1915-04-08

[Stage Direction]
Mr. G. E. MoCRANEY moved:
That Bill No. 118 for the relief of Charles Isaac Alexander be placed on the Order Paper for consideration in the Committee of the Whole.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this Bill was considered in the Senate and passed. It was considered by the Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills of the House, and the preamble was rejected by a vote of 7 to 6 on Thursday last. On Monday of this week, I moved to refer the Bill back to the Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills, which was agreed to and the preamble of the Bill was rejected on a vote of 11 to 9. In view of the narrow difference of opinion in the Private Bills Committee, and in view of the fact that the conclusion appears to be at variance with the evidence, I think the Bill should have the attention of the whole House.
Mr. R. B. BENNETT :: Twice this
matter has been before the Committee on Private Bills and has been rejected. I, for one, object to its being brought before the House. And, I raise the point of order, as I think I am entitled to do, that the motion cannot be brought forward at this time. If any case clearly indicates the necessity of provision being made by Parliament for the creation of a proper tribunal to consider divorces, it is this. It is the kind of case that should not be thrust upon this House for consideration. I am not a member of the committee, but at this stage of the session I am not disposed to question the conclusion of the committee which twice considered the matter.


Sir ROBERT BORDEN:: I supported the motion to refer the case back to the Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills, for reasons which I then stated and to which I still adhere. At that time, I said that the very anomalous result which had bee* reached, indicated, as has just been pointed out by the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett), the necessity for some change in the method by which such cases are disposed of. It occurs to me that the method which has been suggested more 138i
than once, that of having these Bills referred to a joint committee of both Houses, so that members of the committee having thd Bill under consideration shall hear the witnesses, might be a better method than that which is now in vogue. The Bill was referred back to the Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills, and that committee has again decided against reporting the Bill. . In the circumstances, while personally, had I been a member of the committee I should have voted to report the Bill, I do not think it is our duty to further deal with the question in this House. The rule has been in the past that the report of a committee upon a Bill should1 command the approval of the House unless; there are very cogent and convincing reasons to the contrary, and notwithstanding that rule, I supported the motion to refer the Bill back. But now that it has been twice considered by the committee, it seems to me that the Bill must be dealt with in accordance with the views of the majority of the committee, and that no good purpose would be served, under present conditions, by asking the House to undertake consideration of a question which, although it is within the judgment of the House, is nevertheless primarily within the judgment of the committee to whom the Bill has been twice confided. I regret therefore that I cannot support the motion of my hon. friend from Saskatoon (Mr. MoCraney).


Mr. J. G. TURRIFF :: If this Bill is knocked out it will be in my opinion a travesty on justice and it shows the absurdity of the Parliament of Canada dealing with divorces at all.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member, it seems to me, is exceeding his rights when he reflects upon Parliament in that way.


John Gillanders Turriff: If Parliament throws
out this Bill it will deserve to be reflected upon. There would be absolutely no justice in such procedure, because probably not more than a third or a fourth of the membership of the committee was present. If this is to be the final judgment of Parliament on a Bill of this kind, then the sooner Parliament appoints a court to deal with divorce cases, the better it will be for the honour of the Dominion of Canada.
Motion negatived.



QUESTIONS.

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

Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: 1.	Is the steamer Noreen chartered by any department of the Government for service at Halifax ?
2.	If so, (a) who is the owner, (b) from whom is the said steamer chartered, (c) what services does the boat perform, (d) what is the price paid per day, (e) what is the number and the names of the crew, and what wages do they receive?
3.	If he provides coal, oil and supplies?
4.	(a) On what date was this steamer first chartered, (b) what is the total sum so far [DOT]paid to date for such charter, (c) and how much money has been expended by the Government since then in the repair and maintenance of the said steamer?
5.	Does the charterer or the Government pay wharfage charges?
6.	(a) Was the Noreen formerly called the Lily? (b) If so, was she then condemned by the Government steamboat inspector?
7.	Did the Government sell the Lily? If so, when, and to whom, and for what price?


Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	Yes.
2.	(a) Owner, A. B. Crosby, (b) Charterer, A. B. Crosby, (e) Is employed transporting Marine Department employees between Halifax and Dartmouth, (d) Price, $20 per day. (e) Charterer supplies crew of three men. No information as to names or wages. Government provides one man to handle moorings, gangway and freight.
3.	The . Government provides coal and water; the charterer oil and supplies.
4.	(a) 18th September, 1914.	(b) 14th
September to 28th February, $2,800.	(c)
Coal and water, $506. This vessel was employed from August 31 to September 5, 1914, 6 days at $25 per day, transporting equipment from dockyard to Dartmouth. Owner provided crew and all supplies.
5.	There are no wharfage charges.
6.	(a) Yes. (b) No.
7.	Yes; 31st January, 1912; to Messrs. A. B. Crosby Co. for $900. The steamer has since been re-built by the purchaser.


PURCHASE OF LAND FROM J. A.
Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Has the Government bought any land from J. A. Westman, in the province of Saskatchewan?
2.	If so, where is the land, and what price was paid for it?


Mr. CODERRE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	(a) At Regina, Sask., the rear parts of lots Nos. 40, 39, 38 and 37, block 306, southwest corner of Hamilton street and 11th avenue, (b) The land was expropriated on the 23rd February, 1914, and an advance

of $50,000 has been paid, without prejudice, to Mr. Westman, tyho is asking $90,000 for the land; according to information filed with the Exchequer Court; the Crown is prepared to pay $75,000.


CANADIAN WHEATLANDS COMPANY- SEED GRAIN.
Mr. BUCHANAN:: 1.	Did the Government supply any seed grain for the farming land owned by the Canadian Wheatlands Company at Suffield, Alta., and leased to other parties for operation this year?
2.	If so, how much seed was advanced, and how many acres are to be placed under crop?


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


PICTOU COUNTY RURAL MAIL ROUTES.
Mr. McCURDY:: 1.	How many rural mail delivery routes have been established in Pictou county?
2.	What are their names, the length of each, and the date when each was put into operation?
3.	What is the name and length of each proposed route reported on, apart from above, but not yet put into operation?


Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1.	17.
2.	Beaver Bank No. 1, 8 miles, July 1, 1911; Eureka No. 1, 26 miles, Jan. 1, 1915; Glengarry station No. 1, 9 miles, May 19, 1913; Glengarry station No. 2, 19 miles, Oct. 16, 1913; Hopewell No. 1, 18 miles, May 19, 1913; Hopewell No. 2, 12 miles, Oct. 16, 1913; Meadowville station No. 1, 15 miles, Oct. 1, 1913; Merigonish No. 1, 24 miles, Feb. 11, 1914; New Glasgow No. 1, 7J miles, Aug. 1, 1910; New Glasgow No. 2, 21J miles, April 16, 1913; New Glasgow No. 3, 18 miles, Jan. 1, 1915; Pictou No. 1, 20 miles, Jan. 1, 1915; Salt Springs No. 1, 11 miles, May 1, 1913; Scotsburn station No. 1, 30 miles, Jan. 1, 1913; Stellarton No. 1, 101 miles, Nov. 17, .1913; West Branch River John, No. 1 (in part), 11 miles, Aug. 19, 1913; West River station No. 1, 16 miles, May 1 1913.
3.	Alma No. 1, mileage, 16; Little Harbour No. 1, mileage, 8; New Glasgow No. 4, mileage, 22; Pictou No. 2, mileage, 21; River John No. 1, mileage, 17; River John No. 2, mileage, 14; River John No. 3, mileage, 14; Salt Springs No. 2, 13; Scotsburn station No. 2, mileage, 14; Scotsburn station No. 3, mileage, 21; Scotsburn station No. 4, mileage, lli; Westville No. 1, mileage, 24; West-ville No. 2, mileage, 19.
The contracts have been awarded for these routes, but service is not yet in operation.


WAR SUPPLIES-BINOCULARS.
Mr. KYTE:: 1.	Regarding the purchase of binoculars for the Canadian forces, did the Minister of Militia, in appointing P. W. Ellis and Company as purchasing agents, receive any recommendation, verbal or otherwise, in favour of that firm from W. K. MacNaught, of Toronto?
2.	If not, did the minister receive any recommendation from any other person? If so, from whom?


Major General HUGHES:: 1.	No.
2.	No recommendation was needed. The members of the firm are known throughout the Empire for their high and honourable dealing. The minister has known them personally and intimately since boyhood.


UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS.
[Stage Direction]
Mi-. Bureau:	For a return showing the number of employees connected with the administration of the Three Rivers post office on the 21st September, 1911, and the annual amount paid in salaries at that date for such service.
2.	The number of employees connected with the administration of the Three Rivers post office at the present date, and the amount of the annual salaries paid for such service.
3.	The number of employees in the Customs Department for Three Rivers on the 21st September, 1911, and the amount of the annual salaries paid for such service.
4.	The number of employees in the Customs Department for Three Rivers at the present date, and the annual amount of the salaries paid for such service.
5.	The number of employees in the Inland Revenue Department for the district of Three Rivers on the 21st September, 1911, and the annual amount of salaries paid for such service.
6.	The number of- employees at the present date in the Inland Revenue Department for the district of Three Rivers, and the amount of the annual salaries paid for such service.
7.	The number of employees, and the amount paid in salaries for the works on the St. Maurice, in the county of Champlain, during the year 1911-1912.
8.	The number of employees, and the amount of salaries paid per year for the "works on the St. Maurice, in the county of Champlain, since 1911-1912.
9.	Whether the employees whose names follow were dismissed on the 26th and 27th November, 1914, and the 4th and 5th January, 1915 : WildS Lavallge, Pierre Thivierge, Joseph Paquin, sr., Joseph Paquin, jr., Athanase Gdlinas, clerk.
10.	If so, at whose request, and for what reasons.
11.	Whether those days were taken off the salaries of such employees.
Mr. Boulay:	For a return showing the
names of the persons who have successfully passed the Civil Service examinations in the province of Quebec since the establishment of the Civil Service Commission. 2. How many such persons have been called upon to enter the Civil Service. 3. The number in each grade of those who have passed such examinations with success.
WAR SUPPLIES-CORRESPONDENCE. Mr. GRAHAM moved:
For a copy of all correspondence that has taken place since August 4th last, between any official of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and the Prime Minister, the acting Prime Minister, or any member of the Government, concerning the purchase of war supplies by the Government or any department thereof.
Robert Laird Borden: 
Mr. GRAHAM:: I can assure my right
hon. friend that I have not the correspondence, and have never seen it. If my right hon. friend will bring it down, that wilL answer the purpose.


Robert Laird Borden: I will bring it
down after communicating with them, and if there is no objection.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: I rise to a
question of privilege. A leaflet has been placed in my hands which purports on the face of it to be published by the Federal Press Agency, 47 Slater Street, Ottawa, Canada, the central publication and distribution office of the Conservative party of Canada. The leaflet reads:
Laurier and Quebec.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier once declared that if the Empire was ever in peril he would be " the first to stump Quebec.' Well, the Empire was in peril-the greatest peril it has ever faced. Did he stump Quebec? Did he call for French Canadian recruits? Not a bit of it. His lips were sealed in so far as any appeal to his fellow-countrymen was concerned. Why? Because Laurier, now as ever, cares not a whit for the Empire. Vote Conservative, for Borden backs Britain.
It is very seldom, Mr. Speaker, that I trouble the House with anything which concerns myself personally, with anything relating to opinions, speeches, actions, or

omissions on my part, but the statement contained in this leaflet is so absolutely contrary to the facts that I think I am justified in calling the attention of the House and of the country to it. The question is asked:
Did he call for French-Oanadian recruits? Not a bit of it.
As to my action in that regard, I have only to call to witness my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Casgrain). I attended a meeting in the city of Montreal with my hon. friend, who was then a private citizen, but who, I understand, came, directed by the Government, just for the purpose of asking Freneh-Canadians to recruit. I addressed other public meetings in Montreal on the same line, and on every occasion I gave evidence that my heart was very much in this fight in which England is now engaged. I have addressed meetings wherever there was occasion to do so and I would have done more if more had been needed; but I had the testimony' of the Prime Minister himself and of the Minister of Militia that French Canadians had answered nobly to the appeal, and that they had done as much as any of their fellow countrymen of English or of other origin. This morning I have a letter stating that French Canadians are crowding the recruiting offices and are being refused because for some reason no more are needed. In the face of this I characterize this leaflet as a falsehood and a malignant libel and slander.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I beg to say from the
Chair that, while I would not regard this as a matter of privilege according to my understanding of privilege, it is quite proper that the right hon. gentleman should draw attention to this leaflet as he has done and deny it if he wishes to do so.


Robert Laird Borden: The leaflet to
which the right hon. gentleman alludes did not come to my attention, but I would like to inform him that he is not the only person upon whom animadversions have been made. I recollect that last autumn, when I was working at my duties from 16 to 18 hours a day, and remaining at my post against the advice of my physician, organs of the Liberal party, or some of them, in the province of Ontario, were attacking me because they said that not one single patriotic word had emanated from the lazy lips of Sir Robert Borden since the outbreak of the war.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: Was that in a newspaper?


Robert Laird Borden: Yes, from a very well recognized organ of hon. gentlemen opposite and during a period when they claimed to be observing a truce. Further than that, afterwards, when I did go forth to deliver certain addresses in this country which contained, in the judgment of every man in this country, not one controversial word, the same organs which had denounced me for holding my peace charged me with conducting a political compaign.



INQUIRIES FOR PAPERS.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Mr. MACDONALD:: At an earlier period of the session I called the attention of the Minister of Labour to the necessity of sending a fair-wage officer to New Glasgow in connection with certain contracts. I understand an officer has been there. Would the minister be good enough to bring down his report?


Mr. CROTHERS:: One of my officers has been in the Maritime Provinces for three or four weeks and I understand that he is preparing his report now. I have had a talk with him about what he saw in the different factories there, but I have not yet received his report. I will be very glad to bring it down when I receive it.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: During the session I moved for the following returns: On March 29, for papers in respect to the dismissal of Joseph C. Lavers and John Connolly, of the Customs Service, Halifax; on March 24, for a return of papers in relation to lands expropriated by the Halifax and Eastern Railway; on March 17, for a return of papers in reference to the Atlantic ocean freight rates on subsidized steamers; on the same date for papers referring to the leasing of the Windsor branch of the Intercolonial Railway to the Canadian Pacific Railway; on the same date for papers relating to amounts paid for Fenian Raid bounties to persons in Halifax county; on the 26th February, for papers relative to the dismissal from the post office of John Thomas, of English Corner, Halifax county.
I would ask that these returns be brought down before the close of the session.


Robert Laird Borden: Do they all
relate to one department?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: No, to different departments, and that is why I wish to have my request on Hansard.


Robert Laird Borden: If the hon. gentleman would send a memorandum to each of the ministers involved it would probably expedite the production of the papers.



CANADA GRAIN ACT AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
Sir GEORGE FOSTER moved the third reading of Bill No. 112, to amend the Canada Grain Act:
John Gillanders Turriff: I notice that in the amendment submitted by the minister there is no provision for settling cases of shortages of grain from one elevator to another, that is from an elevator in the West to a terminal elevator at the head of the lakes. I would ask if the minister .proposes to make such a provision later on?


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: The legislation which is here proposed has been suggested, and in my opinion is rendered necessary because of a particular phase of the grain transport business having to do with shortages which occur between the elevators at Fort William or Port Arthur and elevators in the East, on the lake carrying route. All parties to this controversy have been heard by the Government or by my department, and they have all had their opportunity to make their representations. At the close of a session it is not advisable to bring in very important legislation affecting large interests and to pass it through the House. My warrant for asking the House to pass this is, as I have stated, that all parties have presented their cases and we have full information. The other suggestion of my hon. friend which would involve the settlement of all shortages from the place of production to the elevators at Fort William and Port Arthur is a very much larger question in its way, and, if anything, a more important question. We are taking this step at this time on a very important section, involving somewhat the same principle as his suggestion. We will see how that works out during the year and then be in a better position to decide what measures may be taken in that or some other direction in a succeeding year.


Wilfrid Laurier: I am in receipt this morning of a letter coming from a prominent gentleman connected with lake navigation and the carrying of grain. He represents to me that this legislation has been hasty and is not fair to the navigation interests. I shall read the concluding portion of the letter:
Apparently the unloading elevators have taken the position, which I assumed they would
take, and I understand now that on Saturday the min'ster gave some explanation to the House stating that the shippers, outloaders, and the carriers are agreeable to having the amendment to the Grain Act put through and that only some of the eastern elevators object.
I feel it only right that I should explain the situation to you and point out that as a vessel manager I do not agree with this proposed amendment at all, as it is no way to remedy one evil by creating another, or correcting the evil unfairly at the expense of every one interested.
I have no opinion of my own to express on this matter, for it is a very technical subject, and I am sure that only a few of us can understand it; but I thought it well to bring to the attention of the minister this protest from a man who is very prominently connected with the lake commerce.


George Eulas Foster: Of course it is very difficult for all parties to see eye to eye on a question of this kind. Tb# correspondent of my right hon. friend is probably objecting to the compromise arrangement which it is proposed to make, and in reference to which representatives of all the different interests were called together. My right hon. friend will see that this legislation gives the Grain Commission power to take what measures seem to them right in order to settle the shortages. So far as this letter is a protest, it is a protest against something which has fallen through and not a protest against handing over this matter to the responsible management of the Grain Commission who Teally know more about this than any of us, and whose interests in the question are, I think, not only very intelligent but very sympathetic.


Mr. OLIVER:: I desire to move an
amendment to the motion for the third reading of this Bill, not for the purpose of dividing the House, but [DOT] for the purpose of getting an expression of opinion. I beg to move:
That the Bill be not now read a third time but that it be referred back to the Committee of the Whole for the purpose of amendment by striking out the word "shipper" where it occurs in the sixth line of section 120 (a).
The purpose of the Bill is to authorize the Grain Commission to examine into any question of shortage; to make a finding in regard to that shortage and to enforce that finding. Now the only parties who can be responsible for the shortage are, first, the elevator operators at the western lake terminal; secondly, the elevator operators at the eastern lake terminal, and thirdly, the carriers between
219*2

those two points. One of those three must be responsible for the shortage. So far as I understand the matter, there is no way in which the shipper can be responsible for the shortage; and if the shipper cannot be responsible for the Shortage, power should not be placed in the hands of the Grain Commission to hold him responsible. I do not imagine that the Grain Commission would give a decision laying the responsibility on the shipper when it did not rest there, but I think it very undesirable that the legislation should contain the suggestion that the shipper may be held responsible when he cannot possibly protect himself against that responsibility. The shipper, whether he ships from an interior point or from a terminal elevator, ships subject to the weighing in and to the weighing out of the terminal, by officials of this Government over whom a shipper has not and cannot have any control. Neither has he any control over the carrier nor over the eastern receiving elevator. Therefore the shipper cannot be held responsible in any degree for the shortage in shipments through Fort William. When his grain is received into the elevator he gets credit only for the grain that is weighed in by the Government weighmaster, and from the time that the grain is taken in hand by the Government weighmaster the shipper has no control whatever over it. Therefore, the shipper should not be placed on the list of those responsible for a possible shortage in the weight between the shipping elevator and the eastern port of delivery.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I should like to point
out that this amendment is hardly in the proper form. It asks that the Bill be referred back for the purpose of striking out certain words instead of asking that the Bill be referred back for further consideration.


Mr. WRIGHT:: The hon. member for
Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) is dealing with lomet'hing that does not come within the scope of this Bill. The original shipper does not ship through the terminal elevators but to them and he is left entirely out of the question after the grain has been weighed in. From that point forward the shipment is by an entirely different party. There must be some' method I apprehend of determining the amount of grain that goes into a vessel at Fort William for instance, and I do not know any very good reason why the man who loads the vessel with grain there should not be held ac-

countable for the amount of grain he claims to put into that vessel. If he does not/put in the number of bushels that he charges up to the buyey, there, ought to be some method of determining that the proper amount has not gone into the vessels. If there is a shortage when the grain arrives at the eastern port, whether Montreal, Midland, Port Colhorne, Goderich, or any of the other numerous places in the east to which grain is shipped, it does not necessarily follow that it is the fault of the lake carriers or even of those who have control of the grain at the eastern port. The shortage might be accounted for by the fact that the proper amount of grain was not put into the vessel at Fort William or whatever the shipping point was. The people in the Prairie provinces and further west would have no concern in that shortage at all. They are entirely through with the grain as soon as it lands at the elevator at the head of the Lakes. I may be mistaken, but I think the idea the hon. member for Edmonton had in mind was that these people would still be responsible if a shortage was found at the eastern point of delivery. That is entirely distinct from the object of the Bill. This legislation is not intended to touch the question of any shortage that might arise between the loading by the farmer or by the small elevator man in the West and the large elevator at the head of the Lakes.


Mr. ROBB:: When this Bill was in committee additions were made to section 4, and I notice that in both 120a and 120b, which were added to section 4 the word " shippers" appears. In answer to my hon. friend from Muskoka (Mr. Wright) who is a grain grower in the West, let me point out this. He ships down from his farm in Saskatchewan to Fort William 10,000 bushels of wheat; when it reaches Fort William the elevator man takes it in and gives him a certificate for 9,900 bushels, which is 100 bushels short; he sends down that certificate and the bills of lading to the elevator man who took it in at Fort William, and says: Ship this wheat to James Richardson & Son at Kingston; they weigh it into the boat and ship it to Goderich for account of James Richardson & Sons, and when it reaches Goderich they say that there are only 9,800 bushels-does the hon. gentleman think that he as a shipper should be held responsible for the loss of that second hundred bushels?

il93


William Wright: The hon. gentleman
is conjuring up a thoroughly imaginary proposition.


Mr. NEELY:: That is exactly what is
done.


William Wright: That is exactly what is
not done.


David Bradley Neely: It happens very frequently.


William Wright: I beg to differ from my hon. friend. Everybody knows that the farmer of the We3t does not ship to the terminal elevators and does not load a vessel with grain going down to the big elevators on the lakes. There are not many farmers in the West who can load a quarter of a million bushels of grain through the elevator. The weight of the grain is finally determined when it goes into the terminal elevator at the head of the lakes unless it may be that he is shipping a carload of grain direct all rail and it goes down to a mill in the East. But if it is the intention to provide some kind of a remedy for the farmer of the West who might be subject to shortage, I think the question will have to be dealt with separately. It should not be mixed up with the question of the transportation of grain in the Great Lake carriers. The grain loses its distinctive individuality and there is no method of identifying the farmer's grain after it has gone . into the lake vessel. It is all put in the hold of the vessel and it would be almost impossible to trace it through the terminal elevators at Fort William and away back to the loading platform of the farmer who originally shipped it.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: As the hon. gentleman has already spoken he could not properly go beyond an explanation in reference to the question raised by the hon'. member on this side of the House.


William Wright: I was only trying to touch the point raised by the hon. member for Huntingdon (Mr. Robb). I had no intention of going into the question.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: While I see some force in the argument of my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) that in the general course of events it could not be that the shipper entered into the question as to the responsibility for shortage, still, one can conceive of a case where possibly he might do so. I do not look upon it as a case between the Western farmer and the elevator companies or lake carriers. The shipper is in another category altogether. He is
not an exporter on the one hand or a farmer on the other. He is a grain dealer usually operating on the grain exchange at Winnipeg. However, the question comes in here: the lake carrier seems to be of the view that the shipper is the man who should in general.be responsible. Whether they are correct in that view or not, they take that view and they press it very strongly. Consequently, if we are to relegate to the Grain Commission we should relegate the whole question and let them decide it. Although we feel that the shipper should in general be exempt from the question, still it is evident that when we are relegating to the commission we should let the commission decide that as well as the rest. We give them no directions at all. We simply say that if in any specific case you will find the shipper has gained an advantage where the grain has been overweighed out of the elevator you have a right to adjust it accordingly. If they agree with the hon. member for Edmonton that in any case he should not be responsible, they will not hold him responsible. Surely it is the duty of the House, when we are submitting the question to a tribunal, because we cannot bring the parties to the question together, not to tie the hands of the tribunal but to submit to such tribunal the whole question and not a part alone.


George Eulas Foster: I do not know that I can say anything to reinforce what has been already said, and particularly what has been said by my hon. friend who has just taken his seat (Mr. Meighen), but there are two main facts in connection with it. In the first plate, it is not, I think, pertinent to try to confuse the original producer of the grain, in the guise of the small farmer, or even of the comparatively large farmer, with the shipper. He is largely the shipper of the grain from the locality but very often sails to the street buyer or the track buyer and so he has no interest in the grain thereafter. In many cases he ships from the loading platform and in many other cases he sands in quantities through the local elevator.	He is the shipper in theSe cases, but the facts of the case are that when you come to ship out from the elevators at FoTt William and Port Arthur, the original farmer is almost entirely eliminated. The grain at that point has got into the hands of the intermediate and laTge buyers and they are the people who are the shippers from that point on. The farmer, away

back in the producing centre, has very little interest as far as this legislation is concerned. The other fact is this: We have in this measure worked out an arrangement. If this measure is thought to be wise, we are handing over the matter of the adjustment of this much vexed question to a body which has more experience than we have, and it is only right that we should give to them broad powers to make the adjustment between all concerned. It is true in a sense that the shipper has no mechanical interest in, or power over, his grain after it has been weighed out of the Government elevator and the weight has been adduced. That is true, but he is still the owner of the grain and he has chief interest in it. In the case of the ovsr-weighing of grain, where it would be to the advantage of the shipper he should not be eliminated from the adjustment. The third fact is that it must be borne in mind that we are simply relegating this question to the board which understands the matter and will take every one of these interests into consideration. If the shipper has no interest, and it will so appear to them, he does not come into the adjustment at all, but if there is an interest and it so appears to them, why should we limit their power to spread the adjustment over all the parties to the transaction? I trust that my hon. friend (Mr. Oliver) will not press his motion. This is a small piece of legislation which has been very carefully thought over and discussed with the Board of Grain CSommissioners, and we have put it in about the best possible way we could. I should be disposed to think that the House would be well advised to just let it go through without proposing further amendments. At the same time it is quite Open to any one to press his views.


Frank Oliver: Have I the right to say a Word now in conclusion?


George Eulas Foster: There is no objection.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It is with the consent of the House.


Robert Laird Borden: Certainly.


Frank Oliver: I do not wish to trespass on the House, but I thought it was my prerogative.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Not on a substantive motion.


Frank Oliver: Well, then, I will not say anything.


George Eulas Foster: There is no objection.


Frank Oliver: I do not wish to prolong the discussion at all. I wish to correct the impression that seems to have occurred to the mind of the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. Wright), and' to that of the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster),	that I was
particularly advocating	the	case of
the rural producer and outside shipper. He was not the person I had in mind at all; I was dealing with the shipper as he is generally understood, and on representations made to me which seemed to be concurred in by the Minister of Trade and Commerce and by the Solicitor General, that it being perfectly clear that the shipper was not and could not be in any degree responsible for the shortages, he certainly should not be, so to speak, on the Indian list, subject to the discretion of the Board of Grain Commissioners. I am quite satisfied with the good faith of the Board of Grain Commissioners, and of their readiness to do what is right; but we are supposed to have responsibility and to exercise it in this House of Commons, and if we are satisfied that two and two actually make four, I do not think we are entitled to put in our legislation a suggestion that on the opinion of some one else two and two may make five. This is a question of absolute fact as to the lack of responsibility on the ' part of the shipper, and that being an absolute and established fact, I cannot agree that it is wise legislation to turn over to the Board of Grain Commissioners the authority to say differently. Let the Minister of Trade and Commerce, if he wishes, put it this way, that if the Board of Grain Commissioners on their examining into the question find that in a possible case the shipper may have responsibility, then they can make representations to this House and we can amend our legislation accordingly.
I think that would be the fairer way to deal with the matter.
The principal purpose that I had in moving the amendment on the first new section was in its relation to the second section which I will deal with when this amendment has been disposed of. The matter comes up much more directly on the second section than on the first, but in order to have the case in line in both sections, it was necessary to make this amendment in regard to the first section.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The hon. member will not have the right to move another amend-

merit, because he has now exhausted his right to speak on the third reading of the Bill.


Frank Oliver: Then might I add what I wish to say in regard to the second section? I was under the impression that I could move an amendment to each section and speak on each amendment.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think I reminded the hon. member that his original motion was not in proper form-that it should he that the Bill be referred back to the committee for further consideration, but not on any one section. That I understood was done.
Amendment (Mr. Oliver) negatived.


Mr. KNOWLES:: I desire to move in
amendent:
That this Bill he not now read the third time, hut that it he referred back to the Committee of the Whole for further consideration for the purpose of amendment by striking out the words " and 'shippers " where they occur in the seventh line of section 120 (b) and by inserting the word [DOT]" and " between the words " operators " and " water-carriers," where they occur in the sixth line of the said section.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: This amendment in my judgment is out of order. When a Bill is referred to a committee, it is in order to give instructions to that com-12 noon, mittee to do certain things that otherwise it has not the power to do. The Committee of the Whole has the power to do, without instructions from the House, what the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) desires done, when the Bill has been referred back for further consideration, and as that amendment has been negatived already this amendment is out of order.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the third time and passed.
NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY ACT AMENDMENT. PROPOSED GOVERJNIMENT OPERATION. On motion of Hon. Frank Cochrane (Minister of Railways and Canals), Bill No. 119, to amend the National Transcontinental Railway Act, was read the third time, and passed.

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. C. J. Doherty (Minister of Justice), Bill No. 122, to amend the Winding-Up Act, was read the second time, considered in committee, reported, read the third time, and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice) moved the second reading of Bill No. Ill, to enable Canadians on active military service during the present war to exercise their electoral franchise.
Wilfrid Laurier: Will the hon. gentleman please explain this Bill, we have had no information so far.


Mr. DOHERTY:: The purpose of this Bill is to enable Canadians on active military service, whether in this country or outside of Canada, to exercise their electoral franchise. Under the provisions of this Bill, every soldier, twenty-one years of age and a British subject, will be entitled to vote in the event of occasion arising for him to exercise that right. That vote he will be entitled to have recorded within the electoral district wherein he has resided for thirty days preceding his enlistment or enrolment. That is the general rule proposed with regard to the locality as to which this right to vote shall be exercised. There is, however, a proviso that where any soldier has a right to vote, irrespective of this Bill, in any particular electoral district, he shall vote in that electoral district, and, of course in that electoral district only.
To provide means, to enable the soldier upon active service to register his vote is the purpose of the great bulk of the provisions of the Bill. The system may be summarized as follows:	It is proposed that
upon this law being enacted, ballots should be prepared sufficient in number for the number of men who may be entitled to exercise the right under this Bill.


Mr. MARCIL:: Prepared by whom?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Printed as we would
print ballots for any ordinary election. There would be prepared also a form of affidavit to be made by the soldier who votes under this Bill, and a form of certificate to be given by the officer, who, under the Act would receive the ballots. These ballots being printed, a sufficient quantity would be sent to the different officers commanding at the military bases in Canada, to the officer commanding the Canadian troops in Bermuda, and to the office of the High Commissioner in London, whose secretary is constituted the custodian of these ballots. In the event of a writ being issued for an election, the fact would be at once communicated to the different officers commanding both in Canada and in Bermuda, and
21'JG

to the secretary of the High Commissioner's office in London. In the two latter cases, it would probably have to be done by telegraph, and provision is made for it being so done. On the receipt of this information, it becomes the duty of the custodians of these ballots to make a distribution of them to the persons entitled to receive them. As regards the commanding officers in Canada and Bermuda, that distribution would be made directly to the soldiers under their command. With regard to the ballot for the soldiers overseas, on receipt of information of the issue of an election writ, it would become the duty of the secretary of the High Commissioner to see that these ballots are forwarded to the different officers commanding the several units wherever they may be found. The method provided whereby the soldier is to vote is that being furnished with a ballot, he shall mark the ballot in the presence of a commissioned officer, but shall so mark it that while the officer shall be in a position to know that it is the soldier ibimself who marks the ballot, he will not be able to know in what way he marks it; that is, he will not be able to know how the soldier votes.


Charles Marcil: Will the officer be sworn?


Charles Joseph Doherty: As the power is conferred on commissioned officers, the Bill does not propose to require an oath from the officer in regard to the matter. It was considered that we might entrust that duty to the officer in his official capacity. If, on consideration of the Bill, the sense of the House should be that it would be desirable that the officer be sworn particularly for the purpose, I do not know that there would be any material objection to that being done. The ballots having been marked in the presence of the officer, the soldier also would make an affidavit as to his qualifications and as to the place in which he had resided before his enlistment or his address in any electoral district in which he may have had a vote irrespective of this Bill. The affidavit is to be sworn before the officer and attested by the officer. The ballot and the affidavit will be enclosed in an envelope and sealed by the officer who will also endorse upon the back of it a certificate that the person who made the enclosed affidavit is known to him as a member of his company, platoon, or whatever the subdivision may be and as the person whose name appears, and that, to the best of the officer's knowledge, the statements in the affidavit made by the soldier are true, 
these	envelopes	will be	addressedand	forwarded	by mail	to the
Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. It will become the duty of that officer, upon receipt of these ballots, to distribute them among the different electoral districts in which the votes are to be registered. In what electoral district the vote contained in a given envelope is to be oast will appear, of course, by the attestation on the exterior of the envelope made by the officer. On the face of that will appear the address given by the soldier. It was suggested that the soldier should state the electoral district; but it was pointed out that, particularly in view of our recent redistribution, there might be confusion as to the exact title of the district. With the address given it will be a simple matter for the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery to distribute the ballots to the several districts in which they should be registered.


Mr. SINCLAIR:: Has the Government a complete list of the names, post office addresses and residences of all the men who have enlisted?


Charles Joseph Doherty: 
John Gillanders Turriff: But representatives of
both candidates are present at the time.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I understand that, and before I have finished my explanation it will be seen that representatives of both candidates will control, to some extent at least, tnese declarations of the soldiers. In principle, if the soldier swears to his qualifications, I think that we may at least give to him the same credence that we give to voters in certain of the provinces of this Dominion. It is not considered an insup-

erable obstacle to their voting that there is not in existence an exact list showing where their residences have been in the past or what their qualifications are. 1 -o not quite see that we should refuse to tne soldier- whose name is not on a list what we are willing to give to the citizen who is in the same position. It will appear on the certificate on the exterior of the envelope where the ballot ought to be deposited, and it will be the duty of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, having received this envelope sealed, to affix his own seal to it, and, putting together "in one parcel all the envelopes that belong to a particular electoral district, to forward the bundle, properly sealed by himself, to the returning officer for that electoral district. Upon the receipt of such parcel containing ballots of this kind, it will become the duty of the returning officer to notify the candidates or their representatives that he has received such a parcel of ballots and that he will proceed, upon the day fixed for the election, at a certain hour after the close of the polls, to open this parcel and to deposit the ballots contained therein. In that way the candidates or their representatives will be enabled to control the operations of the returning officers in regard to these ballots. The ballot, when marked by the soldier, is to be folded, as all ballots are, in such manner that it will not appear on the exterior how he has voted. The returning officer, having given the notice mentioned, is on the polling day to proceed to open the parcel in the presence of the candidates or their representatives, and, having submitted the exterior of the envelopes to the examination of the parties interested, if there be no objection, it is his duty to open the envelopes, withdraw the affidavits and submit them to the candidates and their representatives. These being found regular and satisfactory, he is to take the ballot from the envelope and drop them in the ballot box, ijust as the deputy returnng officer takes the ballot from any voter who presents himself at the poll and drops it into the ballot box. These ballots so dropped into the box will be counted and credited to the representatives of the parties for whom these votes have been cast.


Mr. TUGSLEY:: What safeguards are there that the ballots marked by the soldiers will be the ballots returned to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The safeguards are, that that ballot is, in the presence of the soldier, inserted in an envelope sealed by his officer.


Mr. GERMAN:: The Bill does not say
"sealed."


Charles Joseph Doherty: If it doss not say
sealed," but we can provide for that. Certainly the intention was that it should.


William Pugsley: What puzzles me is
what absolute safeguard there will be.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If we are looking for
absolute safeguards, I do not think that we can find them. We have to trust men in respect to the voting that is done at home; and notwithstanding all the precautions that we take, a dishonest officer can act dishonestly and defeat the purpose of the law.


William Manley German: When there are scrutineers at his elbow, acting on behalf of both parties, he cannot very well act wrongly, but there are no scrutineers at the front.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There are no scrutineers at the front, nor will the ballot be deposited in the box at the front. What we have at the front is the commissioned officer of the men who are voting. We are, therefore, confiding to the commissioned officers of our troops the confidence that we give to the deputy returning officers in this country; and if that is a risk that we should not take, we have to admit that we are taking it. But I do not think that it can be suggested that we cannot place the same confidence in our officers who are at the front that we put in the deputy returning officers who are selected by the returning officers to preside over the operations that take place at the polls.


William Erskine Knowles: Does the minister mean that the only difference in the way of safeguards is that the commissioned officer is substituted for the deputy returning officer, and that in all other respects the safeguards are as great in the one case as in the other.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There is not the presence or representatives of candidates; that is true.


Charles Marcil: And the officers are not
sworn.


Charles Joseph Doherty: As I said to the hon. member, if it is considered necessary that we should swear these officers for this particular duty, personally I would see no objection to its being done. It is not provided in the Bill. As the matter presented

itself to the minds of those who submitted the Bill to the House, it did not appear to be necessary. It seemed to us that the honest performance of this duty might have been entrusted to an officer in his capacity of officer, relying upon the traditional honour of one who is an officer and a gentleman.


Charles Marcil: We swear our own returning officers.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes, and I am not suggesting that it might not be advisable to swear the officers.


John Gillanders Turriff: Would the minister
think it perfectly safe to leave the handing of the vote to deputy returning officers without scrutineers of either party being present?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I wish to state frankly now that if the view put forward is that before the soldier votes we must surround his vote with all of the protections which surround the vote of a man in this country, this Bill does not attain that object. Those who submitted this Bill thought, however, that the right in the exercise of which this Bill seeks to protect the soldier was of such importance that we should be willing, providing we had reasonable precautions, to waiye some of the details of the operations that surround the voting at home.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The minister has stated that some certain provision was recommended by somebody in the committee. I would like to have it understood that this Bill has not been recommended by the committee. It was opposed by the minority of the committee and was not even recommended by anybody on the committee. Probably there is no difference between us on that.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Absolutely none. I
said when the Bill wa3 laid before the House that the committee was not making a recommendation, was not unanimous in submitting it to the House, that the minority of the committee did not approve either of the measure in principle or of the method provided in the Bill for giving it effect; and I did not say that the committee had recommended this. I said that those who did recommend it took this responsibility. I do not hesitate to say that, so far as I am personally concerned-and I think I speak in that regard for a majority of the committee -we do recommend this Bill to the favourable consideration of the House.
[Mr. Doherty. 1


Wilfrid Laurier: You do not
do it very strongly.	.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do it just as I do everything that I do, I do it sincerely. The strength with which I may do it depends on the force that my representations may exercise upon the judgment of the House, but I am prepared to say that I put this measure forward with all the sincerity with which I have ever put forward any measure. I am prepared to admit that it may be open to criticism in its details, and I am of course prepared to admit that there may be gentlemen in this House who can suggest a better method of carrying out what is proposed to be carried out; but in so far as the principle of the Bill is concerned, I would be surprised to find that there was not a general consensus that if this thing can be, and I believe it can be, properly carried out, we should see to it that the soldier who has sacrificed so much in order to do our work and to carry Canada's honour through this struggle, should not be asked in addition to all his other sacrifices to make the sacrifice of his right to have his voice heard in the determination of the public questions of this country. I did not think it was necessary for me to endeavour to make any extra evidence of the strength of my convictions, because I fancied that was a conviction that was shared by everybody.


Charles Marcil: The minister gives the
votes to those who are voters as well as to those who are not voters.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes; we endeavour to secure to the man who is a voter a manner by which he can exercise his vote. But we say that the man who is a soldier and a British subject engaged actively in the service of this country and of the Empire shall have a vote for that reason, even if there be no other reason why he should have a vote. Somebody has said that the men who are good enough to do our fighting are good enough to do some of our voting.


Charles Marcil: Why do you not leave
out those who are under 21 years of age?


Charles Joseph Doherty: In that regard I think it might be fair that we should make that requirement of a man being of age. I would not very strongly resist a suggestion in this connection.


William Manley German: Why leave out the men serving in the navy?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Because as far as we
could ascertain, their number is very few. However, if hon. gentlemen's only objection to the Bill is that we have left out the men who are serving in the navy, I am sure, speaking for the majority of the committee, we shall be most happy to include the men serving in the navy. The Bill was originally drafted in that way, but two things were pointed out: In the first place, that the number of men serving in the navy who were properly speaking Canadians was very small, and, in the second place, that the sea is very wide and whatever means we may have to make the ballot reach the man who is on land wherever he may be, we have not the same means of making these ballots reach the men who are in the navy, and may be at sea where they cannot be reached.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They would be
more easily reached than the soldiers.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If that is the only difficulty in the way we shall be most happy to extend this provision so as to make it apply to the navy.


Michael Clark: Have the Government been in communication with the military authorities of Great Britain as to how far they will be prepared to give facilities for carrying out this Act?


Charles Joseph Doherty: No. If there is one
thing that never occurred to my mind as a thing concerning which we should consult any outside authority, even the Imperial authorities, it is the question of how far we should extend the Canadian franchise. That'is a matter that I think belongs to this Parliament to determine


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: We should have to get permission before the soldiers could vote.


Charles Joseph Doherty: We are providing that under the law of Canada there shall be a right, and we are providing a method by which that right can be exercised. We have absolute confidence that if the exercise of that right would interfere with the proper performance of the military duties of any Canadian soldier, he would, in the face of the major duty that was incumbent upon him as a soldier, sacrifice the right that we are securing to him. We have no doubt that the Imperial authorities to whom we have handed over our soldiers will see to it that the exercise of this right on the part of our soldiers is not allowed to interfere-even if we concede that there is a danger that our soldiers might allow it to interferewith the due performance of their military duties. In this country, all of us sometimes find ourselves in situations where the performance of a duty, very much less important than the performance of the military duty of a soldier, makes it impossible for us to vote. But because that may happen, are we going to refuse to provide a method whereby the soldier who, at the time he is called upon to vote, finds himself in a position to exercise that right without interference with the performance of his military duties-are we going to say that that soldier shall not have an opportunity of exercising that right? We are not seeking to impose anything upon the War Office; we are not seeking to interfere with the control of the soldiers that Canada has given into the hands of the War Office. But we are saying that those soldiers are Canadians, and that as they are Canadians they shall have the right to register a vote; and we are taking pains to provide a means for the exercise of that right. How that can be an interference with the control of their military superiors, I must confess I am at a loss to see. Undoubtedly the military authorities will see to it that these men perform their military duties, and undoubtedly not one of our soldiers would for a single moment dream of dropping his military duty, if that were necessary, to avail himself of the opportunity of exercising the right that this Bill seeks to give him.	But his right	will
be recognized.	We are simply proproviding means whereby he may exercise that right. But if paramount and superior duties interfere with the exercise of that right, he will be in the unfortunate position of not being able to avail himself of the right- that we are recognizing to him; just the same as many of us in this country are sometimes prevented from voting by some duty, although that duty may not be so important as the military duty of a soldier. I am at a loss to see how the idea arises that, in recognizing to this man a right, and providing a method for its exercise, we are in any manner whatever interfering with the military control of the War Office and its officers.


William Erskine Knowles: Several British subjects in my riding are French reservists, and are now fighting with tne armies of France. Will the minister approach the French Government in order to let these men vote?


Charles Joseph Doherty: That is a somewhat exceptional case, to which our attention has not been previously called.


George Perry Graham: Quite a lot of French reservists from Montreal are with the French army.


Mr. PROULX:: Will the minister give votes to British subjects who are prisoners of war in Germany?


Charles Joseph Doherty: We are giving them the right to vote, the same as we are giving that right to every other Canadian soldier. If they are detained by the enemy I am afraid that will prevent their availing themselves of the right to exercise their vote. iThe hon. gentleman seems to think that if it can be shown that any soldier will not be able to vote under this Act, we should in consequence not let any other soldier vote. It would be just as reasonable if somebody got up and said: We have our General Elections Act, but there may be a man sick in hospital who may be unable to rise from his bed to vote; what are you doing for him?


William Pugsley: Arrangements could be made whereby the man in the hospital could vote. The ballots might be sent to the nurses.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Does the hon. gentleman propose that that should be done?


William Pugsley: I do not know, it is a very difficult question.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Then he ought to condemn the existing election law.


William Pugsley: If it be possible, I am in favour of giving our soldiers the right to vote, but the difficulty is as to the means. Let me ask a question. A soldier who wants to vote conscientiously would want to be informed of the issues, but the ballot that it is proposed to send to him says nothing about the issues. The soldier has to vote for or against the Government, or for an Independent. Does the minister propose any method whereby campaign literature issued by both sides shall be forwarded to the soldiers, so that they may be informed on the questions at issue?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The idea of providing for electioneering among the soldiers never occurred to the committee.


William Pugsley: The minister will find several of the officers engaged in electioneering.


Charles Joseph Doherty: We were not looking at this matter from the point of view of an electioneering device.


William Pugsley: Qui s'excuse s'accuse.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The first suggestion of electioneering came from the hon. gentleman himself, and it is not surprising that I should repudiate it at once. He did not give me time to accuse myself, but went forward to suggest t)he accusation. I was going on to say that if the doctrine is laid down that, unless you can get an arrangement under which every soldier will be able to register his vote, you should not let any soldier vote, then the Bill might as well be dropped. We have an election law in this country under whose enactments large numbers of people who have the right to vote find themselves, by reason of certain circumstances, in a position where they cannot avail themselves of this right, and there will be some soldiers who will not be in a position to exercise this right-the prisoners of war in Germany, for instance.


John Gillanders Turriff: Get the German commanding officers to assist you. That will be just as reasonable as this proposal.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If the hon. member was drafting the Bill, perhaps he would think the German commanding officer a suitable person for an election officer; but the majority of us do not think so.


Mr. DEMERS:: Has the hon. Minister
thought of a different kind of ballot form, than that provided for in Schedule A of this Bill? Because the ballot form provided for in the Bill cannot most certainly meet all the different cases which may happen to occur. Let us imagine for instance a case where there will be three independent candidates.


Robert Laird Borden: 
Charles Joseph Doherty: As regards the details, when we go into committee, I think hon. members will find that I have a perfectly

open mind and that I am quite prepared to accept any suggestions which will improve the machinery by which the purpose sought to he attained by this Act is carried out. The thing that is important is the purpose in view, and while we suggest this method of doing it, we do it realizing that it no doubt would be possible to improve it and we will he only too anxious to accept any suggestions in that direction.


Edmond Proulx: Does the Minister of Justice know whether the Imperial Parliament is providing any such means to enable the English soldiers to east their votes? It may be that they will have to hold an election in England before it is necessary to hold one in Canada.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am not aware that the Imperial Parliament is legislating upon this subject. As I said a little while ago, in regard to the other matter, I would be disposed to let the Parliament of Canada take the responsibility of determining what is best from the point of view of the exercise of the franchise in Canada, and leave it to the Parliament of the United Kingdom to exercise its own' judgment as to what may be a desirable course for itself.


Mr. NESBITT:: Has there been any demand from the soldiers for this Bill?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would like to say, in regard to many of the questions, that while I am very reluctant to interfere, they do not seem to me to be exactly in order at this stage. The second reading of the Bill is simply the stage in which the principle of the Bill is discussed.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: This is the principle, Mr. Speaker.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It is asking a question
in regard to what is taking place in another part of the world. The principle of the Bill is on the right of the soldiers to vote.


William Pugsley: Surely it is important
to consider what is being done in the mother of parliaments?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I know, but the asking
of questions which would be more appropriate in the committee stage does not seem to me to be exactly in order. I have been reluctant to interfere or to interrupt hon. *members in putting these questions. 1 think hon. gentlemen should remember that we are simply discussing the principle of the Bill and that these details may be 139



REVISED

[Stage Direction]
considered when the House is in Committee of the Whole.
Edward Walter Nesbitt: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, if you consider my question out of order?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would regard the question as rather out of order.


Michael Clark: With every disposition to regard as important the suggestion of the right hon. the Prime Minister, may I ask a supplementary question in regard to what I have already said? Would not the minister consider it very unfortunate if a different view should be found to prevail in the mind of Lord Kitchener in regard to the facilities for voting at the front from that which seems to animate this Government? Would not my hon. friend think that it would be an unfortunate contingency should it arise?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not quite grasp
the seriousness of the risk. I am not supposing for a moment that Lord Kitchener, or any other British military authority, would want to interfere with the exercise of this right merely because in his opinion Canadian soldiers ought not to vote in Canada.


Michael Clark: The military authorities are in absolute control of everything going on at the front.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes, they are in absolute control and I was going on to say that I have no doubt that they will so exercise that absolute control as to see that anything that interferes with the soldier's paramount duty does not take place.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What is his paramount duty?


Charles Joseph Doherty: His paramount duty-


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: It is to fight, is it not?


Charles Joseph Doherty: His paramount duty is at the front, and his paramount duty is to bear himself like a man in the great struggle in which he is engaged, but I cannot see that it is inconsistent with the perfect performance of that duty, assuming that the conditions and circumstances permit of it, that he should give some thought to what may be good for Canada here at home and what may be good for her from the point of view of the determination of how she is to be governed. It seems to me that the two things ought to go hand in hand. The same spirit which animates the soldier to his duty in the fighting line should animate the citizen to do his duty in expressing consci-



EDITION

[Stage Direction]
entiously and honestly what he believes to be best upon the great question of the control of the affairs of his country and the great question of the preservation of her-in-terests all of which are involved in any general election. I cannot see that there is any inconsistency between the performance of these two duties. I have difficulty in quite seizing whence comes the suggestion that in voting there is something that involves a departure from the highest principles and the highest ideals. I put fighting and voting on the same level. They are both of them duties to one's country and I cannot conceive why it should be suggested that there is something derogatory in making it possible for a man to perform both of these duties at the same time. I cannot conceive why it should be suggested that we have to apprehend that Lord Kitchener will intervene to prohibit this and create an unpleasant situation. I have no doubt that Lord Kitchener and the military authorities will see that the opportunity we are giving the	soldier	to	exercise	this	right isnot	allowed	to	interfere	with	the performance of his paramount duty. It is not our idea that the soldier himself would wish it to be so. We are willing to trust him with this right without fear that, because he has it and we have given him the means of exercising it, he will, for the sake of exercising it, forget the great purpose for which he is where he is. But if the military authorities in one portion of the seat of war, or in another portion, or perhaps throughout the entire front, find that conditions make it necessary that the men should be placed in such a position as they will not be able to avail themselves of this right, I do not see that any unfortunate situation is created or that it will be unfortunate if they cannot, by reason of the call of a higher duty, avail themselves of the opportunity that we are putting before them. What we are doing is this: We are recognizing the right of the soldier to vote; we are endeavouring to prevent him from being called upon to sacrifice that right because he has gone forward to the front, and with all respect, I think there is no body in this world other than this Parliament that has any right to express any opinion upon the question whether that ought to be done or not. Whether it is consistent with the performance of military duty properly under given circumstances that a man should get time or opportunity to vote, is a question for the War Office, and one which I have no doubt it will properly decide; but I cannot for one mo-
ment suppose that Lord Kitchener or any other of the British authorities is going to take upon himself to determine merely as an abstract question whether or not we in Canada should so legislate that our Canadian soldiers shall have recognized to them their rights as citizens; and provide a means whereby they may exercise that right.
Michael Clark: To clear up
this point and to give the minister an opportunity to clear it up, I may say that I have been told by a man who has been a soldier for years that it would be contrary to military discipline as practised in the British army for a soldier at the front to vote. If that is so, would it not have been wise for the Government to solicit that information before putting Parliament and the country to a political discussion upon the question?


Robert Laird Borden: The soldiers
in the garrison at Halifax have always voted, provided they had the right to vote.


Michael Clark: At the front.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am not aware whether there is such a rule as the hon member has suggested, but assuming that there is such a rule, I do not know that that would be a conclusive reason why we should say that a soldier shall have no right to vote, and that we shall provide no means by which he may do so. With all respect, I would think that under such circumstances it might perhaps be for those who made that rule of military discipline to consider whether they had not a duty in the premises, but that is a matter for their consideration. As I said before, it is for us to determine who shall have the franchise in this country, and to provide a method for those who should have it whereby, in conformity with the law of this country, they may exercise that right. If they be subject to other duties of military discipline which prevent their exercising that right, we at all events have done our part; the people of Canada have shown to the men who have gone forward to the front to fight for them that, so far as it depends upon the people of Canada speaking through their parliamentary representatives, every right which those men might otherwise have shall be guaranteed to them, and that in so far as the people of Canada can furnish them a means to exercise that right, they shall have that means. The responsibility for the rules of military discipline will rest

with those who make them, and we do not undertake to over-ride them. We have done our full duty when we provide under our law for the recognition and protection of the soldier's rights as a citizen, when we make it clear to him that we do not force him to add to all his other sacrifices the sacrifice of his right of franchise as a citizen. What may be the proper rule of discipline is for the military authorities to determine, and whether that rule of discipline should interfere with the exercise of the right of the soldier as a citizen, must of course, by force of circumstances and in the nature of things, be determined by the military authorities.
At one o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at three o'clock.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Before the House rose I had endeavoured to set forth, the principle of the measure and to give its outlines. I was led quite willingly into more detail than was strictly necessary by questions which I am very happy to answer. I would like to point out that the idea of soldiers on active service voting in an election, or a method being provided whereby persons who are not able, as soldiers are not able, to be in their own electoral districts at the time of polling, may be enabled to vote, is not new. They are both new, I think, in this country; but as long ago as the Civil War in the United States, we saw the right to the franchise of the soldier in the field recognized and an effective method provided whereby he could exercise that franchise. It is quite true that the circumstances were not identical with those surrounding our soldiers to-day, but it is also true that those circumstances offered greater difficulties to the exercise of the franchise than our own soldiers would labour under so long as they remain within Canada. In the course of the American Civil War no less than thirteen states of the Union provided a system whereby the soldiers in the field were enabled to vote, and under these provisions 150,000 votes were cast in the election of 1864. The method by which these votes were taken differs from that which this Bill proposes to provide. It was possible there to provide differently, because the conditions were different. An arrangement was made whereby the different units chose election officers, and these election officers held the polls and took the ballots in the ordinary way and these ballots were for-139i
warded. In some of the siates provision was made that a soldier was entitled to register his vote in any electoral district in which ihe had resided for a period of ten days anterior to his enlistment. As the House is aware, the elections in the United States, even for the presidency or other federal office, are under the laws of the different states, each of these states electing a certain number of men to represent it in the Electoral College. As between states provisions differ in detail, but, generally, the vote was taken in the way I have indicated, and these votes were gathered by commissioners or electoral officers. These electoral officers or commissioners, as is provided here, wrote certificates on the back of the ballots, and the ballots were then sent to the judge of the electoral district in which the vote was to be cast, and it was then cast and counted practically in the manner which the Bill suggests the votes of our soldiers should be cast and counted. There was also provision, as in our Bill, for qualified electors establishing their qualification by means of affidavit. Many of the states of the Union have provision whereby persons absent for other reasons than the fact that they may be engaged in military service are enabled t-o vote. One of the states makes this provision "with regard to soldiers in particular as a permanent law, but other states provide means by which any absentee can record his vote. I need not go into the matter further than to say that these measures do not differ, I believe, materially, from the system we propose. Provision is made for the enclosure of the ballot in the envelope and for its being forwarded; and, of course, where it is essential, in order to vote, that a person should be registered upon the list, provision is made for the establishment of the fact that he is so registered. In Australia, there is provision for a vote by absentees, and similar provision is made in New Zealand, Queensland, Victoria, and Tasmania. I may refer especially to the Tasmania law, where the machinery for the transmission of the vote is almost identical with that suggested here. Of course, it does not involve the intervention of military officers, because it is a law of general application under whose operation all persons who are absent from their electoral districts may exercise their franchise.
That vote is taken before such officers very much in the same way as we propose that the votes of our soldiers shall be taken; it


Charles Joseph Doherty: I was just about to add that the Bill had been acted upon. As the hon. member points out, the committee did suggest that a cablegram be sent to New Zealand inquiring as to the actual operation of the Act, and such cablegram was sent. The message was sent by the parliamentary counsel, through the clerk of this House. It was dated March 27, 1915, addressed to the Prime Minister of New Zealand and reads as follows:
Was proposed Bill giving absent soldiers vote passed? Was vote taken? If yes, how many votes were cast? Please cable answer.
The answer received from the Prime * Minister of N'ew Zealand was as follows:
In reply cable 28 your clerk House of Commons. Bill referred to passed and votes of all soldiers who left before general election recorded. Total votes, 10,000.


Mr. MURPHY:: Were the votes of the soldiers taken before they left New Zealand?	.


Charles Joseph Doherty: No, this Bill applied only to the soldiers who had left New Zealand. The law in New Zealand to which I refer, and which is referred to in these messages, was passed exclusively for the

purpose of enabling soldiers who had left New Zealand to record their votes. Saction 2 of that Act is:
Every member of any expeditionary force sent from New Zealand to serve in be war in which His Majesty is at present engaged, shall be entitled to vote in the manner hereinafter prescribed.
Then, in dealing with the appointment of electoral officers this point is further made clear:
Electoral officers may be appointed out of New Zealand for the purpose of enabling any person to record his vote under this Act who is a member of any expeditionary force sent out of New Zealand before the passing of this Act.
The soldi 3rs who had not left New Zealand could vote under the general law providing for absentee voting.


Charles Murphy: Is the minister able to state where the soldiers cast their votes?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have not that information, but wherever they were, they were outside of New Zealand, and wherever they were, they would have been entitled to vote under that Act. As long ago as 1864 provision was made in the neighbouring republic to enable soldiers in the field to vote. The	Government and the
Congress of the United States in that day did not fear that a soldier would fight less well because he also voted in the elections upon which the fate of his country might depend just as fully as on the result of a war. We have the further fact that in all the different states of the Union, and the different dominions of this Empire that I have mentioned, a system for the registering of the votes of people who were absent from their own electoral district has been in force and in operation, and, as I am informed, has given rise to no ground for complaint. We are after all not in the face of any very novel proposition. Large and important parts of the world, where the ballot is looked upon as of as great sacredness and of as great importance as we look upon it, have found it possible to devise a method by which to get an honest and a safe vote of persons who were not actually at home. Some of these countries have gone so far as to extend the advantages of such a method to people who were absent on their own private and personal business only, and I am not prepared to say that they did not do properly. But I do ask the House, should we hesitate to take the risk in respect to our soldiers that they have been willing to take in the interest of persons whose absence
was attributable only to their attention to their proper affairs. Should we not take the risk when it is a question of endeavouring to protect in the exercise of their right of franchise men who are absent from their homes and their country, for Canada's affairs, for the affairs of this Empire, and when their absence involves the risking of their very lives. New Zealand has solved the problem under practically the identical circumstances in which we are confronted with it. I may say that it is not the first time, that New Zealand has set a good example to the other countries of the world, and I fancy we would make no mistake in following her lead.
I think I have said all that I can say with usefulness or advantage in moving the second reading of this Bill and commending it to the House for adoption. Some query has been made as to the strength of my commendation. As I said in answer to that question the House must judge as to the strength with which I have presented it. For my own part I pretend to nothing more than to commend it with all earnestness and all sincerity. I believe that it is impossible to justify the questioning of the soundness of the principle. I have seen a good deal of criticism of it, but it has seemed to me that the criticism rested upon the assumption that everything that surrounded the exercise of the franchise necessarily involved ignoble and unworthy dispute .and strife. I cannot recognize the truth of that proposition. I cannot for one moment conceive that you are going to throw disorder and disunion into the ranks of our troops because you merely afford to each man, at his own option and in the exercise of his own liberty, an opportunity of recording his voice upon the question of how his country ought to be governed. I commend this Bill with all the sincerity and all the earnestness of which I am capable. I shall certainly be very glad of any suggestions that may serve to make it more workable, and to make it more effectually and safely attain the purpose in view. I commend it personally in no partisan spirit, and I have every confidence that it will be received and dealt with in no partisan spirit. I am satisfied that we ought to be able to all get together in a common endeavour to give to the men who are carrying to-day Canada's honour in their hands-the men who have possibly put many of us who are at home and will have every facility to vote, to the blush when we compare our conduct with theirs-the opportunity which Canada
COMMUlN*
extends practically to all her sons, to have each his say, and to make his voice heard in the determination of the great issues upon which the future of Canada depends. To my mind everything that tends to facilitate the exercise of his franchise by every man entitled to vote, ought to be encouraged. There is no doubt that, looking at this from the point of view of the right of the soldier, the question is one of very great importance, and I do not think we need look further than to the fact that it is intended to afford him protection in the exercise of 'his rights, to find ample justification for making an effort to enable him to exercise that right. But over and above the rights of the soldier, or of any individual, is Canada's right to have her people vote. The country has the right to see that every honest man within her boundaries should give to her the advantage of his advice and his opinion as to the manner in which her affairs should be governed and directed. We count that
50.000	of Canada's sons will be absent from us before this war is over. We are ready to look forward to the possibility of twice
50.000	men being absent from our borders before this war is over. Is it fair to ask Canada to lose the advantage of having those 50,000 or 100,000, or other thousands that may be added to that number, cast their vote and give their views as to what is best for her? * Ts it not presumable that these thousands of men are among the best that Canada has to give, and shall we lightly sacrifice the advantage to Canada of their participation in decisions that may be as fraught with importance to her future as anything that possibly is involved in this war? I say from the point of view of this country that we should strain every nerve to secure to her the advantage of the participation in any election that may take place of these, her noblest and her best sons.
In conclusion, I simply want again to say that I ask ultimately the acceptance of this measure, and that as to the details, they ought to be given the best consideration of which we are capable. I am satisfied that there are hon. gentlemen in this House who can suggest methods of working this plan out that will be an improvement on those that the members of the committee who do commend the Bill have been able to find. I would in a very special manner welcome the aid and co-operation of the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley), who said this morning that with the principle of the Bill he was quite in agreement. I know no man in this House who can give more

valuable aid towards the solution of such difficulties as the giving effect to the important principle involves, than that very hon. gentleman. This morning it seemed to me that there was on the part of some members a disposition to laugh at this measure. I would be sorry to suppose, that that disposition, if it did exist, would persist. I should not like to make any reference to the class of people of whom it has been said:	They came to laugh but remained
to pray. Still less would I flatter myself that any words of mine could influence the state of mind of any hon. gentleman. But I have absolute confidence that if hon. gentlemen of this House will give serious thought to the principle involved, they will realize that the matter is a serious one, and that it calls for our most earnest consideration. I have confidence that if this House gives to this Bill the serious consideration that it deserves, the Bill, whether it be perfect now or not, will leave this House a fairly perfect measure. I do not question that there are difficulties in the way of providing a suitable method, but I believe we have found a solution. I do not question that there may be a better solution.
I recognized at the very outset that there were difficulties in the way, but I was surprised to see that because I had said there were difficulties, some people inferred that it was impossible to find a solution. When it is a question of doing a thing that, ought to be done, difficulties only exist in order that they may be overcome, and I am satisfied that with the earnest co-operation of the members of this House, without distinction of party, we shall triumphantly overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of the realization of the proposal 'of this Bill; and that the Parliament of Canada shall not separate until it has seen to it that should occasion arise our soldiers shall have their right to their vote protected, and Canada shall have the assurance of the benefit of their participation in any election that may take place.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon. friend the Minister of Justice has expressed the. hope that all those who had anything to do with this measure would approach it in a spirit of candour. Speaking for myself, I will say very candidly-and I hope my hon. friend will believe me, for I am speaking as sincerely as he has spoken-that I shall approach this measure in no other spirit than that which he has prayed for. There is no one in this House, I am sure, who would be disposed to question this measure,

if the object of it could be attained consistently with the spirit and letter of our constitution. But I have to observe at once to my hon. friend that this measure is, I will not say revolutionary, but certainly very much more extensive than any we have to-day upon the statute book. This proposed legislation creates a new franchise.
I am fairly familiar, though perhaps not so familiar as he, with the legislation of 1864 in the United States during the Civil War. I am aware that bn that occasion several of the States of the Union passed laws to allow their soldiers in the field to cast their votes at the presidential election. I think I am correct in stating, however, that on no such occasion did any of those States create a new franchise. They simply provided that those who were electors in the States should be enabled to cast their votes in the field. But my hon. friend knows that the very first disposition of the Bill which he has brought down for our consideration is the creation of a franchise which does not exist to-day. My hon. friend gave the very inspiration of this legislation when, in the course of his observations, he stated that one who is good enough to take a share in the fight which is now going on, not only for the Empire, but for the whole of civilization, fs good enough to take a share in the auministration of this country. Let me observe at once that while these are glittering words they are, after all, nothing but words. They do not stand analysis, and the falsity of that phrasing of words is shown by the very first line of the first disposition of this Bill:
Every male British subject of twenty-one years of age or upwards serving in the military forces of Canada in the present war. . . who, when he was appointed to or enlisted or enrolled in such forces, . . . shall be entitled to vote.
My hon. friend stated that any man who takes a share in this fight ought to be allowed to cast a vote in the impending election, and to be given a share in the administration of the country, but my hon. friend is aware-the statement has been made on the floor of this House-that there are within the Canadian forces hundreds, nay, perhaps thousands, of Americans who crossed over to this country for the purpose of enlisting and who are to-day taking a share in the fight. It is a matter of history that when the war broke out in August last, thousands of Americans who were in Paris, impelled by the sacredness of the cause for which France was fighting,
at once gave up their life of luxury and took up the life of the soldier; and to-day these men are in the trenches doing their share in the fight for France, for England, for civilization. According to the dictum of the Minister of Justice, it is not only those who are British subjects who are entitled to take a share in the administration of this country, but all of our soldiers who are in the fight. If you maintain this principle, then, by a parity of reasoning, these Americans should also be given a share in the administration of the country. But no one would think of that, because it is inconsistent with responsible government as we understand it that those who are not subjects of the Realm should have the franchise, and so that class has to be eliminated. Again, hundreds of our fellow citizens, boys of our own flesh and blood of 16 or 17 or 18 years of age, have cast aside their prospects in life and risked everything in order to take a share in the fight which is going on. These young men did not wait until they were 21 years of age. My hon. friend does not contemplate giving them the right of suffrage, 'because the law is universal that the right of suffrage shall not be entrusted to those who are not of age. Therefore, it is not a truism to say, as was said by my hon. friend this morning, ithat he who is good enough to share in the fight is good enough to share in the administration of this country. We have laws and regulations, the result of the wisdom and experience of ages, which have determined that we may expect the blood and the sacrifice of the soldier, and yet that the soldier is not entitled to cast a vote in the administration of the country. That is so in this country; it is so in Great Britain; it is so in the United States. There are uniform laws governing the exercise of civil and political rights which no nation has yet contravened.
The first blemish I find in the measure of my hon. friend is that it creates a new franchise. If my hon. friend had been content with proposing a measure which would enable the soldier who is an elector to give his vote, it would have been less objectionable than this measure is. Sir, I need not recall to you the fact that in this country we have no Dominion franchise; we take the franchises of the provinces, but to-day we are creating a Dominion franchise for a certain purpose. The very example which my hon. friend has given of the American legislation of 1864, does not prove his case,

but is rather against it, because the law of 1864 was not passed by Congress. The several states of the Union which had the right to legislate with reference to the franchise passed the laws, and if such a law is to be passed in this country, it ought to be left to the provinces which have the right to legislate with reference to the franchise.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Does the right hon. gentleman contend that Congress had any constitutional power whatever to pass such a law? We have.


Wilfrid Laurier: No doubt we have the power; the only question is whether we should exercise the power. It is not a question of power. I grant that we have the power to a certain extent, but I will show later on that we have no power to pass such a law as this. We have the power to pass a law which confers the franchise. We can discard to-morrow the provincial franchises upon which our elections have been carried on from 1867 to 1882 and from 1900 to the present day. But my hon. friend adds to the franchises of the provinces a new franchise especially for one class of His Majesty's subjects. The object of the Bill is to give to soldiers who are not in the country the right to vote. My hon. friend know as well as I do that there is in this country, and there will always be, a certain class of subjects who cannot exercise the franchise on election day. It was only a few days ago, when we were discussing a Bill-I think it was one of the electoral Bills-that the statement was made on one side and not contradicted on the other, that railway men-conductors, firemen and men of that class-cannot on election day cast their votes. The trains of the country must go on; certain duties have to be performed and the man who has to perform these duties cannot vote. Is there any difference in this respect between the railway man and the soldier? The railway man is not alone. The sailor, the fisherman, and the lumberman are very often not able to cast their votes. Within my own remembrance we have had three elections in winter time-in 1874, 1887 and 1891-and those whose memories go back to those days must recall that in many a constituency men who were voters could not register their votes because they were away in the bush doing their work as lumbermen. Between the soldier, the lumberman, the fisherman, the farmer and any other class, there is no difference whatever in this respect; all are subject to the same 
laws and all are equal before the law. We all certainly are proud of the soldier. But the soldier, in our economy, is no more entitled to favour than any other class of the community. The man who digs in the trenches of a railway is just as much entitled to favour as the man who digs in the trenches in France. The man who. farms, who fishes, or who lumbers has just as much right to his vote as the soldier. But we make a special provision for the soldier. What do we give him? We. recognize the duties which he performs for the country, we recognize the sacrifices which he makes, we recognize the dangers to which he is exposed and, therefore, if he is disabled, we provide to keep him for the rest of his days, and if he loses his life we provide for those who are dependent upon him. But when it comes to the matter of the franchise, all subjects of the King are on a footing of absolute equality.
There are in the Bill of my hon. friend provisions for the soldier who is at home and provisions for the soldier who is out of the country fighting in Europe. As to the soldier who is at home, there can be no necessity for any law. If he is in the country he can easily be allowed to vote where he is registered, and the military authorities would certainly give him leave to go wherever he had to go to record his vote. Therefore the measure applies only to the man who is serving out of the country-the man who has enlisted, and is no longer in Canada, but is in Bermuda or in Europe. This man is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Parliament. Every one of the 50,000 men who have left the country, or who will leave the country, is no longer under the control and jurisdiction of this Parliament; he is a part of the British Army; he is under the control of British authority; he is under the jurisdiction of the War Office, and the War Office alone has the right to pass legislation for him or against him. My hon. friend gives power under such circumstances, but to whom does he give the power? Who is to exercise the authority? My hon. friend is trying by an Act of this Parliament to impose a duty upon the officers of the British army. Let me say to my hon. friend at once that every line of his Bill, even after it has been sanctioned by the Senate, even after it has been assented to by His Royal Highness the Governor General, is so much waste paper. This Parliament has no rignt to pass any legislation to impose any duty upon the officers of the British army, and

my hon. friend has to some extent recognized this.
Before I proceed further let me go back to another radical disposition of this Bill by which the man who is going to vote is not going to vote as any man in Canada is going to vote: he is not going to vote for a candidate, he is not going to vote for a man, but he is going to vote for a party. This is the first time in British legislation, as far as my poor knowledge goes, that we have ever seen such a provision of law. We live under party government, but up to this time we have never carried party so far as to make it the object of an election. This is the first time, I repeat, as far as my information goes, and I believe that my information is absolutely accurate, that a voter in a British country will have been called upon to express his opinion, not upon a candidate but upon a party. Is that in accordance with the principle of British legislation? Although we believe in party, we Tespect the intelligence of the voter so much that we allow him to exercise his free judgment in voting upon the candidate rather	than upon	the party.
It is impossible to separate the party from the candidate and the candidate from the party; and in every election there are men who belong to one party who refuse to cast their vote in favour of the candidate of that party, because they are not in sympathy with him. I will give a case in point. In the election of 1911, my right hon. friend the Prime Minister carried the city of Halifax, hut a political opponent was elected at the same time with him. There was a dual contest: two candidates on each side and two to be elected, but it was not the ticket of one party or the ticket of the other that was elected, because while my right hon. friend the Prime Minister was at the head of the poll, his chief political opponent was next to him. What conclusion are we to draw from that? That a large proportion of the Conservative electorate did not believe in the other candidate and preferred to give their votes to the candidate of the other party. But why does my hon. friend not allow the ordinary machinery to be used, and why does he not permit the soldier at the front to vote for the candidate? The answer is that it is impossible to do so. For my part, I am not willing to create a new franchise, because I think that is absolutely wrong; but I am quite willing that the soldier who is a voter to-day should be allowed to vote if it is possible to provide means to
enable him to vote. As I said before, however-and I come back to this idea-the whole Bill is radically wrong in this, that you are trying to exercise legislative authority over those over whom you have no authority at all.
There is a curious provision in the Bill as to those who are to be the registering officers. The ballots are to be sent to the Secretary of the High Commissioner in London and he is to send them-where? This is where the impossibility of the thing is disclosed. Let me call the attention of my hon. friend to section 3, subsection 2:
If the corps is in Europe, the clerk of the Crown in Chancery shall notify by telegraph cable the secretary of the High Commissioner for Canada of the issuing of the writ, and the secretary shall thereupon send a sufficient number of ballot papers, affidavits and envelopes to the proper officer or officers, and such officer or officers shall give each volunteer entitled to vote a ballot paper, affidavit and envelope.
Where do you find any definition in this Bill as to who is to be the proper officer or officers? There are now over 30,000 of our soldiers in Europe, who are part of the British army, and the units which existed when they left Canada are no longer the units in Great Britain or France. Those
30,000	men may be found in 30 different regiments, in 300 different companies. Who, therefore, is the proper officer or officers to become the returning officer?
The difficulty is so great that my hon. friend has not tried to solve it; he has left this vague disposition in the Bill. When you have a permanent organization which is running its ordinary course every day, you can refer certain duties to the proper officers; but this is not a permanent organization. It is not even a temporary organization; it is no organization at all; it has to be made for the occasion, and there is no disposition in this Bill to say where the ballots are to go. How can the Secretary of the High Commissioner, who is entrusted with the duty, know where the ballots are to go, and how will he be informed as to where the 30,000 or 50,000 4 p.m. men are? He does not know unless he can know by the grace of the War Office, and he does not know to whom he should address the envelopes and documents mentioned in this subsection. Is the proper officer to be the general of the division or the colonel of the regiment or the captain of the company? Who is to have authority over there? The weak point in the Bill, to which my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) referred when he questioned the minister

upon it, is that you are imposing upon 20 or 30 or 40 officers of the British army duties in regard to which they have received no information and as to which they know nothing at all. This consideration, it seems to me, should show very forcibly to my hon. friend that, apart from the fact that we have no authority to give any instructions to officers of the British army, it is impossible to say where and how this Bill is to be carried out if it becomes law.
All the points in this Bill are more or less technical, but I come now to a consideration which is very practical and as to which the minister, when he was questioned, did not in my opinion give any satisfactory answer. Elections are felections, whether they are at the front or elsewhere. They mean passion in ithe voter and in those who are inspiring the voter. The right of election presupposes the right of selection; and, if you give to the soldiers who are now at the front the right to vote, you also thereby give to the Government or to the Opposition the right to canvass. You cannot expect that the soldiers are going to perform their duty as electors unless they are instructed upon the issues. There is in this country not only the broad issue of the war^tlie issue of the war is of course the supreme issue-but many other considerations which will and must influence the judgment of the electors, and the soldier has a right to be instructed upon them. If you give to the soldier who is today in the trenches the right to vote, you sanction also the possibility of canvassing him; you sanction also the introduction into the army of the canvasser. I do not know how canvassers would be received in the British army; but there is another more insidious means of canvassing which is possible: you can canvass by mail, and who knows that the trenches will not be flooded with the kind of literature of which I gave the House a sample this morning? This is not a vain idea on my part, because this literature is issued by a great party, and it can go wherever there is a vote to be reached; and according to this Bill, if it becomes law, there is a vote to be reached in the trenches of France as there is in this country.



THE ROYAL ASSENT.

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by Major Ernest J. Chambers, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Deputy of His Royal Highness the Governor General desires the im-

- mediate attendance of this honourable House in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly the House went up to the Senate.
And having returned,
Mr. Speaker informed the House that His Honour the Deputy of his Royal Highness the Governor General had been pleased to give, in His Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following Bills:
An Act to amend the Canadian Patriotic Fund Act, 1914.
An Act to amend the Senate and House of Commons Act.
An Act respecting the Alberta Central Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Atliabaska and Grand Prairie Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Brantford and Hamilton Electric Railway Company.
An Act respecting the British Columbia and White River Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Essex Terminal Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada.
An Act respecting the Montreal and Southern Counties Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Canadian Northern Quebec Railway Company.
An Act respecting the James Bay and Eastern Railway Company.
An Act respecting the South Ontario Pacific Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Southern Central Pacific Railway Company.
An Act to amend the Independent Order of Foresters Consolidated Act.
An Act respecting the Title and Trust Company, and to change its name to Chartered Trust and Executor Company.
An Act respecting the Canada Preferred Insurance Company.
An Act respecting the Vancouver Life Insurance Company.
An Act to incorporate Marcil Trust Company.
An Act respecting the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway Company.
An Act respecting the St. Lawrence and Adirondack Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Toronto Eastern Railway Company.
An Act respecting the British Columbia Southern Railway Company.
An Act to incorporate the Bruld, Grand Prairie and Peace River Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Manitoba and North Western Railway Company of Canada.
An Act respect'ng Pacific, Peace River and Athab ifka Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern Railway and Navigation Company.
An Act respecting the Athabaska Northern Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Ottawa and New York Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Empire Life Insurance
Company of Canada.
An Act respecting the Huron and Erie Loan and Savings Company, and to change its name

to "The Huron and Erie Mortgage Corporation."
An Act respecting the Casualty Company of Canada.
An Act respecting the Bank of Alberta.
An Act to incorporate Colonial Bank (Canada).
An Act to incorporate Alberta Permanent Trust Company.
An Act respecting the Western Dominion Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Calgary and Pernie Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Canadian Western Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company.
An Act respecting the Toronto Terminals Railway Company.
An Act to incorporate Entwistle and Alberta Southern Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Simcoe, Grey and Bruce Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Kettle Valley Railway Company.
An Act to incorporate Fraser Valley Terminal Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Canadian Northern Railway Company.
An Act respecting certain patents of the Loh-mann Company.
An Act respecting the Sterling Life Assurance Company of Canada.
An Act to amend the Bank Act.
An Act respecting the Van Buren Bridge Company.
An Act to incorporate Northern Pacific and British Columbia Railway Company.
An Act for the relief of William Ewart New.
An Act for the relief of Helene Suzette Baxter Douglas.
An Act respecting the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway Company.
An Act respecting the patent of the National Wood Distilling Company.
An Act for the relief of Lottie Thorndike.
An Act respecting the Grain Growers' Grain Company, Limited.
An Act for the relief of Adam Clarke Anderson.
An Act for the relief of Alexander McIntyre.
An Act for the relief of Violet Burnett Del-mege.	.
An Act to amend the Customs Tariff, 1907.
An Act for the relief of Arthur Ernest Bird-sell.
An Act for the relief of Thomas Jefferson Moore.
An Act for the relief of Alice Beckett.
An Act for the relief of Austin McPhail Bothwell.
An Act for the relief of Agn&s Gravelle.
An Act for the relief of Clara Elizabeth Darnell.
An Act for the relief of Thomas Batin Harries.
An Act for the relief of William John Owen Delaney.
An Act for the relief of Edith May Webster Boyd ell.
An Act for the relief of William Robert Delaney.
An Act respecting the Premier Trust Company.
An Act respecting the North West Life Assurance Company.
An Act respecting the Moncton and Northumberland Strait Railway Company.
An Act to amend the Judges Act.
An Act to supplement the Revenue required to meet War Expenditures.
An Act to authorize certain extensions of time to Insurance Companies.
An Act respecting certain issues of Dominion Notes.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, consideration of the motion of Hon. C. J. Doherty (Minister of Justice) for the second reading of Bill, No. Ill, to enable Canadians on active military service during the present war to exercise their electoral franchise.
Wilfrid Laurier: It would be a mere truism for me to remind hon. gentlemen that the exercise of the franchise has always been surrounded with safeguards, not only to secure a correct expression of the opinion of the electors, but also to insure the due performance of their duties by the election officers and to establish a measure of absolute fair play between party and party. Our system of Government is a complicated one, but the supreme end that we should have in view is that there should be an honest expression of the opinions of the electorate, and that the will of the people should prevail. I do not means to say that the will of the people is always on the right side; but we must take the bad with the good. Though wrong may sometimes triumph; after all, the best system of Government that has yet been devised is that under which we live. The blemish, the fatal blemish, it seems to me, in the measure of my hon. friend is that it does not provide any of the safeguards which exist in this country when the people are called upon to give their verdict upon public questions, and which assure a correct expression of the will of the electors. There are in this Bill no such safeguards; and, if such safeguards are not provided, it is not because my hon. friend has been oblivious to the need of them. I am sure that he must have given more than one anxious hour to the consideration of this matter, and he must have found that it was not possible to provide for registering the votes in the trenches with the same attention and security as prevail in this country. If the Bill is silent upon this point, if it is a dead letter so far as this is concerned, it is only because it is not possible for the hon. gentleman to find safeguards which

would afford a satisfactory solution of his problem.
What safeguards can we have? I need not enlarge 'upon the formalities which are required in our elections to provide that we shall have a minimum of fraud. Our law goes far to prevent fraud and to get an honest expression of public opinion. For instance, the law provides that scrutineers may be present, and very few frauds can be committed when they are present. The returning officer may be a partisan; in fact, returning officers have been accused more than once in this House of being partisans. There may be partisanship even at the front. It is well known to us all that in the heat of elections men who are in ordinary affairs honest and respectable citizens will take , liberties with the law which they would never take in the prosecution of their own private business. The passion for party, the passion to win, makes men more or less callous upon such occasions. Is there anything which can justify my hon. friend in supposing that the same passions which rule on our side of the Atlantic will be powerless on the other side? Is there reason to believe that the instinct which moves a man on this side of the Atlantic to do the best he can, and even to go beyond the law, to obtain a triumph for the cause in which he believes, will not make its influence felt because the elections will be held under khaki instead of under worsted?
The only safeguard of which the Minister of Justice spoke this morning is that he trusts to the honour of the British officer. Sir, no man goes farther in his confidence in the British officer than I do. Everybody knows that nowhere in the world is honour more supreme than in the Tanks of the British army, especially among the officers. But, Sir, the British army is composed of men like other men, and even among them it is possible to find men who are not quite infallible. It will not do for us to believe that they are of different flesh from ourselves. Their education may be better than ours and their accent more refined, but after all they are of the human race, and we must presume that human frailty affects them as it affects others. So we must assume that there will be offences. What provisions are made in respect to this matter? Let us see how the Bill provides that the vote is to be taken:
The volunteer may thereupon make the affidavit in form B before any commissioned officer in the Canadian military forces, and,

after making the affidavit, mark the ballot paper as a vote for the Government or the Opposition or for the independent candidate, in the presence of the said commissioned officer, but in such a manner as not to disclose to the officer how he is voting, and shall fold the ballot paper so that it cannot be read and shall then place the same, together with the affidavit, in an envelope upon the back of which shall bo endorsed a certificate in form C.
Then that is to be transmitted to the returning officer. These are all the precautions taken, and they are no precautions at all, I submit to the consideration of the hon. minister himself that, taking the vote in this way, there and then you open a wide door for violation of the law and for fraud against the electors. Who is going to insure that the vote of the elector which is put in the envelope shall he the vote that comes to the returning officer? Who is going to insure that the envelope shall not be tampered with-that the vote shall not be tampered with? Such things have been known before. The law guards against such things now, but there is no such safeguard in the Bill. Let this Bill become law, and, I repeat, it opens the door wide for fraud and violation of the law.
My hon. friend suggests that we must trust the honour of the British officers; but he himself does not altogether trust the honour of the British officers, because, "foreseeing a violation of the law, he has imposed penalties upon wrong doers. I direct attention to section 9 of the Bill:
9.	Any person who wilfully and without lawful excuse:
(a)	causes any delay In the transmission or delivery to the returning officer of any envelope with the certificate endorsed in accordance with the provisions of this Act, or
(b)	opens any such envelope, or
(c)	shall attempt to obtain or communicate any information as to the party or person for whom any vote is given in any particular ballot paper used under the provisions of this Act, or
(d)	prevents or endeavours to prevent any volunteer entitled to vote hereunder from voting, or
(e)	makes any untrue statement as to his name or corps for insertion in a certificate, or
(f)	signs a certificate containing any untrue statement, shall be liable upon summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred dollars and costs, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both fine and imprisonment.
The hon. gentleman who fathers this Bill has foreseen that offences of this kind might be committed under the operation of this proposed legislation, and, by providing for a violation of the law, he gives answer to his own assertion that he would trust the honour of the British officers. What is the worth of this enactment of penalties? How

will the commission of such offences as are contemplated be prevented? My hon. friend knows that these penalties cannot be enforced. The offenders cannot be tried in this country, and in all probability they *would not he tried in Great Britain. They will be tried, perhaps, in France, perhaps in Belgium, perhaps in Germany, because it is possible that when elections take place our troops may be in Germany. This provision with regard to penalties is there only for show; it is not there to serve its professed purpose.
There is another objection to which the attention of my hon. friend was called this morning, and to which I think he did not give a satisfactory answer. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) asked my hon. friend whether the Government had communicated with the War Office with regard to this measure. What was my hon. friend's answer? He said that the Government had not communicated with the War Office; he presumed that it would be a matter of indifference to Lord Kitchener whether the Canadian soldiers were or were not allowed to vote, or what were the issues between the Government and the Opposition in this country. It is true that to Lord Kitchener and the War Office it would be a matter of indifference as to what the issues were between the Government and the Opposition in Canada, but what is not a matter of indifference to Lord Kitchener and to the War Office is the discipline of the army over which Lord Kitchener presides. Does my hon. friend suggest that it is a matter of indifference to the army that one section of it should be allowed to vote on a certain question, and that the rest of the army should not be allowed to vote? Is it a matter of indifference to the War Office and to the British authorities that such an example should be set in the army? If the Canadian soldier were allowed to vote, would the commander of the army be indifferent to the spirit manifested in the portion of the army which was not allowed to vote. That is a democratic age, and while I am a strong democrat, nevertheless, I think, that democracy must be subject to the law. The principle of manhood suffrage is far more extended in this country than it is in many other countries, perhaps more so even than in Great Britain, and if this proposed Bill becomes law there will be introduced into the army a new spirit which has not yet been found to be consistent with public opinion in Great Britain. This is a very important consideration, and it is one in regard to which, I venture to say, the commander of the army may have an opinion to express. Certainly it was the first duty of the Government, when they contemplated such legislation as this, to confer with the British authorities and to ascertain whether or not they would sanction it.
But the matter of discipline is not the only consideration. How would the operation of such a law affect the movements of the army? Spring is advancing, and we have reason to believe that as spring advances the allied armies will pounce upon the German army and drive it from France and Belgium to the Rhine, and from the Rhine to the very heart of Germany. We know too well that this cannot be accomplished in a day, in a month, or perhaps in one season. Battles are imminent, and in these modern times battles are not fought in one day or two days or three days, as they were in the time of Napoleon; under modern conditions battles last for weeks. Yet it is proposed that the Secretary of the High Commissioner shall send his ballots and his envelopes to the commanders or officers in charge, in order to obtain the votes of the Canadian soldiers. It is possible that this might be done when an important movement of the army would be taking place. Perhaps the Canadian forces would be engaged in battle, and one section of the army would have a vote and the other would not. This is not a vague supposition; it is a supposition which is quite within the bounds of possibility, and it is in respect to this that the Government would have been wise if they had consulted the British War Office before thrusting upon them the responsibility which will be imposed upon them if this Bill becomes law. Looking upon this measure dispassionately and without prejudice; looking upon it from the standpoint of duty not only to ourselves, but to the great cause in which we are engaged, we must come to the conclusion that it is ill-conceived in its principle, ill-conceived in its practice, and, still more, ill-conceived in its dispositions.


Robert Laird Borden: I am somewhat surprised at the tone of the right hon. gentleman's remarks, because, when this matter was first broached in the House, I heard, if I am not mistaken, a strong expression of opinion from his chief lieutenant in favour of the principle of the resolution placed on the Order Paper by the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Fripp): that the men serving abroad in the expeditionary forces of Canada ought not to be denied

the right and opportunity to vote. The right hon. gentleman has taken very strong ground against the measure. I did not underestimate the difficulties of working out a proposal which on the one hand would provide proper safeguards and on the other hand would not deny to the soldier the right which he would have possessed if he had remained in Canada; and therefore I moved that the resolution which had been placed upon the Order Paper by the hon. member for Ottawa should be referred to a committee then engaged in the work of considering amendments to the Controverted Elections Act. They have since had this subject under consideration and have made the report to the House which is embodied in this Bill.
I take very strongly the ground that men who are risking their lives in order that the liberties and institutions of this land shall be preserved ought not to be penalized by being deprived of the right and opportunity to vote. My right hon. friend does not seem to have much regard for that principle and he urges upon our attention arguments and illustrations of a somewhat singular character. I am not absolutely sure, comparing one part of his speech with another, as to whether he objects to the Bill in its entirety or whether he is prepared to support a measure which will give to those men who would be entitled to vote if they were in Canada the right and opportunity to vote although they are at the front. From one part of his speech I would gather that he was in favour of that measure of justice; but from another part I would gather that he was absolutely opposed to it. Will my right hon. friend inform me as to what I am to understand in that regard?


Wilfrid Laurier: I certainly am in favour of no extension of the present franchise; but I would give those who have the right to vote an opportunity to do so if it were possible to provide the machinery for it.


Robert Laird Borden: A great deal of my right hon. friend's speech goes by the board because his argument tended to destroy that position altogether. He argues that any such measure must be absolutely unworkable, that you cannot provide proper safeguards, that the men would be so engaged in military 'duties that they could not vote. He says that Lord Kitchener will not permit them to vote. But having made these arguments intended to destroy the Bill, he then changes front and admits that men who are on voters' lists in Canada and

who could therefore vote if they were here ought to be entitled to vote although they are at the front. It is difficult to understand just what is my hon. friend's position. I maintain that the gallant men who have gone to the front and who have thus shown their willingness and determination to risk and if necessary to sacrifice their lives for their country are entitled to vote whether they are on the list, or not; and I say further that according to my apprehension they are entitled to vote, whether they have arrived at the age of 21 years or not. We all know that an arbitrary age must be fixed in our statute, and the age of 21 years is fixed; but we also know that some men at the age of 17 or 18 are as well developed physically and mentally as other men when they attain the age of 35 years. Those men under the age of 21 who have gone to the front to fight for their country have shown the possession of a mental * and physical development which ought justly to entitle them to vote if any man is entitled to vote while absent from Canada on the patriotic duty of fighting for his country.
My right hon. friend further argues- and this goes absolutely against his contention in reply to a question from me a moment ago-that our soldiers at the front ought not to be permitted to vote because there are men in Canada carrying on their ordinary avocations who, owing to the conditions under which they earn their livelihood cannot vote. He puts that forward as an argument in the hearing of every hon. gentleman in this House. That argument, if it means anything at all, confounds the very admission he made to me not five minutes ago, because it would exclude those whose names are on the electoral lists as well as all others. I venture to believe that there is a distinction to be found between men engaged properly and legitimately, in their own interest, jn ordinary business avocations in Canada and those who have abandoned all considerations of business and of interest and have gone to the front to sacrifice their lives' if necessary for the preservation of our institutions and liberties. I venture also to believe that the fathers and the mothers, the brothers and the sisters of these men fighting and risking their lives at the front will not consider the question in the coldblooded way in which my right hon. friend regards it.
My right hon. friend goes on further - and I will only touch very lightly the

points that he made, because most of them are matters of detail which can be better discussed in committee than on the second reading of the Bill-he goes on to say that our soldiers in France, being beyond the limits of this Dominion, cannot properly be authorized to vote under any law passed by this Parliament. Again he used an argument which confounds the admission made by himself only a few minutes ago, that the men upon the lists in Canada should be permitted to vote if at the front and that we should make some provision for that purpose.


Wilfrid Laurier: I said if
you could find the provisions, but I am not able to see yet how it can be done.


Robert Laird Borden: It would have been better in that case for my right hon. friend to have given us his assistance in framing the measure rather than to have devoted something like an hour to arguing that no such provision was possible. I venture to think that the men in the trenches in France, if we authorize them to vote under a provision made by the Parliament of Canada, are entitled to have their votes east at a general election in this country; and I know of no constitutional or other reason which would forbid them. Therefore, I pass by that argument of iny right hon. friend, because he adduced no reason which commends itself to my judgment in support of it.
Then he argues that it is absolutely and entirely improper and objectionable to permit the men at the front a vote not for a particular candidate but for a particular party, and he declares that in no British country, so far as he was aware, had any legislation of the kind ever been proposed.


Wilfrid Laurier: Except New Zealand.


Robert Laird Borden: My right hon. friend, did not, I think, except New Zealand.


Wilfrid Laurier: I excepted it a moment ago.


Robert Laird Borden: The principle which the hon. leader of the Opposition condemns has been acted on in New Zealand; and it is well to place on the Hansard the exact provisions of the New Zealand Act as they have been furnished to me by the Minister of Justice, in order that the country may be informed of what has been done in another progressive British dominion along the lines we are
proposing to-day. The New Zealand Act is in these words:
An Act to enable.tile members of the expeditionary forces to exercise their votes at the next general election of members of the House of Representatives and licensing poll.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of New Zealand in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :
1.	This Act may be cited as the Expeditionary Forces Voting Act, 1914.
2.	Every member of any expeditionary force sent from New Zealand to serve in the war in which His Majesty is at present engaged shall be entitled to vote in the manner hereinafter prescribed at the next general election of members of the House of Representatives, and also at the licensing poll taken simultaneously with such election.
3.	(1) With respect to the votes to be given by members of any such force at the next general election of members of the House of Representatives the following provisions shall apply :
(a)	The vote of each such member shall be recorded on a voting paper in the form in the schedule hereto by striking out the words indicating the parties for whom he does not wish to vote.
(b)	Every vote given as aforesaid for any party shall be counted as a vote for the candidate who has been selected in the manner hereinafter prescribed as the candidate representing that party in the electoral district in which the voter resided immediately before joining the expeditionary force.
(c)	Such selection shall be made-
(i)	In the case of the Government party,
by the Prime Minister;
(ii)	In the case of the Opposition party, by the leader of the Opposition; and
(iii)	In the case of the Labour party, by two members of the House of Representatives (as now constituted) who shall be appointed as selectors by resolution of the said House on the recommendation of a majority of the Labour members of the said House.
(d)	If there is no candidate selected as aforesaid as representing the party for which the vote is given, the vote shall not be counted.
(e)	Every selection made under paragraphs (b) and (c) hereof shall be gazetted not later than five days after nomination day, and shall be given effect to by returning officers at the election.
(f)	A voting paper in the form in the schedule hereto shall be supplied by an electoral officer appointed for the purpose by the chief electoral officer to every member of the said forces who applies for the same.
(g)	When the voter has marked his voting paper as aforesaid he shall enclose it in an envelope addressed to the returning officer of the electoral district in which he resided immediately before he joined the force, and having sealed the envolope, shall deliver the same to the electoral officer, who shall forthwith forward it to the chief electoral officer at Wellington.

(2) For the purposes of this section " Government " and " Opposition " mean respectively the Government and Opposition in office on the passing of this Act.
4.	With respect to the votes to be given at the licensing poll taken simultaneously with the said general election, the following provisions shall apply:
(a)	The vote of each member shall be recorded on the voting papers and in the manner prescribed by the Licensing Act, 1908.	.
(b)	A voting paper on each of the issues submitted at the licensing poll in the forms prescribed as aforesaid shall be supplied by the electoral officer aforesaid to every member who applies to vote under the last preceding section, and shall be dealt with in the manner provided by paragraph (g) of that section.
(c)	In the event of the form of the voting paper prescribed for the taking of the licensing poll on the issue of national prohibition being altered during the present session of Parliament, then the votes at the licensing poll under this Act on that issue against national prohibition and for national prohibition respectively, shall be counted as if they bad been given for national continuance or for national prohibition or otherwise in accordance with the tenor of the altered form of the voting paper in which the issue is submitted for the determination of the electors at the general election.
5.	Not later than seven days before the day fixed for the general election the chief electoral officer shall forward to the returning officer of each electoral district and to the returning officer of each licensing district all Envelopes addressed as aforesaid to that returning officer.
6.	At the counting of the votes at the satd general election and licensing poll the returning officer shall open all envelopes so sent to him, and shall, subject to the foregoing provisions of this Act, deal with the voting papers contained therein as if they had been issued pursuant to an absent voter's permit.
7.	No person Who has exercised his vote under this Act shall be entitled to vote again at the general election or licensing poll.
8.	Electoral officers may be appointed out of New Zealand for the purpose of enabling any person to record his vote under this Act who is a member of any expeditionary force sent out of New Zealand before the passing of this Act.
9.	The Governor may, from time to time, by Order in Council, make regulations prescribing anything necessary for carrying this Act into effect.
10.	The validity of the election at the said general election in any electoral district or of the licensing poll taken in any licensing district shall not be questioned on the ground that anything has been done irregularly or omitted to be done under this Act, or that for any reason whatever It is found impracticable for any member of any expeditionary force aforesaid to record his vote.
11.	This Act shall be deemed to be repealed on the completion of the said general election:
Provided that such repeal shall not affect any proceeding in relation to the said election or to the sa'd licensing poll.
Schedule.
Form of Voting Paper.
Electoral district, of Government Opposition Labour
Direction to voter.
The voter must leave untouched the name of the party for which he desires to vote and must strike out the names of all other parties.
I venture to submit that in that Act the legislature of New Zealand has made provision for a more complicated condition of affairs than that for which we are endeavouring to provide in this Act. They have empowered the members of the expeditionary forces of New Zealand sent overseas to vote not only at the parliamentary election, but also upon other issues of a very special character. I venture also to think that in the provisions of the New Zealand Act there are not to be found any greater safeguards than those which we have provided. But if, in addition to the safeguards which already appear in this Bill, there are any other safeguards which can be suggested by any hon. gentleman on the other side of the House, we shall be very glad to consider and, if reasonable, to accept them. The very fact that under the New Zealand Act 10,000 men, as I am informed, have cast their votes overseas indicates that legislation of this character is not only effective, but has been found to be thoroughly practicable in actual operation.
My right hon. friend has called attention to the possibility of canvassing, and of inflammatory literature, if one may so term it, being circulated among the men in the trenches, and of passion being thus aroused. Whatever else Lord Kitchener is likely to do, I should think it exceedingly likely that he would put his foot down on anything of ithis nature. My hon. friend the Minister of Justice went very fully into these matters this morning, and pointed out that there are two duties for the soldier, one of which, the duty to vote, he will he entitled to perform under the provisions of this Act, and the other his military duty, which it is incumbent upon him to perform under the engagement that he took when he volunteered to fight and if necessary to die for his country.	He stated most
clearly and distinctly that under the conditions which confront the Empire, the military duty must take precedence. But he argued that, if opportunity could be afforded, the men at the front should also be permitted to give their voice in the determination of questions which will affect the Government of this country in the future.

So in respect of all that has been urged in regard to the control of the War Office, we are perfectly willing, and I think the country will be willing, to let the matter be determined in that way.
Then my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) went on to argue, and he did argue, that we must anticipate all kinds of fraud and attempted fraud and corruption among the men at the front. I for one dissent from that view in the strongest possible terms. I venture to think that the men and officers who, at- this juncture, are risking their lives for their country may well be trusted by the people of Canada and the Parliament of Canada to vote honestly and without any attempt at fraud or deception. And it did not seen to me at all desirable or appropriate that my right hon. friend should dwell so much on the possibility of fraud in this connection. I believe that these men who have gone to the front have been actuated by a sense of duty, and I decline to believe that a man who to-morrow may have to risk his life in facing the foe, the sternest of all the duties that a soldier has to perform, will to-day have his mind intent on practising electoral corruption and violating the provisions of this Act. These men, I think, c n be trusted to vote honestly, and I believe that the omcers can be trusted to record their votes honestly. Those in this country whose kinsmen are facing the foe in the trenches will not be inclined to join in the belief and expectation of my right hon. friend, that the just recognition proposed by this Bill, and the refusal to penalize soldiers who are fighting for their country will result in attempted fraud and dishonesty by the gallant men so engaged in tnat great patriotic duty.
Why, although we have had the most elaborate provisions in our election laws, they have proven insufficient repeatedly in this country whenever they have not been backed up by the honesty of tne men who were constituted and appointed to enforce them. Even in Canada we have known that no legislative enactment can be so carried out as to prevent fraud unless we appoint men who are honest; and if we have men who are honest we need no legislative enactment to ensure that an honest result shall be obtained. I recall that with all our safeguards and legislative provisions, a deputy returning officer and a poll clerk went forth in one of our western provinces, pretended to journey into the north 100 or 120 miles, but went in reality only 20 or 140
30 miles, where they sat down under a tree, filled in 150 names, deposited as many ballots, and came back with the story of a unanimous Liberal vote in that remote part of the constituency. It is impossible to prevent fraud absolutely by legislative enactment. It must depend in the final analysis upon the honesty and integrity of the men who are to carry out the law. I differ from my right hon. friend because I have sufficient confidence in the officers and men who are willing to sacrifice their lives at the front to believe that if this Act is passed its provisions will be carried out honestly and as Parliament intended.


Michael Clark: Mr. Speaker, I desire to say a few words upon this matter as dispassionately as I know how. I should be glad personally if no words I uttered evoked the slightest applause. I would rather speak to the calm and deliberate judgment of hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House. I have a very strong opinion, which I think I can put with great brevity, about this measure as well as the grounds upon which I found that opinion. I think it is contrary to the spirit of the British army and almost of the British Constitution itself. I regret extremely that a measure of so provocative a nature should be brought in by my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty), and should have been supported by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden). I recall no case in seven years' experience of Parliament where a minister introducing a measure has had his measure so completely turned inside out as it was by my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), and I recall no case in seven years' experience oi Parliament where the feeble effort of the minister were so lightly supported by what I almost thought the unpalatable effort of the right hon. the Prime Minister. I was brought up in a school of politicians who told me that it was dangerous to impute motives and I have always tried to follow the instruction, but it is extremely difficult in this case not to suspect a motive anyway. I think I could prove a motive, if I might do so, on the part of the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Fripp), who has occupied the boards in connection with this measure. When he was speaking I addressed to him the question: Has my hon. friend in his mind any machinery by which he 5 p.m. hopes to have the soldiers at the front seized of the issues upon



which the election will be fought? My hon. friendis a somewhat young Parliamentarian and lh.is answer gave his whole case away. He said that there is one issue in regard to which the soldiers will be seized. My hon. friend spoke with the approbation, and under the smiling countenance, of the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers), whom I suspect very strongly as being the originator of this measure and, if my hon. friend's words had any meaning at all, they meant that there was one issue upon which he wished the soldier to vote, and he was persuaded that the soldier would vote upon his side of the issue. I give that for what it is worth as lending, colour to the suspicion which I confess I myself entertain.


Arthur Meighen: What was that issue?


Michael Clark: My hon. friend will forego his right of cross-examination for a moment. There is nothing that surprise me more in this House than the eagerness with which hon. gentlemen opposite go to the United States, New Zealand, or anywhere but Britain for an argument to support a bad case. They are the British party-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Michael Clark: They are the upholders of British institutions-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Michael Clark: They say they are the British party-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Michael Clark: Yes, but nothing that is done in Britain meets with their approval. In the last election they were the antiAmerican party,' but wlhen they want to justify a procedure in regard to voting which is anti-British they immediately go south for the approval of the United States, and if they have that they think the whole thing is settled. Failing to settle it by the United States, the Prime Minister reads a whole Act that has .-een introduced in the little colony of New Zealand with less than a million people. I do not want 10 detract from what is done in New Zealand, but I venture to think there is not a man in this House who would have a more acute difference with nine-tenths of the legislation that is passed in New Zealand than the Prime Minister. Why, New Zealand is the hot bed of socialism. Just imagine the leader of the great Conservative party, supported by the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) who, if he has one point stronger uian another it is oppo-

sition to socialism, going to New Zealand to get support for a nostrum like this. The Minister of Justice, in reply to a question I put to him, said that he thought the last thing we should do would be to go to the War Office in Britain to find out what legislation we should enact in Canada upon such a subject as this. He and I just differ one hundred per cent upon that conclusion and I will tell him why. Having regard to this particular measure, it was the first thing he should have done and for a very practical reason. If the war authorities in Great Britain, who have been admitted to be the supreme court in this matter, both by my hon. friend the Minister of Justice and my right hon. friend the Prime Minister should proceed to overrule the measure, in the name of goodness, what is the use of passing the measure at a time when we all want to get home and when the session has lasted too long now in the peculiar circumstances in which the British Empire finds itself? The best that can be said for the Government is that they are introducing a measure which is going to be useless because it will I should suppose be overruled by the military authorities in Great Britain. That is a very strong reason why the Government should have known exactly the attitude of the militray authorities of Great Britain before they proceeded to introduce a measure which I have already described as of an exceedingly provocative nature.


Mr. WILCOX:: Why did they not overrule the Parliament of New Zealand?


Michael Clark: Perhaps my hon. friend is better able to speak in regard to the Parliament of Ne*y Zealand than I am. I cannot discover as yet where the New Zealand soldiers voted. Does my hon. friend know if they voted in the trenches?


Oliver James Wilcox: I am satisfied when I know they voted.


Michael Clark: I personally would oppose this measure because when men are gathered under arms for the purpose of war, they are and have always been recognized in the old country as men apart, and there has always been the most acute distinction drawn between the civilian population and the army. The army has been kept from interference in politics; the civilian population has been kept supreme just because it is the master, and the army is not allowed to interfere. The army is the executive arm of the civilian authority for certain specific purposes. I think that is

a distinction which goes to the very root of British practice, British thought, and the British constitution itself. It is on the surface of things that the moment men are gathered under arms for the specific purpose of war, their minds ought to be left intent upon the supreme duty of saving the country, because they have no less duty on hand, and the Government or the politician who puts anything in the way of their full discharge of that duty is guilty-perhaps unwittingly-of putting an obstruction in the way of the prosecution of that war in which we are all engaged. So much for the principle.
To dream of men voting at the front is to dream of men having their discipline upset and having their minds taken away from the only work on hand for them-and so they recognize it aslhave the very best reason for knowing. It is the only work they think of day or night-the only work they care for. I supposed, however, that my hon. friend the Minister of Justice would have done what I thought was the first thing he should have done-and tried to find out the mind of Lord Kitchener on the subject. Need any one of us be in any doubt what his mind is? We all read at the time-although the Government had evidently forgotten it, the speech which that extraordinary man delivered in the House of Lords, after he accepted the position of War Minister. In that speech he was most careful to guard himself from being suspected of being concerned in the general politics of the Government which he had joined. He explained that he had taken up his duties for three years or for the term of the war, and that he had taken those duties upon him as a soldier. Then he used the sentence, which if the Government gives it the consideration which is due to the utterances that proceed from Lord Kitchener at the present moment, ought to lead them at once to withdraw this measure. He said:	"As a soldier I
have no politics." That is his attitude without a doubt, because Lord Kitchener always uses language that is full of meaning and very easily understood. He emphatically divested himself of political beliefs and of any desire to interfere in politics. My objections to this measure of the Government is that it proposes to place the duty upon all the Canadian soldiers who are under the command of that great man, of taking a course of conduct and following a rule of conduct diametrically opposed to the rule which he has laid down for himself. Is it necessary to argue this any further?
140*
When he said: "as a soldier, I have no politics," it is recorded that the House of Lords, a body which is usually very calm in its expression of approval, applauded vociferously, and his attitude was at once endorsed by the applause of a body which I suppose some hon. gentlemen opposite almost worship, or did worship until it was curtailed so mightily of its power a few years ago.
The Minister of Justice asked us to suggest a better method than that proposed and I am going, in all seriousness, to suggest a better method of dealing with this question. The idea of having the soldiers vote while they are assembled for the purpose	of war has behind it	another idea, and the Government should entertain neither the one idea nor the other. The soldiers can vote only if there is an election, and I want to tell the Government something very plainly, without the slightest passion-and I think I shall find some endorsement in remarks which I regret very much not to have heard. I was absent from the city at the time my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce delivered his very moderate and able speech on the Budget; I was absent when he delivered that patriotic peroration, in which he told the House and the country that we should have only one thought. The Government ought not to have any thought of an election while the soldiers are assembled for purposes of war. I say this, if the House will believe me, without the slightest thought of what is going to happen to my party, and still less of what is going to happen to myself. I suppose there is not a man in this House who, so far as personal ambition goes, attaches less interest than I do to the question whether or not he will ever be back here again after the next general election. From the point of view of the best interest of Canada, from the point of view of the best interest of the Empire, and from the point of view of the successful prosecution of the greatest fight for the greatest object that ever engaged the highest civilizations of the world against what we believe to be lower and despotic civilizations, the Government have enough on hand to do what I have given them credit for doing in the main-seeing this fight through to a finish, without thinking of elections. That, however, is a matter between them and their consciences. What I have said I have said upon the point, and I do not think the moderate men of this country will view the measure before us with favour. They will not view it with

favour upon its merits, and they will view it with still greater disfavour because of the consideration upon which I have now dealt for a moment, that is, that the Government are wondering, if we can judge appearances, when it is going to be a good time to spring an election.
I do not want to make a contrast between this Government and the Government of Great Britain. But everybody knows that the thought has seriously occurred to that Government that they should extend their term so that they can do +he soldiers are doing-stick to their job and see it through. I rather think my right hon. friend (Sir Robert Borden), judging from his general constitution, would want to stick to his job and have a voice in the settlement of affairs after the war.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: He will be there.


Michael Clark: I could not enter into that without differing in opinion and giving good reasons for it, and I do not want to do that. I -have the best reasons for knowing, and for stating, that the soldiers at the front are not thinking about votes, and not thinking about elections in Canada. I had, only yesterday, correspondence which informs me that men of our own first troops to go into the fight are feeling, to the last man amongst them, the strain of the campaign, and that not one of them feels himself as good a man physically as when he went into the trenches. I have had this information further, that the horror and the suffering which they are looking upon are leading them to wonder whether there is such a thing as Christianity in the world and what the end of all this business is to be. I can imagine this Government-I do not want to touch upon anything controversial-going to these soldiers at the front and saying: Some of our friends did not take good care to give you boots, but we are coming to give you votes. What do you think would be the attitude of these men, devoted to what they believe a holy cause of warfare, animated by the thoughts I have mentioned? I can imagine no man among them worthy of admiration-and I believe they are all such men-who would not turn to the Government and say: We are devoted to the sacred cause of repatriating the Belgians; we are devoted to the sacred cause of human freedom; we are going through untold sufferings and untold horrors to prosecute that cause to a successful issue-in the name of God and of all goodness do not add to these horrors

and these sufferings the horrors of the Public Accounts Committee.


Arthur Meighen: I had not the honour of being a member of the committee to which was submitted the motion of the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Fripp), and as a result of whose deliberations the Bill now before the House comes up for consideration. I do not feel competent to discuss, nor do I think it would be proper to discuss at this stage, the several clauses and the various provisions of the Bill; but it is a circumstance of happy augury that those who on the floor of Parliament so far in this debate have opposed it, have opposed it not because of any defects in the machinery, hut firstly, lastly and all the time, on the ground that the very principle of the Bill is wrong. They are opposed to soldiers being given the right to vote, and opposed to the right of citizenship being vouchsafed to them as well as the rights they enjoy as soldiers. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) is very deeply grieved that any such Bill, involving, as he says, a controversial principle, should be launched on Parliament this session. What reason had we to believe that this Bill involved a controversial principle? The principle of this Bill was under discussion on the 22nd of February last, on the motion of the hon. member ruary last, on the motion of the hon. member opposite spoke on that motion, and neither of them opposed the principle of the Bill. The Opposition was represented on that occasion chiefly by the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham). Did he take up the cry of the hon. member for Red Deer this afternoon, that it was a sacrilege to have a soldier vote; or that a soldier, because he is a soldier, must not vote, because to vote is to be a politician? Was that his attitude? No. Speaking for the Opposition Re said he believed in soldiers voting, and he hoped that machinery to that end could be provided. " I agree with all that has been said," said the hon. gentleman, " as to the wisdom of having our volunteers exercise their franchise"; and I quote from page 364 of Hansard of the 22nd of February. Later in hie speech he elaborated that in these words:
I do not wish to be too emphatic in the matter, but I see almost unsurmountable difficulties in the way of our trying to apply this principle to our volunteers, particularly to those outside our own country. As to those who are in Canada. I think the modus operandi might be worked out without very much difficulty.

The attitude of the Opposition then was: There will be difficulties to be surmounted in hedging about the method of voting sufficient safeguards, and the machinery will not be easily evolved; but we are one with you in extending the franchise to the soldier, and in giving the soldier all the rights of citizenship and not a part of them. Why, then, had we any reason to anticipate that this Bill involved a controversial principle? This principle was acceded to by hon. gentlemen opposite before it was submitted to the committee. As to the efficiency of the machinery provided, as to the different clauses of the Bill, these may well await discussion until we get into Committee of the Whole.
The hon. member for Red Deer is exceedingly exercised because he claims it is against the fundamental principle, which is acknowledged by British statesmen; that the soldier must have no politics. And he quotes the words of Lord Kitchener, that as a soldier, he has no politics. But does that mean that because he is a soldier he is no longer a citizen? While he has no politics as a soldier, is he to have no political rights as a citizen? ,


Michael Clark: The hon. gentleman will not dispute that I carefully spoke of soldiers assembled for the purpose of war, exactly as I understood Lord Kitchener to speak, when he spoke of having taken special duties upon himself for the time of the war.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman
says he referred to soldiers assembled for the purposes of war on the battlefield; but the very man who used these words was not on the battlefield. Lord Kitchener, who gave that dictum was at that very time a member of the Cabinet of Great Britain. He assumed that position as a soldier, and he stated, that as a soldier, he had no politics. Did he wish to give the doctrine to the country that no soldier under his command, whether at home or in the foreign field, was to have the right to vote, or to give expression to his views on politics? Does the hon. member for Red Deer think he meant that? If so, where does his leader stand, who, to-day, in this House, said he was in favour of a soldier voting on the battlefield, providing he had the right to vote at home.


Michael Clark: Lord Kitchener is my leader, and good enough for my hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: In matters of war, Lord Kitchener is good enough for me, but in the House of Commons I acknowledge the leadership of the leader of the Government.
I am glad to see that, at last, the hon. member for Red Deer repudiates his leader.
We have no use, the hon. member says, for anything British; the actions of the British Government do not satisfy us. He has never seen us, he said, accord with, anything done in Britain. I remember one occasion upon which the opinion of the British Government was given on a matter of which they should know something; on a matter upon which they should be to us the highest authority; on a matter in respect of which they gave their opinion to this Parliament in the most explicit and decided manner. I remember that their authority was repudiated by hon. gentlemen opposite, and in the most violent language by the hon. member for Red Deer himself. The hon. gentleman spurns the example of New Zealand. The example of that little country which, he says, is socialistically mad, whicn has a population of less than one million-he has no use for. But it is only a year since he stood up in the House and castigated hon. gentlemen on this side of the House because they did not follow, in the most pitifully copying manner, the example of New Zealand. Not that there was anything to criticise adversely in the action of New Zealand on that occasion; we do not and never did say that, from their standpoint, they did anything wrong. But it was an example which did not come into question then at all, and, even though it did not come into question, the hon. member for Red Deer proposed that we should follow that example against the advice of the Admiralty of Britain. The hon. gentleman say-s that the British example is not good enough. When did the action taken by New Zealand cease to be a British example? Is New Zealand not a member of the family of Britain? Is New Zealand not the first British country to whidh, this question ever appealed, the first British country to decide the issue and to determine whether or not the soldiers have a right to vote? The British nation was on a previous occasion at war during election time. One hundred years ago, when Pitt fought against Fox in the British House of Commons, it was necessary to hold elections in time of war. But at that time they did not have manhood suffrage, as they (have to-day, and I doubt

really whether at that time very many of the men who were fighting the battles of Great Britain across the English channel would have had the right to vote had they been at home. The question which we are now considering did not present itself to Britain then, nor has it presented itself to Britain since. No election was held during the South African war, Which occurred about fifteen years ago, and there is no British example as against the position taken by this Government.


Michael Clark: The hon. member, I presume, does not want to misrepresent the facts. The South African war lasted fully a year after the election of 1900, which took place during that war.


Arthur Meighen: I accept the correction of {he hon. memebr for Red Deer; I understood that the election was held after the war was over. But if he is correct, let him never more stand in the House of Commons and plead the example of Great Britain against an election being held in time of war.


Michael Clark: There were
different stages of that war; the guerilla warfare lasted for a year and a half. It is perfectly true that Mr. Chamberlain went to the country in the year 1900 with the cry "the war is over"; so that to have an election he had to contend that the war was over. John Burns remarked at the time that the war was over-it was all over the shop.


Arthur Meighen: I have tried to get the exact viewpoint of the hon. member for Red Deer, and if I have caught it in this case, it is this: that it is all right to have an election during the progress of guerilla warfare, but if you can apply any other adjective to the war, then it is wrong to have an election. There were stages of the war, and the British election was held a year before the end of the war. That is the reason why the hon. gentleman objects to an election now.


Michael Clark: Before the signing of peace.


Arthur Meighen: The British election was held a year before the signing of peace, according to the hon. member for Red Deer.


Michael Clark: Something like a year.


Arthur Meighen: Something like a year before, so that if the hon. gentleman is loyal to British example, and if he believes that we are within a year of the termination of the war, he will cease to oppose an election.

It is an historic principle of British jurisprudence that the civilians must rule, not the soldiers; that the civilian must be supreme and not the military authorities. In this respect British institutions differ radically from those of Germany, and in the expression of that principle I agree with the hon. member. But is it to be argued that upon that ground soldiers should be deprived of the franchise? Is that the interpretation put upon that principle by the British Government?


Michael Clark: No.


Arthur Meighen: If soldiers must not be deprived of the franchise, then why not vote for this Bill?


Michael Clark: Does not my hon. friend see the distinction between the soldier fighting in the trenches and the soldier who becomes a civilian after the war is over and he is at his own home?


Arthur Meighen: I see it very clearly, and will explain to the hon. member for Red Deer where that puts him. The civilian must be supreme, not the soldier, and the hon. gentleman means the soldier at home. The hon. gentleman is quite content that the soldier at home, the parade soldier, who is not fighting, shall be supreme and shall dominate the civilian, but he is determined that the soldier who fights shall have nothing to say at all. What is at the bottom of the theory in Britain that the civilian must control the affairs of state and that the soldier must not gain ascendancy over him? It is this: The ascendancy of the soldier means a military autocracy such as they have in Germany, and that is what is to be feared. But is there any reason why the ascendancy of the soldier who is not at war should be any more dangerous than the ascendancy of the soldier who is at war? What is the difference? What have we to fear from the vote of a man on the battlefield because he is a soldier, any more than we have to feaT from the vote of the man at home, who is a soldier and who refuses to go to the battlefield? It must be plain .to the right hon. leader of the Opposition-because I am sure that he struggled hard to keep within the pale of reason in the speech that he delivered- that all that has been advanced in favour of his position by his lieutenant from Red Deer is so much vapour.
It is argued also that we should have asked the advice of Lork Kitchener before we adopted the principle that in so far

as we can give power to the soldiers on the battlefield to vote. We should do so. Lord Kitchener t>r Sir John French as head of the service, has the command for the time being of our soldiers on the battlefield, and I do not dispute the truth of the assertion that, if he wishes, he can prevent the operation of any provision for carrying out this proposed legislation. He can refuse to the soldiers authority to vote, even though we, in so far as we are able to give it, are ready t,o extend to them that authority. But is the fact that Lord Kitchener has the right to exercise his jurisdiction any reason why we should fefuse, within our province, to exercise ours? If, as the hon. member for Red Deer says, this legislation will -be vetoed by Lord Kitchener, let me ask him why he takes up the time of the House in an attempt to defeat it here? He does not know what the attitude of Lord Kitchener will be, any more than I do. I assume that Lord Kitchener will extend to this country the same courtesy that, he extended to New Zealand; I know of no reason why he should show less respect for the opinion of the Parliament of Canada than he shows for the opinion of the Parliament of New Zealand. If the hon. member for Red Deer knows of any reason why he should, I shall be pleased to have him give it to me.


Michael Clark: Where did the New Zealanders vote?


Arthur Meighen: The New Zealanders
voted while under the jurisdiction of Lord Kitchener, and while away from their own country.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Where?


Arthur Meighen: They voted in a foreign land.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Name it?


Arthur Meighen: Name the country?
Would it be any different if they voted in Belgium or France or Egypt?


Michael Clark: They did not
vote in either Belgium or France. Are any of them there?


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman tell me? I do not know where they voted.


Michael Clark: My hon. friend ought to
know.


Arthur Meighen: I know enough for the purposes of my argument, that they voted outside the jurisdiction of the New Zealand authorities and within the jurisdiction of
Lord Kitchener. Will the hon. member for Red Deer tell me where they voted? They voted on whatever battlefield or at whatever other place they were at the time the election was on, and that is where the soldiers of Canada would vote should there be an election that would demand the exercise of the franchise while they are at the front.
The right hon. leader of the Opposition has the greatest dread of election campaign literature getting into the trenches. No vote could be taken when there would be less to fear from the invasion of campaign literature than such as is contemplated by this Bill. The men are under the command of the British authorities and to their wisdom and to their good sense we can safely leave such questions as that, feeling certain that nothing will be permitted by the British authorities that will interfere with the efficiency of a soldier as a soldier on the battlefield.


William Pugsley: In regard to section 4, my hon. friend says that the voting, the marking of the ballot, is to be under the supervision of a British officer. What is meant by those words?
The volunteer may thereupon make affidavit in form B before any commissioned officer in the Canadian militaj-y forces.
Does that mean a British officer?


Arthur Meighen: They are all British officers.


William Pugsley: This is limited to a Canadian officer, a commissioned officer in the Canadian military forces. Does that not mean a Canadian officer?


Arthur Meighen: It means a Canadian officer who by service abroad becomes a British officer.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman said a British officer.


Arthur Meighen: He undoubtedly would be a British officer. What I referred to was the paramount jurisdiction of the war authorities to control in every way the admission of any kind of literature to the men at the front. They have that control in the war office and they will exercise it by such officers as they select. We may safely trust to them that the soldier would be protected from any undue influence in the exercise	of	his	franchise.
The hon. member for Red Deer was careful not to be cross-examined. He was willing to give his evidence so long as he

was subjected to no cross-examination. He quoted from the speech of the hon. member for Ottawa, endeavouring to assign to his words some motive which he said was behind the Government in introducing this legislation. He asked the hon. member for Ottawa if the soldiers at the front would know about the issues. He refused to tell the House what the hon. member for Ottawa answered. The hon. member for Ottawa answered that there was one thing about which the soldier at the front would know and that was how they were equipped by the people of Canada and the Government of Canada for the purposes of war. If we are to follow hon. gentlemen opposite, if we are to take seriously their activities within the last few weeks, we must come to the- conclusion that the question of the adequacy of the equipment is going to be one of the foremost questions in any campaign that may be waged, so that on one issue launched by hon. gentlemen opposite they should surely not be afraid to take the opinion of those who would best know the facts and who would not have to be bombarded by literature from one side or the other. The right hon. leader of the Opposition is afraid that campaign literature wiL get in. His lieutenant from Red Deer is afraid they will not know the issues. The one fears the subject for one reason and the other fears it for an exactly opposite reason. I apprehend that there is no reason to fear it for either reason. Should there be an election it is well that the soldier, while he exercises his functions as a soldier, should not be deprived of the exercise of his functions as a citizen. That is the purpose of the Bill and that only; and it has at all times been a cardinal feature of British parliamentary and political life that a soldier or a citizen had the same right, and that a soldier, by becoming a soldier, has not in any way his functions or his rights as a citizen, reduced.


Michael Clark: A difference arose on a point of fact with regard to where the New Zealand soldiers voted. I Have consulted with some military members of the House, and my hon. friend asserted that they were under the jurisdiction of Lord Kitchener. These military members inform me that their impression is-they have no documentary evidence-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Michael Clark: My hon. friends who laugh do not believe in any impressions. They have the impression that they voted in Wellington before leaving New Zealand.


Arthur Meighen: My authority was the
cablegram read by the Minister of Justice, which the member should have heard.


Charles Murphy: Which did not say where they voted.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The statement of the
Prime Minister was that the men voted under the Bill that was read, and the Bill has no application except to the soldiers outside of New Zealand.


William Pugsley: Has the Minister of Justice a copy of the Act as it finally passed or simply a copy of the Bill that was introduced in the New Zealand Parliament?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have a copy of the proposed Bill. The question 'asked of the Prime Minister of New Zealand was whether the proposed Bill giving the soldiers a vote had been passed, and the answer was to that question:
Bill referred to passed and votes of soldiers who left before general election recorded. Total votes, 10,000.
So, while I have only a copy of the proposed Bill, the question asked of the Prime Minister of New Zealand was whether the proposed Bill was passed and he said yes, the proposed Bill was passed.


Michael Clark: Does my hon. friend think that language contains the meaning that the vote was recorded after they left?


Charles Joseph Doherty: And votes of all soldiers who left before general election recorded.
So that they left before the general election and the Bill itself recognized that they had then left, because it is a Bill to enable the soldiers who had left to vote.


Charles Murphy: If they had not, the vote could be recorded anyway.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Those who stayed at home would have their votes recorded under a totally different Bill. This was a Bill exclusively passed for men who when the Bill was passed had already left New Zealand. The Prime Minister of New Zealand was asked if that proposed Bill passed, and he said yes. He was asked if the vote was taken, and he said: Votes of all soldiers who left before the general election recorded.


Charles Murphy: It does not say when.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Certainly, unless it is assumed that, being asked a perfectly clear

question, the Prime Minister of New Zealand chose to give an ambiguous or misleading answer. It seems to me that it is perfectly clear that when he was asked whether a proposed Bill which only had application to soldiers who had already left the country when the Bill was proposed, had passed and whether the vote was taken, and he answered that the Bill had passed and that the votes of soldiers who left before the general election had been recorded-


Michael Clark: My own impression is that they voted before they left, otherwise they voted by marconigram. When he gets the facts, my hon. friend will find that they voted before they left New Zealand. I would assert that.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Is it not a fact that the Bill that t)he hon. member speaks of was passed authorizing these men to vote previous to leaving New Zealand?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Absolutely the contrary.


William Pugsley: The Times, that I took for my authority, certainly so stated.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not know what The Times stated- But I do know that the Bill was applicable only to soldiers who had already left the country; for any soldier who tvas still iin New Zealand at the time of the election did not need that Bill at all in order to vote; he could vote under the ordinary law. The Prime Minister of New Zealand was asked whether the New Zealand Parliament had passed the proposed Bill to enable men who had left to vote. He answered, Yes. He was then asked, was the vote taken? By that I cannot conceive that the Prime Minister understood anything except, was the vote provided for in that Bill taken? If the question does not mean that, it has no meaning at all. He answered, Yes; and further stated that 10,000 votes had been recorded.	[DOT]


William Pugsley: Would my hon. friend allow me to see the telegram that was sent to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and the answer. I think it was most unfortunate that my hon. friend did not impress upon the Parliamentary Counsel to find out in his cable to New Zealand whether the Bill was passed as introduced. Many Bills are introduced in this Parliament and every other parliament in the world in regard to which it would be quite correct to say that they had passed, even though they had been amended. What I would assume might be correct, from the cablegram of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, is that the Bill as it finally passed allowed those soldiers who were to leave New Zealand to register their votes for or against the Government. That might well be the case, for the Government expected a general election. Then when the election came on the votes would be counted by the returning officers.


Charles Joseph Doherty: It would be possible to conceive of all these things were it not for the fact that so far as the soldiers still in New Zealand were concerned, no B:ll was required at all.


William Pugsley: Oh, no.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon. The Bill had absolutely nothing to do with any soldiers except those who had left New Zealand when the Bill was introduced, and for the simple reason that under the general law the soldiers still in New Zealand were already entitled to vote. I have asked the question, was the Bill that was introduced passed? The question that I did ask was, was the proposed Bill passed? What distinction does the hon-gentleman make between the proposed Bill and the introduced Bill? I think my question was perfectly clear, and the answer to that question was, yes.


William Pugsley: I am sorry that I cannot think the minister has made it absolutely clear that soldiers3 votes were taken after the soldiers had left New Zealand. My hon. friend says that it would have been of no advantage to have the enactments which I say might have been made, for he says the existing law allowed votes of soldiers to be taken if the soldiers were in New Zealand at the time of the election.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The votes of anybody.


William Pugsley: Now it is entirely possible that this New Zealand Bill may have provided that soldiers going abroad could, before they left, mark their ballots either for or against the Government, and that when the election came on the returning officers entered the votes accordingly. My hon. friend who sits behind me says that he is satisfied from a statement in the Times that that was done. It might very easily have been done. In New Zealand they were expecting a general election. The soldiers were going to leave the country, and the Government might very well have provided that before the soldiers left they should be given an opportunity to register their votes.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Why did they make the Bill applicable only to soldiers who had left?


William Pugsley: We do not know that the Bill passed in that form. My hon. friend may be guessing with absolute accuracy, but it is not always safe to guess that a Parliament has passed a Bill in the form in which it was introduced. My hon. friend has often seen himself amending his own Bills. That is not at all an unlikely thing to happen to any Bill.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


William Pugsley: Mr. Speaker, I was about to make some reference to the provisions of the Bill which I think should properly be considered on the motion for the second reading, and in that connection I might ex-press my thanks to the Minister of Justice for suggesting that I might be able to give some assistance in amending the Bill in case its principle should be approved of. Let me say to the minister that like my hon. friend from South Renfrew [Mr. Graham), I am in favour of giving soldiers the right to vote providing it can be done in such a way as not to interfere with the proper performance of their duties and also provided that it can be surrounded with the proper safeguards. In speaking of this Bill, I am inclined to think that it has not been prepared with sufficient care to merit the respectful consideration of this House. I cannot think that the Minister of Justice has had his heart in this measure at all. He protested, Mr. Speaker, with eloquence and in the most sincere tones, that he was sincere about the measure. He protested three or four times and each time with a little more strength. I rather thought that the hon. gentleman was seeking to convince himself as well as to convince this House of his sincerity, else why did he protest so much?


Charles Joseph Doherty: My sincerity was questioned.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend has heard the story of the maiden who, when she protested so much it excited a considerable degree of suspicion. Just let me call my hon. friend's attention to section 4:
4. The volunteer may thereupon make the affidavit in form B before any commissioned officer in the Canadian military forces, and, after making the affidavit, mark the ballot paper as a vote for the Government or the Opposition or for the independent candidate, in the

presence of the said commissioned officer, but in such a manner as not to disclose to the officer how he is voting, and shall fold the ballot paper so that it cannot be read and shall then place the same, together with the affidavit, in an envelope upon the back of which shall be endorsed a certiflca'e in f rm C, which certificate shall be signed by such officer.
Now, let me read the certificate:
t hereby certify that the document contained in this envelope was written in my presence by (here insert name and rank and name of corps in which voter is serving), and according to the best information at my disposal I believe that the statements made in the affidavits are true.
That is the whole of the endorsement that is to be upon the envelope. The envelope is sealed. What then is to be done?
The envelopes containing the ballot papers and affidavits shall then be sent by post to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, who shall keep a record of them, place them in a package carefully sealed and marked on the outside " Soldiers Votes" and forward them by registered post to the returning officer of the electoral district in which Such election is to be held.
That is the whole direction. Would my hon. friend just pay attention to the language of this section? I would like my right hon. friend the Prime Minister to consider it also and see whether there is any meaning in it or whether it does not indicate the preparation of the Bill in the most slovenly way possible and in a manner which indicates that the Minister of Justice has really not had his heart in the measure and has really not given any attention to it. There is to be nothing endorsed upon the envelope except the certificate of the officer that the envelope contains the affidavit, etc., of so and so, simply giving the name of the corps in which he is' serving, not giving his residence, not giving the electoral district in which he has the right to vote. Then the officer has to send all these envelopes to the Clerk of the Grown in Chancery, the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery has to keep a record of them, he is not to open them, he does not know to which district any one of these voters belongs, he has to endorse on the outside "soldiers' vote" and he has to forward these envelopes by registered post to the returning officer in the electoral district in which such election is to be held.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Who has to do that?


William Pugsley: The Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. Where is the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery going to send them?


Charles Joseph Doherty: That is manifestly an error in the printing of the form. I plead

guilty to not seeing to the correction of the printed form, but it was intended that on the back of the envelope there should be endorsed, in addition to the name and the corps, the address given by the soldier in the affidavit.


William Pugsley: Possibly that should be on the certificate?


Charles Joseph Doherty: On the certificate, so that from the certificate the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery might know where to send the envelope of the man who claims to be entitled to vote.	.


William Pugsley: Well, then, the section is wrong, because it says that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery "shall forward them by registered post to the returning officer of the electoral district in which such election is to be held."


Charles Joseph Doherty: Certainly, because it is supposed that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, having the address of the man, will be able to determine exactly what his electoral district is. It was first suggested that we should put in the electoral district, but it was pointed out that the soldier might not know the electoral district in which he was entitled to vote. For instance, in the city of Montreal, a soldier would know perfectly well where he had resided, the street and number, but he might not know precisely which of the electoral districts it was in, and to avoid the possibility of doubt about that, we substituted the address of the place where he had lived. It was intended-it is a mere omission in the form -that the address should appear on the certificate on the back of the envelope, and from that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery will easily be able to ascertain what the electoral district is, and see that the envelope goes to the right electoral district.


William Pugsley: Of course, I did not know what errors the minister had made or what omissions there were; I was merely speaking of the Bill as we have it.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman is entitled to speak of the Bill as it stands. Of course, a matter of that sort might more properly be dealt with in the committee. It could hardly be held as touching upon the principle of the Bill.


William Pugsley: I think it does, because we have to point out the difficulties that surround the carrying out of the proposed measure. It was stated here that British officers could be trusted to see that the private marked his ballot paper, that we
could safely rely upon their fairness, and that we need not be anxious to have any precautions taken. As was pointed out, this Parliament would have no right to impose any duty upon a British officer, and apparently the Minister of Justice has had that in mind, because, while in subsection 2 it is left to the discretion of the High Commissioner for Canada to determine what * officers these ballots shall be sent to, and while there is nothing in the Bill to state who the officers shall be, it is provided by section 4 that the ballot must be marked in presence of a commissioned officer in the Canadian military forces.
That absolutely excludes a British commissioned officer because a British officer is not a commissioned officer in the Canadian military forces. The officer must be a Canadian officer and is it possible that my hon. friend and those on the committee who assisted him in framing this Bill had in mind that there are in England to-day some officers of the Canadian forces, who, as some English newspapers asserted, ware selected because of their political claims rather than of their military fitness? Is it possible that the minister has in view some officers who are still in England, who have not been sent to the front, whom General Alderson has no thought of sending to the front, whom he deems incapable of taking proper command and in whose
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Canadian soldiers? Is it possible that the minister thinks that those gentlemen might be very good men to appoint as officers to whom the ballots might be sent?
Mr. MEIGHEN': Do I understand the hon. gentleman to argue that the officers who did not receive appointments under General Alderson and who returned were political appointees?


William Pugsley: Yes, quite a number of them.


Arthur Meighen: The only one whom I happen to know, and who I understand led back the officers who were not appointed by General Alderson, was a Liberal who was defeated in the local elections in Manitoba.


William Pugsley: That might be. I was not speaking particularly of those who came back to Canada; I was speaking rather of those who remain in England, whom General Alderson has not sent to the front and whom, if rumour is true, he will never send to the front. Is that why the minister has given this wide discretion

that these affidavits may be made before and ballots marked in presence of any Canadian commissioned officer in the military forces? Is that why he has not limited it to officers who are in command of the forces, because it must be apparent to the House that under this any commissioned officer, who has gone over to England and who may or may not be serving with the forces at the front may be appointed by the High Commissioner for the purpose of taking these affidavits and receiving the ballots. I do not hesitate to say that, in respect of some of those officers at all events-and they are rather well known to members of this House-I woiild desire to see some safeguards placed around the marking of the ballots and their being returned to Canada. I am not at all afraid to say that, and gentlemen who realize whom I have in mind, I think will be disposed to agree with me.
It is provided not merely that ballots shall be given to those soldiers who ask for them, but that any quantity of ballots may be sent to the High Commissioner and any quantity distributed. We have no safeguard whatever provided in this Bill as to the ballots being marked by those who are entitled to vote, or as to the ballots which are so marked finding their way back to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. That is a fundamental objection which I find to the Bill in making provision for soldiers who are out of Canada voting at a Canadian election. The hon. member for Bed Deer (Mr. Clark) has pointed out in language much stronger and clearer than any I can employ what, from a military standpoint, from the standpoint of the interest of the Empire and from the viewpoint which Lord Kitchener is likely to take of the matter, seemed to me an insuperable objection to having the vote taken at the front. It may be asked of me, how, in case I think it would be desirable to give soldiers the right to vote, I would have provided for it. I would have provided for it at the session of Parliament which was held in August before the soldiers went to the front, and I would have made provision for those who were going away to vote by marking their ballots before they left the country. In that way the matter might easily have been accomplished, and proper safeguards would have been thrown around the voting, and that is the way in which for the most part I believe the New Zealand Government has provided

for voting. My hon. friend the Minister of Justice read a despatch from the Prime Minister of New Zealand, in which it stated:
In reply cable 28th from your clerk House of Commons Bill referred to passed and votes of all soldiers who left before general election recorded, total votes 10,000.
My hon. friend, as I thought, led the House to believe that total of 10,000 must be made up of soldiers who had actually gone to the front before they had recorded their votes. An examination of the Bill, a copy of which I have before me, does not show that, because it provides that electoral officers in New Zealand shall receive the votes of the soldiers. It is true it provides that the New Zealand Government may appoint electoral officers outside of New Zealand, but for the purpose of taking the votes not of those who had not left New Zealand before it had passed, but of those who had left New Zealand before it had passed, therefdre showing that in the opinion of the Parliament and Government of New Zealand, it was' only .to meet the case of soldiers who had left before the Act had passed that they thought it desirable to allow this provision, but soldiers who might leave after the Act went into force must register their votes in New Zealand, and if they did not do so, they could not do it after they had gone abroad. Therefore, if I am right in this-and I will endeavour to show the House that I am right -it is possible that the whole 10,000 votes recorded were recorded in New Zealand after the Act passed, but before the soldiers departed from New Zealand to engage in the war.
Let me call the attention of the House to the provisions in the New Zealand Bill. By paragraph (f) -of subsection 1 of section 3 it is provided as follows:
A voting paper in the form in the schedule hereto shall be supplied by an electoral officer appointed for the purpose by the chief electoral officer to every member of the said forces who applies for the same.
The Act is speaking here evidently ol electoral officers in New Zealand, not of people who might be appointed out of New Zealand.
By paragraph (g) it is provided:
When the voter has marked his voting paper as aforesaid he shall enclose it in an envelope addressed to the returning officer of the electoral district in which he resided immediatley before he joined the force, and having sealed the envelope, shall deliver the same to the electoral officer, who shall forthwith forward it to the chief electoral officer at Wellington.

This provision is entirely for soldiers who were then in New Zealand and before they left that country.
Then, we find by section 8, a provision for the polling of votes of members of expeditionary forces sent out of New Zealand before the passing of the Act:
Electoral officers may be appointed out of New Zealand for the purpose of enabling any person to record his vote under this Act who is a member of any expeditionary force sent out of New Zealand before the passing of this Act.
I think it must be clear to the minister that he is in error in stating to the House that this whole ten thousand votes must have been of soldiers who were out of the country at the time they marked their ballots. On the contrary, it provides for the marking of ballots by soldiers who leave the country after the Act was passed. These men are to vote in New Zealand. And it distinctly provides, contrary to the terms of this Bill, that any soldier who leaves the country after the Act is passed must register his vote before he leaves or he will not be allowed to register it at all.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Will the hon. gentleman allow me a word? He says I was mistaken, and he reads section 8 to prove it. But section 2 provides for all expeditionary forces sent from New Zealand to serve in the war, and they have the right to vote. There is further information on this point which I give now so that the hon. gentleman may know just upon what I rely. If he will turn to the London Times of the 12th December, he will find the following, dated Wellington, N.Z.:
According to the latest parliamentary returns, 38 Government, 30 Opposition and 8 Labour members have been elected, Including Social Democrats. As the Labour members support the Opposition, this makes the parties equal. But the votes of absentees and of members of the expeditionary forces have not yet been counted, and they may affect the result in several cases where the vote is close. There are about 10,000 voters in Egypt and Samoa, and 2,000 are encamped in the Dominion.
The figure of 10,000 in Egypt and Samoa, my hon. friend will notice, tallies exactly with the number of voters mentioned in the telegram of the Prime Minister of New Zealand.


William Manley German: But if the hon. minister will follow the Times 'he will find that up to the 24th of September these 10,000 votes were not yet returned to New Zealand.


Charles Joseph Doherty: But that does not say that they were not registered in Egypt and Samoa.


William Pugsley: That does not answer the criticism I made. What I pointed out was that my hon. friend sought, it seemed to me, to convey the impression that the New Zealand Act only applied to soldiers who were at the front. For he said they already had an Act relating to absentee voters which would apply to the case of others. That to which I wish to call his attention, and which I wish to emphasize, is that the New Zealand Act is intended to give to soldiers the opportunity to vote before they leave for the front; and it expressly provides that if they go to the front after the Act passes they must vote in New Zealand or they will not be permitted to vote at all. In that respect it is different from the present Bill, because this Bill provides that members of future contingents that leave for the front need not vote before they go-indeed there is no provision, as I understand it, for their marking their ballots before they go-but that while they are at the front, any 'Canadian commissioned officer whom the High Commissioner for Canada, Sir George Perley, chooses to appoint, may take the ballots to them, have them mark the ballots, make the ' necessary certificate and send the ballot back to the returning officer. In that respect this Bill is entirely different from the Bill which was submitted to the New Zealand Parliament. The quotation from the New Zealand Bill shows that in the opinion of that Government and that Parliament it was not desirable to give the < vote to soldiers at the front engaged in actual warfare, but, they apparently thought that, because they were providing for soldiers who left in future registering their votes before they went away, ex necessitate but erroneously I think, that they must provide that those already abroad should be allowed to vote in the way proposed. Thereafter, however, any soldier who left for the front lyithout marking his ballot before leaving the country could not be permitted to vote.
Now, I submit that we cannot with very great safety follow the example of New Zealand in this matter. We know that they have some other provisions of a most novel character in their election law, provisions which we have never sought to adopt in this country. They make provision, for instance, for the voter who is absent upon his ordinary business being allowed to vote. In this country we should not think of such a thing, because we realize that in carrying

on the elections here it is desirable to have safeguards surrounding the depositing of the ballot which could not be thrown around the recording of the votes of absentees. The Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) made the statement that we could safely follow New Zealand because it is a British country. But we are in the habit of following as far as we can the example of the Mother Country. The people of Canada reanze that the example set by the Parliament of the Mother Country in most matters is a safe one to follow. It is a significant fact and one to which we should give great weight in dealing with this question that, though Great Britain (has been engaged in many wars, yet never has it occurred to any one that it would be desirable to have a Bill passed by the British Parliament such as is now before this House. The Solicitor General said he doubted if there were any soldiers at the front in Britain's wars, who, if they had been in England would have had the right to vote. I doubt that statement very much. We know that it has been the glory of England that her young men of wealth, as well as those without wealth, have always been willing to go to the front. He knows that always many men of wealth who had commissions in the army have been ready to go to the front. It would seem to me most extraordinary if that statement of my hon. friend could be supported. The hon. gentleman said that during the Boer war the British Government had no thought of an election. The hon. member for . Bed Deer (Mr. M. Clark) called his attention to the fact that an election was held while the Boer war was in progress. Instead of answering the hon. member for Bed Deer, the Solicitor General with that cleverness shall I say with that smartness-which I have sometimes seen in the police court when the police court lawyer turns and makes a flippant remark to the crowd of unwashed on the back benches to provoke laughter, said, " Well, you must not talk any more about not having elections during the war."
My hon. friend, instead of answering the hon. member for Bed Deer, sought to turn the point in a flippant manner in order to provoke the laughter of his supporters. I do not think that that was very creditable on the part of the Solicitor General; I should have thought that he would answer the question of the hon. member for Bed Deer. If there were any answer to be given, my hon. friend was capable of giving it; the

only inference that we can draw is that no reasonable answer [DOT] could be given.
My right hon. friend the Prime Minister, and, I think, the Minister of Justice, referred to the fact that 50,000 Canadians are or soon will be fighting the battles of the Empire, and suggested that it would be outrageous if they should be compelled to make the sacrifice, in addition to risking their lives in the defence of their country, of losing the opportunity of voting in connection with questions which may affect the future government of this country. It has been pointed out that there is one way in which that condition need not be brought about. This Parliament will not have run its five years until very late in the autumn of 19X6, and there can be one or even two sessions of Parliament before it will be necessary for the Government to go to the country. What question of great importance looms up to-day which would cause the Government to feel that they can properly advise His Eoyal Highness to cause this country to. be plunged into the turmoil of an election contest? What reason is there why all these questions-questions respecting the navy; questions respecting the general administration of affairs; questions respecting the responsibilities for the scandals with which the atmosphere of the whole of this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific is tainted-should be put before the people at this time? Is there any reason why this deplorable state of affairs should be brought about? Hon. gentlemen pretend that when we make suggestions of this kind, we are indicating that we fear to meet the electorate. Let me say to hon. gentlemen opposite that so far as hon. gentlemen on this side of the House are concerned, our political success or failure is a matter of little importance to us as compared with the desirability, while this great war, which is shaking the Empire to its very foundations, is in progress, of not diverting the attention of the people from the serious questions relating to the war to the petty consideration of the triumph of one political party or the other. More than that, I believe that if hon. gentlemen, without reason save that of a desire to secure party triumph, throw this country into the turmoil of an election, that is the feeling which will be expressed by the people. In the session of August last, when Parliament was called for the purpose of considering measures which it was desirable to pass by reason of the war that had broken out, if the Government had then thought it de-

sirable to 'give the soldiers the right to vote, that was the time to have passed this legislation and to have made provisions, with proper safeguards, for the recording of the votes of the soldiers. In the various villages and towns where the soldiers were massed, opportunities could easily have been given for the marking of the ballots by the soldiers in. the presence of scrutineers, and these ballots could have heen kept, to be used when the election should take place. But the Government did not do that.


Oliver James Wilcox: What about the soldiers
who, having voted, were subsequently killed?


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman asks a question which he might well ask of the Minister of Justice. Suppose many hundreds of soldiers are killed between the time they mark their ballots and the time the ballots reach the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery; what would happen then?


Oliver James Wilcox: Their vot~s would be
counted.


William Pugsley: Then my hon. friend
asserts that the votes of dead men would be counted.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The votes counted
would be the votes of men who had voted during the course of the election, not the votes of men who had voted months or years previous to the election.


William Pugsley: That does not make any difference, because the Minister of Justice is providing not for voting for a particular person, but for voting for the Government or the Opposition, and the merits of either party might not change very much in the .course of a few months-although, again, they might. I raised a question this afternoon when the Minister of Justice was speaking and I think it is a question which is worthy of consideration-as to the merits of the proposal to have soldiers vote while they are at the front. The casting of one's ballot is one of the most serious acts which a citizen can perform. It is a sacred right; it is also a sacred duty. To enable the elector to cast his vote intelligently and conscientiously, it is desirable that he should be informed upon the issues which are presented in the country. How is it possible for soldiers who have been for several months at the front, out of touch altogether with Canadian affairs, intelligently to vote
upon the different questions which will necessarily influence the electorate when the election takes place? The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce told a Toronto audience the other night that they must remember that politics is not all boots and binoculars. Politics is not all boots and binoculars, yet the question of the scandals connected with the purchase of supplies for the war department, the question of the purchase of boots and binoculars and horses, the question of the employing of members of Parliament to make these purchases, the question of the excess prices *which were charged-all these are matters which, to a large extent, will necessarily be considered by the electorate. What does a soldier at the front, who has been absent from the country for four or five months, know about these questions? It may be said: What does he care to know about them? Well, he will care to know about them if he wishes to cast his ballot in the best interests of his country and to perform his duty intelligently. I think it was the Minister of Justice who said that Lord Kitchener may be relied upon to prevent the soldiers from getting campaign literature. I do not know, however, that Lord Kitchener would be able to control that, if the partisan pamphlets were sent through the mails. T do not know that he 'would be aware of what kind of literature was being sent; besides I fancy that Lord Kitchener has something else to do. The officers who are at the front, Sir John French and others, have too much to do to pay attention to the letters or literature which might be sent to the soldiers. I am afraid that if this measure passes in its present form and the soldiers who are at the front are given the right to vote, you will find that at the time when all the best thought that a soldier can give to anything should be given to fighting the foe. there will be hostile camps among the soldiers, Liberal officers will be canvassing Liberal or Independent or wavering soldiers, and Conservative officers will be canvassing for their side, each endeavouring to explain to the soldiers his view of the issues which are before the people of Canada. Is that desirable? Of course that raises the whole question as to whether among the men who are at the front and whose first duty would be to devote all their time and attention to fighting in the interests of their country, it is desirable to introduce political contests and political partisanship and feeling. I do not see the same objection to

providing that soldiers who are going to the front shall be allowed to mark their ballot before they go. If the Bill had proposed to go only that far I would have been glad to support it and to give whatever aid I could towards perfecting the measure, towards surrounding the marking of the ballot of the soldier with every possible safeguard. But so far as those already gone are concerned, the Minister of Justice has lost the opportunity. Instead of bringing this measure in as I have said, in August, as he ought to have done if in the opinion of the Government it was desirable to pass a measure of this kind, he has waited until some 30,000 or more of our young men have gone to the front and he has lost the opportunity of giving them a reasonable and fair opportunity to cast their ballots. If, however, at this late date, the minister amends his Bill so that it will apply only to those who are hereafter to go to the front and give them an opportunity to mark their ballots before they go, then I will be heart and soul with him and will assist him in throwing safeguards around this measure, as I believe safeguards can easily be thrown around it. You can make provision and supply safeguards for soldiers voting in this country before they go to the front, but you cannot after they have gone to the front. Then too the same objection would not obtain as to introducing politics in the trenches. With soldiers voting here you can have scrutineers and proper arrangements made without great difficulty, and in that way I think there would be no complaint on the part of anybody. As my right hon. friend pointed out in those cases where the marking of the ballot is done in Canada you would have control over the officials whose duty it was to see that the ballots were properly marked, marked in secret and forwarded to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. All that could be provided for and persons who might commit violations of the law could be punished. But here you propose to send ballots to Belgium, France and, as my right hon. friend said, possibly even to Germany, to send ballots broadcast and place them in the hands of people who may commit wrong and who cannot be punished. You give an opportunity for the commission of any crime of forgery, any crime of substitution of ballots, outside of this country and by persons over whom the Canadian courts would have no jurisdiction. With reference to the franchise, as my right hon. friend in the unanswerable objection which he made to this Bill in its present 
form stated, this Bill gives a new franchise. It practically repeals the Provincial Franchise Act, under which the elections in Canada are held. The provincial Acts provide that a man must be resident in the province generally for a period of 12 months. This Bill provides that a man who happens to be a British subject, but who had lived previously in the United States, if he happened to be in Canada even while recruiting was going on, even while he was arranging to join the militia, even for 30 days, shall have the right to mark his ballot. What knowledge would a gentleman from the United States, who had come here to join the Canadian forces to fight for the Empire, have of the issues on which the Canadian people are divided? What reason is there in giving to those men who have not been citizens of Canada, who have not been permanent residents of Canada, who happen to have been in the country for 30 days, votes, when we deny them under ordinary circumstances to men whose residence has been as short as that?


Arthur Meighen: How could such a man have a vote under this Bill when he had only been 30 days in Canada?


William Pugsley: Every male British subject-


Arthur Meighen: How would he get to be a British subject if he had only beeD in Canada for 30 days?


William Pugsley: In the United States there are thousands of British subjects' who have no interest in Canada whatever, but who have come to Canada, and they have been here 30 days before joining the Canadian forces, and have gone to serve the Empire. They go because they are British subjects. After the war is over they will go back to the United States. But what reason is there in giving to these men, who, even though they may be true British subjects, are strangers to Canada and strangers to the issues on which our people are divided, the right to decide as between the two parties, or to vote upon the issues which are dividing the Canadian people? The reason why the legislatures of the different provinces have required a considerable period of residence, is that a man who wants to cast his ballot may be interested in and informed upon Canadian questions, and may therefore vote intelligently on the issues before the people. In New Zealand there is no alteration in the franchise; no man can vote under the New Zealand Bill except a man who had a right to vote independently of that Bill altogether. It makes no change in the franchise, as this Bill does.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is a manhood franchise there.


William Pugsley: Manhood franchise? But manhood franchise requires probably a certain period of residence in the country.


Mr. BENNETT:: Registration only.


William Pugsley: At all events, all provinces of Canada have required a certain period of residence in order to entitle a man to be registered as a voter. We have manhood suffrage in this country, and we require that there shall be a certain definite period of residence before a man may be registered as a voter.
For these reasons I am opposed to the Bill in its present form. I desire to be understood that, so far as I am concerned, I would support a measure which would provide that soldiers, before they leave Canada for the front, would be enabled to mark their ballots so that if an election came on during their absence the ballots would be cast by the returning officers under proper supervision. I would not have the Bill absolutely without safeguards as this Bill is; I would see that reasonable safeguards surrounded the voting. If that provision was made and the Bill was limited to that, I would feel that I could heartily support it; but in its present form I cannot support it. There is another objection to this Bill. Unlike the New Zealand Bill it is not limited to a general election. It is to be permanently attached to the Dominion Elections Act. It provides that ballots may be cast in a by-election, so that if at any time between now and the next general election there should be a by-election all this performance would have to be gone through, just as if it was a general elee-' tion. I do not know whether the Government mean that, but that is one of the provisions of the Bill; and in that respect it differs most materially from the New Zealand Bill, which provides " that this Act shall be deemed to be repealed on the completion of the general election." This provision in regard to by-eleotions certainly seems to me to be contrary to reason, and on this ground alone, if on no other, the Bill ought not to commend itself to the House in its present form. I have the right to assume that when the Government brings down a Bill applying to byelections as well as general elections, they mean what the Bill says. If they do not mean it, of course the Minister of Justice will tell us so; and no doubt the Bill will then be changed simply to meet the case of the general election.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was a member of the committee that was charged with the responsibility of preparing the Bill that is now submitted to the House. It does appear to me that the discussion that has taken place, during the last few moments at least, has overlooked the object for which that committee met, and the object that it had in view in endeavouring to provide votes for soldiers. The question it seems to me is a very simple one. Shall a portion of our population that is absent from Ganada for a great cause be deprived of its franchise? Put in another way it is this: Shall thousands of our citizens who are exercising the highest obligation of citizenship be deprived of its highest privilege? In other words it is this: Shall those who are offering their lives as a willing sacrifice for us who remain at home be deprived of the right of expressing their view as to how we who remain conduct the affairs of our common country? Put in another way it is this: shall men who offer their lives for their country be punished by being deprived of their highest civil right? Now, considering these questions from any standpoint it seems to me there is only one answer; and in considering the -answer that must be given to any one of these questions I submit that we must have regard to the constitutional conditions under which we live. No less a man than Lord Morley of Blackburn, in one of his admirable essays pointed out that it would never be possible for the residents or citizens of the overseas dominions to fight for Britain in a cause in which they had no special interest; and, strange as it may seem, he took as an illustration the possibility of citizens of overseas dominions fighting for the neutrality of Belgium. The very illustration that he took for what he said might not happen has happened; and today 'Canadians, New Zealanders, and Australians are fighting side by side with the regular troops of Great Britain for the maintenance of the neutrality and integrity of Belgium-a living demonstration of the lack of prophetic vision on the part of that great man.
Under our present constitutional system we had nothing to say directly as to whether we should engage in these hostilities. Our citizens who are offering their services are in no sense conscripts; they are under no obligation to render their ser-9 p.m. vice to the Empire. They are volunteers, and to that extent they are citizen soldiers, offering their ser-



vices on the plains of Europe for the maintenance of a common democracy. -That being so, the simple question is this: Shall citizen soldiers be deprived of the exercise of their civil rights, merely because as citizen soldiers they have offered their services on the fields of Europe? That was the question that was before the committee. We discussed it, and dealt with it from various standpoints, and there seemed to be in the mind of that committee hut one answer to that question, and it was this: That a citizen of Canada, who is only a soldier by sentiment, by loyalty, by patriotism, and by a high regard for democracy and the cause of humanity, should not be deprived of the right to use his franchise merely because under extraordinary conditions he happens to be absent from this Dominion. I do not say that the committee was unanimous in arriving at that conclusion, but no member of it stood up and said: I say the principle is wrong. On the contrary every member of the committee felt that it was his bounden duty to give effect so far as it was possible, to the principle that a citizen of Canada who is absent from our shores under such extraordinary circumstances, and on so great and glorious a mission, should not he deprived of his civil rights. Having arrived at that conclusion, the next question that confronted the committee was: How shall we give effect to that conclusion? I will admit at once that it is not an easy thing to give erfect to such a conclusion. That is the reason why the committee considered the matter at such length; that is the reason that they had recourse to precedents from other countries; that is the reason that they studied the legislation, for instance, of the States of the neighbouring republic; that is the reason that they studied the legislation of New Zealand. Why, Sir, during the last year there has been passed in many of the states of the United States legislation that will enable absentee voters to vote on election day, regardless of the cause on which they might be absent; and postal voting has been established in some of the King's Dominions, not in the republic to the south of us but in the King's Dominions, the principle being that mere temporary absence from the country should not deprive a man of the exercise of his franchise. No hon. gentleman opposite will deny that the whole trend of legislation to-day, so far as the exercise of the franchise is concerned, is to make possible the exercise of that franchise by every 
man who is entitled to exercise it under the laws of the country in which he lives. That is the whole trend of democratic legislation. If you look at the last American Year Book, to which I had occasion to direct the attention of the committee during the discussion of this measxire, you will find that in various states provision is being made to meet that very point; namely, that some provision should be made whereby the man who has a right to vote, but who is temporarily absent on election day, should be able to declare whether he favours or opposes particular Bills, or parties, or governments, or legislation. That being so, we endeavoured to find some method by which a well-recognized principle of democracy might be maintained in all its strength, and whereby our fellow Canadians not temporarily absent in the ordinary sense of the term, but absent for the greatest cause for which Canadians have ever gone away, should be given every chance of sharing in the Government of this country. That is all.
What do we propose? First of all we propose that every British subject of the age of 21 years shall have a vote. Why? It is the universal law in this Dominion that every British subject of the age of 21 years shall have a vote. In Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Quebec, in all the provinces, the same provision applies. Instead of making a new franchise we are endeavouring to recognize the fact that in each of the provinces men of that type have votes, and because of the fact that this legislation is for a Dominion franchise, we made the broad declaration that every British subject of the age of 21 years shall have a vote.
My hon. and learned friend from St. John has just directed attention to the fact that there is an extraordinary provision in the Bill whereby residence of a British subject for thirty days prior to enlistment shall constitute residence necessary to vote, and he directed attention to the fact that in the New Zealand Bill no such provision appears. Surely my hon. friend is not serious?


William Pugsley: What I said was that
in the New Zealand Bill the franchise was not altered in regard to residence.


William Humphrey Bennett: My hon. friend did
hardly say that.


William Pugsley: Yes.


William Humphrey Bennett: He went a step further. What does section 2 of the New Zealand Act say? It says:

Every member of any expeditionary force sent from New Zealand to serve in the war in which His Majesty is at present engaged, shall he entitled to vote.
I do not attach any importance to what they do in New Zealand. It is merely a precedent, because there happened to be a general election. It became necessary to preserve the rights of the citizens to vote and in order to preserve that right they passed that legislation, but I do not attach any importance to what they have done in New Zealand in so far as Canada is concerned. The problem we had to deal with was a problem of our own and we only refer to New Zealand in so far as its action throws any light upon the question. It is merely referred to by the Government as showing what others have done. We have different conditions.
We have endeavoured to preserve the provincial franchise. We felt that any man who is a subject of the King and Emperor, who had come to this country and resided in it for thirty days, who would ordinarily have acquired the franchise and who, instead of extending (his residence for three months or six months or twelve months, was still in theory a Canadian citizen while serving under the colours in Flanders or in France, should have the vote. We provided that if he had been for thirty days in Canada he should have a vote provided that if that man had a _ vote in any other portion of Canada he should vote just where he had that vote in accordance with the provincial list and not otherwise. We have made no new franchise, we have endeavoured to substitute no new Act for the existing Acts, but we merely say that we will recognize existing rights. The provincial franchise must be exercised. But the committee felt that a British subject who had lived thirty days in Canada, although having ihis residence insofar as the fact is concerned with the colours in France or Belgium, should be given the franchise. At one time we discussed the possibility of preparing a list, but many difficulties were pointed out, and that idea was abandoned. Then the committee submit to Parliament a measure by which they say: We shall send ballots forward for the purpose of enabling our citizen soldiers to express their will at the polls. If you admit that we should answer the question as to whether they should have a vote in the affirmative, and if it be answered in the affirmative, and that we should preserve as far as possible the existing franchise, the next thing to be done was to see that they exercise that 141 i
franchise under proper safeguards. That was discussed, and it was concluded to adopt the very simple method provided by the Bill. It is proposed that we shall prepare the ballots and send them forward. They will be distributed among the men, they will be placed in an envelope with an affidavit, because we must have some safeguards. This envelope will be sent back to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery and the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery will send the envelopes to the various electoral districts where the ballots will be counted. We felt that there should be legislation to provide against the very difficulty that the Minister of Justice has pointed out, namely, uncertainty as to the result of the elections. We said that if these ballots reached the returning officer after the polling day they should not be counted. We felt that the uncertainty that prevailed in New Zealand in consequence of the manner in which the soldiers' votes had been transmitted after they had been cast in Egypt and Samoa caused a great deal of difficulty and we said that if the votes of the soldiers reached the returning officers in the various constituencies in Canada after the day of election they should not be counted. Then we provided that some time during election day, but after the close of the poll, so as to obviate the possibility of there being some knowledge in the mind'of the electors as to how the poll was going, these ballots should be counted and placed in the ballot box and added to the general results. I do submit that that is fair, that it is a recognition of the obligation on the part of the Canadian people and Parliament assembled to give some countenance and support to the very proper claim that was made by the soldiers that went from my constituency to myself that they should be enabled to cast their votes if a general election should happen during their absence, and that they should not be obliged to lose their civil rights because they exercised the higher obligations of citizenship.
What complaint can be urged against that? Two complaints are urged against it. One is that it opens the way to fraud, and another is that you have not the safeguards that should surround the exercise of the franchise. Living as I do in western Canada all I can say is that under the legislation we have before us Canada's soldiers cannot do anything in the way of fraud comparable with what I have seen. I am not saying that in a cavilling spirit. That happened in the last general election in the province of Alberta? In one constituency

the ballot box was opened and the votes taken out and to this day the offender has not been punished. Would you sooner trust the British officer, one of our fellow Canadian officers, who has before him the grim responsibilities of his position with death staring him in the face, to do the decent, honest thing, or would you rather trust a returning officer where a ballot box was opened, as in Medicine Hat last election? Which would you rather have, which would the people of Canada sooner have, which would any reasonable man sooner have?
Then my hon. friend goes a step further and he says: Why, surely, you would not permit a British subject who has come in from the United States and has only been thirty days in Canada to vote in Canada? Oh, no! Come with me to the province of Saskatchewan. At the last general election you could have seen thousands of aliens voting as they were told. And that is not all. Come with me to any poll in the province of Alberta where we have naturalized Germans and Austrians and tell me whether you would prefer the vote of a British subject who lived thirty days in Canada to that of the naturalized alien whose instincts and sympathies are still with what he calls his fatherland.
Come with me and tell me whether or not you would sooner trust the Briton who has lived thirty days in Canada than the authors of the splendid pamphlet that I hold in my hand that is now printed on one side in German and on the other in English upon a printing press controlled, I believe, by the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), commending: Canada first; down with participation by Canadians in the wars of the Empire; preserve Canada for the Germans and the Austrians and all those other foreign people who come here and make it their home; but never mind Britain, because she and her King can take care of themselves. Would you trust those naturalized foreigners or would you trust the thirty-day resident British subject who came from the United States in order that he might offer his life as a sacrifice for your safety and mine? I commend my hon. friend from the old loyalist city of St. John (Mr. Pugsley) to go back and ask his electors whether they would prefer to see the franchise for this great Dominion of Canada exercised by the men who had journeyed over from Massachusetts or Vermont or Maine and lived here for thirty days that they might fight for our country and Empire or the men I have mentioned. Bet him go and ask the descendants of the 'founders

of St. John. I leave it to the electorate of St. John to deal with my hon. friend as they will.
After dealing with that as I have stated and after having arrived at the conclusions which I have mentioned, we found it necessary to surround the franchise with such safeguards as we could suggest, and I think the safeguards in the Bill are adequate for the purposes intended. In the province in which I live all that is necessary for a man to do to exercise his franchise is this: He walks into a polling booth and the returning officer says: " What is your name?" "John Jones." "Where do you live?" "Well, just west of Edmonton," or "just west of Calgary." "Where?" "Oh, not far from Edson," or " not far from Morley." " Well, your name is not on the list." " That is all right, partner; let's swear." That is the way the thing goes on. The man puts his hand upon the Bible, and he swears that he is a British subject; that he is 21 years of age, and that he has resided one year in the province of Alberta and three months in a particular electoral district. He gets the ballot; goes out; fills it up; comes in and puts it into the ballot box, and you may seek in vain for John Jones next day. The place that knows him knows him no more, and the place that knew him knows him no more. Yet you are going to tell me that the 12,000 electors from the Province of Alberta that are now fighting or getting ready to fight for this Empire, some in Europe and some in England and some in Canada, cannot vote, but that this John Jones can vote. Out in yonder trenches the man goes up and swears an affidavit before his commanding officer, and we have the record of that man from now until the time that he is discharged or until he offers his life for his country. His name is there; it is enrolled upon the records; we know him for all time; his history will bj the common heritage of us all. We know that man, but who knows anything of John Jones who came in on the train and put up at a hotel? Yet he must vote, but my friends from Calgary cannot vote; my hon. friend's friends from Edmonton cannot vote. Why? Because my hon. friends opposite say that there are not sufficient safeguards when the soldier makes his affidavit. He marks his ballot and next morning perhaps he is offering his life for his country. His ballot is put into an envelope and sent back, but it cannot be counted because there are no safeguards! I am sure my hon. friend from Edmonton

will not support any such doctrine as that which my hon. friend from St. John advocates. I am sure he will not permit himself for a single moment to go back on his old and dried and true friends who are now fighting in Europe and who would like to have a chance to vote, any more tb#n I shall go back on those who have voted both for and against me and who in the trenches have a desire to vote. The safeguards which are thrown around the voting by the men in the trenches are better than the safeguards as regards voting in the province of Saskatchewan or of Alberta are to-'day or to-morrow.	[DOT]
Oh, my hon. friends perhaps will say: It is going to interfere with military operations and Lord Kitchener will veto the measure. In any event, it will not be Lord Kitchener that will veto the measure; it will be Sir John French or whoever is in command of the British forces. Assuming, however, that by virtue of military exigencies and necessities, our soldiers cannot vote, does that lessen the obligation of their fellow-Canadians to give them the Tight to vote if they want to?
I do not for a single moment say that our soldiers will vote, 'but I know that some of them want to vote. I do not say that they will have the opportunity to exercise the franchise that they would like to have, because it may be that the military exigencies and necessities of the war will prevent them from doing so; hut I would be recreant to my duties and this House would be recreant to its duties and to the trust reposed in it by its Canadian fellow-citizens thousands of miles from here, if we did not afford them the opportunity to vote if they wish to do so. When men tell me that some one is going to veto something or that something is going to interfere with something else, that does not interfere with or lessen the right of this Parliament to do its plain and obvious duty. I do not for a single moment doubt that if an election came at a certain date, there might be great difficulties; but we have not said on what day the soldiers shall vote. As soon as it is known there is going to be an election, the ballots will be transmitted to Europe and circulated, and although it may be that some of the soldiers will say: I am not going to be bothered about an election, and they will throw the ballot away, there may be ten men out of a company of a. hundred who want to vote. I intend to use such power and influence as I have to give those ten men the right to exercise the franchise if they so desire. Why should there be any
magnifying of the seriousness of the situation? Why should there not be a common desire on the paTt of this Parliament on both sides-Government and Opposition- to	say:	We are going	to give
the men an opportunity to vote, and we will make this measure as perfect as possible. When I think of the labyrinths of the mind of my hon. friend from St. John, I am sure he can devise safeguards to throw around this voting, and may I say that with his large experience and great knowledge of the law, it would be his manifest duty, as coming from the old loyalist city of St. John, when we are sitting here in committee, to give that splendid talent of his to make perfect this measure and to see that his fellow-citizens shall have the right to vote if they so desire. This is not a provocative nor a contentious measure; this Bill enanated from the committee as quite the opposite and we discussed it in the most friendly and amicable manner possible.. iSome hon. gentlemen opposite say that it is absolutely impossible to carry this legislation into effect. I say nothing is impossible to a Parliament that desires to achieve a given result or end, and although the measure may not be as perfect as it should be, that does not deter me from using my influence to have something placed upon the statute-book that will make possible the end which we have in mind and which should be effective. My hon. friend says:	I am in favour of
letting the soldiers in the country have a vote, but once they go out of the country, I am not. Is a soldier who is garrisoned at Halifax who comes from Alberta in any better position than a soldier who comes from Calgary who is garrisoned at Bermuda? Is a soldier who came from Edmonton and is now garrisoned at, let us say, Winnipeg, in any better position than the soldier who came from Edmonton and is now garrisoned at Alexandria, Egypt, or on Salisbury Plain or in Tidworth barracks? .
If we admit that, let us go a step further. Is such a soldier in any worse position if he happens to be with the second division, or brigaded with certain British regiments at some point in France? You say:	the
difficulties are multiplied because these men are in the trenches, but men do not stay in the trenches all the time; they go to their base. Suppose there are two hundred of them-a -double company with a major in charge, the major sees to it that these two hundred men are handed their ballots. In due course each makes his affidavit before the commissioned officer who is authorized

to administer the oath, and the ballot is put in an envelope, the officer certifying that the man entitled to vote had actually marked that ballot. That ballot comes out to Canada and in due course finds its way to Oalgary. Is there any difficulty about that? Why magnify these difficulties and go into mock heroics about the dangers of the trenches? Why discuss these sanguinary differences between two contending armies, when the vote is not being cast there at all? Why not look at this reasonably as practical men? It does seem to me it is possible to be done. Why innoculate this discussion with talk about scandals in boots?
If this Government were desirous of covering alleged scandal about improper equipment, do you suppose they would be so anxious that the men who wear the boots should have the vote? If this terrible condition exists that the hon. member for St. John city imagines-and it is pure imagination-does he think for a moment that the soldier wearing paper upon his feet instead of boots would vote for the Government? You would think the hon. gentleman would almost exhaust his energy in giving that soldier the right to vote. Either the hon. gentleman does not believe the boots are bad, or else there is something else behind all this to cause him to prevent the soldier from having the vote. What is it? Why does the right hon. leader of - the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) desire that the soldiers should not have the vote? Why does the	hon. member
for St. John city take the same view? Why do hon. gentlemen opposite generally offer such opposition to mis legislation? It must be that they remember that the soldiers have memories. It must be that they recollect that the men who are fighting for Canada at this time bear in mind the political history of their country. Their knowledge and recollection will induce them to mete out to the right hon. gentleman and those who sit beside him that measure of justice *which these recollections would entail. No doubt some of these gallant soldiers in the trenches have read the utterances of some of the hon. gentlemen opposite. They cannot fail to have taken note of the noble sentences that decry British diplomacy and look forward with joy to the day when, so far as Canada is concerned, it shall be no more. They cannot fail to remember having read in text books of elections in this country that Canadians would never fight for Britain in Britain's wars, Canada not being

interested. Remembering these sentences that have fallen from the lips of stalwart leaders of their party, peradventure, these hon. gentlemen opposite think: If we give these men the vote, they may remember this against us. I wonder if that is the reason. Far be it from me to suggest that to be the reason, because I know that hon. gentlemen opposite are dominated by a higher spirit of patriotism than that. There must be another reason. I fain would know it. But, after having listened to the speech of the right hon. leader of the Opposition and of that great legal luminary who sits to his right, I fail, absolutely fail, to ascertain that reason. There is a mystery about it, and I would like to see that mystery solved. No doubt many other people in Canada would like to see it solved. Why should a simple little rail that offers our fellow-Canadians the franchise cause all this trouble? One would think that hon. gentlemen opposite would be falling over one another in their support of this measure. Their statements will be read in the morning with great pain, and I am sure it will cause many an anxious moment to Liberals in the country that I come from when they find that their brothers are denied the franchise by the acts of hon. gentlemen opposite. And many a wife who has given her husband to the war will sorrow and he exceeding sad to know that her husband, because he is in France fighting for Canada, cannot vote in the next election. I wonder how the hon. member for Edmonton is going to feel when these two thousand men from his constitutency learn that he voted against this measure.
I cannot understand hon. gentlemen oppo- _ site to-night. Their conduct is really passing strange. And i do not think anybody will be able to understand on what principle they have arrived at such conclusions as they have expressed here. They talk about boot scandals, and yet they will not trust the soldiers to judge their own boots. They talk about (horse scandals, but the only horse I have seen ridden around here is one that, I think, will not accomplish much- the scandal horse. They are disappointed because the Government has called for a full inquiry; because there is no blockers' brigade, because there is no dark lantern brigade; and, to fill up their cup of bitter-enss-


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think the hon. gentleman is not confining himself closely to the Bill under discussion.


William Humphrey Bennett: Possibly I (have wandered far from the subject because the hon. member for St. John city was discussing scandal, and, as he is an expert in that matter, 1 wished to remind him of certain things. I had almost.thought (that perhaps the soldiers would remember the sawdust wharves and other things of that sort.


William Pugsley: That is thoroughly nonpartisan.


William Humphrey Bennett: The hon. gentleman says the wharf is non-partisan. In that, I think, he is altogether right. The committee in the preparation of this Bill did not have in mind an immediate election, and that I can say with all certainty. The hon. and learned gentleman who presided over the committee, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty), brought to (bear upon the measure every consideration he could to make it fair and workable, and the other members of the committee did not prepare the Bill with regard to an immediate election. The hon. member for Bed Deer said that this measure emanated from the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Bogers). If all the work of the Minister of Public Works is as good as this-and I do not think he appeared before the committee-he has every reason to be proud of this handiwork in trying to give his fellow-Canadians at the front a chance to exercise the franchise. The committee had regard to what had been done in other colonies and dominions. Members may not have been altogether forgetful of the fact that challenges had been issued from the other side as to the possibility of an election. After these challenges I received letters from soldiers from my own constituency who were leaving for the front and from those who had already left, pointing out that it was said we were going to have a general election.
They had heard that the Opposition had said that we dare not have an election, and they expressed a desire to have an opportunity of recording their votes. I do not doubt that they desired to have a vote in order to vote against the party that dared challenge us to have an election at this time. All I have to say to the hon. member for Bed Deer, when he talks in high-flown and heroic terms about an election at this time, is that if he would make an attempt to have his own party refrain from making challenges about elections and from talking about elections and appeals to the people, he would be accomplishing a great deal more than he is doing by offering his advice
as to whether or not we should have one, while at the same time sending out ammunition in the shape of campaign literature.
In my town that ammunition is all in shape, ready to burst the moment the word is given. This partisan shell has a time fuse; just what time has been fixed, I do not know, but it is ready to be exploded at the proper time. A friend of mine, writing to me the other day, told me all about this. Our people have not any of this campaign ammunition in readiness, so far as I know; perhaps we do not need any.
I have pointed out the considerations that influenced the committee in endeavouring to arrive at a conclusion in this matter, and I have pointed out the safeguards with which we have endeavoured to surround the exercising of the franchise under the conditions proposed. I am not unmindful of the fact that any election law that may be placed on the statute book caii be circumvented and broken by crooks, but it remains for hon. gentlemen opposite to insinuate . that the officers who are offering their lives, and who may face death the next day, are going to do a fraudulent, dishonest and dishonourable thing in giving effect to this legislation. I do not believe it, and I do appeal to the members on the other side of this House for once to forget partisanship, provoeativeness and contentiousness, and to unite with us in putting upon the Statute Book a measure of which Canada may be proud. It is not enough that those who go to the front to fight for us should make us proud of them; we who remain behind to legislate and to deal with the great problems which surround us every day should make these men, when they come back from the trenches, proud of us. I do not believe that Canadians should be deprived of the privilege of exercising their civil rights merely because freely, voluntarily, without conscription, without restraint, without coercion, without in any sense being requested or asked so to do by legal authority, they have offered their services to their King and Empire. Twelve thousand soldiers from the province of Alberta ask that this measure of justice shall be given them. Twelve thousand men, their brothers and sisters, their wives and other relatives, ask that this measure of justice shall be given them. Even if the legislation is not surrounded by all the safeguards that you would wish, they ask that we place upon the statute book something which will enable the men who are offering their lives as a sacrifice to-day to exercise their rights,

for or against this Government. Let us do this thing, in the name of justice, of equity, of fair play, of that righteousness which exalteth a nation, of that spirit which pervades those who are offering their lives as sacrifices for us. That is what animated the committee, and the legislation, I do submit, is as fair and reasonable as it possibly could be, having regard to the circumstances and to the difficulty of the task which the committee undertook to perform.


Frank Oliver: I
am sure that if there had been any doubt in the minds of hon. gentlemen of the House as to the character and purpose of this Bill, the speech of our hon, friend has set that doubt at rest. We understand now beyond any question that this is a political measure, for partisan purposes, and for partisan purposes only. I do not wish at the moment to follow my hon. friend in the course of his devious remarks. I shall confine myself rather to the argument that preceded his. I wish at first to draw attention to the difference that exists between the conditions surrounding the bringing forward of the/New Zealand Bill and those surrounding the bringing forward of this proposed legislation, I wish to point out that there is no comparison between the conditions surrounding these two Bills. In the ease of the New Zealand Bill, an election was compelled in the immediate future by effluxion of time; in the case of this Bill, no election is compelled in the immediate future by effluxion of time. There was a definite reason why the New Zealand legislature should take some action in regard to the votes of soldiers; there is no reason why this Government at this time should take such action, unless it be the intention of the Government to bring on a general election during the course of this war for the purpose of enabling its followers to make addresses throughout the Dominion of Canada of the kind and character that my hon. friend has just favoured us with. If the right hon. the Prime Minister calls a general election and turns his followers loose on the platforms of this country with such talk as my hon. friend has engaged in here to-night, how far is that going to urge Canada to do her full share in the matter of rendering assistance to the Empire during the course of this war? I ask the Prime Minister whether, if Canada is to do her part, this is not a time when Canadians should be united; when there should be 
as few differences introduced into the public mind as possible? We are bound to assume, from what we have heard to-night, that he has it in mind, without cause or justification, except the probability of securing a partisan advantage, to throw a general election upon the country and to set Canadians against each other-as my hon. friend the hon. member for Calgary has himself said; against me and against my friends-at a time when men should be looking forward only in one direction, and that to the giving of whatever assistance they can to the Empire.


Robert Laird Borden: I should like
to say to my hon. friend, since he has ap-appealed to me, that the question of a general election will stand on its own merits when the time comes. There has been no decision either to hold an election or not to hold an election; we have been too busy with other things. But I desire to tell him this:	that, including the vote of want of
confidence which his leader moved and which he supported, in their every move during the past six weeks in this House, hon. gentlemen on the other side have been actuated purely by a desire to obtain partisan advantage at the expense of that unity which the hon. gentleman so greatly lauds at the present time. Any man who has followed the course taken by hon. gentlemen in this House and in the committees of this House during the past six weeks, knows absolutely the truth of what I have just said.


George Perry Graham: We do not know anything of the kind.


Frank Oliver: I may be permitted to deviate for a moment from the course of my remarks to follow what the Prime Minister said. The only occasion on which the course of the Government has .been challenged in this House at this session was on the occasion of the Budget, on the occasion of a reversal of the fiscal policy of Canada; and I ask him if he considers that in a country under representative institutions and under responsible Government, if we held views different from those advocated by himself, we would have been doing our duty to the country if we had done less than we did. I cannot imagine that unless my hon. friend is taking the position that he has been elected the Czar of Canada-


George Perry Graham: The Kaiser.


Frank Oliver: I beg pardon; yes, the
Kaiser, and that there must be no differ-

enee of opinion and no expression of any difference of opinion when once the mind of the Government has been made up. If that is the condition it is most extraordinary, and I for one had never understood that to be the position, even as the Prime Minister himself understood it or ever thought of enforcing it upon the country.
I would say this to him, if I may be permitted, that if he thinks that the excuses he has given here to-night will excuse him before the people of Canada if he throws this country into the turmoil of a general election when he does not need to while this war is on, he mistakes the opinion of the people of this country and mistakes it very seriously. However, from what has passed here to-day, while the Prime Minister has said that he has not decided yet to hold a general election, we are bound to assume from what he has said that a general election while the war is on is entirely within the range of possibility or even of probability; and I am entitled then to conclude that this legislation is introduced distinctly with that object in view.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Frank Oliver: That it is, in its nature and essentially, partisan legislation introduced for a partisan purpose fn order to further the interest of purely party politics.
Let me say further in regard to the Hew Zealand case, where provision is made for the taking of a vote for the election of members of the Legislaure and where the vote is not cast for the individual member, but cast for or against the Government or the Opposition or Labour party. But there was another vote provided for, a vote on the great question of prohibition. Provision is made for the taking of a vote on prohibition at the same time as the vote on the general election. It was necessary, I understand, under the arrangement that had been made that these two votes should be taken at the same time. I am pre-* pared to argue that instead of the Dominion of New" Zealand providing as they 'did for the taking of the vote of soldiers during their absence from the country for the sake of getting tne soldiers' vote, ,they made the provision for the purpose of getting the definite opinion of the people of New Zealand in regard to the question and principle of prohibition; and that if it bad not been for the submission of the question of prohibition there is no reason to believe that the Government of New Zealand would have
made a provision that would have called for a declaration on the part of a voter that he votes for or against the Government as an exercise of his franchise; because it is not an exercise of his franchise. I think the difference in these two points is sufficiently important to emphasize, first that the vote in New Zealand was primarily ordered for the purpose of deciding the prohibition question, a question that had not to do with men but only with principles and, secondly, that the election had to be held. In the case of Canada the election does not have to be held for another period of about 18 months. There is this further difference, that New Zealand is a small country with a comparatively small population, a compact country with a compact people of like race and language and interests and ideas from end to end of the dominion. It is more reasonable that the voters of New Zealand should satisfy their aspirations as to the expression of their political views by voting merely for or against the Government or Labour party than that this should be done by the people of the Dominion of Canada, spread over the width of a continent, of many different provinces, including many different races of people and many different conditions of life. There is no way that the elector of the Dominion of Canada can express his views in regard to the government of -this country to the satisfaction of ;his aspirations in Icontrolling the affairs of the country unless he votes for a man, unless he votes for somebody as well as for something; and when the hon. the Minister of Justice or the other members of the House who have spoken in support of this Bill, suggest that by the passing of this Bill they are giving to our soldiers who are or will be in Europe the opportunity to exercise their franchise on an equality with their fellow-citizens in Canada, they are simply stating what is absurd on its face. It is not, however, in regard to that feature of the voting that I wish to speak. It is not the provision for the voting of the soldier who is in Europe that I wish to criticise; it is the provision for the voting of the soldier who is in Canada. The other feature of the question has been already very fully dealt with. I find that in this Bill the seldieT who is still in Canada, who surely should be entitled to exercise bis franchise just as any other citizen of Canada, and should have the same safeguards thrown around the exercise of that franchise, is compelled to cast his vote just as the soldier who is in Europe. He does not vote for a candi-

date, he votes for the Government or for the Opposition as the case may be, although he is living right in Canada, and his vote must run the gauntlet of people holding the same view in regard to election proceedings, as my hon. friend from Calgary has told us, are so numerous in Western Canada. The fact that these people-for they are the same people-are in uniform does not necessarily change their character or their intentions or their views, but it does in a large measure give them immunity from those restrictions, or, in case of necessity, immunity from those penalties, to which civilians "acting in the same way would be subject.
My hon. friend from Calgary has alluded to the fact that there are 2,000 soldiers in barracks in or near the city of Edmonton with whom I shall have to reckon when election day comes. I shall be glad to reckon with these 2,000 soldiers, as I certainly will have to, if I could be sure that when these men vote they will vote on election day, and vote for candidates that are offering in the several constituencies, and that their votes will be taken by officials, who will be subject to the, ordinary procedure of the courts and not enjoy immunity in any degree, as they certainly will under the provisions of this Act. In other words, I want the 2,000 men to vote, but I want to be sure that their votes will be counted the way they want them to be counted; and I am not sure of that under the terms of this Bill. I want to say-and -if I go outside the rules, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will check me-I say, on the statement of the hon. member for Calgary, and on the statement that I have given here to-night, that this Bill is for the purpose of stealing the election, and that that [DOT] is all it is for. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether this Government has the right to turn 2,000 voters loose in my constituency without proper check as to scrutineers, as to qualifications, or as to any other restrictions except what are contained in this Act? 1 say that it is a piece of electoral villainy that has been -planned and produced in this Act.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I must remind the hon. member that it is not permissible for a member to impute improper motives. No rule is more clear than that, according to the rulings of both English and Canadian speakers.


Frank Oliver: I desire to bow to your
ruling, Mr. Speaker, and beg to withdraw the assertion unreservedly. I have no doubt that I trespassed on the rules of Parliament,

although I was speaking according to my own belief, and I think quite within the actual facts of the case. That is the condition prevailing under this Bill 10 p.m. as it applies to the case to which my hon. friend from Calgary has himself alluded. My hon. friend. from Calgary has in effect threatened me here in this House with what will happen to me at the hands of these men if I dare to oppose this Bill. Mr. Speaker, there have been some strange things done in the Parliament of Canada; there have been some strange things done in Canadian politics; but I venture to say that no stranger thing has been done than the production of a Bill such as this, backed by a threat such as that. I agree that every citizen of Canada who is entitled to vote should vote whenever and wherever the opportunity can be given or found that will ensure that his vote, when given, shall be counted as he intended it to be counted; and if the Minister of Justice will produce a Bill that will give our Canadian citizens in France or in Flanders or in Germany or wherever they please, the right to express their views and to east their votes for the candidates standing in the Dominion election, and if provision is made that that vote when cast shall be counted as it was intended to be counted, that Bill will have my hearty support. I do not object to the voting of the soldiers; but I object to the counting by the Government.
I say that it is-well, I will not say what I was going to say, but I say that if the soldiers are to mark their ballots in Belgium and our friends here in Ottawa are to count them without any more restrictions or provisions for an honest count than are contained in this Bill, the soldiers will certainly not be getting what some of the speakers here to-night have held out as being given to them. I am not going to tell the House, for my hon. friend from Calgary has told us to-night how corrupt are the election transactions in the province that he and I come from, _and how much more corrupt they are in other provinces. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to take the hon. gentleman at his word. Only take him at his word, and then read the provisions of this Bill, and say what chance there would be for the man who voted in Flanders of having his vote counted against the Government in Canada. Why, this Bill is an inspiration! Fifty thousand votes. to be collected and distributed throughout the various constituencies of Canada wherever they will do the most good! The possibilities are magnifi-

cent,, and no doubt they appeal to the brilliant imagination of my hon. friend from Calgary. I could easily imagine how industriously he worked on the terms of this Bill when I heard how enthusiastically he supported its provisions. Why, there would be nothing to an election with a Bill such as this in the hands of the Government. Will I deny that the electoral proceedings in my hon. friend's constituency are as corrupt as he said they were?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman is mistaken. It was a Liberal returning officer, under the auspices of a Liberal Gov-eminent, that opened this ballot box, not in the constituency of Calgary but in the adjoining one of Medicine Hat.


Frank Oliver: I do not wish to put on a variety entertainment in this House, following the lead of my hon. friend from Calgary, but I may say for the information of the House, seeing that he has been so very personal, that I was informed by the gentleman who had charge of the Liberal side of the campaign that, after my hon. friend was elected to this House from the constituency of Calgary, they sent out letters to 2,500 addresses on the voters' list, persons who 'had presumably supported my hon. friend, and they never got any replies.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The lists were prepared by the Liberals.


Mr. BLAIN:: What was the majority?


William Humphrey Bennett: The majority was 3,000.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend knows
whereof he speaks when he speaks of electoral corruption in Alberta.


William Humphrey Bennett: No man has suffered more from it than myself.


Frank Oliver: I think that after hearing my hon. friend the House will bear me out when I make the suggestion that the hon. gentleman has suffered more from himself than from anybody else. My hon. friend made allusion to a paper which he held up and which he intimated was printed on a press owned and controlled by myself. It does not make any difference to the House, I presume, whether I owned or controlled the press or not, but for the information of the House I may say that I do not own or control the press nor have I had any control over it for some months past. I did have some interest in a German paper published in Edmonton, and I think my hon. friend had an interest in a German paper published in Calgary.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


Frank Oliver: I understood he had, but that the finanieal results were something like the financial results in Edmonton, and that ultimately the connection ceased. It certainly did in my case, and I presume it was the same in his.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is right. It was a Liberal paper in which I had $200 worth of stock, subscribed under misrepresentation and I lost every dollar.


Frank Oliver: So I lost mine.


William Humphrey Bennett: The honours are easy.


Frank Oliver: Yes. I have laid the
burden of establishing the position of the Government on the speech which the hon. member for Calgary delivered to the House.
I am sorry I cannot restrict my allusions to the hon. member for Calgary. I said in the beginning of my remarks that this Bill was evidently intended as a partisan measure, introduced with a view to an impending election and that it was brought forward by the Government for the express purpose of unduly and improperly affecting that election. Is this Government above.suspicion in matters of that kind? Is it unfair to make such a suggestion? I see mat my hon. friend from Bruce (Mr. Clark) nods his head. Does he say it is?


Michael Clark: I- am curious to
know whether the hon. member thinks that the ballots that are marked in Flanders, in France, or in Germany will not be counted properly.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend from Calgary has complained vociferously in regard to the mishandling of ballots in elections and I say that these same people will be the people who will handle the counting of the ballots from Flanders. I have no more reason to believe that that count will go straight than the count that my hon. friend has spoken of, assuming that what he said was true.


Mr. H. CLARK:: He was speaking of
elections controlled by Liberals.


Frank Oliver: That brings me about
where I wanted to get. This election is being controlled by Conservatives, it is being controlled by this Government, and inasmuch as it is going to be controlled by this Government, it is going to be a square election and these men are going to have their ballots counted properly-is that what I am to understand?


Hugh Clark: That is it.


Frank Oliver: What have we before the country to lead us to believe that the country is going to get a square deal at the hands of this Government?


Hugh Clark: It will be controlled
by British officers.


Frank Oliver: By what officers?


Hugh Clark: British officers.


Frank Oliver: If my hon. friend will
show me something in the Bill to say that it will not be controlled by Canadian officers perhaps there may be something in his argument, but we heard to-day that it was to be controlled by Canadian officers, and certainly it is only reasonable that it should be Canadian officers. I do not know that Canadian officers change their character very much because they become officers or because they are resident in Flanders instead of Canada. I am only taking the case as the hon. member for Calgary has put it. My hon. friend from Bruce must settle it with the hon. member for Calgary if he has any fault to find with my remarks. What right has this country to expect a square deal at elections or in anything at the hands of this Government? If this Government and party on the other side have any principle which they stand by, which they vociferate, it is the principle of loyalty to Britain. Is that right? How have they shown their loyalty to Britain? They have borrowed $50,000,000 from Britain for the purposes of war. What have they done with it? How have they used it? As soon as Parliament rose in August last, from end to end of Canada, the evidence is plain, their jackalls" were turned loose, they were told to "go to it."


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Order. I am afraid the hon. gentleman is forgetting that it is the principle of this Bill that is under consideration at present.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend from
Bruce asked me a question. I was desirous of elaborating the point, and I wanted to show why the Government could not be trusted to count these ballots honestly. If I may proceed with all moderation; from the purchase of motor trucks to the purchase of hospital supplies, it is on the records that there has been nothing but graft and corruption from beginning to end. Is that loyalty? That is the kind of patriotism we are getting at the hands of this Government; that is the kind of

honesty that we have' been getting at the hands of this Government. If this Government cannot be trusted to buy bandages for sick soldiers at an honest price and of an honest quality, can they be trusted to count the votes cast in Flanders? I think not. If they cannot be trusted to buy boots that will keep the soldiers in fair condition, if their manufacturers supply leather doubled in order to make it strong instead of honest single leather; if they are able to charge from thirty cents to fifty cents per pair more for the boots supplied than they are worth, according to sworn evidence, and if the Government allows them to do that, is that the Government that is going to give us an honest count of these ballots? I say, no, and we do not expect it. The Government who sent their members of Parliament out to buy horses are the honest patriots who are going to count the votes of the soldiers in Flanders.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would like to say that the hon. member is offending against the rules in two particulars. One is that he is not discussing the principle of this Bill, and the other is that he is referring to matters in committee which are not reported to this House, and therefore cannot properly be referred to in this House.


Frank Oliver: I have concluded my remarks, and I beg to apologize for having offended.
Mr. WILLIAM F. NICKLE (Kingston): At this particular time I doubt if I should have made any remarks upon the principle of this measure, had it not been for the extreme, and to me as an easterner, the violent language of the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver).


Frank Oliver: Might I ask if the hon. member was offended by the language used by the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett) ?


Mr. NICKLE:: right to vote, 'but who could only vote provided they could return to the place whence they came. Where would there be discipline then? The men who came from Vancouver might be in Halifax; the men who came from Winnipeg might be at Petawawa, and are all those men to be returned to their homes? If that were so, then for a month the military camps of Canada would be in a turmoil.
Section 159 provides that even though a man were not on the electoral list he should be entitled to vote provided his not being on the list resulted from the fact that he was engaged in active service when the list was prepared. In other words, the man who has been in active service abroad, on returning to Canada would be entitled to go to the deputy returning officer and swear in his vote. The man in Canada who had not gone abroad, though his name were on the list and by the provision of the Ontario law, there is a form of registration that would permit many men to go on the list by virtue of a friend making the necessary affidavit that he is a British subject, and has been twelve months in Ontario, and three months in the district-could qualify and vote. But the men who have actually faced the enemy, the men who have been in the shadow of death, are to be deprived of their votes, being unable to vote in person because of the miles of water between England and Canada. That struck me as radically unfair, and the question pressed itself upon me: how are these men to vote? There were various ways by which it might be done, and a number of ways were suggested in the committee. In the opinion of the Minister of Justice the way provided in this Bill is the best that can be devised and it seems to me a fair and reasonable solution of the difficulty.
I cannot see eye to eye with the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) who insinuates that men who are fighting in the shadow of eternity are going to do corrupt and iniquitous things. I know nothing about his western' electoral methods, but I do know there are honourable officers at the front, men who would discharge their sacred duty- for so it is-of performing with honesty their part in the electoral machinery of Canada and who would, when required, see to it that the soldiers who came before them had the opportunity to mark their ballots as they desire without fear and free from intimidation. And these bal-

lots, having been marked and properly enclosed in an envelope, would be- sent forward to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, without interference and without irregularity. I am satisfied that once these ballots reach that officer there would be no difficulty whatever in elaborating plans that would prevent any irregularity in regard to the votes being received by [DOT] deputy returning officers and counted. If the hon. member for Edmonton is sincere, and if he is willing to facilitate the measure, why does he not admit the principle, and, then when the Bill comes to Committee of the Whole it will be a simple thing to insert a provision that when the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery sends the ballots forward to the deputy returning officer, notice should be sent to each candidate of that fact, and the ballots should be on receipt sealed with the seals of the candidates, and not opened until both candidates or their agents are present to see them counted. There is no difficulty in working out the machinery if you want to work it out, but there is great difficulty if you do not want to secure results.
I believe hon. gentlemen opposite are not sincere in their opposition to this Bill. I am one who has not always supported the party to which I belong, but I do believe that in a great measure of this sort, where recognition is being given to a class of people who are willing to risk their lives for a principle which they hold dear, we should set to one side party politics, get down to realities, and try to draft a measure that would prevent fraud, and that the men who are at the front would realize that there is no politics in being a soldier, but that every soldier, being a volunteer and a free man, should have the right to exercise his franchise, and that in joining the King's colours he did not take from himself that which we all hold most dear, the right to express himself by his vote on the conduct of his country's affairs.


William Manley German: My hon. friend from Kingston (Mr. Nickle) spoke of himself as one who has not always been in accord with the policy of his party and yet was in favour of this Bill. I feel it incumbent on me, being one who has not always been in accord with the policy of his party, to declare myself as absolutely opposed to this Bill. I am not opposed to it because it is introduced by this Government; I would be equally opposed to it if it were introduced by the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier)

were he Prime Minister. My reasons for being opposed to the Bill may not be exactly those expressed thus far in the discussion.
I do think the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) has been too inflammable. if I may use that expression, during this session of Parliament. He began the session with a threat that if we on this side of the House dared-he did not use the word "dare," but that was the effect of his suggestion-to criticise the policy of the Government, he would carry the attack into our ranks and show that we were no better than they. I do not think that that made for unity of purpose at this particular crisis of the affairs of the Empire. To-night he has reiterated that proposition, saying that he had no knowledge at present that there would be an election in the near future, but the action of the Opposition tended to show that they were carrying a chip on their shoulder and rather wanted to have an election. The effect of an election upon me personally is not of the slightest interest; but in its effect upon the people of this country I think an election during the progress of this war would be a catastrophe. I would suggest to the Prime Minister that if he wants to go down in history as one of Canada's greatest statesmen, and one of the Empire's biggest men, he should now declare that during the progress of this war, so far as he is concerned and so far as his leadership of the Conservative party goes, there will be no election until this war is over. I can assure him that a proposition of this kind, emanating from him, will make for him more friends in the province of Ontario than any other course he could pursue, for the people of the province of Ontario, at least ninety per cent of them, irrespective of politics, do not want an election-of that I am absolutely certain. What were we on this side ito do or to consider? Last fall we heard threats and talk of an election.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I would remind the hon. member that the question before the House is the second reading of a Bill and not the question of an election.


William Manley German: Mr. Speaker, I will keep as close to the subject of debate as I can, and if I encroach upon the rules in the remarks I am making, I will go no further, except to say this, that, unless there is to be an election before another session of Parliament, there is no necessity for this Bill. If there is to be another session before an election, then, next session, if it is thought necessary that the soldiers abroad should have votes,
let us get together and devise some scheme whereby they can have votes under all safeguards, which parties on both sides of the House will agree to.
The fact that this Bill is introduced at the present time and that the term of this Parliament will not expire until September, 1916, would lead one to believe that an election will take place before another session of Parliament is held. We are led to believe that there will be an election this summer, and that that is the object of the Government's bringing forward this legislation. That being the case-and we can draw no other conclusion-why am I opposed to this Bill? Because it is founded on sentiment, not on sense, and, if worked out at all, it will be worked out in absolute ignorance on the part of the voters, and with an entire absence of good results. Sentiment enters into the actions of most people, but in a case of this kind it seems to me that we should be governed by something more than sentiment.
It has been urged that we would be well advised if we should follow the example of New Zealand in the matter of legislation of this kind. I quite agree with the hon. member for Edmonton that the New Zealand Bill was passed for quite another purpose. The New Zealand elections were announced early in November last, and the elections were held on December 10. On December 24, notwithstanding the fact that the parties in the. New Zealand Legislature were pretty evenly divided, the votes cast by the soldiers had not been returned to New Zealand. If the soldiers who voted in Egypt were given the privilege of voting in order that they might decide the political situation, surely the votes would have been returned to New Zealand long before they were. Whether or not they have yet been returned, I do not know. The London Times gives the bald fact that about 10,000 New Zealanders voted in Egypt, but on December 24 those votes had not been returned to New Zealand, so that they were of no use in deciding the political contest between the parties in that Overseas Dominion.
The people of Canada during the past winter have been striving unitedly and energetically to raise an enormous patriotic fund. Every person in Canada, from one end of it to the other has been striving to the best of his ability, energy and influence to assist in the establishing of a patriotic fund to support the families of the brave men from Canada who have gone to the front. That work is still going

on, and will continue until this cruel war is over. Let us assume that there is an election in June, as there may be, or that there is to be an election before the war is over, as there is likely to be, judging by * the fact that this Bill has been introduced. Suppose that in a close constituency one representative is returned by the vote of the resident people, and at five o'clock on the eve of election day the residential vote declares a certain man elected. That night or the next day the vote of the soldiers is counted, and that count reverses the verdict.


Oliver James Wilcox: How can it be counted the next day?


William Manley German: It is counted after the poll is closed; it cannot be counted before.


Mr. ROGERS:: All votes are counted after the poll is closed.


William Manley German: All votes are counted after the poll is closed, but the vote of the soldiers is not counted until after the residential vote is counted. I was assuming that in several counties the residential vote should declare one way and the soldiers' vote, sent from Belgium, Flanders or Germany, should change the result of the election while the war is in progress. Would any hon. gentleman say that that would tend to make for unity of thought and harmony of action in the constituency concerned in the matter of the raising of funds to care for the families of the soldiers who are abroad? From the county of Welland about 600 brave men have gone to the front. We jn the county of Welland are loyally, faithfully and industriously doing our duty to look after the families of these men, and intend to continue doing so. I am not afraid of the vote of the young men who have left the county of Wellaind, but assuming that, in some other county, changes are made by reason of the votes which are cast by the soldiers, I say that the condition which would bring about that result is a wrong principle to introduce into the policy of this country at a time when a great war is raging and when every man's mind and heart and soul and interest and industry should be centered on one object: the success of the allied troops and the maintenance of British supremacy. The soldiers at the front cannot possibly know the issues that will be involved in the election. Further, the personal equation in elections counts for a good deal. I do not think
that the right hon. the Prime Minister or the right hon. the leader of he Opposiion should arrogate the vote of the people exclusively to themselves, or to the parties which they represent. Very frequently votes are cast for the representative himself; often the personal equation enters into the election contest more strongly, perhaps, than the policy of a party. How can the man at the front know for whom he is voting? He has to vote for a Government, or an Opposition, or an independent candidate. He does not know who will represent him in Parliament. Probably if he knew the Government candidate he would not vote for him; probably if he knew the Opposition candidate, though the voter might be a Liberal, he would not vote for him, thinking that the candidate would not be fitted to represent him and his views in Parliament. I contend that the soldier under these conditions would vote in absolute ignorance of the situation. I defy any gentleman in this House to say that any soldier has ever asked to have a vote. The Minister of Justice was asked a question in that respect, which he has not yet answered. Will the Prime Minister, if he can, state one instance in which the soldiers have asked that they be allowed to vote. They are going to. the front to fight the battles of Canada and of the British Empire. They are not thinking about votes half so much as the politicians are -thinking about giving them votes. I trust that the politicians are not thinking about controlling the votes after the ballots have been marked. I would not accuse any one of that. But, at this time, when this war is in progress, I say leave this over until another session of Parliament. Then, when we meet together, if the soldiers are still in the trenches and it is thought necessary that they should have votes, let us get together and devise a scheme whereby they can vote intelligently, vote under proper protection, and I for one will aid in that purpose as well as in any other purpose which I consider to be to the advantage of Canada. But at the present time I am opposed to the idea of an election, I am opposed to the idea of flinging the soldiers into the arena of politics, I am opposed to the proposition of bringing about a contention in this country that will break the harmony which now prevails and the unity which now exists. I say, let us go on with one heart, one hope and one endeavour to reach if possible that wealth of freedom which British victory will secure.



S, 1915

Mr. A. C. MACDONELL (South Toronto):: Just a word, (because I realize that the hour is late and much has been said. One cannot have heard the discussion that has taken place on this Bill and read the Bill without being conscious that this committee has laboured long and faithfully to bring about a result which would be agreeable to this House and to the country. The committee was a non-partisan com-rffittee. It was open for any hon. gentleman or anybody else to appear before it and give his views, and apparently until this Bill was brought into this House and the second reading was asked for, the committee made no objection nor was there any difference in the opinion of the committee in regard to the measure now before the House. Where are the hon. gentlemen who represented the Opposition in the House on this committee? They are not here to-night. There has been no complaint from these bon. gentlemen, there has been no minority report, there has been nothing except the appearance of perfect harmony with respect to the provisions of this Bill. I quite approve of all that has been said upon the line of the desirability of observing perfect neutrality in a matter of this kind', - and I second the sentiment expressed by the hon. gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. German), that there should be but one heart and one sentiment and one will behind this war. I say that this very Bill will do all that we can do that we have not already done in the matter of giving our soldiers who are at the front lie art and courage and encouragement of all kinds from this House and from this country. What are we doing? Are these men aliens? They certainly are not, they are British subjects, 99 out of 100 probably are Canadian citizens; and all that this Bill provides is that they shall have the right to vote.	Does any hon.
gentleman in this House believe now that they are not entitled to vote? Because nine out of ten of them are on the list already. The Bill does not go as far as I would like to see. Personally I would like to see it give every man who is fighting a vote whether he be of age or under age. If he is a man performing the functions of a man for our country and our Empire he should have a vote. But the Bill has stopped short at men of 21 years of age and only those vote. What good purpose can be served by putting any impediment or barrier in the way of these men voting?
The hon. gentleman who has just sat down agreed with the spirit and principle 142
of the Bill. His opinion is apparently that this is not the time or the opportunity to deal prudently and in a cool and deliberate manner with it. His opinion is that there should be a Bill of this kind at another session. Then, of course, if a Bill of this kind is at any time passed either at this session or at a future session, it must be in contemplation of an election, otherwise it is useless waste paper. A Bill of this kind, if passed, must contemplate its being used in the election. If one were to look for any reason why the Opposition in this House is opposed to this Bill it would be very difficult to find any concrete argument that has been made by any of ithese hon. gentlemen either individually or as a whole. The hon. gentleman who has just sat dowm is in favour of the principle of the Bill and would favourpassing it at another session. The hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) says: Oh, yes, let us pass this Bill but only in so far as it will apply to soldiers who have not gone to the war. I understood that to be his argument.


Frank Oliver: Oh, no, I do not wish to be understood in that way at all. My objection to the Bill was that the provisions in regard to the soldiers who had not gone to the front were not suitable to the case; that they lent themselves absolutely to improper handling.


Angus Claude Macdonell: It comes to the same thing very largely, he would give votes to those who have not gone to the war if that were done then when they went to war some provision of this kind would have to be made giving them a vote.


Frank Oliver: I do not object to those
who have gone to the war having votes, but I wish to see proper safeguards as to the method of voting.


Angus Claude Macdonell: That comes down to the great body and burden of opinion on the opposite side; it is a matter of detail. Everything that has been said by way of criticism on the second reading of this Bill could be dealt with and properly dealt with in Committee of the Whole, if the hon. gentlemen who are expressing these opinions are honest and sincere with them. But we find, that a good deal of criticism on this Bill comes from those who see evil in it. We know the old motto, evil be to him who evil thinks, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." That might very well be applied to much of what



has been said against this Bill. I wish to point out what is known to hon. gentlemen in this House, that of all classes of the community who poll their votes faithfully the soldiers stand at the top of the list. I know of no element or part of the community that values its vote more than the military, either the regular soldiers or the volunteers. But we find that in a measure and in a certain sense this very principle is now adopted and applied. As has been said by the right hon. leader of the Opposition, there is no Franchise Act now in Canada as a whole. There was one, but there is none now. Each province has its own law. In the month of June, when the registration for the voters' lists takes place for Dominion or Provincial purposes, if the soldiers are in camp, as they frequently are in that month, they register themselves by the thousands simply by making affidavits very similar in principle to the affidavit called for by this very Bill, or by having comrades make affidavits on their'behalf, so that they are now advanced to at least one-half of the privileges which this Bill gives them, they have, by the law of Ontario-and I fancy this is fairly general throughout the Dominion-the right to register although they are not at the place of registration, in the way I have indicated. What is the use of talking about qualifications nowadays and saying this Bill provides no qualifications? We all know that manhood suffrage to-day prevails throughout Canada and that is all that this Bill contemplates. Every man of 21 years of age who is a British subject and resident a certain time in any community is entitled to vote. So we are by this Bill merely giving manhood suffrage, which is the law to-day practically throughout Canada, to the people who are now entitled to vote, and the only difference between what the law is now and what ft will be after this Bill becomes law is that those who are away on active service shall be permitted by some lawful means to transmit a vote into the ballot box and have it counted on election day. The hon. member for Edmonton was very apprehensive about corruption. He was one of those who saw bogies everywhere. But I should like to point out to him that under this Bill the ballot papers will be sent by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery to the office of the Canadian High Commissioner in London, who in turn will send them to the proper officer or officers who will give the necessary papers to each volunteer entitled to vote. Every safe-
guard has been provided for, from the time the ballots leave Ottawa until they gdt back. Every precaution has been taken for .ensuring secrecy. The hon. member for Welland (Mr. German) was was anxious as to the counting of the votes afterwards, and he referred to the case of New Zealand. In New Zealand the votes did not arrive for some days after the poll was held. But no such condition could arise under this Bill, for it provides that the votes shall tfe counted on polling day. I should be very sorry to see what the hon. member for Welland has in his mind's eye, namely, the civilians voting one way and the soldiers another. The people of this country are all one, whether soldiers or civilians. Nine-tenths of the soldiers are civilians anyway, who have gone to fight for the Empire from patriotic and manly motives. They will come back to their ordinary vocations with the honours and prestige that attach to men who have been engaged in a noble cause for their country in time of need. The hon. member for Bruce (Mr. H. Clark) reminds me that every vote has the same value whether it is a civilian's or a soldier's. The vote of the civilian should be worth 100 per cent, and so should the vote of the soldier; and the soldier's vote will be worth 100 per cent under this Bill. A great deal has been said to-night about liberties, British institutions, democracy and so forth. But where would democracy be if it were not for the soldiers who are fighting the battles of the country at the front? Who, I ask, is entitled to greater consideration at the present time than these men who are preserving the liberties and freedom of this country? And I am referring not only to our own soldiers, but to the men from all parts of the Empire, the Old Country included. It seems to me that if the soldiers of any part of the Empire are entitled to a vote or to any great consideration it is the soldiers who have gone from Canada. I do not desire to belittle the efforts of men who have gone to the front from other parts of the overseas dominions, hut Canada, of all the dominions, is the only one that has no material interest in this war. Her only interest is loyalty to the Empire and to herself. All the other dominions have as neighbours German colonies by XI p.m which they have been menaced, and it is only natural to expect that alter the war these German colonies will form part of the nearby British Dominions. It is quite possible anyway. But the

soldiers of Canada have gone from loyalty to the Empire and to Canada, loyalty to liberty and to everything that is right and proper in mankind.
On referripg to my notes I am afraid I have attributed a remark to the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) which was made by the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley). I think it was the hon. member for St. John who was in favour of giving a vote to the soldiers who hereafter go to the war, but not to the soldiers who have already gone. What are we to make of this patchwork of opinions from the Opposition side of the House? One hon. gentleman says they should all have votes, another says that none of them should have votes, another says give half of them votes. What harmony is there in that? I think some of the criticisms of the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition were trifling, if he will permit me to say so. One great objection that he had was that we were creating a franchise. I can recollect as a boy, and my right hon. friend can recollect better than I can, when we had a whole week's open- vote at election time. Was it desirable to change that practice? I think so. And shall we not change our practice from time to time as democracy progresses? Are we to stick forever to a certain method of voting? Surely not. Suppose that we are creating a franchise, which I deny, what evil is there in that? I see no harm in it. I do not think my right hon. friend's objection will appeal to many hon. gentlemen in this House or out of it. Then he likened the soldiers to railwaymen or fishermen or lumbermen whose vocations take them away from home, but who have a permanent residence and a vote in Canada. I should like to point out to my right hon. friend that these men he speaks of are all entitled to vote; they can return to their homes on election day. But the soldier cannot do that, and that is just the difference between the two classes. Another reason that the right hon. gentleman gave for not giving soldiers votes was that they were being well treated already, and he pointed out that they were to have pensions. Surely every civilized country in the world treats its soldiers well, and gives them pensions. That is not an over-humane act. Surely it is the least we can do. I do not think that the people of this country will consider that in giving votes to the soldiers we are treating them magnanimously.
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So far as I can sum up the opposition to this Bill it is this: hon. gentlement opposite trust nobody, not even the soldiers. They are afraid that the soldier will not exercise his franchise with that secrecy and propriety which is ordinarily required in the polling of votes. As I have pointed out, the Bill provides a complete chain of safeguards from the time the ballots leave the office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery until they return to Ottawa. No reasonable objection has yet been made. The Bill is founded on motives of propriety, and I believe the people of this country will demand it.. Furthermore, I believe that the soldiers who have left the country understood that they were going to be given an opportunity to vote; so that in passing this Bill we are doing no more than carrying out the spirit of what was generally believed to be an implied agreement entered into between the public of this country and the men who are fighting at the front. That is, that they shall have every good treatment that can .be given to them and an opportunity of voting was certainly considered to be something that they would enjoy. I appeal to hon. gentlemen to pass this Bill and to do the proper thing. If there is any detail of the Bill that can be improved the time and place to do it is in committee. Let the Bill leave committee in such shape that it will be agreed to by both parties and I believe it will meet with the approval of every person in the country.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend (Mr. Macdonell) has made reference to some hon. gentlemen on this side of the House who were members of the committee who considered this measure. I do not know that I would have risen were it not that my hon. friend the junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) desired me to say, owing to the fact that he was called away this morning, that he did not consider this measure as it was submitted to the House a proper solution of the problem as to how the soldiers should have their votes polled and that had he been here he would have voted against the measure along those lines. It is a very peculiar measure. In the face of the greatest war that was ever waged, in view of the demands that are being made upon every citizen in the Empire and upon every man with a drop of British blood in his veins, hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House turn aside from the consideration of their re-

sponsibilities as British citizens, and as having to do with the Government of Canada, and the part which Canada has to play in this Empire, and sit down and try to devise some method by which votes may be polled. This is purely an election measure. ''There is no precedent for it. The idea that a Government should provide for going into another country where the enemy are engaging in battle with our sons to hold a poll has never been suggested . anywhere. You will search the history of England in vain to find any precedent for the action which is now being taken. We are having this done here for the first time. Were it not for the fact that hon. gentlemen are intending to have an election we would not have this Bill before us at all. You see it on the face of the Bill itself. The first section creates a franchise and the second provides that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, shall immediately send to the office of the High Commissioner in Great Britain a certain number of ballots. It says that he shall send them right off and, the language being peremptory, this is a duty imposed upon the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery which he must immediately fulfil. Why is it that we are to have an .election? The right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) intimated that because of the conduct of the Opposition, because we ventured, to criticise the Government in connection with the purchase of boots, and because of something that was happening in the Public Accounts Committee, although he had not thought about an election he was now thinking about it. Since the 16th day of February I have been sitting in the committee appointed for the purpose of investigating the supply of boots to the soldiers but I am not sitting in that committee on account of any action on the part of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House. It is on account of the right hon. gentleman's own action. He moved the committee and declared it to be necessary. Therefore, why should he complain? If things come out in that committee why should he complain about it? Does he suggest that the hon. gentlemen who happen to compose that committee are to sit there and register his decrees m regard to the question which the committee has to deal, that we are to cease to perform our functions as members of Parliament and members of that committee? Why? Hon. gentlemen behind him were deliberating as to how, in the midst of this great war there could be some political scheme devised in 
regard to votes and that is why they were not doing anything in regard to boots or criticising anything that had been done.
My right hon. friend intimated on the day that the address was debated on the opening of this session of Parliament that every hon. member of this House and the country at large were entitled to the fullest information with regard to all expenditures of a military character. When, adopting his own suggestion, there were referrered to the Public Accounts Committee expenditures for military purposes, my right hon. friend proclaims that because hon. gentlemen have been performing their duties as members of Parliament they have been doing something which is trespassing upon the: position which the Government occupy and doing something which, warrant my right hon. friend, in the face of this war, in plunging this country into a general election. There is not much use in discussing the question of where he personally stands upon this matter of a general election. Every one who has been through an election knows that these things are in the hands of the fates.
But if my right hon. friend wants to divide up this country, if he wants to stop recruiting, if he wants to stay the hand of generosity, if he wants to chill the response to the appeals which are being made to the patriotism of our people in every part of the country, if he wants to paralyse the efforts of those who are trying to do all they can for Belgium and the wives and children of the men who have gone to the front, if he wants to turn the people in every hamlet from the peaceful avocations which they have undertaken for the purpose of doing their part in dealing with the situation and doing their duty to the Empire, he will bring about this internecine struggle which will have as a result the tearing asunder of the good feeling which exists and which is contributing so greatly to the cause that all British subjects have so much at heart-if, I say, my right hon. friend wants to do these things he can get offended at what was done in the Public Accounts Committee and the Boots Committee.
My right hon. friend does not respond to the appeal which was made by my hon. friend from Welland (Mr. German) and he foregoes the opportunity of putting himself on record as being the big man in this country. The time will come when the people will estimate him at his true worth. It is because there has been all this talk about a general election that we have this

Bill. The second clause provides that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery shall send ballots across the ocean at once for that particular reason. What is the use of discussing the abstract question as to whether soldiers should have votes or not in the way in which the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) did? The soldier who is a citizen of this country has a right to vote; there can be no question about that. Who can question that, and why should we take up the time with platitudes abhut Parliament wanting to provide for his voting? But this fantastic measure of the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) is another _ thing altogether. There is a great deal of difference between the abstract proposition that a soldier who is a citizen of this country should have a vote and the method by which the Minister of Justice proposes to enable him to vote. In the first place, this measure is altogether so unique in its character, having regard to the war situation, that one might well ask that why is it that over in the Imperial Parliament, which is sitting just now, we have never heard that the. great statesmen who are considering this war problem have proposed any scheme by which the men who live in the British Islands, and who are now across the channel fighting for the Empire, shall record their votes in a general election? Why is it that we have never heard of it? Nobody has ever suggested the possibility of it. Therefore, why is this measure introduced at all? If we are not going to have a general election, as my hon. friend from Welland says, we do not need this Bill.
If we are going to have a general election, then the soldiers are entitled to vote if their votes can be recorded under proper safeguards and under proper conditions. Parliament since Confederation has time and again taken up days and weeks and months deliberating questions of the franchise and of the proper method of safeguarding the manner in which the voting of this country shall be carried on. My hon. friend proposes to dispose of those safeguards with one fell swoop. It does not matter to him that we have no regard to what Parliament has done in the past, whereby even in the quiet hamlets of this country it has provided for the greatest possible secrecy and honesty in polling. He says: We are going to provide a scheme here absolutely unique and novel in its character, because we want a general election, and we are going to have this measure passed whether you like it or not; If you say anything, you are disloyal and you do not want the soldiers to vote.
This was the text of my hon. friend from Calgary (Mr. Bennett) to-night. If it was not, I do not know the English language. It is time that full-grown men in this country, who have reached the position of being representatives of the people, should give up reiterating in this House speeches which they make only in localities where they presume upon the ignorance of the audience they are addressing. If they would make fewer of such speeches and more attempts to consider cold facts, instead of hurling across the floor from time to time taunts that hon. gentlemen on this side are disloyal, because we do not see eye to eye with them on every proposition they may bring forward, it would be better for the dignity of this Parliament and more for the honour of this country, and, as British citizens and parliamentarians, we would have more pride in ourselves if we looked at questions in that way. That is the way in which I -would like to look at this proposition to-night. Shall our soldiers who are fighting for their country have an opportunity of exercising their franchise? I say, yes, if you can provide honest and proper methods by which those votes can be dropped into the ballot box, without disarranging the whole electoral machinery of this country, without violating all-the canons of the election law, without disregarding every principle which has characterized British parliamentary Government ever since we have had parliamentary government. Why was it that in the days of the Crimean war, and during all the various wars of the last three-quarters of a century, the English Parliament never passed a measure of this character? My hon. friend the Minister of Justice this afternoon read the provisions of a measure which he said had passed the second reading in the English Parliament, and he went on to say that because that Parliament was so busy the measure was never heard of again. If that is the way in which the statesmen who guide this Empire carry on its affairs, it is time we found it out. If they are too busy to pass measures of the greatest possible importance in the interests of the country, then they are not performing their duty. My hon. friend the Minister of Justice knows full well that that is not the reason, and that the reason why the measure was not passed is because the mature judgment of the Imperial Parliament in considering this question was that it was absolutely impracticable. I presume this Bill will pass from its second reading to the Com-

mittee of the Whole, in which each one of the details can be discussed; but the hon. -member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle), who discussed this matter with his usual earnestness, appealed to the House to do one thing -to put the Canadian people in the position of saying: Although we do not expect that any of these votes will ever be recorded in Flanders, or Belgium, or Germany, we shall be able to say that we did what we could to give our soldiers an opportunity to vote. That is a very nice thing to be able to say; but let me point out that, if we have any responsibility here as public men, when we are endeavouring to place upon the statute books of this country any measure dealing with such an important question as amending the Dominion Election Act, we are not doing so because we want to be able to say to some one else that we tried to do the best for them, although we could not effect anything. If we cannot put on the statute books a measure that is absolutely workable in every respect', having in it all those safeguards which Parliament in previous years has -always regarded as being -absolutely essential to the proper recording of votes in this country, what is the sense of putting a measure on the statute-book which will enable us to say we did what we could?


Angus Claude Macdonell: Is the hon. member in favour of the principle of the Bill?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I am in favour of giving votes to our soldiers if we can provide the proper means of doing so and the proper safeguards. This measure does not offer a possible, even a plausible condition by which that can be done. When *we come to discuss the question in its details, the anomalies and difficulties in regard to the measure can toe very readily pointed out. Therefore it seems to me that we are discussing on the second reading, not the details of the measure, because they will be discussed later on, but the wisdom and tihe advisability of putting on the statute-lbooks in this year of grace, 1915, this peculiar legislation which has never before seen the light in all the long past of the parliamentary government of this Empire. This legislation should not be put upon the statuteJbook, because the right hon. gentleman, who is responsible to the people of this country for the advice which he gives His Royal Highness, knows as well as I do that if he throws Canada into the throes of an election contest, he produces a condition under which will be utterly destroyed all those feelings of

unity and of devotion to the flag which today animate the Canadian people to a greater degree than ever before in our long history. He will stop recruiting; he will disarrange all the conditions, and of course he will have to take the responsibility. It is because my right hon. friend is thinking of having an election that we have this measure. If he were not thinking of having an election, we would not have this Bill at all, and therefore, I say on the second reading of this Bill that it is totally unnecessary, utterly uncalled for and without the slightest justification. When it passes to the Committee of the Whole, as I assume it will, I shall be prepared to discuss the details, and point out at greater length what seem to me to be the anomalies of this measure, but do not let it be understood that hon. gentlemen on this side are opposed to any man who happens to wear the King's uniform having a vote.


Arthur Meighen: You have said so several times.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Who has?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. -Clark).


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The hon. member for Red Deer can speak for himself in regard to that.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend is trying to speak for him.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend from Red Deer, if I understood him aright, pointed out the anomalies of the men who are fighting in the trenches in Flanders going and recording their vote, and he said that they should follow Kitchener's principle. He argued that the men in Flanders were thinking more of fighting the Germans than of voting.


William Manley German: The hon. member for Red Deer has a son in the trenches.


Mr. A. A. McLEAN:: In the garrisons at Halifax, Sydney and Canso, there are something like 1,200 men, 300 of whom come from Charlottetown and Prince Edward Island generally, and four or five hundred from New Brunswick.
These men cannot leave the garrison to go to vote. They are farmers' sons, many of them men of substance in their several provinces. Would it toe just or right to deprive these men of the franchise?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: These men will not he deprived of their franchise unless my hon. friend's leader wants to bring on an election this year. My hon. friend the casuist from Portage la Prairie, the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen), will hardly be able to distort the remarks of the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) into an intimation of a policy on the part of the Liberal party to prevent the soldiers from having votes. As to that, I wish to say that the hon. gentleman belongs to the school on the other side whose particular business seems to be to throw out imputations on the score of loyalty and patriotism. I do think that, as the rising hope of the Conservative party, as he is, he ought to be a little more ambitious to rise to higher lines than to indulge in such claptrap as that which, if he must use it, should be used only in the backwoods of his constituency. It is not worthy of the hon. gentleman.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think it is out of order to speak of the utterance of an hon. member as unworthy.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Mr Speaker, of course I bow to your ruling in regard to that; but I would point out that the language which one has to use to characterize actions of that kind must be more vigorous than ornate. I reiterate that, as I understand the views of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, we hold this measure as entirely unnecessary, unless hon. gentlemen opposite are going to have an election. That is the preliminary question at the basis of this whole measure. The soldiers who are abroad, like the soldiers who are at home, as Canadian citizens should have votes, if those votes can be recorded with due regard to the safeguards which are thrown around elections in this country. And this Bill does not provide such safeguards.


Mr. W. F. KAY (Missisquoi):: It is not my intention at this late hour to occupy much of the time of the House, but I feel it to be my duty to express my reasons for opposing this Bill. Let me say at once, I am strongly in favour of giving the soldiers votes, but I am in favour of giving them votes when they come back victorious from France and Germany. As has been said, if this Government does not intend to have an election, there is absolutely no need for this Bill. If we grant that, we must acknowledge that this is nothing but a political measure. It is offered here with the idea of winning votes in this country
from the friends and relatives of the soldiers at the front; it is offered here with the idea of affording the Government party from one end of the country to the other an opportunity to go forth and wave the flag as they have done so often before. I do not like to impute motives of this kind against any Government, but I consider it perfectly clear that this Government are glad that we are opposing this Bill. We have evidence of that from the gentlemen on the other side who have already spoken, because, without exception they have accused the members of the Opposition of being opposed to the principle of a vote for the soldiers. We on this side have without exception stated that we are not opposed to the soldiers voting but that we are opposed to the provisions of this Bill which do not safeguard the secrecy of the ballot or the rights of the voters.
It is possible, in fact it is probable, that if this war should continue, I myself shall be at the front. I have already offered my services to Colonel Baker when he was forming the 5th Mounted Rifles, and although I was not accepted, I should like to say to the Minister of Militia that at any time he requires my services or would like them, they are absolutely, at his disposal. I have had some experience in military life, and I feel perfectly sure that if I ever land in the trenches, be it in Belgium, or France, or Germany, the very last thing I shall want to bother my mind about will be an election in Canada. Like the men who are there now I shall have on my mind greater things than that. Those men are busy day and night in defence of this country, in defence of this Empire. They will not have time or disposition to read party literature, or to hear political discussions from their officers; nor will their officers if they fulfil their duty, have time to collect ballots or discuss politics with the soldiers.


Mr. EDWARDS:: If this Bill passes, will the soldiers have to vote?


William Frederic Kay: I should imagine, Sir, that
under some of the officers, they would.


William Cameron Edwards: Perhaps the hon. gentleman would name some of those officers. If I may be permitted, I should like to say that an hon. gentleman who would cast a slur like that upon officers ought to be willing to name them.


William Frederic Kay: As I was saying I 'feel that if I get over there, I shall not care one jot whether this Government is returned or

whether this Government is defeated. I shall expect if I am there, that this Government will do its duty to this country as I shall be doing mine.
I shall not expect them to waste their time in the political strife which would be involved in a general election. They will have quite enough to do if they devote their energies and abilities to carrying out the tremendous task which is now imposed upon them; if they direct their energies towards seeing that contracts are honestly and faithfully carried out and that the evildoers, grafters, and political heelers have no opportunity of wrongfully obtaining the money of the people of Canada.
I am not in favour of the details of this Bill; I do not think that the proposed method of obtaining the votes of the soldiers is such as to carry out the objects of the promotors of the Bill. When this Bill is considered in committee, its details may be more fully discussed. If the right hon. Prime Minister i$ sincere in the remarks which he made to-day with regard to voting by the soldiers, why does he not declare that there shall not be an election until the war is over, or until the term of the present Parliament expires? If he should do this, he would show his absolute sincerity; he would give evidence of the fact that he puts his country above his party, and that he really believes that the soldier should have a vote. I quite fail to see how, under this Bill, the soldiers would be enabled to vote for any particular representative. It is all very well to say: vote for the Government or vote for the Opposition; but it should be remembered that many voters vote not for the party, but for the man. There is no hurry for the passing of this Bill. The Prime Minister has said tonight that an election has not been decided upon; that the matter has not been discussed. I think it would be reasonable, therefore, to expect the Prime Minister to explain to this House how it is that he allows the hon. Minister of Justice to bring down a Bill which can only have in view the holding of an election this year.


Mr. H. H. McLEAN (Sunbury and Queens):: I do not intend at this late hour to take up the time of the House by restating the arguments that have been advanced in favour of the principle of this Bill, or in giving at length the reasons why I am in favour of votes for soldiers. I wish simply to place myself on record as being strongly in favour of

votes for soldiers. When the Bill is under consideration in committee, I shall be able to discuss its provisions at greater length, and, perhaps, to go fully into the details of the Bill.


Mr. W. S. LOGGIE (Northumberland, N.B.):: I wish to endorse what has been said by the hon. member for Mississquoi (Mr. Kay). I have two sons who are engaged in this conflict; my eldest son is with the second contingent in St. John, and my youngest son is with the Mounted Rifles in Sherbrooke. While I am desirous that the soldiers of our Dominion should be enabled to cast their vote, unless that can be done in a reasonable way and with all proper safeguards, to my mind we had better leave well enough alone. There is a .good deal in what has been said by the hon. gentleman that the soldiers will not know the issues of any election that may be held. Further, I am afraid that undue influence may be brought to bear upon the soldiers in the trenches. We were assured to-day that canvassing would not be allowed, but we are aware of the fact that there is an indirect means of canvassing a voter. I do not see how it would be possible to prevent literature from getting into the hands of the soldiers. During the election of 1911 I practically received a letter appealing to me as a Liberal-that letter was sent broadcast throughout this country, and was signed by R. L. Borden-to vote Tory and save Canada for the Empire. Is it not possible that a similar letter may be sent, appealing to the Liberals to sustain the Government, along the lines of the speech delivered by the right hon. gentleman in the debate on the budget? Portions of that speech, reflecting on the Liberal party, have been used by the press of the Conservative party as campaign literature. I am afraid that this matter will come down to active partisan politics, and it would be a great injustice to the people of Canada to take active partisan politics into the trenches. I think it would be unwise to have an election while the war is in progress.	And if we are
not to be called upon to exercise our franchise, why is there the need for the Bill now before the House?	It
seems to me that we might very well follow the example of the United Kingdom and keep these matters out of active politics. A remark was made by the Minister of Finance during the Budget debate which I was

sorry to hear. It was to the effect that however much loyalty my right hon. friend who leads His Majesty's loyal Opposition exercised at the present time it would be a long time before the people of this country would forget what he had done-referring to the Naval Service Act. To my mind that was uncalled for and I think the right hon. gentleman might very well have retorted to the Minister of Finance that it would be a long time before the people of Canada would forget the fact that when the right hon. gentleman had behind him unanimity of opinion in the Dominion of Canada upon the establishment of the naval service the Conservative party threw that question into active politics. So I say now it would be better, if at all possible, to leave this mat- . ter over and let us hope that the soldiexB will have a vote in due time. I would go so far as to say that if the war is not concluded in 1916 I would ask the Parliament of the United Kingdom to extend the duration of this Parliament so that we might have no election until the war is over and then our soldiers, I hope a large majority of them at any rate, will return to exercise their franchise in this young nation, a nation that to me is a greater nation in a way than the nation to the south of us. There are features in which our system of Government excels that of our neighbours to the south and I say we would do well if possible-although this is a matter entirely in the hands of the Government-to avoid an election during the continuance of the war.
When the Bill is considered in Committee of the Whole I shall have some remarks to make on its details-I notice, for instance, that no provision is made for the case where two candidates of one party may be running in a constituency with no candidate for the Opposition. A by-election was called in Terrebonne where two Liberal candidates ran on an issue on which the Liberal party were divided, and there was no Conservative candidate. It is quite possible that a similar case might occur.
I am heartily in favour of granting a vote to every Canadian citizen, especially those who are absent from Canada fighting for the protection of our homes and of the greatest young nation, shall I say, and for the greatest Empire that the world has ever seen.


William Humphrey Bennett: There is not now that unanimity among the members on the other side of the House that seemed to prevail before six o'clock
this evening. I listened to the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) and one could only understand from his statements that he was determinedly opposed to giving soldiers votes, while the gentlemen who have followed lately have seemed to veer in a contrary direction; in plain parlance they are letting themselves down as easily as possible.	My reason for rising
to	support	the	Bill	is that I
have the honour and pleasure of representing a riding that adjoins the constituency of North Simcoe. The member who represents that riding (Mr. Currie) is not here to-night owing to the fact that he is in the firing and not in the talking line. One result of his going to the front as he has done has been that he has taken with him from the riding of North Simcoe the pick' of the young men of that riding. They are business men, men who have left their businesses behind; they are farmers' sons who have their rights in that riding, they are intelligent men who know everything as to the issues to be put before the people just as well as we who nfay be hereon the spot. Then I ask why should not these men have votes. To say that they will not know the issues is idle. They are not unintelligent men and to say that they will not know the candidates is equally idle. The hon. member for Welland (Mr. German) dwelt a great deal on the personality of the candidates. These young men will receive letters from their friends, they will receive the public press of the country; and long before polling day they will know of the candidates in their ridings. One reason for which hon. gentlemen oppose the Bill was told by the hon. gentleman from Missisquoi (Mr. Kay) and that is that the Bill is so popular in the country that it will attract votes of Liberals who are not away, who are resident in the country and will be here at the time of the election. There can be no mistaking his words, their purport was that every man who is in the fighting line and his friends left in Canada, Liberal or Conservative, will be voting for this Government because it is giving the vote to the soldiers here. I tell the hon. gentleman that many men will vote for that reason.


William Frederic Kay: I think the hon. member misunderstood me. I said the desire of this Government was that they should get the vote of the friends of the soldiers who are in this country. I did not mean that they will get them.	,


William Humphrey Bennett: With all due deference, I think the hon. gentleman's fear is that they will get them too. This is a popular measure in the country and hon. gentlemen apprehend that; and I think that is what the hon. gentleman had in his mind at the time. So far as the personality of the candidate goes, every soldier who votes over there will know exactly the candidates on either side in the constituency where his vote will be ultimately recorded. The hon. member for Missis-quoi being not only an hon. but a gallant gentleman, I think casts rather a reflection on the officers who are in the lines. Is it to be said that a man who will risk his life over there-the hon. gentleman does not seean to be doing that at present although he is a major in the force-


William Frederic Kay: I do not wish to sail under false colours, I would say I am only a lieutenant.


William Humphrey Bennett: Well, there are many lieutenants over there and there is still room for one.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The hon. member has offered his services.


William Humphrey Bennett: Hon. gentlemen opposite say that officers will canvass the soldiers. Well, it is not our fault if the bulk of the officers who have gone to the front from this House are Conservatives. Surely the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. Currie), who is in the firing line to-day, cannot be blamed for being over there. Nor is it any more reprehensible that the hon. member for Thunder Bay and Rainy River (Mr. Carrick), who is also at the front, should be over there. If the hon. member for York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod) is at the front, he is not to be blamed for that; and the hon. member for Brome (Mr. Baker) will be over there by June at all events. Surely the hon. gentleman should not complain if all the officers have come from this side of the House. I think that is all the more to their credit.


William Manley German: Do I understand the hon. gentleman to say that all the Canadian officers at the front are Conservatives? I can tell him that there are as many Liberal officers as Conservatives.


William Humphrey Bennett: I was speaking of the members of this House who are officers in the Canadian forces. I was not speaking of the officers on the whole staff. All I can say in regard to these officers who have gone from the House of Commons is that

the country will admire them more than if they had remained at home.	'


William Manley German: I would suggest that my hon. friend s statement will not make for unity of feeling in this country, and certainly it will not help the patriotic funds.


William Humphrey Bennett: The hon. gentleman has mentioned that point before. We have had elections before in this country, but after the elections people have gone back to their vocations just as usual; and surely the same thing would happen if an election were held now. I think the hon. member for Welland is looking through a glass very darkly when he says that if the Conservative party should win in an election this coming summer, the bowels of compassion of the people all over this country would be closed, so that they would not give a dollar, when requested, to the Red Cross or any other patriotic fund. The people of Canada, Liberals and Conservatives, will not be so small or so narrow as to stop contributing to the patriotic funds so long as the money is required, simply because one party or the other has been returned to power.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the second time.
On motion of Sir Robert Borden, the House adjourned at 11.58 p.m.
Friday, April 9, 1915.