1915-03-04

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 69, to incorporate the Colonial Bank (Canada).

Sir James Aikins.
Bill No. 70, to incorporate the General Trust Company of Canada.-Mr. Douglas.

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

Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	How much money was expended by the Railway Department on the Hudson Bay project during the year ending December 31, 1914?
2.	How much was expended on the railway proper?
3.	How much on the terminals and harbour?
4.	What amount was expended by the Marine
Department on the project during the same period?	[DOT]


Mr. CODERRE:: 1.	$4,188,879.17.
2.	$2,344,891.57.
3.	Port Nelson terminals and harbour, $1,843,987.60.
4.	Department of Marine, $45,676.77; Department of Naval Service: the sum of $40,164.98 was expended in surveying the Hudson bay and strait from April 1 to December 31, 1914.


WAR SUPPLIES-HORSES.
Mr. BUCHANAN:: 1.	How many horses have been purchased for cavalry and artillery purposes up to the present in British Columbia?
2.	At what places were they bought, and how many at each place?
3.	What was the average price?


Major General HUGHES:: 1.	Cavalry, 509; gunners, 280; total, 789.
2.	Vancouver, 67; Ladners, 23; Westminster, 21; Victoria, 44; Sydney, 5; Duncan, 13; Nanaimo, 2; Courtenay, 5; Milner, 3; Abbottsford, 3; Chilliwack, 44; Forthaney, 3; Mission, 5; Clinton, 14; 115 Mile House, 6; 150 Mile House, 6; Dog Creek, 16; Gangranch, 95; Ashcroft, 18; Agassiz, 2; Nicola, 37; Kamloops, 149; Chase, 6; Salmon Arm, 6; Enderby, 7; Vernon,25; Kelowna, 22; Peachland, 1; Penticton,' 16; Princeton, 3; Keremeos, 16; Grand Prairie, 24; Golden, 1; Athalamar, 12; Guichon, 32; Merritt, 30; Armstrong,
7; total 789.
3.	$131.33.


RIGAUD ARMOURY.
Mr. BOYER:: 1.	What different sums of money have been expended since the year 1906, to this date, by the Department of Public Works and the Department of Militia, for the purchase, repairs, etc., in connection with the armoury building at Rigaud?
2.	Is it true that the Government intends to sell the said armoury building?
3.	What persons, societies, companies, corporations or any one else have offered to purchase said building, and what is the purchase price offered in each case?	.
4.	Is it true that certain approved negotiations are being proceeded between the Government and one Archibald Macdonald, for the sale of the said building?


Mr. CODERRE:: Department of	Public	Works:1.	1906-Purchase	price	$3,000	001908-	09	
1,524	201909-	10	
631	321910-	11	
1,360	53

2.	Yes.
3.	(a) The Rigaud Granite Company; (b) $4,000.
4.	Negotiations are completed with the Rigaud Granite Company, and the property has been transferred.
Department of Militia and Defence:
1.	1907-Repairs, $51.30; saddle racks, $53.90; cupboards, $40; acetylene gas apparatus, $50.
1909-Repairs, $1,186; incidentals, $18.
1 oLO-Incidentals, $35; sheeting of walls and casing of windows, $550; heating system, $$400.
1911-	Incidental repairs, $71.
1912-	Contract for renewal of wharf on drill hall property, $2,245.
1913-	Repair masonry work, $35.
1914-	Painting roof, $250; repairs to wharf, $100; total, $4,985.20.
2.	The control of this building was relinquished by the Department of Militia and Defence in favour of the Department of Public Works on December 8, 1914.
3 and 4. No information.


TRENT VALLEY CANAL COMMISSION.
Ms. KYTE:: 1.	Referring to the- report of the Royal Commission to investigate matters in connection with the Trent Valley canal, dated 19th February, 1914, in which at page 5 the following paragraph appears as a part of said report:
" This report sets forth comparatively few of the irregularities and fraudulent practices in vogue in the office under Superintendent McClellan's supervision. He has not only practised deception and dishonesty himself but has condoned it, and winked at it in others, and he has proven himself hopelessly incompetent for the position he holds."
2.	Is J. H. McClellan, the person referred to in the said report, now in the employ of the Government? If so, in what department?
3.	When did the said J. H. McClellan enter the said employment?
4.	What duties does he perform?
5.	What salary does he receive?
6.	Upon whose recommendation was the said J. H. McClellan so appointed?


Sir ROBERT BORDEN:: I am informed
that Mr. J. H. McClellan is not in the employ of any department of the Government.


WAR SUPPLIES-SADDLES.
*Mr. MURPHY:: 1.	From how many firms or private individuals has the Government or any department of the Government, ordered saddles since the 1st of July,1914?
2.	What are the names of these firms?
3.	How many saddles have been ordered from each firm?
4.	How many saddles has each firm delivered up to date?
5.	How many saddles has each firm yet to deliver?
6.	What is the price each firm is receiving for these saddles?


Major General HUGHES:: Answer to this question is being laid on the table.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oral answer.


Major General HUGHES:: Stand as an
order for a return.


Mr. OLIVER:: In the absence of the
hon. member for Russell (Mr. Murphy), I suggest that there is no good reason why this question should stand as an order for a return.	^


Major General HUGHES:: I am not going to discuss the matter; the paper is on the table and the hon. gentleman will have access to it.


Mr. SPEAKER:: If the hon. gentleman is prepared to lay the information on the table,
1 think that as this question is marked with an asterisk, an oral answer should be given.

Sir WILFRID LAUR1ER:	I think the
rule ought to be adhered to. This question ought to be answered orally. '


Robert Laird Borden: Objection has
been made in the past by the Speaker himself and by hon. gentlemen now in Opposition to giving lengthy answers to questions that ought to be made orders for returns. It has been pointed out that pages of Hansard have been taken up with matters that are not of particular or general interest. We have endeavoured, in giving answers to questions, to follow the rule which the Speaker himself has laid down in the past in that respect.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Let it stand, then.
Question stands.


BELGIAN IMMIGRATION.
[Stage Direction]
#Mr. VERVILLE:
1.	Is it the intention of the Government to carry out the announced project of importing gunsmiths from Belgium to assist in the making of rifles at the Ross rifle factory, Quebec? If so, how many?
2.	Would the Government be disposed to subsidize a movement in favour of a limited number of Belgian farm hands to 'cultivate sufficient land for the production of what is necessary for the sustenance of the imported gunsmiths and others? If so, to what extent?
Sir ROBERT BORDEN:: 1.	The Government has made no announcement on this subject, and it has not been under consideration.
2.	The subject has not yet been under consideration. The Government is informed that the Belgian Government is strongly opposed to any movement looking to the' emigration of Belgians. Inquiry has been made on the subject through the Canadian immigration authorities in London.


SEED WHEAT.
Mr. W. M. MARTIN:: 1.	How many bushels of wheat have been purchased by the Government to date for the purpose of supplying seed to the Western provinces?
2.	What was the average price paid per bushel for such seed grain in each of the months of October, November and December, 1914, and January and February, 1915?


Mr. ROCHE:: 1.	Purchased and contracted for 2,741,840 bushels of wheat.
2.	Average price paid: October, 1914, $1.10; November, 1914, $1.13; December,
1914,	$1.14; January, 1915, $1.49; February,
1915,	$1.53 per bushel.


GUYSBOROUGH-CANSO MAIL, SERVICE
Mr. SINCLAIR:: On what date was the renewal contract for carrying the mails between Guysborough and Canso awarded to Wm. McDougall?


Mr. CASGRAIN:: On the 17th November, 1914.


IMPORTATION OF BITUMINOUS COAL.
Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	What Quantity of bituminous coal was imported into Canada during the year ending March 31, 1914?
2.	What was the duty collected thereon?
3.	What portion of this coal was imported by the railway companies?


Mr. J. D. REID:: 1.	13,754,244 tons.
2.	$6,144,582.56.
3.	No information is available from customs records as compiled.


PASPEBIAC CUSTOMS OFFICE.
Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	Where is the customs office situated at Paspebiac, Quebec?
2.	Have the premises been leased or purchased, and if leased, for how long, from whom, and at what price per annum?
3.	If there has been any change within the last three years in the location of the customs office, what was the reason of the change and who recommended It?


Mr. J. D. REID:: 1.	The customs records show that the Customs office is situated on the main road at Paspebiac at the "Old stand."
2.	Premises are rented from Robin, Jones & Whitman, Ltd., at $100-per year, including heat and light.
3.	Change was made September 1st, 1913, by the Minister of Customs in the public interest.


PASPEBIAC WHARF.
Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	Has the Government acquired the wharf at Paspebiac, Quebec, owned by Robin, Coley & Co., or Robin, Whitman & Jones?
2.	If so, what price was paid and who recommended the purchase?


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


CANSO REDUCTION WORKS.
Mr. SINCLAIR:: 1.	How many tons of fertilizer were produced at the Canso reduction works last season?
2.	Has it been sold?
3.	If not, is it available now for farmers, and at what price?
4.	Up to what date will applications be received, and by whom?


Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	91 tons.
2.	Yes.
3 and 4. Answered by No. 2.


UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Buchanan: For a return showing:
1.	From whom food for men and horses, and all other supplies and equipment for the field battery now being trained at Lethbridge, have been bought?
2.	If by tender, what date tenders were called for.
3.	When tenders were opened and contracts awarded.
4.	The names and post office addresses of all parties who submitted tenders.
5.	Names of the successful tenderers, and the price In each case.
Mr. Law: For a return showing the names and addresses of all persons in Annapolis and Digby counties, Nova Scotia, to whom the bounty under the Fenian Raid Volunteer Bounty Act has been paid; the names and addresses of all persons from said counties whose applications have been rejected; and the names and addresses of all applicants from said counties whose applications have not been disposed of.
Mr. Macdonald:	For a copy of all letters,
telegrams, accounts, orders and all other documents relating to the purchase of horses for the Militia Department in the county of Pictou during the years 1914 and 1915 to date.
Mr. Marcil: For a copy of all documents bearing on the (removal of the salmon retaining pond from Flat Lands to New Mills, N.B., and of all reports on the operations thereof, with a detailed statement of outlay and cost of removal, installation and operation.
Mr. Cruise: For a return showing the names of all parties drawing pensions at present from the Government.
2.	The amount drawn annually by each.
3.	What offices each held prior to superannuation.
4.	What salary each was drawing prior to leaving service.
5.	The length of their service.
Mr. Buchanan: For a return showing:
1.	The total amount of relief orders issued to date in the Medicine Hat district under the control of H. H. Brown, relief commissioner.
2.	The total expense to date in every way connected with these Medicine Hat orders.
3.	Who vouched for the expenditures in question, and if more than one person, the names of the various persons, and for how much each did vouch.
4.	The total travelling expenses, by whom they were ordered, by whom they were incurred, to whom and in what amounts they were paid, when they were incurred, and when paid.
5.	What different means of travel were employed, how much was paid for each, and who were the persons so travelling in connection with relief work.
6.	What sum has been charged to the relief work in the form of office rent at Medicine Hat.
7.	Who recommended the appointment of H. H. Brown, and upon whose recommendation the other officials in connection with relief work in Medicine Hat district were appointed.
8.	Upon what merchants in the Medicine Hat district, under H. H. Brown's control, were relief orders issued, the total amount of goods
[Stage Direction]
supplied by each merchant to date, and how much money has been paid to each merchant to date.
Mr. Marcil: For a copy of all correspondence exchanged between the Government of Canada and of Quebec, or any minister or official thereof, in regard to the control of fisheries in Quebec province, as well as of all documents bearing on that question, together with a list of licenses granted by the Government of Canada for the present year.
Mr. W. Chisholm: For a return showing the names and addresses of all persons in the county of Brant, Ontario, to whom the bounty under the Fenian Raid Volunteer Bounty Act and amendment, has been paid ; the names and addresses of all persons from said county whose applications have been rejected, and the names and addresses of all applicants from said county whose applications have not yet been disposed of.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Right Hon.   S@: Mr. Speaker, by your leave I would call the attention of the House to a matter which in my judgment concerns and deeply affects the privileges of this House. I refer to an incident which took place some few days ago when the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) was addressing the House during the Budget debate. My hon. friend from St. John referred to a statement which had been made by Professor Shortt as to the number of dismissals and appointments under the present Administration, to which statement very strong exception was at once taken by the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers). Perhaps in order that the House may be seized of the tenor of the incident, I had better read what took place. The hon. member from St. John said:
I have not that familiarity with the Civil Service that Professor Shortt, chairman of the Civil Service Commission, necessarily has. He is a gentleman who is in the employ of the Government; he occupies, X presume, a quasi independent position as chairman of that commission ; he has made the statement, made it publicly, made it with deliberation that under this Government the appointments to the Civil Service in the lower grades are entirely a matter of patronage and he says that, whereas there have been something like 2,000 dismissals from the Civil Sendee, there have been some 10,000 appointments, making a difference of some S,000.
The hon. member for St. John was interrupted by the Minister of Public Works in these words:
I would like to say that this is a statement that has been repeated so often in this House that hon. gentlemen opposite will possibly be beginning to believe it. No more dishonourable, no more dishonest, no more unfair-

Then there was some confusion and interruption and the Ihon. minister proceeded:
I have repeated it twice, but I shall be glad to stay here and go on repeating it if it will be any benefit to my hon. friend. I was referring not to my hon. friend but to Professor Shortt and in 'that connection X want to say here and now that no more dishonourable, no more dishonest, no more unfair statement was ever made by any man than that made by Professor Shortt, chairman of the Civil Service Commission. It is an absolutely untrue statement.
These, Mr. Speaker, are very strong words, as I am sure that my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works will be the first to admit. To charge a man in the position of Professor Shortt with being guilty of dishonourable and dishonest conduct is as grave a charge as can be made against any man. Professor Shortt occupies not only an official position in Canada, but I may say that he also occupies a very high position otherwise. He is chairman of the Civil Service Commission, and in that respect is amenable and responsible notQo the Government but to the two Houses of Parliament. He is appointed under section 9 of the Civil Service Act of 1908, which enacts:
There shall be a commission, to be called the Civil Service Commission, consisting of two members appointed by the Governor in Council.
2. The rank, standing and salary of each commissioner shall be those of a deputy head of a department; and each commissioner shall hold office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on address of the Senate and House of Commons.
These words in the .statute are the basis upon which I claim that the House has jurisdiction and ought to take cognizance of such a charge as is now upon the head of Professor Shortt. If an officer of this Parliament or of this country, a public servant in the capacity and of the character of Professor Shortt should be attacked by a Minister of the Crown as having made a dishonest and untrue and dishonourable statement, everybody will agree that the usefulness of the chairman of the Civil Service Commission would be very much impaired, to say the least. Professor Shortt's attention was called to the words of the minister, and in an interview which he. gave the following day, the 26th of February, in the Free Press, he expressed himself as follows:
"I have only this to say," replied Dr. Shortt, " The official return is there to speak for itself. It is dated March of last year.' I was simply quoting from the return, and I have nothing to do with whatever interpretation Mr. Rogers or Dr. Pugsley may place on that re-

turn. I had no information other than was contained in the return-for instance, I had no information about resignations.
" I made the statement that there had been two thousand odd dismissed and ten thousand odd appointed, not including the Post Office Department, merely incidental to a discussion of the outside service. Only two dismissals were reported in the inside service. I pointed out that this was not a matter of party politics so far as I was concerned. My remarks as reported were correct in substance.
I repeat, they were founded solely on the information contained in the return and nothing else."
It does not seem clear to me-and I would toe glad to have the explanation of my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works upon this point, as to what was the particular statement made by Professor Shortt in this connection to which the minister takes exception. Hr. Shortt made two statements, viz., that there had been 2,000 dismissals and 10,000 appointments. I do not know and I would be glad to know from the Minister of Public Works whether he impugned the statement as to the 2,000 dismissals or as to the 10,000 appointments, or both. If I may be permitted to speak frankly to my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works,
I would say that there has been something almost like quibbling over these dismissals; for later on in the debate the Minister of Public Works, addressing himself to the hon. member for St. John, spoke as follows:
He has surely not read the return himself or he would not venture to make that statement. The return shows nothing of the kind. Take the return of my own department for instance; in it 507 dismissals are credited and there are 700 odd resignations which Professor Shortt never takes into account.
I say with all candour to my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works that 1 should be glad to be enlightened as to these resignations. Five hundred dismissals is a pretty good number, and seven hundred resignations seems to be a more goodly number. Resignation is a virtue we know, but there is such a thing as being virtuous under compulsion. I have not found in the course of my experience that the spirit of resignation in our time is so prevalent as to lead to seven hundred resignations in one department. The point, however is not whether these resignations were voluntary or not. I shall be very glad to take the word of my hon. friend upon that. But the point of the charge made by the hon. member for St. John was that there have been two thousand vacancies-whether those vacancies were caused by resignation or by dismissals-and ten thousand appointments.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It seems to me that
inconvenience may arise from the manner in which this matter is being brought before the House. I did not understand the right hon. gentleman to say that he was bringing it before the House strictly as a question of privilege. I take it that a discussion such as is now taking place should be based on a motion of some kind. It could hardly be brought before the House properly as a question of privilege.


Wilfrid Laurier: I brought the matter up solely as a question of privilege.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: I am quite willing to
hear the right hon. gentleman, but I submit that this is not a question of privilege. It does not come within that category.


Wilfrid Laurier: If Professor
Shortt was a member of the Civil Service he would be strictly amenable to the jurisdiction of the Government alone; and the House would have no control over him. But Professor Shortt is not an officer of the Government. The Government cannot remove him; they cannot control him; they cannot give him any orders. The only body which has any authority over Professor Shortt is the Parliament of Canada, the House of Commons and the Senate. If this be correct, then in my judgment this discussion comes within the privileges of this House.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not desire to prevent my right hon. friend from having the fullest opportunity of discussing this question. I do not understand, however, that he can go into some of the matters which he introduced into the later part of his remarks as a question of privilege, namely, the discussion of how many dismissals and resignations there have been. But I am perfectly willing now to move the House into Committee of Supply in order to give my right hon. friend and other hon. gentlemen the fullest opportunity of discussing this matter.
On the motion of Sir Robert Borden for Committee of Supply:


Wilfrid Laurier: I was going to say that on this occasion I did not intend to discuss the number of dismissals or resignations. I am not in a position to do so, for I have never seen the return. I asked the Clerk of -the House for the report, and I only got a partial one. I have never seen the complete report. The point to which I wish to call the attention of the

House is this: A public officer of this country, occupying under the law of the land a most important position and daily fulfilling the functions of that office, has 'been charged with conduct which has been characterized as dishonourable and dishonest. My point is this: Should an officer of this kind remain under the imputation that has been made against him without being given an opportunity to repel the charge ? That is the only reason I have brought the matter before the House. My point is that the language of my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works was so strong against that public officer, that he owes it to himself either to be more precise or to give Professor Shortt an opportunity to defend himself. That is the only thing I wish for. Professor Shortt has been impugned in violent language by the Minister of Public Works, and it is not fair that an officer of his importance should remain under that imputation. Professor Shortt staked his reputation on the statement he made. That statement may be true or not, but I say that Professor Shortt should be given an opportunity to vindicate his own words. After the Minister of Public Works has made such a violent charge against Professor Shortt as to say that he was dishonest and dishonourable, I say it is only fair that Professor Shortt should be given an opportunity to defend himself, and that this matter should be investigated. That is the only reason for my action to-day. As to the question of dismissals, we can deal with that later. I appeal to the spirit of fairness of the Prime Minister, and of the whole House, that an opportunity be given to have this matter investigated, and the responsibility placed where it belongs. If Professor Shortt has made a dishonest and dishonourable statement he is liable to the heaviest censure of this House; and if the language of the Minister of Public Works was not called for, then some justice must be done to the man who was attacked.


Hon. ROBERT ROGERS (Minister oi Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, let me say at once that I hope I would he the last man in this House who would venture to make any statement, implied or otherwise, upon any occasion, at any time, or under any circumstances, that I did not honestly and fairly feel I was justified in making. My right hon. friend suggests that the remarks I made upon the occasion to which he has referred affect the privileges of this House.
I made the statement which I did, conscious of the knowledge of the circumstances ces, believing that I was right, and believing 
that I was justified in making that statement. I would not desire to be guilty of making a statement against Professor Shortt or against the most humble citizen of this . Dominion of Canada that I did not believe I was justified in making. If my right hon. friend is willing to accept the statement of Professor Shortt, and to accept blame and condemnation at the hands of that gentleman, similar to the charge which Professor Shortt presumed to make against hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, why then let him take that responsibility. If my right hon. friend is willing to accept that position, and stand up here before Parliament and the country and commend Professor Shortt for such a statement, then my right hon. friend must settle it with his own friends on that side of the House, because when Professor Shortt made the statement which had been quoted by the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley), and to which I took exception the other night, he immediately weht on to say:
What he had said hits one party no more than the other.
If hon. gentlemen are willing to accept such a statement as that from Professor Shortt, and to take the responsibility for it, all I can say is that we on this side of the House do not propose to accept any such statement from Professor Shortt. My right hon. friend has quoted the statement made by Professor Shortt, following the reference to him in the House on Thursday evening last, and he has quoted correctly, I believe, from the Free Press what Professor Shortt had to say. Let me read these words because I think they are of importance:
" I have only this to say," replied Dr. Shortt.
" The official return is there to speak for itself." It is dated March of last year. I was simply quoting from the return, and I have nothing to do with whatever interpretation Mr. Rogers or Dr. Pugsley may place on that return. I had no information other than was contained in the return-for instance, I had no information about resignations.
My right hon. friend was careful to say that he had not studied the returns. These returns were laid upon the table of the House from every department of the Government and it is evident from Professor Shortt's statement that he had such returns. They were simple answers to very simple questions. The questions were:
1.	How many employees if the Federal Government of Canada, including all services and all departments, have been dismissed from October 10, 1911 to the present date.
2.	How many have resigned?

3.	How many have deserted the service?
4.	How many deserters have been punished?
5.	How many new employees have been engaged or appointed by the present Government during the same period?
The answers are as follows from my particular department, and I am dealing only with the Department of Public Works for the moment:
1.	Dismissals 511.
2.	Resignations, 725.
3.	None.
4.	None.
5.	1877.
Professor Shortt acknowledged that he only had the return before him. If he had that return before him he had from the Department of Public Works a return showing that 725 resignations had taken place, and I am sure that my right hon. friend, during the fifteen years that he was in office never had a resignation that he did not have to fill the vacancy. No one knew or understood this better than did Professor Shortt. No one had a better knowledge of the facts and if you take all the resignations in the various departments, which were under the hand of Professor Shortt when he studied that report, you will find that there are very nearly 4,000 resignations to be taken from that 10,000 referred to by Professor Shortt. Was I not, therefore, justified in characterising the mischievous statement of Professor Shortt in the language I did in view of the fact that we have from day to day, not alone in this House, but outside of it, statements being made based upon the authority of the statement made by Professor Shortt with respect to a return that he misquoted unfairly. Not only that, but in view of his statement made the following day in the Free Press, I will go a step further and say that Professor Shortt's statement was not only dishonourable and dishonest but, according to his own statement, it is untrue, because he said there was nothing in the report in respect to resignations.
These are the circumstances which led to the language of which my right hon. friend complained and while it may have been strong I felt that it was justified. I felt that it was justified by reason of the fact that hon. gentlemen upon the other side of the House were referring to it and taking advantage of Professor Shortt's statement to have it circulated throughout the length and breadth of the country, that the Government had dismissed 2,000 officials and had replaced them with 10,000. Surely my right hon. friend, in view of the circumstances, will admit that this was a very unfair statement on the part of Professor Shortt because he admits himself in his interview that he had under his hand a copy of the return. That being so I say it was very unfair for him to make that statement and to place before this country a statement that is not borne out by the facts. I think it was the hon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) who first used these figures in the House. He was followed by the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) and it was only when the statements were repeated by an hon. member with a knowledge of the conditions such as my hon. friend from St. John always has, that I thought it was time that we should correct the misstatements that were being circulated throughout the length and breadth of the country as coming from Professor Shortt. Not only did we have this statement made in this House, but we were having this, statement of Professor Shortt's circulated in all parts of the Dominions My hon. friend the member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), a few days previously, called to task hon. members on this side of the House for being guilty of keeping open the information bureau of the Conservative party in the city of Ottawa. He used rather strong language upon that occasion and was rather severe in his condemnation. Perhaps he will pardon me if I quote a few of the words that he was good enough to use:
From the moment that war broke out the bureau was closed.
Referring to the Liberal bureau.
So far as I am concerned, I have never seen a document emanate from it since that time, of a petty nature or of any other nature. Where is the laugh of my hon. friends now? Can they produce a leaflet or a document? Not a single one. And I should be wanting in common manliness if I did not assert it.
My hon. friend from Red Deer, as we all well know, lives only in the shade of Cob-den and of Bright and he is evidently not aware that a very large portion of the Liberal party in the Dominion of Canada are getting their monthly leaflets to-day just the same as they were before the war started. It is to this particular little Liberal monthly I wish to draw the attention of the House to now. It was issued only a few days ago, on February 15, and I have a bundle of these leaflets here for the benefit of my hon. friend from Red Deer. This little bulletin for February undertakes to quote the same figures as did Professor Shortt. The article reads as follows:

Return tabled in the House of Commons February 12, giving statement as to dismissals and appointments in the Civil Service since the Government came Into power in 1911 makes almost incredible reading, and throws into "vivid light the extent to which the party axe has been wielded and how the influence of patronage has been invoked under the Conservative Administration. The return is admittedly not complete and was made up from the different departments on varying dates since the spring of 1911. Yet it shows a record of no less than 2,000 dismissals and 10,576 new appointments.
Such statements, emanating from the Liberal bureau and bearing upon the statement of Professor Shortt in respect to the matter under discussion, are being circulated broadcast. It is true that Professor Shortt went a little farther in that famous speech of his, in which he made that statement, and he went on to tell of an individual who had spoken to him about how rotten the patronage system was in the Dominion of Canada. Since I came here hundreds of people have spoken to me of how rotten the patronage system is in the city of Ottawa, but almost invariably those people have pointed to Professor Shortt as a living example of the abuse of the administration of patronage.
As regards my department, I have nothing to hide in respect to the return. In the outside service we have to account for 1,877 appointments, and as there were 511 dismissals and 722 resignations we, therefore, have to account for having made 669 new appointments during the three years covered by this return.


Mr. CARROLL:: What about the 25 inside service appointments in the Department of Public Works?


Robert Rogers: I will come to the inside service later on. I am giving the outside service first, so that the matter will be understood by hon. members in all its details.
In the Chief Architect's branch, according to the return, we have to account for an increase of 244. In that branch of the Department we have had under the progressive administration of the present Government erected during the three years that we have been in office something over seventy new public buildings in various parts of the Dominion. Some of these require one or more caretaker's, and others as many as six where there are elevators and furnaces to look after. Therefore the increase of 244 in the Chief Architect's branch is accounted for by the increase in the number of public buildings erected in the various parts of the Dominion.
[Mr. Rogers.
On the staff of the Superintendent of Dominion Buildings we have an increase to account for of 99. This increase is rendered necessary on account of the engineers, firemen, watchmen and elevator men required for the buildings rented and occupied as Government offices, the new Mines Building, and the addition to the West Block. There is also the general staff of labourers and artisans required in connection with the general maintenance of buildings.
In the chief engineer's branch we have to account for an increase of 100, and this is accounted for by the addition of assistant engineers to the staffs of the 36 district engineers throughout the Dominion, rendered necessary by the increased number of harbour works during the past three years.
The expenditure of the chief en-4 p.m. gineer's branch in 1911 was about $3,200,000, and in 1914, $7,700,000. That shows the necessity for the increased staff for carrying out the additional work.
The increase of 157 in the assistant chief engineer's branch, which has to do with the dredging operations of the department, is accounted for by the manning of new departmental plant, by the large British Columbia dredges having been put on double shift, and the natural increases in the crews of the various dredges and tugs throughout the Dominion to cope with the increased dredging operations. On account of the British Columbia dredges working a double shift, we have been obliged to add 100 employees. That accounts for 100 out of. the total increase of 157. The department has no-w seven more tugs than it had in 1911. The expenditure for 1911 was $5,030,000, and in 1914, $6,200,000.
The increase of 69 in the telegraph staff is accounted for by the increased mileage of telegraph lines and the number of new offices opened since October 10, 1911. In 1911, the mileage was 8,639|, and in 1914, 10,312, or an increase of 1,672|. The number of offices in 1911 was 624, and in 1914, 671, or an increase of 47. The provision of operators for these offices and the line repairers for the additional . mileage accounts for the increase in staff. The same answer applies exactly in the case of the inside service.
As regards the inside service in the chief architect's branch, I would like to call the attention of the House to the fact that in 1911 the expenditure for public buildings was $4,150,000, and in 1914, $12,400,000. That shows the necessity for appointing an

additional number of architects and draughtmen and the same thing applies to the other branches of the department over which it is my privilege to preside.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: To what date is the return brought down?


Robert Rogers: I have not yet been able to see the return, for the simple reason that I have several times asked the Clerk of the House for it, but I have always been informed that it is in the hands of Liberal members who have been giving it very close consideration. I hold in my hand a return of my own department.


William Pugsley: To what date is that return brought down?


Robert Rogers: It does not give the date. Professor Shortt gives the date as March, 1914. I do not know whether he is correct or not; I would not like to say that he is.


William Pugsley: Will the returns of all the departments be given to us before we proceed with the discussion of this motion?


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend will see how very inconvenient it would be to have a proper discussion of the question without the return, and without knowing the dates to which they were brought down.


Robert Rogers: I have not given any consideration to that. I do not know anything about the return, not having been able to see it myself. I am only dealing with the facts as I find them. I complain of the circulation of a mis-statement which is being used for political purposes against the Government of the day, a mis-statement which neither Professor Shortt nor any other man is justified in making as against the present Administration. If we have had increases in the service, they have been due to the development of our country, and we have had only such increases as were necessary for the public service. I wish to express my surprise, and regret, that my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) should allow his little paper from the Liberal Bureau to circulate a statement of this sort and send it broadcast throughout the country. I would like, on behalf of my good friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark), to express my, surprise that he has not been kept better informed as to what is going on at the Liberal headquarters. I hold in my hand a letter from a Mr. Godard, dated 26th February, attached to a circular in which he is making an appeal, and he uses this language:
Can you afford to be without this publication? The Canadian Liberal Monthly is published each month at the Central Liberal Information Office at Ottawa. It Is prepared under the personal supervision and direction of the Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I should be very sorry indeed, let me say again, to use one syllable that could be regarded as harsh or unfair as against any individual m discussing any public question. At the same time, as a member of this Government, I do not propose to stand for mis-statements from Professor Shortt or anybody else. The documents and returns are placed freely on the table of this House for the benefit of hon. gentlemen opposite. I do not think these hon. gentlemen have anything to complain of in that regard and so far as I am concerned, they are at all times welcome to all the information it is possible to give them. At the same time, I hope that in future there will be no misrepresentations either by Professor Shortt or by anybody else with respect to returns that we lay upon the table of this House.


John Howard Sinclair: I desire to ask the Minister of Public Works if his position is that Professor Shortt is incorrect in stating that the increase in the appointments numbered 8,000? What Professor Shortt said was that ten thousand had been appointed and two thousand dismissed, giving an increase in the service of eight thousand. Does the minister controvert that statement that there was an increase of eight thousand in the service?


Robert Rogers: That is where my hon.
friend goes wrong. I had hoped that I had made myself so clear that even my hon. friend would understand me. I said there were two thousand dismissals and four-thousand resignations, a total of six thousand, and therefore the Government have to account to Parliament and to the people for an increase in the service of something like four thousand' according to these figures. I have accounted for an increase in my own department of 669.


John Howard Sinclair: I took the trouble to
examine this report about which there has been so much controversy in the House, and I made a table showing the exact figures contained in it, with the exception of the Mounted Police. I did not think it was fair to charge the Government with appointments to the Mounted Police, so I omitted from the table those appointments. There are two important departments of the Government that are not yet accounted for-Marine and Fisheries and Militia. The


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):: 1
only intervene in this debate, shall I say, at the invitation of my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works. I am sure that in intervening I may well cast myself upon the sympathy of both sides of this House. I will tell my hon. friend why. He charged me with using strong language. That charge, coming from him at the present moment, is a very, very cutting charge. Why, Sir, I was literally afraid to listen to the quotations with which my hon. friend would back up his charge, because the point which has been raised by my right hon. leader has to do with a charge which, I think, some of us will characterize as mild. When we have to deal with a charge against a prominent public servant, that certain statements of his were unfair, untrue, dishonest and dishonourable, we are not dealing in lavender water in the way of language. The House will understand, therefore, that I really was afraid to hear my hon. friend quote what I had said. And what did this quotation amount to? It amounted to a statement made in this House on February 8 that the Liberal Bureau had not since the war broke out been issuing partisan literature.


Robert Rogers: Literature of any kind.


Michael Clark: The nature of the assertion was as I have stated. Well, that they have been issuing literature between the outbreak of war in August and February 8, when I spoke, is proved by the hon. Minister of Public Works giving a quotation from a document issued on February 15. I appeal to my hon. friend; should he really blame me very much for not knowing on February 8 what was going to be printed on February 15? He charges me with dwelling in the shades of Cobden. In what wonderful shades does he live * or what' powers of prophecy does he possess that he enables his colleagues in this House to know on February 8 what is going to happen on February 15?


Robert Rogers: I Shall be glad to send
over to my hon. friend the issues of the Liberal Monthly for October, November and December.


Michael Clark: If my hon. friend could
have found anything in the-issues of Novem-

ber and December to prove his case, he would have quoted it. Why did he quote from a copy of the Liberal Monthly published after I spoke? Because he could find nothing of a partisan nature in those published in November and December. But do my hon. friends read the Liberal Monthly, if their laughter means a contradiction of what I say? My hon. friend the Solicitor General says, Oh, yes. Then we may expect him to bring forth the partisan literature before even he, I am sure, will endeavour to prove a case against anything I said on February 8 by quoting something that was published on the 15th, a week afterwards. Hon. gentlemen opposite have an advantage over me, Mr. Speaker, in being regular students of the Liberal Monthly, for I do not happen to be a regular student of that publication. But before I made the statement in this House and after I made it I took occasion to speak to Mr. Godard, whose name has been mentioned in the course of this debate, and he assured me that nothing of a partisan nature had been printed. I myself read one or two issues published after the beginning of the war, and I found a very interesting historical account of the issues involved in the w.ar, dealt with in a manner similar to the way in which they were referred to in the very able speeches of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister and my hon. friend the Solicitor General. Was that partisan literature? I was using this matter regularly in patriotic meetings, as all of us were, not with a view to helping party, but with a view to the justification of the common cause of our country in the eyes of the world. That is what was issuing from the Liberal Bureau, so far as my information goes, and what has been issuing from it even up to the present moment. That applies to the period preceding February 8, and it was that period only that I referred to when I spoke on February 8.
I want to say a single word about a very narrow point which has been brought to the attention of this House, and I want tc say that word in a calm spirit. I do not admit the charge of my hon. friend that on the occasion to which he referred I used strong language, that is, judging language by such a criterion as I would bring to bear upon the language of my hon. friend. I do not admit using strong language, and I certainly do not want to use any on this occasion. I think that if the language used by the hon. minister with regard to Prof.
. Shortt had application anywhere, it was against those gentlemen who were using the figures on this side of the House, and not 41
against Prof. Shortt. I will tell my hon. friend why. I read Prof. Shortt's address as it was reported in the press of this city. My hon. friend should recognize that Prof. Shortt was dealing with the Civil Service, and quoted these figures not with a view to comparing the acts of this Government and those of the last Government, but with a view to showing, in an impartial and nonpartisan way, what he conceived to be the improper basis of the Civil Service. I am sure that hon. gentlemen opposite would not laugh at that if they had waited to hear what I had to say.
Professor Shortt in pointing out the unsatisfactory condition of the Civil Service in this country was following a very excellent example, he was following the example of the Prime Minister in many speeches made before 1911, speeches which in principle I am quite sure my right hon. friend would not now recede from. That is what I take in all fairness to be the object of Professor Shortt in delivering the address which he did on the Civil Service; and viewed from that standpoint the quotation of figures was an absolutely correct quotation of the figures as they had appeared in the returns up to that moment. He said there were
2.000	dismissals shown and there were 2,000 dismissals shown. Is that statement unfair, untrue, dishonest, or is the man making it dishonourable? He said there had been
10.000	new appointments and that is so.


Robert Rogers: Taking the place of resignations though.


Mr. GLARK:: If he had been wanting
to prove that they had been placed there not to fill the places of those who had resigned there would be some pertinence in what my hon. friend says now in interrupting; but Professor Shortt was simply dealing with the figures as he knew them, to show the unsatisfactory condition of the Civil Service. That is What I think to be the correct view of what Professor Shortt did. If the resignations, added to the dismissals, reduce the disparity between the persons leaving the service and the new appointments, it would weaken the argument which has been used by this side of the House about the extravagance of this Government. I concede that to my hon. friend. It would almost appear to me from the figures just given by the hon. member from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) that this is a matter which my hon. friend cannot afford to go into too deeply.


Robert Rogers: Oh, yes, we can.


Mr. GLARE:: It would also appear
to me-my hon. friend need not get excited, it is difficult for two of us to speak at once. I am saying that whether I have come from the shades of Cobden or elsewhere my hon. friend does not seem to know very much yet about this return or about what is going on in the Civil Service. However, I am not going into that. I simply wanted to make the admission I have made, that if the resignations added to the dismissals reduced the disparity between those receiving appointments and those going from the service that, would weaken an argument .used upon this side of the House; but, as far as a man claiming to be honourable, and I claim to be so, understands the meaning of language, that did not justify for one moment the language which was used by my hon. friend (Mr. Rogers); and if I have any knowledge of his character, the moment he sees that he will be the first man in Canada to withdraw the language. That is my opinion of him. It may be misplaced, but I hold it none the less. Nothing that Professor Shortt did justified the language which has been used by my hon. friend. I shall not go further into the question. I think I have cleared myself of the imputation, coming from a source that I was surprised to hear it come from on this particular occasion, of having used strong language. I made a simple statement, or I meant to convey to the House that from the bureau of the Liberal party at the time of the outbreak of war until the moment at which I was speaking, partisan literature had not been issued and that statement I repeat on the authority of those who have read the literature carefully. I am strongly disposed to believe this, because, as I have already pointed out, my hon. friend certainly did not quote any language in justification of his stating the opposite.
I shall not go into what my hon. friend called the progressive administration of this [DOT] Government. We may admit the adjective if he gives it a shade of meaning which I myself would be inclined to attach to it at the present moment. It has certainly been a progressive administration in the matter of appointments to the Civil Service by the most favourable construction upon the figures of that return that could be put upon them, the construction of my hon. friend himself. There has been no extra business done in Canada, and there has been no extra prosperity to justify-even this

gap of 4,000 employees between the time when the late Administration was in power and the present moment. A progressive administration? Well, we are going to speak on the Budget some of these days and we will have something to say about the progress of this Administration and the progress of Canada under it. As I said, I intervened for a specific purpose, and having accomplished it I shall express to my hon. friend the hope that when he introduces a comparatively harmless quotation from anything I have said in the future on an occasion when his own language, which I do not think he has justified, is of the strongest possible description, he will not charge me with having used strong language.


Hon. J. D. HAZEN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is very necessary, in order that there may be a fair and proper discussion on the question, that we should know what the language was which Professor Shortt, of the Civil Service Commission, used at the Peoples' Forum on the Sabbath evening, which has been brought to the consideration of this House this afternoon by the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). I have in my hand a copy of the Free Press of February 15, 1915. Professor Shortt's address was given on the evening of Sfinday, February 14. I read from the Free Press this report of Professor Shortt's remark:
I have met men in the Canadian Civil Service who, though they hold positions under the Government, were quite ready to admit that the Civil Service system was rotten.
He speaks of a Civil Service system which continued for a period of 15 years during all the time my right hon. friend was guiding the destinies of this country. He goes on to say:
Who took the place of the 2,000 civil servants who were retorted In the House the other day to have been dismissed from the service, and his reply to his own quesdon was just 10,000.
I ask hon. gentlemen to consider that language. He asked who took the places of 2,000 civil servants who, were dismissed, and he answered 10,000. In other words, Professor Shortt endeavoured to convey the meaning to the people of this country that
10,000	men were employed to do the work that had been done by those 2,000. His language had been evidently chosen with the greatest possible care in order to convey that impression, that under this Government, five men are employed doing the

*work that was done by one under the previous Administration. Could anything be more absolutely unfair-could anything be more absolutely-and I say it with consideration-untrue than that statement made by Professor Shortt? It is a statement which he must have known to be untrue. If he did not, then he had not read the return that had been laid before this House and which was the basis of the speech he was making at the Peoples' Forum; and if he made the statement without verifying it by reference to the return what can be said in his defence?
In view of the fact that the statement laid before the House in the return showed a very large number of dismissals, Professor Shortt, I say, was absolutely unjustified in making the assertions which he did make; and, further than that, his conduct in making that statement, I have no hesitation in saying to you, is unpardonable and indefensible, because he tried to create in the minds of the people of this country an impression of a state of facts, an impression that is absolutely false and untrue, because 10,000 men were not appointed, as he said in the careful language he used, to take the places of 2,000 men who had been dismissed.
When this statement was made public and the discussion of it commenced, I gave instructions to my deputy minister to have a careful statement made up with regard to my own department, showing the dismissals, the resignations, what . superannuations had taken place, how many deaths had occurred, how many new appointments had been made, and how those who had been appointed were accounted for. Let me read that statement, or give a synopsis of it to the House; and I might say to the hon. member for St. John that it is dated February 25, 1915.
I find that in the Department of Marine and Fisheries Marine Branch, including all Services and all departments, 464 have been dismissed from October 10, 1911, down to the present time. That number was entirely in the outside service; not a single dismissal from the inside service has taken place in my department since I became head of it in 1911.


William F. Carroll: Will that return be brought down?


John Douglas Hazen: It will be laid on the
table of the House at once. The dismissals in the Marine Branch of my 41J
department have been 464, a small number in comparison with the Liberal dismissals made in that department after hon, gentlemen opposite came into power in 1896. In passing, let me say that my hon. friend from Guysboro (Mr. Sinclair) regretted these resignations as being of a most improper character. No wonder my hon. friend is suspicious about resignations, for if he will look at the records of the Civil Service after the year 1896, he will find resignation after resignation that was forced at the very point of the bayonet. And not only that; but he will find that man' after man was removed from the fishery service on the ground that his services were no longer required, yet within a year his place was filled by some henchman of hon. gentlemen opposite. I have pointed out that there have been 464 dismissals in my Marine department. There have also been 340 resignations, and those resignations, so 'far as I know, are bona fide resignations; many of them made, no doubt, by men who had been taking a more active part in politics, and who, when the new Administration came into power, felt that, in view of the course they had taken, they were not justified in -taking office under this Government which they had abused so bitterly. These were all bona fide resignations. What else have we? We find that there were 289 vacancies caused by death, ill-health, old age, superannuation, etc., to which no allusion was made by Professor Shortt in his speech at the People's Forum. Since I came into office, there have been altogether 1,608 appointments in the Department of Marine and Fisheries. How are they accounted for? To fill the places of dismissed officers, 464 to fill vacancies by resignations, 340; to fill the vacancies caused by death, ill-health, old age, superannuation, etc., 289. That makes a total of 1,093 vacancies. The new appointments were 515. How were these new appointments accounted for? Why, my hon. friends opposite are responsible for more than half of the appointments, because they were in consequence of legislation and administrative acts of hon. gentlemen opposite. What are they? We required crews for the Estevan, Bellechasse, and Dollard, all of which were in course of construction and under contract when I became minister. The number of men in those crews is 102. Seven men have been appointed to the Cheticamp life-saving station, and four men to the Prince Rupert buoy depot staff. Twenty lighthouses have been completed, and twenty lightkeepers

appointed. Dredge No. 12 came into commission and required a crew of 31 men; Dredge No. 13, a crew of 31 men; the tug Lavaltrie, 16 men; the tug Laviolette, 16 men; Hopper barge No. 1, 14 men; making in all 241 new appointments made necessary in consequence,' of what took place before this Government came into power. Is there a single gentleman on the other side of the House who will take exception to the appointment of any of those men? Will any of them be so bold as to deny that the appointments are in the public interest, and necessitated by the progress and development of this country?
Let me read to my hon. friends opposite the list of wharves that have been transferred by the Public Works Department, Tinder the law, these wharves when built are transferred to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, and we appoint wharfingers. Twenty-seven wharves have been transferred to our department, to which we have appointed 27 wharfingers. Was it not right that they should be appointed? Would it have been right to leave these wharves uncared for? And let me point out that the pay of these men has not cost the country one single extra dollar, because they are paid a percentage of the fees collected on the boats that use the wharf.


William F. Carroll: How c-ould Professor Shortt give these figures when the return had not been brought down?


John Douglas Hazen: He had no right to make the statement he did without accurate information. Professor Shortt, an officer of this House, an official of this country, took occasion to make a speech that to my mind was animated principally by political animus, and which was for the purpose of discrediting the Government. Professor Shortt not only made a suggestion that was untrue, but practically made an untrue statement in not referring to the complete particulars. Let me continue my statement : fifteen harbours have been proclaimed during the same period, for which harbour masters were required to the number of 15. These men do not receive a salary from the Government, but a percentage of the fees collected at those harbours. To the meteorological stations throughout Canada, 51 new observers were appointed. The meteorological service has been extending very rapidly and is a most useful service. Will any one say that the small amount paid to these observers in the different parts of the country is unjustified, and not in the interests of Canada?

To the two new life-saving stations that have been established since this Government has been in power, 14 men were appointed, and let me say here that when my Estimates are before the House I never meet with any criticism for having too many stations in Canada; the criticism from hon. gentlemen opposite always is that the stations are too few. My hon. friend from Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) has appealed to me on several occasions for more of these stations on tne river and gulf of tne St. Lawrence.


Mr. MARCIL:: The minister will admit
that it is most extraordinary that there should not be a Lie-saving station on-.the St. Lawrence. Only last year 1,200 lives were lost at Rimouski.


John Douglas Hazen: That is exactly wnat 1
was saying. I am finding no fault with my hon. friend. I am saying that I am constantly appealed to by him, and other gentlemen who are anxious for life-saving stations in different parts of the country. My statement has been verified by the hon. member for Bonaventure. No one says that these stations should not have been established, and that the men should not have been appointed.
I find that at the various agencies throughout Canada 16 new clerks have been appointed in consequence of increasing business; and every year more buoys, more lights, and more aids to navigation are required. Parliament makes a very generous appropriation for that service, and we attempt to spend the money in the public interest. One new agent was appointed at Fort William. Fifty-eight new light stations have been established in Canada, to which 58 light keepers have been appointed. One deputy harbour master has been appointed, four port physicians, and four steamboat inspectors. We have a steamboat inspector up in the district north of Edmonton where there was none before, and where the owners of steamers had the greatest difficulty in getting certificates for their vessels. In addition to that, we have appointed two port wardens, who are paid by fees; three receivers of wrecks, who are also paid by fees; one inspecting engineer, and 20 additional clerks to the inside service at Ottawa, whose appointments were necessary in consequence of the increasing business of the department.
That is the statement as far as my own department is concerned. If this return had been on the table of the House-and I have no doubt that a similar statement could be made regarding other departments of the

Government-would Prof. Shortt have been justified in saying that there had been 464 officials dismissed and tKat to take their places 1,608 had been appointed? That would have been quite as fair play as to make the statement he did about 2,000 officials being dismissed and 10,000 appointed in their places. I have no doubt that any other department of the Government could make a statement quite as satisfactory as the statement I have made, and I challenge the most careful scrutiny of this statement which I shall lay on the table of the House. With the introduction of the free rural mail delivery system, with the introduction of the parcel post system, with the extension to the people in outside parts of the facilities and advantages of the post office service, and with the enormous increase that has taken place in the customs revenue, would we not have expected Prof. Shortt, if he had wanted to be fair, to have said to those that he was addressing at the People's Forum on that Sabbath evening:	Of course, as the
country grows, extra officials must be appointed, and with a revenue to be collected $40,000,000 greater than it was before, or with a post office service whose work and income are largely increasing, it is only natural to expect that the country must employ officials to carry on the larger business the several departments have to do. No such idea apparently occurred to the learned professor. He was anxious to make the statement, and after carefully studying it beforehand, and after evidently reading the return which was put before the House, he stated that 2,000 men had been dismissed and that five men had been appointed to take the place of every man who had been dismissed, without reference to the increase in the growth of the business of the country, without reference to the resignations that had taken place, without reference to the superannuations that had taken place, the deaths that had taken place, and other causes <as a result of which officials had to retire from the department in which they had been employed.
This discussion has been precipitated by the right hon. leader of the Opposition. He has brought Prof. Shortt in question before this House. He has brought the whole matter up for consideration. After my experience as a minister of the Crown for a period extending over three years I have no hesitation in saying that I do not think- and I think this is the opinion of my department, when I say my department, I
mean the permanent men in the department -that Prof. Shortt possesses those qualities that make him an efficient member of the Civil Service Commission. In my department we have lived up to the Civil Service Act. When vacancies have occurred we have asked for a recommendation from the Civil Service Commission, and in more than one instance where we have asked that men be sent to the department men have been sent by the Civil Service Commission who were entirely unfit for the work for which we wanted them and to which they were assigned by Prof. Shortt.
Probably Prof. Shortt might have discharged the duties of his position with more credit to himself and more satisfaction to those who are the permanent heads of the different departments had he paid that attention to his duties which the importance of his position demanded. Let me read to this House a letter which, on the 22nd August last, and after the strongest representations had been made to me by the permanent head of my department, I addressed to my right hon. friend the Prime Minister:
Dear Sir Robert:
On the 20th of this month a letter was addressed by the Deputy Minister of Naval Affairs to the secretary of the Civil Service Commission respecting the issue of a certificate of qualification in favour of Mr. Charles Savary whom it is proposed to promote from subdivision A of the second division to subdivision B of the first division.
Mr. Savary is in command of the Cartier, and is in Ottawa at the present time and prepared to undergo his examination.
In reply to the request made by the Deputy Minister a letter was received from the secretary of the Civil Service Commission stating that it would be duly submitted to the commissioners on their return from abroad. Both of the commissioners are absent from Ottawa at the present time and we are informed that nothing in the way of promotion would be done until they returned. It seems to me most undesirable that the work of the commission should be suspended, and arrangements should ha made that one of the commissioners at least he in the office at all times. The action of the commissioners is causing us considerable inconvenience, and no doubt other branches of the Civil Service are being also inconvenienced.
I thought it proper to call your attention to this matter so that on the return of the chairman of the commission arrangements might be made to the effect that that office should always be open and the work carried on.
It may he stated that absolutely nothing is being done through the Civil Service Commission at the present time beyond the merest routine. It seems to me a little less than disgraceful that a time like this should be selected by the commissioners to leave Ottawa when most of the departments of the Government are exerting themselves to the utmost, and that at

such a critical time the important duties of the Civil Service should be neglected.


Mr. MURPHY:: At the time to which the hon. minister alludes, was not Prof. Shortt absent in the old country on Government business?


John Douglas Hazen: On his own business, not on Government business, I am informed. I took it to be my duty, in view of the inconvenience caused in our department, as represented to me by the permanent head of the department, to call the attention of the Prime Minister to the state of affairs on August 22 last, long before Prof. Shortt had delivered his speech at the People's Forum or put himself in a position of antagonism and hostility to the Government. That is what I have said regarding his qualifications for the position, and I have no hesitation in repeating that statement in the most explicit terms as the result of the experience that I have had in dealing with the Commission.
Now, Mr. Speaker, would it not have been fair for the hon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair), when reading to this House the figures he had made up regarding the employees of the Department of the Interior, to have read the note there is on the statement that has been laid on the table of the House in regard to the Department of the Interior? The statement, after giving the number of men dismissed and the appointments and so on, said:
Appointments Include several hundred temporary employees at Ottawa who do not appear among the "dismissed" or "resigned." They were employed under the Civil Service Act for six months or so and allowed to go when their time expired.	*
It would not have served the purpose of the hon. - gentleman to have read to the House that note of explanation in the report handed in by the Minister of the Interior. Nor would it have served his purpose, I suppose, to have read in the return of the Civil Service Commissioners a statement showing that when one man resigned eight were appointed to take his place. Possibly there was work for all those men to do; but any one could make the argument against Prof. Shortt in his own department that for one official who resigned eight officials were appointed to take his place, because the statement appears in the report that one resigned and eight extra employees were appointed to positions in that department. I do not suppose those eight men were appointed to take the place of the one man who

was dismissed. I presume that the work of the Civil Service Commissioners has been increased as the work of the other departments of this Government has been increased, and that therefore they have found it necessary to appoint extra oflicials for the purpose of properly carrying on the work of their department. I do not want to trespass further upon the time of the House. I have given to the House the statement of the Marine Branch of my own department. I regret that it was not laid on the table of the House before; but possibly it is well that such has not been the case, because it would not have been up to date, and I understand that my hon. friend the member for St. John (Mr. Pugs-ley) raised some point because he claimed that the figures of my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) were not up to date.
Speaking from the standpoint of my own department, and I believe I can speak for all the members of this Government, I say that we are prepared for the most careful investigation of this matter, especially as to the new appointments that have been made. They were made in the public interest, and were necessitated by the growth and development of the public work of this country.


William Pugsley: I listened as attentively as I could to the figures given by my hon. friend as to the appointments in his own department, and as I made them out, after he had shown us the necessity for the appointment of various people, there was still left about 100 entirely unaccounted for.


John Douglas Hazen: 
William Pugsley: It is a position for which friends may make a recommendation.


John Douglas Hazen: These stations are scattered all over Canada, and no observer has been appointed except on the recommendation of Mr. Stupart, director of the Meterological Service.
Two life-saving stations, 14 men ; additional clerks required at the various agencies, 15 men. New agent at Fort William.


William Pugsley: Is that a new agent?


John Douglas Hazen: Yes. We used to pay a sum of money indirectly to some other official. In view of the importance of the harbour, we desired to appoint an agent of our own.
Light stations, new, 58; deputy harbour master, 1; port physicians, 4; steamboat inspectors, 4; port wardens . (paid by fee), 2; receiver of wrecks (paid by fees), 3; signal service operators, 2; inspecting engineer, 1; additions, inside service, 20; additions, outside service, 8.
The Canadian Government steamer Arranmore, the steamer that we purchased on account of the extra work that had to be done in Hudson strait and Hudson bay, required a crew of 47 men.


William F. Carroll: -You did not mention that in your first statement.
Mr, HAZEN: I intended to do so. That ought to make a total of 274 new appointments.


William Pugsley: It seems to me that my hon. friends the Minister of 5 p.m. Public Works and the Minister of Marine and Fisheries have both departed somewhat from the point brought up by my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition. The object which I understand my right hon. friend had in view and which he sought to accomplish was that, in fairness to the gentleman occupying such an important position in this country as the chairman of the Civil Service Commission, a gentleman who, while appointed by the Governor in Council, yet is not subject to the control of the Government, but to the control of the two Houses of Parliament, ought to be given an opportunity of justifying the language
which he used upon the occasion referred to.
That, I understand, was the point of the suggestion made by my right hon. friend.
It must be borne in mind that Professor Shortt is not a member of this House. It must be borne in mind that he has been attacked behind his back, attacked where he has no opportunity to defend himself by justifying his statements or proving the truth of the statements he is alleged to have made, and which I have no doubt he did make, at the Forum upon the occasion to which hon. gentlemen have referred.


Mr. COCKSHUTT:: Were the members of the Government present at the Forum when Professor Shortt attacked their policy?


William Pugsley: That was an assembly
which was open to the whole public, including any member of the Government.


William Foster Cockshutt: The meetings of this
House are open to the public, including Professor Shortt.


William Pugsley: But if he spoke in the gallery he would be arrested. Professor Shortt has the right, as any man has, upon the invitation of this House, to appear at the bar to explain his conduct. It does seem to me that the suggestion of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition is only fahAthat this House, together with the Senate, having control over Professor Shortt so far as his continuance in office is concerned, not only has a right to appoint a committee to allow Professor Shortt to be heard and to take the evidence which may be given, but it is its duty to do so. It would be entirely out of place for Professor Shortt to make any reply to the statements made to-day by the Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. It would be unseemly for him to do so. When he was interviewed by the [DOT] newspaper reporter after what had taken place in this House during my observations on the Budget, he very properly said he would not enter into a discussion on the subject, that the statement which he had made was a statement simply based upon the returns which had been laid before the House.


Robert Rogers: The hon. gentleman has hardly completed Professor Shortt's statement, as given in the interview. According to the interview which he gave out to the Free Press, he went further. He not only said he was simply quoting from the return, but said also:

I had no information other than was contained in the return-for instance, I had no information about resignations.
If he had the return, he had the information about resignations.


William Pugsley: He may or may not so far as my knowledge would enable me to speak, because unfortunately we have not been able to see the return.


Arthur Meighen: Professor Shortt did.


William Pugsley: Not the return of all the departments-that has not been brought down.


Mr. BEST:: Then, why did he make the statement ?


William Pugsley: He made it from the returns which he had seen, returns brought down by the departments to which he had access.


Robert Laird Borden: That return showed 3,500 resignations.


William Pugsley: 
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Pugsley: A pall of despair had settled over the country and people were leaving by hundreds, by thousands and by tens of thousands. My hon. friend the Minister of Public Works was there at that time; he knows that what I am saying is true. I speak as one who knows, because I was one of the pioneers in that country.
I went there as far back as 1881, and I have kept in close touch with it ever since. Sir, it was not until a vigorous, progressive and broad immigration policy was inaugurated by the Liberal party that the western country began to develop and its population began to increase. Immigrants came in from the United States, from England, and from practically all civilized countries, and a rapid and continuous expansion took place. That prosperity, progress and development continued until not many months after the present Government came into power; but to-day, in our great western country, and in the east as well, the conditions are practically the same as they were in 1895, not long before the Liberal party came into power.


Mr. CROTHERS:: Was the hon. gentleman supporting the late Government in 1895?


William Pugsley: Many people, Sir, supported the late Government in sorrow, because they saw-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Pugsley: -because they saw that the late Government was doing nothing for the development and expansion of the country.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Pugsley: That was in 1895; that would be about the time that my right hon. friend the Prime Minister,was supporting the Liberal party.


John Douglas Hazen: And my hon. friend himself was supporting the Conservative party at the same time. A fair exchange, perhaps.


William Pugsley: I will not go into that sorrowful tale, with which my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries is so familiar; besides, we have heard so much about it that it is hardly worth while. That was nineteen odd years ago.


John Douglas Hazen: But my hon. friend was reproaching the Prime Minister.


William Pugsley: I did not do so until the Minister of Labour called my attention to the matter, and when one becomes

reminiscent it is not at all out of the way
for him to consider the position occupied by other persons at the time referred to. That is my only excuse for referring to a subject of no importance "so far as this question is concerned. But the point I want to make is that under the Liberal administration, during the whole 15 years of development, prosperity, increased population, increased business, increased customs revenue, increased postal revenue, increased inland revenue, increased revenue in all departments, there never was anything like the increase in the number of employees in a corresponding period of time that there has been during the three years that this Government has been in office.
My hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries has given a list of appointments that have been made in his department. He says that they were to take the places of persons who had been dismissed or who had resigned, or to carry on new branches of the department. But my hon. friend forgets that in addition to that there were a number of employees who were in ill health and a number who had grown old in the service and were incapable of discharging their duties any longer. The services of many of these men, who, as we know, are allowed to remain in the service, doing comparatively little work, might very well be dispensed with. Was it necessary, therefore, for my hon. friend to appoint strong, vigorous young men and women in the place of the 289 old persons who apparently had become unfit for further service? He not only makes these additional appointments of 515 persons, but presumably he fills the places of 289 employees who have grown too old to be of service in the department by appointing younger persons. One would think, therefore, that he must have had a large number of employees in his department whose services were not absolutely necessary. It is common knowledge in this country that this Government has been earnestly endeavouring to make jobs for scores and hundreds of people in various sections of Canada,


An hon. MEMBER:: No.


William Pugsley: I venture to say that the hon. gentleman who protests himself knows as well as I do that this is a fact, and I have no doubt that the same condition prevails in his constituency. Demands were made upon these gentlemen; improperly they yielded to them, and the result has been this enormous and unnecessary
[Mr. Pusjsley.l
increase in the number of employees in the various departments. What does that mean? You have 11,000 [DOT] more employees in the various departments of the Government than there were when this Government came into office in 1911. What does it mean? Is it too much to say that outside of those who are paid by fees, their salaries would average at least $800 or perhaps $1,000 each, taking the whole 11,000? At $1,000 each then, it means the enormous sum of $11,000,000 which has been added to the ordinary current expenditure of this country. It does seem to me that the burthen resting on hon. gentlemen opposite is not simply to condemn us because we bring these matters up, but to show us what have been the increases in the different departments and to justify those increases. To-day the Prime Minister made the motion that you leave the Chair in order to precipitate this discussion. He might, had he desired, have allowed the limited discussion to go on as to what should be done so far 'as Professor Shortt was concerned; but when my right hon. friend moved, that you leave the Chair, immediately the Minister of Public Works entered upon a general discussion as to whether these appointments were justifiable or not, aijd spoke of the increase of the business in his department. He has been followed by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. But they still leave us without this report; they cannot even tell us where it is. It is their business to keep control of it, and, if they cannot get the report, to furnish a copy of it. I have no doubt there is in the Department of Secretary of State a copy of this report. The Secretary of State never submits a return to this House without keeping a copy. I have no doubt there is in each department a copy of the report sent to the Department of State in order that they might make up the general report covering all departments. Is it unreasonable to ask that we should be furnshed with a copy of that report? Is it unreasonable to ask that this House should have an opportunity of looking into that report? It seems to me most unreasonable that we should be denied that opportunity. It looks as if hon. gentlemen were simply seeking to cast dust into the eyes of the people of this country in making assertions of a general character without giving us an opportunity of going into details and questioning the correctness of the statements which they make. I and other members of the House would like an opportunity to see the returns from the different depart-

ments. There is no excuse for not bringing down those returns before this late date. The returns were moved for by a member of this House at the session of 1913-14, but up To to-day, up to this very moment, we have not got the return of the Departfnent of Marine and Fisheries; although my hon. friend the minister has addressed the House with regard to the subject, we find that we have not even his return before us, and we only got the return from the department of the Postmaster General to-day. There are some other departments the returns for which are not yet before the House. There is no justification for that delay. What is the use of members having the right to move for returns when they are to be delayed month after month, the delay running over into the following year. That is the case with returns which were moved for in 191314, so far as this subject is concerned. It is not fair to this House, or to those who wish to discuss the matter, that this return should not be here. Notwithstanding that the returns are not here, knowing as I do something with regard to the condition of this country, I submit that there is no excuse for the enormous number of appointments which have been made. Even in the case of the Department of Public Works, I submit there is no excuse for such a large increase in the number of appointments. The Minister of Public Works speaks of the increase in the work of dredging, and he refers to an increase of from $3,000,000 to $6,000,000. My hon. friend must be wrong in that, because if he will take the Estimates, which can be found in the Blue Book which has been submitted to Parliament, he will find that under dredging, on page 72, there is only $2,307,000. Would my hon. friend be good enough to state how he makes up the difference? Maybe he is right, and it is not contained on page 72, but in some other portion of the Blue Book.


Robert Rogers: The report which I sent over to my hon. friend was made up by the deputy minister, Mr. Hunter. I looked it over with him, and I am satisfied it is correct in every detail.


William Pugsley: At page 72 it gives the dredging for the maritime provinces, for Ontario and Quebec, for Manitoba arid Saskatchewan and Alberta and for British Columbia; it gives the cost of dredging plant in the maritime provinces and the other provinces, and the total is $2,307,000. It may be that- under capital account, on harbours and rivers, there is some additional dredging which may give the increased
amount, but it is certainly not under the head of dredging. My hon. friend says a large increase in the staff has been necessary for the purpose of rushing along the public buildings. I submit that is not justified by the interests of the country. When I was minister there was a large staff in the architectural branch. While the officials worked pretty zealously, I never saw any urgent necessity for making increases in the staff, and I do not think it was necessary for the minister to make increases in that branch of the department.


Robert Rogers: There was occasion for increase by reason of the fact that during the term that you were Minister of Public Works a large number of plans were made by outside architects. We have tried to . change that and to have the plans made inside the department, as far as possible. Therefore the department required an increase in the staff for carrying out the work, especially in view of the fact that the department as a whole was spending only $14,000,000 in 1911, while in 1914 it was spending $23,000,000-just double the amount.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend is spending double the amount of money. That raises another question which we have already discussed as to whether that enormous expenditure of $28,000,000 is really necessary in the interests of the country. It all shows that when this Government came into power they were crazed by the degree of prosperity which they found all around them. They were like a young man, somewhat improvident, coming into a great inheritance; and they went to work to spend money just as rapidly as they could, and so they discovered at once that the late Minister of Public Works had not a sufficiently large staff, he had not enough architects to spend all this Government wanted to spend. The Department of Railways and Canals had not enough engineers to carry out their large ideas in connection with development, so far as that department was concerned, and they proceeded at once, not only to ask Parliament to vote this large additional sum of money, but to enlarge the staff of architects and engineers.
They proceeded right here in the city of Ottawa to rent a large number of new buildings, although when in Opposition they criticised the late Government for the number of buildings which we had rented. They told us then that we had more accommodation than was necessary for properly carrying on the work of the country, but when these gentlemen came into power they at

once proceeded to rent more buildings at a larger rental than we paid. These buildings necessitate a large number of elevator men, a large number of furnace men, and a large number of caretakers, and add enormously, and I think unnecessarily, to the expenses of the country. What my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works ought to have done was to have gone along slowly with the officials already in the employ of the Government. He ou^ht to have been content to spend $12,000,000 in his department. That is a large sum of money. The minister tells us that the Government has erected eighty public buildings in Canada during the past year. Let the minister tell us how many of those buildings were urgently required to meet the public service, and how many of the postal building that have-been erected throughout Canada were actually required. A great many of these post office buildings have been erected in towns whore accommodation was formerly rented for a moderate amount, and served the public interest very well. I have in mind the case of a public building which the Minister of Public Works has erected in a county where accommodation was formerly rented. I do not think the rental could have exceeded $100, and yet the Minister of Public Works has erected a public building there at a cost of some $35,000 or $40,000.


Robert Laird Borden: In what county?


William Pugsley: In my old county of
Kings, N.B. The building is in a small village containing but a few hundred people. A beautiful village it is true, but when I was Minister of Public Works I had stated to Parliament that I proposed putting up there a pretty one-story building to cost about $5,000, which I thought would be ample for the purpose.


Robert Rogers: Did you ever build one for $5,000?


William Pugsley: That was the first occasion on which I thought of putting up a building in such a small town as that.


Mr. J. D. REID:: What about Humboldt?


William Pugsley: Humboldt is two,
three, four, five times the size of the place at which this building had been erected at a cost of some $35,000 or $40,000. What does this mean? Besides the cost of the building there is the cost of heating, the cost of a caretaker, and repairs have to be made from time to time. It will probably mean an expense ten times greater than
fMr. Pugs'ey.]
was previously incurred in that place. And that is merely an instance of what has been done all over this country since this Government came into power. They have erected buildings in places which they stated, when in Opposition, did not require public buildings, and so have added to the public expense all around.
Before taking my seat I wish to say a word or to further on behalf of Professor Shortt, and in support of the suggestion which my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition has made. I for one do not believe that Professor Shortt cares one iota for this Government or for this Opposition. When we were in office, I never saw any evidence that Professor Shortt showed any favouritism towards the late Government. In fact, in many cases the recommendations 1 made were turned down by the Civil Service Commission. But I recognized that the Civil Service Commission was an independent body entitled to the exercise of its own judgment. I recognized 'that it was when it was proposed to make the Civil Service Commission an independent body, that both sides of this House supported the proposition and expected the Civil Service Commission to take .the Civil Service as far as possible out of politics. I have never seen any evidence of partiality towards the Liberal party from that Commission, and I do not believe that Professor Shortt's remarks on the occasion referred to were influenced in the slightest degree by his feeling in favour of the Liberal party or against the Conservative party. I do not think such an idea ever entered his head for a single moment.
The Minister of Marine and Fisheries has referred to the necessity of having some member of the Commission here continually to attend to business. I notice that in the Statutes of 1912 it was provided that the old Civil Service Act should be amended by giving the Governor General power to appoint three members to the Civil Service Commission instead of two. May I ask if that appointment has ever been made?


Robert Laird Borden: No, it has not.


William Pugsley: Why not? My hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries; has read a letter complaining that some of the commissioners were absent. Why has the Government not exercised its power and appointed an additional member of the Civil Service Commission?


Robert Laird Borden: I will give my hon. friend some information when he gets through.


William Pugsley: I shall have no trouble in getting through before six o'clock. I would ask that complete returns from all departments he brought down; not these fragmentary returns, a return from one department one week and another return from another department the next week. If the Government will comply with the order that was passed by this House upwards of a year ago and bring down complete returns so that we can examine them, and if the Government will appoint a day for the discussion of the necessity of making this vast number of appointments, I think they will find a readiness on this side of the House to meet them in that discussion, and to take up the oases of individuals in the different provinces. But I think we have a right to say that we should have these returns before us, so that we can speak with intelligence and a degree of certainty in the matter. I thank my hon. friend from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) for having, after a good deal of effort, dug out some information from an unwilling Government. We have this fact: some 21,000 appointments have been made to fill the vacancies caused by some 10,000 dismissals, deaths, desertions and resignations. That is something, at all events, upon which we can go and something in regard to which I think we have a very good foundation for appealing to the people of this country. I think it justifies the charge which has already been made during this debate that this Government in its appointments at all events, if not in its carrying on of the general administration of affairs, has been guilty of reckless disregard in the way the people's money has been expended. Through mismanagement, and through failure to have due regard to those principles of economy which ought to govern those having charge of the administration of affairs, the Government have brought this country into a position which should give very grave concern to the people, and lead us even now to consider whether it would not be possible to engage on a work of retrenchment, by means of -which many millions of dollars might be annually saved to the people of this country.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, it is no more than justice to the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) to say that the example of debating which he has given the House in the last half-hour is not at all up to the standard of which he is capable upon a subject that he is really interested in and upon which he has something to say. The
hon. gentleman was under the unpleasant necessity of switching from the point of the discussion, into which the Opposition now wish they had never plunged, to a subject as dull, monotonous and time-worn as he could discover, and then engaging in a pathetic effort to drag that discussion along its weary length to as near six o'clock as possible. The discussion arose, with the interposition of the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) on behalf of the chairman of the Civil Service Commission who has been attacked in this House because, on the basis of a return- and one return alone-he made a public statement, though a civil servant of this country, that was at variance with the facts as shown in that return. If he made a statement at variance with the facts, plainly at variance with the facts and calculated to deceive and made it knowingly he made a statement which was dishonourable, dishonest and untrue. Did he make a statement at variance with the facts? Was it plainly at variance with the facts, and must he not have known that it was at variance with the facts? That is the point before the House, nothing more and nothing less. The statement he made, quoted in two newspapers in the city of Ottawa, was that the return, which toe treated as one entity and no more, a copy of which return I hold in my hands, showed that the Government of Canada, since it came into office, had dismissed 2,000 employees of the Civil Service and in then places had put 10,000. That is the report of the Citizen; that is the report of the Ottawa Free Press. That statement is false, that statement is untrue, that statement is misleading, and that statement, on the professor's own showing, was false to tois own knowledge. He says that he had the return, that he knew what was in the return, that that was all he knew, and taking that return and knowing what was in it, he said that there were 2,000 dismissals replaced with 10,000 appointments and nothing said about resignations. Both sentences were false, and he must have known that they were false because he had the return, and what some other return may say has nothing to do with that paper. What does the hon. member (Mr. Pugsley) expect to do for Professor Shortt by asking for an additional return which he says will show that what Professor Shortt said about this return is true? How can an additional return vary the facts of the present return? False! Two thousand dismissals were made, almost 4,000 resignations took

place which we*re mentioned, but beyond the dismissals and beyond the resignations there was an intervening hiatus which Professor Shortt owed it to himself and his audience to explain-the number of deaths, the number of superannuations and more than all, the number of temporary appointments-men who go on for certain purposes temporarily and then are left off the serivce. Why, take, the report of the Post Office Department alone. Who is there who does not know, and no one better than Professor Shortt, that in every town and city in Canada at Christmas time there are many appointments made to the Post Office service? In my own city of about 7,000 people there are every year added to the post office staff one or two. Take that proportion all over Canada and thousands would intervene between resignations and appointments and the total number of-appointees is thereby accounted for.


Mr. W. M. MARTIN:: Does my hon. friend mean to say that these temporary clerks appointed at Christmas time in towns and cities are included under the heading of appointments?


Arthur Meighen: I certainly mean to
say so and I mean to say further that Professor Shortt knew they were so included.


William Melville Martin: They are not so included.


Arthur Meighen: I have the Postmaster General's authority for the statement that they are so included, and I prefer to rely upon it.


Charles Murphy: Is my hon. friend referring to the report brought down by the Postmaster General to-day?


Arthur Meighen: No, I am referring to this return. The hon. gentleman will see, if he looks at the return, that in many instances it is pointed out that temporary appointments are included and that the employees are of the class to which I have referred.


Charles Murphy: The post office return is not in the one that my hon. friend has.


Arthur Meighen: Very well.


Michael Clark: Was the post
office return in the statement to which Professor Shortt referred?


Arthur Meighen: The post office return
was brought down to-day.

Mr. 'CLARK: Then, how could Professor Shortt .know that these temporary appointments were included in the return?


Arthur Meighen: Because it says so in
several of the departments included in the return itself. Now I will read to my hon. friend from Red Deer. I intend to read to him a lot more just a little later, but I will read to him from the return of the Department of the Interior:
Dismissals, 309 ; resignations, 374 ; d&serters, none; punished, none; appointments, 1,651.
There would be a difference of 800 or 900 men. Then, it is said:
The appointments include several hundred temporary employees at Ottawa who do not appear among the " dismissed " or " resigned " They were employed under the Civil Service Act for six months or so and allowed to go wheh their term expired.
In a number of other returns the relation of similar facts will be found and Professor Shortt owed it to his audience and to this Government to make that statement and not the statement he did make.


Mr. DEVLIN:: That does not refer to the postal clerks who were appointed at Christmas time and to whom my hon. friend referred.


Arthur Meighen: My statement as to
postal clerks is absolutely correct. In the return in which postal clerks are referred to the postal clerks taken on at Christmas are included.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: But not in the return to
which Professor Shortt referred.


Arthur Meighen: No, but the same principle applies in both cases and that is what Professor Shortt ignored or rather suppressed. Now is my hon. friend satisfied?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I am satisfied that my hon. friend was wrong.


Arthur Meighen: It takes very little to
satisfy the hon. member. I interposed in this discussion-


William Pugsley: Will my hon. friend
allow me to ask him a question?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly. I make a very great effort to extend to my hon. friend the courtesy which he extended to me.


William Pugsley: I thank my hon. friend for his forgiving Spirit. He said he wanted to have a conversation with my hon. friend the junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean). My hon. friend says he has a copy of a return which none of us on this

side of the House are able to find. Will he he good enough to have a copy of his copy made and laid on the table so that it may be accessible?


Robert Laird Borden: I went to get a copy of the return myself a few days ago and I found it was in the possession of the leader of the Opposition.


Wilfrid Laurier: I will say to
my right hon. friend that he found nothing of the kind. I had a partial return, hut the main return I never had.


Robert Laird Borden: I was informed that it had been in the possession of my right hon. friend and that he had had copies made of it. I asked that one of the copies which had been prepared should be furnished to me and it was furnished to me.


Wilfrid Laurier: My right hon. friend was more clever than I was, because I never had such a report.


Robert Laird Borden: My right hon.
friend was not so diligent about the matter as- I was.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
-'The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. W. F. NICKLE (Kingston):: Mr. Speaker, when this matter was first broached it did not seem one of very great importance, but as the discussion developed, and as two ministers of the Crown, speaking with great deliberation, and without doubt, realizing the weight their words will carry throughout the Dominion, have made certain charges against the chairman of the Civil Service Commission, it seems to me incumbent on this House to seriously consider the matter. If I understood correctly the position of the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), the members of the Civil Service Commission are beyond the control of the Government and can be discharged only on the joint address of the House of Commons and the Senate. It is not my intention to discuss the evidence submitted or the statements made here this afternoon; but I should not be discharging my duty as I see it if I did not explain to the House through you, Sir, that my spirit revolts at the finding of a man guilty on the ex-parte statement of a newspaper correspondent. If the chairman of the. Civil Service Commission is guilty of the improprieties alleged; if Professor Shortt has drawn to himself since he came to Ottawa
the attributes that he is alleged to bear, then I think it is the duty of this House to take into consideration the place that he ought to occupy. Those of us who were more or less interested in Civil Service reform welcomed the appointment of a Civil Service Commission. But when the chairman of the Civil Service Commission is charged with having so far forgotten himself as to become biased and partisan, it seems to me not unreasonable that an inquiry should be set on foot. If the ministers were sincere in the allegations that they have placed before the House and the country this afternoon, then it is incumbent upon the Prime Minister to name a committee of this House, if necessary, to act in conjunction with a committee of the Senate, to inquire fully ipto the conduct of the chairman of the Civil Service Commission. He owes it not only to this House and to each one of us who must bear a certain responsibility for the discharge of the duty of the Civil Service Commission, but he owes it to the country as well. For, if the Civil Service Commission breaks down it must be more difficult for the right hon. leader of the Government to put into effect one of the planks of his Halifax platform -Civil Service reform. I wish to say to the House and to the country through you, that if the condition is as serious as was represented to us this afternoon, I believe that it is incumbent upon the Ministry to name a committee of this kind or to call Professor Shortt before the Bar of this House so that there may be an opportunity for an investigation. If the charges made in this House this afternoon are proven to be true, no one will be more willing than I to see Professor Shortt removed from office. But if the charges are not true, it is not necessary for me to advise the House what should be done, because hon. gentlemen at all times know the courtesy that is demanded towards men who have been wrongly assailed.


Hon. W. T. WHITE (Minister of Finance) :: A few words will suffice for my contribution to this debate. Silence on my part, especially in view of the fact that my department was particularly referred to by the hon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) this afternoon would be unfair to myself. With respect to the return which was referred to, or was alleged to have been referred to, by Professor Shortt in his address on the evening of the 14th February, I requested my department to prepare a statement with respect to that re-

turn, and I am sure that a memorandum from him will be entirely satisfactory to all the members of this House. And I desire, in fairness to myself as I have said, and in fairness to my department, to place the memorandum on Hansard. It is as follows:
The undersigned has had examination made ot the answer rendered by this department to the above question. As in the case of all questions and returns to the House of Commons, the answer is given to the question as asked without argument.
The answer of the Finance Department was divided into two parts, (1) relating to the Finance Department with the office of the Assistant Receiver General, and (2) in relation to what is called Departments Generally, or the Char Service. The latter was included because the question comprehended all services and all departments.
(1) In the ease of the Finance Department proper, the answer was given as follows:
That is the answer that was embodied in the return which was discussed here to-day.
Dismissed	 1
Resigned	 12
Deserted	
Deserters punished	
Appointed	 26
The answer is absolutely correct; but to found an argument upon it as to excessive appointments would lead to error because in the question no mention is made of the members who died, who were superannuated or who were transferred; nor of vacancies existing. The following statement will show the net increase in the period referred to so far as the Finance Department is concerned:
Dismissed	  1
Resigned	 12
Superannuated	 4
Died	   -4
Transferred	 1
Vacancies existing Oct. 10, 1911...	2
Total	 24
Appointments	 26
Net increase	 2
Now, in the return made to the House, if we have regard, as Professor Shortt is reported to have had regard, only to dismissals and resigned employees on the one side and to new appointments on the other, tlie figures would be, for the former 13 and for the latter'26. That is to say, unless the statement were accompanied by the explanation I am now giving, it would appear that we had dismissed one, that twelve had resigned, and that we had appointed twenty-six to do the work that these thirteen had formerly done; whereas in reality the total 
increase in the staff of the department up to the date of the return, was 2. Now, my deputy goes on:
(2) Departments Generally.
In the case of the char service the return
given was as follows:
Dismissed..		 7
Resigned	  22
Deserted	
Deserters punished	  ..
Appointed	199
During that time, however, twelve charwomen died so that the net increase was
as follows:
Dismissed	; .	7
Resigned	 22
Deserters	
Deserters punished	
Died	 12
Total	 41
Appointed	199
Net increase	 158
The statement shows that the net increase was 158, but if the return be interpreted as it is reported to have been interpreted by Prof. Shortt, then the figures would be as follows: dismissed, 7; resigned, 22; total, 29; appointments, 199, a difference of 170. But if Prof. Shortt had inquired-and he might very well have inquired, because no man in the city wias in a better position to do so,- he would have ascertained that the increase in the char services during the period indicated resulted from the Government's occupying the following 24 buildings.


William Pugsley: Additional buildings?


William Thomas White: Additional buildings, as
follows: Central station, Blackburn building, 500 Sussex street building, Eideau club, 69 Vittoria street, Eobinson building, old Union Bank building, 241 Wellington street, Hope building, 6th flat, 223 Queen street building, 328 Queen street building, Quebec Bank building, 265J Wellington street, Masonic Temple building, Booth building, 14 Kent street building, 105 Vittoria street building, Journal building,. 27 Cliff street building, old museum building, biological laboratory, McKay street building, two extra flats in Imperial building, new wing, East block. Unaccompanied by this explanation, it would appear that I had dismissed a number of these worthy charwomen, and had appointed in their stead not the number dismissed, namely 7, but, to do the same work, not less than 199.


Mr. CAEEOLL:: Did you dismiss seven?


William Thomas White: I dismissed none of them. Since I took office I have refrained from

even considering such a trifling question as the dismissal of a charwoman for partisan or other reasons. My hon. friend's suggestion rather shows what would be in his mind if he were here and I were there.


William F. Carroll: I think my hon. friend said that seven were dismissed.


William Thomas White: They were dismissed for
cause by the officers of the department.


An hon. MEMBER:: For political partisanship?


William Thomas White: No, not for political partisanship. The hon. member for the city of St. John rather seemed to suggest that the renting of the buildings may have been unnecessary. The trouble with the hon. member for St. John and certain other gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, who have spoken not only on this occasion but recently in [DOT] connection with the Budget debate as well, is that they evidently labour under the delusion that when they stopped governing, this country stopped growing. I would point out to my hon. friends that the sun continues its daily journey east and west through the heavens, even though a clock may have run down. The hon. member for Red Deer threatens to meet us at Philippi in the Budget debate. We will be there. Let me point out to him that the year before this Government took office the total trade of this country was $750,000,000. The year we took office it was $850,000,000; the next year it was $1,000,000,000, and the next year $1,100,000,000. When we took office the revenue of Canada was $135,000,000; the second year it was $168,000,000-the best by far in the history of the Dominion-and the next year it was $163,000,000. This year, of course, we have the war.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh; the war.


William Thomas White: I am surprised to learn
that hon. gentlemen opposite do not seem to be aware that a war is now proceeding. It has been borne in on me on many occasions; it was borne in on me yesterday. Intellectual as my hon. friend the member for St. John is, he lacks the vision and imagination. While the great allied fleet has been smashing its way through the Dardanelles on the way to Constantinople, and, according to the despatches, the Allies and Turkish troops are in conflict on the plains of Troy, where gods and heroes contended in prehistoric times, what was my hon. friend discussing in this House? The duty upon squid. Reductio ad absurdum- 42
fertilizers and squid. Having regard to the fact that there is in progress a war not only greater than any that has ever occurred in the history of the world, but greater than the aggregate of all wars that have ever taken place I would point out that the people will expect hon. gentlemen to get a proper sense of the perspective of the situation.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: That is not fair.


Mr. MACDONALD :: What were you doing?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order.


William Thomas White: I would suggest that they get a proper sense of perspective in regard to the great war in which we are now engaged. But, to come back to the subject of our discussion, which is* at least more important than the matter of squid-


William Pugsley: I think the Budget mentioned squid.


William Thomas White: It does, but my hon. friend did not understand the Budget.


An hon. MEMBER:: The people will.


William Thomas White: Yes, they do understand it. I would suggest to my hon. friends that they go to the reading room, turn over the pages of the newspapers issued in various parts of the Dominion, and see how many editorials they will find on the Budget.


Mr. GRAHAM:: Quite a number.


William Thomas White: Not many. Some may be found in the paper of my hon. friend in Montreal, but not in many other papers. I wish to say this with regard to the matter under consideration.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Thomas White: If my hon. friends desire that I should speak to the question, I must ask them not to interrupt; if they interrupt, I purpose answering them. I am like the Scotchman who said he was a peaceful man, but if there was any fighting to do he was not going to take any blows lying down.
With regard to the matter under immediate consideration, I desire to say this: I have known Professor Shortt for many years. I have never on any occasion spoken ill of him; I have always spoken well of him. My right hon. friend called attention to a very important matter this afternoon in introducing this subject. He said that Professor Shortt was amenable not to this Government but to Parliament. As I understand the situation, the assertion of my right hon. friend is correct. I desire

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to say further that I have no intention whatever of prejudging this matter. I have seen no contradiction by Professor Shortt of the report of his speech. On the contrary, I have before me an article published in the Ottawa Free Press of February 26 purporting to be an interview with Professor Shortt. There is no denial, so far as I can ascertain, of the report which was published in th.e Citizen on Monday, February 15, the day after Professor Shortt's remarks were made. If Professor Shortt is, as I believe he is, responsible to Parliament, that does not necessarily mean that his actions or conduct may not be criticised in a proper ease by this House. But I would say that, occupying, as he does, a position quasijudicial in its character, it is absolutely incumbent upon Prof. Shortt, or any man who may occupy that position, that he should not in any way- intermeddle, or give the appearance of intermeddling, in party politics, that he should avoid the appearance of being influenced in the slightest degree by partisan considerations, in any statement that he may make. Without going into the question of whether he intentionally made these statements or not, Prof. Shortt is a man of very high intelligence, and he might have known, in fact I think he should have known, that in speaking as he did, he was placing before the public a statement which those to whom it might be of political advantage to use would not hesitate to avail themselves of, as they did, Mr. Speaker, as shown by the Minister of Public Works this afternoon.
Now, of what was Prof. Shortt talking? According to this report he was talking of patronage. Taking my own department, because I have risen only for the purpose of defending it, any one might infer, in so far as the returns from my department form a part of the total returns brought down, that, in the exercise of political patronage, I had dismissed twelve or more employees in the Finance Department and had replaced them with something over two hundred. Now, that would be what the public would gather from the statements made by Prof. Shortt, or alleged to have been made by him, and, so far as I can ascertain, not contradicted by him, in this report which has formed the subject of discussion this afternoon. As I have said, a man in Prof. Shortt's position should be absolutely judicial, absolutely impartial; he should have made his statement in such a way that if the naked figures went out they would be accompanied by such

explanation as	would	set	all thefacts clearly	before	the public.
He failed to do so and the impression went out to the country that this Government had dismissed 2,000 employees and substituted in their place 10,000 employees, and the public would naturally draw the conclusion, and hon. gentlemen opposite fostered that view, because they availed themselves at once of the information, that we had deliberately dismissed, under our powers of patronage, 2,000 employees and substituted 10,000 without additional duties. I say, and I go no further than this because I am not sufficiently familiar with all the facts and hesitate to prejudge the case, that Professor Shortt, in my judgment, was guilty at least of indiscretion, in making a statement of this kind without making also the necessary explanations, which have been given by my colleagues and myself here this afternoon? It is absolutely unfair to us, and has been made use of, presumably to our political disadvantage, by hon. gentlemen opposite, who now make on a question of privilege, an attack upon the Minister of Public Works for resenting the statement which has been used, as 1 have said, presumbaly to the disadvantage of the Government. My own view is that a man occupying a judicial or quasi-judicial position in this country should not interfere in politics at all, and should avoid statements that will reflect upon either the Government of the day or the Opposition. I would ask that from judges on the Bench, and I think we can ask no less from members of the Civil Service Commission.
The hon. member for Bed Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) was disposed to take a charitable view of the matter. He said the fault lay with those who had made use of the figures, in a sense that ProfessoT Shortt did not intend. Then I say he should at once chide his associates on the other side of the House for so quickly taking up, in a time of alleged truce, this statement, shown this afternoon to have been in substance and in fact absolutely false, and passing it on to the country for the truth, when it is not the truth, as I have shown conclusively in connection with my department, and as some of my colleagues have shown conclusively in connection with their departments. I would say that the judicial spirit, a spirit of the most strict and scrupulous impartiality, should be ex-

hibited by 'every member of the Civil Service Commission, because, as in the case of the judiciary, I hold that confidence, the confidence of every one in this House, of both parties, and of the Government and Opposition, confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the members of that tribunal, is the very foundation and basis of its usefulness.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What does the hon. minister think of the suggestion of the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle) as to.how this matter should be disposed of?


William Thomas White: I think over a great number of things that my hon. friend puts forward, and probably he would not mind if I would think over this suggestion also.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Mr. Speaker, I do not intervene in this debate for the purpose of discussing the relative merits of the understanding of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) and of Professor Shortt. The Minister of Public Works was discussing the return of his own department, and, as I understand it, Professor Shortt was discussing the returns of the different departments of the Government. But I would like to say a word respecting the appointments to the inside service and to the outside service, since the right hon. the Prime Minister has given us this opportunity, and we may not have another opportunity this session. But just before entering upon the very few remarks I propose to make, I would like to say to the Minister of Finance that we on this side of the House have always considered him too big a man to make a statement such as he made a few moments ago, when he said that we upon this side of the House do not thoroughly appreciate the gravity of the situation which confronts the Empire. I say that as regards myself, at least, and I am sure as regards every hon. member upon this side of the House, no more dishonourable, no more dishonest, no more unfair statement, Sir, has ever been made in this House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I wish to say to the hon. member that the use . of such language is not permissible. He cannot apply such a word as " dishonourable " to a statement made-by a member of the House.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Take it back.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I will take back anything which is against the rules of the House. I am not applying the words to the statement made by the Minister of Finance.
42i
I am saying, Sir, and I repeat, that so far as the statement refers to members of this House, no more dishonourable, no more dishonest, and no more unfair statement could be made.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The hon. member cannot evade the rules in an indirect way. By the rules of debate, it is not permissible to impute dishonourable motives to any hon. member in this House.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I submit to your ruling,
Sir, as I always do in this House. I will it vould be dishonourable, dishonest, and unfair for any hon. member of this House to have, upon the subject of the war confronting the British Empire at the present moment, feelings such as the Minister of Finance would have the House believe that hon. gentlemen on this side of House possess. Am I within the rules of the House, Mr. Speaker? I presume the only object of the Minister of Finance in making such a statement was to lead the country to believe that the Opposition, in discussing the Budget or any question which comes before the House, was trying to prevent the Government from carrying out all measures necessary, in their judgment, for the defence of this country. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that we upon this side of the House have as keen a sense of our responsibilities as members of this House as those who have imputed to us such unfair, dishonest and dishonourable conduct. I want to say further, that there are too many men fighting the battles of the motherland on the battlefields of Europe at the present time and directly related to us on this side of the House to allow us to forget for a single moment this awful war, if we had absolutely no other reason to remind us of our duties in this conflict.
I have but a few words to add concerning the Civil Service of this country. At Halifax the right hon. the Premier made the following statement:
A thorough and complete reformation of the laws relating to the Civil Service should be put into effect, so that future appointments shall be made by an independent commission acting upon the report of examiners after competitive examination. I am convinced that we shall perform a great public duty by establishing in this country that system which prevails in Great Britain, under which a member of parliament has practically no voice in or control over any appointment to the Civil Service.
To use the power of filling positions in the public service as a reward for party service and without regard to the character and capacity of the individual selected is a gross


G60 COMMONS
[Stage Direction]
breach of a solemn public trust... A private trustee so dishonouring- his office would be subject to punishment by the criminal law.
When the right hon. Prime Minister made that statement the country believed that he intended to reform the Civil Service. Following that solemn pledge given to the people of this country, the Prime Minister brought from England Sir George Murray. Sir George Murray made a report upon the Civil Service. A great sum of money was spent in connection with the report but no action was taken upon it. Carrying out his pledge still further, the Prime Minister had investigating commissioners appointed throughout the country, to investigate into the acts of civil servants during the campaign of 1911. When the investigating commissioners found that civil servants were taking part in the elections, another step was taken, if not in all cases, at least in some which have come to my attention. The employee was very politely asked for his resignation. If he did not resign he would be dismissed. The employee consequently tendered his resignation under compulsion, knowing'that the alternative would be dismissal. As many Grits as possible were got out of the service in that way, and we now find that to take the place of some two- or four thousand civil servants- I am indifferent as to the figures-some ten or eleven thousand were appointed. Of course it is simply a question of proportion just how many Tories we required to take the place of a Grit. But if three Tories are necessary to take the place of one Grit who has been dismissed, and the country has to pay these three Tories, I think the country will say that it would have been better to leave that Grit in his place, and certainly cheaper for the country.
This patronage question has always been a disturbing one in this country. During some eight years I have had considerable experience in patronage myself, and I know pretty will what I am speaking of. I do not think there is an lion, member upon either side of the House who, if he spoke the truth, would not say that he would like to see patronage abolished. I am not speaking in a carping spirit, and I do not want to attack the Government or to lay any unnecessary blame upon it. I should like to see the Government find some way of remedying the condition of the outside service in this country. I understand that my right hon. friend could not very well place the whole outside service under one central commission. The right hon. gentleman has found fault with what the Liberal party
[Mr. Devlin. 3
have done. We undertook to reform the Civil Service. We began by appointing a commission to deal with the inside service, and in time we would have reached the outside service. But the party which replaced the Liberal party has not yet been able to come before the country and say w'hat they purpose to do to reform this iniquitous system. How well I remember the Minister of Trade and Commerce holding up his hands with horror and saying:	This system of patronage is
iniquitous; you are appointing men to office upon the recommendation of members of Parliament; such a state of things should not exist. Mr. Speaker, I, too, believe that such things should not exist. I feel that if it were possible to deal with the outside service as a great employer deals with his help, it would be a great deal better for the country, and a great deal better for the members supporting the Government. It takes away from the usefulness of a Government supporter to be continually harassed by demands for Government positions. Take the case of the Minister of Public Works. I do not suppose there is a better natured man in the Cabinet than he. But what can he do? A dozen or twenty members get after him for appointments of their friends to the outside service. He would like to refuse, but he cannot; he is too good-hearted. Besides he is not paying the salaries himself; the country pays them. And so he takes on twenty or thirty or forty or a thousand or two thousand. It does not matter to him. Let the country pay. He is a good fellow, and the members will continue to support the Government. The late Postmaster General was even a better natured man than my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works, for according to a return brought down he appointed some nine thousand men. / He showed better nature there than I think any man in this House would have given him credit for.
Just a word of recommendation to the Prime Minister in closing? Get busy in connection with the patronage system.	It has given trouble at all
times in this country. It has been reported that during a coalition Government, the Government was upset because the members supporting the Liberal party could not conciliate the Tory end of the Cabinet, and the Tories could not satisfy the Liberal end in the matter of appointments.
I feel that the Prime Minister would like to do something better, and it is now time

6G1
for him to find some way in which to improve the outside service. I am very sorry that at the beginning of my remarks I may have been a little harsher with my lion, friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. White) than I had meant to be, but I know that he will not bear me any ill will.
William Thomas White: Not a bit.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: At this critical time in the Empire's history we all have a pretty strong feeling on the question of the war.


Hon. T. CHASE CASGRAIN (Postmaster "General):: Mr., Speaker, as I represent in this House what has been described as the most. offending department of the Government, I desire to say a few words in defence of the administration of the Post Office Department. The hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Devlin) has said that it appears by the return which was produced here this afternoon that my predecessor made about 9,000 appointments during the three years covered by the return brought down. Although I hold no brief for my predecessor, Hon. L. P. Pelletier, who enjoys the reputation, in this House and in this country, of having been one of the best administrators that ever presided over the Post Office Department, I feel that it is my duty to answer the statement made by the hon. member (Mr. Devlin). I shall give a few figures to show the number of employees in the Post Office Department, and the extent of the business done by the department, during the last three years, which will, I believe, justify the increase in the number of employees. Do hon. gentlemen know that in the department in Ottawa we have over 700 employees, that outside of the department we have 8,000 employees, and that there are over 15,000 postmasters, making a total of about 23,700 employees, and, therefore, if within the last three years 8,000 or 9,000 appointments have been made, it need sui'prise no one. Hon. gentlemen upon the other side of the House will admit that during the greater portion of this period the business of the country was growing by leaps and bounds, and that, under such circumstances, it was not at all strange that 9,000 new appointments should have been made? The Post Office Department is not essentially a revenue producing department; it renders a public service to the country, which, to be effective, and to meet the demands of our modern civilization must be the very best that money can procure. I conceive it to be the duty of the Postmaster General to make our postal service as perfect as possible, and that is the duty I have set before me to discharge,
whether I have a surplus in the department or whether I have a deficit. The post office cannot stand still; it must progress with the progress of Canada.
Let me refer to the reports of the Post Office Department for the last two years. I find in the report of the Postmaster General for the year ended March 31, 1913-


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: Why not take the report for the year 1914?


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: I am coming to that, if my hon. friend will possess his soul in patience for one minute; it is a better report than the report for 1913 and I am leaving the choice morsel for the last. The report for 1913 says:
There has been an increase of 2,151 miles in the extent of the system over which mails are carried by railway. The number of miles which mails have been carried by railway and water routes, and ordinary land routes is greater by 2,264,362 miles than it was for the year before.
The estimated increase in the number of letters and post cards sent during the year is
73.252.000,	which is about 11% per cent more than the figures of 1912.
Owing to the growth of the service in the directions mentioned, the expenditure has increased by $1,710,769.10, as compared with last year, but there was a surplus front the operation of the service which amounts to $1,177,671.86.
Then by the report for the year ended March 31, 1914. We find that there was an increase of 350 in the number of post office money order offices, and an increase of 38 in the number of post office savings bank offices. There was an increase of 648 in the number of new post offices which, multiplied by three, for the three years for which the report has been brought down, would give an increase of over 1,800 new post offices, with a corresponding increase in the number of employees in those offices. The report for 1914 says:
There has been an increase of 913 miles in the extent of the system over which the mails are carried by railway. The number of miles which mails have been carried by railway and water routes, and ordinary land routes is greater by 4,278,257 miles than it was for the year before.
The estimated increase in the number of letters and post cards sent during the year is
43.519.000,	which is about 6J per cent more than the figures of 1913.
The number of rural mail delivery routes has been increased by 940, and over 48,000 boxes have been erected on these additional routes.
One must also take into account the establishment of the parcel post, which necessitated the appointment of quite a number of new employees.

1 repeat that the post office service cannot stand still, that it must keep on growing with the country, that an increasing number of employees is necessary to give a good service as the business increases, and that the department and the Government, instead of being blamed, as they have been blamed by hon. gentlemen opposite to-day, should have been eulogized and lauded for what they have done.	*
Let me call your attention to one or two facts. I wonder how many hon. gentlemen have ever been in the post office in the city of Toronto. I visited the post office in Toronto in the month of December last and I was astonished to see the increase in the business of that office and the volume of business carried on there. I observed the businesslike way in which the employees were working and that every employee was absolutely intent upon doing his work and doing it well. Do hon. gentlemen realise that within the last two or three years the business of the Toronto post office has so increased that to-day there is more business being done in the Toronto office than in the post offices in Montreal and in Winnipeg combined? It was incumbent upon the Post Office Department to man the Toronto post office so that that great and enterprising city should have a post office worthy of it. The city of Montreal is increasing in population at the rate of 50,000 a year. Do hon. gentlemen opposite think that the post office service in that growing city should be allowed to stand still? Surely it was good business to keep up with the times and so it was necessary to increase the number of employees in the post office in Montreal during the last two or three years.
Something has been said by my hon. friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) as to the report which was brought down and which includes in it the 9,000 employees who appeared to have been appointed during the last three years. I am told by the responsible officers of the department that this figure of 9,000 includes the temporary employees who are appointed for the rush seasons at Christmas and New Nears, and that it includes also the employees whom the Post Office Department is obliged to take on during the summer months when a very considerable number of the ordinary employees are given their holidays. If you take the increased business of the post offices in the great cities into consideration, the establishment of new post offices and new systems, if you remember that in the interests of the whole com-
munity the post office service cannot be allowed to stand still while the country is making progress, and if you take into consideration the further fact that the number which is mentioned in that report embraces not only all the employees who have been appointed permanently but the temporary employees also, you must come to the conclusion that as to the Post Office Department we are able confidently to come before Parliament to justify our policy.


John Dowsley Reid: I do not wish to prolong this debate; but as Professor Shortt has paid a little attention to my department, I feel that it would not be fair to that department to let this discussion close without making a few remarks. The remarks of Professor Shortt that apply to my department are comprised in this short statement:
Professor Shortt asked:	" Who took the
places of the 2,000 civil servants who were reported in the House the other day to have been dismissed from the service?" His reply to his own question was, " Just 10,000."
In the return submitted from my department, the question was asked: How many dismissals? The answer was: 271. In addition to that there was question No. 2: How many resignations? The answer was: 194 resignations. Professor Shortt, in his statement, never referred to the resignations; and therefore, as far as the Customs is concerned, I do not hesitate to say that his statement was false and untrue and dishonest in every shape and form. I also do not hesitate to say, knowing Professor Shortt, that the statement was made deliberately for the purpose of influencing the electorate of this country politically against this Government.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What does the
hon. member know about Professor Shortt to make him believe that this statement was deliberately dishonest?


John Dowsley Reid: Deliberately dishonest because he did not include some of the answers in the return brought down.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: That is not answering
my question. The minister says his knowledge of Professor Shortt led him to the conclusion that that statement was deliberately dishonest.


John Dowsley Reid: Professor Shortt, before he
became Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, was a bitter politician, and from that time forward I have never learned that he has changed in that respect.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Then, are all politicians or men interested in politics dishonest?


John Dowsley Reid: Certainly not. I would not
for one moment make that charge.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: That is what you say.


John Dowsley Reid: I wish to state that if any
man is appointed to and continues in a Government position, if he uses it for political purposes, he is dishonest.
I would not for one moment attribute anything unfair to the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean), but I rose more particularly to correct a statement which he made, because I fear that it may go to the public and they may believe him where they will not believe Professor Shortt. If my hon. friend will refer to page 387 of the L'nrevised Hansard, when the hon. junior member for Halifax-
Mr. SPEAKER* Order. It is not permissible to refer to a previous debate.


John Dowsley Reid: When the hon. member was addressing this House with reference to my department on the 23rd of January last, he made the statement that a return showed that in about two years in the customs service there were 271 dismissals.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I think the minister
should have an opportunity of making his statement.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order. The hon. member cannot hope to evade the rule of the House in that way.


John Dowsley Reid: I do not wish to evade the
rule of the House, but I wish to say that I have heard the hon. junior 9 p.m. member for Halifax make the statement that a return brought down in this House showed that there were 271 dismissals and 1,659 appointments. When he made that statement, I claim that in fairness to the Customs Department he should have stated also that the return showed 271 dismissals and 194 resignations. In other words, he made the same mistake as Professor Shortt did when he was making his speech in Ottawa on that Sunday evening. It was unfair to the Customs Department for the junior member for Halifax to let a statement of that kind go to the public from this House. If I did not take this opportunity of correcting his statement it would not be fair to my department.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: At the time I made the statement, I did not know about the resignations.


John Dowsley Reid: I take that answer as correct; but if I remember aright the hon. member's statement, he said he had a return that justified that statement.


William F. Carroll: Does the hon. member
know the number of desertions in his department?


John Dowsley Reid: gaged them all the way up to seventy-five or eighty years of' age, putting men into the service who were absolutely of no use whatever. After getting into power the Liberals thought it would be better to have a commission with Professor Shortt as chairman. Professor Shortt has ability, there is no doubt about that; but he certainly was a politician and a good one for the Liberal party. He started out to reform the Civil Service, and he was going to show how he could improve it by means of examinations. If I want a customs officer to-day, I have to get one who will answer questions, samples of which I will give. And when I quote these questions, I would like to know if there is a man in this House, from the right hon. gentleman who leads the House, down to the humblest member, who can answer them. If we want a locker, simply a man to open cases, etc., a labouring man, he has to pass an examination and to get a certain proportion of marks in each subject. For instance, he has to know a little about geography, so he is supposed to answer this question:
In what sections of Canada is lumbering an important industry? Where does the lumber for each section find a market?
From what places in western Europe do Canadians get silk, cotton goods, woollens, oranges, steel ?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Are not those proper questions relating to the customs ? l


John Dowsley Reid: They are not improper if you can get a man to answer them. But I venture to say the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) could not answer them himself. Now, if I want a clerk, he has to be able to answer some questions in history such as the following:
What were the Crusades? When did they take place? Name some important events connected with them.
Give an account of the French revolution of 1791, as follows: (a) Causes; (b) Prominent men who took part; (c) Important events.
He must know something of grammar, of course, and so he is asked to parse each italicised word and phrase in an extract which is given. And he is virtually told: If you cannot parse these words you cannot get into the Customs service.


George Perry Graham: Cannot parse.


John Dowsley Reid: Here are more questions in geography:
Where do the people of Great Britain and Ireland obtain the raw materials for the manufacture of silk, tobacco, cotton, woollen and leather goods?

Compare the climate of Manitoba with that of England. What natural conditions cause the difference?
Perhaps I ought not to give more for fear of making the whole Civil Service look ridiculous. But let me give one or two questions in arithmetic:
A person watches a train and finds that it takes 17 seconds to pass him. The train is 374 feet long. At what rate in miles per hour is the train travelling?
A starts on a journey at the rate of 3 miles an hour; 6 hours afterwards B starts after him at the rate of 4 miles an hour. How far will B travel before he overtakes A?
How many days will it take 30 men to do a piece of work which 20 men can do in 45 days ?
Now, let me give a few figures as to my own department. In the inside service, in October, 1911, we had 198 employees, and in January of this year we had 232 employees, an increase of 34. In the outside service, I admit, there has been a large increase. We had 2,273 officers in October, 1910-11, and 3,144 in January, 1914-15, an increase of 871. But let me point out that our revenue for 1911 was $73,312,367.50, while in 1914 our customs revenue was $107,179,360.33. In
1910-11 we had customs entries to the number of 1,387,310 inwards and 404,664 outwards. In 1913-14 we bad 1,898,110 inwards and 507,224 outwards, or, in round numbers half a million more entries inwards and a hundred thousand more outwards.


George Perry Graham: Like the appointments- more inward than outward.


John Dowsley Reid: There was good reason for every appointment made. The hon. member for South Renfrew knows, perhaps better than anybody else, the policy of his own party when they came into power. He knows that they dismissed every man on the St. Lawrence canals and then put on the same number as had been formerly employed.


George Perry Graham: But there were not half so many as there are now.


John Dowsley Reid: There are no more on the canals now than there were when the Liberals turned these men out.


Charles Murphy: Not in winter time.


John Dowsley Reid: Talking of the winter time, when the Liberal party was in power they spent $35,000 in keeping the canals lighted, though they were all frozen up. I have shown that in my department there was a Very large increase.


Charles Marcil: What is the revenue up to the first of the present month?


John Dowsley Reid: I have not those figures before me, but I am very glad to be able to tell the hon. member that the revenue for last month was about $250,000 higher than for the same month last year.


William Melville Martin: And the war still on?


John Dowsley Reid: So far as the increase in the number of employees is concerned, the Customs Department is in the same position as the Post Oflice Department. We have opened some 54 new outports. We have had demands from the collectors of the large ports-Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Victoria and other important centres- for more employees; we have not appointed any more officials than the collectors and inspectors reported to be absolutely necessary. I think it will be agreed that in view of the large increase in revenue, very many morei officials were required. The people will know, from the statements of fact that have been made from time to time in this House, that we were justified in increasing the number of employees in the Department of Customs. I rose not particularly to explain this phase of the question, but to correct the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) and to point out that the assertions that I heard him make in this House are not in accordance with the return that was brought down. The people will know, therefore, that the statement made by the hon. member cannot be accepted as a justifiable charge against the Customs Department.
Having regard to the utterances of Prof. Shortt, I care very little what assertions go forth in respect of my department. We all know what he is politically; we all know what he would do so far as the Civil Service and the Government are concerned. I believe that Prof. Shortt's statements were made deliberately to injure the Government, and I feel that after making those statements he is not entitled to very much consideration from this House, from the Government, or from the people of Canada.


Mr. D. D. McKENZIE (North Cape Breton):: There are a number of reasons
why I should take part in this debate, but the chief one is that I could not resist the temptation to take advantage of the inspiration which would be afforded me by following the very excellent discourse which we have received from the Minister of Customs on the educational development
of this country. I consider it a great pity that a man like the Minister of Customs should be obliged to devote himself to adding up columns of figures and worrying about customs houses and that sort of thing when the educational development of Canada is in need of his assistance. I endeavoured to follow him in the remarks which he made-I am an old school teacher -but in many respects he was a little too swift for me. I thought I would have some fun with him on the question of parsing, but he carefully avoided that subject; I do not think he is particularly fond of parsing. He kept away from analysis, too; analysis was never his forte. I have listened to his speeches in this House for the last 10 or 12 years, and I am in a position to say that, they certainly would not stand much analysis. His composition is heresy of the first water; his theology is blasphemy. If there is any method by which the Prime Minister can make a shuffle in the Cabinet and have some one else take the position of Minister of Customs, I would advise him to do so, thus giving the country the benefit of my hon. friend's services as an educationalist-* because that is his proper sphere.
The hon. minister was wont in the course of his remarkk to discard almost everything as being too difficult. I wonder if he would permit us to discard certain difficult portions of the multiplication table. When I was learning the multiplication table I remember that seven times nine times were regarded as exceedingly difficult; perhaps the riiinister would, in his capacity as educationalist, direct his efforts towards having these portions of the multiplication table discarded. My hon. friend's attitude reminds me forcibly of the story of the negro who had three things to look after, two blast furnaces and a locomotive. Reporting in the morning, he said: The fires in the furnaces burned out and they were useless all night, and the locomotive was out of order; otherwise, everything was all right. The minister was coming down the scale so rapidly and throwing away everything as he came along' that I thought he was not going to approve of anything. It would seem that the babe as he came from the cradle is the kind of officer my hon. friend wants "for his department.
As to history, my hon. friend no doubt appreciates the fact that the history of the Tory party would be exceedingly embarrassing. As to geography, why should a Tory know where he is or where he is going? In respect of ordinary mathematics, particularly with regard to the cost of

things, the minister and his friends do not bother their heads very much. These things are all very embarrassing to my hon. friend; all defences-if the Prime Minister will pardon my referring to a stale legal phrase-are embarrassing. I would suggest that the Prime Minister give the Minister of Customs a free hand, and let him adopt as his ideal the style of education which Adam had when he was fresh from the hands of the Creator. I should like to find out from my hon. friend the kind of syllabus that he would prepare for submission to the high educationalists of the province of Ontario. So much for the question of education.
I know enough about the Prime Minister to believe that he would like to give everybody a fair show and a fair trial. I do not believe that the atmosphere with which he is now surrounded would change his attitude in that respect. The right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition has brought up a question which involves affording a gentleman who holds a high office in this country, a servant of the people, an opportunity of defending himself and of explaining his position. This high court of Parliament is not open to him; his position is such that he cannot very well defend himself on the platform. He has no right to ask a minister of the Government or anybody else in this House to meet him on the hustings for the purpose of discussing the matter, and he is, therefore, shut out from the ordinary means of defence which are open to other persons. I think, therefore, that it is but fair and proper that the right hon. leader of the Opposition should bring this matter to the attention of the House. I am sorry to find that the matter was dealt with in such a harsh and turbulent manner by hon. gentlemen on the Government side of the House.
I observed to-day that the Minister of Marine was running at very high tension and on very high gear shortly after he commenced speakiug. When the Minister of Marine has only very poor grist the mill goes at a tremendous rate of speed, the wheels sound very high; and I should not wish for any better evidence of very poor substance and very poor grist for his mill than the speed at which he was going to-day. He had nothing, and so it was like him to pour a continuous tirade of abuse on this man Shortt, who is not here to defend himself. I submit, with all candour, that I do not think it is an evidence of bravery on the part of big men to get absolutely fortified within the walls of this House, and, t under the privileges which are theirs by 
reason of being members of Parliament, abuse a poor fellow who is tied hand and foot and cannot answer for himself. I am pleased to know that there was' not very much of a case made out against this man Shortt. The awful noise that was made about his mis-statement turns out in this way: He says that 10,000 men were appointed anew by this Administration, within the last few years, over and above filling every office that fell vacant by any of the different ways by which vacancies occur. A return was brought down, or a calculation made from a return, which shows that not only
8.000	or 10,000 but 11,000 appointments were made, after providing for every resignation and every dismissal. That is the statement made by the hon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) as I understand it. That is not all. There are some departments yet to be heard from. If it is true, and it is from the records of the different departments, that
11.000	extra appointments have been made oyer and above the number in office when this Government came into power, what is the trouble over the statement made by Professor Shortt? It reminds me of an old man I once knew who made a great fuss because some one said he was twenty pounds in debt. He said it was scoundrelly, rascally, and unfair- I am now following the vocabulary of the Minister of Marine-that he was not twenty pounds in debt. He was asked what his debt was, and he said it was not twenty pounds; it was 19 pounds, 19 shillings, and tuppence, which was just a half penny short of the twenty pounds. Even if Professor Shortt said that 10,000 had been appointed, what is the fuss about? He said 10,000 or 8,000, and we find 11,000 new men appointed. If that is true, why should there be such a fuss about it? It is simply proving that perhaps Prof. Shortt did not make his statement exactly in a way that would suit hon. gentlemen, but when it is all boiled down, when you come down to the hard facts, to brass tacks as the saying is, if $11,000,000 must be provided this year over the amount provided in 1911 to pay for the Civil Service, and only to provide for new appointments, there is no particular fault to be found with Professor Shortt except that he made that statement publicly. It has been said here that this man is a narrow partisan. I never so understood from any one I have talked with. I have not the honour of his acquaintance, but members beside me speak of him as rather an austere man,

who would not give way to anybody, who held opinions of his own and would not give them up. The first time I ever heard of him in Nova Scotia was when he was selected as chairman of a board of conciliation by the other members of the board, who agreed that- he was a man eminently fair and just, and suitable to preside over a board to bring about a settlement of a labour dispute. From that day to this I have never heard of him as being a narrow partisan. However, be that as it may, I hope he will get justice at the hands of the Government, and if there is any defence necessary that he shall be given the fullest opportunity of making it.
The Minister of Marine and Fisheries was very austere this afternoon about members of the Civil Service or any one who was receiving money from the Government for services, doing anything but just properly earning the salary paid to them. I wish to see how he is carrying out this austere system in his own department. I wish to know if he has kept his officers in the department over which he so ably presides right down to the rule which he laid down for Professor Shortt. Last winter, from my place in this House, I asked him- if a certain man in Nova Scotia, named Fraser, residing in Queens county, was an officer in his department. He told me that he was an officer in his department. I find this winter that he is still an officer in his department. I find that in February last he was an officer in his department, and when he should have been looking after the affairs of his office and earning money for the minister, where do I find him ? I find him away down in the extreme northern part of the province of Nova Scotia, in the county of Victoria, electioneering. And what is said about him ? A certain trial took place down there, and a certain judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia made certain findings, one of them being:
The following persons have, in my judgment, been proven at the trial to have been guilty of corrupt practices in this election,
Then he gives a long string of names. In that string is the servant of my hon. friend, W. E. Fraser, of Liverpool, Queens county, N.S. In that list the judge finds twenty-three men, exactly in the same category as the representative of my hon. friend the minister, and he finds them all guilty under the same charge. I submit to all the members of the Government, that not less than seventy-five per cent of that list are officials of this Government, men who
are in the pay of this Government, who had gone out of their offices and so conducted themselves that this judge, who is certainly not anxious to find harsh things, unless he has to, finds twenty-three of them guilty, and so says in his judgment. This very matter was brought to the notice of the minister about a year ago, but he has never made the slightest inquiry as to how this man Fraser was attending to his business. He is .still in the pay of the Government and will continue to be, and his salary will probably be raised owing to his useful ser vices in the elections. That is only a sample of the way that public servants are basking in the sunshine of this Administration, knowing that the more they do in the way of political rascalities, the better they will be paid and the better they will be liked.
There is another matter which, in justice to myself, it is_ obligatory on me to bring to. the notice of the House. I am particularly pleased that the Minister of Customs is in his seat, because, despite his regard for care and fairness, he has lately been exceedingly unfair to myself.
I see by yesterday's Hansard that he says that a certain statement I made in this House last year is untrue. I take it, Mr. Speaker, that I am permitted to look at last year's Hansard, and that I am not violating any rule in doing so. It was rather a strong thing for the Minister to say that I made a false statement, without ever asking me, who am a member of thiB House, whether the statement was false or not. If I made a statement in this House, and the minister in answering a question found it necessary to settle a question of fact one way or the other, I think under those circumstances a member of this House can expect to be given an opportunity of stating how he understood the facts before a minister undertakes to say, without ever consulting the member, that his statement is false. The question I am referring to appears on page 646 of Hansard, and was asked yesterday by the hon. member for Guysborough. The question was in respect to the services of Mr. Duchemin, who has been in the service of the Government for the greater part of the last two years. It has been found that that gentleman received last year money out of the coffers of this country to the extent of something like $6,380.48, and it is only fair that we who are to some extent responsible to the people should make inquiry as to how he earned that money. Last year, in my place in this

House, when the Estimates of the Minister of Public Works were going through, I made a statement which appears on page 5238 of last year's Hansard, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and in justice to myself, I am obliged to read the very short statement that I made on that occasion. I wish to read it with a view to showing that what I said about Mr. Duchemin, who is a servant of this country, was in my judgment absolutely correct then, and is ahsolutoJv correct now; aud when the minister undertook, in answering a question, to make the bald statement that I did not state the truth, I submit that he was in error and did not fully inquire into the facts. This is what I said when this matter was up last year:
Mr. McKenzie:	I wish to refer briefly to investigations 'held under the Inquiries Act. In Nova Scotia we had headsmen in each county, sometimes one headsman for more than one county. In North Cape Breton and Victoria, in fact all the counties of Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia, we had a commissioner named Duchemin, who was a very active commissioner. I understand that the Orders in Council appointing those commissioners fixed their salaries at $15 dollars a day with incidentals, and they only received $15 no matter how many inquiries they conducted in one day. Mr. Duchemin is a man of my own profession, a barrister of some standing, a strong temperance advocate, a man who stands high in his church, and besides all his other virtues he is the editor of the Tory organ, the Sydney Post, in the city of Sydney. Being a prominent man and always preaching righteousness and truthfulness and honesty through his paper and on the platform, it strikes one as peculiar that there should be anything but the most rigid particularity and punctuality about anything that he would do. A man of such high standing would be expected to be very particular when he would come to deal with money matters in which he was personally interested, and where his own personal interests were put in contradistinction to those of the country. On September 6, 1912, Mr. Duchemin held court at a place called Big Bras D'Or in the county of Victoria. He there examined Captain George Livingstone, Captain Roderick McDonald, D. J. Morrison and H. G. McKay, Roderick Bain and Roderick McLeod. These investigations were held between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Under the Order in Council Mr. Duchemin would be entitled to $15 for the afternoon's services, besides his travelling expenses, etc. But I find that he submitted to the department six different bills with a full charge in every one of the bills, charging for that afternoon $128.95, while $20 would be about what he was entitled to. The items of the accounts, six of which are exactly alike, are as follows:
To travel, issuing notices, subpoenas,
etc., conducting inquiries	..	..	$15.00" Allowance for living	expenses	....	2.50' Perry fare	05" Horse hire	1,00
" Paid for use of room for holding
inquiries	40
" Service of witnesses	 1.00

To Stenographer copying evidence and
reports	 $	1.35
" Stationary and postage	05

That is the alleged expenditure, Mr. Speaker, in connection with only one inquiry, and that is all that you have been charged for, what took place at Bras D'Or on that day. The Hansard report goes on: The account in McKay's case is as follows:
Allowance	 $15.00
Living allowance	 3.00
Witnesses, typewriting	 5.40
Total	$23.10
You will observe, Mr. Speaker, that his dinner in the first instance only cost him $2.50. The same day he bought another dinner for $3, and there is a similar item in each of the six bills, so he took six dinners on the same day, and crossed the ferry five times to examine witnesses, when as a matter of fact there was only one sole, solitary inquiry, at which all the witness were examined in less than one hour and a half, and the proper charge for which was $21.35. The Hansard report goes on:
These accounts cover the six cases that were tried upon the same day, totalling $128.95, whereas ' $21.20 would have been the proper charge. The .men who were investigated and finally dismissed were my political friends, and I was keeping tab on this inquiry. I knew the day on which it was to be held, but to make absolutely sure I wrote to Captain McDonald asking him about this Investigation. He writes me from Bras d'Or on the 10th March, 1913, as follows:
Big Bras d'Or, Cape Breton,
March 10, 1913.
D. D. McKenzie, M.P.,
Ottawa, Canada.
My dear friend,-Yours to hand of the 8th instant, and in reply would say you are quite correct as to the date of the investigation. It was held on September 6, at three o'clock p.m., the whole being done between three and six o'clock p.m. The names of the parties who were investigated are as follows: George Livingston, sub-collector; Rod. McDonald, preventive officer; Rory Bain, D. J. Morrison, and Rod. McLeod, boatman; and H. C. McKay, lightkeeper, Bird island.
All those were investigated on the one afternoon at the time before mentioned.
On that occasion I pointed out to the Minister of Public Works that these things were absolutely correct then, and they are absolutely correct now. For an investigation of two and a half hours, this man, who was a servant of this Government, charged $128.95, when he should have charged $21.
The answer in yesterday's Hansard about which I am complaining is as follows

-Mr. Coderre answering for the Customs Department:
The charge made by the member for North Cape Breton was looked into by Customs Department and inquired into by -Auditor General and found to be not true.
I submit to the minister that it is true, absolutely true, and I challenge his inquiry. I care not what the Minister of Customs may think of rpe, but I do think a great deal of my own veracity. I have been in this House for a great many years, and I am getting somewhat of an old man now to be told I go around this country peddling falsehoods against anybody. I challenge the minister or anybody else to point out where I ever made a statement on the floor of this House that was not absolutely correct. I submit that it is the duty of the minister who put on the records of the Parliament of this country against me that I made an untrue statement, to make inquiry and to apologize to me for making a statement which was not true. I say that that money was taken for an investigation and for services where it was not earned. I did not say it was embezzlement, I did not say it was theft; I did not characterize it at all. Before I made my statement I had asked the minister what the Order in Council allowed this man, and he told me it was $15 a day. I have not the Hansard under my hand but that is my recollection. It is well known that he was to get $15 a day no matter whether he made one inquiry or a dozen, or made no inquiry at all, but it was not the intention that, if he spent an hour or two and met with half a dozen or twenty people, he should send a bill in for each one, as was done in this case. I stand by the facts as shown by the record. I got the facts from the department. I moved for the returns, they were brought down and I have them in my possession. These are not my figures, but they are the figures of the department, and without the same testimony, without knowing the facts, the Minister of Customs comes down and says that a member of this House makes a false statement. I protest that when such things as these are said in the face of hon. members in the House who are able to defend themselves, it is not surprising to know what is said about Prof. Shortt, whose hands are tied and whose tongue cannot be used in his own defence in this House. I could not permit this to pass over without bringing it to the notice of the House. It is a duty between one member and another to protect the honour of members of this House, and
no hon. member should be permitted to be put on record as being a falsifier when the facts do not bear out-this accusation. These ate the facts as I have stated them, these records were before the Minister of Customs when he made this statement, and I may say that 1 would not have noticed his statement at all had it not been called to my notice by an hon. gentleman. With reference to the record of Mr. Duchemin, the hon. the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Hazen) was asked by the hon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair):
Does the minister intend to investigate the conduct of Mr. Duchemin?
Mr. Hazen:	X have no such intention.
There is put before the hon. gentlemen who are responsible for the expenditure of the moneys of this country the record and conduct of one of their servants; they are asked: Do you propose to inquire into his conduct-and a responsible minister says: I have no such intention.


John Douglas Hazen: On what page of Hansard is that?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Page 820 of Hansard, 1914. There are many other things that might be said along this line, but I must confess that my real purpose was to bring this record in regard to the matter to the notice of the House.


Mr. G. W. FOWLER (Kings and Albert):: Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that all roads lead at last to Rome. Everything that the hon. member for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) debates leads at last to Duchemin. The hon. member for North Cape Breton, who is sometimes quite witty and amusing, but at other times, oh, so doleful, and dreadfully dull and prosy, has, during the last three years, taken part in a good many debates; and, even if the subject matter was as far removed from Duchemin, or anything appertaining to him, as the poles are asunder, the hon. gentleman, with that peculiar cast of mind which works in subterranean and intricate passages, always comes back at last to Duchemin. Talk about the proverbial red rag to the male animal of the ox gender; that is not a circumstance to the name of Duchemin to the ex-judicial member for North Cape Breton. The hon. gentleman was very witty in the first portion of his speech, very amusing, but he did not amuse anybody half so much as he did himself. He enjoyed his time-worn, stale, moth-bitten jokes much more than anybody else did. Even the admiring chorus of back-

benchers had to take second place to the hon. gentleman himself in that respect. The hon. gentleman told us that he was once a schoolmaster. We could have guessed that. He must have been for many years a schoolmaster and got into that narrow pedantic groove that schoolmasters sometimes fall into. But if we are to judge of the rest of his scholastic knowledge by the sample of arithmetic which he gives us, we must come to the conclusion that he was a very poor schoolmaster indeed and that he taught his pupils very badly. He told us that 19 pounds 19 shillings and tuppence-which is short for two pence- was within a half penny of twenty pounds.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I will make the correction now. I meant 19 pounds, 19 shillings and 11 pence halfpenny.


George William Fowler: Too late; too late-you
have lost your ninepence ha'penny. Your pupils would be reduced to poverty if they followed your instructions in arithmetic. My hon. friend has spoken of Mr. Shortt, and very shortly of Mr. Shortt, but at considerable length of Mr. Duchemin. I do not propose to discuss the Duchemin question now. That has been discussed on several occasions, and I have no doubt that if the hon. gentleman ever meets Mr. Duchemin on a platform in any portion of Nova Scotia Mr. Duchemin will be able to take care of the hon. member for North Cape Breton. He speaks of Mr. Shortt as being a poor martyr who was tongue-tied. It would have been much better for Shortt if he had been tongue-tied. The trouble with Shortt is that he was not tongue-tied at all. He got himself into this trouble; he began it, and not with the statement the hon. member for Cape Breton said he made. I would have thought that when a man had for two or three years occupied a position upon the judicial bench of this country, and had worn the judicial ermine, he would have acquired some fairness of thought, some impartiality; but the hon. gentleman was just as destitute of that when he came off the bench as he was when he went on it. The hon. gentleman knows that he did not state the actual facts when he gave us his paraphrase of what was said. I will read for the benefit of the hon. gentleman, for he needs all the benefits that can come to him, what Mr. Shortt is reported actually to have said; and remember that Mr. Shortt has never to this moment denied what he did say. Therefore, we must judge him by the record. Some one has said that we should not judge him by newspaper re-
[Mr. Fowler. 2
ports; but if he does not deny these newspaper reports when the opportunity is given him, if, on the contrary, he glories in what he has said, it is not unfair, unreasonable, or unjust to judge him by the newspaper reports. He says:
" I have met men in the Canadian Civil Service," he said, " who, though they held positions under the Government, were quite ready to admit that the Civil Service system was rotten." Professor Shortt asked who took the place of the 2,000 civil servants who were reported in the House the other day to have been dismissed from the service, and his reply to his own question was just "10,000."
Who took the place of the 2,000? 10,000 men took the place of the 2,000. That is what Shortt says. Could language be plainer? In the English language could you put a proposition more plainly than that? Prof. Shortt meant what he said when he' said it, and he knew he was not speaking by the book when he said it. He knew that he was making a statement that was not correct when he said that 10,000 men took the places occupied by the 2,000 men that had been dismissed. That is the fault we find with Prof. Shortt. Tongue-tied! A martyr! Held up in this House to public derision and public shame! Like a lamb before his shearers, is dumb, he could not open his mouth! He is a brave man is Prof. Shortt. I will show you whether he is a brave man or not. If he had been an employee of this Government, subject to be dismissed from office for partisan conduct, and if he had made such a statement, I would say, however improper or unwise his statement was, it had at least the merit of being a bold one, because he took his business life in his hands when he made it. But- what is the situation so far as Prof. Shortt is concerned? He was appointed under an Act which requires the joint action of both Houses of Parliament to dismiss him. He makes this statement. The Senate-that body upon the other side of the building. I look up and see some of the senators in the gallery. Gaze upon the faces in the front row up there-
Mr. SPEAKER-Order. It is not permissible to refer disrespectfully to the Senate.


George William Fowler: You are not a mind reader, Mr. Speaker. How could you possibly know what I was going to say? What have I said that is disrespectful?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order. The rules of debate prohibit reference to the other branch of this Parliament in a disrespectful or an ironical way. The hon. member was leading on, although he had not gone that

far, to a point where he was likely to be out of order, and I thought it proper to call his attention to the fact.


George William Fowler: I was going to speak in the most commendatory terms of the gentlemen sitting in the front row of the gallery. Mr. Speaker, you entirely misapprehend me. I was going to say what firm looking gentlemen they were; how when their minds were once made up to anything, they could not be changed, and that a strong majority of them were in favour of Professor Shortt. I would not say anything derogatory of the Senate. Perhaps I would like to be a senator myself some day, and surely I would not say anything derogatory of that most honourable body.


Mr. NEELY:: Shame.


George William Fowler: It is a good thing that it has come to you at last.


Mr. GATJVREAU:: Mr. Speaker-


George William Fowler: Oh, that is the man, is it?


Charles Arthur Gauvreau: That is where my hon. friend is wrong as usual. I was not the man. I did not say a word.


George William Fowler: Then why did my hon. friend get up? I did not name him and I did not point to him.


Charles Arthur Gauvreau: I never said a word at all.


George William Fowler: When the shoe pinches we usually squeal.


Charles Arthur Gauvreau: You have a suspicious mind, that is all.


George William Fowler: Our volcanic friend is erupting again. When Professor Shortt made that utterance he knew that the Senate would not consent to put him out of business for making a statement that would reflect upon the Government of the day. Therefore it was a cowardly act; and to represent him as a man that has been abused and vilified by the gentlemen on this side who have spoken concerning him, is to make a statement that is not in accordance with fact. Professor Shortt has been too kindly and too well used. He deserves much more severe castigation than he has received. A man occupy-10 p.m. ing the position he occupies is supposed to be as impartial and judicial as a judge upon the bench in recommending men for public office, and to show the narrow, bigoted partisanship that Professor Shortt has shown, reveals that
he is absolutely and utterly unworthy of the high office to which he has been appointed.
I am very sorry that the hon. member for St. John city (Mr. Pugsley) is not in his place. During the few moments this evening when I was absent from the House, the hon. gentleman referred to a matter regarding my county. I do not say that he did it intentionally in my absence. I do not quite know how he dragged it in, and I do not see what it has to do with the dereliction of Prof. Shortt, or with the utterances which he made one Sunday night when he should have been at church. My hon. friend said that there had been erected in the county of Kings, which I have the honour to represent, and which gave birth to that distinguished statesman the hon. member for St. John city-although I have never seen on the part of the inhabitants of that beautiful county any particular show of elation on account of that county having been the birthplace of that eminent statesman


David Bradley Neely: Clever!


George William Fowler: Another hon. member in pain over there. The statement my hon. friend (Mr. Pugsley) made regarding the public building at Hampton is altogether beside the fact. He misrepresented the population of the town. He misrepresented the amount of business carried on there. I am very sorry that my hon. friend is not here, because I am surprised that he would make such a statement about the county town of his native county.
My hon. friend also, as I am informed, stated that this was not the proper way in which to bring up this matter with regard to Prof. Shortt; that Prof. Shortt should be brought to the bar of the House; that this method of procedure was unfair and improper. Knowing the admiration that my hon. friend has for his leader, I am surprised that he should make such a statement, because it was his leader who brought this, matter up. The hon. gentleman has had some experience himself with regard to matters of this kind. Let us see what he has done. Did he feel sorry, when he was lashing a certain gentleman, to think that that gentleman had not an opportunity to reply? Did that cause him to restrain his rage? No. A commission once sat in the province of New Brunswick investigating matters in connection with the Central railway. At the head of that commission was one of the most eminent jurists that the province of New Brunswick has produced, a man of high character, of unblemished


G72 COMMONS
[Stage Direction]
reputation, a man who has never stained with one blot the ermine which he wears.
I refer to the Hon. Chief Justice Landry, of New Brunswick. And because the Hon. Chief Justice Landry had the temerity to bring in a report supported by the evidence, absolutely, unqualifiedly supported by the evidence which condemned the conduct of the lion, member for St. John city, he abused, and vilified and lashed the Chief Justice in this House -where that gentleman had no opportunity to reply. Yet he finds it a horrible thing that this ex-schoolmaster, Professor Shortt, should have his conduct characterized, even in the moderate way in which it was characterized by the Hqn. Minister of Public Works. I am surprised, knowing my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works so well, that he restrained himself so much when he had such great provocation. I must not forget my genial friend from Bed Deer (Mr. Clark). He is an angel of peace; he says: Let there be truce, and-there is truce. Let me give something of what he said on the 8th of February last:
The most violent form of partisan strife that can possibly be instigated in any country is a. general election. I think everybody will agree that partisan discussion is at its best in a general election-or at its worst. Perhaps I ought to correct that: Perhaps it finds a lower level still in the literature that is issued prior to an election.
With that premise he makes out that the issuing of this partisan literature is worse, so far as bitterness is concerned, even than the discussion that takes place during the progress of the campaign. Well, if he is thinking of Grit literature, I should be inclined to agree with him; I think scarcely anybody will dispute the position he takes. He told us also in that connection, that with regard to literature: *
I want to claim before this House and the country that we on this side have an absolutely clean sheet. From the moment the war broke out the Bureau was closed,
Beferring now to the bureau for the dissemination of noxious literature tu persons of the Liberal persuasion throughout Canada,
So far as I am concerned, I have never seen a document emanate from it since that time, of a party nature or of any other nature.
Michael Clark: 1 am sure the hon. gentleman wishes to be fair.


George William Fowler: Certainly.


Michael Clark: Of course, he will, see that I previously defined the literature as party

literature. I did not need to repeat that phrase at every step.


George William Fowler: That is exactly what I
am speaking about. I am going to be absolutely fair to my hon. friend, fairer even than the Minister of Public Works. The hon. member for Bed Deer goes further:
I have never seen a document emanate from it since that time, of a party nature or of any other nature. Where is the laugh of my hon. friends now? Can they produce a leaflet or a document? Not a single one. And I should be wanting in common manliness if I did not assert it.
Now, I am going to ask the hon. gentleman to take that all back. I know that he is a manly gentleman and I am satisfied that when I hold up to his gaze these printed documents, issued between the time war was declared and the time he made his speech, he will withdraw his statement. I hear an hon. gentleman say that this is not party literature. It is called " The Canadian Liberal Monthly ". Let us find the October number, issued soon after the war broke out. We were all standing together shoulder to shoulder like the boys of the old brigade, heart beating close to heart in common defence of the Empire. That was the position we were supposed to occupy. I believe the hon. member for Bed Deer was honest in his view, I believe that he was in earnest and that he was genuine. But what says this delectable sheet, this monthly effusion? How was it keeping the truce? I understand that it is issued once a month; which, perhaps is not unnatural seeing that it is a monthly. And under whose direction is it issued ? That of the right hon. leader of the Opposition, a gentleman who has been spoker. of as a chivalrous man, the wearer of the white plume. Let us see what this says: " A question for Mr. Foster," in big, black type. That refers to Sir George E. Foster, one of the brightest minds in this House, and Minister of Trade and Commerce in this Administration. And this " Question for Mr. Foster " is this:
The French Government has just placed an order with a Pittsburgh firm for enough horseshoe nails to keep that firm going night and day for eighteen months. The Italian Government has just placed an order with a United States firm for $5,000,000 worth of saddles, boots and other leather goods. The Australian Government has just placed an order in the United States for a huge consignment of steel rails. Ail these goods could have been made quite as quickly and as cheaply and of equal quality in Canada. This question suggests itself -Is the Department of Trade and Commerce at

Ottawa doing anything or nothing to guide ord rs from friendly or allied Governments into Canadian channels?
I hear an hon. gentleman say: "No politics in that." Oh, no desire to injure the Government in that. Another fond delusion shattered. I see the hon. member for Red Deer shaking his head as he says: "No politics in that." I thought the hon. member would become indignant as soon as I read this. I should not have expected anything better from the hon. member immediately behind him, but I should have expected something better from the usually chivalrous member for Red Deer.


Michael Clark: Would the hon. member allow a question in order to elucidate this matter ? Is it not a fact that the Minister of Trade and Cdmmeree in the documents emanating from his department show's that he is doing his utmost to get trade for Canada out of the war ? And if that be the fact, does my hon. friend think he is guilty of partisanship in doing so ? Or is he showing Canadian patriotism ?


George William Fowler: I remember that the father of " my Uncle Toby " was once asked a very pecurliar question-


Michael Clark: Never mind vour Uncle Toby.


George William Fowler: -a very peculiar question, which had as little bearing upon the subject under , consideration as the question just asked by the hon. member for Red Deer has upon the matter which we are now discussing.
Could anything be more strongly partisan than an attempt to hold up to the execration of the people of Canada the Minister of Trade and Commerce and his department? Was it not partisan to allege that the minister was not doing his duty; that the department was not doing its duty to the f Canadian people, who are making great sacrifices for the Empire; that contracts from foreign countries were, by reason of the supineness of the Department of Trade and Commerce, allowed to go to the United States? Does the hon. member for Red Deer consider that there is nothing of a partisan character in these allegations? In Tespect of all these books, pamphlets and monthlies, the same state of affairs exists. We find that during the time when this truce was supposed to be in operation, this literature was being circulated all over the country. I am sure that this was done without the knowledge of the hon. member foT Red Deer, but I am sorry that I w'as 43 *
mistaken in-assuming that he would admit that this was wrong, and a violation of the truce.


Michael Clark: I would if I
knew it to be the case.


George William Fowler: No man is so hard to convince as the man who does not wish to be convinced, and I am afraid the hon. gentleman does not wish to be convinced. But, to return to Prof. Shortt for a moment. Prof. Shortt forgot to tell his auditors on that fateful Sunday night-fateful for him-that in the very department over which he presides there have been two dismissals and resignations, and that eight persons have been appointed to take the places of these officials. This is but another instance of Prof. Shortt's unfairness in regard to these matters. The return says that in respect of the Civil Service Commission there were no dismissals, one resignation, one transfer to another department, no desertions from the service, no punishments, and eight appointments to fill two	vacanciesa proportion of four to one. That was keeping up the average pretty well; why did not Professor Shortt be fair enough to make this known? This gentleman is deserving of the condemnation of this House and of this country, and he will receive it when the facts are known by all impartial people. He is deserving of more; if he gets his deserts he will be dismissed from the service of this country by joint address of the House of Commons and of the Senate of Canada.


Mr. J. J. HUGHES (Kings, Prince Edward Island):: The discussion of this subject has taken a very wide range and several subjects have been brought up which are not quite germane to the matter under consideration. Sir, if things have happened in the other provinces of this Dominion as they have in the province of Prince Edward Island-occurrences with which 1 am personally acquainted-substantial proof is afforded of the statement made by Professor Shortt and by the hon. member for Guysborough this afternoon that enormous increases have taken place in the number of appointments to the Civil Service. In the Department of Public Works in the province of Prince Edward Island, under the Conservative Administration, one man was removed from office and four men were appointed to take his place. Under the late Administration there were three men in the office of the Public Works Department at Charlottetown. There

are now six men in that office, and the names of seven men on the pay roll. Charlottetown is an old established community; there is no more work going on now than there was some years ago.


Robert Rogers: I am afraid my hon. friend is mistaken in the statement which he has made; I think he had better revise it.


James Joseph Hughes: I am quite sure that 1 am not mistaken. The circumstances under which this removal was made are decidedly objectionable. Shortly after the change of government took place some persons in that province who were connected with the Public Works Department and others who expected to be connected with the department, approached the resident engineer and boldly demanded from him a rake-off on the expenditure. The engineer was surprised, and refused absolutely to countenance such a thing. Pressure was brought to bear upon him; other men were brought to his office to influence him, but he stood firm and refused to be influenced. They told him that they would get square with him. The resident engineer at that time was superintendent of dredging for the province. The captain of dredge No. 9 was removed and a new captain was appointed in his place. The new captain, without any authorization or instructions from the resident engineer, proceeded to do dredging for private parties without making any return. When the resident engineer heard of this, he called the captain to account and reprimanded him severely. Upon being asked what authority he had for doing this dredging, the captain said he had been instructed to do it by the persons who were responsible for his appointment. These persons were called in, and the engineer was threatened with dismissal if he interfered with the captain of the dredge. Was he dismissed? No, but he was removed-superannuated.	The man
who was trying to protect the Government and the people of Canada, although he was well qualified physically and mentally to do his work, was superannuated at $2,800 a year and other men were appointed to do his work. I brought this matter to the attention of the Minister of Public Works some years ago. He told me that he would have an investigation made, and that if he found the charges made to be correct, he would dismiss every man connected with the matter.
No investigation has been held and no

removals have been made except the removal of the one man who was trying to protect the department. Now, Sir, if things like that are happening in the other provinces of this Dominion, we have an explanation of the enormous expenditure that has taken place under this Government, and of the enormous increase in the number of public servants drawing pay from the people of Canada. These are statements that cannot be controverted, facts that have come within my own knowledge, and they are but an index of what is going on all over Canada. This debate has taken a turn this . evening that led me to believe that I would be only discharging my duty by bringing this matter to the attention of the House 'and by publishing it, because I feel satisfied that what has been done in my province is but a small thing compared with what is going on in the other provinces, where great public works are in progress.
Mr. A. De WITT FOSTER (Kings, N.S.):
I do not intend to delay the House at any great length, but I wish to say a word or two, as is my inalienable right as a member of this House, on the subject which has engaged our attention since early to-day. I was much interested in listening to the debate, particularly that phase of it which has dealt with the so-called political truce said to exist throughout the length and breadth of Canada, and with the proclaiming of that truce. Hon. gentlemen are no doubt fully seized of the fact that when the wal broke out on August 4 and the political position of one of the great parties in this country was somewhat in danger, the first thing that was announced in the press was the so-called party truce. I wish to tell the House in what manner this so-called party truce was observed in the county from which I come, by hon. gentlemen opposite. No addresses were delivered in that county by myself on political topics. I did address a meeting or two upon patriotic lines, and I addressed a series of meetings in the county to	stimulate	recruiting, asI conceived that to	be the	most
important duty of any member of Parliament, after the great crisis which came like a bolt from the blue on August 4, and plunged this country, in common with the British Empire, into the greatest war the world has ever known. I had announced a meeting in my constituency on a certain evening, when I saw a poster announcing a public meeting to be addressed by the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), by the member of the Local Legislature for

Kentville (Mr. H. H. Wiokwire), and by Sir Frederick Borden, the ex-member for Kings county. It was the annual meeting, at which the routine business of the Libera] party was carried on during the afternoon, and in the evening a public meeting was called, which was attended by a great many Conservatives of the town of Kentville and of the neighbouring country. They went to hear my good friend the hon. member for Pictou. I am bound to say that the hon. member for Pictou, in some parts of his speech, as he often does in this House, acquitted himself very creditably indeed. But, Sir, there was not one word said to stimulate recruiting in that county. The greater part of the speech of the hon. member for Pictou was an attack upon the Government, and upoh the Prime Minister, and upon the hon. the Minister of Militia particularly, for not having replied to that statement in the Globe demanding that the Prime Minister and his followers accede to the request of the Liberal party, to say that no election would be held till after the war. The ex-member for the county, Sir Frederick Borden, said that the Prime Minister of this country was prostituting the honour of this country by refusing to say that a certain number of sessions would be held before the Government went to the country. Prostituting the honour of the country, Sir, when the right hon. gentleman was engaged, to my own certain knowledge, in eighteen or twenty hours' work a day in the interests of Canada and of the Empire. The references to the Minister of Militia at that time were along the same lines. The execrations of Heaven or of some other place were called down upon the Government for the manner in which they were conducting the affairs of the country. The hon. member for Kings county for the Local Legislature even went into the realm of scandal upon that occasion, he even went on to tell the people that if the lid were taken off, the scandals would smell to Heaven, a beautiful thing to happen in a county where we were endeavouring to raise, as we since have raised, some two or three hundred men to go to the front. Yet hon. gentlemen talk about a truce being declared and having been violated by gentlemen on this side of the House. I was convinced from the start, as the youngest member in this House, that a truce was declared because it was politically advantageous to the Opposition party declaring that truce, and the minute it became known, and they realized that such a truce would no longer be ad-431
vantageous, then that truce would be broken. What of the detectives that it was said in the county were being stationed at Val-cartier and throughout the country to watch the Government, to watch the details of this, that, and the other thing? This was keeping the truce!
In regard to the matter of recruiting, I think it was in my own hearing that the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), speaking in this House, said that if war broke out, in the interests-of this Empire, he would stump the urovince of Quebec, so interested was he that Canada should do her part. I would ask how many meetings the right hon. gentleman has held in the province of Quebec to stimulate recruiting there? He has held one or two that I have heard about. I would like to ask - how many recruits have been enrolled as a result of these meetings.
After the Liberal meeting of which I have spoken in my own county, I had a series of meetings at which I devoted about ten or fifteen minutes to answering charges levelled at the Government and myself at the meeting referred to, and for the remaining hour or two hours I did the best I could, as I have given of the best energy that was in me since the outbreak of war, in aid of this country and of the Empire.
Just a word or two with regard to Professor Shortt, a gentleman with whom I have but a very slight acquaintance. I am informed and have been led to believe that appointments to the inside Civil Service are based upon the results of '\ompeti-tive examinations. I know something about examinations, and the type of examination which has been set aiong a certain line, and I am bound to say that from my perusal of the type of questions that have been set at different times by the Civil Service Commission, a very great deal of fault might be found with the Commission itself; because in my humble judgment in some cases it is almost impossible to obtain the right man for efficient work so long as his appointment is to depend upon the results of the competitive examination set from time to time by the Commission under Professor Shortt. On one occasion, just a short time ago, the Civil Service Commissioin advertised for a technical man, a university graduate, a draughtsman to be utilized in the Department of the Interior, a man with special qualifications. A young man in my own riding spoke to me about the matter and I said to him, as I have said to all applicants who have spoken to me about positions, whether

large or small: There is the examination. There are the conditions laid down by the Civil Service Commission .and by the Government. When you have fulfilled those *conditions, when you have passed your examination and submitted your record, I will endeavour to see, if I can, that you get a fair show. That is all I will do for you or for anybody else. With regard to cajoling or pleading with any Civil Service Commissioner I should not deem it dignified in any respect for a member of Parliament to resort to that kind of procedure.
What I meant, Sir, by saying that I would endeavour to see that he got a fair show was simply this: If I could find out that Professor Shortt was keeping the position open for a graduate of McGill University or of Queen's University or of Dal-housie University or of . Acadia University or of any other university in the country, I should think it my duty to bring it to the attention of this House and of the country. In regard to the particular case I was speaking of just now, a gentleman in my own riding applied for a position as draughtsman in the Department of the Interior. He is a graduate in Arts of the university from which I come, and has had a two years' course in draughtsmanship and science at the same university. Later on he went to Montreal, where he spent four years graduating in both branches of science. He is an expert draughtsman. At the age of eighteen he. draughted his own plans, and built absolutely by himself an engine for his motor boat. He built the boat while going through college and sold it for $750, thus enabling him to pay most of his way through his arts course. He is a genius; a. man who, I dare venture to assert, is not equalled in his varied qualifications by any gentleman occupying a position in the inside service of this country. He took the examinations prescribed, whatever they were, and in due course gave my name to the Civil Service Commission as one to whom they might apply for a certificate of character. I had known him for six or eight years, and I filled in the ordinary form provided for that purpose. The young man came to Ottawa and was put to work in the Department of the Interior by the Civil Service Commission. Professor Shortt was at that time abroad, whether on Government business or his own I do not know, and I shall therefore impute no motives. But directly Professor Shortt landed in the city of Ottawa the first thing he did was to dismiss this gentleman from the service. I sent

him a courteous letter asking for the reasons for this man's dismissal. If the reasons had been that his work was not satisfactory to the department, all well and good; but the answer I got from Professor Shortt was that he had so many applicants whose qualifications were considered better than this young gentleman's that he had to dismiss him and appoint somebody else in his place whose qualifications were higher. I say he had no one whose qualifications were better than those of the young man to whom I refer, and I challenge any one, whether inside or out of this House, to give me the name of a candidate for that position and to state ihis qualifications alongside those of the gentleman to whom I refer. The proof of that is the fact that although this position was required to be filled in October -last, that position for which a man is urgently desired is still vacant. The young man I refer, to was dismissed after a month's work in the department. I was informed only yesterday that a new notice had been sent out asking for applicants for the same position. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether Professor Shortt was keeping that position open for some one from Queen's University or from some other part of the country ? What were the reasons why he did not allow that man to keep that position which he had filled to the advantage of the country and with the commendation of all those with whom he was working? I agree with what has been said by hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, that Professor Shortt has too many things to do. Speaking at public forums and travelling back and forth throughout the length and breadth of this country, he is far too busy a man to devote his time and attention to the important business of conducting the Civil Service of this country, and he should forthwith be relieved of the duties of Civil Service Commissioner, and given ample opportunity to indulge himself along other lines which he seems to find more congenial.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I had not intended to intrude in this debate, which I am sure in the judgment of hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House has run to a point where not much profit is to be gathered from the discussion. I would not have risen 'were it not for the fact that my hon. friend (Mr. A. De Witt Foster) has made a reference to myself which I think calls for some reply. Just a "word or two in regard

to all this talk about political truce. What are the facts ? We might as well have them told fairly and squarely. Every one knows, at least every one on this side of the House and the Liberal party throughout the country, that when war came on the right hon. gentleman who leads us to-day as he has led us during so many years and whom we are so proud to follow, announced that so far as hue and the Lioeral party were concerned he did not propose to engage in political discussion, or to attack the Government's record in the ordinary public affairs of this country. Everybody knows he has kept his word, and that the right hon. gentleman has not appeared on any platform since the war began, except to ask the sons of his own race in the province of Quebec to come forth and follow the flag of old England. Everybody knows that a conference took place between the leaders of the two political parties in regard to the vacant seats in this House. Every one knows that an understanding was arrived at between them, that the men who should fill those vacant seats in this session of Parliament should be men of the same political stripe as those who formerly occupied those seats. And then Parliament met. So far as hon. gentlemen on this side of the House are concerned, so far as any agreement or truce between the political parties is concerned, everyone knows that there has been no such agreement between the political leaders in this country. X say on behalf of the Ihberal party in this country, that from the time the war began those who know something about what party management is like in this country, know that we have refrained from political partisanship and from attacks on the Conservative party in this country, in regard to the war or the expenditure for the war. That is where the party stands at this moment, while we claim the right in Parliament to perform our proper functions as an opposition in regard to other matters. But if the right hon. the Prime Minister and the men who sit with him think it is wise to go to the people of this country and ask for a verdict, the responsibility rests entirely with them.
And now I come to the matter to which my hon. friend from Kings (Mr. Foster) has referred. The only occasion upon which I appeared on any political platform since the war began was when I appeared with my hon. friend Sir Frederick Borden, a man who is beloved by the Liberal party of this country, a man who can
count as friends many hon. gentlemen who sit upon the other side of the House and who regard him as a man of great ability and one who has filled a high place during his long career as the representative in Parliament of Kings county. It would be well for this gentleman who succeeds him if, in the days to come, he could point to a record of achievement in friendships comparable in any measurable degree with that of which Sir Frederick Borden can boast to-day. I went to the meeting of the Liberal Association of Kings county. I did not attend the political organization meeting in the afternoon but I went to the meeting in the evening with Sir Frederick Borden. Did we make any partisan addresses, or arraign this Government upon their record, or discuss their political doings? Not at all, Sir. - On the contrary speaking for myself, I stated what I have stated here to-night in regard to the attitude of the Liberal party in reference to the Government of this country to that time in December and I said I did not propose to discuss party questions, and that I did not think that in the position which Canada occupied in the Empire and the position in which this Empire stood, engaged as it was in this great war, it was proper at all that we should have a political contest or that we should discuss political issues at that time. I pointed out what the consequences would be if you precipitated an election at that time and the reasons why it should not take place. I made no personal attacks upon any one. When my hon. friend undertakes to say that Sir. Frederick Borden attacked his own cousin in that county where they were both born, I say on behalf of that cousin as well ias on behalf of Sir Frederick Borden himself, that the hon. gentleman has not given a true version of what occurred at that time. Sir Frederick Borden discussed in a most dignified way, and from the standpoint of a public man who had occupied a high position in this country, the issues of war and the reasons why there should not be political discussion and a political contest. He spoke strongly, with all the knowledge that he possesses upon that question, and with that vigour which always characterizes his public utterances. When we think of Sir Frederick Borden we must always remember, when war's alarums come, when the sound of battle is heard throughout this land, that he gave his only son to the Empire, and the bones of his boy are lying on the veldt of South Africa to-day. His successor comes here with the story that we have heard to-

night about this distinguished public man to whom I have referred, and who is closely connected with my right hon. friend the Prime Minister by family and other ties. I would not have risen in this debate were it not to speak on behalf of my distinguished friend, Sir Frederick Borden, and in my own behalf in regard to the position which we took at this public meeting. From the time that it was apparent that \var was going to take place between England and the Allies and Germany, hon. gentlemen in this House and my friends throughout the province of Nova Scotia associated with me have not engaged in'political or partisan discussion. We have grounded our arms.
I think the suggestion made by the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle), who spoke immediately after dinner, was one which would be in the interests of this House to consider very carefully. What are the circumstances? We have Prof. Adam Shortt as chairman of a semi-judicial commission. Perhaps that is not a strictly correct description of his duties. However, he is chairman of that commission, and he stands in relation to the public service in very much the same position as a man occupying a judicial position. He cannot be removed from office except by a vote of Parliament. It is charged by these hon. gentlemen that he made a statement, which in the language of the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) was untrue and dishonourable, and a great many other adjectives and adverbs were used by the hon. gentleman which I need not repeat in regard to Prof. Shortt. As far as I am concerned, I do not know the gentleman and do not know anything about him. However, it would be much more dignified for this Government if they thought that Prof. Adam Shortt is a man with the qualifications and qualities which the Minister of Public Works declares he has, to come before Parliament and impeach him. What would be thought if we were discussing the decisions and the acts of a man occupying the position of chief justice of one of the provincial courts of this country in regard to a statement which he might have made upon any matter which for the moment might form the subject of political discussion, and it was thought necessary for every hon. member to denounce that chief justice in all the moods and tenses in which Prof. Shortt has been denounced to-night? Would not the appeal be at once met by the Minister of Justice, as a gentleman who had formerly

been on the bench, that high ground should be taken, and that the remedy which the law provided for those who have anything to say against a judge which would cause him to be impeached should be proceeded with in the regular way? In the history of this Parliament it will be found that on all occasions, if any hon. member sitting here in times past had any complaint to make of the conduct of any of the judges, the Minister of Justice and the Government took the ground that if there was any fault to be found it should take the form provided by law, that is, the form of an impeachment.
I am not going to go into the discussion of the question as to how many people were dismissed or how many people resigned or how many people were appointed in their places. I rose simply for the purpose of presenting the argument, and I appeal to the Prime Minister whether I am not absolutely right upon this question, that the proper course for the Minister of Public Works to take, if he has any complaint to make against Prof. Adam Shortt, is to make a motion in the proper way to impeach that gentleman before Parliament on account of the untruthful statement he is alleged to have made, or by reason of the fact that the qualities he is said to possess disentitle him further to occupy his office. If these gentlemen who have attacked him so viciously to-day have not the courage to proceed against Prof. Shortt by way of impeachment, then we have been simply listening to a lot of vapouring, and these denunciations will disappear before to-morrow's sun. I therefore submit that upon this question which has been brought before the House by the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition, the Prime Minister is bound in duty, having regard to the statements that have been made by his colleagues, and the denunciations which have been put forth against Prof. Adam Shortt, to. take the suggestion of his own follower, the hon. member for Kingslon, and ask this House to proceed by way of impeachment against this gentleman. Otherwise, do not let us have the undignified proceeding of discussing these charges in this haphazard way about an official who stands in the same position, as far as Parliament is concerned, as would a chief justice of the court.
Mr. A. de WITT FOSTFR: Will the hon. gentleman deny that, speaking on the platform at the meeting at which I was present, and at which meeting I took notes, he accused the Prime Minister of making a hybrid alliance with the Nationalists, and

proceeded to arraign Mr. Pelletier, Mr. Blondin and Mr. Nantel, and said, among other things, that Mr. Blondin had to shoot holes through the British flag in order that he might breathe the air of freedom?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I have stated the
general tenor of my remarks upon that occasion. I state again that I made no partisan speech, that I did not anywhere discuss the political issues before the country, except as I have stated, and that I made no such speech as that to which my hon. friend referred.


Mr. FOSTER:: Do you deny it?


Robert Laird Borden: If there is no objection on the part of my hon. friends on the other side, I would like to make a few observations. Having moved that the House do go into Committee of Supply, I can only speak again by consent of the House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I assume that the right hon. the leader of the Government has the unanimous consent of the House.


Robert Laird Borden: With regard to what my hon. friend the member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) has said just now, I would venture to remind him that sometimes hon. gentlemen opposite have not exhibited the qualities, upon which he has lavished such eulogiums, in making reference to persons occupying positions upon the judicial bench, because I have it very well in my recollection as appearing upon the pages of Hansard that the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition has publicly accused judges of his own province of Quebec of having made subscriptions to political funds in that province. If the right hon. gentleman had taken the course which my hon. friend for Pictou says should have been taken on this occasion, we would hardly have such charges appearing in Hansard.
The speech of Professor Shortt was made on the 15th day of January. My attention was directed to it shortly afterwards, and I thought it my duty to inquire into this allegation which was bound to convey a certain impression to the public that I did not think could be supported by the facts. I did not propose to take any action in the matter except by way of investigation, and placing before the members of this House and the people of the country precisely what were the actual facts. I sent to the House of Commons and asked to have a copy of the return-of which I know nothing whatever, as it had not been
brought to my attention, until I saw the observations of Professor Shortt as reported in the press. There was some delay in getting the return. It could not be found at first; but eventually I discovered that copies were being prepared, as I was informed, for my right hon. friend the leadc* of the Opposition.


Wilfrid Laurier: Pardon me.
I never asked for that return until two days ago; I never saw it.


Robert Laird Borden: I am speaking
only of the information that came to me.
I was informed that copies were being prepared for my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition. It may be that the statement made to me was not accurate.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Robert Laird Borden: I am stating
precisely what I was informed, because I could not get the report when I first sent for it. The matter would have stood at that and would have been brought
11 p.m. to the attention of the House in the way I have just now suggested, except for the fact that the hon. member for the city of St. John (Mr. Pugsley) saw fit to endeavour to make use of it in the House for a partisan purpose. On the 25th of February, ten days after this statement had been made by Professor Shortt and before I had had an opportunity of investigating the facts, the hon. member (Mr. Pugsley) brought the matter up in the House for the purpose of making a partisan attack on the Government. I quote his language:
I have not that familiarity with the Civil Service that Professor Shortt, chairman of the Civil Service Commission, necessarily has.
That is a very true observation, and I pause here to bring to the attention of the House the fact that any statement of this character coming from Professor Shortt would be supposed to come from a man having special knowledge and authority to make the statement. That matter ought to be taken into account by hon. members and ought to have been taken into account by Professor Shortt before he made that statement. The hon. member for St. John continued:
He is a gentleman who is in the employ of the Government. He occupies, I presume, a quasi independent position as chairman of that commission; he has made the statement, made it publicly, made it with deliberation, that under this Government the appointments to the Civil Service in the lower grades are entirely a matter of patronage and he says that, whereas there have been something like 2,000

dismissals from the Civil Service, there have been some 10,000 appointments, making a difference of some 8,000.
He did not quote precisely the language of Professor Shortt as reported in the public press. Some consideration ought to be given to the fact that up to the present time Professor Shortt has not seen fit to modify or qualify in the slightest degree the statement reported in both the Ottawa papers that have been referred to. I quote in the Ottawa Citizen as follows:
Professor Shortt referred to a return brought down in Parliament a few days ago showing the names of 2,000 men who had been dism'ssed since the change of Government,
" Who," asked the speaker, " took the place of the 2,000?" The answer was, 10,000.
Is there any hon. gentleman opposite who will say that that did not convey to him the impression that this Government had dismissed 2,000 men and had appointed
10,000	men for i<be purpose of performing the same duties which had been previously discharged by the 2,000 men? I do not think any gentleman in this House or out of it will undertake to say that that is not the impression which would be conveyed to his mind by the language just quoted. I observe that later on in another newspaper . published in the city of Ottawa on the 26th day of February, which was quoted by the right hon. the leader of the Opposition, Professor Shortt alludes to this report of his speech. He also alludes to the discussion that had taken place in Parliament in regard to it, and he says he stands precisely by the report, nothing more and nothing less than the report. Possibly Professor Shortt did not see the report at all; he may have depended upon some statement in the public press as to what the report showed.
I venture to say that, if he undertook to quote from the report without having read it, he chose an unfortunate course. And if, having read that report, he made in public the statement credited to him in the press, then this action was still more unfortunate. I do not think that any hon. gentleman on either side of the House could in his heart and conscience come to any other conclusion about that statement than that which I have just indicated. I am not going to attribute motives to Professor Shortt in regard to this matter. If there is any hon. member who is ready now to suggest that Professor Shortt did not use the language attributed to him and that he would like to make an explanation about it,
I am perfectly willing to receive his ex-^ 
planation and to read it here in the House, in order that full justice may be done; or, if Professor Shortt desires an inquiry as to whether or not he used that language and denies that he ever used it, I would be perfectly willing to grant any inquiry that he might deem necessary for the purpose of justifying himself.
As his language has now remained unchallenged by him in any way, and as he did, as late as the 26th of February last, refer to the incident which took place in the House of Commons without seeking or desiring to modify in any way the report of his language on the 15th of February, I venture to conclude that there does not seem to be very much ground for any inquiry as to whether or not he did use the language attributed to him and which up to the present time has not been challenged by him.
Now, if I am to assume, as I think I am entitled under the circumstances to assume, that he did use that language, I venture to say that it was by no means a fair statement of the case and that it would be certain to convey an impression to the people of this country disadvantageous and unjust to the Government, and that without any warrant. I think I am within the reasonable judgment of every member of this House when I go that far at least. Prof. Shortt was speaking with special authority with respect to a matter that was supposed to be as much within his peculiar knowledge as within that of any man in Canada; and when he saw fit to ignore the fact that the very return which he had seen, or had not seen, contained over three thousand resignations, when he ignored the fact that a considerable number of civil servants had died during that period, that many had been superannuated, that others had left the service for other causes; when, ignoring all this, he saw fit to suggest that ten thousand had been appointed to do the work done previously by two thousand;-I desire in all moderation to say that I do not think his language could be characterized as quite fair to the Government of the day. If he desired to give statistics with respect to appointments and dismissals, he should have at least taken into consideration the elements to which I have just called attention. I think, if he had desired to put the case fairly before the people of this country, he should in all reason have taken also into consideration that in a country like this, a rapidly .growing and expanding country, there would probably be some need of additional appointments within

a period of three years.	But all
these considerations	were	absolutely
ignored by him.
I regret that the incident has been brought before the House and to the attention of the country by the methods which have been pursued. I would like to point out that when an hon. member on the other side undertakes to make partisan use of a statement which cannot be regarded as other than misleading, it is hardly to be expected that hon. gentlemen on this side will not resent it. It was promptly resented. My hon. friend for the city of St. John (Mr. Pugsley), following in the wake of the Liberal press of this country, by whom Prof. Sliortt's statement was used for the purpose of bringing an unjust charge against this Government, saw fit to bring that question up in the House, and it was resented on the spot. We have had this debate to-day in consequence. I think it would have been better if the question could have been dealt with in the method I had intended in the first place-that is, by placing before this House a plain and unvarnished statement of the facts, and an explanation, so far as any explanation is necessary, as to the increase in the public service of this country. If the question has been brought up, with the result that has been made apparent to-day, Mr. Shortt and every one else concerned have only to thank my hon. friend from St. John City and my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition. We have nothing to apologize^ for in respect to the appointments made to the public service. Hon. gentlemen on the other side have spoken of their desire to debate the question. I tell them here and now that whenever they desire to debate that question we are ready to meet them, and I shall be most happy at any subsequent stage of the session to give them all the opportunity for that debate which they may desire by moving the House into Committee of Supply whenever they so wish. Whether they desire to debate it or to make a motion with regard to it, we shall be ready to meet them, and to combat any arguments they may bring forward. The debate has been more or less discursive, and I shall not now enter into some of the matters, more or less personal to myself, which have been alluded to, as this is not the time or the place for that. I will not compare honours as to changes of political opinions with my hon. friend for the City of St. John, as I have never claimed to be in his class in that regard.
I shall see to it that the returns are made complete with all necessary details up to
the present time. WTe shall have a return containing all the information that has been asked for, and some information, perhaps, that has not been asked for. We shall have that laid on the table of the House, placing all the information before my hon. friends on the other side, and we will invite them to bring forward any motion they desire on this subject of the appointments made to the public service.
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (South Ren-trewl: I scarcely think I would have said anything in this discussion had it not been far two things: the remarks of the Minister of Finance (Mr. White)-the lecture, rather, that he proceeded to deliver to us on this side of the House-and the bland and childlike way in which my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Reid) slid over his dismissals. He is an artist in a class all by himself. When he wants a man to resign or get out, he appoints him to some other position, perhaps some 200 miles distant at a smaller salary and without moving expenses.


John Dowsley Reid: The hon. gentleman
cannot name one instance.


George Perry Graham: Mr. Norris, of Chicago.
Look it up. If my information is correct, the hon. minister asked him to go to Prince Rupert.


John Dowsley Reid: I do not think the hon. gentleman's information is correct.


George Perry Graham: Wait until my hon.
friend hears what I have to say. My information is that a certain official who was in the employ of this Government in the city of Chicago at a fair salary was asked to go to a distant poin^, Prince Rupert, I think, at a smaller salary. This he refused to do, and he was decapitated by Order in Council. If my information is incorrect, I shall have to look up five or six other cases, but I give that to my hon. friend to think over for the night. In any case, outside of that altogether, the minister is an artist in his methods of decapitation. He spoke tonight of a time when I was Minister of Railways, and when we had so many men on the canals. The only extra men I think I ever put to work there were appointed upon the request of my hon. friend to have snow put on a certain bridge so that teams could get over in winter.


John Dowsley Reid: I do not think my hon.
friend wishes to misrepresent me. What I asked him to do at that time was to request the officials whom he was paying for looking after the bridge to put snow on the

bridge so that heavy loads would be able to cross. I did not ask him to put on any extra employees; the minister himself put them on to do work which could have been done by the men who were being paid to do it.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend took
credit for it in his constituency.


John Dowsley Reid: I did not.


George Perry Graham: You cannot please some men, Mr. Speaker, whether you put snow on a bridge or whether you do not. Hon. gentlemen can understand that permanent employees are not engaged in running a swing bridge in winter; consequently we had to get men to put snow on the bridge in accordance with my hon. friend's request.


John Dowsley Reid: The hon. gentleman knows that the man who looks after the bridge is appointed by the year.


George Perry Graham: There was no man running the swing bridge in winter. But that is a small matter. My hon. friend the Minister of Customs, in the remarks which he made on this subject, did not show as much heat as the Minister of Marine did; he did not lecture us as did the Minister of Finance, and he did not do as well as the Minister of Railways, who did not say anything. He was a kind of happy medium, winking the other eye at the boys all the time.
I wish to refer for a moment to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. I have been in public life a good many years, and I have never made it a practice to display my loyalty by means of a brass band, nor do I find it incumbent upon me, in order to prove my own loyalty, to insinuate every time I stand up in this House that some other Canadian is not as loyal as I am. If that time should ever come, it would be the duty of the Government to have me interned until the war is over, because I would be either in favour of the enemy or not fit to be at large in this country. I hurl back into the teeth of the Minister of Finance of Canada his imputation of disloyalty on our part, and I tell him in the strongest terms that we on this side of the House are just as loyal as he or his friends. When it was said that we were disloyal, many years ago, he was one of us, and if we are disloyal, the Minister of Finance laid the foundation of that disloyalty, or was a party to it. We are not disloyal. The people of Canada from Prince Rupert and the Yukon across

to the Atlantic ocean are as patriotic and as loyal as any people in the British domains, England herself not excepted. I think the Minister of Finance rather forgot himself when he lectured us along that line. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) has shown whether or not he is loyal; he has a son with the Princess Patricias, fighting in France at this moment in defence of his country. That empty seat to my left, once occupied by the Hon. Dr. Beland, attests more forcibly than any words of the Finance Minister or of anybody else the loyalty of that son of French Canada. Another hon. gentleman, a French-Canadian member (Mr. Gauvreau), has a son defending the great Empire to which we belong. Is this a time, when we are asking men of all races and of all nationalities in this country to stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight for liberty, for a Minister of the Crown to stand up and fling across the floor of the House the taunt that we are not seized of the importance of the fact that Britain and her Allies are breaking their way through the Dardanelles?


William Thomas White: I do not like to interrupt my hon. friend in the midst of the generous heat that he is developing in connection with this subject, but as a matter of privilege I desire to say that I made absolutely no charge whatever against the loyalty of hon. gentlemen opposite. When I referred to the fact that the war had inter-, fered with the trade and revenue of the country during the past year, hon. gentlemen opposite burst into laughter. I said that they did not appear to me to realize that the war was in progress, and that they had not a proper appreciation, in my judgment, of the scale-a proper sense of perspective in regard to the war; otherwise, in connection with the matter to which I was referring, they would not have treated it so lightly.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Why would we not have a proper conception of it ?


William Thomas White: A proper sense of the scale or perspective, is what I said. If you will allow me, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of privilege, I desire to say that I have spoken on many occasions in this House and on many platforms throughout this country, and not only have I never impugned the loyalty of any member of the Canadian community, either Liberal or Conservative, but I have taken occasion to say on numerous occasions-and I reiterate the

assertion now-that I know of no disloyal citizen in the Dominion of Canada. I never made any such charge of disloyalty, and 1 desire my hon. friend to withdraw the assertion that he has made.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Thomas White: I was referring only to the fact that in my judgment there was not an appreciation of the fact that t'he war was proceeding; that is all I said.


George Perry Graham: I do not want to impute motives, but I am afraid my hon. friend has let his talking apparatus run away with his better judgment. I do not propose, so far as I am concerned, to allow my best friend to impugn my loyalty, here or anywhere else.


William Thomas White: It has not been impugned.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend, in his explanation, left out the very pith of what he said in the course of his speech. He turned to the hon. gentlemen behind him and, ironically speaking of something that the hon. member for the city of St. John (Mr. Pugsley) had said, he said that apparently we were not seized of the fact that at the present time the fleet of the Allies was breaking its way through the Dardanelles in an attempt to reach Constantinople. If that meant anything at all, it meant that we on this side of the House were looking at things in a small way and were not treating gravely the fact that our sons, our brothers and our fellow-countrymen are fighting in the trenches to defend our rights and liberties. If it meant anything, if it was intended to mean anything, it meant that.


An hon. MEMBER:: What else could it
mean?


George Perry Graham: What could it mean but
that we were not seized of the gravity of the position in which our great Empire is at the present time. I want to say that we are seized of it, but is that any reason, because the Allies' fleet is breaking through the Dardanelles, that we should stand silent and let anybody break into the treasury of Canada?
Speaking of the truce, after consultation with the great leader of the Liberal party, several meetings that have been called were cancelled after the declaration of war. I have attended a good many patriotic meetings and addressed several-without a brass band or the accompanying reporter, but I have never discussed politics one way or the
other. I have read many red-hot political speeches of hon. gentlemen behind the Minister of Finance, who were cheering him a minute ago. I read some addresses delivered in Ottawa a few days ago, warm speeches. I do not object to them, I am not objecting to them, let them be made, because members of this House have a duty to perform. Sir, while this side of the House is ready to vote millions for the war, it is not ready to vote a dollar for graft. We are prepared to vote all the money that is necessary, as we did in August vote all the money that was necessary, to carry to a successful issue, the war in which the great interests of this country are involved, but we do not give up our right to criticise the administration of the affairs of this country. We are sworn as members of this House to do that. Shall we abrogate those functions, solely because somebody wants to dodge behind the fact that there is war? I say, Sir, that we ought to discuss, and the Government ought to invite discussion of these other questions; but their war appropriation can be put through without a word of carping criticism from this side of the House; but we are not going to be put in a false position.
Speaking of the truce, I am told that while in August we were voting $50,000,000 to carry on the war, pamphlets were being sent out from the city of Ottawa by the Conservative party under the frank of a prominent member behind the Finance Minister, whose name I shall give to the minister privately if he desires, attacking the Liberal party in the most bitter way. These pamphlets were sent back to me from the province of Ontario, having been sent out with the frank of an hon. member behind the Government, in August, w'hen we were here, Sir, nearly in tears, trying to stand shoulder to shoulder, without a whimper of partisanship and without an element of discord in our ranks on either side. Is that keeping the truce?
I want to go further, now that hon. members have brought the matter up. The member for Kings (Mr. Fowler) has accused my hon. friend from North Cape Breton of getting around to a certain point no matter where he started from. My hon. friend from Kings got around to Kings, his own constituency, within ten minutes. But the mountain laboured and brought forth a mouse, so far as partisanship in the Liberal monthly publication is concerned. I know something of what I say and what instruc-

tions were given to the Liberal monthly-publication from the time war was declared. The instructions were to give news and statements as to the conditions, but to make no party argument one way or the other- and it published part of the speech of the Prime Minister of Canada. And, Sir, all that the member for Kings could find was one small paragraph jogging the memory of the Minister of Trade and Commerce that we ought to get some of the war orders in Canada-and he lias acted along that line. He did not take it as any great or violent attack, he took it good-naturedly as ministers always do. It helped him, as a little criticism always does, to get a greater hustle on. That was all my friend could find. What can I find, if I look? Let me look for a moment, and discover what I find. I find a leaflet which has been sent to a friend of mine during the past few weeks, since we have been in this House, as being circulated in western Canada. Here is a leaflet sent out, published lby the Federal Press Agency, 47 Slater Street, Ottawa, Canada, Central publication and distribution office for the Conservative party of Canada. Here is one leaflet: "The aid which Laurier withheld from Britain was so much aid given to Germany." Here is a pamphlet, dated No. 6, 9-12, that would be the 12th day of the 9th month of 1914: "The vigorous and progressive western policy of the Borden Government." Party literature: Here is a good picture of the Prime Minister-no, it is not a very good one, I think I would have that one recalled. It is a worse one of my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works. Really, what I cannot see about this western publication is why the Minister of the Interior's photograph was not inserted instead of that of the Minister of Public Works, as the Minister of the Interior looks after the lands of the West.
I find another one: "Liberals first advocated closure." This is an old pamphlet being circulated now, I suppose, as there was a greater stock on hand than there was demand for at the time. I come to another one, 14th of the 8th month, 1914, which I think would be August, ten days after war was declared. On the first page I find an insulting cartoon of my right hon. friend and leader which was sent broadcast through Canada: "Give credit to whom credit is due." This was sent out during the special session in August, after the outbreak of the war. I have another one: "The Liberals and the naval emergency: for the 
sake of a supposed party advantage they gambled with the future of the Empire." On the first page is another insulting cartoon of the right hon. leader of the Opposition. You say that was before the session in August. Was it? Listen to the first line of this pamphlet:
The war between Great Britain and Germany has come.
It must have been after the opening of war, after August 4th, and here is a pamphlet sent out by the Conservative party of Ottawa, a document of 30 pages, beginning with ridicule of my right hon. friend, at the very time that we were joining hands, willing to stand side by side, for the great Empire to which we all belong.
Let me give another one, prepared at an earlier date, which I am told was distributed after the August session. If my information is wrong I shall stand corrected :
The farce and the cost of the Liberal navy policy compared with the practical economical and effective policy of the Borden Government.
That has been distributed throughout the country during the last few months, I am informed. This is a pamphlet of eight pages printed and sent out by the Conservative party from their headquarters in the city of Ottawa. And my hon. friend from Kings talks about a truce !
Mr. A. De WITT FOSTER:	I did not
declare any truce.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend did not have to, he was buying horses.


Arthur de Witt Foster: That is more than you did for the Empire.


George Perry Graham: I have another pamphlet here dated the 14th August:	"Relief for
the Western Settler." Talk about the war! Here is party literature being distributed through the West for party purposes, when we are supposed to have no parties. There is another one here called "Why the Three Dreadnoughts." This is a nice little booklet which reflects great credit on the printer, but it contains all the old line of attack on the Opposition. And here is a speech delivered by the right hon. R. L. Borden. I am not taking exception to that, for it was not very partisan; in fact, we helped to circulate it ourselves, we thought it so good. But if my hon. friends insist that that is breaking the truce we will have it recalled. Here is another one that has been circulated in Maple Creek, " The Borden Government the Homesteader's Friend." These are just a few of the pamphlets that are being sent out. Here is

one called: "Western Canada and the Liberals," which is being distributed very largely in the West. Then I Some to the Federal Press Bulletin, which hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House will know. As my hon. friend from Kings would say, it is a weekly eruption, spelled w-e-a-k-l-y. Hon. gentlemen surely cannot deny that this is being circulated. It bears the date December 24, 1914, and contains an attack on the Liberal party, also an insulting cartoon of my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition. Keeping the truce indeed! Keeping the truce and sending out tens of thousands of this kind of stuff. I have another Federal Press Bulletin here, dated January 7, 1915, almost down to the minute. And these gentlemen talk to us about violating the truce, which, so far as truce was made, we have absolutely kept. But we refuse to be tongue-tied in criticising what we think wrong. Take all the money you want for the war, but we are going to criticise the other things this Government does, and we are going to criticise them as much as we like. This Federal Press Bulletin contains a two-column article pointing out how futile the Laurier boats would have been in comparison with the dreadnoughts.


William Pugsley: That are to be.


George Perry Graham: Two columns of that. Two columns of the most irritating partisan material that could be sent out. It points out that one party was practically against the Motherland. And this at a time when hon. gentlemen are saying, Truce, truce, don't hit us, don't criticise us, truce, there is a war on! And behind our backs they are sending out this party literature, giving us a stab in the back. The German nation has received the condemnation of the civilized world for having on several occasions fired on those bearing a flag of truce; but it is far worse for the people bearing the flag of truce to fire than to be fired on by others. Hon. gentlemen opposite say: You must not shoot, we are carrying a flag of truce. And at the same time they are circulating the most inflammable literature ever sent out by any party in the Dominion. My information may not be correct, but I am told that during the past few weeks thousands have been sent out from this city, and that about two thousand go out weekly. In the face of that, and after the speech of my hon. friend from Lambton (Mr J. E. Armstrong) on the navy, will hon. gentlemen opposite have the temerity to pretend that they are keeping anything that looks like a truce?


Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG:: What was wrong with that speech?


George Perry Graham: It would have been an
elegant speech if it had been delivered in the heat of a campaign and when no war was on, or if the navy question was not a very live and debatable question _ between the parties. No man on this side of the House has discussed that question so far as I know, but it has been discussed by three speakers opposite as if to provoke a discussion on the great naval question, in order to get an excuse to appeal to the electorate. If hon. gentlemen opposite want to appeal to the electorate, let them do so. Do not do as you did in October, " stand shivering on the brink and fear to launch away." Make up your minds to go at it, if you want an'election. But so far as the war is concerned, we on this side of the House will give the Government no excuse for appealing to the country on the ground that we are not with them on every dollar desired for the war. '
Now I come to Professor Adam Shortt. There are more smiles now than when the ministers were speaking. Either the members of this' Government are very timorous and easily irritated, or else there was something in this thing that really annoyed them. I do not know which it is. The Prime Minister was the coolest of the lot, but even he just slipped a little near the end and showed a little warmth. Who is Professor Adam Shortt? Some hon. gentlemen who criticised him to-night showed the strength of their criticism by declaring that they had never met the man, or had had no acquaintance with him. If I might venture an opinion-and I will try to substantiate it-the trouble is not altogether over what Professor Shortt said, but because Professor Shortt has stood in the way of hon. gentlemen opposite driving a coach and four through the Civil Service Act. I am not saying that so much about the members of the Government, but I am judging by the speeches delivered by hon. gentlemen behind them. I except the Minister of Customs for this reason. The Minister of Customs declared Professor Shortt a great partisan. Now I have known Professor Shortt for many years, and I have never heard him utter a political syllable. I do not know to this day what the politics of Adam Shortt may be.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Oh.


George Perry Graham: I say that absolutely as a member of this House.
I


Arthur de Witt Foster: Who appointed him?


George Perry Graham: A Government that carried on the affairs of this country much better than their successors have done, a Government that introduced the Civil Service Act and lived up to it. But hon. gentlemen opposite are trying to poke their fingers through it. The reason why hon. gentlemen opposite are so sore against Professor Shortt is not because of what he said at the Forum, but because he has prevented them from getting their friends into office in violation of the Civil Service Act. The Minister of Customs dealt with his incapacity as a commissioner, and not to any very great extent, with what he said at the Forum. He read copies of examination papers, not to show what Professor Shortt had said at the Forum, but to show that he was not fit for his position. I think I am safe in saying that the Minister of Customs left the impression that the examination papers he read out to-night were for positions as packers, and that class of position.


John Dowsley Reid: I said clerkships.


George Perry Graham: We will look up Hansard to-morrow. My hon. friend mentioned the closing of boxes and that kind of thing. That is packers' work, and that does not require the examination for clerks which my hon. friend pretended was necessary.


John Dowsley Reid: It requires the examination for lockers, the preliminary examination, and they must pass that unless they are appointed preventive officers.


George Perry Graham: That is getting away from what I. am talking about; that is not the question. In the lower grades and in appointments such as that these examinations are not required.


John Dowsley Reid: That is not a fact.


George Perry Graham: Look at it and see if I am not right.


John Dowsley Reid: They are required to pass an examination.


George Perry Graham: They may be required to pass a very light examination, but my hon. friend^Jias many men in Ms employ in the lower grades who have not passed any of the examinations that were referred to in this House this afternoon. If my hon. friend will look up the requirements of the law he will find that they have a very high

standard, so high a standard that University men seek these positions in Great Britain, and they get a very high class of officials in this way. The intention of the Civil Service Act, which was not perfect, I admit, was to give the Civil Service a start in the right direction so that hereafter men of the highest type, men educated in our universities and collegiate institutes, might be drawn to the Civil Service.
Mr. A. De WITT FOSTER: They were turned down.


George Perry Graham: I am not going into details. My hon. friend was trying to get a man into the department. I know Dr. Adam Shortt, and I say, in the face of everything that hon. gentlemen have said, that there is no higher-minded type of man in the Dominion of Canada than Adam Shortt. He has his peculiarities, as the Minister of Public Works and I have our peculiarities, but he is the soul of honour, and there is ho higher type than Adam Shortt. I wish he were in the House to-night to reply to what some hon. gentlemen have said. I would like to see him on the floor of this House ready to discuss the great questions of the country, and if he were hon. gentlemen would find him a foeman worthy of their steel. I know the difficulties that ministers have with the Civil Service Commission-nobody better. My hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Cochrane) smiles; he knows what I mean. .1 have had my difficulties with Dr. Shortt, and I have told him that he was wrong time and again, but I never imputed wrong motives to Dr. Shortt, because I believe he is incapable of entertaining motives other than those of the highest kind. What he was doing at the Forum was criticising our whole Civil Service system, and if you will read what he said carefully you will find that he took a fling at both parties. Of course, the present Government was in- that was the difference-but we had been in for a long time, and he criticised the Civil Service when the late Government was in power. He criticised the system very severely, and it was the system that we left that Sir George Murray was secured to investigate. Dr. Shortt thought that we had not arrived at the right kind of a system, that our officers were not divided in the proper way, that our work was not systematized, and that the ministers had too much to do. Dr. Shortt has always been largely opposed to our present system and wanted it

changed. Whatever he said on that occasion was meant to give an example of what he thought was wrong in our present system, and I do not think that he ever had any desire to impugn the motives or criticise the actions of the present Government. I know him as well as any man in this House knows him. As it is, the fact as to the figures must remain whatever Dr. Shortt said or did not say. The figures presented by my hon. friend from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) to-day show a chasm, to use the words of the hon. Finance Minister (Mr. White) between the sum of the dis-missable, resignations, deaths and desertions-


John Dowsley Reid: No.


George Perry Graham: I think so-and the sum of the appointments equals about 11,000 people.


John Dowsley Reid: There were no deaths in the returns.


George Perry Graham: Well, leave out the
deaths. It is said that civil servants seldom die and never of their own accord resign.
I do not know whether that is true or not, but they seldom resign unless they are forced to. The people will be asking:	Is
the Government justified in adding these thousands to the expense of the country at a time when we have a deficit-the first deficit in many years? They may not be so particular as to what Dr. Shortt said or did not say. From the public standpoint I do say that when we have a man who has held important positions in one of the leading seats - of learning in the Dominion of Canada, in a seat of learning which stands amongst the highest-that is Queen's University at Kingston, and I am proud to have some little connection with that university-when we have a man who has sent pupils out all over the Dominion to carry on their lifework, and who have carried with them a high respect for Dr. Adam Shortt, when we have a man who is in such a position that he cannot be touched by the House of Commons, one who occupies the position almost of a judge, I think it is as little as the Government can do to appoint some body before whom Dr. Shortt can come and put his side of the case as against the abuse which has been hurled at him by some gentlemen behind and on the Government benches. That is only fair to the dignity of this House, fair to the responsibility of the Government, and fair to a man who, notwithstanding what has been said,
stands high and will continue to stand high in the estimation of the leading educationalists in the Dominion of Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the House went into Committee of Supply, Mr. Sevigny in the Chair.
Progress reported.
On motion of Sir Robert Borden, the House adjourned at 11.55 p.m.
Friday, March 5, 1915.