1914-03-13

TRANSATLANTIC MAIL SERVICE.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called;
Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX:: I wish to ask the Postmaster General in regard to the Toronto Postal Gude, which is issued every week, or every month. I quote from a letter which I received from a correspondent who is known to my hon. friend:
I enclose you a copy of the Monthly Postal Guide for this city issued by the Post Office. You will see that they have now discontinued giving the dates of the sailings of the New York ships. I had my clerks inquire at the post office today as to the New York sailings. He was told that they had no information on the subject and he could no doubt get it from the steamship agencies.
I do not intend to raise a debate on this question, but I would ask my hon. friend, will he not see to it that the Postal Guide wil] give the dates of sailings of New York steamers. I understand the department favours the Canadian route, which is natural. At the same time, any Canadian correspondent may route his letters via New York, and if the Postal Guide gave the dates of sailings it would be a material help in many cases.


Mr. PELLETIER:: I do not pretend to
speak by the book, but I am under the impression that we are not able to ascertain the New York sailings any more than we have been able to ascertain the Canadian sailings.


Rodolphe Lemieux: They are given in this Postal Guide.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: We have had them
quite lately, il can state with fair assurance of accuracy, though without being too sure, that the reason tne New York sailings are not included is that we could not get them. It is only fair that the public should have the New York sailings as well as the others so that correspondents may direct their letters via New York if they

desire to do so. I will call the attention of my officers to the matter.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Blomdin in the Chair.
Trade and Commerce-Salaries, rents, wages and contingencies under the Canada Grain Act, $800,000.
['I do not see why this\nshould be inserted. They are already limited to the three provinces.\nBill reported, read the third time, and passed.']
Mr. FOSTER:: This vote is as against
$400,000 last year. On its face it is an increase of $400,000. But nearly the whole of that increase is due to the fact that we have to advance money in the operation of the Government elevator, which is turned in when the payments are made as the grain goes out of the warehouse. It is simply a matter of book-keeping, but as we had not the money in hand, we had to get an advance from the Finance Department running to about $300,000 or' $320,000. The other $80,000 is due to the larger expenses of all the different .services of the Grain Commission and its employed force.


Mr. OLIVER:: This is not an advance
on grain purchased?


George Eulas Foster: 
Frank Oliver: How much of last season's crop has passed through that elevator? It was in full operation during the
whole movement of the crop, I understand?


George Eulas Foster: 
Frank Oliver: What is the capacity of
the elevator?


George Eulas Foster: 3,250,000 bushels. The
working capacity would be somewhere up to 3,000,000 bushels. This year, because the quality of the grain has been so different from that of the preceding year, the elevators have worked pretty well up to capacity.


Frank Oliver: As I understand it, the
purpose in view in the construction of this elevator was to exercise some measure of control on the part of the Government over the handling of grain at that particular terminal in the interest of the public, in fact in the interest of the producer.
I would like the minister to give any information he can as to the result of the operation in that direction.


George Eulas Foster: I suppose the minister is bound to maintain that the operation of the Government elevator has been about as nearly perfect as the operation of an elevator could be. The Government has had not only supervision but control, and, consequently, that supervision which control gives, which is, of course, a better supervision than can be exercised by simple inspection and supervision without control. As to how it has operated, I suppose a conclusion in that regard could be reached in several ways. In the first place, with reference to the general conditions so far as those who use the elevators-the sellers and purchasers of the' grain-are concerned, in all respects the year has been a very favourable and satisfactory one. There have been less complaints than previously, and there has been a general satisfaction, I think, with the inspection and the grading, not only in Canada but in the old country as well, where these different grades have their significance. The Government operation of the elevator has been of service to the whole giain business because the Government and its officers have got that knowledge with regard to actual operation that they never could get simply by the supervision of an elevator owned and operated by

some one else. It has enabled the Grain Commission and the Government officers, by being on the inside of the operations, to get a knowledge of them that they did not possess before. That knowledge is not only good in itself, but it is valuable as a means of checking other elevators that are under the supervision of, but not owned and operated by, the Government.


Mr. W. H. BENNETT:: Is it under contemplation to erect any government-owned elevators at any point on lake Huron or the Georgian Bay?


George Eulas Foster: It is not.


William Humphrey Bennett: On some future
occasion, I wish to place before the minister the reasons why a point equi-distant between the Canadian Pacific railway and Grand Trunk railway terminals on the Georgian bay, or rather on Nottawassaga bay, which is an arm of the Georgian bay, [DOT]would be a desirable site for the erection of an elevator.


Mr. BUCHANAN:: I desire to make
some observations as to the location of an interior storage elevator in the province of Alberta. One elevator has already been located in Calgary. A very strong case has been presented in favour of the erection of another elevator in the extreme southern part of the province; I think the minister is familiar with the arguments that have been put forward on behalf of Lethbridge. I am not entering any objections to the location of the elevator at Calgary, but I would like to point out that the first city in the province of Alberta to make a claim for one of these elevators was Lethbridge, and hope has been held out that that city would be chosen for the site of the first terminal elevator in the province. Last session I was led to believe, by an answer given by the acting Minister of Trade and Commerce, that the selection rested with the Board oi Grain Commissioners. I would ask the minister to let us know whether the board decides on the location of the elevators, or whether that is a matter which is determined by the Government. The argument I want to offer is this:	The
elevator supply north of the fifty-first parallel was not used during the past season to the extent it was used south of the fifty-first parallel. The amount of grain shipped from Alberta stations of the Canadian Pacific railway from September 1 to December 31, 1913, over the Crowsnest, Cardston, Coutts, Foremost and Aldersyde
subdivisions, and the Macleod to Cayley branch of the Canadian Pacific railway, was 10,000,000 bushels. This entire volume, which was forty-five per cent of the total shipment from Alberta, had its actual movement through Lethbridge. The total amou it of grain shipped from the province was 21,300,000 bushels, and the proportion shipped south of the fifty-first parallel was 78-8 per cent of that amount, or 16,800,000 bushels. The elevator capacity in the province of Alberta north of the fifty-first parallel is 6,785,000 bushels, while the shipments amounted to 4,500,000 bushels. The elevator capacity south of this line is 4,780,000 while the shipments for that part of the province were 16,800,000 bushels. In other words, the present elevator capacity north of the fifty-first parallel in Alberta is 2,285,000 bushels greater than the shipments in 1913, while the capacity south of the line is 12,020,000 bushels less than the shipments. I point this out to show that the part of the province of Alberta which is most in need of increased elevator accommodation is the extreme southern part, the great grain growing portion of Alberta. North of Calgary there is a large mixed farming community, but in the south, up to the present time, grain growing has been the occupation of the farmer, and will be for a great many years to come, owing to the conditions which exist. That part of the country is developing; new railroads are being built, and I simply want to place before the minister the needs of that particular section of the country. The city of Lethbridge has placed its case before the minister and before the Board of Grain Commissioners, and the minister, in an answer given this year, acknowledged that Lethbridge was one of the places which applied for an interior stoiage elevator. There is a very strong feeling there, brought about by intimations during the early period of the history of the Government policy in connection with the establishment of these elevators, that this elevator should be located in Lethbridge. That feeling was induced by announcements made by some friends of this Government, and I hope the minister will see that when a second elevator is established in Alberta the claims of the extreme southern part of the province will be considered. Is it the intention of the Government to establish another of these interior storage elevators in the province of Alberta? I would be very much pleased if he would state that such an elevator is to be erected in the city of Lethbridge.


George Eulas Foster: I would be very much pleased if I were able to satisfy my hon. friend by making either of the statements he asks. He has stated the position, so far as the town of Lethbridge and the district of which it is a central point is concerned, very fully before the House. All these matters have been very fully placed before myself and the department, and, I think, before the Grain Commissioners who visited that section of the country. It is difficult to say that it is not the intention to place an elevator in Lethbridge or in any other place in the Northwest. But I will be perfectly frank with my hon. friend and say that for the present year it is not intended to construct any other storage elevators than those which he has knowledge of, at Saskatoon, at Moosejaw, and at Calgary, and transfer elevators on the Pacific coast and on the Hudson bay coast for ocean shipping. Nobody doubts the fine country of the Lethbridge district; its large grain-raising capabilities; the actual results which have been gained up to the present time, and the possibilities of a much larger future expansion. At the same time I am bound to say to my hon. friend frankly that during this year there is no intention of proceeding with the construction of other elevators than those I have mentioned.


William Ashbury Buchanan: Would the minister let me know with whom the selection of the site of these elevators rests, the Government or the Grain Commission?


George Eulas Foster: The Publicity Commission of Lethbridge, which my hon. friend knows, has placed this matter very fully before my department, as did, among others from that locality, Mr. Ives and Mr. Stewart, from whom I have received a number of letters, one, only a day or two ago. So that Lethbridge has not lost anything from lack of a pretty complete and thorough representation of its capabilities and desires in respect of a storage elevator. As regards the ultimate selection of sites for elevators, that rests with the Government, as it always must. The Government takes the responsibility and has to shoulder that responsibility. But I have made it a rule that, having established what I consider a competent board of Grain Commissioners, they are the experts and advisers in all these matters, and it is my duty as a minister to carry out the recommendations and views of that commission unless there be something which involves a matter of policy that the Government does not see its way

clear to adopt. But in an advisory capacity I am guided by, and am thoroughly following, the advice of my grain commissioners. I do that not only in the selection of sites and these important matters, but I do it down to the selection and control of all the employees who are engaged in the responsible work of carrying on the operations of that board. The board is held responsible by me and to a large extent by Parliament, for this work. So I think the board should have a very free hand as to who its officers and employees should be. They demand competency, and I have no right to step in between them and the competency they desire, by any wishes of my own, and 1 do not do it.


Frank Oliver: Has the'Government elevator at Fort William been found to pay its way in its operation ? The railway companies, having established elevators, have for one reason or another, preferred to withdraw from their actual operation and to lease them to other parties. What, has the experience of the Government in the operation of this elevator led them to believe is the main reason the railway companies do not themselves wish to operate ?


George Eulas Foster: 
Mr. NESBITT:: Does the Government
charge the same price for storage as do the company elevators?


George Eulas Foster: Absolutely the same.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Do you take account of depreciation and capital?


George Eulas Foster: I have presented to the committee simply the running expenses and receipts. At the end of the year we shall
know how we stand, not only as regards operating expenses, but on the whole business, which means the investment and the carrying of the investment, as well as operating expenses. I cannot prophesy as to how we shall come out in that. I can say, however, that we have built an elevator of 3,250,000 bushels capacity, and as all the accounts have been turned in and paid off, we know that the cost of that elevator reckons out at about 42 cents per bushel of elevator capacity. If my hon. friend will make investigations about other elevators, he will find that that is a very low cost. It must also be remembered that in computing the cost in that way we have taken in the purchase price of the land, $90,000. We have also taken in dredging and a certain amount of other building. If you simply took the construction cost of the elevator, it would be somewhere about 37 cents per bushel of elevator capacity.


Mr. KNOWLES:: What were tne construction expenses?


George Eulas Foster: The total cost was $1,372,-
000.


William Erskine Knowles: I want the cost of construction only.	*


George Eulas Foster: I imagine this was gone over last year in the House, but I can give it again. The total cost, as I said, is $1,372,000. That includes $90,000 for the site and $32,000 for dredging. Then there was the building of a revetment wall for protection purposes, and some trestles and such like.


William Erskine Knowles: Who was the architect on the Fort William elevator?


George Eulas Foster: The arcnitects were Woodman & Garey. They were the supervising engineers and were paid $11,845 for supervision.


William Erskine Knowles: I presume that in the agreement with the contractor, certain matters would be left for the -architect's decision. Was the architect's name mentioned in the contract.


George Eulas Foster: It would not be necessary.


William Erskine Knowles: 
George Eulas Foster: They are residents of
Winnipeg.


William Erskine Knowles: Canadians?


George Eulas Foster: I have never inquired
about their nationality, but my idea is that they are Canadians.


William Erskine Knowles: They drew the plans of the elevator.


George Eulas Foster: They did not draw the
plans, they were the supervising architects.


William Erskine Knowles: Who drew the plans and did the brainwork in getting things ready?


George Eulas Foster: The plans, if I mistake
not, were drawn by Barnett & McQueen.
Mr. KNOWLES': Of where?


George Eulas Foster: Of wherever you like, almost, because they are all over. They are in Winnipeg, Fort William, and Chicago I think. Elevator building is their business *and they do a vast amount of it.


William Erskine Knowles: They are Americans of course.


George Eulas Foster: I really do not know.


William Erskine Knowles: Are not their headquarters in the States?


George Eulas Foster: I do not know, but I think I am right in saying that the bulk of their business hitherto has been done in the United States. They built this elevator and are building two others for us. Since my hon. friend has raised that question perhaps I may give a little information just here, pertinent to it. We called for tenders of course upon plans that had been prepared and submitted. I am informed that Barnett & McQueen are incorporated as a company in Canada.


William Erskine Knowles: I am sure they are.


George Eulas Foster: And of all things, not surprising to my hon. friend, I am sure, when I mention it to him, Mr. McQueen himself is a Nova Scotian. You find thesd Nova Scotians everywhere.


William Erskine Knowles: The minister got a little lap ahead of me by saying he was a Nova Scotian and then stopping. We will take the subject up later. A good many Nova Scotians go wrong.


Frank Oliver: This is an important departure in Government policy and I think it is desirable, before this item goes through, that we should have the fullest information in regard to it. Following up the minister's statement that the rival company elevators at Fort Wnliam have the advantage of having their own r-ceiv-	.
ing elevators in the producing country, from what sources, speaking generally, did the Government elevator draw its business? Who were the people who sent their grain to the Government elevator?


George Eulas Foster: It is a very difficult piece of business to trace the parentage of grain -almost as difficult as it would be to trace the religious persuasions of the shippers. But I think we may eliminate, in the first place, as we can in all the terminal elevators, the original producer of the grain to a very large extent.


Frank Oliver: Did the original producer use the elevator to any great extent?


George Eulas Foster: To a very small extent, as he uses it to a very small extent in any of the terminal elevators. Before the grain reaches Winnipeg the greater quantity of it is'out of the hands of the original producer. I do not know the proportion, but a very large proportion will have passed out of his hands when it gets into the country elevator, the quantity in his hands diminishes steadily and I imagine it comes to its minimum pretty nearly when it passes through the city of Winnipeg where large buyers are operating. It is impossible to trace the origin, but it is quite apparent that a very small proportion of the grain that comes into the Government elevator, or that goes into the other elevators, comes from the original producer. I think we had the largest proportion of our grain from the Canadian Pacific railway, the Saskatchewan Operative Company, and the Canadian Northern railway line which runs out from there.


Frank Oliver: There was an idea that
the establishment of a Government elevator at the terminal would have a tendency to encourage the direct shipment of grain in car lots, by the farmers. In other words, it was thought that it would eliminate the middleman to a certain extent, and I was anxious to know how far that result had been achieved. If there is not some result in that direction one of the objects that were aimed at will not have been attained. Does the minister think there is a possibility of the Government elevator suffering from the philanthropic operation of adjoining or adjacent elevators to such an extent as to seriously minimize its usefulness? That was the condition in the case of the railway elevators, and that was why they desired to allow the operation of these elevators to pass out of their hands. It was because grain companies owning line eleva-

tors were able practically to iboycott them, and I would like to know from the minister if the knowledge he has received so far would lead him to think that there was a possibility of such a thing occurring in the case of the Government elevator.


George Eulas Foster: I think there are other
factors which tend to make it 4 p.m. very difficult, if not impossible, for farmers to ship as far as the terminal elevators. After harvesting their grain they are in many cases pressed for returns, and on that account they put their grain into a position to give them returns just as soon as possible. Some will sell to the street buyers, others who are less pressed may sell to the country elevator, others will load it on their platforms and send it through to Winnipeg and have it sold by the Grain Growers' Grain Company or by a commission man. But until farmers are a little more able than in the average they seem to be to-day to wait a considerable time for their returns, I do not think we will see very much of their grain sent by them through to the terminal elevators at the head of the lakes. In proportion as they do get into that position I believe there will be an inducement to them to hold their grain for a better price, and, having come to the conclusion to hold it at the terminal either for a longer or a shorter time, I think they will be disposed to put it into the keeping of the Government elevator in preference to the keeping of a grain company, unless the co-operative principle, or the class principle if you have a mind to call it so, induces them to join for their own purposes in buying companies, or to entrust their grain for sale to the Grain Growers' Grain Company. The Grain Growers' Grain Company have now a terminal at Fort William. There is this much, however, that I think we may say that differentiates the position to-day from the position three or four years ago. We have now four elements, where before we had only two. We have a company controlled by the producers themselves, the first cousin, so to speak, of the producers, which is in the grain business and which has a terminal of its own. That gives to all those who have faith in themselves and in the companies formed from amongst themselves a source of output and storage independent of the grain or transportation companies.
We have the Government elevators and we have the transportation companies' eleva-
16.11
tors outside of the companies' elevators of which I have not spoken. Therefore we have four elements, the experience and the operation of which have tended to make a very much better condition in the grain transport than if we only had the two elements we had formerly. My hon. friend sees what I have in mind, although I have not expressed it very clearly.


Frank Oliver: Certainly.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: My hon. friend states
that a great deal of this large increase is temporary and will come back in storage charges. What will he the net cost of the grain commission, salaries, rents, wages and contingencies under the Canada Grain Act, after the returns of which my hon. friend spoke?


George Eulas Foster: I will give my hon. friend a statement that will be inclusive, and he can take from it what information he desires.
In the eastern division the Salaries last year amounted to $12,780; in the western division the salaries amounted to $78,921, or a total of $91,701. The Board of Grain Commissioners cost $19,603. Adding that to the preceding, it gives for salaries $111,304 The largest cost of the western division is in the wages and contingencies which amounted to $211,941. In the eastern division, the contingencies-I gave the salaries before-amounted to $3,455. These were distributed between Montreal, Toronto, Peterborough, Kingston and Quebec. Out of that about $550 has to be taken that does not belong to the Grain Act. That would leave about $3,000 for the contingencies of the eastern division as regards grain.
The travelling expenses of the Board oi Grain Commissioners amounted to $3,855. Offices had to be got and furnished for the Grain Commission and the total for that, together with the contingencies of the office, amounted to $15,032. The printing and stationery amounted to $14,741. These are the principal items of the cost of the eastern and of the western divisions last year. For 1912-13, the cost in all amounted to $340,294. For the present fiscal year, up to January 31, the cost in all is $387,827. The fees collected in 1912-13 were $330,530. The fees collected up to January 31, of this year, are $420,077.
In 1911-12 there were 154,005 cars of grain inspected, in 1912-13 192,720 cars, and in 1913-14 up to January 31, there were 193,342 cars of grain inspected, leaving two months yet of inspection.

As to the contents, the number of bushels inspected for ten months for the current year is 244,782,000 as against last year's total of 241,405,000, as against 1907-08 of 98,000,000, showing the very great progress in the product and in the inspection.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: For 1913-14 the expenditure of the Grain Commission was $387,827 and the fees collected were $420,077. Am I to understand that the fees more than paid the total cost of the Grain Commission?


George Eulas Foster: We are not yet where we can say whether they will or not. In thii3 case, as in the case of the elevators, you have the fat portion of the year in the way of fees gone, but you still have expenses until the fiscal year is over. In 1912-13, the deficit was nearly $10,000.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That would be the total cost?


George Eulas Foster: Yes. This year we cannot tell what it is, although we hope to come out pretty nearly even.


William Erskine Knowles: If the minister makes a large profit this year on this business, what is he going to do with it?


George Eulas Foster: One thing that I think ought to be done, if the House will agree, is that the Finance Minister and the Grain Commission ought to have a good long holiday with a little to spend to requite them for the hard work they have put in to bring about this state of affairs. But I know the hon. gentleman (Mr. Knowles) will not subscribe to that. If there were a substantial profit, year by year, there are several things that might be done with it. If that profit covered maintenance, depreciation and other necessary items, and a surplus over, we might turn that surplus back on capital and diminish the capital account. What actually takes places is that this money goes into the consolidated revenue fund.


Frank Oliver: The information the
minister has given us on the basis of his present knowledge would seem to bear out the view that was held, I think I may say, by the late Government in regard to terminal elevators, namely, that if it was intended that the Government should control the terminal business, it would have to control and operate all the elevators, and that it would not be dealing adequately with the situation to control less than the whole, for the reasons that have been brought up in the little discussion that the minister and I have just had

across the floor. That is to say, the position of the other elevators and the advantages they have in carrying on business might have the effect of minimizing the usefulness of the Government elevator. As a matter of fact, instead of the erection of this elevator putting the Government in control of the situation at the lake terminals, as I gather from the information given by the minister, the Government in the matter of this elevator is under control of the circumstances as they exist. We have not secured control of the situation, but the situation still controls us, notwithstanding the expenses that have 'been made. No doubt, the elevator has served a useful purpose as a means of education, but I think the information given by the minister would indicate that it has not got beyond that, and the chances are that it will never go beyond it.


George Eulas Foster: Whatever may be our
theories and prepossessions, every one of these steps taken is of the nature of an experiment. That, I think, my hon. friend will accept. He and I and other men are free in a sense, but we are wonderfully under control of conditions and circumstances, even the best and strongest of us. It is safe to say that the Government never could absolutely control the whole situation until it went back alongside the farmer and took possession of all the means of storage and transit of grain from the country elevator clear up to the other side of the ocean, where the grain finds a market. But I do not admit that the experiment made with the Government elevators, and the result of the operation, though that operation has covered but a brief time, has not had an excellent effect in putting us even with the situation, and next to the inner situation of things, and also in establishing what you might call a model elevator which is at the command of the public for what benefits they can derive from it.
I have mentioned I think all that the disadvantages, or if you like to call them so, the handicaps, of the Government elevator. On the other hand, I think it is a good asset simply because it is a Government elevator and is operated by expert men and has absolutely no self-interest in its operation. I think that in that respect it is doing a good service. The whole matter of Government elevators, internal and terminal, and the operation of those elevators, is in the experimental stage. We are putting our money into it and our efforts also,

and a good deal of brains and a good deal of application, in order to see how it will work out. It may not succeed to the extent of fulfilling the anticipations of all its former friends, but I am certain that it will succeed so far as to establish itself as a beneficent force in the operation of the Grain Act.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Might not the Government elevators at Calgary and Saskatoon act as feeders to that at the head of the lakes?


George Eulas Foster: If the hon. gentleman does not mind, this item deals wholly with administration. The subject to which he refers will come up on the next item.


William Erskine Knowles: If I remember well, when the minister (Mr. Foster) made his speech in introducing the Grain Act, two years ago, he spoke of doing justice to the. elevators at the head of the lakes, and said that in his opinion they were a pretty fair lot of people and did their business with fair honesty and competency. He says to-day, and of course it is quite true, that he has now had the opportunity of seeing the inner-workings of this trade. No doubt if there were undesirable practices there he would have a chance to see them. Is his mind as favourably disposed to these men as before, now that he has been in the field of experience ?


George Eulas Foster: I stated that we had had only a few months of operation, and that it is impossible to gauge the situation fairly until we have been in operation for at least one full year. There are parts of the operation of an elevator that we have not come to yet, as the .hon. gentleman knows, and it will take us a year at the very least to learn the operations which are carried on in an elevator. But I think that, broadly speaking, elevator men average up with others. There are two things to be noticed. In the first place, if we put a Government elevator there, operated in the most modern way, there will be an influence by example. The elevator men will feel that they have to make good because they are alongside of people who are making good, and who have no other aim but to make good. Then, they will feel that they are before public ' opinion, and there is a chance to contrast them with the Government elevator, and they will be on their good behaviour,-yes, on their better behaviour, because of their sensitiveness to public opinion. More than that, the work of a good strong board of 105
grain commissioners on the spot will, I tlink, afford an example and control and will have a good influence. There are none of us so good but that a little bit of hedging or restriction, either direct or coming from the future, is necessary to make us a little better.


William Erskine Knowles: I do not wish to say
anything critical with regard to this matter, but so far as I can make out, the minister says that because a Government elevator is operated by three commissioners and their employees, in some way the ordinary grain companies doing business in Fort William will be prevented rrom applying to their operations the ordinary tricks of the trade. I do not see why the hon. minister is so optimistic on tnat point. He says further that because these gentlemen are living right in Fort William, the fear of the Lord-for if the minister's words meant anything, they meant that- would in some way be kept before them. I do not think that his words carry conviction with them. My understanding was that the operation of the elevator there by the Government would tend to disclose the tricks of the trade that the other people were supposed to be carrying on, by which the farmers did not have justice done to them, and that the Government elevator would not indulge in such tricks of the trade, but would be run upon an entirely different basis. As far as I understand the remarks of the minister, he is unable to tell us that there is any trick of the trade used by the other corporations that he does not adopt himself. Of course, I do not mean to say that he has adopted them, but he1 is not able to show any difference in operation; he is simply operating this elevator the same as any company would operate it, and there is no more benefit to the people than ir any body of honourable gentlemen constituted themselves into a company and started a good elevator there, paying a million and a quarter for it. Is not that a fair statement of what the thing amounts to?


George Eulas Foster: I think another commentator could make a little change in the marginal references, if he tried to do so.


William Erskine Knowles: Marginal references are not admitted in court.


George Eulas Foster: I think it is fair to say that if you have the directing body of a Government grain system at the site of these terminal elevators, where they are in close proximity to and in constant conference with their supervising officers and the



machinery generally of the elevator, it goes without saying that, if these men are alive to their work, a better and stronger influence is exerted than if the minister of the department tries to do the work through a sub-officer, the minister being a thousand miles away and the sub-officer being at the place of business. I do not know that the men who are running the Canadian Pacific elevator there, for instance, are worse than the common run of humanity. The members of the Grain Growers' Grain Company, who run the Grain Growers' terminal there, are, I fancy, a good sample of their class of humanity. I would not, I mean, approach the matter with the idea of being suspicious, but everything that close supervision and careful attention can do to keep the methods in strict conjunction with the law is being done, and I think that in itself is a good influence.


William Erskine Knowles: Is it the policy of the Government to develop Government control and operation of the elevator business at Fort William, or is it not?


George Eulas Foster: At present it is the Government's intention to test out the matter of Government terminal elevator operation at the head of the Great Lakes, to test out the system of internal storage elevators in certain strategic points in the West, and to test out the terminal situation at Hudson (bay and on the Pacific coast. So far as I can speak for myself and for the present intentions of the Government, I think it would be well to test these points thoroughly before grasping for anything larger or more extended in that line. What I mean is that we proceed by steps. If this thing, working out over two or three years, approves itself to the Government or to the people as represented in this Parliament, then the question will arise as to whether it should be extended, to what degree it ought to be extended, and how.


William Erskine Knowles: I should like to be able to go to my constituents and say that the Government to-day through the minister, tell me that it is their purpose to carry into effect their policy of Government control and operation of the elevators at the head of the lakes. May I have the authority of the minister for making that statement to my constituents?


George Eulas Foster: My hon. friend is very intelligent, and can draw his own conclusions. I have made my statement, and

I advise him to be very truthful with his constituents, and not to lead them to have any false hopes as to what may not hereafter be realized.


Frank Oliver: While I do not wish to introduce controversial matters into this discussion, at the same time, as everybody must agree, the question of handling the grain crop of the West at the head of the Great Lakes is one of our very serious national problems. It is a matter that has been before the country for its best consideration for a number of years, and was, as a matter of fact, an important issue during the recent elections which resulted in the accession of our friends on the other side to power, and, therefore, to responsibility. The hon. minister has made a very frank statement with regard to the erection and operation of the Government elevator at the head of the lakes, and has also made a statement with regard to the extent. to which that elevator can be expected to go in regulating the grain trade of the prairie West. I am bound to say, although I do not wish to say anything that will be necessarily controversial, that the statement presented by the minister to-day is not an implementing of the declaration of policy made by his leader to the people of Canada, upon which he appealed for their support in the elections of 1911. In the fourth paragraph of the address to the people issued by the present Prime Minister on August 14, 1911, he stated his policy to be 'the control and operation by the State of the terminal elevators.' There is not a saving clause; there is no intimation that this will be done after due consideration. It is a declaration of policy that the right hon. gentleman unquestionably desired the people of Canada to understand would be carried out as the result of his accession to power.
The position as stated frankly and in a statesmanlike spirit by my hon. friend is that it is sound policy for the Government to go carefully in such an important matter, to study, to feel its way, so to speak. Had there been no declaration of policy before the country, the position as he has stated it here would have been absolutely right; it was, measurably, the position taken by the late Government, that this was an important matter and it could not be properly dealt with offhand. Issue was taken by the party in Opposition with the Government at that time and the formal declaration of the head of that party is in my hands and I have placed it before the House. I say

beyond any question that however much we might commend the view that is being expressed by my hon. friend and however much we might appreciate the frankness with which he has dealt with the subject before the House, the declaration that my hon. friend has made, is only another instance in which the Government of this country has absolutely failed to implement the promises, on which it secured its return to power.


George Eulas Foster: I want to have a little talk with my hon. friend if he will allow me. What is the particular use of this his last ebullition. Does he not see that he cut all the ground from under his feet when he made the admission this afternoon, that my statement outlines a policy which was in accordance with the views of the late Government when they were in office.


Frank Oliver: Surely, measurably so.


George Eulas Foster: Yes, there was not very
much retrenchment of that statement. Now, my hon. friend and his Government had viewed the situation from the farmers' standpoint and they had come to the conclusion that if they had gone as far as we have gone they would have done all that it was desirable to do. Is the hon. member chiding us because we did not jump into imprudence, or, is he just wanting to chaff us a little in reference to an alleged election promise that has not been fulfilled?


Frank Oliver: Exactly.


George Eulas Foster: That is a very small point. We shall take our chaffing and let him have the delight of chaffing us, but it does not change the well-matured opinion of the late Government nor does it make any argument against our position. Shame on a man if by chaffing he is going to push us into the imprudence, of going more rapidly than we ought 1 Chaff away, and have the fun of it, but after all he and I are exactly on the same level. I am doing what he_ and his "Government thought ought to be done, just before they went out of office.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: That is the
best you could do for yourselves.


George Eulas Foster: That was better than you did for yourselves.


Wilfrid Laurier: But you had
a change of Government, you should have done better.


George Eulas Foster: We have done better.
Where was a terminal elevator that was erected, controlled and operated by my hon.
J05i
friends after fifteen years in office; and the grain business was pushing them, they know how hotly it was pushing them? My right hon. friend, placing himself foursquare on the grain situation, prayed to God that we might not be too late in getting another railway' to get the grain out of the country. The whole problem was on them; they were politically powerful, but they did not put down the first stone of the foundation of a Government terminal elevator. We have. The chaffing is not all one one side; we are both able to play a little at that game. But after we have played as children at that game we come to be men, and when we are men my hon. friend says: You have done about what we thought was right to do when we went out of office. That is about as good as we care for at the present time, except that we are going on testing out the situation. My hon. friend said that when the late leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, made a statement, he did not guard himself by saying *it should have been done in a considerate way. But is anything else supposable, than that when the present leader of the Government, then leader of the Opposition, makes any statement in a concentrated form, he should make it on a reasonable and considerate basis? My hon. friend finds fault with him because he did not guard himself. Well, w,e have done more than that, we have undertaken to go a little further than a terminal elevator at the head of the lakes. We are building a railway at Hudson bay, we are controlling that, we are also providing equipment for steamboats out of Hudson bay. When this avenue is opened up it may be the realization of an old dream which has been dreamed by hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House as well as by gentlemen on this side.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I hope it will not be a bad one.


George Eulas Foster: I hope not. We dreamed it and we dreamed it so consecutively that we were forced to action, and the action has got to be carried out now to its fulfilment, and we are all anxious to see it a success. If it is a success you will have a Government owned railway that will carry the grain from the West up to Hudson bay; you will have a Government elevator there which will transfer the grain, and you will have terminal storage elevators at Saskatoon and at Moosejaw which, in connection with the transfer elevator, makes completed machinery for stor

ing and transferring your grain on to the boats. Every bit of that is under absolute Government control. There is one of the highways and outlets by which-for a quarter of a century back it has been prophesied-the grain of the Northwest will be carried. That is nearing fulfilment, and when it is fulfilled there will be a Government terminal and transfer elevator, and Government operation of both of them at that great proposed seaport and outlet for the grain of the Northwest. That is a gain I think my hon. friend will admit. Go over to the Pacific and you have the same thing being put into operation, you have a terminal elevator towards the western extremity of the grain belt and the transfer elevator on the Pacific coast, and both the internal storage elevator, and the transfer elevator itself will be under the control of, owned by .and operated by the Government. Is not that a gain? There you have two great outlets, guarding highways over which the grain can flow. What have you at lakes' head? You have a Government terminal elevator ready for the co-operative use of the people of this country. Any man who wants a fair deal and thinks he does not get it out of private interests and by private management can take his grain to an elevator which he can be sure is as disinterested in reference to his grain as it is possible to be. The Government hand is upon it, and with the Government hand upon it, so certificated and certified, his grain reaches the Canadian port where it is shipped on an ocean steamer.	[DOT]
I intend to introduce legislation this year by which the Grain Commission will be given such powers as are absolutely necessary in order that they may guarantee the safe carriage of the grades of grain that are certificated at Fort William through to the seaboard, and see that they are placed on the steamers which will carry them to the old country. That cannot be done now as our system is not complete. We have a transfer elevator at Port Colborne, built and operated by the Government, which will be a guarantee that all the grain that comes from Fort William certificated and graded, will be honestly handled and transferred to the vessels which will take it further down in order to ship it to the old country. That is a gain. When you come down to Halifax and St. John, our two ocean winter ports, we find in each a Government elevator, run, owned and operated by the Government, and under the supervision of Government IMr. G. E. Poster.]
officials. I think that constitutes a piece of machinery which is admirable in its mechanism, which is very widely distributed in its strength, and I think we had better test that out before going any farther.
There is a dawn of different things in the West. My great hope for the West, not only in its grain business but in all that pertains to it, is in the introduction and carrying out of an intelligent and honest system of co-operation among the producers and consumers of that country. We are working up to that. We have cooperation in grain companies, co-operation in elevator companies, and as the farmers see the benefit that comes from co-operation-and they will see it, if these co-operative concerns are well based and honestly managed-the co-operative system will grow in that great West and in all parts of the country. I think therein lies the solution, very largely, of a good deal of what we call the high cost of living. By the system of Government elevators, collateral advantages come to the farmer. The farmer has his grain in his wagon to-day, but he cannot get a dollar bill advanced On it from the bank. The grain has to be placed where it can be graded and certificated, and when that is done and the farmer gets his receipt he can take that receipt as a basis of security and finance himself at the bank or wherever he chooses. What has the Government done? It has removed, or will remove, that place where the transaction is completed, where the farmer gets his paper for financing himself; it has removed that place from the greatest distance, Fort William, and brought it to Saskatoon, and brought it to Moosejaw, and will bring it to Calgary. That place will be closer to the door of the farmer than it ever was before, and the farmer will be able to have his grain graded and get his papers, and consequently help himself financially much quicker than he has been able to hitherto. Is not that a gain? Before, the farmer had to carry his dead weight (bad seeds or whatever was an impurity) for thousands and thousands of miles, and it was not tried out until it got down to Fort William, and then by a system of drying and cleaning there was an expulsion of the waste and deleterious material, for every ounce of which the farmer had to pay transportation charges. The Government has removed that and is putting here and there, in the very centre of the grain production, these storage elevators with im-

proved methods of drying, cleaning, and sal ing, so that at the very shortest reason-[DOT] able distance from his doorstep the farmer can have everything that is deleterious taken out of his grain, and he has not to pay for the cost of its transit to far-distant ports. All these things are advantages, which, when they come into fair and honest operation, the people will find to be of great benefit to themselves and will appreciate them.
Who is not in sympathy with the western farmer? I know -something about the western farmer, from the experience of those in whom I am actually interested. I know the difficulties, the trials, the privations and the strenuous toil of the western farmer. He has got to come through his period. I can remembeT back to when my father, and the people who lived in the settlement where I lived, had to face conditions, when the process of raising a blade of corn was much more laborious than has to be undergone by the farmers in the Northwest. Then they had to attack giant trees of tne forest, and underneath these giant trees there was not a place as big as a spade handle where you could put a seed of corn, or a seed potato. You had to fell the trees and dig about the stumps, and you had to wait four, five or six years before you got your -stumps out, for you had no jacks and stumping apparatus then; you had to trust to Providence, pray hard, and wait patiently until the stumps came out themselves. And yet strong-handed men who go into the Northwest, and put their plough into a virgin furrow which they can travel for miles, talk about hardships. There are hardships, but other pioneers in Canada have had their hardships, as well as the people of this generation. I sympathize with the old generation; I had something to do with it, and I sympathize with the new and I have something immediately to do with it. There is not anybody on the other -side of the House who does not -sympathize, but there are some things that cannot be done and there are some things that can be done, and there is a method by which you can march up to improvement by experiment without making serious mistakes, which is far better than to make big jumps into unforeseen circumstances and events.


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: My hon. friend has
talked about tree stumps, and as some of us have stumped the country for Government owned elevators, I am glad to see the kindly -spirit that has characterized any criticism that has been made of Govern- . ment terminal elevators. I think one of the greatest policies any government could propound, is the transportation of the products of the great West. I .sympathize with any government that has undertaken bo make a success of that great project, but that if there is room for criticism of a policy, even perhaps though it be unfair criticism, there is .something still to do. My hon. friend from Moosejaw seems to-have given us the crux of this matter.. Why have we ever had .any agitation for Government owned terminal elevators? I think perhaps we talked stronyer and longer on the point of having Government owned terminal elevators than on the question of transfer elevators. 'Why do the farmers of the West want a Government owned terminal elevator? It was, -as the member for Moosejaw stated, because there was a suspicion, rightly or wrongly, I think rightly, that the farmers of the West were not receiving a -square deal in the matter of their grain. We talked about the mixing process, -and perhaps more than anything else we talked about losing the identity of our wheat, and we	asked	for	terminal elevators.
I believe that a Government should carry out the promises they maxe to the people. This Government have made a good beginning in carrying out the promises made m this and in other Parliaments during the discussion of this question on both sides of the House. I think our hon.
[DOT] friends opposite were comparatively well satisfied, and the hon. member for Moosejaw, if he looks up his speeches, will see that he was comparatively well satisfied, that the late Government were doing fairly well in appointing officials to watch the wheat conditions at Port Arthur and Fort William. There was not very much antagonism on one side or the other, and I may say that, in so far as I have listened to this discussion to-day, I have not observed very much antagonism to what the Government are doing. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce took hold of this question when he was not } perhaps very familiar with the trade, but as with all other questions that he undertakes to deal with, he has certainly made himself familiar with the facts of the grain trade. As the hon. member for Moosejaw put it, what we wanted these elevators out there for was to know whether we were getting a fair deal or not. I think we all

want to be fair. I do not think there has been sufficient time to answer that question in its entirety. These elevators have been going since October.


George Eulas Foster: The 16th of
5 p.m. October.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: That is not quite long enough to make a fair test. I am free to admit that the Government have not gone as far as I would have liked them to have gone. I endeavour in anything I say in this House to about mean what I say. My motion and my desires were that the late Government-because we had the question long before the late Government went out of power-should inaugurate a policy of protecting the farmers of the West and protecting the grain. They made some progress, but not very much, along the line of policy that I was advocating. This Government came into power, and if there was anything in regard to which I have watched the Government it was as to what they were going to do for the farmers of the West in reference to the elevator system. I think that every hon. member on either side of the House from the West would like to see the Government operation of terminal and transfer elevators at Fort William, Port Arthur and the Hudson bay, when we get that route opened, and all other points. While we have not obtained all we desire, or all I believe would be in the interests of the western people, I am willing to admit that the Government have made a good, fair start. If my hon. friends on the other side want to be fair, as I know they do, they must admit that, although perhaps the Government have not carried out to the letter the promises that were made before they came into power, yet they have made a splendid beginning, not only in reference to terminal elevators, but in other directions. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce has been very fair and very frank in stating to-day that they have only taken up the work of terminal elevators, but that they will take up the question of internal terminal elevators, which, I think, will be of the utmost importance. My hon. friend from Medicine Hat (Mr. Buchanan) was pleading for one of these internal terminal elevators in his4 constituency. As everybody knows, my constituency is perhaps the best wheat-growing constituency for its size in the West.


William Erskine Knowles: Do they believe in free wheat there?	.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I do not believe in a member who is addressing the Chair being thrown off into a discussion foreign to the subject; I believe in sticking to the point, and the point to-day is terminal elevators. When free wheat comes up we will discuss it. However, I was just going to put in a plea for an internal terminal elevator in the neighbourhood of my constituency. If I have any feeling of dissatisfaction with any course pursued by the Government 1 will state my disatisfaction on the floor of the House. The minister has stated that this was somewhat of an experiment that they were trying out. I cannot see for the life of me how this is altogether an experiment. I think it is .something that is bqund to work out in the interests of the West. I would like the Government to establish one of these internal elevators- I will not say exactly in my constituency- but in the neighbourhood of it. Brandon would be a splendid place for an elevator of this kind. I believe we all have one aim, whether we are on this or on the other side of the House, and that is to make the most out [DOT] of our products, and especially the wheat of the West.


Mr. McCRANEY:: Free wheat.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: My hon. friend is exceedingly anxious to divert my attention from the subject under discussion, but I am going to stay right with the terminal elevators. I hope that the Government will come to the conclusion to give us these terminal or transfer elevators, and will not forget to establish one of them at Brandon.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: I do not rise with any idea of delaying the Estimates of my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster). I have far too great a personal esteem for him to hold him up in any way not absolutely necessary for the good of the country. But I am bound to point out that when he makes one of those charming speeches, that used to be so good in Opposition, in his capacity as Minister in seeing his Estimates through, he throws down the gauntlet in a way that is extremely risky. I am almost sure that he would have been more wary had he noticed the admirable way in which the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Schaffner) evaded questions which were not under discussion. It is extremely tempting to go into a comparison of the difficulties which my hon. friend's fathers had, and the difficulties that I am having myself. After all

our fathers had their difficulties in the peculiar localities in which they had to work out their destiny.


George Eulas Foster: One of them is standing up there.


Michael Clark: No, il do not think the difficulties that faced my fathers 'before I was born could possibly be transferred to me. That is one of the pieces of illogic that my hon. friend sometimes indulges in. There was one difficulty the forefathers of my hon. friend had not, that we in the West have to contend, with to-day: they laboured anyway without the so-called blessing of the National Policy.


George Eulas Foster: Oh, they were deprived of that!


Michael Clark: They did not have the so-called blessing of the National Policy; they worked under freedom. I am perfectly certain that, if there had been this wonderful thing called a National Policy in the days when my hon. friend's forefathers were getting out the stumps on their farms, there would have been no Canada to-day. There is no man in this chamber more susceptible than I am to the eloquent appeal made by my hon. friend for admiration for his forefathers-it is only a kind of virtue by proxy that he is claiming-but, as I have said, had they to contend with the difficulty of the National Policy amongst those stumps, there would not have been any Canada. I promise, however, in my own mind not to be tempted into a discussion of these questions just now.
From a party point of view I think my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) has made a very good reply to my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver). He has stated his case fairly; and if this be a good line of policy upon which he has embarked, then I do not think that my hon. friend (Mr. Oliver) has much cause to delay the Estimates a minute. The minister extended his observations considerably, however, and I rose for a very particular purpose. My hon. friend connected his terminal elevators with the Hudson Bay railway, and presumably with the question of the Hudson bay traffic. That was bringing a very large question into the discussion. My hon. friend, from a party point of view, scored a fair point in regard to what the Government has already done; but when he introduced the question of the Hudson bay route, and the possible navigation of the Hudson bay, he raised the whole question of what the men of the West really want from this Government;
what the Government can give them, and what they can get independently of this Government altogether. I think I am more free than my hon. friend is from party bias. 1 have always taken him for a pretty strong party man; but I am willing to dispense with the chaff altogether and to put a question to my hon. friend on a point of policy. Does he think that this thing that he calls a dream is not likely to prove a bad dream, as I have just shown in an interjection I put to him? Does he really think that this huge scheme, that he has called a dream, and that he is helping to realize, offers a fair prospect of encouraging the development of the West? Has he looked at this as a point of policy? After all, the United Kingdom can only take a limited amount of the wheat that we ought to be raising in the West even if we got the whole market. We can never get the whole market, if you build ten Hudson bay railroads, until you are prepared to take the returned products to pay for the wheat. If we got the whole market and supplied all the wants of the old country, does my hon. friend limit his idea of the possible developments of western Canada to the absolute gobbling up of the old country market? Would it not have been a wiser thing, to think what the people of the West want to do, and would not that be a more feasible method of developing Canada? I did not introduce this matter; I submit to my hon. friend in all fairness that he introduced it. He was not as wary as he usually is and he tempted me, perhaps unfortunately to my feet.
I want to follow that line of thought a little further. Suppose the United States became a great market for wheat, as it will and must. The object of the present policy of the United States is to increase their manufacturing output. It has been so stated by Mr. Woodrow Wilson. He says: The role is cast upon us of seizing the markets of the world for our manufactures. If that goes on, the industrial population of that already enormous country must increase indefinitely, and I am inclined to agree with the interjection of my right hon. leader when he says that unquestionably the United States will become a great market for our wheat. If that is in the near future, is it not possible that my hon. friend's policy, which he has sketched with all that admirable skill of his, and which he has extended for the purpose of giving us a taste of his skill which is always gratifying to us on this side, is but a bad dream? Would it not have been better to

have taken in time the offer which still stands before him of the United States market? We cannot bring back the conditions of two and a quarter years ago.
I am going to take the case a little further. I have pointed to the limited nature of the market in the United Kingdom through this system which my hon. friend has described. I have pointed out what appears to me almost a certainty, that we shall have this greater possible market below the boundary line. Now I want to point out to my hon. friend that it is not in the power of this Government, or of any Government in this country, to refuse that market, unless we are prepared to commit ourselves to an export duty upon wheat, and I put that aside as an impossible suggestion or consideration, because the United States may at any time do in regard to wheat what they have done last year in regard to cattle: they may take their duty off without any consideration as to what Canada does. That is a possibility. What was the result of taking off the duty in regard to cattle? The United States at once absorbed the cattle produce of this country to such an extent that in the month of November not one hoof went to Great Britain, while 75,000 head went to the United States. My hon. friend must admit the possibility that, by a simple stroke of the pen, a president, present or future, of the United States may say: We will let the wheat of Canada in free. Suppose, and it is not an impossible supposition-we have the case of the cattle to gO' upon-that the effect of that action was to draw grain to the United States to the loss of the old country market, to a similar extent to that which has happened in the case of cattle, then I would like my hon. friend to make another speech telling me what would come of his dream.
Mr. MiEIGHEN: Have you heard of the embargo on cattle?


George Eulas Foster: My hon. friend, after . chiding me for falling into a trivial error in tempting him, has gone on with a much larger temptation. I would like very much to follow him, but I am getting my Estimates through at present. I made note of three points at least in the remarks of my hon. friend, and I would be very glad to discuss them with him when we come into the Budget debate.


Frank Oliver: As this discussion goes, upon 'Hansard,' and as my hon. friend

(Mr. Foster) has been good enough to suggest that his policy, as being carried out, was the policy of the late Government, I wish to Correct that' statement. So far as entering upon a policy with due consideration was concerned, his idea was as ours; but as I understood the matter at that time, our idea was that it was necessary that there should be control of all the elevators at the terminals in order that the expected Tesult might be achieved. There is a radical difference in that particular between the policy to which he has given effect and the policy he had in mind. It was only on the point that any policy should be entered upon with due consideration, that I commended hi? action and suggested that it was in line with ours. It is on that point, however, that the attack on the late Government was made by my hon. friend's leader and his friends, it was on the point that there should not be delay, that there should not be further consideration, but that the question of the terminal elevators should be settled then and there-it was upon that ground that the appeal was made strongly on behalf of the then Opposition, on the strength of the plank of the leader's platform which I cited. I think that it is desirable that that point should be thoroughly understood.


Mr. W. H. SHARPE:: Would the hon.
gentleman favour the Government taking over and operating all the elevators at Port Arthur and Fort William at the present
time?


Frank Oliver: I am not talking about
taking control of these elevators at this time. I say that our view was that only b.y taking control of the whole of the elevators at Fort William should we be able to control the grain situation in the interest of the people of the West. We may have been wrong about it, but that was our policy, and the instances the minister has given us here would seem to indicate that that was correct.


William Henry Sharpe: The hon. gentleman finds fault with the minister for not having done that; would he himself be willing to do it?


Frank Oliver: No, I am not finding fault with the minister; I am asking what his policy has succeeded in doing. It is certain it has not succeeded in controlling the situation. That has been settled by the discussion that has taken place, and from what the minister has told us there is no

16fil
evidence that it ever will control the situation. But it was control of the situation that the hon. gentleman and his friends and the rest of us wanted. We thought it was only by taking control of ail the terminal elevators that that could be secured. If I am not mistaken provision was made in the Grain Act introduced by the Government for that very thing. And the suggestions of my hon. friend as to Government-owned interior terminal elevators, and elevators at Hudson bay and Vancouver, can only be considered as being in the most limited degree a step towards the fulfilment of the plank laid down in the platform of Ids leader. The whole of the grain of the country goes through the terminals at the head of the lakes, not a bushel goes by way of Hudson bay or Vancouver or the interior terminal elevators as yet. So far as the Hudson bay terminal is concerned, it will not come into operation for years. I do not know how soon there will be trade through the proposed terminal in Vancouver. But I call the minister's attention to the fact that if he had had the interior terminals in operation this year, not a bushel would have gone into them, because the grain was handled without the necessity of having to go into the interior terminals. So, my hon. friend's argument is bad as his position. He sets up as the fulfilment of the promise that which is absolutely no fulfilment, and drives me to the conclusion, which I state without desiring to be in any way offensive, that it is deliberately intended that the promise shall be absolutely not carried out. I regret that that should be the condition, but we are dealing with facts as they are in regard to one of the most important questions that can come before this Parliament. And I certainly must protest against the suggestion of my hon. friend that the question of the good faith of a political party in this country is a matter of ' chaff.' I think the good faith of a political party, especially a party that has been charged with the responsibility, is even now more important than the carrying out of any ordinary matter of policy; and if it is to be understood that the Government of to-day is to repudiate, coldly repudiate, this and that part of the policy upon which they appealed to the country ror election, it shows a condition of political morality that certainly is unique in this country and, I almost think, in any British dominion. That, it seems to me, is not. a matter of ' chaff '; it is the most serious side of this very serious question.


George Ewan McCraney: There is another
question that is so closely related to this subject of Government-owned terminals, that I wish to ask the minister for information concerning it. I mean the question of sample markets. This question of sample markets was discussed throughout the West at the same time that the matter of terminal elevators was discussed. The minister knows the argument, he knows the reason why sample markets are wanted.
I understood that he had made some provision looking to the establishment of sample markets, and that later upon the representations of the grain growers themselves, he postponed any action of that kind. When I heard that the farmers themselves were asking that these sample markets be not established at the present time, I wrote to a friend of mine who is very closely in touch with that point of view and asked him why it was. He said: The situation to-day is that the Government has net control of the terminal elevators; while they have one elevator, we feel that it will be necessary that the whole handling of grain at the terminal points shall be in the hands of the Government; we are suspicious of the elevators which are in the hands of the companies, as we were when we advocated the establishment of Government-owned elevators. I wish the minister would make a statement with regard! to the establishment of sample markets and say whether he has found such representations to be the basis of the unwillingness at the present time of the Government to go into this scheme. I might point out further that, to my mind, the question of sample markets will be put to one side as soon as we have the free entry of our wheat into the American market. Because our growers will sell on sample at Minneapolis, and with the ability of our farmers to ship into Minneapolis, I think we shall very soon find that conditions will establish themselves, apart from what the Minister himself may do, that will bring sample markets to us. Perhaps it may be that the delay is in expectation of the speedy establishment of free entry for our wheat into the United States.


George Eulas Foster: I am afraid that my hon. friend, by his last remark, has made it impossible for me* to give him an answer at the present time. I rather suspect that he is trying to lead up from this answer to the question of a sample market to what may be the Government's position on free wheat, and thereby anticipate the Budget. Perhaps that is not his intention.

Mr, MICHAEL CLARK:	This is going
to he a tremendous budget.


George Eulas Foster: It will be about the same as many successful budgets preceding it. The question, of establishing a sample market in our country has been discussed for a number of years. There is a great deal of opinion in favour of it; there is some opinion that is opposed to it. There is a third division of opinion which is in principle, in favour of sample markets, but which has not fully made up its mind whether it is best to carry the idea out under present conditions, and to this last class the correspondent of my hon. friend belongs, they would like a sample market and would like all terminal elevators to be under the control and operation of the Government if a sample market were put into operation. It is a very difficult thing for a man sitting in this Parliament and a still more difficult thing for a man sitting in an office of administration in this country, really to get at the exact weight of opinion as far a3 these three different views are concerned. Some one who is opposed to sample markets will make the most of the argument that the farmers are not in favour of it. Others will use the argument in different ways. My own impression is that the farmers of the West are more in favour of a sample market to-day than they have been at any time in the previous history of our grain business. I may be wrong in that conclusion, but it is the conclusion that comes to my mind from impressions I have formed, from conversations I have had, and from sources of information which are at my disposal. The Government is in favour of establishing a sample market just as soon as the conditions are favourable for its being successfully put into operation. They have taken the power to do so, and it is for the Government to watch conditions as they exist, and if the time comes, within a shorter or longer period, when it is best to put a sample market into operation, they will be prepared to do so and to take the responsibilities which, of course, will rest upon them for making that move. Further than that, as to any definite date when action will be taken, I am not able to' answer .my hon. friend's question.


Frank Oliver: What knowledge has the minister of' the conditions governing the handling of the grain through the transfer elevators? That is, has the commission

been able to establish a more definite control of the grain after it leaves Fort William than formerly existed? I understood the minister to .say that further improvements were in contemplation, and I would like to have an idea as to what measure of supervision and control exist to-day in that regard. In view of the very low price of wheat from the crop last year on the Liverpool market, it has struck me, speaking as a layman and one who is not expert in the grain business, that there is a possibility of the grain having been degraded in its transfer from Fort William to the Liverpool market, and that possibly that degrading has had something to do with the abnormally low price which it received. Canadian grain was actually at a discount on the Liverpool market during part of last fall, and the reason assigned was the enormous quantity thrown on the market. That may have been the only reason, but I .should like to have my hon. friend's best information on the subject.


George Eulas Foster: That would be the natural inference to make, not having looked into the facts of the case. The present condition of the Act does not give the Government through its grain board sufficient power to exercise the necessary supervision and control after the grain has left the head of the lakes and has started on its journey through the different transfer elevators and carriers towards, we will say, Montreal and Quebec. In order that that supervision shall be closer than it has been, certain amendments-not many-are necessary to the Act, and I propose in a short time to put before hon. gentlemen such legislation as I think is necessary to enable that control to be exercised. At the same time, I am bound to say, from the information which we have, that I am not at all certain that very much malpractice is exercised during that transit journey. I do not think we are justified in saying there is, either from complaints, very few of which we have received in our own country, from knowledge we have gained from the amount of supervision that we do exercise, which, I admit, is limited, or from results in the old country. At the same time the fact remains that we have not our hands on it as we ought to have, and as I think the House will be disposed to give us power to have in the future. Here, for instance, in the East, you have different kinds of elevators. You have transfer elevators that are run by transport companies, and which are, according to general opinion, said to

be the least liable to any suspicion, and the more satisfactory. Then yon have the elevators which are leased from railway companies and run by the people who lease them. You have, also, elevators that are run by grain companies, who not only pass their own grain through, but who pass the grain which has already received our certificate and warranty at the head of the lakes and which does not belong to them. There are three quite different systems through which this grain percolates, and we do not think there is sufficient uniformity or sufficient control to bring about uniformity in order to avoid tne possibility of discrimination during that transit. Then, we have direct Government elevators, such as there are at Fort Colborne, St. John and Halifax, and we have what we might call mediate Government elevators, operated by the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal, and, next year, of Quebec. These are operated by the Harbour Board Commissioners appointed by the Government, and in that way they are, to a certain extent, Government elevators. In each one of them all self-interest is entirely eliminated, because the Harbour Commissioners have adsolutely no interest inimical to the grain shippers or to the grain producers. It is necessary to the perfection of the system that all those elevators should be operated on uniform bases and under uniform conditions, and that is what we are going to try to bring about. As to why Canadian grain is at low prices in the European and, especially, in the English markets, I may assure my hon. friend that that is not at all due to a degradation of the grain or to failure of the grain to turn out according to the certificates given. Never in any year of Canadian grain history has the wheat got into the markets at home in better accord with its grade and certificate or in better condition than it has this year.
I invite my hon. friend's attention to a report now being printed, made by the chief grain commissioner, who had the advantage of a month or six weeks sojourn in Great Britain during the winter. He visited the grain exchanges in various parts of the United Kingdom and held conferences with them. His report will be found to be instructive and reassuring. The report of the Saskatchewan Government Commission which finished its labours at an earlier period is of the same character. The general verdict on Canadian grain in the British market is that there never was Canadian grain of better quality at as low
prices comparatively as the Canadian grain bought this year. Grain men over there attribute this to the patent fact that where you try to dispose of all your goods in a limited time you are sure to bring the market down, even although your goods are of the very best quality. That is what happened, and there is no doubt that the producers of grain in the West this year lost many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, because of the necessity, from the circumstances over which, in the greater measure, they had no control, which led them to throw their grain with a rush into the market and in such large quantities-there never was so much marketed in so short a space of time-that the market inevitably sagged. So, whilst we have to admit the loss, we are quite sure, On the other hand, that it d'd not arise from any depreciation in quality or failure of the grain to equal certificates.
To provide for the construction, acquisition, leasing or expropriation of terminal elevators, $4,700,000.


George Eulas Foster: Out of this vote we are
providing for expenditures on the elevators of which I have spoken in my previous explanations. I think I stated that all accounts had been paid with reference to the Fort William elevator so that nothing comes out of this vote for it. Then we are providing in this for the construction of the elevator at Saskatoon which is now well under way, the elevator at Moosejaw is also well under way, and the elevator at Hudson bay, to a limited extent because it is not expected that out of this vote we will be able to provide for more than the foundation of that elevator. We also provide from this for the internal storage elevator at Calgary and the transfer terminal in British Columbia.


Frank Oliver: That will go on this summer?


George Eulas Foster: Yes.


Frank Oliver: To be ready for next fall?


George Eulas Foster: I do not think so, but it will be ready for the 1915 crop. To be of much use for this year it would have to be ready for the reception of grain by October at the very latest and it would be impossible to do that. Generally speaking, the department came to the conclusion that instead of paying for engineers it was better to have a capable engineer of their own. They consequently employed Professor Howe, a capable young engineer, who is on salary and attends to all our engineering work. That is found to be much more

economical than paying outside engineers for plans and supervision. Professor Howe has not drawn the plans for Saskatoon and for Moosejaw, but he will, I think, prepare the plans for the succeeding elevators, not including Hudson bay. The Hudson bay elevator was in a difficult situation and we thought it better to call for tenders for plans for that elevator so we advertised for tenders. The lowest and best tender was that of the Canadian Stewart Company which is now preparing plans for the Hudson bay elevator. The same plans that are sufficient and good for Saskatoon and Moosejaw will be available for Calgary, so that we will not be at the expense of paying for any plans for that elevator. For -the elevator in British Columbia, the plans will be drawn by Professor Howe. Where we gain is in this respect is that we, in the first place, have a Government -man whose duty is to his Government first and foremost and who has no other business. He inspects at present two elevators. If we employed another man for inspection we would have to pay him for the inspection of each elevator and also pay the cost of resident engineers to supervise the daily construction. We have to employ resident engineers for daily -supervision, but the main supervision is done in all these cases by our own one man, on salary. Tenders were called for the Saskatoon and Moosejaw elevators either together or singly. Four tenders were received. One was by the Barnett-McQueen Company, a combined tender of $2,005,620 for Saskatoon and Moosejaw. Each elevator is to have a capacity of three and a half million bushels storage and working capacity. Another tender was by the Canadian Stewart Company, $2,377,000 for the two. Another was by the George A. Fuller Company, $2,417,718 and the other by the Stevens Engineering Company for the Saskatoon elevator at $1,199,000. The offer of the Barnett-McQueen Company was $1,047,000 for the Saskatoon elevator and their-combined tender was lower than their sum for each individual elevator so that Barnett and McQueen's tender was accepted at $2,005,620. After we commenced work on the Moosejaw foundation, we had a reminder of what might happen, by the tilting of -the Canadian Pacific railway elevator at Transeona, and we paid particular attention to testing the foundations there.
We paid particular attention to the foundation at Moosejaw. We had it thoroughly tested in every way known to engineers, and although our own engineer was of the opinion that the foundation uruld be 
sufficiently secure without piling, he was not able to absolutely guarantee that; so to avoid even the risk of a subsidence of the foundation, such as occurred in the case of the Canadian Pacific railway elevator at Transeona, I came to the conclusion to have the foundation piled. An additional cost of $100,000 will therefore be incurred in the case of the Moosejaw elevator, bringing the total cost up to $2,100,000. With that addition it is still cheaper by about $100,000 than any of the other tenders. Construction has been going on for two or three months, and we expect to make good progress now that spring is here.


Frank Oliver: What is the material?


George Eulas Foster: Concrete.


Frank Oliver: What is the condition of the Calgary elevator?


George Eulas Foster: A site has at last been obtained and delimited and the title got. The plans are just now receiving the finishing touches, and as soon as I receive them tenders will be called for and the work will proceed with all possible despatch.


Frank Oliver: Will it be ready for this year's crop?


George Eulas Foster: No, but it will be ready for next year's crop.


George Ewan McCraney: Would the minister tell us what was paid by the Government for these different elevator sites? I am asking that because the city of Saskatoon paid $57,000 for the site on which the elevator at Saskatoon is erected.


George Eulas Foster: We have paid nothing for the Saskatoon, Moosejaw, or Calgary sites. The Calgary site was owned by the Militia Department, and of course cost the Government nothing.


George Ewan McCraney: I want to point out to the minister that the city or Saskatoon paid the sum of $57,000 for the site which was turned over to the Government, and for which it was necessary to go to the legislature for authority. The minister tells me that he is using the Government's own property at Calgary.. If the minister will inquire he will find that at the city of Moosejaw there were some thousands of town lots handed over to the city of Moosejaw by the Dominion Government a number of years ago. The particulars are on 'Hansard,' but I have not them here. The position is that Moosejaw had received something from the Government some years ago

and handed property back to the Government for an elevator. In Calgary the Government used their own property. As the city of Saskatoon is the only city which has been required to pay out its own money, and as it never got land from the Government as Moosejaw did, it has been suggested to me that the Government might well hand over to the city of Saskatoon a piece of land which is part of a school section. I shall give the minister the particulars of the land so that he can take it into his consideration if he is desirous of putting the city of Saskatoon on the same footing as the other cities mentioned. The land to which I refer is part of section 11, in township 37, in range 5, west of the 3rd meridian. It would he available for park and other purposes. Had tne land been in the city, I am sure the minister would have made use of it as he did in the case of Calgary.


George Eulas Foster: What is its area?


George Ewan McCraney: -I could not tell the minister offhand. Some years ago it was offered for sale at a sale of school lands, and was withdrawn with the idea that the Militia Department might take it over for a rifle range, but it was found to be too small for that purpose. Unless something is done, I think there will be discrimination against Saskatoon.


George Eulas Foster: I note what my hon. friend says. It seems as if, by some reason or other we are precluded from allowing any city to exercise generosity towards Government buildings in this way. I knew nothing about the matter until my hon. friend brought it to my attention, but I will take it into consideration. My hon. friend of course will not expect me to make any definite promise now.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Does the minister propose to build three elevators, or four, with this $4,700,000.	[DOT]


George Eulas Foster: I have estimated that
that is all we shall be able to expend this year. Just how much the foundation for the elevator at Hudson bay will cost, and just how much will be finished and be paid for during this fiscal year, are things I do not know. It may be that quite a sum will be expended there. It will depend entirely upon how the construction goes on, but I do not think it will be a large amount. Saskatoon and Moosejaw will take about $2,000,000. With regard to the Calgary elevator, we cannot tell yet, as no tenders have been asked for, but it will
probably not exceed the cost of the elevator at Saskatoon. That accounts for three millions. The other elevator in British Columbia may take a portion of the remaining million dollars daring the present fiscal year, but certainly it will not take all. There is ample in the $4,000,000 to carry on the construction contemplated.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Have you secured a site for the British Columbia elevator?


George Eulas Foster: Not yet.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The minister said that
an addition had been made in regard to Saskatoon on account of piling.


George Eulas Foster: No, that was in regard to Moosejaw.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I understand that the
reason of the cave-in at Winnipeg was that the rock foundation gave way.


George Eulas Foster: It was thought that the
hard clay would carry the weight, but if I remember reading a description of the causes, it was that water had got to work and quicksands developed below the clay, and it went down and the earth came up.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: My information is not
correct then. If they had got down to rock they would have been all right.


George Eulas Foster: Oh yes. If you get down to the ro ck with the piling it ought to be substantial.


William Erskine Knowles: Would the minister tell me what proposition there is for the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific having access to the elevator at Moose-jaw?


George Eulas Foster: I am afraid I cannot tell my hon. friend in detail, but arrangements have been, I think, satisfactorily concluded, whereby the Canadian Pacific railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific get easy access to the elevator. The Canadian Northern railway, I think, is the road which is least favourably situated for access, but it was very difficult to get an ideal site which would accommodate easily all the roads. We did in the end agree to take a site which had two qualities at least-one that it was a good site from the building point of view, and the other that it made it possible for the two chief roads interested in the grain trade to get easy access. Of course, there is always a possibility of the others getting access although they may have a longer transfer than they would like to have.


William Erskine Knowles: The Grand Trunk Pacific has stated that they see daylight through the matter?


George Eulas Foster: Yes, arrangements have been made. I have the plans over in the office, which, as I understand, have been practically agreed to.


William Erskine Knowles: I suppose that the
minister's deputy could show me those drawings if I went over there?


George Eulas Foster: Quite so; they are there to be seen.


William Erskine Knowles: Could the minister tell me anything in regard to the gravel to be used in connection with the Moosejaw elevator? There has been considerable dissension about that. Some of the faithful in Moosejaw thought they were going to have the comfort and profit of supplying the gravel, and there has been quite a little eruption among them.'


George Eulas Foster: Did they throw out any gravel?


William Erskine Knowles: No, and it did not throw them out of the Conservative party either. Perhaps the minister knows of it and if he does I would be glad if he would tell me what have been the ins and the outs of it.


George Eulas Foster: I know nothing of the ins and the outs. The only thing I know is that our engineer was instructed to see that the proper gravel went into the making of the cement and it was up to the contractor to get the gravel.


William Erskine Knowles: Could I have access to such material as there is in the way of correspondence or directions which the minister gave?


George Eulas Foster: My hon. friend can call for any papers, and I will be glad to bring them down.


William Erskine Knowles: But that involves great delay at this late period of the session.


George Eulas Foster: If my hon. friend will tell me the information he wants I will try to give it to him; I have nothing to hide.


William Erskine Knowles: I do not say that the minister has anything to hide; he is not in the gravel business. But the fact remains *that there is a skeleton in the closet somewhere in regard to this gravel.


George Eulas Foster: I am thankful it is not in the Government's closet.


William Erskine Knowles: Different people have
gravel that they believe is going to be used, and I would be curious to know why they did not get the patronage they expected. Perhaps if the minister has a talk with lMr. McGill he will be able to tell me something after dinner.


George Eulas Foster: Yes. Do my hon. friends on the other side of the House wish to go further on this item, or would they pass it now?


Frank Oliver: I would like to have some information as to the policy that will govern these, elevators when finished. My hon. friend, of course, would be quite ready to give that, and it is all I care for.


George Eulas Foster: If then we can agree that on our next item in the Estimates we will be able to take these questions up and discuss them further, perhaps my hon* friends would allow the item to go through, as, if possible, I would like not to come back to-night.


Frank Oliver: Yes.


William Erskine Knowles: That applies to gravel too?


George Eulas Foster: To gravel too.
At six o'clock, House resumed and then took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee on Bill No. 75, respecting The Continental Fire Insurance Company of Canada.-Mr. W. H. Sharpe. Mr. Blondin in the Chair.
On section I :
Frank Oliver: Can we have an explanation of this Bill? Many members of this Committee are not members of the Private Bills Committee, and I think some person should be responsible for what is contained in the Bill.


Mr. HAZEN:: From reading the first section, I judge that the Bill simply asks for an extension of time. The original Bill was passed in 1911. The charter expired on the 19th of May, 1913, and this is to extend the charter to the 1st of July, 1916.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Some amendments were made in committee.


Frank Oliver: The rule was agreed to some time ago, when the Minister of Public Works was present, that unless we could have an explanation from the promoter, the Bill should stand.


Mr. ROGERS:: If there is any objection and the promoter is not here, the Bill can stand.


Frank Oliver: The Committee is being treated with a great deal of discourtesy by promoters of Bills. We are responsible for the contents of these Bills, and they should not go through until we are made aware of what is in them.
Progress reported.


CALGARY AND PERNIE RAILWAY COMPANY.
[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee on Bill No. 72, respecting the Calgary and Fernie Railway Company.-Mr. R. B. Bennett. Mr. Blondin in the Chair.
Mr. LANCASTER :: Probably I can explain this Bill to the satisfaction of the Committee.


Frank Oliver: All I desire is that some person shall become responsible to the Committee for the Bill.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: This Bill is for an
extension of time. The railway runs from Calgary to Fernie, B.C., via the Kananas-kis pass, and the headwaters of the Elk river. It was incorporated in 1906, and was renewed in 1908, 1910 and 1912. This year, after a long discussion in the committee, we concluded to cut down the extension to one year. Therefore, in section 1 we have given them one year to commence instead of two years, and three years to complete instead of five years. After the word ' expenditure ' we have inserted the words ' including expenditures already made.' It seems that they have spent some money and the fifteen per cent is to include that expenditure.
In section 3, they ask for an increase from $20,000 to $60,000 for bonding. The committee thought $50,000 was sufficient.
We put in proper shape section 4, the amalgamation section, because one of these railways, The Hudson's Bay Railway Company, is' a government owned railway and is therefore not under the control of the Railway Act. Consequently we struck that company out, but we added the Canadian Northwestern Railway Company so that the Calgary and Fernie Railway Company may amalgamate with the railways as printed in the Bill, namely, The High River and
Hudson's Bay Railway Company, The High River, Saskatchewan and Hudson's Bay Railway Company, The Canadian Western Railway Company, The Canadian Northern Railway Company, The Canadian Northwestern Railway Company, and The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. We added the standard section for preventing construction on the highways without the consent of the municipalities. I think the Bill * is in proper shape.	t
Bill "reported, read the third time, and passed.


NORFOLK AND ELGIN RAILWAY COMPANY. .
[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee on Bill No. 67, to incorporate The Norfolk and Elgin Railway Company.-Mr. Marshall. Mr. Blondin in the Chair.
Edward Arthur Lancaster: This is for a new charter. The railway is in the province of Ontario. We did not change the route at all as printed in section 8 of the Bill, but we struck out the words ' or near ' so as to make it definite that the line should be at or in those places instead of near them.
We inquired carefully as to the bonding power, $50,000 per mile, but the promoters convinced the committee that it was not too much. The acquisition of a right of [DOT] way in that country is expensive, and we thought $50,000 was not excessive. Section 14, was covering a franchise that it would be wrong to give a railway company, enabling them to do business as vegetable packers, canners and manufacturers and was struck out. The standard municipal clauses are in, also the water-power clauses for the protection of provincial rights. We struck out the two last lines of section 18 because we did not think they should have power to amalgamate with 'any of the electric lines operating throughout Ontario.' We gave them such powers only with regard to the companies named?


Frank Oliver: Is this an electric railway?


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Yes, it is supposed to be an electric railway.


Frank Oliver: How many miles?


Edward Arthur Lancaster: According to my note, 38 to 40.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.
;668


PATENT OP NATIONAL WOOD DISTILLING COMPANY.
[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee on Bill No. 66 respecting the patent of the National Wood Distilling Company.-Mr. Clements. Mr. Blondin in the chair.
Frank Oliver: There should be a very complete explanation of any Bill that [DOT] relates to a patent.
Mr, BURRELL: I do not see the hon. member in whose name this Bill .stands, but perhaps I can give an explanation which will be satisfactory to hon. members. As the hon. member for Edmonton knows, we take a general stand against private legislation which overrides an Act, and the deputy minister of the department, who is also deputy commissioner of patents, attends the meetings of the Private Bills Committee and listens to the discussion of these Bills. This particular patent was granted on the 13th of August, 1907. There was no extension of time for manufacture, and the patentees not having manufactured within the two years allowed, the patent became void. The fee was paid for the first term of six years, but no further fee having been paid the patent was also void on that account. Notice of application to Parliament for the revival of the patent was given on the 20th of December, 1913, and, owing to the length of time that had expired and of the patentee being in default, the department took the ground that there should be strong reason given before the revival should be allowed. It was established before the Private Bills Committee that the process covered by the patent was a very difficult and expensive one, also that since the granting of, the patent a great deal of experimental work had been done to bring the process to a commercial state, which had been accomplished only recently. It was shown that if the patent were revived, the patentee would start manufacturing and would add a valuable industry to the country. The committee were satisfied with the reasons given and reported the Bill. The reason for the failure to pay the second fee was established satisfactorily before the committee. It appears that it was not the fault of the patentee but of some person to whom the money was entrusted and who failed to make the payment at the time required. In the following cases patents have been revived though a longer time had elapsed than in the present case: 6-7 Edward VII, 1907, the Nichols Copper Company, and 6-7 Edward VII, chapter 96, the International Paper Company.
rMr. Lancaster.]
So far as the department is concerned, it raises no very strong objections on the evidence placed before the committee.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Did anybody else raise
objections?


Mr. BURRELL:: No, there were no strong objection at all. Apparently the evidence produced before the committee was sufficient to satisfy the committee.


Frank Oliver: That is evident in the
fact that the Bill comes down to the Hon ie, but I think it desirable that there should . be a definite statement as to the presentation of any claims because of rights having existed that would be interfered with by the granting of this patent. .


Martin Burrell: I understand there are no claims of that kind.


Frank Oliver: Absolutely none.


Martin Burrell: I think I am right in
saying there are"none.


Frank Oliver: In that case I would not make any objection.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


PATENT OP AUTO WHEELS, LIMITED.
[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee on Bill No. 78, respecting the patent of Auto Wheels, Limited.-Mr. Fisher. Mr Blondin in the Chair.
Frank Oliver: This is another Bill regarding a patent, and I think we should have a full understanding of what the rights of the applicants are and what other rights there may be which might be effected by the passing of this legislation.


Mr. FISHER:: There are no other rights to be effected by the Bill. I have a communication here from a gentleman who is interested, and perhaps I can better satisfy the hon. member for Edmonton by giving the particulars contained in that communication:
A company known as the Auto Wheels, Limited of London, England, having raised the ' company's capital in London, is the owner of a Canadian patent covering the wheel. Under this patent, which is dated April 19, 1910, the patented article had to be manufactured in Canada within two years, otherwise the patent became invalid. The owners of the patent were unable to manufacture in Canada within the specified time, for the reason that they had been unable to settle on a satisfactory model for commercial purposes prior to the expiry of that period. Between the date of the patent-April 19, 1910-and April 19 1912, which is the two-year period within which manufacture should have been commenced

in Canada, they spent between $25,000 and $30,000 in London, England, experimenting so as to produce a satisfactory model for commercial purposes. On April 19, 1912, they had five experimental model wheels running on the road, and only in August of that year was it possible to decide that the model was satisfactory for commercial purposes. Under the circumstances, I think the company is entitled to have their patent revived for two years.
I may say that the committee decided to Tenew the patent for one year only.
If Parliament passes this Act, manufacture will be commenced in Canada, and it will, I think, be a substantial industry which will be to the benefit of the country. I would like to emphasize that this is an entirely new commercial article. There is nothing Quite like it, and it will not interfere with any established industry.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Is the company likely to start business itself?


John Henry Fisher: Yes,' at least I am so informed by the gentleman who wrote this letter. I had an interview with him, and he is prepared himself to start the industry in Canada. I think there is no doubt of its being started within the year. I know the gentleman who is back of this; he is worth $400,000 or $500,000, and has ample capital assured in addition to that. The matter was fully threshed out in com-mitee, the members of which were unanimous in reporting the Bill.


Frank Oliver: Were any protests received with regard to the matter?


John Henry Fisher: None whatever.


Frank Oliver: Will the Minister of Agriculture be good enough to give his views?


Martin Burrell: The same stand was
taken by the department; my deputy commissioner of patents set forth the facts stated by my hon. friend, saying, as was established to the satisfaction of the committee, that the patent ought to be revived, as a great deal of the experimental work has been done to which my hon. friend has referred. The article had quite recently been put in a state for manufacture, the patentee is ready to go on with it, and we could not raise any very strong objection to revival of the patent. The same practice has been observed with regard to a great many other Bills; indeed, I think that there is much good reason for private legislation in this case, if it is justified at all in others.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.


LES SOEURS DE LA CHARITE.
[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee on Bill No. 76 to incorporate Les Soeurs de la Charite de l'hopital Saint Antoine de Le Pas.-Mr. Lavallee. Mr. Blondin in the Chair.
On section 1-incorporation:
Frank Oliver: Is there any explanation to be offered?


Mr. PROULX:: The object of the incorporation of the Sisters is to establish eleemosynary, educational, and charitable institutions, especially hospitals. This is a branch of a similar society which has its headquarters at St. Hyacinthe, P.Q.


Frank Oliver: I notice that the Bill
provides that:
The value of the real estate so held In Canada by or in trust for the corporation shall not exceed five million dollars.


Edmond Proulx: In committee this amount was reduced to $2,000,000. Their holding real estate is subject to the laws of the province in which the real estate is situated. There is a provision in the Bill against mortmain. It is provided that they may not hold the Teal estate longer than seven years.


John Douglas Hazen: Ten years.


Edmond Proulx: It was changed to seven years in committee. They may not hold the real estate longer than seven years after it has been acquired if it is not used for the purposes for which they are incorporated.


Robert Rogers: Was the committee unanimous in reporting the Bill?


Edmond Proulx: Yes. Three amendments were made; I have referred to two of them, and the other was to restrict their operations to the provinces of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. After these amendments were made, the committee was unanimous in passing the Bill.


Robert Rogers: Does 'that holding ,of
$2,000,000 worth of real estate apply to Le Pas?


Edmond Proulx: It applies to the three
provinces. The head house will probably be at Le Pas, but they may establish institutions, throughout Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan.


Mr. CARROLL:: Why were they limited to the three provinces?


Edmond Proulx: The solicitor in charge of the Bill said that their purpose was to carry on operations only in these three



provinces, and he asked that the Bill be amended so as to limit their operations to these provinces.


Frank Oliver: This is apparently an offshoot of a parent organization having headquarters at St. Hyacinthe. Has not the organization at St. Hyacinthe all the powers that are supposed to be conferred by this Bill, and, if so, why the necessity of this legislation ?


Edmond Proulx: I have not looked at the Act, if there is any, incorporating the Sisters of St. Hyacinthe, they have probably only a provincial charter, and I think their operations are limited to the province of Quebec.
On section 5-objects:


Frank Oliver: Should not the words
' within the exclusive jurisdiction of any province of Canada ' in the second last line of this section be made to correspond with the amendment to section 4?


Edmond Proulx: I do not see why this
should be inserted. They are already limited to the three provinces.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.



[Stage Direction]
The House resumed in Committee of Supply.
Agriculture-For the development of the dairying and fruit industries, and the improvement in transportation, sale and trade in food and other agricultural products, $225,000.
['While I do not agree and never did agree with the attitude of our friends on the other side objecting to a proper measure of satisfactory trade with the United States, I do think they are entering upon an expense in connection with the San Francisco exhibition that will need to be very thoroughly justified by results. They have taken the responsibility of making this expenditure very much larger than any ever voted before by the Dominion of Canada for any exhibition. While I would not protest particularly strongly against the amount, at the same time it certainly goes beyond what, in my judgment, would seem to be a wise expenditure. I do not wish to condemn it, but we will certainly expect very substantial results in increase of trade between the countries in order that this extraordinarily large expenditure shall be justified.\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Mr. Rogers, the House adjourned at 10.53 p.m.\nMonday, March 16, 1914.']
Martin Burrell: Before we discuss this
item I wish to refer to the discussion of the other night, when the hon. member for Kings, P.E.I. (Mr. J. J. Hughes) and the hon. member for Richmond, N.S. (Mr. Kyte), made some rather strong criticisms in reference to the publication called the Agricultural Gazette. I take no exception to any criticisms made of Government publications paid for by the people and, of course, would welcome any criticisms that would lead to the detection of inaccuracies.
I did take some exception to the imputation, if I may use the word, involved in some of these criticisms and I promised my hon. friends that I would have these inaccuracies fully corrected, put the matter absolutely right in the eyes of the public, giving as wide publicity to the corrections as to the errors.. I shall not read the criticisms in detail, but I shall read the first page of the March number of the Agricultural Gazette which will be published within the next day or two:

Corrections:	On the publication of the first
number of the Agricultural Gazette attention was drawn, in the House of Commons, to some omissions and inaccuracies in the table of ' Dominion agricultural appropriations ' appearing on page thirty. The occurence of inaccuracies is regretted, and after having the figures again carefully revised by the accountant of the department, the editor has prepared a supplement, which is sent out with this number of the magazine to replace the incorrect table.
The large increase in the Civil Government vote, between 1904-5, and 1910-11, is explained by the coming into force of the Civil Service Act in 1908. By virtue of that measure the officials and permanent clerks of the Central Experimental Farm, Dairy and Cold Storage, Live Stock, Seed and Health of Animals Branches, who had previously been paid from the votes for these respective branches, were brought into the inside service and their salaries paid from the Civil Government vote.
In the early years of the department certain branches carried on various lines of work which, in more recent years, have been entrusted to separate branches. Until 1905-6, for example, the vote ea'ch year for 'dairying' covered work in dairying, cold storage, fruit, seed and live stock; since then it has covered work in dairying, fruit and cold storage. The increase in certain items and therefore of the total figures of the column for 1913-14 is due to the addition of supplementary votes, inadvertently omitted from the original table.
The table giving the 'complete statement of appropriations for agriculture, 1913-14 ' on page 62 of the January number, should not have included the second line of $700,000, as the ' Dominion Agricultural Appropriation.' in the first line, includes the appropriations under the Agricultural Instruction Act. The table should read as follows :
Dominion agricultural appropriations	$3,358,725 00
Appropriations of provincial legislatures	 3,356,622 17
Total	$6,715,347 17
In the history of the Department of Agriculture of Canada, the January number of the Agricultural Gazette, the Honourable Frangois Evanturel, was stated on the authority of James P. Taylor in his 'cardinal facts of Canadian history ' to have been the first Minister of Agriculture. According to Mr. J. O. Cote, Clerk of the Privy Council, in his book 'Political Appointments' published in 1866, and to Joseph Desjardins' ' library of Parliament ', this distinction belongs to Sir N. F. Beleau, who became Minister of Agriculture on March 20, 1862, being succeeded on the 24th of May of the same year by the Hon. Frangois Evanturel.
I will be glad to get this on ' Hansard,' as I want my bon. friend to see we have spared no pains to correct any mistakes. I might point out that while according to this statement that portion of the Civil Government vote in 1899-1900 and 1904-5 seems to be very small, it is because it deals with agriculture only, and does not include patents and other matters. Of the other items some have been included and some have not, as some of the criticisms of my hon. friends

are not founded on fact. We haw taken every proper precaution to correct everything, and after all is said and done, I think my hon. friend will see that the Agricultural Magazine was not so full of glaring inaccuracies, but on the whole was fairly correct for a first publication. At all events I think the statement of ' Corrections ' will put the matter absolutely plain before all readers. Briefly the result simply amounts to this: $407,000 was omitted in the first four periods, that is in 1899-1900, 1904-5, 1910-11, and 1911-12, and so there will be an additional amount of $407,000. I ought also to say-and this will disabuse my hon. friend's mind of any evil intentions on my part-that in 1913-14 we omitted $175,000 of supplementary Estimates that should have been included in the figures of that year. That leaves the total correction roughly at about $230,000. That I think explains the matter pretty fully. If my hon. friend has any other observations to make before we pass on to the next item I will be glad to hear them.


Mr. KYTE:: Whether or not the first publication of the Gazette was fairly accurate under all the circumstances, I am willing to leave it to the House to judge. Of course I never intended to criticise the minister personally as I knew he had nothing to do with the compilation, but I did think inasmuch as that publication counselled all the newspapers of the country to quote its figures, that it was absolutely necessary that a correct statement be set before the people. The hon. minister has no doubt done all he can reasonably be expected to do to correct the errors, when he published the supplementary sheet containing the corrections, but I am bound to say that his corrections will never be as wide-spread as the misconceptions resulting from the first publication. Every Conservative newspaper in Canada-at least as may of them as I have been able to look through-printed in the most prominent positions in their columns, the inaccurate figures which appear in the Gazette. I will not hold the hon. minister in any way responsible if they fail to publish the corrections, but I have not much hope chat they will do so. Whether or not the inaccuracies were trivial, they have been circulated all over Canada with the object of putting the late Liberal Government and the Department of Agriculture presided over by the Hon. Sydney Fisher, in a very false position. Conservative papers quoted these figures for the avowed purpose of showing how much more . the present minister is doing than his pre-106i
decessor. I am very glad the corrections have been made, but I have very little hope that their effect will be as wide-spread as the misconceptions caused by the first number of the Gazette.


Martin Burrell: Before the incident
closes I would l'ke to say a word or two. I am not so pessimistic as my hon. friend. If my hon. friend be suffering as a Liberal from the fact of these Conservative newspapers publishing these figures-which, after all, are not so very different from the correct figures-I might reasonably claim that some statements in the Liberal press, imputing motives to me, are much more to be regretted than anything that has occurred, on this side. As far as humanly possible,. I have done everything to correct what was. absolutely an inadvertent error, and was not a matter of motive in any shape or form. This statement will go out to every paper in Canada, and I will venture to say, for I am a little more optimistic than my hon. friend, that every paper in the country that gives any prominence at all to this subject, will be fair-minded enough to publish the statement of correction.


George William Kyte: As the hon. minister has
been good enough to give a personal turn to the observations I made, let me tell him that I am not paid so much as he is to be optimistic; end if the Liberal press are publishing correct information with regard to agriculture, the taxpayers are not paying for it, but Conservative papers are being paid out of the treasury of this Government for publishing the correct information.


Mr. J. J. HUGHES:: As my name has been mentioned, I wish to say a word or two. In the criticism I felt it my duty to make, I certainly did not wish to attribute anything improper to the minister, except that I thought the minister was endeavouring to minimize and explain away the inaccuracies or misrepresentations, or whatever they might be called. That was the impression the minister's explanation made on me, otherwise I would not have spoken at such length. It was not an improper thing for the minister to try to protect his officials to some extent, but I thought he was trying to protect them to a greater extent than the facts justified. It appeared to me that nobody preparing a publication oi that kind and giving it the attention it should receive could make so many mistakes.
. That is the way it looks to me. I did not think the minister was to blame; I thought

somebody in his department who prepared the publication was to blame. But, in as much as the minister and the department have Inade the necessary correction and the minister has stated to the House that he has done all that could be done under the circumstances, and has given the corrected statement as much publicity as possible, I do not know that he can be expected to do anything more.


William F. Carroll: Would the minister
explain what action the department takes in furthering the sale of, and trade in food, other than fruit?


Martin Burrell: In connection with all our dairy products, butter, cheese and articles of that kind, we have a system of inspection at Montreal. We have cargo inspectors to see that the holds of the vessels are at the proper temperature, and that the shipments are properly handled. We have also market commissioners in England to see that the stuff is received properly, and to make reports to us on the condition in which the shipments arrive. In this country, we assist in the proper shipment of these commodities as far as we can by various refrigerator services, both as to dairy products and fruit.


William F. Carroll: Does that refer to exports only?


Martin Burrell: It is chiefly exports that I am referring to now. There is a refrigerating service on the railways, for which we pay about $12,000 a year. We guarantee a minimum shipment, and we provide the ice service. In that way a number of broken lots are picked up at a great many different points and assembled for export at Montreal and other ports, where our [DOT]cargo inspectors watch the loading and handling, trace the shipments as far as they can to the other side, and report upon conditions. In this way we keep our own people advised of the condition of the shipments and the requirements of the market from time to time. Our inspectors deal with fruit as well.


William F. Carroll: Is there anything done along that line in connection with transportation from points in Canada to other points in Canada; for example, in regard to the shipment of dairy products from Ontario to the Maritime provinces?


Martin Burrell: It touches a great many points in Ontario and in the Maritime

provinces. The system is in operation from Yarmouth to Halifax.


Mr. A. W. CHISHOLM:: A Mr. Chisholm was appointed fruit inspector in Inverness county last year?


Martin Burrell: Yes.


Alexander William Chisholm: What are his duties, and what is the field of his operations?


Martin Burrell: The principal duties of an officer there is to inspect, on behalf of the local consumers, fruit that goes from Ontario or the Annapolis valley into the Cape Breton country, and to see that the shippers conform to the requirements of the Act. The inspector is not designed at all for the export trade, but to protect the interests of the consumers at those points.


Alexander William Chisholm: How many
inspectors are there in Cape Breton?


Martin Burrell: Only one.


Alexander William Chisholm: What is Mr. Chisholm's salary?


Martin Burrell: $125 a month for about
six months in the year.


Alexander William Chisholm: His appointment is temporary?	-


Martin Burrell: Yes.


Alexander William Chisholm: Who recommended Mr. Chisholm for this position?


Martin Burrell: I cannot recall at the
moment.


Alexander William Chisholm: Will
9 p.m. the minister furnish that information?


Martin Burrell: Yes.


Alexander William Chisholm: Of course, the minister is quite well aware that this man is thoroughly qualified for that position?


Martin Burrell: We would not have
appointed him if we had not had an assurance of that kind. As far as I understand he has bqen satisfactory. Has my hon. friend found that such is not the case?


Alexander William Chisholm: I would not like to say that. I am not going to condemn him, but I expected that the minister would be able to tell the committee that this man has some qualifications for the position to which he has been appointed.


Martin Burrell: If I had thought he was not qualified I would not have appointed


him. I am afraid my hon. friend can hardly expect me, without any previous notice, when we have 300 or 400 inspectors, to recall the personal qualifications of every one of them. In connection with fruit inspection, although it is desirable, especially where a man is dealing with the export or import of fruit, that he should be familiar with fruit and the fruit trade, yet one of the requisites is that he shall be firm, tactful, and possess a level head and common sense in dealing with the public, and keeping shippers up to the requirements of the Act. It is quite possible for a man without a long fruit experience, if he is a level headed, common sense man, to make a fairly good inspector. If my hon. friend has reason to believe that this gentleman is not such a man, I may say there have not been any complaints in so far as I know.


Alexander William Chisholm: I quite appreciate that the minister could not be reasonably held responsible personally, but when the minister has furnished the committee with the information as to who recommended this man probably he will be able to give us the reasons why he was particularly selected for the position. I know the man fairly well. Possibly he may have all the qualifications which the minister referred to. Is there any report from this officer?


Martin Burrell: There will be the regular report we keep in our department.


Alexander William Chisholm: Has he any
particular field of operations?	,


Martin Burrell: It will be around
Sydney and the Glace Bay country where there are a large number of consumers.


Alexander William Chisholm: His home is
about 150 miles away from Sydney or Glace Bay. I am surprised, if that is his field of operation, that some resident there would not have been appointed instead. I must say that I am very glad that the county of Inverness has had tne honour of having a man selected from it and I would be sorry to think that he would not be continued in office. I recognize the honour done to the county in selecting this man and I hope he will prove satisfactory, but it is a unique position to have him appointed 150 .miles away from his iscene of operation.


Martin Burrell: It is not entirely
unique; I do not think that is quite the word. Altnough he works chiefly where
the largest amount of fruit is consumed, he covers practically the whole of Cape Breton island. A great many of our inspectors go farther than that because many of them go from Ontario out West, a thousand miles away.


Alexander William Chisholm: His field of
operation takes in the county of Inverness as well as the other three counties.


Martin Burrell: I presume so.


Alexander William Chisholm: Would the minister be kind enough to bring down on Monday the name of the gentleman who recommended Mr. Chisholm?


Martin Burrell: Yes.


George William Kyte: Is there any report of the
number of inspections made at Sydney and Glace Bay?


Martin Burrell: We would have all these reports in the department.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: What progress is being made with reference to cow testing?


Martin Burrell: We are making pretty good progress in that work, of which I am sure my hon. friend highly approves.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I do indeed.


Martin Burrell: Tne increase in the vote under consideration is very largely due to the expansion of this cow testing work. In 1911 there were six of these cow testing centres; which was increased to fourteen', and last year to 22. I think we have now considerably over thirty established and probably half of these would cover the Ontario district. We are also covering quite a number of districts in Quebec where the work is very necessary and helpful. I had in mind what my hon. friend (Mr. Oliver) said last year in regard to this item. We have started to establish one ox two in Alberta. We have one established in northern Alberta.


Frank Oliver: Where?


Martin Burrell: In the Lloydminster
district, I think. In British Columbia we are not doing anything because the provincial Government is doing that work to some extent. I also think that the provincial Government of Alberta is doing something in that way.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.


Martin Burrell: From the general appreciation, I am certain that the work is of great service. It was established, as

my hon. friend knows, by my predecessor; and when we found six centres in operation and that the work was having such a great educational effect in the dairy centres, we felt that we were justified in asking far a large increase to do a work that is increasing the average yield of the Ontario cow by about 1,000 pounds of milk a year. The result of the work has been that they were getting, nor the amount of the butter-fat, by this testing operation and poorer animals nor the weight of milk that they were getting, nor the amount of the butter-fat, by this testing operation and by keeping careful record have been able to weed out their poorer animals. A better system has been adopted not only by the men in the centres themselves, but by men in the neighbouring districts where they have seen the results of the work, and I am absolutely sure it has had a very valuable result in those parts of the country where it has been tried.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I quite agree with what my hon. friend says. If my hon. friend could carry the same idea into other branches of farming-I am speaking now of Ontario-and make the farmers keep track of what they were doing, it would have the result of greatly increasing their output. From testing their cows they have learned whether their cows are paying or not. That has made them investigate a little farther and some of them at the present time are keeping track of what it costs to feed their cows and are making comparisons, with the result that they are certainly improving their stock in my section of the country and in every section where they are keeping cow records. My hon. friend would make a name for himself in the Department of Agriculture if he could induce the farmer to find out what his cost of farming was and to keep accurate track of what he wa s doing, not only with his cows but with his pigs and in the other branches of his farming operations.' I am quite sure that my hon. friend would vastly increase the output of the Ontario farms and other farms where the experiments were carried out, if he developed experiments along that line. In that way he would be really educating the farmer.
Mr. LAW; How many fruit inspectors are there in Nova Scotia, and where are they placed?


Martin Burrell: Most of them are situated at Halifax, because Halifax is the great export port, and most of the inspec-
tion is done there before the fruit is put on the vessel. In Nova Scotia we have five inspectors at Halifax and two in the Annapolis valley. In addition, we have Mr. [DOT] Chisholm, an inspector, at Lunenburg, and the chief inspector, Mr. Vroom. We have a chief inspector practically in each province.


Mr. LAW:: Do these inspectors only
inspect fruit for export, or do they inspect fruit for home consumption?


Martin Burrell: Their duties do not confine them to fruit for export, although it is perfectly true that in the first case, when the Fruit Marks Act was passed, the intention of the late minister, as I understand it, was only to inspect for export. That has been extended to cover practically all the fruit, whether for export or for home consumption. It is perfectly obvious and fair-and I am speaking now as one who has grown fruit for a great many years-[DOT] that if we inspect fruit going abroad or coming in, we should also inspect fruit grown in this country for home consumption. Although in the Halifax case the great bulk of the fruit is for export and, as my hon. friend knows, goes to Great Britain, it would not follow that the attention of the inspector is confined to that fruit.


Bowman Brown Law: Is all the fruit inspected? How do these inspectors at Halifax work when the fruit comes in?


Martin Burrell: We could not inspect
all the fruit; we just inspect so many lots out of each shipment. We could not inspect every package in every shipment. I could give my hon. friend an idea of the number of lots that are inspected. For instance, in 1908, the year when this was started in a practical way, 7,300 different lots of fruit were inspected, and in 1912-13, the number was about 23,000. The number of packages in lots inspected in this way in 1912-13 was 2,264,000. Obviously, we could not inspect every single package; what was aimed at was to inspect enough to get an approximate idea of the character of the fruit.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Suppose I were a merchant buying apples, could I call in an inspector to inspect the fruit?


Martin Burrell: Of course, it would be
impossible to have inspectors to answer the call of every buyer of apples who wished to call in an inspector. Still, the ir

spectors are at the service of the public to see that fruit is properly packed.


George William Kyte: And would the inspector
have the right to exonerate the purchaser from paying if he found the fruit was not properly packed?


Martin Burrell: I do not think we could go that far. The object is to have a system that shall be an educative force for the packer who wishes to do well and a deterrent to the dishonest packer. We enter prosecutions in some cases, and, while we do not interfere between buyer and seller, still, if the fruit were condemned by the inspector, the buyer would have his recourse under the law.


George William Kyte: Would it not be better to
make the inspection at the point where the apples are packed?


Martin Burrell: We do that as far as
possible. But if the hon. gentleman knew Ontario and British Columbia, and even Nova Scotia-though the difficulties there are not so great because the Annapolis valley is the largest fruit growing section- he would see that, on account of the enormous number of shipping points, a tremendous staff would be required to make local inspections everywhere.


George William Kyte: I can see that the system
is not fully efficient. For instance, there is only one inspector for the whole island of Cape Breton. Many towns import apples from the Annapolis valley and elsewhere, and, of course, it is impossible for the inspector living in Inverness or Mabou to cover all that ground. But if there is to be efficiency, there must be enough inspectors to reasonably protect these purchasers.


Martin Burrell: There are two inspectors for the Annapolis valley. Of course, we cannot cover all the towns and cities where fruit is purchased. Still, the general effect of the system undoubtedly has been to raise tbe standard of packing. There is still much to be desired, I admit. But there is strong desire on the part of packers to live up to the law. Of course, we have not the millenium yet, and there are some packers whose methods leave much to be desired. But we expose people of that kind because they are an injury to their fellow-producers.


James Joseph Hughes: How many fruit inspectors are there for Prince Edward Island?	*


Martin Burrell: One.


James Joseph Hughes: What is his name? Mr. BURRELL: Mr. Williams.


James Joseph Hughes: What is Mr. Mitchell's position?


Martin Burrell: He is engaged in the
dairying and cow-testing work.


James Joseph Hughes: How many demonstrations were given by Mr. Williams, or how much fruit was inspected by him?


Martin Burrell: I could not give that
offhand. But I believe we are preparing a return covering that. It is given in our departmental-report.


James Joseph Hughes: Has the minister
received a resolution from the Fruit Growers Association of Prince Edward Island?


Martin Burrell: We receive many such
resolutions, but I do not recall at the moment any special one from Prince Edward Island.


Bowman Brown Law: I desire to understand a little more clearly the duties of the fruit inspectors in reference to home consumption. For instance, are apples shipped from the Annapolis valley supposed to be inspected before being shipped? If a barrel is marked No. 1 and is really No. 3, how would the purchaser proceed to get redress?


Martin Burrell: I suppose he would refuse to pay if the goods delivered were manifestly not those he bought. And if he could get the services of an inspector to support his contention, his case would be all the stronger. But, as I have said, the inspectors cannot possibly see every package that is put up.


Bowman Brown Law: The department has nothing to do with imposing a penalty or securing conviction?


Martin Burrell: We secure convictions.
Our inspectors lay complaints and convictions frequently result; we have secured eighty-one convictions this year.	.


Bowman Brown Law: A large quantity of fruit is
shipped from the Annapolis valley into Yarmouth, and my own firm handles probably more' of it than any other. Some of the fruit that we have received during the last few years is a disgrace to the Annapolis valley and would be a disgrace to any part of the Dominion. When the grower packs his fruit, is he supposed to ask the inspector to go and inspect it before it is put on the market?


Martin Burrell: As I have explained, that would be impossible. But the packer knows what the law requires and he knows that if he violates the law he is liable to prosecution. The general effect of such a law is certainly very considerable.


Bowman Brown Law: My experience has not impressed me very much with the practical effectiveness of this law. I remember one rather peculiar case. A vessel sailing from Portland to England partly loaded with apples from Ontario was lost and many barrels were washed ashore and some of these apples were sold in Yarmouth. Some of the apples in the middle of barrels marked No. 1 were no larger than marbles. Nova Scotia does not pack quite so badly; I think Ontario can beat them in that regard.


James Joseph Hughes: I want to ask the minister some questions, but if the return which I have asked for will be brought down within a reasonable time, I would rather wait and get it that way.


Martin Burrell: My hon. friend will get it very soon.


James Joseph Hughes: Within a week or two?


Martin Burrell: I think so; I will make a note of it.


Mr. MARCIL:: 
Charles Marcil: How far down in eastern Quebec are any of these?
Mr. BURRELL; We have one in Chicoutimi and one in Montmagny.


Charles Marcil: That is five hundred miles away from Gaspe.
Mr. BURRELL; I know it is not very near my hon. friend's district. We have altogether ten points in Quebec now.
Mr. MARCIL; What is necessary to secure the establishment of one of these centres?


Martin Burrell: Nothing is necessary
except that we have to use our own judgment, of course, as to carrying on the work where it will do most good, and we can only take comparatively few portions of the country.


Charles Marcil: Does the minister not
think, in view of this report of Mr. Chapais, that this country is peculiarly adapted to the dairy industry?


Martin Burrell: I shall be glad to bear in mind what my hon. friend says. He cannot expect me to make a promise to-night. If we can reach that part of the country I shall be glad to bear his representation in mind.


Charles Marcil: Can the minister give me the names of the butter and cheese factories established in those two counties in 1912-13?


Martin Burrell: My recollection is that we did not establish any.


Charles Marcil: During the time I had the pleasure of supporting the Administration, I was met with a great obstacle, in the transportation of butter and cheese from these constituencies to Montreal. The local railway has no cold storage accommodation whatever, and a cold storage car had to be obtained from the Intercolonial and brought down to Metapedia. I do not know what became of it after that. What assistance does the department give, for instance, for the transportation of butter and cheese from the branch lines?


Martin Burrell: We are trying to arrange that now, and hope to have it arranged very shortly.


Charles Marcil: What cold storage bounties were paid in Bonaventure and Gaspe in 1913?


Martin Burrell: J. G. Roy, Cap Chat,
Gaspe, and Thos'. Biencour, New Richmond, Bonaventure.


Charles Marcil: Is there any rule laid
down by the department as to the distance that should separate these establishments?


Martin Burrell: I do not think there is any rule, anybody who applies and meets the requirements can obtain the bonus.


Bowman Brown Law: Does the department pay a bonus to butter and cheese factories?


Martin Burrell: The bonus my hon.
friend is referring to is a bonus of $100 for the first year paid to creameries that instal certain cold storage accommodation.


Bowman Brown Law: How many butter and cheese factories were established in Nova Scotia in the last year?


Martin Burrell: Of course we do not
establish butter and cheese factories, the-only thing we are concerned in is the cold storage.


George William Kyte: I asked for some information respecting the Royal Commission to inquire into the weighing of cheese in Montreal.


Martin Burrell: I am sorry I have not the figures here but I think the cost was about $3,000.


George William Kyte: I have here the report made by the Royal Commission. They summarize their report as follows:
Your Commissioners would summarize their findings as follows:-
(1)	That in the opinion of your Commissioners, Mr. McLeod and his assistants weigh the cheese correctly, and that the scales used by them are well balanced, and absolutely correct, and are examined by the official examiner from time to time.
(2)	That the principal cause for short weights complained of, are as follows:-
(a)	Cheap, inefficient and not well balanced scales at the factories.
(b)	Carelessness in weighing at the factories.
(c)	Dishonest weighing and false marking of weights on boxes at the factories.
(d)	Weighing the cheese too green at the factories.
It would appear from this that the allegations made against the weighers of cheese at Montreal are not well founded and that, as a matter of fact, the incorrectness of the weighing is charged to the factories. Has the Brome Government creamery been in operation during the last year?


Martin Burrell: The creamery at Brome is operated the year round as a model creamery. During the summer months two skimming stations are operated in connection with the main creamery. A high class product is being turned out since operations were begun and the butter has been sold to the most critical trade in Montreal and other places.


George William Kyte: Has the hon. minister any
information to the effect that for several months the creameries have been selling their cream to a gentleman named Ormstead, manager of the Sutton creamery, who in turn sold it to the United States?


Martin Burrell: We have nothing to do with the sale of the cream. That is done by the patrons themselves. We are carrying on experimental work. Not much milk comes in during the winter, but the creamery is kept going partly to encourage the

supply of milk during the winter months. Butter making will begin very shortly at Brome and be continued throughout the year.


George William Kyte: How much did the Government pay during last year to the stations?


Martin Burrell: The Government does
not pay anything at all. As a matter of fact a charge is made for the operations. The Government constructed the factory.


George William Kyte: Does the Government own
the factory?


Martin Burrell: Yes. We get' 2J cents
to 2f cents a pound for manufacturing the butter.


George William Kyte: When the creamery sends
cream to the United States the department does not get anything for making butter?


Martin Burrell: We get paid then for
separating the cream.


George William Kyte: Separating the cream sent
to the United States?


Martin Burrell: Certainly.


George William Kyte: Does not the hon. minister think that it is extremely improper and disloyal to ship cream from Government creameries to the United States? How much did the creamery cost?


Martin Burrell: The contract was for
$4,000.	'


George William Kyte: Who pays the cost of operating?


Martin Burrell: It is paid out of the
revenue.


George William Kyte: Where does the revenue come from?	'


Martin Burrell: We get 21 to 2| a pound for manufacturing the butter and 10 cents a hundredweight for separating the cream at such times when butter is not being made. That is not a very great proportion of the year.


George William Kyte: Would the hon. minister
be good enough to say how the account stands between the creamery and the Government? I want to know if the revenue is sufficient to pay for the creamery.


Martin Burrell: I am informed that on the last two years' operations we are about $600 behind. We lose in the winter but do very well in the summer. These creameries are not running solely with the idea of making money but to encourage all lines of dairying.


Martin Burrell: I am not sure about
that.


George William Kyte: I do not think I quite understood the minister. He said the Government gets 10 cents a hundredweight for cream.


Martin Burrell: Ten cents a hundredweight for the milk.


George William Kyte: Is that sufficient to pay the running expenses of the factory?


Martin Burrell: I presume it would not in the winter.


George William Kyte: Has the minister received
any report from the creamery within the last two or three months as to its operations?


Martin Burrell: We get a report every week.


George William Kyte: Do the reports received
verify the statement I made that the creamery is shipping cream to the United States?


Martin Burrell: No, they do not; we do not know where the cream goes.


George William Kyte: The report does not state
where it is shipped to?


Martin Burrell: I do not think so.


George William Kyte: Mr. Ormstead purchases
the cream from the creamery and -ships it to the United States.


Frank Oliver: There is a considerable
increase in this vote. For what branch is it required?


Martin Burrell: Very largely for the
cow-testing work. , We are establishing something like ten or fourteen new centres which would account for probably most of that increase. Our expenses in administering the dairy laws have also been increased. We have been caused a lot of trouble by manufacturers of fraudulent butter, that is, butter containing an excess of water, and I gave notice of a Bill to-day which will enable us to secure a greater number of convictions of those guilty. We are also appointing more inspectors in the east and west to keep those who are putting on the market all kinds of so-called butter containing 30 per cent to 40 per cent water up to the mark. That explains the increase, I think.


Frank Oliver: What amount of butter
is exported? This vote covers expenses of supervision of export


Martin Burrell: No butter was exported last year.


Frank Oliver: Cheese is exported, I suppose?


Martin Burrell: Oh, yes. About $20,000,000 worth last year.


Frank Oliver: Is that an increase?


Martin Burrell: A slight decrease; there was a shortage last year.


George William Kyte: Since I spoke about the
Brome creamery a few moments ago I have looked up the Auditor General's Report, which gives the following figures:	Brome
creamery, capital charges, $9,516.44; maintenance charges, $1,398.52, or a total of $10,914.96 for the last year.


Martin Burrell: That would include the two skimming .stations, their equipment and the land.
Agriculture-Cold storage warehouses, $200,000.


William F. Carroll: Is there any prospect
of legislation in the near future for the regulation of cold storage plants in Canada? A Bill was introduced by my hon. friend from Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury), which, to my mind, is a very desirable piece of legislation. I would like to know whether the Bill has been withdrawn or sent on to a committee.


Martin Burrell: To-day I gave notice
that I would on Monday introduce a resolution preceding a Bill for the inspection of cold storage warehouses. I do not know whether it would be well to discuss it now because we will take it up on Monday.


William F. Carroll: The Bill brought down by the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury) was a very good one. It was probably a little strong in some respects but it struck me as being a very valuable piece of legislation. Is there any application from persons, or a corporation, in the city of Sydney for assistance in the matter of cold storage?


Martin Burrell: No application yet although there has been some correspondence with the department.


William F. Carroll: What is the nature of the correspondence? Are they asking for assistance?


Martin Burrell: They have asked for
general information as to the terms of the Cold Storage Subsidy Act.


William F. Carroll: They have made no
formal application?
.


Martin Burrell: No.


William F. Carroll: Could the minister tell us anything as to the parties who are seeking this information?


Martin Burrell: I am sorry I cannot tell my hon. friend at the present moment.


Mr. W. H. WHITE:: Are there any cold storage warehouses in Alberta receiving Government assistance?


Martin Burrell: Yes, there is one at Calgary, Campbell and Hamilton; the Edmonton Cold Storage Company and the Southern Alberta Cold Storage Company at Lethbridge.


William Henry White: There is none at
Vegreville?


Martin Burrell: No.


Mr. W. CHISHOLM:: What cold storage plants are there in Nova Scotia receiving Government grants?


Martin Burrell: The Halifax Cold Storage Company, Port Hawkesbury, and the Lakeport Cold Storage Company.


William F. Carroll: There is a cold storage plant at Glace Bay owned by Mr. G. H. McKay; I do not know if it is in operation or not.


Martin Burrell: I do not recall it.


William F. Carroll: Do these cold storage
plants get annual grants from the Government?


Martin Burrell: They get a subsidy of
thirty per cent on the cost of construction. Proper plans and specifications have to be filed with our department to conform to the general terms of the Act. After a proper inspection and authorization there is a subsidy of thirty per cent upon the cost of construction spread over a period of years. I think that fifteen per cent is paid on completion, and the balance in four subsequent payments. It makes really five payments spread over five years after completion. We have a certain control of the rates. If rates are charged which we think excessive we have the right to fix the rates and in some cases we have reduced them.


William F. Carroll: After the final payment what control does the department have over these cold storage plants? At the end of the five years, when they have got the thirty per cent subsidy, if they cease operations, is there any way by which the Government can get back their grant?


Martin Burrell: No, I am free to confess that there is not, and, although that may be a weakness, on the whole I think that this system has served a good purpose.


William F. Carroll: It is a very serious weakness. I am not going to make
10 p.m. reference to any particular names, but I have known of cases in Nova Scotia where people got these five grants aggregating 30 per cent on the cost of construction, and 30 per cent on the cost of construction in the case of a large building and plant would be .quite a considerable amount. I am not in a position to say whether they undertook this enterprise for the purpose merely of getting this 30 per cent subsidy, knowing that they were going out of business, but the fact is that two plants have actually gone out of business after three or four years' operation.


Martin Burrell: After having received our subsidy?


William F. Carroll: Yes.


Martin Burrell: I think my hon. friend is mistaken.


William F. Carroll: I do not want to mention names, but I could give them to the minister in confidence.


Martin Burrell: I think my hon. friend must be mistaken. I think he is thinking of the Marine and Fisheries grant.


John Douglas Hazen: That may have been the subsidy paid under the Fisheries Bait Act.


William F. Carroll: Yes, I have in mind two concerns that did actually go out of business after having got a percentage of the cost of construction. I think something ought to be done to protect the public in that respect. At the expiration of the five year period the department should have some means of protecting the public if there is no such protection already provided. The department should be in a position to prevent these people from going out of business, or, if they do go out of business, to hand the plant over to some one who is willing to operate it.


Martin Burrell: We rather think we have control of the rates even after the payments have been concluded. The Justice Department think that we have control of the rates. I know it is a difiicult question as to what the effect of our control would be. The Act has been enforced foT some years, and I think it has done good. It
has had this good effect, as distinguished from our friends on the other side of the line, that by the creation of a laTge number of smaller cold storage plants it has prevented monopoly in cold storage such as they have had as a result of the creation of gigantic plants in the United States. 1 think that our system is much better than that in operation in the United States.


William F. Carroll: After the building is put up and they have got the 30 per cent at the expiration of five years, if they decide to use the building for some other purpose, I suppose the department has no control over it?


Martin Burrell: I do not know that the nature of a cold storage plant would lend itself very readily to other uses.


Mr. EDWARDS:: For a great many years the Dominion Government have been voting large sums of money, running into the millions, to assist the farmers of the West in the better handling of their grain by means of terminal elevators and so on. I have no fault to find with that, but I do claim that some consideration is due to the farmers of Ontario and Quebec who are engaged in the dairy business, particularly those of eastern Ontario and western Quebec, who are conducting almost exclusively the cheese industry. Almost all of the export cheese is made in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.


Charles Marcil: And eastern Quebec .also.


William Cameron Edwards: Not to the same extent.


Charles Marcil: But the industry is
growing.


William Cameron Edwards: In the production of
cheese and butter, these two provinces stand pre-eminent in the Dominion. If it is a proper thing to build elevators for the better handling of grain, I cannot see any reason why it is not also a proper thing to build a mammoth cold storage warehouse in the city of Montreal for the better handling of dairy produce. I would like to see in that city a large up-to-date cold storage building into which cars could be run and freely and easily unloaded, and which would be so situated that the produce, after being transferred from the cars to the warehouse, could be readily handled and transferred again by crains to the decks of vessels.


Charles Marcil: The same as in the case of the terminal elevators.



William Cameron Edwards: On the same principle as grain is transferred from the elevator to the vessel. I do not see why we should not help this great dairy industry, particularly the cheese industry which has meant so much to these two provinces. I have made some inquiries along these lines aud I understand that it costs about one-sixteenth of a cent on every pound of cheese brought into Montreal before that cheese passes through the different stages there until it is finally placed on board the vessel. That one-sixteenth of a cent per pound may look very small to hon. gentlemen from the West who deal in larger figures in the handling of grain, but it comes out of the pockets of the farmers and amounts to quite a considerable sum. Not only that, but under the present system considerable damage is done to the cheese in the way it is handled, transferred and carted around. The boxes are very often damaged and broken, and the cheese reaches the old country market under conditions which do not give it a very good reputation there. This is something which should be taken up. Perhaps it would not be advisable for the Government to build cold storage warehouses throughout the country, but there are a fetv places at least where that might reasonably be done, and Montreal is the gateway of Canada.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How many warehouses
are in Montreal at present?


William Cameron Edwards: I do not know, but I know that there is no Government cold storage warehouse in Montreal.


Rodolphe Lemieux: It would be very easy to locate one in the new section of the harbour of Montreal. There are all the facilities there for erecting such a building.


William Cameron Edwards: The argument might
be advanced that, if the Government undertook to build a large cold storage warehouse in Montreal, they would be competing with private firms in the cold storage business. As far as I can ascertain, those in the cold storage business in Montreal have converted old buildings for that purpose and, those buildings not being up-to-date and being such that it is impossible to put them into an up-to-date condition, it costs two or three times as much to handle the stuff in those obsolete warehouses as it would in an up-to-date warehouse. The federal Government has a right to interfere with private enterprises when the latter prevent the general producers from getting for their produce a fair return. If private

enterprises are carried on in such a manner that the parties engaged in them have things entirely in their own hands, and if the farmers and the general public are losing money on that account, such a condition might justly call for interference on the part of the Government, and the Government might build such a warehouse as I suggest, Not only would it be a very useful building for the handling of perishable produce, like butter and cheese, but it would be extremely useful in the handling of fruit. There are many products that might be stored in this warehouse, not only our out-going products, but many incoming products, to great advantage and great gain to the general public. This is a matter which I wish the minister would take under consideration in connection with this question of cold storage.


James Joseph Hughes: Would not the
assistance that the Government is giving now be an inducement?


William Cameron Edwards: No, the Government
is giving 30 per cent of the cost of the building. They are merely assisting private or local concerns.


James Joseph Hughes: The Government
has control over them.


William Cameron Edwards: To a certain extent;
and nearly all those concerns, after a time, exercise a certain amount of control over the Government. That is a matter of political history.


James Joseph Hughes: Providing the Government increased that grant, would that be an inducement?


William Cameron Edwards: I have no objection to the Government granting a reasonable amount of assistance to these cold storage buildings, but Montreal is an important point, because it is the place where the produce of Ontario, Quebec, and of the West goes through as it passes out of this country. It is the gateway, the commercial metropolis of Canada, and it seems to me that Montreal is one place where the Government might Very fairly consider the building of a mammoth cold storage warehouse with the very latest, up-to-date facili- * ties for handling dairy produce and other things as well. By so doing the Government would be putting money into the pockets of the producer and enhancing the reputation of our products when they reach other countries. It would also give the Government to a certain extent control over any monopolies which private interests

16S3
in the cold storage business might have at the present time.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Just to illustrate how
important a port is Montreal, the Minister of Agriculture a moment ago mentioned Cap Chat, a very distant point on the gulf of St. Lawrence where cheese and butter is produced. It is over 600 miles from Montreal and the cheese is shipped from Cap Chat to Montreal to be transported from there to Liverpool.
Mr. HAZEtN: Is not the cheese shipped to other parts of Quebec?


Charles Marcil: Every pound of cheese
made in my constituency is sold in Montreal. I think the suggestion thrown out by the hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) is well worthy of being looked into. A Government controlled storage warehouse in Montreal would have an effect in controlling the rates. Unless cheese is shipped direct to a shipper in Montreal, I do not know where it could be placed except in the hands' of a private individual, because I do not know of any public cold storage warehouse in Montreal city. Three or four years ago I had the pleasure of visiting a cold storage warehouse in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. I have seen nothing approaching it in Montreal. I am sorry to say we are behind the age in this matter. I believe a cold-storage plant in the eastern part of Montreal would be a great acquisition and would be greatly used. This would seem to me to be well worth looking into.	.


Martin Burrell: I desire to express generally my sympathy with the ideas thrown out by my hon. friend. But it is a pretty large programme, involving a new departure and requiring a good deal of consideration. There is food for thought in the'hon. gentleman's suggestion, and I will be glad to bear it in mind.


James Joseph Hughes: Does	the Government
contribute anything to the cold-storage warehouse in Charlottetown?


Martin Burrell: It will have the usual
subsidy.


James Joseph Hughes: I do not think the Government contributed anything to the building, because it has been in existence tor quite a while.


Martin Burrell: I have not the date
here. The total cost of the building was $50,000, allowing for the old building, and they got one-third of that.


James Joseph Hughes: And the Government
control the rates?


Martin Burrell: Yes.


Alexander William Chisholm: The hon. minister mentioned Port Hawkesbury as one of the cold-storage plants in Nova Scotia. That was burned down a year ago. Did the Government contribute to a new plant?


Martin Burrell: The matter is being
adjusted now.


George William Kyte: There are cold-storage warehouses for agricultural products and others for fish exclusively?


Martin Burrell: Our cold-storage subsidy covers food products generally, so we can include fish. But those cold-storage plants for fish exclusively, I understand, are for the purpose of keeping bait for the use of fishermen, and these are under the control of the Department of Marine and Fisheries.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Coming back to the
cheese business, and the export from Montreal compared with that from Quebec, perhaps I might be allowed to read from that excellent journal the i6ommercial Review, published by the Montreal Gazette:
The exports of cheese from Montreal for the season 1913 amounted to 1,571,165 boxes as compared with 1,723,021 boxes for 1912, showing a decrease of 151,856 boxes. Placing the average price at 12J cents per pound and allowing 82 pounds to the box, would give $10.25 per box, or a total value of the season's exports from Montreal of approximately $16,104,441, as compared with $17,299,130 for the season 1912. The shipments from Quebec this season amounted to 9,660 boxes, which, on the same basis, represents a value of $99,015, making the total exports of Canadian cheese up to the close of navigation 1,580,825 boxes, and a net decrease of 143,449 boxes.
The following table shows the exports of cheese from the port of Montreal for a period of years:-
1896 			 $11,605,000
1897 			 14,195,000
1898 			 12,065,000
1899 		
1900 		
1901		
1902 		
1903 			 21,563,338
1904 			 14,379,545
1905 			 18,029,358
1906 			 20,941,677
1907 			 18,747,461
1908 			 17,142,681
1909 			 17,225,298
1910			 16,651,668
1911			 17,816,953
1912			 17,299,130
1913			 16,104,441
There is no question from these figures, but that Montreal is the great cheese centre,

and that it is the place where the cold storage warehouse should be located. I dare say there is ample room in the new section of the harbour of Montreal to locate such a warehouse.


Frank Oliver: What is the nature of the new legislation in regard_ to cold storage? Is there some dissatisfaction with the results now being received?


Martin Burrell: It is entirely dissociated from the subsidizing question. It is in response to a wide-spread popular demand for legislation in regard to the cold storage system generally, because of the impression among the public that many evils exist. I shall be glad to go into that when the Bill comes up.


Frank Oliver: I thought possibly the
presence of the commissioner would facilitate the giving of information in regard to the conditions.


Martin Burrell: I shall have very full information when we come to discuss the Bill.
Exhibitions, $400,000.


James Joseph Hughes: This, I understand is for exhibitons in Canada and foreign countries.


Martin Burrell: This is in connection
with the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco next year.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Would the hon. gentleman kindly give the names of the officials who represented Canada at the Ghent Exposition.


Martin Burrell: First I would like to
answer a criticism the hon. gentleman brought in connection with the exhibitions. He will recall the statement being made that we had given misleading figures involving an amount of $700,000. I would like to make that clear. The international exhibitions to which my hon. friend's question referred and the ones we were answering for, were, 1898, Omaha, Mississippi and Missouri; 1900, Paris; 1901, Glasgow; 1903, Osaka, Japan; 1904, St. Louis; 1905, Liege, Belgium; 1906, Milan, Italy; 1907, Christ Church, New Zealand; 1907, Dublin, Ireland; 1908, London, England; 1910, Brussels, Belgium; 1913, Ghent, Belgium; and the total for these was $2,129,132.05, which was the figure given my hon. friend.
An expenditure of $706,134.75 was made in connection with the following exhibitions in which Canada has participated since 1896: 1897, Stockholm; 1901, Buffalo, N.Y.;

1902, Royal Exchange, London; 1902, Wolverhampton and Cork; 1905, London; 1905, Pittsburg, Pa.; 1906, Liverpool; 1907, Melbourne, Australia; 1908, Edinburgh, Scotland; 1909, Seattle; 1911 and 1912, Festival of Empire, London. These exhibitions were not regarded as universal or international, and were not included in the answer which was given to my hon. friend.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What were the names of the officials who represented Canada at the Ghent exhibition?


Martin Burrell: There were only two from Canada, Mr. Beaulieu and Mr. Lafontaine.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I understood that Mr. Girard, member for Chicoutimi and Saguenay, was appointed by the Government to represent Canada.


Martin Burrell: My hon. friend must be mistaken.


Rodolphe Lemieux: No doubt Mr. Beaulieu was quite competent to represent Canada at the Ghent exhibition, but I do not think Mr. Lafontaine was a fit person to send there as representing Canada.
Mr. B'URRELL: His duties were different from those of Mr. Beaulieu.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What were his duties?


Martin Burrell: He went to assist in the distribution of literature, to show people around, and generally to carry out the instructions of the commission.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I do not wish to discredit Mr. Lafontaine; he is a good Tory of the county of Maskinonge, but he has none of the qualifications necessary in a person who represents Canada at an international [DOT]exhibition.


Martin Burrell: 
Rodolphe Lemieux: When Canada is represented abroad, we want the country to be represented in a worthy manner. As I have said, I have nothing whatever to say against Mr. Lafontaine; he is a personal friend of mine. He has his own peculiar qualifications, but he w.a-s not a fit and

propel person to send to Ghent, even to take people around. In the province of Quebec my hon. friend could have selected, if he wished, from hundreds of people who could worthily represent that province. Mr. Beaulieu was' a highly educated gentleman, and could do justice' to the position, but nobody in the province of Quebec will believe for a moment that Mr. Lafontaine represented our province as well as it could be represented. The hon. minister has many bright friends in the province of Quebec from whom to select a man who had the proper qualifications properly to represent our people.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: I do not think the
hon. member for Rouville is justified in saying what he has said about Mr. Lafontaine. For a number of years that gentleman has represented the county of Maskin-onge in the legislature of Quebec. He is a trustworthy, reliable, honest man, of sterling character.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Hear, hear.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Mr. Lafontaine was
well worthy of the position, and filled it well. As the hon. minister has said, he was not there as the chief representative of Canada, but in whatsoever duties he had to do he certainly was a credit to our country. He has his own peculiarities, as the hon. member for Rouville said, but he has been A friend of agriculture all his life, and in my opinion was a fit and proper person to represent Canada on that occasion. For myself, I do not hesitate for one moment to take the responsibility of having recommended Mr. Lafontaine to the Minister oi Agriculture, and up to this day I have never had any regret for having done so. Mr. Lafontaine studied very many important questions when he was at Ghent, and [DOT]he has oome back with a great deal of information which should be useful to the country.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Let there be no misunderstanding in this matter. I quite agree with my hon. friend that Mr. L-afontaine is a worthy and respectable citizen of this country, and has an excellent character. But my hon. friend must admit that Mr. Lafontaine was not a fit and proper person to represent Canada at the Ghent exhibition.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Not as chief representative; he was only an assistant.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Very well; if he was
only an assistant and took no part at all in 107	,
the exhibition, I find no objection. Mr. Beaulieu was a fit and proper person to represent Canada, he had the education necessary to do so. . The fact that Mr. Lafontaine has been a member of the Quebec legislature does not mean that he is well qualified for this particular position. I say nothing against him personally; but I would tell Mr. Lafontaine himself that he is not the proper person for that position. My hon. friend must be ready to say no to a friend of his party when he wants to get a job, if he is not competent to fill the position for which he applies. Of course, Mr. Lafontaine is a charming fellow, of the hail-fellow-well-met type, highly intelligent in his own business, but he is not fitted for a position which necessarily requires a knowledge of general conditions throughout Canada.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: There is a good deal in that, but I may say, in the first place, that Mr. Lafontaine did not seek the position at, ad. My hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture asked us to suggest to him somebody who could be with Mr. Beaulieu who could assist him. Mr. Beaulieu is a highly cultured gentleman, absolutely fit to represent Canada on an occasion like this. Mr. Lafontaine knew much more about agriculture and agricultural exhibitions than Mr. Beaulieu did and it was of our own volition that we asked Mr. Lafontaine, without his applying at all. He went there to render a public service and he did not make any money out of the trip because whatever he got was not enough to give him any very enviable position, except that it gave him an opportunity to do something for his country and to acquire a good deal of knowledge that would be useful not only to him but to the people of this country.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What was the amount paid to Mr. Beaulieu and the amount paid to Mr. Lafontaine?


Martin Burrell: My recollection is that Mr. Beaulieu was paid $10 a day and Mr. Lafontaine $8 a day.


Frank Oliver: I notice that the sum for last year was $375,000 and this year it is $400,000. What was the money expended for last year?


Martin Burrell: Last year a portion of
that was directed to preparatory work in connection with the present fiscal year for San Franseisco, so that I cannot give the



exact proportions. The Ghent exhibition cost about $235,000.


Frank Oliver: And the $400,000?


Martin Burrell: That will go towards
the San Fransicso exhibition.


Frank Oliver: Apparently it is the intention to make a larger expenditure at the San Franscisco exhibition than possibly *at any other in which we have taken part.


Martin Burrell: Yes.


Frank Oliver: For some reason or other the San Francisco exhibition does not -seem to have appealed to the British Government as a desirable field for their exploitation. Notwithstanding that I cannot refrain from remarking that this Government, which attained power by reason of the slogan * no truck or trade with the Yankees,' has, within two years of their attainment to power, foresworn their principles to the extent of spending more money in order to enable Canada to trade with the Yankees than it has spent to enable Canada to trade with all other countries of the world. I must say that I commend them for their change of view but I cannot avoid pointing out how radical the change has been and how little good faith there was in the slogan when it was used.


Martin Burrell: My hon. friend must
not expect me tc accept all the conclusions he draws from that argument. As far as San Francisco is concerned, my hon. friend knows as well as I do that this is not an American enterprise in the ordinary sense of the word. It will undoubtedly be an occasion on which all the great countries of the world will be attracted in very large numbers indeed, and, especially to our \yestern country it will be of enormous benefit in bringing us into contact with almost every civilization in the world. So we think we are justified in making an especially strong effort to exhibit our natural resources and to give the fullest possible information in regard to our potentialities in western Canada; and it is not at all going back on any programme of this party in the general election.


James Joseph Hughes: The Government's business principles are sounder than its political principles.


William Cameron Edwards: The hon. gentlemen opposite have formed a practice that has become a habit of attributing statements to other people, and in time, coming to believe that these other people actually made
[Mr. Burrell.!
these statements which they originated themselves; which they themselves circulated through their own press, and which had no other foundation than their own imagination. No person on the Conservative side said that we do not want any truck or trade with the Yankees. Because the Conservative party were opposed to reciprocity, therefore, hon. gentlemen opposite concluded and made the statement that the Conservative party did not want any truck or trade with the Yankees. It was hon. gentlemen opposite who made that statement, and, having made it so often they at last have come to believe that some person on this side of the House or in the Conservative party actually made the statement.


William F. Carroll: What about the Minister of Trade and Commerce?


William Cameron Edwards: The Conservative party never said ' no truck or trade with the Yankees.' Not only the Conservative party but the people of Canada said that they did not want trade with the Yankees on the terms proposed by hon. gentlemen opposite, and there was nothing doubtful about the way they said it, because there was not a single Cabinet minister supporting Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the campaign for reciprocity with the United States who was not either defeated or had his majority reduced. Even the hon. member for Edmonton had a slice taken off his.


Frank Oliver: I am afraid my hon.
friend will have to make an exception.


William Cameron Edwards: No, I will not make an exception. Your majority was reduced,


Frank Oliver: No, I think not. My
majority was increased.


William Cameron Edwards: I think your majority
was reduced and I can prove it.


Frank Oliver: I think my hon. friend is mistaken.


William Cameron Edwards: You are mistaken you had a good large majority, but it was decreased.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend is doing us a greater injustice than we expected, when he first adopts a slogan that defeats us, and then accuses us of orignating it. I think that is really going too far. We do not object to the use of the slogan, we do not object to the defeat, but we do object to him attempting to make it appear that we were the parties who used it and not he and his friends


William Cameron Edwards: You are the parties who originated it.


Frank Oliver: We are not the people who originated or used it. The hon. gentleman opposite and his friends and their friends did use it and it originated right here in Ottawa.


Louis-Philippe Pelletier: Who used it?


Frank Oliver: The friends of my friend.


William F. Carroll: The Minister of Trade
and Commerce for instance.


Frank Oliver: It is a notorious fact that there was on a certain occasion' in Ottawa a parade in the interests of my hon. friends' cause. It was a parade of automobiles and in the decoration of the parade was the motto: ' No truck or trade with the Yankees.' In that procession of automobiles every automobile but one had been bought in the United States, showing how sincere my hon. friends were, just as I say their vote for the San Francisco exhibition is another proof of that same lack of sincerity.


Martin Burrell: I cannot accept that conclusion.


William Cameron Edwards: I can give you those
figures now. I told you that your majority was large. I suppose you knew that. Your majority-


Michael Clark: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of Order. I think it would help to keep the discussion in this House courteous and amenable to reason if the hon. member for Frontenac would pursue the ordinary course of procedure and address the Chair. He has persistently addressed himself directly to a member opposite using the second personal pronoun. I ask for the Chairman's ruling.


William Cameron Edwards: The hon. gentleman is
quite right. I might add that almost any other hon. gentleman in the House would be in better grace in bringing me to order for infringing the rules than the hon. member for Red Deer, who has a reputation for breaking the rules never before approached in the Dominion of Canada, and I trust never will be again.


Michael Clark: Mr. Chairman, I am in order, and now that my point has been accepted I cannot submit to a lecture from a gentleman who is breaking the rules of the House.


William Cameron Edwards: The hon. gentleman
having had his say and I having had mine, 107*
we will go on. The hon. member for Edmonton's majority in 1908 was 2,317. That is large enough to warrant him against any protest. In 1911 it was'2,228. The hon. member for Edmonton says that in a certain election a banner was displayed on several automobiles bearing the motto: 'No truck or trade with the Yankees.' If he claims that the Conservative party and leaders are responsible for that I would ask him if he and other hon. gentlemen from the West are willing to take the responsibility for American flags being displayed as their motto in the elections in the West. It is just as reasonable for me to charge the Liberal party with waving the American flag, at their meetings in western Canada, as it is for them to charge the Conservative party for certain things that appeared on certain banners.


Frank Oliver: Has the hon. gentleman
ever heard of that being done?


William Cameron Edwards: Yes, I have. Has the hon. member for Edmonton never heard of it?


Frank Oliver: I would like to say that
my information in regard to the West ought to be closer to the facts than that of my hon. friend. I certainly never saw it done, I never heard of it being done, and I do not think it was done.


The CHAIRMAN:: I must remind the
hon. gentlemen that the discussion is drifting far away from the item we are considering.


Frank Oliver: I wish to add a word
further in regard to the San Francisco Exhibition. This exhibition is being held for the purpose of enabling the people of the United States to increase their trade with the countries that exhibit at San Francisco. It is for the purpose, so far as those people can attain the purpose, of making Canada in terms an adjunct of the United States and our Government is going to spend more than half a million dollars in enabling them to do that.


Martin Burrell: I must not let that statement pass altogeher unchallenged, as it is not my conception of the matter. This is an exhibition of very unusual character and importance and will attract people from all over the world in laige numbers. It will give us an invaluable opportunity of bringing not only before the American people but the whole world the character of our natural resources, placed there in such shape that they will form an induce-

ment to people from all over the world, including people, if you like, from the United States to come to this country and assist us in its development, both to our profit as well as theirs.


William Cameron Edwards: Will the minister tell us how much was voted by the former Government for the Seattle exhibition?


Martin Burrell: 


William Henry White: Does the minister think it is, worth while spending this money if we are not to be allowed to sell our goods?


Martin Burrell: It is not a question of simply selling our goods. We have immense tracts in our western country, in my own province for instance, that are susceptible of development, and we want capital and enterprise from all parts of the world. We do not expect to sell any fruit to the western states, as the states west of the Rocky Mountains have about 15,000 carloads of surplus. We never expect to sell fruit in California or Oregon, but we would be glad to have all the people at the exhibition see what we can do and the possibilities of our country, and we would be glad to have them settle in our country and help us develop it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How is it that Canada is going to exhibit and the mother country is not?


Martin Burrell: I cannot explain that to my hon. friend. I do not know why the British Government or the German Government or any other government does not participate in a certain exhibition. Great Britain does .not participate, as we understand it, in many of these exhibitions. At some of the exhibitions where they have participated, they simply had a building for social or semi-diplomatic purposes, not for commercial purposes at all. We are in a very different position from Great Britain.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Under which flag will our exhibits be?


Martin Burrell: There is only one flag.


William F. Carroll: 
William Cameron Edwards: I can give you more than you would like to hear.


Frank Oliver: While I do not agree and never did agree with the attitude of our friends on the other side objecting to a proper measure of satisfactory trade with the United States, I do think they are entering upon an expense in connection with the San Francisco exhibition that will need to be very thoroughly justified by results. They have taken the responsibility of making this expenditure very much larger than any ever voted before by the Dominion of Canada for any exhibition. While I would not protest particularly strongly against the amount, at the same time it certainly goes beyond what, in my judgment, would seem to be a wise expenditure. I do not wish to condemn it, but we will certainly expect very substantial results in increase of trade between the countries in order that this extraordinarily large expenditure shall be justified.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Rogers, the House adjourned at 10.53 p.m.
Monday, March 16, 1914.