till the letter had travelled around this circuitous route. It had to pass through all these officers' hands to justify their existence. If these letters were answered like the Minister of Railways, or the Minister of the Interior, or any other minister of this Government would answer them, four out of every five of these gold-laced chaps down there would have to be dismissed. These gentlemen are kept down there for the glorification of the minister. If the minister had only two or three officials down on Slater street, there would be no officer there to salute him when he went down there in the morning, and it would not be necessary for members of Parliament to get a pass in order to go down there to do business. It would be an ordinary business transaction


John Allister Currie: Has my hon. friend-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Now, what is the trouble again?


John Allister Currie: I would like the hon.
gentleman to be fair. I would like to ask him if there has been any addition to the number of officers on the headquarters' staff since the present minister took charge of the department?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I answered that question.


John Allister Currie: Another question:	Who
initiated the pass system that the hon. gentleman speaks so much about?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I answered that question once before. I say that there has been an Increase in the number of officers-I cannot tell how many-but there was an increase of eight or nine according to the statement, I think, last year. I am admitting that the former minister was guilty, not as guilty as the present minister, because it would be almost an impossibility to find a man in Canada who was quite as crazy on military matters as the present minister. I know that the hon. member for North Simcoe is looking for his shoes and if the conditions were changed and the hion. member for North Simcoe was in the present minister's place I do not think he would be hardly as bad as the present minister. I presume that is the reason why he has not been taken in; he does not fit in with the conditions. It would be a pretty serious
matter to get rid of a lot of these gold lace gentlemen.


John Allister Currie: Now, just a minute; I
would like to enlighten the hon. gentleman on that point. When the other Government was in office I was a member of this House, an officer of the militia-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Now, Mr. Chairman. Some hon. MEMBERS. Order, order.


John Allister Currie: I can-
Some bon. MEMBERS:	Order, order.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order.


John Allister Currie: Oh, I am not-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Carvell) objects he cannot be interrupted.


John Allister Currie: He does not object.


An hon. MEMBER:: He does, sit down. Mr. CURRIE:	After I have made my
statement-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: If the hon. member
(Mr. Carvell) objects-


John Allister Currie: Well, I presume-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My horn, friend (Mr. Currie) asked me a question and I answered him as best I knew how. If my hon, friend wants to ask another question I am willing to give him an opportunity but I do not intend to allow my horn, friend to make a speech until I am through.


John Allister Currie: I presume the hon. gentleman desires to be fair?
10 p.m. Mr. CARVELL: Certainly.


John Allister Currie: 
Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is a fair question
and if my hon. friend was compelled to sit an hour and a half I do not think he was properly treated.


John Allister Currie: Has the present minister ever done that to you?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: He has not done that
with me because I have only been down

there but once since he was minister and when I was there I found a whole regiment of officials around. I found the department bristling with brass buttons. Officials were standing every five or six feet apart from the time I went into the building until I got out of it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Did they salute?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, amd they did not
ask jine for a pass; they let me go in. If my hon. friend has been held up by officials during the present Administration I am sorry for him. But I seem to have disturbed my hon. friend. Possibly I have called up unpleasant thoughts to him; I am sorry for having done so. I did not intend to say anything personal. He is youing in the world yet. It is true that he is a full fledged colonel, he is getting along very well and he probably may get to be Minister of Militia some day. He has yet twenty-five years ahead of him, he will have obtained a little more information and I believe that if he does reach this high position he will not be as bad as the present Minister of Militia because I think that is almost impossible.
I have tried to point out to the minister the way they are running things on this headquarters' staff. Let us go down to the provinces. Go down, for instance, to the little province of New Brunswick. You will find a lot of this outfit around Fredericton. I do not know how many there are there. You will see them on the streets, they have great big barracks, and when you go to Halifax you find them more numerous and the barracks much bigger. They have all these expensive men just simply to sign things like this:	' for
action-place-D.G.M.,' and so on. That is all they are doing. One good clerk at a salary of $1,000 a year in New Brunswick- and he would not be employed all his time -and two men at Halifax could do the whole business. No matter how little the thing may be that you want done, you have to have a man sent down all the way to Halifax to do it. This applies to the most trifling little thing you could imagine. Not long ago I spoke to the minister about a piece of property in my own town. There was no question about it, they had the deed of the property, and the thing was perfectly plain. I wanted him to give me some information about it, and he said: I will have to send my engineer officer down there. The result was that the engineer officer was sent all Carveiy
the way from Ottawa to Woodstock with nothing in the world for him to do that I could see, because they had had three or four sets of officers doing the same thing, and I suppose it cost $100 to get this gentleman down there. That is going on all over the country. These are things that the people are getting tired of. If they had been spending this money on the militia, if the men and the boys, as the minister calls them, who go out and drill, were the ones to get some of this money the people would not have so much fault to find, but when you have one string of officers after another string of officers travelling around the country and squandering money the people most decidedly object. Not only do you pay the headquarters' staff $205,000, but you pay something like $100,000 for travel and transportation.


Henry Robert Emmerson: $200,000 for transport.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, that is the transport of the militia generally, but there is something for the transport of this headquarters' staff as well. I see here that there is a charge of $30,000 for the travelling expenses of the headquarters' and district staffs. Add that to $205,000, and you have $235,000, in addition to which there are some thousands of dollars of contingencies. I suppose you will have close upon $300,000 as the amount which is being used up by a lot of these men, not one of whom earns really a thousand dollars a year. I know that I am not making myself popular with these gentlemen in talking in this way, but I am telling the minister the truth. I am trying to tell him how the people look upon it, and if he thinks he is going to make himself and the Government popular, and that they will be pleased by such figures as were recited here this afternoon, he is very much mistaken.
I congratulate the minister on the fact that he has sobered down a little this evening, and that he has given this matter a little more serious thought than I have ever seen him give it before.
The minister stated this afternoon that one of the objects of this organization was to teach men how to shoot. I agree that that is a laudable object. If he is going to have a militia force that is to be of any earthly use he must have one composed of men who are able to handle a rifle or a big gun or a piece of artillery. But it is simply pitiable when you consider the amount of money that is being expended on the really necessary portion of the militia. If you

take the rifle associations of the Dominion of Canada, organizations which really try to do something to carry out the excuse for the existence of the militia, you will find in the summary under grants to associations and bands, the magnificient sum of $80,900. That includes all the little associations throughout the country. I presume that sum would include eight armouries or drill-halls?


James Joseph Hughes: Yes.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The hon. minister has allowed eight drill-halls per year for rifle shooting and things of that kind.


Henry Robert Emmerson: A drill-hall is a unit.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, a drill-hall is a unit of value. In my own province of New Brunswick, which is not large, there is an association to which I belonged and which had seventy or eighty members-I think I have seen over 100 members there. The Provincial Rifle Association of New Brunswick is getting the magnificient sum of $1,300 out of the $14,000,000 that the minister is spending on gold lace, frills, fuss and feathers.


John Allister Currie: There is ammunition in addition to that.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, 200 rounds of ammunition.


John Allister Currie: If my hon. friend belonged to an association-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have belonged to an association as long as my hon. friend has, and I know as much about it as he does.


James Joseph Hughes: Do you hope to be a colonel?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, I have not any
hopes, because I know that my hon. friend will never make me a colonel as a reward of merit; it will be only as a punishment. I find that the Provincial Rifle Association of Nova Scotia gets the magnificient sum of $1,600, and the whole Dominion of Canada recevies for bands and rifle associations only $80,900. The very thing that means something to the militia, the very thing for which the militia exists, is absolutely thrown to the winds and the money is squandered in the manner described by my hon. friend from West Lambton (Mr. Pardee) and by myself. If my hon. friend did not want his own glorification, but a real militia force, he would spend $800,000 instead of $80,000 for this purpose. It must 217
be remembered that all the rifle associations are included in this; and if my hon. friend from North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) will look at the details, he will find that the Militia Department gives a rifle association thirty ot forty dollars and expects it to exist on that. A staff colonel will spend twice that amount of money in making a trip that is not necessary.
My hon; friend has certain branches of the service which may just as well for all practical purposes be eliminated entirely. I am speaking now about the artillery and the engineers, and I have some practical knowledge in regard to these branches of the militia. Not only is the present artillery of Canada of no use, but it would be a menace in time of trouble because the officers are not properly trained. My hon. friend knows that modern artillery has no value whatever excepting in the hands of highly technically trained officers. He has battery after battery of field artillery and has not a qualified officer, let alone a technically trained one. My hon. friend is not doing anything to remedy this condition of affairs. When he speaks about sending instructors throughout the country, he knows that he has sent a few, but they are not doing anything. My hon. friend will tell us that his predecessor is liable for this condition of affairs but he is spending $4,000,000 on the artillery-


James Joseph Hughes: There are other armaments and equipment connected with that.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then my statement was practically correct. If my hon. friend is going to add thirty or forty new batteries and make them of any service, he will have to spend three or four thousand dollars in educating officers. He is not doing it; he is not trying to do it. My hon. friend does not seem to appreciate the value of this at all. His sole idea is to have something for his own glorification, something for show and exhibition, but nothing in the world for real value. It would be a crime to send the artillery of this country into active service under present conditions. I am sorry to make this statement, because I was an officer of a battery of artillery, but I am telling the minister the honest truth. When I come to the engineers corps, I think they are in an even worse plight than is the artillery. These are technical branches of the service, and yet practically nothing is being done in order to make them any better than they were ten years ago. If the minister will take some ol these mil-



lion dollars and spimd the money intelligently, it will not be so bad, ibut the money i3 simply being squandered. Nevertheless the minister makes a speech of two hours and a half-


James Joseph Hughes: Two hours exactly.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: And he thinks the
whole thing a huge joke. He gets annoyed when a member asks him a question, becomes almost ungentlemanly in one instance when I asked him what I thought to be a reasonable and fair question. He apparently feels that all he has to do is to travel throughout the country in special trains; to spend $20,000 in going to the old country; to ask every man to take off his hat and hurrah for Colonel Hughes; to take the English officers who come out here, I think for no very good purpose, to Conservative picnics to have their photographs taken-I have a photograph here which I shall send to the minister if he wishes it.


Henry Robert Emmerson: With the Borden
Club?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, the whole thing- the Prime Minister, General Hamilton and a lot more of these chaps at a Conservative picnic. The minister does not appreciate what it means to be a Minister of Militia.


William John Macdonald: Were they against
Home Rule at that picnic?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not know.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It is a very appropriate aggregation.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, especially for a
minister who pretends to be a non-political Minister of Militia. The minister has three or four things to explain that he forgot to explain in his two hours' speech this afternoon. He tells us: Oh, I am spending this money to elevate the moral tone of the young men and women of this country; I am building drill-halls in order that the young men and women may meet there on Saturday afternoons and improve their manners and morals and even their religion. Well, Sir, the militia is a different kind of organization from what it was when I belonged to it if it helps anybody's morals, manners or religion. I have no son, but if I had, I should want to keep pretty close to him while he belonged to the militia of Canada, judging from past experience. It

is true, the hobby of the minister just now is temperance. We have had that pretty well aired here this afternoon. He is going round preaching to the Women's Christian Temperance Union organization and telling them what a great temperance organizer he is and what good things he has done-no more liquor in the camps and all that kind of thing. He was at nearly all the camps last year, and he knows-or ought to know- that there was not a camp in Canada in which liquor did not flow like water-not an officers' mess in which there was not liquor galore. Take the case of Sussex, or take the case of Petawawa, I know officers who were at those camps, and I speak of them because I know something about them. If the minister says there was no liquor in those messes, then he is a greater innocent than I give him credit for being. Oh, no, he knows better. When he makes these statements, he is simply sailing under false colours. Why, we had an illustration here given by my hon. friend from Sherbrooke. The minister takes their building off the hands of a political club and pays the rent. They are running the club and selling the liquor-and as a club that is all Tight; I . have no fault to find with it, for I know that there is probably not a club in Canada that has not the right to sell liquor. But the minister is paying the rent of this club, and the country, to that extent, is standing its expense, and they aTe selling the liquor. And then the minister will go to the Women's Christian Temperance Union organization and say: Look at me, the only real temperance Minister of Militia. I hope the minister will practise what he preaches. The greatest objection I have to the militia of Canada is that it is not a temperance organization but a 'boozorium.'
Mr. SAM. HUGHES: That is unparliamentary.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Why, I have heard the minister himself use it.


James Joseph Hughes: But I had to retract it.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: But I am sure the minister does not want me to retract it, because he knows it is true. Now if he were honestly trying to keep liquor out of these camps he would be doing a wonderful thing. But he is not doing it. He holds out these drill halls as of great advantage to the country. I have one in my own town. It cost $30,000 or $32,000. It is big enough for the purpose for which it was designed- perhaps a little too big, but big enough. The minister ought to know, and I think

he does know, that instead of that being used for the moral and religious uplift of the people, it is not used for anything. Nobody is allowed to go there except members of the militia. They have their club, and the report is that it is not a strictly temperance organization. However, that is their affair. Not long ago they had a fight of nearly a year's duration before even the regimental band could get the right to use a room there. The hon. minister talks about people generally getting the use of these drill halls on Saturday afternoon and so on. Why, the drill hall is locked up. And if a Liberal were to show his nose there, I really believe he would be dynamited. The sign is practically up:	Liberals keep out; this is our drill hall. The minister tells us there is no politics in this thing. In my town it is presided over by a strong Conservative-and I am not finding any fault with him. But all over the country these are run as part of the Tory machine. What is the use of the minister talking; the militia never was so much a political machine as it has come to be since the present minister began to preside over it. There is not a member within the sound of my voice on whatever side of the House he may sit, but knows that what I am saying is true-the militia is just one great Tory machine from Halifax to Vancouver. The only Liberals allowed are those of whom they are trying to make proselytes. Yet the minister travels around and declares that there is no politics in this thing.
Now, I have pointed out to the minister a few of the things to which I take very serious objection ill the militia. And I know I am voicing the sentiments of many of those who sit behind him as well as of those on this side. The members who sit behind him are not in a position to tell him publicly what they think about it, but, fortunately, those on this side utc not in that position. I say, Sir, that it is almost a disgrace that $14,000,000 a year of the public revenues of this country should be spent in militia matters. Who in the world are we going to fight with? Let us talk that over as a matter of business for one moment. Against whom are we arming? Why is it necessary to have three or four millions spent on artillery and to have 140,000 araied and trained men, which is the number the minister says he wants, to have? He said he had something like 77,000 now, and he has another 70,000 ready, but has not the arms and equipment for them. It is a blessing for Canada that 217i
he has not the arms and equipment for these men. And, let me tell him he has not got 77,000 men in Canada ready to do service-he has not got 50,000. Many of the figures he has given have no better basis than his own vivid imagination. He himself has admitted that 25 per cent of his enlistment did not go to camp last year.
. He said this afternoon that they were 'relieved.' He knows very well that he could not get them to go to camp.


James Joseph Hughes: I do not know that.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then, he ought to know. He will hardly find a rural corps in eastern Canada up to its strength, the reason being that they cannot get the men to enlist. And there is not a rural corps in Canada that does not take into camp men from forty-five to sixty-five yeaTs of age. They shave off their beards and give assumed names when the paymaster comes around. The minister knows that; he is not so innocent as not to know it. But even with all these tricks they cannot get up to their strength. It is true that the cavalry and artillery are nearly up to their strength. If. a man has a horse, that horse brings pay and brings the man too. I can tell him that there are some corps where not a horse can get in unless it brings in a man also. And so they staTt recruiting horses and not men. The minister knows all these things, and yet he stands here and paints a glowing picture of the enthusiasm existing all over Canada for the militia service. He knows that they have to take into camp old men, as I have said. He knows that especially regarding the engineer corps-and I think that is the most useless of all. He knows that every year they have twenty-five or thirty-five horses a year that simply stand on the picket lines and do nothing but haul water and draw their $1.25 a day and forage. They would not be able to get one-half their enlistment if they did not take those horses along. My hon. friend painted a picture this afternoon which would seem to indicate that the people of the country are dying to go to war. My advice to the minister is to quit this nonsense. Instead of trying to raise a force of 140,000 or 150,000 men, let him cut it down to 35,000 or 40,000; let him give them officers who are of some value, especially in the technical branches of the service. Give the men regular and frequent target practice; give them not 200 but 1,000 rounds of ammunition. Give the artillery technical

officers and ample target practice. I admit that this would be expensive, but the artillery are of no use unless they are efficient. My hon. friend talks about having all these men ready to go out at a moment's notice in case of war. After all, what does twelve days in camp really mean? The man who goes to camp for twelve days has no more knowledge of the rudiments of war than he had twelve days before he went to camp. I have endeavoured to point out the sins of the omission and commission of my hon. friend the minister and I have endeavoured to portray the facts as they really exist. If I can bring my hon. friend down to earth and get him to view this matter along reasonable and rational lines, my words shall not have been in vain.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I wish to draw the attention of the minister to the fact that in the printed information he has sent out he says:
Compared with 1913-14, there is a decrease of $71,905.
Are there to be any further amounts in the Supplementary Estimates?


James Joseph Hughes: I hope so.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Is this statement which I have read, then, not a misrepresentation?


James Joseph Hughes: Not at all; these are the Main Estimates.


George William Kyte: A few days ago I put a question to the hon. minister respecting the Royal Canadian band taking part in a certain demonstration in the city of Halifax. The questions and the answers were as follows:
1.	Who authorized the hand of the Royal Canadian Regiment to take part in a demonstration in connection with a public meeting in the Province building, Halifax, on the evening *of Wednesday, April 8, 1914?,
2.	Who requested the services of the said band to take part in the demonstration?
3.	Was any payment made for the services *of said band, and by whom was payment made?
4.	If payment has not been made, is there any charge made against any person in connection with such service?
Mr. Sam. Hughes:
1.	The officer commanding the Royal Canadian Regiment, under the provisions of para-raph 875, K. R. & O. (Canada), 1910, as amended by H.Q. 35-1-5, of 7th March, 1914.
2.	P. Pennington Bligh, Esq.
3.	No.
4.	A charge of $45 has been made against C. R. Hoben, Esq.
Is the hon. minister in a position to say whether or not that charge has been paid?


James Joseph Hughes: I have no information on the subject; it will be paid.

Mr.' KYTE: I endeavoured also to call the attention of the hon. minister a few days ago to another incident in connection with the Royal Canadian Regiment band at Halifax, which only goes to show how true is the assertion of the hon. member for Carleton that the militia force of the province of Nova Scotia is becoming an adjunct of the Tory party. It is well known to people who read the newspapers in the province of Nova Scotia that a very serious libel was published upon the Legislature of that province by a newspaper in the city of Halifax. A special committee of the Legislature was appointed for the purpose of inquiring into this libel. One of the witnesses, having refused to answer a proper and legitimate question which was put to him, was ordered to be committed to the common jail of the city of Halifax for forty-eight hours. The moment he was committed to jail, the Royal Canadian band, acting under the instructions, I have no doubt, of the Tory mayor of the city of Halifax, came out in full regimentals for the purpose of serenading this man who was incarcerated for gross libel upon the Legislature of the province of Nova Scotia. My informant says:
Royal Canadian band in King's uniform, with soliders in uniform at their head, carrying Union Jack, paraded Saturday to serenade McCurdy imprisoned in county jail by warrant of Speaker for misbehaviour in refusing to answer questions asked by Committee of House of Assembly.
I endeavoured to ascertain from the minister the other day what authority was given to permit the band to commit this second offence upon the common decency of the people of the city of Halifax, but I was ruled out of order. As we have plenty of time to discuss the question now, I would like to ask the hon. Minister of Militia and Defence under what authority the band came out under the circumstances which I have related.


James Joseph Hughes: Information relating to this band was laid before the House in answer to a question asked by the hon. member himself, I think, yesterday or the day before. I received complaint about this terrible band a short time ago to the effect that they had actually turned out with the Hibernian Society, carrying a Union Jack with a bit of green ribbon tied around the flag pole over the flag. I now have another complaint that the band turned out to serenade some poor fellow who had been locked up in jail; about that I know nothing. There is no reason in the world why the band should not turn out if it is paid,

so long as the officer in command of the district, who is responsible for the band, inquires into the nature of the proceedings in which the band is to take part and gives it his authority to turn out. If my hon. friend holds a meeting in Halifax, I shall be delighted, provided he pays for their services, if the band turns out and plays for him or for any other decent person who comes along and engages them. I was delighted that they played for the Hibernians; I would be delighted if they would play on the 12th of July for the Orangemen, and if they place a bit of orange ribbon upon the flag pole I shall not raise any more objection to it than I did to the tying of a green ribbon to the flag pole on St. Patrick's day.


George William Kyte: The hon. Minister of Militia might well have enumerated other occasions on which objections were raised to regimental bands coming out on occasions if not of a public, of a quasi-public character. I remember an objection raised by the hon. Minister of Militia himself because soldiers marched on the occasion of a religious celebration held in the city of Montreal. When the hon. Minister of Militia enumerates the numerous objections that are made with regard to bands and regiments of soldiers participating in. events which are not entirely of a public character, he should not forget that he several times raised objections in this House because certain regimental bands and troops in the city of Montreal were allowed to march under the circumstances which I have indicated.


James Joseph Hughes: I would like to correct the hon. member right there. I never objected to a band, but I do object, and shall object, to any regiment turning out with arms for any religious procession, I care not what it may be. That is against the law. They must not carry their rifles, that would be contrary to the rule the world over.


George William Kyte: I beg to inform the minister that not only did the band serenade McCurdy in jail the other night, but soldiers in uniform marched at the head of the band carrying the Union Jack, and assisted in the serenade of McCurdy in the jail; so evidently the instructions of the minister were not observed.


James Joseph Hughes: The man carrying the flag is part of the band and he must wear the uniform.


George William Kyte: I have no doubt there has been more flag flying and band playing
since the minister took over the department than ever before. I repeat that the conduct of the band and those in command at Halifax is absolute proof that the militia in Halifax, as well as elsewhere, has become an adjunct of the Tory party.


James Joseph Hughes: The only official I have known to do any political work in Halifax was the officer whose case I cited to-day, who stood at the polls and tried to prevent officers and non-commissioned officers and men from voting for the right hon. gentleman who has the honour of being Prime Minister of Canada.


George William Kyte: I venture to say that notwithstanding the apparent fair mindedness with which the Minister of Militia and Defence is discussing this question, if the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) or I or any other member supporting the Liberal party required the services of the band in Halifax we could not have it.


James Joseph Hughes: Yes, you could.


George William Kyte: Or the price would be such as would make the use of the band absolutely impossible. No time would be given for payment, as apparently time has been given to the mayor of Halifax on an account that has not yet been paid, so far as the minister knows. Here is the language of the Minister of Militia and Defence in this House on the 25th November, 1910:
I am opposed to any man wearing the uniform of the militia of this country turning out in honour of any representative of any organization that is not directly under the control or auspices of the State, whether it be clerical or anything else.
The hon. minister has changed his mind on that, as he has on other questions which are germane to what we are now discussing.
I notice that the Minister of Militia visited Toronto the other night and gave an address to certain officers. I have here a press despatch which I assume contains a fairly correct report of his utterance. If it is not correct, of course he will put the committee in possession of the exact language he used:
Toronto, May 2-At the annual dinner of the 48 th Highlanders Sergeants' Mess, last night, the guest of honour was Colonel Sam. Hughes, Minister of Militia, who in replying to the toast of the Canadian Militia, spoke of the relatively high state of efficiency of which the militia of the country has attained, and declared his intention of continuing the policy so long as he remains Minister of Militia, of increasing that efficiency, so that Canada will always he in a position to guard against any danger of attack.
In the course of his remarks Colonel Hughes declared that at the present time he is perpared

to place in the field, tomorrow, if necessary, a force of ffO.OOO men, capable of meeting any enemy, while" throughout Canada, he states, there are 750,000 men ready to take the field at once, and this number he hopes will be doubled by next year.
The politicians who do not see eye to eye with Colonel Hughes on military matters came in for some condemnation when he remarked that he rather liked to have 'these yelping politicians' attack him and that their attack reminded himi of a certain pup near Lindsay, Ont., who regularly used to meet the incoming train and bark at it. To stop to argue with these same politicians Colonel Hughes considered would be on a line with the action of the engineer of the said train if he were to stop it to shy coals at the dog.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


George William Kyte: I did not know that j;he
suggestion of dogs would have raised so
many yelpers. The minister has not denied the language attributed to him and therefore-


James Joseph Hughes: I have not been asked to deny it.


George William Kyte: I did .ask him whether or not the language attributed to him is -correct.


James Joseph Hughes: There is an error. I said that the engineer would be very foolish to stop the train.


George William Kyte: Just for the same reason*
the people of this country would be very foolish to continue the services of the hon. minister, and they will not do so any longer than they can help. According to the admission of the Minister of Militia, every politician ini this country, every paid representative of the people who raises his voice in favour of economy in the expenditure of the Department of Militia, is referred to as a yelping politician. That is the term that the Minister of Militia applies to them. I hope that this paragraph will sink down into the minds of the tax payers of this country. We have -a condition existing in Canada such as has not existed for the last seventeen or eighteen years. All over Canada there is unemployment, there is a time of distress. People are organizing charity societies to raise funds to meet the conditions of the working mem in many centres of population. Everybody -admits that it is a time when economy ought to be practised. The Minister of Finance, a few days ago, in delivering his Budget to this House, pointed out the necessity for putting on the brakes and said that he intended, as Minister of Finance, to take into account the

circumstance that this is not an opportune time to engage in any large- expenditure. Every other service of the country is to be
curtailed. I believe that every other minister in the Government except the Minister of Militia is disposed to take the same view of the financial situation as is taken by the Minister of Finance. But if the tax-payers of Canada suggest that the expenditure on militia is the most useless indulged in by -any department of the Government, if the representatives of the people in Parliament should suggest to the minister that he ought to put the brakes upon his -expenditures, the only answer is that they are yelping politicians and he compares them with -his own pup in his own town of Lindsay. The Minister of Militia does not always take himself as seriously as he appears to take himself with regard to this particular matter. Last night, when we were discussing another subject pertaining to his department with reference to the payment of Fenian Raid bounties in Nova Scotia, my hon. friend from Carleton pointed out that a very large sum of money was being paid in Nova Scotia to men who had notactually gone to the front to fight the battles That threatened at that time, whereas, on the other hand, those who actually did go to the front were not receiving the bounty. The Minister of Militia and Defence, in- the face of the fact well known to everybody from Nova Scotia, actually stated that no man in Nova Scotia was paid a dollar for Fenian Raid bounties unless he had gone to the front. I think it is time the people of this -country realized that statements made by the Minister of Militia with respect to expenditures in his department should be taken, not with the usual grain of salt, but with a very considerable modicum of that article.
The hon. minister is determined, it appears, to expend ten per Cent of the total revenue of this country in fuss and feathers, as my hon. friend from Carieton describes it. I remember that two years ago there was summoned from the four corners of this Dominion soldiers of more or less importance, in the military organization. The city of Ottawa had the appearance of a beleaguered -camp for a whole week. One scarcely dared pass through the corridors of this House for fear of tumbling over burnished spurs or having a bayonet run through some vital part of his anatomy. That junketing expedition, brought about

for the glorification of the minister, cost the people of Canada a tidy sum. I did hear very loud complaints not only on the part of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House but from gentlemen on the Government benches as regards this absolutely useless expenditure. I was present at one of the meetings, and I saw- the magnificent manner in which the whole thing was staged. The Minister of Militia in his very best suit of regimentals sat on a sort of raised throne. He had an orderly on one side and an orderly on the other, and whenever he rose to speak the orderlies doffed their hats and bowed low as though they were paying obeisance to a most revered, and exalted deity. All this was for the glorification of the minister, who refers to the representatives of the taxpayers of this country as yelping politicians, and compares them to his pet pup in the town of Lindsay.


James Joseph Hughes: I desire to point out that the hon. gentleman never saw any such scene, except in his own disordered imagination. I never sat in uniform at one of the meetings, and the description is a fabrication from start to finish.
Mr. KYTE. The hon. minister would not be the minister if he was not in uniform. I have seen him coming into this House dressed in uniform. If he did not wear feathers he wore a coat of such brilliant colours as to almost dazzle the eyes of hon. members of this House.


James Joseph Hughes: I dare say it is contrary to the wishes and spirit of the hon. gentleman to see that scarlet uniform.


George William Kyte: The hon. minister presides over the department that has control of the men who have sworn to His Majesty to defend this country and His Majesty on -all occasions, and yet one of the officers of the militia, who occupies a seat in this House, sitting behind the minister, offered his services a few weeks ago to Sir Edward Carson for the purpose of aiding an armed rebellion against law and order in the province of Ulster. The minister is very loyal when interests of a certain element in this country are concerned, but the minister would permit every officer of the militia to bear arms against law and authority if it is on behalf of the Orangemen of Ulster.


James Joseph Hughes: Might I correct the hon. gentleman. That just shows his tyrannical spirit. The militia of Canada
are free men when they are not on duty, and the Minister of Militia has no more right to oppose their will than in the case of any other citizen of this country. When not under orders, the men of the militia are as free as any other men.


William John Macdonald: They are not free
to take arms against the Grown.


James Joseph Hughes: That ie not my concern. I want to point out to my hon. friend, and other gentlemen of the committee, that he mistakes the function of an officer in charge of a department if he thinks the minister should undertake to use forcible measures against those who have the right to breathe the free air of Heaven.


George William Kyte: Would the minister explain what he means by using forcible measures against those who have the right to breathe the free air of Heaven?


James Joseph Hughes: If the hon. gentleman's intelligence cannot interpret it, I am not going to take up the time of the House in doing it for him.


John Allister Currie: I rise to a point of order and it is this: the hon. member for Richmond (Mr. Kyte) has charged a member of this House with desiring to go and take up arms against His Majesty. That is a very serious charge.


William John Macdonald: Did he not do it?


George William Kyte: If the hon. member says he did not send the telegram, I accept his word.


John Allister Currie: I 'am not the gentleman at all. The hon. member has made a very serious charge against a member of this House.


George William Kyte: If the hon. member that I refer to rises from his seat in this House, and says that he never sent that telegram offering his services to Sir Edward Carson, assuring him that he would fight with him to the last ditch, I am bound to accept his statement; and I will do it with the utmost pleasure, because it will be an assurance to me that there is one more loyal man in Canada than I thought there was.


John Allister Currie: I think the hon. member had better bring the matter up when the gentleman he refers to is here.


George William Kyte: I want to assure my hon. friend that he cannot inspire any member of this House with fear.


John Allister Currie: If such a charge had been made against a member on that side of the House, I would have been the first to get np and refute it.


George William Kyte: If it is true that the telegram was not sent, I shall be very glad to hear it from the lips of the hon. gentleman himself, but I refuse to accept it by proxy.


John Allister Currie: I rise to a point of order. I do not think it is fair for an hon. member of this House to make such a serious charge against another member during his absence.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I did not understand the hon. member for Richmond to make a charge against any member of this House. The facts recited by the hon. member had reference to a telegram, and that is all.


George William Kyte: As I said, if the hon. member will deny sending that telegram, I will be the first to accept his denial. The minister stated a moment ago, as justification of the action of that officer, that the men in the militia were free men, and that they could go and come where they pleased; but under certain conditions they are not free. They are not free in Montreal. I remember that a few years ago the question of their attending a certain quasipublic function in Montreal was the subject of criticism on the part of the present Minister of Militia with respect to his predecessor in that office.


James Joseph Hughes: I may point out that when an officer is in uniform he is on duty.


George William Kyte: That is the whole point. The hon. minister is willing that they should be on duty under certain circumstances, and under other circumstances he is not willing that they should be on duty. When the hon. member for North Simcoe interrupted me, I was making a statement with respect to the extraordinary amount of money that is being spent from year to year on the militia. The hon. member for Oarleton (Mr. Oarvell) gave some figures with regard to the expenditure of public money in respect to the period when the Liberal Government was in power. There was a very considerable increase in the expenditure for militia purposes under the regime of the late Minister of Militia and Defence due entirely to the Government taking over the fortifications at Halifax and Esquimalt. The total expenditure for militia for several years previous to the taking over of these fortifications was about

$2,000,000. The taking over of these fortifications increased the expenditure to $7,000,000 and it practically remained at that figure during the time that the late Government was in office. But then, we had a sane Minister of Militia who recognized that he had some other duties to perform, that he owed something more to the taxpayers of Canada, than to go around parading with officers in automobiles, touring through Europe and indulging in junketing expeditions from one end of the country to the other from which no value can accrue to the people of the Dominion. The item of the expenditure for militia is one that cannot be too long debated in this House particularly in view of the defiant attitude assumed by the minister in Toronto the other night when he referred to the representatives of the people in this country who endeavoured to reduce the expenditure for militia purpose as yelping politicians.


James Joseph Hughes: Does the hon. gentleman class himself in that outfit?


Michael Clark: Shame.


James Joseph Hughes: I never put him there.


George William Kyte: One yelper always provokes another yelper to reply.


James Joseph Hughes: If he chooses to put himself there I did not put him there.
Mr. NEELY. Perhaps the minister will explain what he did mean. I am sure the minister appreciates the unanimous way in which the members on this side of the House, by their presence here this afternoon, have expressed their appreciation of the minister's very kind invitation, extended 'hrough the mail some days ago, to be present when he made his statement on the militia expenditure. Being such a genial member of the Government as the minister is, what was there for us to do but to accept the very gracious invitation on his part and be present? I was very much disappointed at the sentiments expressed by the minister some days ago in Toronto because the character of the note of invitation misled me as to his atti tude. I thought the minister wanted us to be present for the purpose of hearing an impartial statement of his movements as minister, of the doings of his department and of the different ways in which he has been spending $13,000,000 or $14,000,000 in the country's interests. I thought that was what was portended in the invitation of the minister. I thought he wanted

us to be present to hear a thoroughly statesmanlike utterance as to the proposed expenditure of $13,000,000 or $14,000,000 on the militia. The minister might at least have waited until members of this House had had the opportunity of listening to his statement and of offering some criticism, favourable or otherwise, before giving utterance to the expression which has been referred to. The minister, of, course, could not foretell the kind of criticism that would be made, but apparently from the article which my hon. friend has read he anticipated that there would be some unfavourable criticism, and he has labelled every man, not my hon. friend from Richmond (Mr. Kyte) alone, but every member of this House and every citizen of this country whether he be in this House or out of it, as a yelping cur if he offered any criticism of this august personage who presides over the Department of Militia and Defence. If the minister thinks he is going to get away with that sort of thing he is sadly mistaken, because there are members on this side of the House who are not afraid to take the gloves off with the minister in the House or out of it any time he wishes to discuss public questions or his own department. But the House can congratulate the minister on one thing at least, and that is that he has furnished this Parliament and the people of the country with about as fine an exhibition of vaudeville as most gentlemen have even paid good money for in the many years of their experience. The minister takes himself so wonderfully seriously both in this House and out of it that he is fast becoming a joke in the country, but the expenditure that is being carried on in bis department and under his direction is much too expensive a joke for the people to enjoy.
The minister undertook to tell the House this afternoon that the expenditures of his department were actually decreasing as compared with the expenditures of his predecessor. That, as a statement of fact, is something that must be regarded as being beyond a joke, because it is not very far to the library, and all we have to do is to take the militia Estimates for years past, and in no possible way, by the juggling of figures, can you reach the conclusion reached by the Minister of Militia. Then, if you look at the Auditor General's Report as to what the minister actually does
expend, you are confronted with 11 p.m. this difficulty, that you have to look here and there all through that report, and almost all through Public Works as well as Militia and Sundry Expenditures, to find what the minister is actually expending for the maintenance of the militia, the construction of drill-halls and other appurtenances _ of the militia throughout Canada. The minister, both in this House and out of it, has taken the ground, as stated by my hon. friend for West Lambton (Mr. Pardee) that the people of this country want more money spent on the militia than has been spent in years gone by. I am here to-night to tell him that the people in certain parts of the country, at any rate, whatever they may do in others, and I represent one of those parts, do not want to see the militia expenditure jumping up by leaps and bounds as it is under the administration of the present incumbent of the_ office.
I represent in this House a constituency 108 miles long by 108 miles wide-I would be very glad if it were smaller whether I represented it or not-and I suppose there are some twenty to forty villages and towns in that constituency, varying from 500 population to 2,500 population. I have not heard of any four corners, leaving out the towns and villages in the constituency of Humboldt, having a drill-hall costing the country from ten to fifteen thousand dollars planted there simply because that particular corner happened to cast a good Tory vote in the last election. I have heard of things of that sort in eastern Canada, for instance in the province of Ontario, if I have been correctly informed. In regard to this expenditure on drill-halls in small places throughout Canada and especially is the practice reprehensible in country districts where there is no sign of a militia at all and where these halls are built for the social entertainments of that particular community-I desire to point out that every one of these drill-halls is adding to the fixed cost of the Government of this country. There is the money that is invested not bringing one dollar of revenue to this country; there are the men employed to take care of these buildings, and there is the cost of upkeep and maintenance, year after year. If the hon. minister is allowed to go on with a free hand and build ten, fifteen and twenty thousand dollar drill-halls in little villages and small towns and even at country post offices where there are

neither villages nor towns nor railroads, in a few years the revenue of this country will have to be doubled and trebled to keep up the fixed charges to be paid for these drill-halls that are absolutely useless so far as any permanent benefit to the militia of this country is concerned.
Representing a people who are trying to make Canada a nation by developing her natural resources, by increasing her national wealth, by contributing as they do largely to the Government of this country, I cannot afford to sit still and hear the sentiment uttered by the Minister of Militia in this House and out it that Canada is in favour of increasing her militia expenditures. I do not believe that to be the case. I think the Minister of Militia has been feeling simply his own pulse in this instance and not the pulse of the people when he has made this diagnosis so far as the sentiment of the people in military matters are concerned.
I have not very much criticism to offer of some of the lines of expenditure pursued by the present Minister of Militia since he has taken office. I presume that the question of a little outing with a number of friends across the Atlantic and that sort of thing seems like a pretty good proposition to the minister. After fifteen years in opposition, I presume he came to the conclusion, when he got hold of his present position, that it was about time that he was enjoying himself at the expense of his country having represented it in this Parliament for so many years. These expenses might perhaps be regarded by the minister as incidental, but they go to make up the grand total. If the Department of Railways does not furnish the minister with a private car as quickly as he thinks it ought to do, I cannot find great fault with him if he buys one himself, because he will have that for the service of himself and of the department; and I would not like to see him put to the trouble of having to ask the Department of Railways for a private car every time he wanted to take a particular jaunt somewhere. But the minister deliberately adopts the policy of sinking the money of this country, as he has been doing for the last two or three years, in such useless and unnecessary expenditures as for drill-halls in little villages in the Tory constituencies of this country, and when he calls that money spent in the public interest, that is the time I have to raise my voice in objection.
I would like to be in a position where I would not have to charge the minister with 
using his position and the department over which he presides in a partisan manner; I would like to think there was * one bright and shining light sitting on the Government benches; but I do not see how anybody in this House can come to the conclusion that the Minister of Militia and Defence is that particular bright and shining light. I happened the other day to run across a newspaper published in the home town of my hon. friend the Minister of Mil'itia, and I think it is a good Tory newspaper from the tone of the articles it contained. It is called the Daily Warder, and in the issue of the 28th of April of this year, I find a laTge front page article, the heading of which is ' Some Pacts/ This paper is published in the town of Lindsay, and I understand it is the personal organ of the minister. The minister may not own it, but it comes to his aid in time of political warfare and distress.


James Joseph Hughes: I had every paper in the county against me in 1904


Mr. NEELY:: I shall not be surprised if in 1915-16 the hon. gentleman does not find himself in the same position.


James Joseph Hughes: My majority will be
greatly increased.


David Bradley Neely: Some change has taken
place since 1904 so far as this paper is concerned, because it devotes some space to the doings of the hon. Minister of Militia and Defence. I do not intend to read the whole article, because it is a long one; but I want to point out the purpose that the Minister of Militia evidently tries to effect by these expenditures which I am now criticising. I think it is a fair inference to take a paper in the minister's own town that gives its support to the minister. These are some of the facts quoted in this article. In the third paragraph I read as follows:
Colonel Hughes has done much to help Lindsay in its onward march of progress. Were it not for the Minister of Militia Lindsay to-day would not have the fine structure on Victoria Park-
That, of course, is the drill hall.
-the Government armoury, a building worth many thousands of dollars. In giving this building to Lindsay, Colonel Hughes specifically stated that it was for the use of the citizens for the holding of various kinds of gatherings, as well as for military purposes.
So} if it were not used for military purposes it would be put to some use anyway.

Under the Liberal regime at Ottawa it was impossible to get a clock for the post office tower, yet through the instrumentality of Colonel Hughes, the time piece is to be installed and the tower raised so that the clock will be discernible from all parts of the town. A light will be placed in position to show the time by night.
So, when yon go into the minister's town, night or day, even if your watch is not running you need not worry; there will he the bright and shining light representing the Minister of Militia and the clock to tell you the time.


Mr. McKENZIE:: Enable you to see the dog.


David Bradley Neely: Yes.
With the completion of armouries and surrounding grounds a large and up-to-date hand stand will be erected.
That, no doubt, will be necessary. Even with all his duties here, the minister must sometimes visit his own town, and when he does, of course, they will want a band *stand in front of the armouries so that the regimental band may give a proper reception to one who has done so much for the town. I said I would not read the whole article. I have read so much only to bring out this point; though the minister says he is not making these expenditures for political purposes, but for the good of the country, for the upbuilding of a strong and efficient militia force, yet the newspaper that supports him in his own town, does not agree with that view.


Henry Robert Emmerson: But that only cost


David Bradley Neely: Here is a summary of the things the minister has done since this Government came into power for his town and constituency:
In summing up, it is interesting to note that improvements have been secured for Lindsay as follows through the instrumentality of our member:
New armouries, at a cost of $35,000.
There must have been extras, and this paper has not included them.
New lighthouses on Scugog; rural routes established throughout the county; impro moments to post office already made; dredging of Scugog river in Lindsay, $25,000; building of new wharfs at summer resorts ;-
I wonder what effect that last will have in improving the condition, of Canada generally. This newpaper does not give the amount, but I presume these works are numerous because this is in the plural.
-addition to post office and exterior alterations, $25,000; post office tower to be extended and large clock installed; improvements to Victoria Park; paved laneway east of post office; dredging improvements at Balsover and on Balsam lake; new band stand for Victoria Park.


William John Macdonald: How did he do that band stand?


David Bradley Neely: I do not know whether it is part of the necessary equipment of these armouries or not; I do not know whether it is built on Government property or outside. The minister can inform us about that. Here is the organ in the minister's own town that supports the minister, giving this list of things done by him for the benefit of the town and constituency.


James Joseph Hughes: Are these all completed?


David Bradley Neely: Evidently, or they are expected soon to be completed, and probably they are under way. The minister's own organ in his own town distinctly uses the different things the minister has done to win for him support in that town. So, as we watch the development of his drill-hall policy, the conclusion to which every member of the House is driven is that the minister has deliberately set out to spend money, even in places where if is absolutely not needed for militia purposes, for the benefit of the party to which he belongs.


James Joseph Hughes: Will the hon. member permit me a statement?,


David Bradley Neely: Yes.


James Joseph Hughes: If you figure up the militia expenditure in the province of Ontario, you will find that more money has been expended in Liberal constituencies in proportion to their number than in Conservative constituencies. I refer particularly to drill-halls at Alexandria and Renfrew, one represented by the exMinister of Railways (Mr. Graham), and the other by the hon. member for Glengarry (Mr. McMillan).


Henry Robert Emmerson: I would suggest that if the minister spent money in Ontario at all, it would almost necessarily have to be in Conservative constituencies.


David Bradley Neely: The minister may be correct so far as the figures are concerned, yet, that is not the inference that is drawn so far as concerns favoritism to the constituencies-	.

M.r. HUGHES: I wish to correct the hon. gentleman there. There was no favouritism. These expenditures were made because the people in the localities deserved them. The officer commanding the Glengarry regiment, a staunch Liberal and son of a prominent Liberal, is one of the most worthy officers in Canada. I have no hesitation in saying that he commands one of the best regiments-


Henry Robert Emmerson: The hon. minister is not trying to seduce the constituency, is he?


James Joseph Hughes: The officer to whom I refer is the son of a former Grit lieutenant-governor of Ontario, and I do not think you can turn him to be a Tory now.


David Bradley Neely: What the minister has said does not detract in the slightest from the statement I have made. There may be the two instances to which he has referred in which, under urgent necessity, he has been forced to spend money where otherwise he would not have spent it, following the course he has followed throughout the length and breadth of Ontario-and I want to know if the minister will deny it?


James Joseph Hughes: I certainly do deny it.


David Bradley Neely: What about the drill hall at Blackstock, in the province of Ontario ?


James Joseph Hughes: One of the best companies in Canada is at Blackstock-the company that broke the lines at Batoche, a few miles from where the hon, gentleman lives, came from Blackstock.


David Bradley Neely: I know that it is a country village, three or four miles from any railway; yet the minister has built a drill hall there.


James Joseph Hughes: In 1885 a call came to this company, to which I had the honour of first belonging, for 42 men, and they turned out 125 men inside of twenty-four hours. I have no hesitation in saying that this company is not surpassed by any other company in Canada.


David Bradley Neely: What happened in 1885 does not particularly concern us at the present moment; conditions have changed in many parts of Ontario. I have been informed-
I may have been wrongly informed, but I think not-that at the present time there is no militia force at this little four-corners in the country, four miles from any railway ; yet the minister has seen fit to spend a considerable sum of money in building [Mr. Neely. 3
a drill hall at that place. But I do not hold the minister to any one particular instance. If hon. gentletnen will go from town to town and from village to village throughout the province of Ontario they will find to what extent these drill halls are being used to build up a strong and efficient militia in this country. Many of them, as the minister must know, are hardly used from one year's end to the other except by the people for purposes of entertainment. I protest against that method of expenditure of the public money of this country.
As the hon. member for Carleton and the hon. member for Richmond have pointed out, the minister has taken credit unto himself for certain moral reforms which he claims to be responsible for in the training camps of this country. If the Minister of Militia carries out his objects, so far as I am concerned he will have hearty support. But, during the course of last summer I made casual inquiries from gentlemen who were at Niagara, Petawawa and other points last year, and I was informed that the officers of the various companies treated the order of the minister as a joke, and that the old conditions still prevailed. This is not my personal observation, as I do not go to a militia camp to drill, but I am told by responsible men who go to camp year after year as officers of regiments that while the minister has been proclaiming himself from one end of the country to the other as the originator of the policy that there shall be no more canteens and no more liquor in the camps his mandate has been disregarded. If the minister's attitude is an honest and sincere one, I am sure that every man in this House will endorse his attempt to protect the young men who go to camp to drill, and who should be protected as far as possible from temptation to which they are not subjected in their own homes. But I do object to the minister's taking to himself credit for a great reform which I believe is not put into effect in a single training camp in Canada.


Gerald Verner White: It has been my privilege to visit the Petawawa camp on many occasions and I can assure the hon. member for Humboldt that the instructions issued by the hon. minister have been carried out to the letter so far as that camp is concerned. I know absolutely that the minister has given strict instructions; that those instructions have been carried out and that there has been no sale of liquor in or around that camp since the present min-

ister took charge of the affairs of the Department of Militia.


David Bradley Neely: All I can say to my hon. friend that I can give him privately the names of some very responsible men who were at that camp during the past summer and who say that the condition of affairs pictured by the hon. member for North Eenfrew does not exist.


Gerald Verner White: I would like my hon. friend to give me the names.


David Bradley Neely: I shall be delighted.


Gerald Verner White: I do not suppose the hon. gentleman holds the minister responsible for the consumption of liquor that has been taken into the camps by individuals. It has been my privilege, as representing my constituency, to see the minister in connection with getting the canteen privilege for some of my constituents, and the stipulation which he has always made is that he would not under any circumstances tolerate the use or sale of liquor within the camp grounds.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: When the hon. minister issued his statement of militia expenses for this year. I felt like congratulating him upon the business-like way in which he put his statement before the committee. But tonight, when I asked him, having regard to the comparison which he made between the estimates for 1914-15 and the expens s for 1913-14, whether we were to consider that to be the whole of the expenses for 1914-15, he told me, very briefly, that he hoped not. I notice, however, that the heading over the expenditure for 1914 says:	voted in
Main and Supplementary Estimates. Then required for 1915 is the heading over the otheT column. He takes credit at the bottom of the page for a saving of $71,905, but he told me quite frankly that he expected to add to the Estimate for 1914-15 by the Supplementary Estimates. Therefore, this statement was a deception, >as I told him before, which I do not think he should have tried on business men such as we are in this House. He has put forward a statement that was not true on its face. I have no fault-


James Joseph Hughes: I might point out in all fairness that it is impossible to give the amount in the Supplementaries as they have not been brought down and have not even been sent in.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I quite appreciate that.


James Joseph Hughes: My statement shows that on its face; one column is ' Main ' and Supplementary,' the other ' Main.'


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I quite appreciate that
probably he could not have shown us the Supplementaries for this year; but he should not have pretended, in large letters at the bottom of the page, to say that he had made a saving of $71,705. That is what I find fault with. I notice that in the additional Supplementaries for last year, which have not all been passed yet, there is quite a large amount. That, I presume, is not counted. I have no fault to find with the minister in his enthusiasm for the militia, and I believe that he honestly tries to do what he says he is doing in order to correct the evil habits, if there are any, in the militia and to train the young men of the country. What I do find fault with is that the expenditures, to a very great extent, are increasing too rapidly for the revenues of the country and for the good-will of the people in so far as I know their feelings. No expenditure incurred by the Government during the year so stinks in the nostrils of the public as the unnecessary militia expenditures. I have pointed out before that the expenditures on armouries in some instances are totally and absolutely unnecessary. One hon. member this afternoon said that the minister figured in armouries. As far as I can gather from him, he assumed that the ordinary armoury would cost $10,000 to $12,000; but in no case during the last few years has there been an expenditure, so far as I know, of only $10,000 or $12,000 on an armoury. I have here an Estimate for an additional armoury in Brantford to cost $75,000. The vote last year was $25,000. Over the page there is a vote for an armoury in Port Arthur and the Estimate for this year is $100,000. Last year the vote was $99,000. That is an expenditure already incurred and asked for this year of $199,000 in a town of ten thousand people.


James Joseph Hughes: Is my hon. friend aware that the site was purchased for a large sum and the plans made by my predecessor?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That does not make any difference; we are not accounting for my hon. friend's predecessor, but for what he is doing now.


James Joseph Hughes: I am not apologizing, but I am loyally carrying out any

undertakings entered into by my predecessor or on his behalf.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The expenditure of
$199,000 in Port Arthur, and I have no doubt that that will not be the only expenditure, it seems to me to be excessive. In Woodstock we have an armoury that cost $50,000 that is quite good enough for any town of 20,000 or 25,000. The armoury in Port Arthur, therefore, is a sheer waste of public money. All of these expenditures on armouries are, in my judgment, largely waste of money. I believe that we do not want armouries in many places where we propose to build them. I am quite in accord with the minister on certain of his expenditures, such as the cadet service and the expenditure for what they call civilian rifle associations. I believe that is proper expenditure. But to jump the expenditure up, as this statement has shown us, to $11,000,000, without counting these armouries, appears to be quite unjustified, and it will be found that the Estimates do not include a great many expenditures that will be incurred this year. I absolutely agree with the hon. member for Lambton that while the minister may be enthusiastic over his militia expenditure and training, I think he has largely lost his balance over these expenditures. He is proposing to and has put the country to an expenditure for militarism that the people of the country are not in accord with. Many of my hon. friends opposite know that as well as I do. Let me give the minister credit for being, I think, honest in his purpose; but he has gone military mad; he talks militarism every place he goes. I ask my friend, with all due deference to himself, if such a speech as was read by my hon. friend from Richmond (Mr. Kyte) to-night is courteous to the people of this country whom we on this side of the House have the honour to represent. In every constituency represented by the supporters of my hon. friend there are some Liberals, and they, too, must feel insulted by such a speech as was read to-night. My hon. friend said that report was all correct, except that he had said that the the engineer should not stop the train. When my hon. friend gets off a speech like that he is casting a direct insult, in my opinion, not only upon the members on this side of the House but upon all the Liberals of Canada, and I question whether they will not resent such talk as that- whether it is before or afteT dinner. We, who understand these dinner parties might

excuse these after-dinner remarks, but as a minister of the Crown there is no possible excuse for the hon. gentleman using the language he did on that occasion.


James Joseph Hughes: I never read the article. I was referring to some articles wherein I was charged by certain gentlemen with training the people up to be blood-thirsty and assassins, and nonsense of that kind; and I take this opportunity of saying that that kind of talk is nonsense. I had no reference to the politicians-not that I am making any apology-I was speaking of the peace-at-any-price gentlemen, who endeavoured to bring about the annexation of Canada to the United States, and who charge me with being blood-thirsty and training the children to be assassins. I do not know anything about Rev. Mr. Brown.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I do not want to know
who the Rev. Mr. Brown is. The minister did not give that explanation to the hon. member for Richmond (Mr. Kyte).


James Joseph Hughes: It was not asked for in the same spirit.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: 
James Joseph Hughes: I never heard of a million dollar armoury in Toronto.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Perhaps it is not true. I saw the Estimate somewhere, either last year or this. Take the grounds at Montreal recently bought for military purposes. That was undoubtedly an extravagant expenditure, and I cannot agree with my hon. friend that it was necessary to do away with the shooting ranges here and put it in a place that is not so accessible. I am perfectly willing to see the minister get Estimates through for a reasonable expenditure for militia purposes, but I do not think the absolutely unnecessary expenditure upon militarism in this country will be tolerated by the 'people of Canada. - They are, so far as I know, walling to stand for a certain expenditure on the militia, but the minister must bear in mind that there is a great deal of truth in the comment of my hon. friend from Carleton as to the unnecessary junketing-if I may be privileged so to call it-on the part of the militia officers throughout the country. I think no one finds fault with the minister for visiting the various military manoeuvres in order to get the knowledge that he, as minister, should acquire, but in my judgment it was absolutely unnecessary to take so many men over with him, and to go to an expense that the people of this country do not think necessary. My hon. friend will be safely guided if he follows the advice given by the hon. member for Lambton to-night, to curtail to a very great extent the military expenditure that he proposes to make in this country. I am not going :to pretend to abuse the minister in any manner or form, but I do say in all fairness and frankness that he will be well advised to decrease the military expenditure in a great many ways, more especially as regards the absolutely unnecessary expensive armouries. How am I going to explain to the people I have the honour to represent, who are not of the peace^at-any-price kind, by any means-


James Joseph Hughes: Is there not a drill hall
in Woodstock, and what is the cost?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: There is a very good one, which cost a little less than $50,000.	[DOT]


James Joseph Hughes: I think it -cost over


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I think the minister will find that it cost less than that. I helped to put up a deposit for one of the tenderers. His tender was for $55,000 and he lost the contract, which makes me remember it very distinctly. The armoury in Woodstock would be absolutely good enough for Port Arthur and Fort William combined.


James Joseph Hughes: I find that the Woodstock armoury, built in 1906, cost $73,091.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: If there is anything over $50,000 or $48,000 it will be additional for heating, grounds, or something of that kind. They have very beautiful grounds, large enough for a city of 50,000 people. Then here we have Vancouver drill-hall, $100,000 re-vote, but the amount voted in; 1912-14 was $275,000. That would leave $175,000, with this year $100,000, and we have no reason to believe that is the end of it.


James Joseph Hughes: There is militia property in Vancouver that is unsuitable for this purpose that can. be disposed of for much more than that amount, so that it is merely a transfer.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Victoria is just above.


James Joseph Hughes: In Victoria we will have $500,000 to our credit.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Here is an expenditure
of $275,000 to be applied to a drill-hall in Vancouver. The hon. gentleman could drill the whole population of Vancouver in a building of that kind.


James Joseph Hughes: Vancouver city is built on property belonging to the Militia Department worth $20,000,000, and we have never got a dollar for it.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I have heard the hon.
gentleman say something about certain properties being given in Montreal by the Militia Department to the city of Montreal. My hon. friend would almost lead us to believe that the Militia Department was an

earning department and had property of its own. These properties belong to the Dominion of Canada.


James Joseph Hughes: To the Militia Department.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: But they were given by the Dominion to the Militia Department.


James Joseph Hughes: They were handed over by the imperial authorities to the Militia Department.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: ' That was very kind of the Imperial authorities. The land belonged to Canada. It is just like my hon. friend to claim that the Militia Department own the land, when the fact is that they own nothing at all. It belongs to the people of Canada, and the Militia Department happens to be a department, that is all. What nonsense to talk about the imperial authorities giving this land. It was very kind of them to give the people of Canada something that belonged to the people.


James Joseph Hughes: We have upwards of 1,200 cities in the Dominion of Canada openly and publicly offering free sites for drill-halls. How does the hon. gentleman account for that if the people do not want drill-halls?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That proves nothing. I believe that in Woodstock they might have been willing to give a site to have a $40,000 or $50,000 drill-hall built there. Cities and towns want expensive buildings erected in their localities. That is why this is supposed to be such a drawing card for the Government and their supporters. Instead of erecting a $10,000 or $12,000 drill-hall they put up buildings costing $100,000, $150,12 p.m. 000, $200,000 and $300,000 in various places. I do not wonder that when they provide buildings of that kind municipalities offer free sites. The site may have cost the municipality nothing. When the armouries are built in some of these places the minister will find a great difficulty in forming corps to fill them. In many instances it will be absolutely impossible for him to find corps to occupy these armouries. Then, it is absolutely absurd to talk about turning these armouries into pleasure resorts. Why should the Government spend money in erecting armouries to be used as pleasure resorts? The minister talks about keeping the boys

and girls off the streets and away from the movies. That is worse than absurd. If my hon. friend will come to Woodstock as my guest, I will go down, the street with him on [Saturday night and he will see how many boys and girls there are at the armouries and how many at the movies. I will bet him a box of good cigars that he will not have much trouble in counting them at the armoury while he will have a lot of trouble in counting them on the street coming out of the movies. My bon. friend talks about teaching the boys and girls manners. That is all tommy-rot, or, as the Indian says, walla walla. My hon. friend is all right as long a3 he keeps himself under reasonable control. I believe that the people will be with him as long as he controls his vast enthusiasm on this question, comes down here with a common sense proposition and does for the people what is necessary with regard to militia affairs and nothing more.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Borden, the House adjourned at 12.03 a.m. Friday.
Friday, May 8, 1914.