1915-04-14

QUESTIONS.

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

Mr. SEGUIN:: 1.	(a) What is the number of the public employees from the county of L'Assomption who, since the 21st September, 1911, have been dismissed from the inside and outside service, a.nd Ob) what is the name of each such employee?
2.	(a) What is the number, and (to) what are the names of the persons who have been appointed to replace such dismissed employees, and their places of residence at the time of such appointments?


Mr. CODERRE:: Inland Revenue:	1. (a) Outside service,
4	(b) J. A. Bonin, J. H. Lafortune, H.
Forest, H. Locas. 2. (a) 4. (b) P. Ethier, L'Assomption; J. J. Gareau, St. Roch d'Achigan; J. B. T. Richard, L'Epiphanie;
0.	Brien, St. Lin des Laurentides.
Marine and Fisheries:	1. One lightkeeper, L. Dubois, at lie a la Bague. 2. One lightkeeper, E. Thouin, at lie a la Bague, Repentigny, P.Q.
Post Office: Four postmasters have been dismissed in the county of L'Assomption during the period mentioned, as follows: At Pont Mousseau, Francois Racette, dismissed; A. Brien appointed. At Mascouche, Dionis Roy, dismissed; Napoleon Dugas appointed. At St. Paul L'Ermite, Omer Seguin, dismissed; Joseph Marion ap-
[Mr. Pugsley.j
pointed. At St. Roch l'Achigan, J. H. La-fortune, dismissed; Evariste Beaudoin appointed. So far as the department is aware the new postmasters were residing at the above places at the time of their appointments.
Public Works.: The department does not keep a record of where employees come from other than in the inside service, where place of birth is given.


POSTAL STATION L, MONTREAL.
Mr. DEMERS:: 1.	Has the Government recently awarded a contract for certain furnishings and fixtures for postal station L, in Montreal?
2.	If so, were tenders called for?
3.	What was the amount of the lowest tender, and the name of the tenderer?
4.	Was the contract awarded to the lowest tenderer?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.
3.	$1,797. Castle & Son and the Melville Office Furniture Co.
4.	Yes, 11 tenders were received. Messrs. Castle & Son and the Melville Office Furniture Co., and the Berlin Office and Fixture Co. being equal and lowest, the contract was awarded to Castle & Son and the Melville Furniture Co., but the latter company has transferred its interest to the parent company, Castle & Son.
CARSLAKE HOTEL COMPANY.	'


Mr. VERVILLE:: What is the total amount of the claim made toy the Carslake Hotel Company in the case now pendng before the Exchequer Court?


Mr. ROGERS:: $407,880.


MAJOR McQUARRIE.
*Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Has Major McQuarrie resigned or been dismissed from service in connection with the Department of Militia and Defence?
2.	Is the Department of Militia and Defence
aware that, as alleged, the said McQuarrie received money for using his influence with the Minister of Militia in connection with purchase for the Government?	,
3.	If the alleged resignation or dismissal of Major McQuarrie has taken effect, is it the intention of the Government that he should retain his rank in the militia?


Major General HUGHES:: 1.	Resigned.
2.	No. Major McQuarrie was instrumental in selling motor trucks to the Department of Militia in 1912, and, it is presumed, received his commission as any-other agent would.
3.	The matter has not been considered.


CEREBRO-SPINAL. MENINGITIS.
Mr. SINCLAIR:: 1.	How many Canadian soldiers enlisted for active service have contracted cerebro-spinal meningitis since August 4, 1914?
2.	(a) How many of the cases referred to in paragraph one have resulted fatally, and Ob) how many have completely recovered?
3.	Is the disease above referred to regarded as contagious?


Major General HUGHES:: 1.	85.
2.	(a) 47: (b) 28.
3.	Yes.


SUPPLIES FOR PERMANENT FORCE.
Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: 1.	Have tenders been asked for the supply of meats, groceries, bread and provisions for the permanent force at Halifax, for the year 1915-16?
2.	If so, to whom, and at what prices were the contracts awarded?


Major General HUGHES:: 
HON. L. P. PELLETIER.
Mr. LANCTOT:: ,
1.	Did Hon. L. P. Pelletier make a trip down the gulf of St. Lawrence in 1913 or 1914 in a Government boat? If so, what was the name of the b^at?
2.	Was the hon. gentleman on official business? If so, what was the nature of it?
3.	Did any relatives accompany him? If so, how many?
4.	How long did the trip last, and what was the cost of the same to the country?


Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1.	The department has no knowledge oi such a trip.
2,	3 and 4. Answered by No. 1.
J. THEBERGE.	'


Mr. E. LAPOINTE:: 1. Does J. Thgberge, who is mentioned in the Auditor General's Report for the year ending the 31st March, 1914, at page W- 294, as being in the employ of the National Transcontinental railway in the capacity of constable, at $95 per month, still hold that position?

2.	Since when has he worked in that capacity of constable for the National Transcontinental railway ?
3.	Where does the said J. ThOberge reside?
4.	Who recommended his appointment?


Mr. COCHRANE:: The following information has been furnished by the National Transcontinental Railway Commission:
1.	No.
2.	Since the 2nd of May, 1912.
3.	Loretta, province of Quebec.
4.	No information.


ISAAC'S HARBOUR AND CANSO LOBSTER HATCHERIES.
[Stage Direction]
1.	Who are the employees of the Department of Naval Affairs at Isaac's Harbour, N.S., and Canso, N.S., in connection with the lobster hatcheries at said points?
2.	What are the dates of their present employment, and their remuneration respectively?
Mr. HAZEN:: '
Canso Hatchery.
James Meagher, $3 per day, 1905; James Richardson, $2 per day, 1912; James Sullivan, $3 per day, 1912; James Meads, $2 per day, 1912; Richard McDonald, $2 per day, 1912; Thomas McNeary, $2 par day, 1913; William Peitzsch, $2 per day, 1912.
Isaac's Harbour Hatchery.
Stephen M. Giffin, $3 per day, 1913; James Henderson, $2 per day, 1913; Robert McArthur, $2 per day, 1912; William Giffin, $2 per day, 1913; Harry Silver, $2 par day, 1912.


INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAT-MESSRS.
Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Had Mr. J. A. Boulay, of Sayabec, who is mentioned in the Anditor General's Report, at page W. 37, as having received $510 for building an extension to the freight shed at Villroy for the Intercolonial railway, been recommended by any person before the execution of that work? If so, by whom?
2.	Did the Department of Railways call for tenders before the execution of that work?


Mr. COCHRANE:: 1.	No.
2.	Tenders were invited by poster advertisement for this work. Two bulk sum tenders were received and the lowest, that of J. A. Boulay, for $510, was accepted.


Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Had Mr. J. A. Boulay, of Sayabec, who is mentioned in the Auditor General's Report, 1914, page W. 37, as having received $684 for the building of an extension to the freight shed at St. Frangois, on the Intercolonial, been recommended by any person to the Department of Railways before the execution of that work? If so, by whom?
2.	Were tenders called for by the department before having such work executed?


Mr. COCHRANE:: 1.	No.
2.	Tenders were invited by poster advertisement for this work. Three bulk sum tenders were received and the lowest, that of J. A. Boulay, for $699, was accepted.


Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Is Mr. A. Boulay, who is mentioned in the Auditor General's Report, 1914, page V. 254, as having received $420 for working in the office of the Public Works Department, engineer at Rimouski, still in the employ of the Government? .
2.	By whom was he recommended before entering the employ of the department?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	No.
2.	By H. Boulay, Esq., M.P.


Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Had Mr. J. A. Boulay, of Sayabec, who is mentioned in the Auditor General's Report, 1914, page W. 191, as having sold timber and other materials to the Intercolonial railway for the sum of $667.18, been recommended by any person to the Railway Department prior to said sale? If so, by whom?
2.	Were tenders called for the purchase of said efforts and materials?


Mr. COCHRANE:: 1.	No.
2.	Yes.


Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Had Mr. H. Boulay, of Sayabec, who is mentioned in the Anditor General's Report, 1914, page W-181, as having sold timber and materials to the Intercolonial .railway for the sum of $1,489.65, been recommended by any person to the Railway Department to make the said sale? If so, by whom?
2.	Were tenders called for by the Railway Department before the purchase of such materials?


Mr. COCHRANE:: 1.	No.
2.	Yes. By circular letter, and -the lowest tender accepted.


Mr. TURRIFF:: 1.	Had Mi-. J. A. Boulay, of Sayabec, who is mentioned in the Auditor General's Report, 1914, page W. 179, as having sold ice to the Intercolonial railway for the sum of $1,800.37, been recommended by any person to the Railway Department before making such sale? If so, by whom?
2.	Were tenders called for by the Railway Department Before purchasing the said ice?


Mr. COCHRANE:: 1.	No.
2.	Yes, by poster advertisement, and the lowest tender was accepted.


Mr. TURRIFF:: 1. Had Mr. J. A. Boulay, of Sayabec, who is mentioned in the Auditor General's Report, page W. 37, as having received $500 for the

extension of a freight shed at Causapseal for the Intercolonial railway, been recommended by any person to the Railway Department before executing that work? If so, by whom?
2. Were tenders called for by the Railway Department before the execution of such work?


Mr. COCHRANE:: 1.	No.
2.	Tenders were invited by poster advertisement for this work. One tender was received from J. A. Boulay for $575 which was accepted.


DISINFECTING APPARATUS.
Mr. BOURASSA:: 1.	Has the Government awarded any contract for the disinfecting of the telephone boxes and apparatus in the House of Commons and in the different departments under its control?
2.	If so, to what person, company or association was such contract given, and at what price, and on what conditions?
3.	Were tenders called for concerning such contract?
4.	If so, in what newspapers were the notices of tenders published, what are the names of the tenderers, and the amount of each tender?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1. No.
1, 2, 3 and 4. Answered by No. 1.


WAR SUPPLIES-CLOTHING.
Mr. GRAHAM:: Is the clothing required to re-outfit Canadian Contingent at the front being made in Canada?


Major General HUGHES:: Yes.


S.S. RHODA.
Mr. LANCTOT:: 1.	How much did it cost the Government to remove from the St. Lawrence river the boat Rhoda, which was aground at Laprairie since the month of June last?
2.	Has the Government compensated Captain Paul or any other person for the loss sustained by the grounding of said boat?
3.	What are the names and addresses of the _ men employed to remove this vessel?
4.	What has been done with the hull, boilers and other parts of the boat?
5.	If sold, how much money did the Government get for same?


Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	Final returns have not yet been received, but the cost is reported to be in the neighbourhood of and within $1,800, less amount received for scrap.
2.	No. The Rhoda grounded, becoming an obstruction to navigation. By the provisions of cap. 115, R.S.C. the owner of the vessel was responsible for its removal and he was so advised. He was further Advised that if he failed to remove, the work would be done by the Department of Marine and Fisheries at his expense as provided by the Statute. He failed to remove the vessel and consequently the department was obliged to attend to the work, charging the expense to the registered owner of the vessel.
3.	Captain J. D. Weir, Superintendent of Construction, Agency Marine Department, Montreal, acting under instructions from the department through C. A. LeBel, acting agent.
4.	The hull has been broken up and thrown away. Boilers and metal parts were scrapped and sold by tender.
5.	$285.57.


OVERSEAS FORCES-ROLL OF ENLISTMENT.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the day being called:
Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Early in the
session we were given to understand that the roll of enlistment of the soldiers would be laid upon the table of the House. Is the minister ready to bring it down to-day or before we prorogue?


Major General HUGHES:: Some of the
rolls are now prepared, but it was deemed advisable by the officers of the department not to publish any of them until they are all ready. I have not asked about the matter for the last day or two, but I understand the rolls are nearly completed now. The intention is to publish them, and they will of course be laid on the table of the House at the very earliest moment.


Wilfrid Laurier: Under ordinary circumstances that answer might be satisfactory, but I call the attention of the Government to the fact that we are now considering a Bill to give votes to the soldiers, and it seems to me that .the publication of the names of the men to whom we give this vote ought to be concurrent with the coming into force of the Act.


Sir ROBERT BORDEN:: I will find out
how far the roll is advanced and let my hon. friend know later on in the day. The delay I am informed is in the Printing Bureau, and I will ask the Secretary of State to have the printing expedited as much as possible. Of course, there will be distribution among the members of Parliament when the lists are ready.


UNOPPOSED MOTION FOR PAPERS.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Proulx: For a return showing: 1. The amount paid by the Department of Justice since the first day of December, 1907, to the Senior Judge of the united counties of Prescott and Russell for travelling allowance and transporta-
[Stage Direction]
tion expenses in connection with the holding -by him of Chambers in the city of Ottawa. 2. Where the said Judge has resided since the said date. 3. The present place of residence of the said Judge. 4. Whether it is the custom of the Department of Justice to pay to Judges travelling allowance and transportation expenses for holding Chambers at the place where they reside.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Mr. LEMIEUX:: May I ask the Prime Minister or the Minister of Railways and Canals if any Order in Council has been passed of late concerning either the payment of subsidies or giving a guarantee of bonds to the Quebec and Saguenay Railway? If so, has that Order in Council been laid upon the table of the House?


Robert Laird Borden: So far as I apprehend the hon. gentleman's question, there has been nothing passed of late on the subject.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is the matter under consideration?


Robert Laird Borden: Everything that is not passed is under consideration.


CAMPAIGN LITERATURE.
Alphonse Verville: Is the Minister of Labour aware that campaign literature is being distributed from his department? If so, under what authority is it being done, and are the employees of his department working at it?


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: This is an old story.


Mr. CROTHERS:: I am not aware that such literature is being issued from my department, but if my hon. friend will give particulars concerning the matter I will look into it.


WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Alphonse Verville: I would like to ask the Minister of Labour if I can have an answer to question 11, which is as follows:
1.	Is the Government aware that the Western' Union Telegraph Company is said to control the Great North Western Telegraph Company, which, since the 1st January, 1915, js the name under which the amalgamation of the Great North Western and the Canadian Northern Telegraph Companies is carried out?
2.	If not, can the Government indicate to What authorities application should be made for such information?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I do not think it is a proper question, because my department is not supposed to keep in touch with private enterprises of this kind. We have had some correspondence making complaints against these companies, and I shall be glad to let my hon. friend know the substance of that correspondence; but we do not keep track of the information required by this question, and we do not indicate to members of this House where they can get information concerning private enterprises.


Mr. SPEAKER:: My attention has been drawn to this question, and in my judgment it is not a proper question to put on the Order Paper and it is not in the proper form. The rule is laid down that members putting questions on the Order Paper become responsible for the allegations of facts in them, which is certainly not done here. A question should also refer to something in connection with the business of the House or of the country with which the Government is dealing, which does not seem to me to be the case in regard to this question.


CANADA GRAIN ACT AMENDMENT.
[Stage Direction]
On motion of Sir George Foster (Minister of Trade and Commerce), the House proceeded to consider amendments made by the Senate to Bill No. 112, to amend the Canada Grain Act.
Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: The Bill, which was sent up from the House to the Senate and which has been returned with these amendments, was very carefully thought out and thoroughly discussed in the House, and it was sent to the Senate as it had been thought out and as the consensus of opinion in the committee and in the House after it was discussed seemed to dictate. The Senate, however, has fallen foul of one of the sections and has altered it by striking out the word " shippers." This amendment was moved in the House, but it did not seem to receive the assent of the House and was not even pressed to a vote. It, however, has been revived in the Senate and is now part of the Bill as the Senate has returned it to the Commons. It destroys the full efficiency of the Bill and will hamper the work of the department to the extent that this interest is left out of the poivers that are to be given by this legislation to the Grain Commission. At this late time, however, I suppose it is better to take a mutilated Bill than to have no-

thing at all, and with the determination to work it out as well as we can under what has been sent back to us from the Senate,
I propose to let the matter go. I move that the amendments be concurred in.
Amendments concurred in.


SOLDIERS' VOTING BILL.
[Stage Direction]
The House again in Committee, Mr. Sevigny in the Chair, on Bill No. Ill, to enable Canadians on active military service during the present war to exercise their electoral franchise.-Mr. Doherty.
On section 4, subsection 6-holding polls:
Mr. DOHERTY:: When this subsection
was allowed to stand, it was after certain suggestions, had been made with regard to making some matters that might be considered to be covered by it perfectly clear, one of them being that the volunteer presenting himself at the poll to vote should be subject to being called upon *o be sworn then and there. A second thing that was pointed out was that while subsection 6 does provide by reference to the Dominion Elections Act for agents, or what are called scrutineers, to be present at the polls, in view of the circumstances in which the votes will be taken and of the fact that they may be taken for more than one electoral district, it is desirable to provide that agents may be present at the polls as agents, not necessarily exclusively of any one candidate, but of all candidates of the party for which they are appointed scrutineers.
Finally, it was suggested that it would be wise that we should put in a provision to require the military authorities of the different camps to give all possible facilities for the holding of the polls. To meet these three suggestions, I have prepared amendments. I move that subsection 6 of section 4 be amended by adding thereto:
" 6a. Any volunteer presenting' himself to vote shall, if so required, even though his name be upon the list prepared by the camp returning officer, take the oath contained in form B of this Act and in form Y of the Dominion Elections Act, and if his claim to vote rests upon his having been a qualified elector in any electoral district at the time of his enlistment or appointment, any other oath which under the Dominion Elections Act may be required to be taken by voters generally claiming a like qualification.
" 6b. In addition to agents who may be appointed in accordance with the Dominion Elections Act to represent candidates at the poll, agents may be appointed on behalf of either the Government or the Opposition and such agents shall have all the powers of agents of candidates under the said Act and be entitled
to exercise the said powers on behalf of all candidates in all electoral districts for the party by which such agents have been named and any person or persons named as agent or agents of any candidate of a party shall be entitled to act as agent or agents of any other candidate of the same party in any electoral district or districts.	-
"*6c. The military authorities at every camp or base where a poll is to be held as aforesaid shall afford to the camp returning officer all necessary facilities for the holding of the same."
The effect will be to make it quite clear that the volunteer may be sworn both according to form B and according to form Y, the latter being against disqualification or any corrupt act on his part or exercised upon him, and also any further oath under the Dominion Elections Act which may be required of those claiming like qualification.


Mr. OLIVER:: Last night I understood
the minister to say that he would propose an amendment that would make it absolutely clear that the voter had a right to vote although his name was not on the list prepared by the returning officer. Has that been done? Is it the intention to make that provision?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have no objection to it now, but it seemed to me that, inasmuch as there is absolutely nothing here to make the presence of the name on the lists that the returning officer provides an essential condition of voting, what the hon. gentleman desires would necessarily follow. I confess I overlooked the matter in preparing the amendments, but I have no objection to providing it. I move:
That subsection 4 of section 4 be amended by adding thereto the words:
" The failure of the volunteer to present his claim in time to be entered on such list, and the consequent absence of his name from such list, shall not deprive such volunteer of his right to vote, provided he presents himself to the returning officer and takes the oath above prescribed before the poll is closed."


Frank Oliver: Will the words, "oath above prescribed," preclude the possibility of his being required to take the qualification and bribery oath?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not think so. This , provides that the mere absence of his name from the list shall not preclude his voting, provided he takes the oath entitling him to get on the list. That being dealt with, I think he fairly comes under the provisions of subsection 6, which requires him to present himself to the returning officer and make before the returning officer an affi-

davit which will entitle him to get on the list. The words, " any volunteer presenting himself to vote," will apply to that man when he presents himself to vote just as it will apply to the man whose name was on the list.


Frank Oliver: So long as there is no confusion, I am perfectly satisfied.


Mr. MACDONALD:: With regard to the amendment proposed by the minister respecting the furnishing of facilities by the camp commandant to the returning officer of the poll, the minister will remember that last night I suggested that a provision should be inserted requiring the camp commandant to give all volunteers in camp an opportunity to poll their votes. I pointed out the difficulty that might arise if a man were employed at some work which might prevent him from voting. Perhaps the minister could add some apt words which would make provision for this.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I did not understand
that the desire was that we should impose an obligation on them to allow the men to vote, because I take it that it is not desirable that we should require the military authorities to allow a man to absent himself from essential duties for the purpose of voting. However, I would have no objection to meeting the hon. gentleman's view.


William John Macdonald: We are dealing only with Canadian camps in this case, and I see no reason, unless it be confinement for some offence, why every man in the camp should not be permitted to vote.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I understand that the
desire would be met if we added to subsection 6c the following words:
And the officer commanding shall allow every volunteer, so far as it may he done consistently with the proper performance of his military duties, time and opportunity to vote.


[Stage Direction]
Amendments agreed to.
Charles Joseph Doherty: Having given consideration to what was pointed out last evening by the hon. member for Pictou, I beg to move that subsection 9 of section 4 be struck out.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to, and section, as amended, agreed to.
On section 10-when voter cannot vote under this Act:
William John Macdonald: Why is it provided
that a volunteer, if within 25 miles of his polling place, shall not vote elsewhere than

at said polling place? I do not see why he should not vote in camp?


Charles Joseph Doherty: It seemed to us that a soldier who was at home, in his own electoral district, should not be entitled to vote in camp under the special provisions made for soldiers, instead .of in the regular way at (his proper voting place.


Mr. NESBITT:: Why not use the words " in his own electoral district "?


Charles Joseph Doherty: In order that the section should apply to him two conditions are necessary, being within his own electoral district and not being more than twenty-five miles away from his regular polling place. I may say that unless this section appears to members of the committee to be of more importance than it does to me, I am prepared to drop it altogether. It was inserted because it seemed to be a logical section to insert. I would move that section 10 be dropped.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and section 10 struck out.
On schedule A-ballot:
Mr. MARCIL:: Has the minister decided to place any additional words on the ballot?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I cannot at the moment lay my hand oh the form of ballot to be used. We desire to have a ballot as much like the regular ballot as possible. I understood that the hon. member wished to have the words " I vote for, etc." printed in French as well as in English. That is being done.


Charles Marcil: They always are in Quebec.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Not on the face of the ballot. Such printing as there is is on the back of the ballot.


Charles Marcil: I am not insisting on that. I thought the minister might put in some such words as " Dominion general elections."


Charles Joseph Doherty: The existing law prescribes that the ballot, save for the white spaces where the names of the candidates are placed, shall be entirely black. There is no space on the ballot on which you could print " Dominion general elections."


Charles Marcil: If the minister is satisfied, all right.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: The minister will observe that in the printed instructions on the margin of the ballot it is said that " the

voter shall write the name of such person in the first space." Should it not be " such person or persons " so as to cover several constituencies like Halifax, St. John, Ottawa and others?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have no objection. My impression was that inasmuch as under the Dominion Elections Act a man is entitled to vote for as many candidates as there are persons to be elected you might say that a man might vote for " such person " and that that would cover any cases where there are more than one, because each one of these persons would be " such person." However, there is nothing like being perfectly clear, and I have no objection. But, we perhaps might create a situation where, for the purpose of being absolutely clear about one or two constituencies, we might mislead voters in the great bulk of constituencies by telling them they could vote for " such person." I think it would be safer to leave it as it is. Of course, instructions will go with the ballots.


William Pugsley: Very well.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The ballots in the French-Canadian constituencies in the province of Quebec are usually printed in French. The returning officer knows the nationality of the majority of the electorate.


Charles Joseph Doherty: When the ballots are issued there is nothing printed on them except the names of the candidates, which, if they are French are printed in French, and if English, are printed in English.
Mr. -LEMIEUX: I mean the instructions.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There are no instructions printed on the ballot papeT. In conformity with the suggestion of the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) I have put in an amendment that the instructions on the ballot shall be printed both in French and English, and also that all the words on the face of the ballot-form be printed in both languages.


Rodolphe Lemieux: All right.
On schedule B-affidavit:


Edward Walter Nesbitt: There are numerous cases where these men come from outside an electoral district in which they enlisted, and perhaps in the electoral district only three or four days or a week before enlistment. That precludes their taking the oath that they have been thirty days there. How would that affect them?


Charles Joseph Doherty: As the Bill now reads a man is entitled to vote in the electoral district in which he last resided for a period of thirty days within the six months previous to his enlistment.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: No, it is the thirty days preceding.


Charles Joseph Doherty: No, we have cleared away any question of its being immediately preceding.


Mr. GERMAN:: The words in the affidavit are: ''the last place in which I was resident for thirty days." Does not that point out to the voter that he must have resided thirty days in one place immediately prior to his enlistment?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That is the way I read it.


William Manley German: It seems to me that that is the way it has to be interpreted.


Charles Joseph Doherty: No, if a man states the last place within which he has lived for thirty days during the last six months, he does not say anything about it being the thirty days immediately preceding his enlistment. It may be that within six months a certain place is the only place in 'which he had resided for thirty days, and he may have resided there four months ago. I do not quite see why it is inferred that because a man has to say where, during the last six months, he last lived for thirty days it means the last place in which he has lived for a shorter period.


William Manley German: He must give the particular place in which he lived for thirty days within the six months?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes.


Mr. H. H. McLEAN:: I want to call the minister's attention to the fact that there are a number of Canadian officers who have taken commissions in British regular regiments. Most of them are surplus officers who went over with the first contingent. From New Brunswick we have five such officers. I understand that there are 75 or 80 officers, or non-commissioned officers, who have taken commissions. It would be desirable to give these men a chance to vote and it might be done by inserting a provision in the Bill that Canadian officers with temporary commissions in the regular service may apply to the High Commissioner for affidavits and ballots, and, upon their being marked, may send the affidavits and ballots to the High Commissioner to be forwarded by him. It would give them an opportunity to vote.


Charles Joseph Doherty: It is unfortunate that these individual gentlemen should lose their opportunity to vote, but on the Other hand I think we are doing our full duty when we endeavour to provide for the members of the Canadian expeditionary force. To go outside and select a few people who have gone into the regular British army, and are not connected with the Canadian force, and try to provide a further method for their voting, is endeavouring to get a degree of perfection that will expose us to possible complications that the results would hardly justify. There, are officers who are Canadians in some of the forces of the Allied armies, and it would be difficult for us to make the same provision for them. Upon the whole, I think that, having made a provision that seems adequately to cover the Canadian expeditionary force, it will probably be wiser for us not to endeavour to extend it further.
On the preamble:


Wilfrid Laurier: Before the Bill is reported, I would ask the Minister of Justice if he persists in his intention that no notice shall be given of the time when and the place, where the vote is to be taken by any officer.


Robert Laird Borden: What does my hon. friend suggest?


Wilfrid Laurier: Each officer, whether a commanding officer, a captain, or a sergeant, will have a certain number of men in his unit, who are to vote, and my suggestion is that notice should be given that on such a day and at such a place he will proceed to receive these votes. Otherwise, a man could come in and vote one day, another man to-morrow, another man the next day, and so on. What I had in mind was that notice should be given to those who are entitled to vote before such an officer, that on such a day and at such a place he would receive their votes.


Robert Laird Borden: It would be very difficult to collect them all at the one place and on the same day.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not deny that it is difficult, but it is only one of the difficulties surrounding this measure.


Charles Marcil: There would be no difficulty on that score in Canada, or in Bermuda, or in England. If the vote is to be allowed at all in France or in Belgium, I am sure the commanding officers could arrange to have some one representing the parties present. All that we on this side of

the House want is that the vote coming from the firing line should be an honest vote.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I desire to point out
that when mention was made of my having refused yesterday to allow notice to be given, we were discussing a plan of official scrutineers, and what I was unwilling to undertake was that it should be an obligation of the officer taking the votes to see that the scrutineers were notified. It seems to me that if that system could be worked out, it would be more proper to require diligence on the part of the scrutineer to attend on the officer than to lay an obligation on the officer to run after the scrutineer. In order to meet a view in which I concurred, that is, that so far as possible we shall provide for observation of the operation of taking the votes, I desire to move:
That subsection 4 of section 2 be reconsidered -for the purpose of adding thereto the following words:
" In cases where conditions make it possible, the officer empowered to receive affidavits and votes shall give notice of the time and place where he will receive such affidavits and votes, and shall permit any one officer, non commissioner officer or soldier who may desire to do so, to be present at said operations and act as agent of the respective parties, Government and Opposition, and any independent candidate, in the same manner as agents of candidates are empowered to act at a poll under the Dominion Elections Act. No volunteer who is entitled to vote and prevented by his military duties from voting at such time and place shall, however, be precluded from so doing at same other time and place."
I think, as we have allowed for the possibility of a voter voting for an independent candidate, it might be well to allow repre-. sentation of such possible independent candidate.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Frank Oliver: According to the wording in the beginning of section 4, a returning officer is to be appointed at each military camp or base. At Edmonton there are two regiments of infantry occupying military buildings. In the case of the squadron, which is on the south side of the river, its base is at Medicine Hat; but it has the use of the armoury at Edmonton, and the men are billeted amongst the citizens. Would this be considered as a camp, and would this force have a returning officer under the interpretation of this section?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I would feel that it ought to be treated as such. To remove

all doubt I have no objection to putting in a section that shall interpret the word " camp."


Frank Oliver: If the word " base " were not used, the word " camp " would cover everything, but when the word base is used and when the men are not at their base and not at their"camp there is confusion.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There are conditions under which soldiers would not be in a camp. But we can interpret the word " camp." We struck out section 10. I move that the following be enacted as section 10 of the Bill:	.
" In this Act the word ' camp ' shall include any barrack or barracks or other place where ahy unit or units are assembled for the purpose of military duties under a commanding officer."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Mr. MURPHY:: May 1 ask if there has been any change in the title of the Bill? In this corrected reprint it is entitled, " An Act to enable Canadians on active military service during tihe present war to exercise their electoral franchise." But the Bill as it now stands enables others than Canadians to exercise their electoral franchise-for instance, persons in the British islands or other overseas Dominions who come within section 1.


Charles Joseph Doherty: They must form part of the Canadian military forces.


Charles Murphy: But it says " to enable Canadians."


Charles Joseph Doherty: Tlhey are persons enlisted in Canada.


Charles Murphy: Yes, but they are not Canadians. I think the title should be amended to meet the provisions of the Bill.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Suppose we said " Canadian soldiers." I think that would describe them correctly. Whatever they may be as to nationality, when they join the Canadian permanent force or the Canadian expeditionary force, they are certainly correctly described as Canadian soldiers.


Charles Murphy: Would it not be more correct to say "to enable persons serving in the military service of Canada " ?


Robert Laird Borden: A better wording, perhaps, would be, " to enable persons serving in the Canadian military forces." But I may remind my hon. friend that the title is dealt with on the third reading.
Bill as amended reported.
Mr. DOHERTY moved the third reading of the Bill.


William Pugsley: I move in amendment:
That this Bill be not now read a third time, but that it be referred back to the Committee of the Whole House, with instructions that they have power to amend the same by striking out section 2 and inserting in lieu thereof the following:
" The Governor in Council shall appoint two commissioners for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act, one of whom shall be nominated toy the Prime Minister and one by the leader of the Opposition, within ten days after the passing hereof. And on failure of either the Prime Minister or the leader of tne Opposition to make such nomination, the Governor in Council may make the appointment of the commissioner which either of such parties so failed to nominate. The said commissioners so appointed shall appoint a third commissioner within ten days of their being notified by the Governor in Council of their appointment, and should they fail to agree on such third commissioner, such third commissioner shall on the request of either or both of the said two commissioners be appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. In case of the death, resignation or refusal to act at any time of either of such commissioners his place shall be filled in manner hereinbefore prescribed for the appointment of the said commissioner who so died, resigned or refused to act. The majority of the commissioners shall constitute a quorum and their acts shall be as legal and valid as the joint acts of the three commissioners.
" The said commissioners shall have power and it shall toe their duty from time to time* to make all necessary regulations for the taking of the votes, the marking of the ballots, the taking of the affidavits of the voters and the transmission thereof to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery and all procedure in connection therewith, so as to insure as far as possible that all persons entitled to vote hereunder shall have a fair and reasonable opportunity of doing so. Such regulation shall be subject to the approval of the Governor in Council. And when they have been so approved they shall have the same force and effect as if they were enacted as a part of this Act.
" The commissioners shall have power to appoint such persons to act as scrutineers and otherwise to assist in carrying out the said regulations as the commissioners may deem necessary from time to time."


Robert Laird Borden: The matter
which the hon. gentleman has just brought to the attention of the House was debated very fully in committee, and reply was made by the hon. Minister of Justice to the arguments put forward in support of that suggestion. It is neither necessary nor desirable that these arguments should be repeated, and I hope that the hon. gentleman will not consider it discourteous if at this juncture we do not repeat them.


William Pugsley: The matter was fully
discussed in committee; I did not intend that we should go into it now.
Amendment (Mr. Pugsley) negatived on division.


William Pugsley: I desire to move, seconded by Mr. Lemieux:
That this Bill be not now read a third time, but that it be referred back to the Committee ot the Whole House with instructions that they have power to amend the same by adding as subsection 11 of section 2 the following:
" 11. No action shall be taken under the foregoing provisions of this section until the same have been submitted to and approved by the Secretary for War of the United Kingdom."
This matter was discussed fully in committee, in the absence of the Prime Minister, and I do not propose now to add anything in support of this amendment.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: As the hon. gentleman has already moved one amendment, he has exhausted his right to speak on the third reading. The amendment which he now proposes is, therefore, out of order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I beg to move this
amendment.


Robert Laird Borden: This matter
also was fully discussed in committee, and it is not necessary nor desirable that we should add anything to the arguments which were made by my hon. friend the Minister of Justice in that respect. The only observation I desire to make is that the amendment as proposed, if carried into effect, would seem to constitute a very severe blow at the autonomy of Canada and the independence of this Parliament.


William Pugsley: I do not take the view which my right hon. friend takes, for this reason: this Bill imposes certain duties upon officers of the British Army. It is made imperative upon these officers that they shall deliver ballots to Canadian soldiers who are entitled to use them; that they shall take their affidavits; that they shall place the different ballots and affidavits in envelopes; that they shall seal these envelopes and forward them in packages to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. That is imposing duties upon Imperial officers over whom this Government and this Parliament have no control whatever. It would seem to me, therefore, that before any action should be taken in the way of attempting to have these officers assume the functions which are- specified in the Bill and take upon themselves the obligations which, by the Bill, they are required

to take, it is only reasonable that the consent of the Secretary of State for War, who has jurisdiction and control over all these officers, should first be obtained. I cannot see how that would in any way derogate from the dignity, authority or autonomy of this Parliament.
Amendment (Mr. Lemieux) negatived on division.


Charles Marcil: I beg to move, seconded by the hon. member for Sunbury and Queens (Mr. H. II. McLean):
That this Bill be not read a third time, but that it be referred back to the Committee of the Whole House, with instructions that they have power to amend the same by striking out the words " twenty-one " in the first line of section one and by inserting the word " eighteen " in place thereof.
The House has already heard the arguments in support of this suggestion. I contend very respectfully that a man who has attained 18 years of age, who has undergone medical inspection, who is mentally and physically qualified to take up arms in the service of his country overseas, and who is willing to make the sacrifice of his life, if necessary, to defend the cause which he has at heart, should be on an equal footing with men of the age of 21. If the soldier who has attained the age of 21 years is to have the advantage of exercising the franchise, then it is an unjust and unfortunate discrimination that others who are serving their country should be deprived of that right. I think that this view will appeal to the whole of young Canada, which is taking a deep and patriotic interest in this matter.
Amendment (Mr. Marcil) negatived on division.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I beg to move that the title of the Bill be as follows: An Act to enable Canadian Soldiers on Active Military Service During the Present War to Exercise their Electoral Franchise.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Main motion (Mr. Doherty) agreed to, and Bill read the third time and passed
At one o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at three o'clock.

Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Speaker, a report was made by the Public Accounts Committee yesterday and the House has not yet concurred in that report. It was in-

tended to have made the usual motion for concurrence this morning, but I asked that it might be postponed, as I desired to make a statement in respect of it, having regard to the fact that the report or reports concerned contain some matter that demands the serious consideration of the Government. .It would be possible to allow it to stand until to-morrow morning; but I would suggest, if the House has no objection, that the motion be taken at eight o'clock this evening for the purpose of having it disposed of and for the further purpose of giving me an opportunity to make the statement to which I have alluded. I would therefore move, if the House will consent, that motions shall be taken at eight o'clock this evening.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. BUREAU:: I wish to ask a question of the Postmaster General. I have here one of the new war-tax stamps for cheques, notes, etc., and I see it is exactly similar to the ordinary postage stamp, with the words " Canada postage " printed on it in the usual way, but with the words " war tax " on it. Is this special war tax stamp good for the payment of postage on a letter in the ordinary way? I was told in one of the banks this morning' that a number of letters were returned to them yesterday- that the boys had, by inadvertence, placed the stamps marked war tax on them and that they were refused at the central post office. I understand that the ordinary postage stamp is good for payment of the special war tax. Is it also true that the war stamp is good for ordinary postage? If not, great confusion may result owing to the close resemblance between the two stamps.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: I am not prepared to
make a statement yet, but if the hon. gentleman will allow the question to stand until eight o'clock I shall reply fully. My impression is that the war-tax stamp is not available for the ordinary postage of letters.


DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.
[Stage Direction]
Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Edmonton) asked for leave to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the report of Mr. T. R. Ferguson regarding the Department of the Interior.
And leave having been granted, he said: 1601
Mr. Speaker, there have been laid upon the table of the House within the past few days certain reports made by one T. R. Ferguson, who was appointed a commissioner by Order in Council, which has also been placed on the table. In order that the House may be aware of the scope of the inquiry, it may perhaps be as well to read, in whole or in part, the orders under which Mr. .Ferguson worked. There are two. The first of these is dated the 10th of May, 1913, passed under the Inquiries Act of 1906, and appoints Mr. Ferguson a commissioner.
-to investigate and report upon all matters connected with the sale, lease, grant, exchange or disposition by any means whatsoever, since the 1st day of July, 1896, of (a) Dominion lands, (b) timber and mineral lands and mining rights and privileges, including coal, petroleum and gas lands and rights; (c) water-powers and rights, under the authority or purporting to be under authority of the Dominion Lands Act, Irrigation Act, or other statutes of the Parliament of Canada.
It will be observed that this gives Mr. Ferguson a fairly comprehensive range of activity, but it did not seem to be considered adequate for the purposes in view; and so, on the 27th of June, 1913, the order was amended to provide that Mr. Ferguson be appointed a commissioner under Part I of the Inquiries Act:
To investigate and report upon all matters relating to or connected with the application for (although such application may not have been granted or may be still pending), the sale, lease, grant, exchange or disposition by any means whatsoever, since the 1st day of July, 1896 of (a) Dominion lands; (b) timber and mineral lands and mining rights and privileges, including coal, petroleum and gas lands and rights and irrigation tracts or lands; and the cutting of timber upon Government lands; (c) water-powers and rights;	(d) Indian lands
and Indian reserves.
In pursuance of this authority, Mr. Ferguson entered upon his duties, and that he was more or less diligent in the performance of those duties may fairly be gathered from the reports showing the results of his efforts, which have been laid upon the table of the House in the past few days and are now before the House for their inspection and consideration. I may say, for information, that I understand that Mr. Ferguson's services were enlisted at a codt of approximately $30,000 in the way of salary and $10,000 for expenses. This report thus represents an outlay of approximately $40,000. So there is no question that Mr. Ferguson had an ample range of authority, and there is no doubt that he had plenty of financial backing; nor is there any doubt that he has volumes of documents to show
[Stage Direction]
as the result of his activities. It would be ignoring the plain facts not to admit or take for granted that the purpose of Mr. Ferguson's appointment was to find actions that would be blameworthy on the part of myself as Minister of the Interior or on the part of my predecessor in that office. That, I take it, was the sole and only purpose of the appointment of Mr. Ferguson. No other reason, I think, can fairly he adduced.
As a result of this exhaustive examination that he has made, this unlimited investigation that he to as been authorized to make, and that the country has paid for, certainly with unlimited liberality, I think I am safe in saying that both the Administration of my predecessor and that of myself have received at the hands of Mr. Ferguson what may be considered a very satisfactory certificate of character. There can he no doubt of the fact that Mr. Ferguson's investigations were prompted by political animus rather than by a sincere desire to secure the protection of the public interest. There have been many transactions of the Interior Department since 1896, but of all these thousands of transactions, we find by these reports that Mr. Ferguson has only dealt with the transactions that in some way are linked with the name of some person who is either a prominent Liberal in public life or a prominent official appointed by the Liberal Government. If Mr. Ferguson has not made any successful discoveries it certainly is not for want of authority, or for want of political animus. Besides that, it may be noted that while the second order that was issued to empower Mr. Ferguson to extend his inquiries was issued to enable 'him to take cognizance of unfinished transactions, and transactions entered upon by the Government of the day, there is no reference to any such transactions in any of these documents. Mr. Ferguson has confined himself almost entirely to transactions which already have been aired on the floor of Parliament, and to which, I am bound to say, his investigations toave added very little in the way of information to the public.
While I do not wish to introduce a controversial attitude in the discussion of , this report, I think it is only due to the country that it should be informed that this report, which obviously has been in large measure [DOT]completed for a very long time, and I fancy has been entirely completed for a considerable time, was not presented to Parliament at a period of the session that would permit of a full and fair examination and
IMr. Oliver.]
discussion by Parliament or of such scrutiny as such an extensive and voluminous report would naturally be entitled to. It will be observed that while this report deals with matters concerning the operations of the Interior Department, no part of it was laid on the table of the House until the Estimates of the Department of the Interior and, may I say as well, the Estimates of the Department of Public Works had passed the House. Immediately those Estimates had passed, the volumes containing the report of the investigations began to be laid on the table. It is obvious that the animus on the part of the commissioner was behind the commissioner as well. It was not the intention of the Government that appointed that commission that the results of its work should be considered in Parliament fairly and impartially or that the questions arising under it Should be discussed in Parliament as they should have been discussed and as they could only or best be discussed in Committee of the Whole House during the discussion of the Estimates of the department.
I have already said that there is no fault to find with the majority of the conclusions reached by Mr. Ferguson; but although there is not, these documents have been laid on the table of Parliament at a time when they do not admit of a reasonable measure of examination or discussion or consideration, but at a time when the public press has every opportunity to obtain knowledge of these documents and to place any construction it pleases upon any part of the matter contained. The Government laid itself out in the beginning to take all the advantage that lay in its hands, by reason of having control of the affairs of the country, and' by reason of the Act providing for investigations in regard to public matters, and over, above and beyond that, they further took the strategical, practical, political, partisan and picayune advantage of bringing these documents before Parliament at a time when they cannot be properly considered or discussed, and at a time when all the political capital that can possibly be made out of them can be made out of them by the newspaper friends of our hon. friends on the other side of the House. I have no fault to find with the appointment of a commissioner to investigate the transactions of the Interior Department under my Administration or anybody else's administration. The transactions of the Interior Department are the business of the public, and the public have a right to be informed in

regard to those transactions. They have a right, especially, if there is any suspicion, and I have no doubt there was suspicion in the minds of our hon. friends opposite as to the character of the transactions involved. Therefore, I say that the Government had a perfect right to appoint a commissioner to make all the investigation that is possible or that they think is necessary. But they have no right, having done that, having invoked the extreme power of the law in protection of the public interest, to turn that to a petty, partisan advantage as they have done in the case of this report.
Now, dealing with the different separate reports, I will first take the one with which my name is particularly connected. I have here the report upon the matter, and it is described as:
He the Bulletin Company, Limited, the Honourable Frank Oliver, and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company.
Not to weary the House by going into any very great detail, I may say that the subject-matter of this report is the statement that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company hold $15,000 of stock in the Bulletin Company, Limited, in which company I also hold a large amount of stock, or thj controlling interest; that is, the controlling interest is in my name. The Grand Trunk Pacific Company, some time about 1905 or 1906, took shares in that company to the amount of $15,000. I do not know that it is of interest either to the House or to the country what the financial operations of the Bulletin Company, Limited, may be; but on that point I may mention that the Bulletin newspaper was founded , by me, became a limited liability company later, and was conducted upon lines suitable to the circumstances of the city and surrounding country up to the point when the great development began as a result of the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway and the extension of the Canadian Northern railway. About that time, I transferred my activities to Ottawa, in an endeavour to help along the interests of the country in the administration of the Interior Department, and naturally I left the Bulletin to take care of itself. If the newspaper was to continue its development in proportion to the changed circumstances of the country, it became necessary that it should have increased capital. A new company was formed, to which some of the leading citizens of Edmonton subscribed money, and to which it appears from the record , that the Grand Trunk Pacific Company subscribed $15,000. I took shares for the interest I had in the company, and the business has gone on in that way ever since.
I do not know whether it would be of interest to the House and the country to know that the business has not been prosperous, and in all probability the Grand Trunk Pacific Company have lost their $15,000, as I have lost a good many thousand dollars also as a result of my connection with the Bulletin Company, Limited.
I only allude to this because it is alluded to in this document.
I find further, on considering this document, that Mr. Ferguson apparently had in his mind the idea that the Grand Trunk Pacfie Company had bought $15,000 . worth of influence in the administration of the Interior Department, by taking this amount of stock in the Bulletin Company.
I say that his purpose was to discover whether or not the Grand Trunk Pacific Company had bought $15,000 worth of influence in the Interior Department by taking this stock in the Bulletin Company, Limited; but after having made an exhaustive investigation, Mr. Ferguson does not find that. He did not find that the company had any influence in the administration of the Interior Department or he would have said so. He carefully does not say so, and what he says is:
With regard to the propriety of the transaction as detailed herein, I do not know that it is necessary for me to comment upon the same at any length.
Now, after the evidence of animus that is shown throughout the transaction connected with the operations of Mr. Ferguson, after the investigation that he made as shown by his report, to find if the Grand Trunk Pacific had received advantage because of the ownership of stock in the Bulletin Company,, after all his efforts he has not been able to find anything upon which he can hang: even the suggestion of that influence, because if he had he would have said so. It. was in order to enable him to say so that this country has paid between $36,000 and $40,000 for this report that is now lying before us. Mr. Ferguson says:
Although I endeavoured to obtain some explanation from the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company as to why it should, and did, go into this transaction, I have been unable to do so.
And he continues:
As the evidence reveals in purchasing the stock the company was doing something which
[Stage Direction]
was quite out of its usual line of business, and contrary to the custom of the company. That it was not regarded as of the nature of an investment would appear from the fact that the company, from the day of the purchase of tihe stock until the present *time, has paid no attention to the affairs or management of the Bulletin Company, or attended any of its meetings. and no dividends have ever been received.
It was a mystery to Mr. Ferguson why the Grand Trunk Pacific Company desired to take stock in the Bulletin Company; I suppose it was just as much a mystery to him why a number of gentlemen in the city of Edmonton took stock in the Bulletin Company. But it was no mystery to anybody who knows the circumstances of the case. These men desired to see the newspaper expanded to correspond with the new conditions of the city, and I presume that the Grand Trunk Pacific Company, being interested in Edmonton, as a junction and terminal point, felt a like interest and were willing to take stock for that purpose. But it makes no difference what the purpose of the G-rand Trunk Pacific .Company was, the result which Mr. Ferguson wished to find has been achieved or not achieved, and that is the only thing in which, as I understand it, the House and the country is concerned. It is too bad that Mr. Ferguson was disappointed to the extent he was; it is too bad that our friends on the other side of the House have not been able to get what they expected for their expenditure of the money of the country, but there is the report, and that is the only conclusion that can be drawn from it.
There is, however, something else that may be brought to the attention of the House in connection with this report, and it is this- I wish all members of the House to realize just what has been done in this case. The Government of Canada, in partisan pursuit of a political opponent, took the authority that is vested in them for the purpose of furthering the public interest, in order to establish an inquisitorial inquiry into the piivate business of a political opponent, as to a matter with which the Government of Canada had no more business to deal than it has to deal with the private business of any other political opponent.
I will admit that if Mr. Ferguson had found any evidence of improper collusion between myself as Minister of the Interior and the Grand Trunk Pacific, then he would have been warranted in inquiring as to what relationship existed between us; but that was not where he started apparently. He started to inquire into the private business of the Bulletin Company,

Limited, as on the same principle he could start an inquiry into the private business of any private individual in this Dominion and expose that private business to the public gaze at the will, wish, suggestion or whim of the Government of the day. In my humble opinion, this is a most dangerous precedent and an action which will not find approval at the hands of the people of Canada. Power is vested in the hands of the Government for the purpose of protecting the public interest and not for the purpose of carrying on partisan warfare by methods which are generally relegated to porch-climbers or thugs. When the Government of Canada descends to that sort of political action, it disgraces Canada as well as itself. I do not fear any result that can be achieved by any Government of this country which chooses to make its fight supposedly in the public interest on any such principle, because, as is well-known by the members of this House, I have been the subject of blackmailing attacks for the past several years, and I do not think that those attacks have either done me any harm or done those who instigated them any good; and in so far as this attack, which is of the same character, goes, I think the result will be identical. When the Government of the day directs such an engine against a member of the Opposition, turning the authority of the Government into a means of political blackmail, it is establishing itself in a position of authority amongst even its own followers, and I think even its own followers will question the desirability of its existence. Supposing one of our hon. friends on the other side does not see eye to eye with the Government of the day on some important question, it is possible for the Government to appoint a commission of inquiry that will go into that man's private affairs, which may or may not be just as able to stand the light of day as the affairs of the Bulletin Company, Ltd., and to compel a loyalty of support on the part of its own followers that it is not entitled to receive and would not receive by reason of any other consideration. This principle of introducing blackmail into politics is a dangerous principle, and it is just as dangerous to supporters of the Government as it is to members of the Opposition.
I wish next to deal with the reference to my colleague, Mr. Cruise, the hon. member for Dauphin. Mr. Cruise moved for this report on the 15th of March; and although there is no doubt at all that the report was prepared at that time and had been prepared

months before, it was not brought down until after Mr. Cruise, believing that the business of the House was practically finished, had gone home, so that he is not here to answer for himself in regard to this report; but, as it contains some reflections upon Mr. Cruise and indirectly upon myself, I propose to have a word or two to say in regard to it. Broadly speaking, I may say that the accusation is that Mr. Cruise acquired a homestead on misrepresentation and without having fulfilled the duties, and that this occurred through the improper and lax administration of the officials of the Department of the Interior for which, of course,
I was responsible. This accusation has gone out through the press to all parts of the country, this being the intention of Mr. Ferguson when he made his report and the intention of the Government when they held it until Mr. Cruise was absent and when they laid it on the table of the House at the time they did lay it.
What happened was this:	The Riding
Mountain Forest reserve had been set apart some years before by Order in Council or by departmental order, I do not know which. Owing to the fact that the reservation had not been carefully examined before being made, some parts of the area included were suitable for settlement, and squatters went on these parts. When by the Act of 1906, these reservations were made by statute, and a more careful examination was made of the forest conditions existing within them, a new line was drawn which excluded some quarters and included others in the reserve. It became necessary for the Government to take action to rid the reserve of those squatters who were inside of the boundaries, and to dispose under equitable conditions of the lands which had hitherto been reserved, but which were now excluded, and upon which there were some squatters. A Mr. Davis, who had been a forest ranger, was appointed to attend to this work, which of necessity must be handled on the ground and by personal examination. It was a difficult piece of work to do; we had to get rid of the squatters who remained on the permanent reserve, and we got rid of them by compensating them-by giving them other land largely in the area that was permanently cut out of the reserve. In dealing, then, with the lands that were out ol the reserve, we gave precedence to the men who were in occupation as squatters, and then disposed of the remaining lands to applicants as they came forward. For some considerable period before the Government took the action that I have
stated, there had been a movement on to these reserves. Some men went on and established permanent improvemerits and went into residence; some established temporary improvements and did not go into residence. liVhen we were disposing of the land that had been taken out of the reserve, we considered claims as to priority oi right of selection, so that it was necessary that a man should have actually resided or squatted upon the land while it was still in the reserve. If there were tangible, substantial improvements, we recognized that the owner of them had a prior right over somebody who -had not improved. That was the position of Mr. Cruise. He is an old homesteader in the Dauphin district. He was entitled to a second homestead. . Having hopes, as others had, that this area would be cut out of the Riding Mountain reserve, in order to establish a priority right, I presume, he caused the beginning of a building to the erected in 1906, while the land was still on the reserve. Then, when the land was cut out of the reserve, he applied for homestead rights upon this land, and was accorded these rights on the ground that he had improvements on the land prior to that time. Mr. Ferguson suggests that Mr. Cruise acquired these rights by fraud or misrepresentation. There is absolutely no warrant whatever for that statement.
Now, as to Mr. Cruise securing patent. He entered under the provision of proving up by the ranging of cattle upon the land. His permanent residence was within nine miles of the locality, so he did not need to be in actual residence in order to prove up. All he needed was twenty head of cattle upon that land. He had-so this evidence goes to show-only thirteen head of cattle of his own at that time. He bought seven head from a neighbour and gave a promissory note in payment; and on the strength of the ownership of these twenty cattle, he acquired patent for this land-absolutely, unquestionably in accordance with the letter of the law as -it stood at that time. Mr. Ferguson does not think so. He thinks that Mr. Cruise did not get his patent according to the law. I say that that is a misrepresentation on the part of Mr. Ferguson. And it is neither more nor less than an outrage on the part of this Government, that after having such a report in their hands, and it having been asked for by the member affected by it, they did not bring it forward when they
[Stage Direction]
had it there, and give him a chance on the floor of this House to state his actual position in regard to it. I may say that the use of cattls for the purpose of proving up the right of homestead was subject to abuse, and there were cases in which, while the letter of the law was fulfilled, the spirit was not fulfilled. And because of that, in 1908, an amendment was made in the law abolishing the right to prove up by ranging cattle on the homestead. This Government that appointed Mr. Ferguson and finds fault with Mr. Cruise for having proved up with cattle, absolutely within the terms of the law, has reinstated that provision so that anybody can prove up a homestead anywhere in the West exactly as Mr. Cruise proved up this homestead-can do it to-day. Mr. Ferguson concludes his report as follows:
There does not appear to he a proper or adequate supervision of the grants for sale of public lands. If as suggested in other reports there had been a supervisor appointed who was reponsible for the legal and proper grant of each quarter-section granted, the frauds above mentioned could not have been perpetrated.	-
Mr. Davis was appointed as supervisor and had personal supervision and responsibility over and for these transactions. Mr. Ferguson uses the word "fraud" with a view to creating the impression that the country was in some way defrauded by the action of Mr. Davis. There was no fraud upon the country, in any way, shape or manner. The lands were there available for homestead, and the only question that is raised in the evidence offered by Mr. Ferguson is whether Mr. Davis gave due consideration to the rights of priority in the application made to these lands. It was a question between one applicant and another, and not between the applicants on one side and the country or the Government on the other. Mr. Ferguson has deliberately undertaken to create a false impression in regard to this case which has been taken advantage of by the newspapers supporting hon. gentlemen opposite. And I take the liberty of repeating that such a course is not politics, it is not partisanship, it is simply plain ordinary po lit cal brigandage.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: I am afraid the hon. member is a little extravagant. I would remind him that it is not in order to impute an improper motive in what is done by an individual member of Parliament or by a number of members of Parliament collectively. Being an old member of the House, I naturally expect the hon. member 
not to be guilty of an infraction of the rules.


Frank Oliver: 
William Pugsley: Is it the same company?


Frank Oliver: Yes, the Southern Alberta Land Company. The amount was voted last year, and revoted again this year.
I think it would be only losing time to read all that Mr. Ferguson has written in the conclusion of his report, but the final conclusion that he reaches, is this:
After discussion of the matter with several experts of the United States of America, where irrigation has been very extensively carried on, that the proper method is that irrigation should be carried on under government supervision and control.
That may be very true, but the Government had not adopted the principle of government supervision at that time. The policy of the Government was to use the value of the land as a means of securing its development by irrigation, 4 p.m. and in pursuance of that policy this arrangement with the Southern Alberta Land Company was entered into. As I say, it is being carried out by the company to the satisfaction of this Government, to the extent that they are willing to pay $140,000 to the company in assistance of their enterprise. I presume, however, that in all these pages Mr. Ferguson is desirous of creating the
impression that the company should not have got the land. I presume, further, that his effort was to prove that in my administration of the department I had done some wrong to the country in allowing the company to spend their money by the million in that effort.
Here is another irrigation proposition: the Aylwin Company, E. A. Robert and J. D. McGregor. This report is even bulkier than the former one, and I have not been able to go through it in its entirety. I have only a very indistinct recollection of this transaction, but as near as I can follow Mr. Ferguson's idea, while he desires to create the impression that the late Government acted unwisely and unjustly in giving the land to the Southern Alberta Company, ihe finds fault with the late Government for not having given the land to the Aylwin Company, because a large part of it was opened to homestead entry. That is as much as I can make out of his report. Apparently a man named Aylwin applied for an irrigation tract, making certain representations to the department as to his ability to put water on the land. Later it was found that he could not put water on the land-either the water was not there, or (he could not get it-and as a consequence his right lapsed and part of the tract was opened up to homestead entry, and was actually homesteaded. Part of it was under grazing lease, and, I fancy, in consideration of whatever steps the Aylwin Company had taken, they were confirmed in their rights in so far as the grazing lease was concerned. They afterwards entered into a transaction witih the Southern Alberta Land Company, and the Southern Alberta Land Company acquired the whole tract. Upon it, as I say, they have spent large sums of money, and of that enterprise the Government has substantially approved.
Mr. Ferguson reaches the sage conclusion :	,
X conclude by saying that this seems to have been really a granting of this particular tract. to individual promoters, who looked for enrichment. That they did not make very large sums out of it, is no fault of theirs. If these applicants had been informed that the Government policy was such that they bind themselves to irrigate, that they would not be allowed to sell or dispose of their interests, that they must irrigate and begin the work and carry it on themselves, it is altogether likely they would never have endeavoured to acquire this tract. In such an event-in this case at any rate

these purchasers would not have acquired it, as they would necessarily have taken the trouble to learn, and have learned, that the tract could not be irrigated.


William Pugsley: When was the land expropriated ?


Frank Oliver: I think about 1910.
I find here a " report on a grazing ranch J. G. Turriff, A. J. Adamson and J. D. McGregor." This transaction was ventilated in the House of Commons a number of years ago. I do not think anything new is added in this report to what was said in the House at that time. I take it that Mr. Ferguson makes this report simply for the purpose of bringing into undesirable prominence the name of my friend and colleague, the, member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff), and for no other

reason that can be conceived. The transaction relates to a grazing lease, application for which was made by one Brown. The application was made at a time when closed grazing leases were allowed; that is, they were closed for 21 years. In some way Brown's application did not go through. After I became minister, I cancelled Ithe regulations providing for closed leases for 21 years and provided that all 21-year closed leases should be cancellable on two years' notice. The applicants pressed for the granting of their lease. I decided that as we were trying "to clear off the conditions that had existed up to that time in regard to closed leases, and as we were trying to establish new conditions,' it was desirable that we should do so having regard to the rights already existing. I granted, as the evidence will show, a closed lease to the people who were the assigns of Brown. I do not know whether it was in the name of these gentlemen or not, but we will assume that it was. These men became the beneficial owners of Brown's application under the action I took, under the principles I laid down and the principles upon which I acted. We were making a very sudden and radical change in grazing regulations. We had to get the acceptance and approval of the people of the West to that change, and in order to get that acceptance it was desirable to clear off all existing or vested rights. I have no doubt that if we had taken the action that, has been taken by our friends on the other side of the House in dealing with some of their political opponents, we would have said to every man whose lease had not been closed up: There is nothing doing; you are through. We did not do that, and I do not think it is good policy on the part of our friends opposite to do it; however, that is their business. We have granted this as a closed lease because application had been made for it, and the conditions in a certain measure had been fulfilled and the law was that closed leases could be had. Mr. Ferguson says that we did not charge the $2,400 rental that we should have charged these parties. That may be true, but on the other hand, the parties had not had the beneficial use of the lease during that time. There may have been an undue leniency in regard to the $2,400, and on the other hand there may not have been. I do not know that this Government is absolutely justified in taking $2,400 out of a private individual unless that private individual has had reasonable value for the money. Since it
is a question that was in dispute, since it was awaiting adjudication, and since it needed further consideration, I am not prepared to admit that we should have charged that rental, although I am quite prepared to admit that we could have done so if we had seen fit. Mr. Ferguson's conclusion is:
All of which goes to show the necessity for great care and attention in the carrying out not only departmental detail, but in guarding against errors and misunderstanding of those unfamiliar with the file, justifying' my suggestions in other reports relative to the appointment of a supervisor of the different steps taken in different matters in the department.
That is his conclusion in regard to wihat has been heralded through the country by the press supporting our friends on the other side of the House as a most iniquitous transaction.
I find here a report on timber berths, with the names of W. H. Nolan, A. W. Fraser, K.C., and J. G. Turriff. I do not recall that this was under my administration, and I will leave this report for my hon. friend (Mr. Turriff) to deal with.
Here are two cases: The Kananaskis Coal Company, Limited, with the names of Howard Douglas, George E. Hunter and Walter Carret and others, and timber berths 550-558. As far as I have been able to gather from a glance through these reports, there is no suggestion that these people got anything that they did not pay for. The suggestion is, that being ofiicers of the Government, they had no right, and they should not have been permitted to deal in Government property. With that contention I have no fault to find, and in so far as my administration was concerned, certainly I did not permit ofiicers of the department to have transactions in the property of the Government. But it is only fair to these parties to point out that the business of the Department of the Interior increased in magnitude and value very rapidly from year to year during the period immediately before I became minister and while I was minister. Dealing with these questions from the point of view of the conditions as they prevailed in 1911, it is not fair to consider them from the point of view of the conditions that prevailed in 1900 or 1896. What was of little value in 1896 became three, four, five, six or ten times as valuable in 1911. From time to time it became necessary in the administration of the affairs of the Department of the Interior to make a change to meet the new conditions. What was

quite permissible in years before ceased to be permissible as values and interests increased. When these men acquired these properties, in so far as I can say, they acquired them either by themselves or by assignment from other people who had acquired them in the ordinary way, and it has yet to be shown that the public interest suffered in any degree.
The first charge is that the men themselves should not have dealt with Government property. With that conclusion I have no fault to find, and as far as my knowledge went no member of the department did deal in Government property while I was minister. The connection of these men with the department had ceased, the connection of some of them having ceased before I was minister, and if there is any justice in the matter, justice has been done and there was no necessity in the wide world in the public interest of dragging these men's names, in an undesirable connection, before the Parliament and people of Canada, or of spending the money of the people in going over cases that were already settled and in regard to which the commissioner makes no suggestion as to any other action to be taken.
I find a report here: " re the Blood Indian Reserve and Frank Pedley." Frank Pedley was Deputy Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, and as nearly as I can gather from what I see here, about 1903, before I became minister, a lease of the grazing rights on the Blood Indian Reserve was granted to one McEwan, of Brandon. McEwan afterwards took into his interest in the grazing lease Peter Ryan of Toronto, and Gordon, Ironsides, and Fares, of Winnipeg. There is no question about the propriety of the lease. These people agreed to pay $5,000 a year for the grazing rights; they paid the money, and it was a sound business transaction from start to finish so far as I understand it. Gordon, Ironsides and Fares, were great cattlemen; they needed the grazing lands; the Indians were not using them; and it was good business to lease'the grazing rights in these reserves to somebody who would use the lands and give the Indians the financial benefits of that use. That was the transaction, and that was what was done.
There is no question about the responsibility of the parties concerned; there is no question as to the fact that they paid a fair price for what they got; but this whole report is an attempt to prove that Frank Pedley had some financial interest in the
[Mr. Oliver.!
transaction. Frank Pedley is not in the department to-day; he has nothing whatever to do with the affairs of this country, and there was no sound reason in the world for Mr. Ferguson spending his time on this report, or no sound reason in the world for laying this report on the table of Parliament, except the partisan reason to make ' party politics pending a general election that the Government is ashamed to announce they are going to hold. Pedley's connection with this, so he informs me, was this:	Peter Ryan, one of the lessees
of this reserve owed Pedley money, or he owed the Bank of Commerce money upon Pedley's endorsation; that is, Pedley had endorsed Ryan's paper in the Bank of Commerce, and this occurred before there was any lease at all. Later on the Bank of Commerce pressed for payment and Ryan assigned a part of his interest in the lease to one Bedford Jones. Jones sold the interest to one Miller for $1,000, and the money was applied to reduce Ryan's indebtedness to the Bank of Commerce. And for that reason Mr. Pedley's name must be dragged through the columns of the Conservative press in this country, in terms that would certainly not be more than justified if Mr. Pedley were a horse-thief instead of a respectable citizen, who did good service to this country as Deputy Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, and who has no reason not to look any man in the eye, let it be the Prime Minister, of Canada or Mr. T. R. Ferguson.


Mr. J. D. REID:: Does the report show that Mr. Pedley got nothing out of it?


Frank Oliver: I have been trying to tell my hon. friend that.


John Dowsley Reid: Does it show that he only got a thousand dollars?


Mr. R. B. BENNETT:: He admits that he got more.


Frank Oliver: I have stated what I have been able to gather from this report. This shows the unfairness of putting these reports upon the table at this time of the session, and I hope I shall not be declared out of order when I say that if my hon. friends opposite choose to take that course they must take the logical consequence of it, which is, that they have taken an undue and partisan advantage which is not to their credit nor to the benefit of good government in this country. It is not . right that an attempt should be made to use the vast authority of the Government of

Canada to pillory any honest citizen before the people of this country.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Do I understand the hon. member to say that the $1,000 was used to reduce Mr. Ryan's indebtedness to Mr. Pedley?


Frank Oliver: I said it was used to reduce his indebtedness to the Bank of Commerce.


Arthur Meighen: Then my hon. friend has not read the report.


Frank Oliver: Perhaps I have not read
it as carefully as the Solicitor General has, but if he had an opportunity to read it, would it not have been decent to place it on the table and let the rest of us have an opportunity to read it?


Arthur Meighen: There will be no hurry; we can stay here a week if the hon. gentleman wishes.


Frank Oliver: I thank the Solicitor General for the suggestion, and it is/a fair sample of the kind of politics that is being played by gentlemen on the other side of the House. We have closed up the business of the session, we have transacted all the business the Government has offered us, we have voted the Supplies, we have passed all the legislation, and now the Solicitor General throws upon the table a pile of documents which apparently he has carefully studied, and he says:	If ybu want a fair
discussion on this, all you have to do is to prolong the session, with no other business before Parliament than the discussion of this subject. The Solicitor General can campaign the country during the coming general election on that policy, and I do not think he will get very far with it.


Mr. W. H. BENNETT:: Is the hon. member aware that Mr. Pedley was examined before Mr. Ferguson some time ago?


Frank Oliver: Yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And the hon. gentleman learned from Mr. Pedley the result of the inquiry?


Frank Oliver: Yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And so the hon. gentleman is not surprised to-day?	.


Frank Oliver: I am not surprised to-day; but I have not had time to read the report. I have merely been able to give Mr. Pedley's side of the story.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman
knows, then, what is alleged against
Mr. Pedley as related by Mr. Pedley himself, and that took place some months ago. Do I understand from the hon. gentleman that Mr. Pedley did not acquaint him with the investigation?


Frank Oliver: No.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then, if the hon. gentleman never heard from Mr. Pedley anything about it, he is taken by surprise to-day.


Frank Oliver: Mr. Ferguson's report with regard to Mr. Pedley came down here two or three days ago, and I happened to meet Mr. Pedley, and I asked him about it. I had not read the report; I had not seen it. He gave me what I have given to the House, and I am prepared to take his word in regard to that quite as much as that of Mr. Ferguson, or any other hired thug such as he is.
I find another report here on " Indian lands; re James A. Smart, Frank Pedley, and William J. White." Of course the major part of the transactions alluded to in this report took place before I was minister, and again I say I have not had an opportunity of considering them very carefully. As I gather, the allegation is that Smart, Pedley and White-Smart being Deputy Minister of the Interior, and Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Pedley being Superintendent of Immigration, and White being a subordinate officer in the Immigration Department-formed a company of some kind to acquire Indian lands. Now, I have already said that on the question of the interference of officers of the Government in the property of the people I do not suggest for a moment justification for that action. I have pointed out that as conditions changed, what was permissible at one time became unpermitted at another time, and, whatever occurred, two of these gentlemen are out of the service of the Government to-day; one of them was out of it before I became minister at all, and he was the only one who had anything to do with the Indian Department and the third man is still in the service of the Government.
As far as I have been able to follow the report, there is no suggestion that these men in purchasing Indian lands got an acre of them for less than its full value; they paid dollar for dollar for everything that they got. That being the case, the Indian got what was coming to him; the country is discharged of its obligation to the Indian inasmuch as he got all that was coming to him, and the only question at issue is the

propriety of Government officials meddling with public property. In regard to that matter, there is nothing in the report to indicate that it happened while I was minister. I certainly object to it, and I would not allow officers of the department, to my knowledge, to take such action. They must take their choice and speculate outside of the department, or refrain from speculating inside the department. That being the fact, however, there was no warrant for Mr. Ferguson spending the money of this country in securing evidence to this extent for the purpose of proving what every one will admit and bringing a report before Parliament in regard to one man who has not been in the Government service for, I think, over ten years, in regard to another man with whose services our friends on the other side have seen fit to dispense, and in regard to the third man who still is in the Government employ. Either Mr. Ferguson was anxious to put in his time in the preparation of this report-and I think he got $50 for every working day-or he was not able to find anything very serious in the way of delinquency in the Department of the Interior. If he could have found something more serious, than the mere fact that these gentlemen bought Indian lands, by tender, taking their chances, getting them if their tender was the highest and not getting them if their tender was not. Mr. Ferguson was not using his time to good advantage when he spent so much of it in order to get this report, and I take it as a certificate of character to the administration of the department, to myself and to my. predecessor that Mr. Ferguson,	in	all	his search
of two years at $50	a day, with
all the authority of the Government behind him, with all the political animus that naturally went with himself and with those .that put him into the position, was not able to do better than he did for his employers. Therefore we can take it for granted that under the Liberal Administration the people of Canada had an Administration of their Interior and Indian Affairs that was entirely and highly to their credit and to their benefit.
For a man who is paid $50 a day to find fault, over whom there is no control in any way, shape or form, who can say what he likes, and who Iby getting individuals into a solitary room and threatening them with process of law, is entitled to take down whatever he can compel them to say and to produce it before Parliament, it is possible to make a very much worse story than he has been able to make, so that if

the results have been as they have been under the Liberal Administration, the country is still to be congratulated on the Administration it has received. It is an old saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we can judge best of Administration by results. As regards the values of land, when the Liberal Administration came into office, the railway companies and the Hudson Bay Company, that had the sale of lands in the Northwest, sold 108,000 acres at an average price of $3.34 per acre. This was all picked land, and they all wanted to sell and most of them employed special selling agents, but the best they could get for 108,000 acres of picked land was only $3.34 an acre. It took some time of Liberal Administration, of administration in the interests of the people of Canada, before the confidence of the people was inspired in the country so that the land advanced in price, because in 1900 the average price was only $3.27; in 1901, $3.36; in 1902, $3.56; in 1903, $3.46; but from 1903, with the inception of the railway policy of the Liberal Administration, the land of the West immediately began to increase in price, and it was $4.39 in 1904; $5.09 in 1905; $6.01 in 1906; $6.02 in 1907; $8.80 in 1908; $11.08 in 1909; $13.36 in 1910 and $13.59 in 1911. In that year the companies sold 1,406,651 acres at $13.59 an acre, the largest sale that had ever been made in any year or that has ever been made since. It is true that in 1914 the average price increased to $14.75, but the quantity of safes decreased to 501,575 acres; that is to say, the price of land increased by a little over a dollar an acre, 'but the sales decreased by over 900,000 acres. If the Administration of the Interior Department needed the advice that Mr. Ferguson has so kindly given it in all these reports, if it were so lax and slack and if so much fraud were perpetrated, it is not reasonable to suppose that the people would have had confidence in the country so that they would have rushed upon it and taken up homesteads in continually increasing numbers each year under the Liberal Administration, but this is What they did. In 1902, there were 14,673 entries; in 1903, 31,383; in 1904, 26,073; in 1905, 30,819; in 1906, 41,869; for the nine months of 1907 when there was the change in the fiscal year, 21,647; in 1908, 30,424; in 1909, 39,081; in 1910, 41,568, and in 1911,	44,479, or practically 44,500.
But as soon as our friends got in and waved the magic wand of " leave well enough alone", entries began to drop, and in 1912 we had 39,000; in 1913; 33,000; 1914, 31,000. And they are still going down.

So I say that while the country must be grateful to Mr. Ferguson for the advice he has given as to the administration of the Interior Department, we think that this advice, if it is worth anything, if it is worth the money this country has paid for it, had better be tendered to our friends on the other side, and they had better take advantage of it, because the country absolutely needs some change in its administration from what it is getting at the present time, as compared with what it got under the late Administration.
As I said in the beginning, here is a report that has cost the country isomething in the neighbourhood of forty thousand dollars, which must be accepted as absolute evidence that under Liberal Administration our lands in all departments were administered as honestly as they were efficiently, and as the country's record shows they were efficiently administered.


Hon. W. J. ROCHE (Minister of the Interior) :: The hon. member for Edmonton
(Mr. Oliver) has shown a good deal of heat because the Government has seen fit to appoint Mr. Ferguson as commissioner to inquire into the matters relating to the Interior Department over which the hon. gentleman formerly presided. I do not think he should find so much fault with the Government in investigating certain matters which had more or less a relation to his own administration of the department. I do not think he has very much reason to find fault because of the late time when, as he says, this report has been submitted. The report only came into my possession late in the month of March. It is true, I desired to peruse it before laying it upon the table. The session was in progress, and for the greater part of the time there have been three sittings a day. I had only time to hastily peruse the report and it was' submitted to the House at the earliest possible moment under the circumstances. I think he is toierably familiar with most of the matters discussed here to-day by reason of the fact that he was at the head of the department at the time they occurred, although I agree with him that after a lapse of time one's memory cannot be expected to retain all the details of these various transactions.
The hon. gentleman has stated that very little has been disclosed in return for the thirty-odd thousand dollars that have been paid to Mr. Ferguson. He points to the voluminous report and says that that is about all the country has in return for rhis large expenditure. It is easily seen that
he has not carefully read this report. Because the attention of the country has been directed to the fact that the report has disclosed reasons to believe that the money was well spent. Had he read the report carefully, or even hurriedly, he would have found that it has oeen proven to tne hilt that it has been a good expenditure for these disclosures.


Frank Oliver: Will the hon. gentleman be good enough to give us these instances? The matters relate to his own department. Let him come through with some of these instances.


William James Roche: I will try to give the instances. But, as I say, I have not got all the evidence and it is some time since I read it. The hon. gentleman has done the best he could in defence of himself, and I leave it to the members of this House whether the defence he has put up here in regard to these transactions is one in which the people will take much stock. I think he will find that there are many things that have been admitted on cath by his own former officials that will carry conviction to the people that his administration of the affairs of the Department of the Interior was not in the best interest of the country, and I will quote a few instances as I go along to prove my case. He states that this commission was appointed and this investigation held merely to enable the party press at this late stage of the session to make all the party capital they can against him and the Government of which he was a member. Well, what is the party press supporting himself and his party doing in connection with the investigations going on in the Public Accounts Committee, the Boots Committee and others, if not the very thing that he complains of in this investigation? Read those papers, from The Globe up, and you will find that there is scarcely a Liberal paper from one end of the country to the other that is not distorting the evidence, picking out particular portions from the statements of witnesses that they think will reflect upon this Government, and endeavouring to hold this Government responsible . for every little lapse that has taken place in connection with the purchase of horses, boots or any other things the purchase of which has been investigated. Still, the hon. gentleman grumbles and thinks he has a grievance because the Conservative press has been publishing portions of this report which reflects upon himself. He knows what human nature is, and he knows that what-

ever party is in power the press of that party will try to make capital against their opponents and vice versa I think it a rather petty complaint for him to say that this report was brought down late for that purpose.
The hon. gentleman took up first the investigation into certain transactions connected with the Bulletin Company, Limited. He asks what right Mr. Ferguson had to investigate matters pertaining to his private business. There was a time when the hon. gentleman had a serious accusation made against him through the press of the country in connection with a certain deposit or cheque of $69,000. This was just before the late Government went out of power. The hon. gentleman then, both inside and outside this House, challenged the fullest investigation into that transaction, though it had no particular relation to the matters of the department over which he presided. And when he was so courageous to court inquiry into that affair, he should not take exception at Mr. Ferguson's desiring to probe this transaction, particularly in view of the fact that at least a prima facie case was made out for investigation, taking into consideration the fact that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company invested $15,000 in the newspaper publishing company in which the hon. gentleman was interested, while at the same time that company was having direct and continuous relations with the department over which he presided. That is the reason assigned by Mr. Ferguson for this investigation. Let me quote his report on this point:
With regard to the propriety of the transactions detailed herein, I do not know that it is necessary for me to comment upon the same at any length. The facts speak for themselves. When I learned, as commissioner, that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, having very extensive dealings in the year 1905, in fact, both before and after this stock transaction-was the purchaser of a considerable block of stock from the company practically owned and controlled by the minister presiding over the department with which it was dealing, I felt that it was my duty to examine into the matter, anti report accordingly. If I had not felt that it was the duty of the minister to have avoided even the very appearance of all personal business transactions with persons or corporations with whom he was dealing as minister of the Crown, I should not have taken any evidence in this matter.
That is why the investigation was proceeded with. If the hon. member for Edmonton can see no reason why the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company should not have invested money in the paper of which he was proprietor when he presided over the department, then the hon. gentle-

man has not that sense of propriety that I think he should have. I am confident that if I as Minister of the Interior were unfortunate enough-or fortunate enough, as the case may be-to be the proprietor and publisher of a newspaper; and if, while acting as Minister of the Interior, I induced-because I presume that the hon. member did hold out inducements-the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company to take stock in that paper, the hon. gentleman would be the first person to condemn me for so doing.
The hon. gentleman states that nothing was proved as to the connection of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company with the department. Mr. Ferguson did not go into details; he did not set out with the idea of proving any particular point or of delving into the particular transactions in connection with town sites or rights of way, but he did summon as a witness Mr. Lynch of the Railway Lands Branch. From that gentleman's evidence he established the fact that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company had relations with the Department of the Interior. The evidence given by Mr. Lynch goes to show that at the time when Mr. Frank Scott purchased the stock in trust on behalf of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, paying $15,000 for the same, and when the hon. member for Edmonton was- Minister of the Interior, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company were carrying on extensive business transactions with the Department of the Interior, involving the transfer to the company of a large quantity of Government lands, including rights of way, town sites, terminals, etc.
Mr. Ferguson, therefore, established what he set out to establish:	that the
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company were having these relations with the Interior Department; that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company took $15,000 worth of stock in the publishing company of which the then Minister of the Interior was the proprietor. Mr. Scott, who held this stock in trust, swore that h<* had not invested in it for himself; that the money had been given to him by the then vicepresident of the company, and that he could not cilte any other instance in which the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company had invested money in any other newspaper in the Dominion of Canada. It is rather significant that the Edmonton Bulletin, published by the then Minister of the Interior, should be selected above all

other papers by the Grand Trunk Railway Company for ithe investment of this money. It could not have been because of the large dividends paid by the Edmonton Bulletin Company, because the ex-minister himself says that they have lost their money, and so has he. At any rate, no dividends have been paid. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company paid this $15,000 to Mr. Scott, without any resolution of the company having been passed authorizing the same. It was done secretly; it was done in a manner of which Mr. 'Scott evidently knjw absolutely nothing,	except that he
was asked to invest this $15,000 in his own name. That is all he could tell about it. He said that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company had not invested money in any other papers that he knew of. He said that he has never attended an annual meeting of the directors' of the Bulletin Company; that the Grand Trunk Pacific officials never took any particular interest in the affairs of the company. According to the hon. ex-Minister of the Interior, this amount of stock was a gift, because it was not expected that any dividends would be paid upon it. If by this defence which I consider to be a particularly lame one-of the investment of this $15,000 by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company in his paper while he was Minister of the Interior, the hon. member for Edmonton means to assert that such a transaction was all right, and should not be questioned by any man either inside or outside of the House, I think that he is taking a stand which will not receive the endorsation of the people of this country.
So far as the company is concerned, Mr. Ferguson states:
Although I endeavoured to obtain some explanation from the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company as to why it did go into this transaction, I have been unable to do so.
No member of the company was in a position to say why this money was invested. I leave it to members of this House to form the conclusion as to why that investment was made, and to judge for themselves as to whether the Grand Trunk Pacific would have .invested this $15,000 if the hon. member for Edmonton had been only the private member for Edmonton, and had not been the publisher of the Edmonton Bulletin.
The next point taken up by the hon. gentleman was the matter of the timber lands that were removed from the Riding 161
Mountain forest reserve. It is true that by Act of Parliament certain lands were withdrawn from the Riding Mountain reserve several years ago, and that all squatters who had located on those lands were to be allowed the privilege of taking up homesteads on the lands which had been removed from the reserve. I say frankly that that is not an unusual thing, and we are not complaining about that. What we are complaining about is that hundreds of Liberals who secured entries 5 p.m. were not squatters at all, and that the public lands were parcelled out by Mr. Davis, then supervisor of the Riding Mountain forest reserve. This admission on the part of Mr. Davis was conveniently overlooked by the exMinister of the Interior in the remarks which he made this afternoon. Mr. Cruise made no pretense of being a squatter, in the legal sense of the term, or, indeed, in any sense of the term. The hon. gentleman says that those who had effected tangible and substantial improvements were allowed to remain on the land. What were the tangible and substantial improvements that Mr. Cruise had to show? He lived near the town of Dauphin, within the nine mile radius. - He had a man cut logs for two or three days, and build up four bare log walls. I do not believe they were ever roofed; certainly up to the time the patent was issued this structure, which was to pass as a house, was never roofed. On these tangible and substantial improvements, Mr. Cruise put in his claim as a squatter. Mr. Cruise lived on other lands of his own. He could qualify by stock if he was a legitimate squatter, but we assert that Mr. Cruise was not a legitimate squatter. The supervisor, Mr. Davis, and the land agent, Mr. Herchmer, who received the entries at the town of Dauphin, both say so, and Mr. Ferguson finds that Mr. Cruise was not a squatter. Mr. Cruise had only thirteen head of .stock of his own, and, as it was necessary to have twenty in order to prove up, be went to his neighbour-a man by the name of Ward

and, ostensibly, brought seven head of stock over to make up the twenty, giving his promissory note therefor. Mr. Ward kept the stock part of the time on his own property and part of the time during the summer months on Mr. Cruise's. That allowed Mr. Cruise, during the time that Mr. Ward held his note to swear that he was the owner of twenty head of stock; he there-



foie secured entry for the land. As soon as he got his patent he received back the promissory note and gave back the seven head of cattle to Mr. Ward. And we are asked to be gullible enough to believe that that was a bona fide transaction! This is the manner in which the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Cruise) qualified as a squatter on the Riding Mountain reserve. And Mr. Cruise was not by any means the only one. I will read some rather spicy evidence regarding this. For instance, of all the lands taken out of the Riding Mountain reserve, and there were several hundred quarter-sections given for homestead entry, Mr. Davis, who was the supervisor, swore before Mr. Ferguson that he believed that not more than 40 per cent were occupied by legitimate squatters;, and he was the official appointed to do this business by the then Minister of the Interior and was kept in office until after this Government came into power, notwithstanding the protests of his own officials. Now, not only Mr. Davis swore that not more than 40 per cent of the so-called squatters were legitimate, but Mr. Herchmer, the Dominion Lands agent, swore as well that in his opinion not more than 20 per cent were legitimate; and these were the gentlemen who were supposed to have tangible and substantial improvements as squatters and were allowed entries to these lands. I have some evidence to back this up. We have the evidence of Albert McLeod and Sam. Cohen, who were employed by the Government, and who went around with blank orders which were handed to Mr. Davis for his signature, for them to take to the land office; and of course the land agent was compelled to honour them, because he got his instructions from the Minister of the Interior to allow any persons to have entries who bore an order from Mr. Davis.
This is from the evidence of Mr. Davis:
Q. I believe you wrote a large number of orders out in the same way?
That is in blank.
A. Yes, I used to take them with me in blank. It saved a lot of writing.
Q. And after they had been filled in, some were genuine squatters and some were not?- A. Yes; I allowed myself to be used for the party there, to a certain extent, and I am willing to acknowledge it.
Q. Now this Exhibit 1-D, I want to ask you about that, Mr. Davis. In the first place, is that your signature?-A. Yes.
Q. But the rest of it was not written out hy you?-A. No.
Q. Who wrote it out?-A. To the best of my knowledge and belief, Albert McLeod.

So he was not the only one who wrote out these orders.
Q. And did he issue that, and fill it in himself?-A. Yes.
Q. So that he travelled around with these in, blank also?-A. Yes* and he would send them to me with a letter stating that it was right, but I knew better. I will tell you the story.
Q. Yes, tell me the story?-A. I knew that Albert was picking quite a few of the residents in his own locality there, that he wanted to get good quarters for, and make himself strong in that locality; and so he was issuing orders to them on blanks and he would send them to me for signature and I would sign -them for him.
Q. Mr. McLeod got out quite a number in that way, I suppose?-A. Yes, I think he did. He made himself quite smooth and nice.
D. Mr. Herchmer has deposed before me that there must have been hundreds of these orders issued. Did you keep track of the number of orders which you were issuing, which were signed by you, either from your own instigation or that of Albert McLeod or Sam. Cohen? -A. No, sir, I did not.
Q. What was Cohen's Idea, can you tell me, in asking you or procuring from you these orders and giving them to the people in this way?-A. Cohen was a rattling good man and a good worker, and he would not let any opportunity slide if he could benefit the party.
This is the way the public lands were parcelled out to the political friends of my hon. friend; and he gets up here to-day and contrasts the management of the land under the Interior Department by this Government with that when he was presiding officer over the department!
Q. I suppose Mr. Davis I could say that would apply to the whole three, all of you at that time?-A. Sure.
This is an illustration of how the lands that were taken out of the reserve were disposed of by the department.
But there is something more. There was dissatisfaction in the department at the head office here. They saw that something was wrong, and it was drawn to the attention of the minister. It was brought to his notice when he was visiting Dauphin, while it was going on, and Mr. Herchmer, the land agent, knew perfectly well what was going on. He wanted some protection for himself, and he brought it to the notice of the then Minister of the Interior. The result of this was that a letter was sent to Mr. Davis from the hon. the then Minister of the Interior, dated September 18, 1907, as follows:
W. A. Davis:
Sir,-I am informed that your work in securing removal of squatters in the Riding and Duck Mountain timber reserves has been completed ; that is to say, that you have secured location of all those squatters that you were

able to remove. You will understand that the [DOT]privilige of locating on the lands formerly included within the Riding and Duck Mountain reserves, set aside by statute, only apply to squatters in the present reserves and that you have no authority to apply for the location of any other persons upon those lands.
Now, this was after the hon. member's attention had been brought to the fact that others than squatters were getting lands, and it having been brought by the land agent to his attention he could not ignore it, and so this letter continues:
The agent is being notified to advertise that those lands hitherto held under reservation will be open in due course to general settlement, first come first served.
That did not put an end to that condition of affairs. Mr. Dixon, in the department, drew the attention of the departmental officials to the unsatisfactory manner in which Davis was performing his work, with the result that this memorandum was submitted to Mr. Dixon by the minister's private secretary:
September 2, 1907.
The minister wants you to wire Mr. Leech to at once go to Riding Mountain and clear up the tangle which Davis finds himself in.
That shows that things were' not going smoothly and nicely. He had evidence brought to his attention that things were not going right, and he sent out the celebrated R. E. A. Leech to investigate. Mr. Leech went up there and reported that everything was lovely-and what did he give as evidence? That Davis !had told him that it was all right! That is all he reported to the department, that he had consulted Mr. Davis and that Mr. Davis had said that everything was all right. Still, the department were not satisfied, with the result that Mr. Leech was sent back a second time and told to further investigate these lands that were thrown open to squatters. Mr. Leech departed the second time. He came back with a report much the same as before; lie could find nothing wrong. Mr. Davis was his authority, the very gentleman who himself swears that everything was wrong, that he was giving these lands to help his party friends, and so were McLeod and Cohen. So I do not think that there is anything that reflects very great credit upon the administration of the department in connection with those particular lands taken out of the Riding Mountain reserve.
The next matter the hon. member took up was the transaction of the Southern 161}
Alberta Land Company; and he thought he was making a point against this Government and was practically receiving endorsation for that transaction by reason of the fact that we had introduced in the last session of Parliament an estimate for a refund to the Southern Alberta Land Company of $380,000 which they had paid in advance for their land, a portion of which was expended during this past year, the balance being a revote this year. But that is no endorsation of the original arrangement entered into by the Government. Not at all. How did we find this arrangement. It was presented to us by the late Mr. Newton, who represented that company in Canada. This was the famous Robbins Irrigation Co. deal. J. D. McGregor and his friends sold them on the English market at an immense profit, they passed again into the possession of another company at another immense profit and eventually they fell into the bands of the Southern Alberta Land Company, a large quantity of stock being sold. This stock was widely distributed throughout the Old Country by the Grenfell Company which practically had the management of it. The Grenfell Company went into liquidation last year. Then the Southern Alberta Land Company was hard pressed. Their irrigation works were about completed to the extent that they could turn the water on the land and put the land in a position to sell for irrigation purposes. They came to the Government and said that if they did not receive some assistance in a financial way the scheme and the country would get a black eye and all the money that had been invested would be lost. What were we to do? Were we to allow the country to get a black eye? This scheme had received the endorsement of the late Government and if we refused to comply with their request so that they could utilize their works and turn the water on the land it would have been most damaging to the good name of the country and the investment would have been placed in jeopardy. The company merely asked us to loan the money that they had paid in for the land. They gave the Government a lien on their land and works as security. They had spent in the neighbourhood of $6,000,000 altogether. Surely we have security which is ample to protect us for refunding back to them the money which they had paid in for the land at the rate of $1 an acre, or in all $380,000. That is no endorsation of the scheme and we are not open to censure by reason of refunding this $380,000 to enable

the company to put its works into operation and allow the land to be occupied under irrigation conditions. It is practically a loan because we took a lien on the land and works. We are charging them the same rate of interest-5 per cent-that we have been charging on irrigation schemes and other transactions of a similar nature.
There is another irrigation deal in connection with this report and it is the Aylwin deal. There was a gentleman by the name of Aylwin who had taken up with the late Minister of the Interior the idea of buying
350,000	acres of land. Negotiations had proceeded to a certain extent but in time he found that he could not have access to the minister, he said that he only saw him on one or two occasions and he came to the conclusion that he would have to have other influence. He had not sufficient hacking to get access to the then minister and he went to Mr. Robert, of Montreal, the president of the Tramways Company, who, it was claimed, stood well in the favour of the Prime Minister and another member of the Government. Mr. Eobert came up and had several interviews with the then Prime Minister in regard to this matter. The letters which are on file go to show that the then Prime Minister assured him that if anybody got this land he and. his associates would, Mr. Eobert had no financial interest in the land originally but he was using his influence because his brother was in the deal. Eobert visited Ottawa on several occasions and saw several members of the Government about the matter, particularly the then Prime Minister, and received every encouragement to believe that he would get the land eventually. I should say that Mr. Eobert got 18 cents an acre as his commission for using his influence, which amounted altogether to $12,000. He bought out the interest of Mr. Newton, of Winnipeg, Who had an interest irf the deal, and when the lands were sold Mr. Eobert got over $18,000 as his share by reason of his acquisition of the Newiton interest. Mr. Eobert was. very well paid for his influence in connection with this deal. But Mr. Eobert did not have entirely plain sailing. There was a gentleman by the name of DenJton in the city of Toronto and he and some of his friends also desired to get some of these lands. In order to put up a bluff that he had certain influence that could carry him through with the members of the Government, he went to Robert in Montreal and the bluff worked so well that Denton was handed over many

thousands of dollars, although he had never invested a cent.
An lion. MEMBEE: Who is Denton?


Mr. EOCHE:: He is a Frank Denton, barrister, of Toronto. He came here representing himself and his friends and he bluffed Robert into an arrangement hr which he got a good slice of this property. I should say in connection with Mr. Aylwin that he had to take 69,000 instead of the
350,000	acres for which he had applied. I draw the attention of the House to this most significant feature, that these 69,000 acres, which adjoined the lands of the Southern Alberta Land Company, were sold by the Government notwithstanding that they knew at the time that they were not irrigable. The officers of the department had reported that the lands were not irrigable and that there was no means of providing for their irrigation in view of the fact that other lands had been disposed of to the Southern Alberta Land Company. The Southern Alberta Land Company had practically monopolized all the ditches and water rights and this Aylwin company were absolutely debarred from irrigating their land and were absolutely dependent upon the Southern Alberta Land Company for irrigation. On this 69,000 acres, for which $3 an acre was paid, they have allowed a refund of $2 an acre. The works of the company had never been gone on with. They had eventually to enter into an arrangement with the Southern Alberta Land Company in order to get their land irrigated at all. What I condemn the department under the late Government for is that having disposed of land to the Southern Alberta Land Company they should have gone to their other friends and sold them 69,000 acres of land that were not irrigable at all.
The hon. gentleman has also brought up the question of the Craven dam. He says there is nothing in that, and claims that it was simply investigated for the purpose of bringing in the names of Mr. Scott and Mr. Brown. The hon. gentleman says that it is all right for the Government 'to sell land at $1 an acre and for the purchasers three years after patent issued to sell it to the Government for $25 an acre. A strange thing about it is that, when the Government were seeking to expropriate the land and when the judge allowed $25 an acre for it, Mr. Brown, now the Lieut. Governor of Saskatchewan, actually came forward and swore that the land was worth $100

an acre. What a wonderful transformation in the price of land in a few years!


Frank Oliver: Would the minister he good enough to verify the date? I think the period must be longer than three years.


William James Roche: It is in the neighbourhood of three years after patent issued.


Frank Oliver: I have no doubt that the minister has the papers and if he refers to them he will find that he is pretty far wrong.


William James Roche: I do not think I am wrong.


Frank Oliver: I am sure he is.


William James Roche: At any rate, it does not make a great deal of difference, when lands which were only $1 an acre suddenly jump to $25 an acre when the Government want to expropriate them, and when Mr. Brown swears that they are worth $100 an acre, whether it is three years or five years. I think Mr. Ferguson says in his report that when Mr. Brown was buying these lands he decried them and said they were practically worthless-that they were only swamp lands and could only be useful for hay; and the fact is that two or three years after the issue of the patent to Mr. Brown, he swore the lands were worth $100 an acre. It was decided to expropriate the lands, and $25 an acre was allowed for them. In these proceedings, forgetful of the fact that a few years previously he had said they were practically valueless and that he purchased them for a dollar an acre, Mr. Brown swore that the value of the land was $100 an acre and that they would produce on an average two tons of hay per acre per annum. You can figure that out for yourself. I do not know what the price of hay 'was, but I think it was probably $10 a ton, but.take it even at $5 a ton and you have 1,000 acres producing
2,000	tons at $5 a ton or $10,000 per annum.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Would the minister value lands at $100 an acre that would only produce two tons of hay to the acre?


William James Roche: I am not putting any value on the lands. I am giving you the sworn statement of the owner of the lands as to what he valued them at.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: He was trying to sell
them then?


William James Roche: Yes, and when he was trying to buy them he said the lands were worth only a dollar an acre.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: There are lots of fellows like him; the woods are full of them. Does the minister think that land that only grew two tons of hay to the acre was worth $100 an acre? If he does, he does not know anything about land values.


William James Roche: I am not saying that I do know anything about land values; I never saw the land, and I do not know what the value of the land was to my personal knowledge, but I am giving you the evidence of this gentleman that he purchased the lands at a dollar an acre, and two or three years after he got his patent he swore that they were worth $100 an acre.


William Pugsley: The minister has mentioned the date that Brown got his patent; can he state when Brown made an agreement to purchase from the Government?


William James Roche: I think it was 190$.


William Pugsley: Has the minister any estimate by the department as to the present value of these lands?


William James Roche: I am glad the hon. member mentioned that, and I wish to tell him that we are not sending out inspectors to value lands that have passed out of the possession of the Government; but I do charge against the minister of the day dereliction of duty in not sending inspectors around to value these lands before they were sold. When any lands are sold to-day,
I can assure my hon. friend that we send out our inspectors to inspect them and to report as to their value. No such thing was done in connection with the sale of these lands; no inspection was made of them; no report as to their value was had, and the price put upon them by Mr. Brown was acceded to and recommended by the then commissioner, Mr. Turriff, who now sits in this House.


William Pugsley: I think these lands were expropriated in 1910.


William James Roche: I am not sure, but the evidence is there, and my hon. friend can see.


William Pugsley: I would like to know that; I think I was Minister of Public Works when they were expropriated. I do know that in 1900 lands representing thousands of acres in that vicinity were sold at a dollar an acre.


William James Roche: I think a good many acres were sold at the time for a dollar an acre, but I believe-


William Pugsley: And sold by companies.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


William James Roche: I may say that these lands were sold to Mr. Brown on the recommendation of Mr. Walter Scott. Mr. Brown in [DOT]effect said that he did not come alone and that he did not depend on his own influence to get these lands, but he admits he sechred the services of Mr Walter Scott, and he secured these services because of Mr. 'Scott's political influence. It was at the .request of Mr. Walter Scott that these lands 'were reserved for a year before they were sold.


Frank Oliver: I want to be perfectly clear as to what the minister states. I think he made the observation that the sale of these lands took place to Lieutenant-Governor Brown during my administration of the Interior Department. I want :him to be satisfied on that point before he makes the statement, because I am quite clear that it is not so.


William James Roche: I have not the exact date before me, and it may have been that it was under the administration of the hon. gentleman's predecessor that the lands were originally sold, and if I am to diagnose by his interruption that the hon. gentleman condemns the whole thing, then I am glad of the interruption, and I will exonerate him from being the gentleman who sold these lands.


Frank Oliver: I want to point out that the period of time between the sale to Brown and the sale by Brown was the difference between the years 1900 and 1910, and that lands in the Northwest appreciated in value in that time, three, four, and six times.


William James Roche: Does the hon. gentleman say that these lands were worth $100 an acre?


Frank Oliver: I would not think so; they would not be worth that to me.


William Pugsley: Would the minister be good enough to furnish the House with the [DOT]date at which the agreement to purchase was made by Brown?


William James Roche: The hon. gentleman can read the evidence for himself.


William Pugsley: That is important, and I will tell the hon. gentleman why it is important.


William James Roche: I have not the report before me, but it is on the table of the House and the hon. gentleman can look that up for himself.


Frank Oliver: The Minister of the Interior has insisted on referring to me as having been a party to this transaction, and he fixes the date at a period that would justify the remarks he has made, when as a matter of fact the date was different and would not justify his remarks.


William James Roche: It is stated they were sold in 1910.


Frank Oliver: I do not know when the lands were sold, because I have not the papers before me. My impression is that they were sold approximately ten years between the purchase of .Brown and the sale by Brown, and during that ten years the general price of land in the West appreciated five, six, seven, eight, ten times.


William James Roche: That might apply to lands adjacent to large cities like Edmonton or Calgary, but I know, as a matter of fact, that these lands did not appreciate in value to any such extent.


William Pugsley: I know they did.


William James Roche: At all events, it was represented in the first place that they were only swamp lands covered with water, and Lieut. Governor Brown states they were not worth more than a dollar an acre, but strange to say these gentlemen opposite who are so anxious to make out that this report is an attempt to make political capital against the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, forget that it was he who swore that these lands were worth $100 an acre. I leave the evidence before the country and the House to be judged on its merits. I should say that of these lands there were about 1,000 acres, and 518 acres were purchased at one dollar an acre, and the balance represented half-breed scrip. It was, as I say, about three years after he got the patent that they were expropriated at a price of $25 per acre, bo that this gentleman made very well out of his deal with the late Government, which professed so much solicitude with regard to the manner in which the public domain should be dealt with.
The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) has also spoken about the grazing lease to Mr. H. B. Brown. This matter has been threshed out in the House before, and I am not

going to enter exhaustively in to a discussion of it now. I may say that Mr. H. B. Brown was a mere stool-pigeon for Mr. J. D. McGregor. H. B. Brown lived in Montana and the application was made in his name. He knew nothing about it. Notice after notice, week after week, month after month, were sent to Mr. Brown and never replied to by him. Mr. McGregor and Mr. A. J. Adamson were the power behind the throne, and Mr. Adamson, ex-M.P., is the gentleman who eventually took over this grazing proposition, and H. B. Brown was merely utilized by these gentlemen. There is one point in connection with this deal that looks rather suspicious, and it is this:	Although 28,000
acres of land was what was applied for, in some manner a recommendation was placed on file increasing the amount to
60.000	acres, and that was done by the
present member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) when he was commissioner.	[DOT]
When the hon. member was examined by Mr. Ferguson and asked for an explanation, he failed to give one, and said that he could not give one. No request came from Mr. Brown; he did not know anything about the matter; no reque&t came from Mr. McGregor, so Mr. McGregor stated; and still in some mysterious manner the area was increased from 28,000 to
60.000	acres. This was done without any request except as conveyed by word of mouth and secretly, as there is nothing in the files to show that a request was made. In connection with the rental of this land, Mr. Brown owed arrears of some $2,400, and these were wiped off. Mr. Adamson should have paid them, but he did not dq, so; he was forgiven, and the lease was made a closed irrevocable one, although originally it was a 21-year lease and it could be cancelled by two years' notice being given.
The next point dwelt upon by the hon. gentleman is that of the Kananaskis Coal Company. My hon. friend agrees that employees of the Government should not act as purchasers or middlemen when dealing with the Government in connection with concessions for coal or land irrigation propositions, or anything of that kind, and in that I quite agree with him; but he has stated that the services of all these men in connection with this deal have been dispensed with. Who has dispensed v ith their services? Mr. Howard Douglas was superintendent of the Rocky Mountain park, and he engineered practically the whole deal. There was a certain timber
berth within the Rocky Mountain forest reserve which it was desired to exchange; and in order to get it exchanged, Mr. Douglas associated with himself two of his. own sons, an employee of the Government, another gentleman I think from Medicine Hat, and others. They sent in an application to have the timber area within the reserve exchanged for another area without the reserve. Mr. Douglas was the gentleman to whom they referred the matter for recommendation, and he recommended it, saying it would be an excellent proposition. Why would he not do so? His own two sons and his son-in-law were in the deal, and therefore he recommended it and the exchange was made. Not long afterwards, these gentlemen found out that a certain area of the timber limit was not very remunerative, having very little timber on it. Therefore they applied to have this portion exchanged for another area, but for a time the minister stood out firmly and replied :	" The man in whose name the application is cannot come back again; he must not come back again; he has made one exchange, and he cannot make another." In the meantime, however, Mr. R. G. A. Leech, who by the way was interested in- the same proposition, visited Ottawa and saw the officers of the department, and, strange to say, the minister's fortitude gave way, and while at first he said: " This gentleman must not come back again," he succumbed and allowed the exchange to be made, and these gentlemen got practically a new limit, one that the Government had valued a year or so before at $162,000.


Mr. HENDERSON:: Nothing wrong.


William James Roche: I should also say that the old timber berth was worth about $.12,000. It was Government officials who were seeking these concessions and who obtained the exchange, and still Mr. Howard Douglas was retained in his office until this Government came into power; he was dismissed by this Government; and then questions were placed on the Order Paper as to why this man was dismissed. The evidence goes to show that this gentleman got a Mr. Garrett, an official of the department, to send in an application in connection with this berth, and Mr. Garrett stated that he did not know what he was doing; that he signed what his superior officer asked him to, because he was a subordinate of Mr. Howard Douglas.
The hon. member has discussed the question of the Blood reserve very briefly, and so will I. The grazing privileges were given

ment he would at least have paid over the royalties collected from Mr. Wills during the time that he had no lease. Hon. gentlemen talk about restitution; about investigations in the Public Accounts Committee; about money having been refunded by a clerk in the city of Ottawa; and so on. They clamour for restitution on the part of those who received undue profits; what about restitution in this case?


Frank Oliver: If Mr. Wills says that he paid me $2,000, or $1,000, in the way of royalties before 1911; he states what is absolutely untrue.


William James Roche: He certainly states it.


Frank Oliver: Then he makes a statement that has no semblance of truth in it.


William James Roche: The hon. gentleman admits that he got royalties.


Frank Oliver: Yes, I admit that Mr. Wills paid some royalties.


William James Roche: It is simply a question of the amount.


Frank Oliver: Yes.


William James Roche: I cannot vouch for the accuracy of Mr. Wills' statement as to the amount, but I am glad that the hon. gentleman admits the accuracy of my statement that he accepted royalties when he had no authority to do so, in respect of mines and minerals that he did not own, and of which he had no lease. These royalties have not been paid over to the Government. This emphasizes the point that while a minister of the Crown, and supposed to be the guardian of the Treasury so far as the Department of the Interior was concerned, the hon. gentleman collected royalties in respect of which not one dollar has since been paid over to the Government.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


William Roche: apply it as payment on two quarter-sections which he had sold out of the 23, so that patent might issue for the two quarter-sections.
He stated in his letter that " there are several -precedents for it, and I can produce some of very recent date." The request was refused by the department; they would not allow that. They got very strict with him, and they wrote to him and told him that they would have to cancel his claim. On the 2nd of June, 1910, they wrote a letter to Mr. Fahrni telling him that his purchase of these lands had been cancelled. Prior to this, on May 10, I may say that the sale had been cancelled. I have a memorandum of the department signed by the then deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs, Mr. Pedley, to the following effect:
yVhereas the undermentioned lands in the Michel Indian reserve, standing in the name of Christopher Fahrni, were sold to him subject to the payment of equal annual instalments.
And whereas it has been represented and established to my satisfaction that the condition under which these lands were sold has been violated.
Now therefore by and in virtue of the powers and duties vested in the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs by the Indian Act, chapter 81, section 61, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, I hereby cancel the said sales and resume the said lands.
Frank Pedley.
They dill that, and, of course, it meant that the |5,000 was forfeited. This was followed by a notification on the 2nd of June of the cancellation that had taken place on the 10th of May. On the 2nd of June Mr. Fahrni was communicated with as follows:
Ottawa, 2nd June, 1910.
Sir,-I beg to inform you that the sales of the lands purchased by you in the Michel Indian reserve, on the 5th December, 1906, have been cancelled, the moneys paid thereon forfeited, and the lands resumed by the department in order that they may be disposed of to other purchasers.
There was the notification that cancellation had taken place, that the money had been forfeited, and that the lands were to be placed at the disposal of another eligible applicant. It was on the 2nd of June that he was notified, and on the 3rd of June a letter was sent from Edmonton to the department as follows:
Edmonton, June 3, 1910, Secretary, Department of the Interior,
Ottawa, Ont.
Dear Sir,-Could you oblige me by obtaining for me the addresses of Mr. F. W. Grant and Mr. Christopher Fahrni, who each hold

considerable land purchased in the Michel Indian reserve some years ago and in this district.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Tours very truly,
J. J. Anderson.
I understand that Mr. Anderson is the manager of the Union bank in the city of Edmonton, and I understand also that he has the honour of being the son-in-law of the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver). That application was dated on the 3rd of June, Mr. Fahrni having been notified on the 2nd of June that cancellation had taken place and that the money had been forfeited. Four days after Mr. Anderson had sent his letter from Edmonton, . strange to say, a change came over the spirit of the dreams of those in charge of this affair, and another letter was despatched to Mr. Fahrni, dated 7th of June, which Tead as follows:
Referring to letter addressed you on' the 2nd instant, notifying of cancellation of sales of lands purchased,- by you in the Michel reserve, I beg to say, that upon further consideration it has been decided to allow this matter to stand for the present, and no further action will he taken towards carrying out cancellation.
Why this change of mind at this particular time? Mr. Fahrni had not asked for it. He thought it was all up with him. He had made the modest request that he should be allowed, in order not to forfeit his $5,000, that it should be applied on two quarter-sections out of the 23 sections, but that was not allowed. He was notified of the absolute cancellation which had taken place on May 10, and he had never written any letter to the department as far as I can discover, asking to be reinstated. Notwithstanding that, after the letter was sent to the department by Mr. Anderson, Mr. Fahrni was reinstated and the cancellation proceedings were not gone on with. Why was that done? For several months thereafter there is nothing to show that Mr. Fahrni was requested to make further payments. The department put Mr. Anderson in touch with Mr. Fahrni, and Mr. Anderson, in fact, got in touch with Mr. Fahrni, and he took over the lands from Mr. Fahrni, allowing him the amount of the first payment which he had made less a quarter-section, or $4,900. He took over the purchase that Fahrni had made, paying to Fahrni just his first payment in order to save the money that he had put in, and Mr. Anderson became the purchaser of these lands. These lands were

purchased for in the neighbourhood of $25,000.
There is nothing in the regulations that goes to show that there can be any reinstatement of cancelled lands. I have the regulations here and they do not provide for reinstating any cancelled lands. I have taken the trouble to make some inquiry, and I find that where lands had once been cancelled by reason of the non-fulfilment of the conditions, such as the nonpayment of instalments, no precedent can be found for the reinstatement of these lands even where the purchaser would profess to be able to pay immediately for the same. Mr. Fahrni did not ask for reinstatement; he did not profess to be able to pay; and still, without his request, and after Mr. Anderson had sent in his application to get in touch with Mr. Fahrni, they were reinstated. The provision with respect to forfeiture, section 5 of the Indian Land Regulations, is as follows:
Any violation of the conditions of sale will render the land in respect to which the same has taken place, as well as all moneys paid on account' thereof, forfeitable by order of the Superintendant General of Indians Affairs.
There is nothing in the regulations to provide for reinstatement; notwithstanding that, reinstatement did take place. In the meantime, Mr. Anderson becomes the purchaser of the land that Fahrni had purchased for $25,000. This sale ran along for some time, and it transpired that last year there was another transfer of this land from Mr. Anderson. I have a copy of the transfer, or of the abstract, which shows that these lands were transferred, and the date of the registry of the title was the 2nd of November, 1914. The grantor was John J. Anderson, manager of the Union Bank in Edmonton, and son-in-law of the ex-Minister of the Interior, and he transferred these lands to Mr. Frank Oliver. There is no consideration put in here whatever. Under the heading, " Quantity of land and consideration " are written the words, " transferring above land." It would appear by this form that these lands were transferred without any consideration whatever from Mr. Anderson to Mr. Frank Oliver. That was on the 2nd day of November, which is the date of the registry of the title. On the 4th day of November Mr. Frank Oliver registered a mortgage to the Saskatchewan Savings Society, Limited, to the amount of $25,000 on this land, which was the total amount that Mr. Fahrni had originally bought the land for.
Therefore, according to this, the present .owner, Mr. Frank Oliver, had mortgaged the land to the Saskatchewan Savings Society, Limited, and I am given to understand that the personnel of the Saskatchewan Savings Society consists of the Hon. Arthur Sifton, Mrs. Sifton and Miss Sifton. And so $25,000 was advanced, if I am correctly informed; at any rate, the abstract is absolutely correct, and the significant part of this is that I have here, while that transaction was taking place from Mr. Anderson to Mr. Oliver, a sworn declaration by Mr. Anderson, as to the value at that time, October, 1914, of these lands, and what do you suppose these lands were valued at? I have not read all the correspondence, because I do not wish to inflict too many of these documents on the House at this stage of the session, but here is the correspondence between Mr. Anderson and Mr. Fahrni, when Mr. Anderson was grappling with him for the purchase of the lands, in which Mr. Anderson was trying to persuade Fahrni that he had paid too much entirely for them, although in Mr. Fahrni's reply he stated that he considered he had got them dirt cheap. But if Mr. Anderson considered that Mr. Fahrni bad paid too much for the lands, when he had paid $25,000 for them, I wonder what he thought, when he was making the transfer to the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver), and when he made the sworn declaration that the lands alone, without improvements were of the value of $71,460. Seventy-one thousand four hundred and sixty dollars, Mr. Speaker! No wonder Mr. Fahrni said he had got them dirt Cheap, although Mr. Anderson all the time was telling the poor man, when he was attempting to buy them, that he had paid the top-notch price and that he could not at that time sell them for the price he had paid. Mr. Anderson, through his agent, Mr. Kenneth Macdonald, who is a barrister in the city of Edmonton, makes a declaration in identically the same words as Mr. Anderson himself did, stating that the present value of the lands without improvements was $71,460. These were the lands which were sold to Mr. Fahrni for $25,000, $5,000 of which was paid down, and we have that man squeezed out of his purchase in order that Mr. Anderson might purchase them, and Mr. Fahrni only saved his skin by getting the amount he paid down in on the first payment. Then we have Mr. Anderson holding the lands for a few years and transferring them to his honoured father-in-law for no consideration whatever so far

as the transfer abstract shows, and the hon. gentleman who was the purchaser was able to raise $25,000 thereon through the Saskatchewan Savings Society.
Now, Mr. Fahrni, when all this information came to him, came to the conclusion that he had been,-to use a term I used this afternoon, quoting from Mr. Sifton when he said that Mr. Charles Millar had been buncoed out of the Blood Indian reserve- Mr. Fahrni came to the conclusion that he had been buncoed out of these lands, and he naturaJlly took it very much to heart. He did not think he had had a square deal, and his son, on his behalf, directed a letter to the present member for Edmonton, on March 9, 1915, just about a month ago. Here is the letter:
Gladstone, Man., March 9, 1915, The Honourable Frank Oliver,
House of Commons,
Ottawa.
Dear Sir,-I am writing this letter on behalf of my father, Christopher Fahrni, who was the purchaser of some three thousand acres of land in the Michel Indian Reserve, west of Edmonton in Alberta, in, I think, the year 1906. You are, I have no doubt, entirely conversant with all the facts in connection with the deal, so I will not need to go into same minutely.
I have been looking after my father's business, at least subsequent to and during the year 1910, and you will probably recollect that in June of that year, father not having kept up his payments on the Indian lands to the department, was threatened with cancellation.
At that time it was impossible for us to raise sufficient money to pay the department out for the land, and after receiving several notices from the department, father instructed me to make whatever deal I could with the land, as anything was better than nothing.
At this time we were suddenly approached by one J. J. Anderson of Edmonton, who after endeavouring to beat us down on the price as low as possible, succeeded in purchasing the land from.us. We were under very great pressure of the threatened cancellation from the Government at that time, and felt that we seemed bound to sell at any price, or lose what we had paid. The "whole proceedings of Mr. Anderson looked very bad to me in several different ways, but under the then existing circumstances I could not be a chooser.
Ex-Mayor W. J. McNamara of Edmonton has just come from Ottawa and has laid bare to us what appears to me to be a very infamous conspiracy, in which it appears that you, as Minister of the Interior, using the aforementioned J. J. Anderson who turns out to be your son-in-law, as a blind, made my father the victim.
I need not go into all the details as, as I have already stated you are without doubt familiar with same, but the letter which was written by your department notifying my father of cancellation for the sale of land had the desired effect on my father, and after receiving same he was prepared to do anything, in order to save whatever possible of the money which he had paid down.

Just at this stage, your son-in-law's enquiries came to hand, and naturally we were ready to clutch at anything which would be of advantage to us, and we were prepared to sell at a sacrifice if necessary, provided we could give title.	As soon as the question of our
ability to give title arose, along came the notice from your department, dated June 7, 1910, in which you re-instate our contracts; thus making it possible for us to put a legitimate deal through and your son-in-law, through fraud and misrepresentation, with the connivance of the Department of the Interior, succeeded in obtaining the lands at about one quarter of their real value.
I was of the opinion that at the time of the sale to your son-in-law the land was worth at least $50,000 or $60,000, but your son-in-law insisted that the land was worth less than we had paid for it, and in the end, as I have said, he got it. I find now that the land at that time was as valuable, or more so, than it is now, and, further, upon obtaining a historical abstract of the land from the Land Registration Office at Edmonton, I find that the land has very recently been transferred from your son-in-law to yourself, and that you have raised a loan on same to the extent of $25,000, and that in the affidavits filed, requiring the value of the land to be set forth, same is sworn to be worth over $70,000.
It appears most conclusive to me that we have been defrauded out of some $50,000 which I have no doubt could be obtained by carrying the matter to a civil court, and it further seems to me that a perpetrator of a crime of this kind would also be criminally liable. What I ask, and which I must insist on having, is some restitution of this damage, and unless same is made immediately, all the documents shall be handed over to my solicitor for his attention.
I may say that a good deal of my information has been obtained from Mr. MacNamara, who has evidently spared no pains in unearthing same at Ottawa and elsewhere, and he has promised to give me his co-operation and all the help which he can give me, in order to bring this matter to a successful and just termination.
Kindly address all correspondence in this matter to me direct, as I am looking after this matter fully, and by the time this letter reaches you, my father will not be in Manitoba.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) Stanley H. Fahrni.
* Now, Mr. Speaker, that is a pretty strong letter, and if the statements can be borne out by the facts-and certainly a prima facie case has been made out by the record
I think it is none too strong. Certainly Mr. Fahrni apparently has a very great grievance against the department on the chain of evidence to which I have just alluded, which is set forth on the file, which is set forth in that letter which I have read, and which would strongly indicate that he had every justification for making these statements.
At any rate, what has happened? Five thousand dollars was paid in, and under the regulations $5,000 would have been

forfeited if the Government had allowed the lands to have remained cancelled; and not only would the Government have had the first cash payment of $5,000, but they would have had the land which Mr. Anderson s(wears is worth $71,000. So that the Government only gets $25,000 out of the deal, and there is a direct loss to this country of about $50,000. And yet these gentlemen opposite claim that they have been looking after the interests of the Canadian people and their lands; and in view of this the ex-Minister of the Interior passed a eulogy this afternoon upon the administration of the lands department by the late Government, and he thought it well to hand out a bouquet to himself as exMinister of the Interior, a bouquet which I submit, in the light of these events, is rather of a petrified variety.
I am not going to say that no restitution is coming to this Government, but apparently Mr. Fahrni thinks there is some restitution coming to his father for the manner in which he has been dealt with. I put this matter before the House in all sincerity, because I think it is my duty to do so. It is no pleasure to me to refer to these matters, because I am not of a combative disposition; hut when we listen in this House day after day and week after week to the fulminations of hon. gentlemen opposite against hon. gentlemen on this side, turning and twisting every bit of evidence that is coming out in the committees and scattering it broadcast in the Liberal press throughout the Dominion of Canada, trying to hold the Government responsible for every lapse that has taken place in connection with the vast expenditure of money in the preparations in such a short time for sending the boys to Salisbury Plain, and making ammunition for themselves to do duty on the hustings, the time comes when patience ceases to be a virtue. Therefore I came to the conclusion that as a physician the only treatment I could prescribe was to give my hon. friends opposite a dose of their own medicine.
I am not going to monopolize more of the time of the House, but I may say that I have merely scratched t'he surface, because we could unearth very many more things without referring to Mr. Ferguson at all. Mr. Ferguson's work lasted longer than I anticipated it would last; but he has disclosed sufficient to show that this country has been despoiled of thousands of acres of land, of thousands of acres of timber limits, and of concessions handed out to the political friends of the late Administration;
and this is something to know in order that we may take steps to see that there shall not be a repetition of it in the future and also to place ourselves in a position to demand restitution.
In regard to some of the things to which I have referred there may be some explanation that I know nothing whatever about, and as to which there is nothing on the files to show the contrary of what I have just stated. If so, wS expect to hear it; but at any rate I thought it my duty as Minister of the Interior, when these matters were brought to my attention, to refer to them, in the face of the accusations made by hon. gentlemen opposite against members of the Conservative party; and there is no member of the House of Commons who has sinned in this respect more than my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) with those adjectives and that characteristic language of his, in accusing those of our party who have revealed any of these nefarious transactions as being black-mailers, porch-climbers, thieves and thugs.


Frank Oliver: Hear, hear.


William James Roche: My hon. friend says,
" hear, hear." This is the language used in this House by the ex-Minister of the Interior. When Mr. Ferguson and others have unearthed some of these nefarious transactions of such a villainous character that neither he nor any one else on the other side of the House can defend them, he refers to these gentlemen as thieves, thugs, black-mafilers and porch-climbers. This is the gentleman who held the "position of Minister of the Interior under the late Administration.


Frank Oliver: I am very sorry that I
was too flattering.


William James Roche: We certainly have some
idea of the hon. gentleman's capacity for using adjectives of a most pronounced character. We are quite willing to award him the palm, because for any one on this side of the House to try to rival him would simply be vain.
In view of the taunts flung across the floor of the House from time to time, I have simply thought it my duty to bring these matters up, although Mr. Ferguson did not deal with them. Had he been given a little longer time, I have no doubt that some of the matters to which I have just referred would have been investigated by him, but I think I have made sufficient investigation as to what is in the files to warrant me in making every statement

that I have made to-night. I do not wish to be strong in my language, no matter how great the temptation may be. I have not dealt with this question from a personal standpoint, because I have no personal feeling in regard to the matter. Were I to allow my personal feelings to weigh with me, I would say nothing whatever about these matters; but, being in charge of the department that has been under criticism by hon. members opposite during this session, especially by the ex-Minister of the Interior, I would be expected to do my duty, especially when he is simulating such righteous indignation against what has been exposed in the committees, in showing the character of the Administration which was carried on while he was Minister of the Interior and while the Liberal Government was in power. I think I have disclosed sufficient in the few minutes that I have spent in addressing the House this evening to show that the people of this country did not get rid of the late Government any too soon. The late Government has frittered away the public domain, scattering it out amongst its own political friends. In the light of such events, it ill-becomes hon. gentlemen opposite to attempt to criticise, as they have criticised in this House, the administration either of the Department of the Interior or of any other department of this Government.


Wilfrid Laurier: I have to say at once that I do not rise for the purpose of discussing the matters which have been brought to the attention of the House by my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), followed by my hon. friend the present Minister of the Interior. I must confess my ignorance of the matters under discussion. On Monday morning, on looking over the Votes and Proceedings of the previous Saturday, I found that the Secretary of State had laid two returns on the table of the House. The record in the Votes and Proceedings reads as follows:
Mr. Coderre presented,-Return to an Order of the House, of the 22nd February, 1915, for a copy of the report of investigation held about June 1, 1914, by T. R. Ferguson, as special commissioner, into the allotment of homesteads on the area cut out of the Riding Mountain Forest Reserve in the year 1908 or about that time.
Mr. Coderre laid on the Table of the House, -Report of Thomas R. Ferguson, commissioner appointed to investigate matters pertaining to the Blood Indian Reserve and the acquisition of certain Indian lands by Messrs. James A. Smart, Frank Pedley and William J. White, together with the evidence taken in the said investigation.

I sent at once to the clerk of the House for these reports, and he sent me, not the whole of the report which is now upon the table, but the report concerning the Blood Indian reserve. Looking at it, I found that the reference upon which Mr. Ferguson had acted was not to be found in the paper, and the following day I asked for it and it was laid on the table yesterday. I commenced to read the report; but I am sorry to say that I have not gone veiy far, for I have perused only some 2G or 25 pages. I had not the remotest suspicion at that moment that I would find my name mentioned in this report, nor had I any notice of it until I saw an article in the Ottawa Citizen of this date under the rather glaring headlines:
Western land deal with local end is laid bare-F. P. and H. A. Aylwin and J. A. Robert of Ottawa figure in irrigation case with big profits-negotiation through Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier.
I think it better, for the information of the House and the people and for all concerned, myself in particular, that I should read to the House the whole of this article, which is as follows:
A further report by T. R. Ferguson, K.C., brought down in the Commons this morning, deals with the Aylwin irrigation tract. The application, the report states, was made by F. P. Aylwin, of Ottawa, and the acreage was 69,000. The comm'sdoner finds that E. A. Robert, of Montreal, was largely instrumental in obtaining the grant and that he benefited from it. J. Alfred Robert, of Ottawa, was another beneficiary. The report finds that Mr. E. A. Robert's services were enlisted for a consideration, and that he was paid $12,420 in that connection. The transaction took place in 1909. The land was located 75 miles west of Medicine Hat and in connection with the transaction the report finds that the Messrs. Robert and three others got $18,461 each. The commissioner states that it was not feasible to irrigate the tract.
Mr. Ferguson, dealing with the facts of the case, notes that it was necessary to procure the services of Mr. Robert. The application was made by Cam'lle Pich6, of Montreal, who was then a member of Parliament, and there were five partners: C. H. Newton, of Winnipeg, H. P. Simpson, of Vancouver, F. P. and H. A. Aylwin, of Ottawa, and J. A. Robert, of Ottawa. It was stated that the condition on which E. A. Robert became connected wTiih the case was that his brother should have a fifth interest and he should be paid 18 cents an acre for every acre granted.
The commissioner states that according to the Order in Council $500,000 was mentioned as the cost of the scheme when it was proposed to grant 311,000 acres, and he adds that it was to cost the same amount when 69,000 acres were granted. If the tract could be irrigated he does not see why it was granted and goes on to state that some steps should be taken to prevent speculators acquiring irriga-

tion tracts and making profits by turning them over. This case he refers to as one destined to benefit individual promoters looking for enrichment.
The total amount received by Mr. Robert and his associates was $270,100 which, after providing for expenses and certain amounts paid to associates, left a profit of $92,329.
The commissioner is unable to find that the grant of this land was in the public interest. No great benefit could result to the public from the irrigation of 17,000 acres which was called for in the contract.
A letter is quoted under date of June 19, 1908, wherein Mr. Robert wrote that he had seen the " chief " and had a long talk with him on the matter. . Mr. Robert expressed fears that others might try to get in over his head and he says he got the assurance that if he and his friends did not get in, no others would.
On June 19, 1908, Mr. Robert wrote to H. A. Aylwin in respect to certain other parties wno he feared might get the grant. He expressed the opinion that they would not get it, but that he and his associates would and, if so, they would be dealt with " on terms acceptable to ourselves."
On March 18, 1908, Mr. Robert again wrote Mr. Aylwin to the effect that he understood Mr. Oliver had thrown open the tract to homesteaders. He added that other than being evident that Oliver had not been straight in the matter he would not let it worry him as the matter was in such shape that the grant had to be made or one of a similar size given. "I am going up to see Sir Wilfrid in a day or so," he added, "and perhaps shall have some good news to send you on my return. Keep your friends quiet until you hear from me and I am as certain as ever that you will get your grant of land. The delay has been very annoying and disgusting, but they are in a worse position to refuse it to-day than they were some time ago."
The commissioner observes that Mr. Robert's deals were not with the minister of the department, but with Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Hon. R.' Leiraieux, and that twelve days after the 18th March, the minister took up for the second time consideration of Aylwin's application.
On August 14, 1908, Mr. Robert advised H. A. Aylwin that there was no further need to worry over it, that before many days there would be word that would be satisfactory.
Mr. Ferguson adds that the grant should not have been made until there was a complete investigation to see if the scheme was feasible. No engineers' reports were asked for and the conclusion he comes to is that the " insistent requests of Mr. Robert were the real reason for the grant."
The land was later transferred to the Alberta Land Company, organized by Mr. Robert.
That is the whole of the article. Now I come back to the headlines:
F. P. and H. A. Aylwin and J. A. Robert, of Ottawa, figure In irrigation case with big profits-Negotiations through Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
As to these Messrs. Aylwin, I do not think I know either one or the other. With Mr. J. A. Robert I may have a slight 162
acquaintance. If I ever met him, it was not more than once in my life. Mr. E. A. Robert I know very well, have known him for many years, and have always counted him a friend. The gist of the charges in this paper is the following sentence:
Commissioner observes) that Mr. Robert's deals were not with the minister of the department, but with Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Hon. R. Lem eux, and that twelve days after the 18th March, the minister took up for the second time consideration of Aylwin's application.
There is an inference there, as stated in the headlines, that the negotiations with regard to these lands were through Sir Wilfrid Laurier. I have simply this to say -that to this statement there is not a shadow of truth. Whether the lease was right or whether it was wrong, constitutionally I am responsible, and I do not intend to deny the responsibility which attaches to me, as I was then of the Government. But personally I know nothing of this matter, and if I dealt with it at all-of which I have no recollection at the present time-it was simply departmentally in the absence of the minister. Mr. Robert speaks in one of these letters as having come to me and seen me. Mr. Robert may have seen me; if he says so, he did see me. This article says:
A letter is quoted under daite of June 19, 1908, wherein Mr Robert wrote that he had seen the " chief " and had a long talk with him on the matter. Mr. Robert expressed fears that others might try to get in over his head, and he says that he got the assurance that if he and his friends did not get it, no others would.
I have no exception to take to that; I may have said to Mr. Robert that if he did not get it nobody else would, as he was the first applicant. Of all this I have not at the moment the slightest recollection. Will it surprise the House, will it surprise the Government, most of all will it surprise the Prime Minister, if I say that it is impossible for me, after six or eight years, to remember a private' conversation which may have taken place in my office when I was Prime Minister? Everybody will know that the Prime Minister sees in his office ten, twenty, forty, fifty persons every day, coming with their grievances, some of consequence and some of no consequence; some to whom he will give attention and some to whom he will give no attention. It is a matter of daily occurrence for some one to come to the Prime Minister complaining that he has not had satisfaction from one of his



ministers; and it is also a matter of everyday occurrence, and a matter of common knowledge, that sometimes the Prime Minister deems it his bounden duty to interfere, but in most cases he does not interfere.
Now/ in all fairness, if Mr. Ferguson had wanted to create the impression that I was in any way responsible

personally and not merely constitutionally responsible-that I had anything to do with tlhe transaction right .or wrong, I ask, in the name of fair play, in the name of common honesty, why did not he call me as a witness? I put myself in the judgment of hon. members on the other side as well as of those on this side. I have been for a great many years in public life, and up to this time I have escaped, I think, scandal. Have I not a right, then, if an accusation is to be bandied against me in the public prints, and on the floor of this House, upon the report of a commissioner, to say that at least this man should have -given me the fair play of an opportunity of stating my version of the case? How can I be expected to give any information upon this subject? But I am satisfied of one thing-I have not had time to look at the evidence; my attention was called to this matter only two hours ago; but I should be very much surprised if Mr. Robert ever stated that I was an intermediary in connection with these negotiations. The evidence has Been examined by hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House, and, if they can find in it anything to that effect, I invite them to bring it to my attention. I have tried to find in the report evidence to justify the assertion that I was an intermediary in this matter; I find no statement, but some insinuations. I think I ought to read the conclusion of Mr. Ferguson's report; it is as follows:
So far as Mr. P. P. Aylwin, the nominal applicant was concerned, he was not considered. Mr. Robert was the active man. Again I say; if this tract could not be irrigated, why was it granted? It seems unaccountable, unless one concedes that it was to satisfy the requests of Mr. E. A. Robert and his associates. The claims made from time to time by him in his letters to his associates, in which he insists frequently that he will secure the tract; his actions in buying out the interests of Charles H. Newton, and assuming a liability of $23,600 and agreeing to pay $5,000 as a bonus after the tract had been thrown open to homesteading, all goes to show that he, at least, was satisfied that departmental action was of no importance- that in the end he would get the tract. He was not, it is true, aware of all that was going on in the department. At the earlier stages of the application, at any rate, he believed that there would be granted something over 300,000 acres, and apparently he did not for months learn of

the practical cancellation of the tract. After he had learned of it, he persisted, and the small tract was granted. Even then he did not know that the irrigation privileges and rights no lpnger accompanied the grant, although they were a most material portion of the grant. Nevertheless, undeniably it was the efforts of Mr. E. A. Robert which procured the grant of the tract.
After a consideration of the grant of this irrigation tract, and of the tract of the Southern Alberta Land Company, I am of the opinion that there should be a change in the department in connection with the granting of the irrigation traots. As is mentioned in my report relative to the Southern Alberta Land Company, I consider that irrigation tracts should not be granted to private individuals or to corporations, but that such irrigation schemes should be undertaken by the Government for the benefit of the country at large. If such a course is not followed, then there should be some regulation governing the amount of acreage to be granted, and providing also that no tract should under any circumstances be granted until the fullest and completest details as to the feasibility of -the scheme are placed before the department and the department is satisfied that the scheme can and will be fully carried on to completion. Some course should be followed to prevent speculators acquiring tracts and making large profits by turning them over. All such profits form a charge upon the lands which the settler must ultimately pay, and certainly cannot be in the interests of the public at large. In connection with the Southern Alberta tract, no proper government inspection and report was made, the reports of engineers of that company were used when the stock was marketed and when the shareholders' engineers took charge and began to examine the scheme, it was found to be utterly impracticable as an irrigation scheme. This has all been discussed elsewhere, in connection with my report in that matter.
I conclude by saying that this seems to have been really a granting of this particular tract to individual promoters, who looked for enrichment. That they did not make very large sums out of it is not fault of theirs. If these applicants had been informed that the Government policy was such that they must bind themselves to irrigate, that they would not be allowed to sell or dispose of their interests, but that they must irrigate and begin the work and carry it on themselves, it is altogether likely that they never would have endeavoured to acquire this tract. In such an event, in this case, at any rate, these purchasers would not have acquired it, as they would necessarily have taken the trouble to learn, and have learned, that the tract could not be irrigated,
It is satisfactory to learn from this report that the country did not suffer very much if it suffered at all, in connection with this matter. I deny absolutely the charge that I was an intermediary, that the negotiations passed through my hands. Although my memory is a blank as to the circumstances, I say without hesitation that that charge is false. I appeal to the sense of fair play of every man in this House as to whether it was not the duty of the

commissioner, if any insinuations were to be made against me, to allow me to make an explanation in the matter. I would have produced my correspondence and allowed him to overhaul everything in order to find out the truth. Constitutionally, whether or not the transaction is wrong, I have to take the responsibility, and I do not intend to disclaim that responsibility.
I am not here to ask favours from anybody;
I am here simply to uphold my rights as a citizen of Canada, and to defend the good name which I have preserved through a pretty long life. As to what was done under the administration of the late Government, it is open to hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House to make what charges they can make, to find out what has been wrong, if anything, and to have restitution made to the Treasury if the Treasury has suffered by anything that we did. As I say, I am not here to ask any favours, but certainly, as a citizen of Canada and as a member of this House, I am entitled to justice and fair play at the hands of hon. gentlemen opposite.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I have not had an opportunity of reading the whole of this bulky report in connection with the Aylwin irrigation tract, which has been debated this afternoon and this evening in the House, but my attention has been called to a synopsis of the report which was published by the Ottawa Journal. I have read that synopsis, and it is because my name happens to be mentioned therein that I wish to offer a few remarks in connection with this matter. I suppose this synopsis was carefully prepared, and represents substantially the evidence adduced at the investigation held by Mr. Ferguson.
Let me first read the evidence on which Mr. Ferguson bases the conclusion wherein he connects the name of the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) and my own name with this matter. I call the attention of my fellow members
9 p.m. to the evidence given by Mr. Robert in the presence of the commissioner, as follows:
Commissioner: Did you interview the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) up to that time?
Mr. Robert: Oh, I may have. It is quite probable I did.
Commissioner: What other members?
Mr. Robert: At this moment I can't recollect, but I think I may have seen Mr. Lemieux, the member for the district.
Commissioner:	That is the Hon. Rodolphe
Lemieux?
Mr. Robert: Yes, it is quite probable I would go first to the minister of my district. I do not
know in that interview that is referred to what minister I saw.
I quote the following from the same publication, dealing with the report made by Mr. Ferguson:
Twelve days after the date of that letter the minister took up for the second time the dues-, tion of the consideration of Aylwin's application. Mr. Robert's dealings were not with the man who administered the department, but with two oilier ministers-Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux. His certainty that he could procure the grant is evinced by the fact that within a few weeks after March 18th, 1908, and with knowledge of the action of the Minister of the Interior, he purchased the interests of Mr. C. H. Newton.'
Of course, I could leave the ease as it is summarized here and take my seat, because I see nothing in the evidence to connect my name with this matter. First of all, Mr. Robert does not swear that he had seen me. He says it is probable he may have seen me, but he does not recollect. He says he may have seen the minister of the district. As a matter of fact, you will remember that in 1909 I was not what in political parlance we call the minister of this district or of another district; I was not, at all events, the minister representing the district in which Mr. Robert lived, the district of Montreal. If I was the minister of any district,
I was the minister belonging to the Quebec district. I may say further that I do not know Mr. Aylwin and I did not know of the case until I read of it this evening in the Evening Journal. It is not possible for a member of a Government to remember all the Orders in Council that are passed, knowing that thousands are passed, I will not say monthly, but annually, by the Council. I did not know of that Order in Council. Mr. Robert never spoke to me, because I had no business with him, not being the minister of his district; and I never spoke, I say it with emphasis, to my colleague, the Hon. Mr. Oliver, then Minister of the Interior, as regards this transaction, and I cannot see how Mr. Ferguson can base such a conclusion on the evidence of Mr. Robert. Let me repeat again, to show how unfair are the conclusions of the commissioner.
Q. Mi*. Robert, what other members did you see?-A. At this moment I cannot recollect, but I think I may have seen the Hon. Mr. Lemieux, the minister for the district.
I was not minister for the district.
Q. That is, the Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux?- A. Yes. It is quite probable that I would go first to the minister of my district. I do not know in that interview that is referred to what minister I saw.

How in the name of common-sense, and in the name of fair-play could Mr. FeTguson conclude from that evidence that it was through dealings of the right hon. gentleman and myself that this case was promoted in the Department of the Interior? I say it again, I have had nothing whatever to do with it, and this is the first time I have known of this case-only this evening, by reading what has been published in the 'Ottaw.a press.


Mr. J. G. TURRIFF (Asainiboia):: Mr. ^Speaker, in connection with this matter it is not my intention to take up the time of the House for more than a very few minutes. You have seen the bulky reports that have been brought down within the last couple of days, and I think every hon. member on the other side of the House who is-actuated by the ordinary spirit of fair-play will recognize that it is rather a difficult matter for any one to go through these reports and understand them on so short a notice. I am not going here to make any particular complaint of the report that Mr. Ferguson has brought down in so far as my name has been connected with a couple of these transactions, for the simple reason that I do not understand them fully, I have not had time or opportunity to go through them. And I want to say further that these matters have all engaged the attention of this House many years ago. I refer to those with which my name has been connected while I was Commissioner of Dominion Lands. As I have not been Commissioner of Dominion Lands for at least eleven years, it is.all ancient history. It was brought up and dealt with in the House and before the Public Accounts Committee many years ago, and there is nothing new, so far as I know, in these reports. Therefore, I do not intend to take up the time of the House in going into them. If my hon. friends opposite think that by handling these reports and bringing up these old matters again they can do me any particular injury in my constituency, or do the Liberal party any particular injury, why, they are welcome to do so. So far as I am personally concerned, in my own constituency, they are doubly welcome to attempt it. They tried it once, many years ago, and did not make very much of it, simply because there was nothing much to be made of it.
So far as the Craven lands are concerned, and so far as the Brown lease was concerned, the lease was not issued until a year or a year and a half after I left the depart-

ment. I shall not shelter myself behind that in any shape or form. The application was made while I was there, and it was all done according to the usual routine of the regulations. The only criticism, as I understand, that has been made is that the rental was not charged from the time the application was made. I venture to observe, and" the Minister of the Interior will, I think, bear me out, that in no case is rental charged until a lease is granted. In this case the rental was charged when the lease was granted, but not for the time that elapsed between the application for the lease and the time that it was granted.
Some remarks have been made about the selling of the Craven lands at a dollar an acre. Let me point out that the application was made in the year 1899. If my memory serves me aright, the sale was made in 1900 or 1901. At that time it was the practice of the department, where lands in that district were sold, to sell them at a dollar an acre. A dollar an acre was the full value of the land. If my memory is correct-and I am not certain, because this happened some 12 or 15 years ago-some of these lands had been homesteaded twice and abandoned by the homesteaders because they could not fulfil the homestead duties, and because the lands were not worth taking out a patent for, in the judgment of the homesteaders. The lands were subject to overflow from Long lake. Some years the water would recede and there would be a crop of hay on the lands, but in many years there was not a ton of hay. At that time Mr. Brown, who subsequently bought the land, was a farmer in that vicinity. He was also a rancher. He went in for mixed farming. He had a large bunch of cattle and made application to purchase some of these lands and, under the ordinary routine of the department,. he was allowed to purchase some 500 acres at one dollar an acre and he put script on some further area of land, totalling about 1,000 acres. Let me point out that at that very time the Regina and Long Lake Railway Company had a grant of one million or one million and a half acres of especially selected land, dry land, not land subject to overflow; and they were offering those lands at $1.25 an acre and could not sell them. Let me further point out that all through that part of the country where to-day the land is of the greatest value, down along the Sault line in the vicinity of Weyburn, later than the time these lands were purchased by Brown, the Canadian Pacific Railway sold hundreds

of thousands of acres for $2.50 an acre. Three or four years ago ordinary farm lands that had been bought for $2.50 an acre in that part of the country around Weyburn, Yellowgrass and up as far as Rouleau, were transferred at $60 and $70 an acre. Anybody could have gone and picked up the choicest quarter-sections in that part of the country at $3 an acre.
My hon. friend made the statement that this land that Mr. Brown had bought for $1 an acre was sold two or three years afterwards for $25 an acre. My hon. friend is mistaken as to the time that elapsed between the purchase and sale of these lands. They were purchased somewhere about 1901 and 1902 and sold nine or ten years later. There is nothing wonderful about that advance in value.


Arthur Meighen: The sale, or the expropriation, is shown by the evidence to have taken place in 1906.


John Gillanders Turriff: The sale by whom?


Arthur Meighen: By Mr. Brown.


John Gillanders Turriff: I have not the papers
before me and the Solicitor General may have examined them, but I think he is mistaken when he says the lands were sold by Mr. Brown, or were expropriated in 1906.


William Pugsley: The trial in the Exchequer Court took place in 1909.


John Gillanders Turriff: If the Solicitor General
is right that the sale took place in 1906, then I am wrong as to the time that elapsed between the purchase of the lands and the time at which they were expropriated. But you must remember that the price of this land was fixed by the Exchequer Court. I was Commissioner of Dominion Lands at that time, and when the application came before me, as hundreds of others came before me, my decision was to allow Mr. Brown to purchase this land in 1901, or 1902, at the usual price at which lands were sold at that time, namely $1 an acre. I made those decisions in the absolute belief that I was doing exactly right and, after a lapse of ten or twelve years from the time that these transactions took place, I have nothing to take back and I am absolutely satisfied that I then was right. I have no reason whatever to think that I did wrong in my position at that time. It is a very simple matter for a commissioner to come ten or twelve years afterwards and make any sort of a report that he chooses. I am not complaining about the
report. If he wants to make a report of that sort, well and good. We have the report and he has the money for making it. If the Government think it is worth while, well and good. As far as I am concerned, I have nothng to apologize for and nothing to take back in any shape, manner or form. I think I was in a better position to judge at that time than this commissioner is to judge at this time of what was a proper decision to come to on a matter of this kind ten or twelve years ago.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, the report of Mr. Ferguson which has bean placed on the Table of the House is a vastly important one. It comprises some eleven different subjects that have been under investigation by him for something over a year. It was laid on the table of the House as soon as we were able to lay it on and I can assure the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) and all concerned, that there was not, and is not now, any intention to take any advantage whatever by reason of the time at which it was there laid. If it is their desire to have an opportunity later on for a fuller perusal than has been open to them, or for more ample discussion, I am sure that on this side of the House there will be no opposition whatever. Any suggestion that may come from them in that regard will be met in the frendliest spirit by us.
I have never been able to appreciate the force of the contention that because a subject is up before us for discussion at the latter end of a session necessarily it must be slurred over and improperly considered. The latter end of the session should be of as much importance to us, and its hours should be made as valuable to us and to the country, as are those of any other part. It is complained this afternoon that we have pretty much finished the other business, that the Estimates are voted, that even that long protracted consideration of the Act for soldiers' votes is over and that, inasmuch as we have no other business to transact, we cannot afford now to give time to the subject under discussion. I would have thought the argument would have proven the other way, that as we are now freed for the most part from the ordinary matters of public concern, we can devote our minds simply and solely to this subject and that there is no reason in the world to hurry until we are through with it, until all have had their say and have had time to say it.

1 rise to address the House on the subject of this report, the debaite having been introduced by the motion of the one hon. member of this House most concerned, the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver). I arise in no spirit of personal antipathy to him, nor indeed to any hon. member concerned. Since I have had a seat in Parliament there is no associate in ithis House on either side with whom my personal relations have been more cordial than they have been with the hon. member for Edmonton. At the same time the subjects in the discussion of which his name appears are subjects of public concern and we would never do our duty if by reason of any personal relations we omitted to state the plain facts that appear in those subjects and make known to thp country our opinions and the course of conduct we intend to take regarding them.
It is complained on the other h^nd by the hon. member for Assinaboia (Mr. Turriff) that he has not had time to review the report. The report, or a large part of it, has been on the table since Saturday morning last; the rest of it has been on the fable since Monday morning last and it is now Wednesday night. His complaint also is that the subjects are too old and that in so far as his connection with them is concerned the discussion has very little interest for him at all because he is utterly unable to remember anything about these matters and that the records consequently are all we can rely on and if the records are against him he is satisfied and it has to go aJt that. We are not going to meet that objection of the hon. member for Assiniboia certainly by any further delay. The longer we continue the discussion the stronger the objection will become.
What are the subjects before us and why axe they here ? It was thought at one time that the session of Parliament upon which we are launched, and which is now nearing its conclusion, would be a non-controversial session.
If that had been carried out, if the Opposition had made it possible for the Government to have carried out that intention, then indeed, in my opinion, this report could not have been presented. But, has the course of conduct (of the Opposition been such that it was open for us to choose? From the opening of this session cto the close, their course of conduct has been such that never since the Government was returned to power has

the spirit of partisanship been so aroused and excited as it has been by them. There is no trick of party controversy to which they have not resorted, and by means of their press chiefly, as well as by their speeches in Parliament, they have been endeavouring by uistortion and by every other unworthy resort to cast aspersions on hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, and to make for themselves weapons for an election. And if there is one hon. gentleman more than another who has addressed himself with assiduity to that task, and has never waited for the verdict of committees, and has never waited for the evidence, to come to a conclusion, but who has been Teady in advance to find everybody on this side guilty of everything charged by hon. gentlemen opposite, and to denounce us with adjectives and language that he only can command, it is the hon. member for Edmonton. The language which he adopts to-night, in reference to the commissioner who has made this report-a report so fully substantiated by the evidence produced that even the hon. member for Assiniboia says the has no fault to find with it-the language he has adopted to-night in castigation of that commissioner has been equalled only by the language he has hurled across the floor at ourselves, ever since the opening of this session. He tells us to-night that the revelations here laid before the people of Canada by Mr. Ferguson are so trivial and reflect so little on him and on the Government of which he was a member, and reflect so little on the department over which he presided, that it amounts in fact to a certificate of character upon which he is ready to appeal to the people of Canada.
I want to examine this certificate of character, and I take it that if this is the certificate upon which hon. gentlemen opposite purpose to appeal, then what is revealed here is the character of administration which the people of Canada may expect if they send hon. gentlemen opposite back to office.
The disclosures that are first revealed in the report have to do with lands in western Canada; they have chiefly to do with lands in the very district from which I come. I have not been unfamiliar for many years gone by with the character of transactions revealed in this first report. I heard about them in the last election contest:
I heard more about them, in the contest that preceded the last. Throughout those campaigns, it was reported to me over and over again that we might just as well cease our

efforts to succeed in the Riding Mountain district and in the Dauphin country, because the homestead frauds perpetrated there were such that the Liberal party had a grip on the vote.
The light hon. the ex-Prime Minister tells us that the doings of his Government iand of its departments are open to investigation, and that if we find anything wrong we have a right to reveal it and to demand restitution. Yes, the doings of his Government are open to investigation now; they became open to investigation on the 10th of October, 1911, when he threw down the seals of office and when the right hon. gentleman who now honours the post of Prime Minister took them up. But prior to that day, they were not open to investigation; prior to that day he and his followers behind him, over and over again, resisted motions, resisted resolutions, resisted every effort made by us as we sat in Opposition to have the very subjects which are here revealed investigated by committees of this House. Resolution after resolution, and motion after motion, calling for commissions to investigate these very subjects, were voted down at the right hon. gentleman's behest, and now because we have investigated them at the very first opportunity we had, the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) comes forward and says: there is nothing at all to investigate as regards several of them at least, because the men who committed the frauds are out of office.
What were these frauds in the Riding Mountain district? The hon. gentleman tells us that they are nothing in which the country is concerned at all. Why? Because he says that all these lands were open to homesteading anyway, and that if these fellows did not get them somebody else would, and the country would not have them, and, therefore, we have no concern. That is the attitude assumed to-day by the hon. member for Edmonton. There was a Riding Mountain forest reserve, that skirted the northern portion of my constituency, and the southern portion of the constituency of the member for Dauphin (Mr. Cruise). That forest reserve was defined by legislation of years gone by. It was found, according to the definition of that legislation, that there were large acreages that were not adapted to forestry at all, and that consequently should be thrown open for homesteads. The farmers of the district and all other districts observed-and doubtless some of them were advised in advance by hon. gentlemen opposite and by the minister of the day,-that it was altogether likely that certain portions would subsequently become open for homestead entry. Many became squatters upon lands in that district; some became squatters upon lands within the territory that afterwards became the restricted area of the forest reserve, and others again became squatters on lands which afterwards were thrown outside the new limitation of the forest reserve. With these men it became the duty of the ministry of the day to deal, and when it was determined to throw open for entry the lands outside the new restricted area of the reserve the squatters on those lands became entitled to priority of entry by virtue of the regulations then in force. There were squatters inside the new limits, there were squatters outside the new limits, and what was the policy pursued by the hon. member for Edmonton, then Minister of the Interior? He selects one of hi3 henchmen, a man who was appointed to office for his services to the Liberal party, and one of the most pronounced partisans that ever infested western Canada, a man who to-day stands as admitting under oath that he used his office altogether to advance the interests of the Liberal party and for no other purpose at all; the then Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) invests this man with uncontrolled authority by letter, and he notifies the agent of Dominion Lands to the effect that W. A. Davis, a forest ranger, appointed by his Government, could go on his own will hither and thither, and any man that he recommended for an entry in that new forest reserve or without that new reserve should get that entry without any further inquiry whatsoever. Yet the hon. member tells us that that is .something with which the country is not concerned at all, because, as he says, if he did not give the lands to Shis friends somebody else would get them. What did Davis do? He goes to the printing press and he gets printed several hundred orders addressed to F. K. Herchmer, Esq., saying: "Please permit
Mr. 
to enter for 

lands, and this is
your authority; signed W. A. Davis, forest ranger."
He hands these to Mr. Samuel Cohen and to Mr. Albert McLeod, selected, as he admits, because they are the very best party workers he knows, and these men take these blanks, and they utilize them as an engine of the Liberal party to award the public lands of this country to henchmen of the party in Manitoba. If there is a weapon within the grip of a Government

which illegitimately and illegally used will be certain to corrupt the electorate for election purposes, it is the weapon of these Dominion lands. Was there any restraint put upon Mr. Davis? There was not the least; he had the minister's own authority for what he did; the minister was at the Dominion Lands office at the time he did it, and the minister, sitting in the Dominion Lands .office, wrote him a letter which ratified his authority to do it. He goes on with the work, and hundreds of men who had no right to entries whatever, are given entry for Dominion lands by the authority of the then Minister of the Interior of Canada. Amongst these men is one gentleman, now an hon. member of this House, a man who has done nothing wrong at all, says the ex-Minister of the Interior, but a man whom his own henchman, Mr. Davis, swore got an entry under that system to which he had no right whatever under the law. What does Mr. Cruise do? He goes up to the Riding Mountain reserve and picks up a good quarter-section, although the reserve is not thrown open for entry yet. Does he build a house on it and reside on it and become a squatter prior to the throwing open for entry? Not at all. He builds four walls without a roof; he does not live on the quarter-section for a day; and, after he gets the four walls up, he thinks that he has done enough, and he comes back to his farm in Dauphin; and up to the time he made his entry, yes, up to the time he got his patent, he had not lived on the quarter-section, and how could he be a squatter if he did pot live on it? He gets the entry, but he is no worse than hundreds of others who get entries in the same manner; and the man responsible and the man guilty, is not half so much Mr. Cruise or the other men who availed themselves of the rewards of this system as the then Minister of the Interior, who permitted, authorized and ratified the system after he knew what was going on, and who accepted the results of the system in the election of 1908. Let me put this to the right hon. the leader of the Opposition: What does he think of the management of the Department of the Interior under his regime by the hon. gentleman Opposition: what does he think of the management is now shown to have been used by the then minister and by his henchmen for the purpose of electing the Liberal representative of Dauphin aud for no other purpose whatever? Does the leader of the Opposition think he is entitled to the votes
fMr Meighen.l
of the Liberal member for Dauphin which have been given obediently at his command for the Liberal party in this House all through this Parliament, after he sees how those votes were got under the system which has been revealed ? I suffered from this system also; men from my own county were promised by this man and by his henchmen homesteads in the Dauphin district if they would support the Liberal nominee. These promises were made over and over again, and I lost votes by them, and those votes were bribed and paid for under the authority of the hon. member for Edmonton. The letters are on record, and there are others here in the evidence which are not on record, but which are not essential to the proof. It is not a matter of dispute; the man who did this work swore that he did it and told why he did it. He allowed himself to be made a tool of his party; and when he was under oath, he was ready to admit it. He employed two men, Cohen and McLeod, because he said that they could not be beaten in the country for seeing to it that wherever the party would get an advantage, they would give it the advantage, and when he was asked: "were you not just the same?" the answer was:	" Sure." He resigned
shortly after the present Government was installed in office, by the votes of the people of Canada, and I presume his resignation comes within the class of those complained of by hon. gentlemen opposite- those that were made under pressure and that amounted to dismissal, because, as hon. gentlemen opposite say, the men did not get a fair show at all. Yes, Mr. Davis ' resigned, and many others resigned under similar circumstances; but they were retained in office by the ex-Minister of the Interior after he knew, and after the records showed that he knew, the wrong which they perpetrated against the people in Canada and against the voters of that district, by his authority and undeT his supervision. Why did the hon. 'member for Edmonton retain Mr. W. A. Davis as forest ranger after he knew that Mr. Davis had disposed of lands of the people of Canada by the hundreds of acres, by the hundreds of quarter-sections, illegally, fraudulently and for political purposes ? The hon. member for Edmonton is in the same position to-day as if he himself had acted the part of Mr. W. A. Davis, and had awarded homestead entries by the hundred in the Riding Mountain district in order to gain an illegitimate and illegal party advantage over his political

opponents in those parts. If he had dismissed Mr. Davis, if he had called him to account, if he had visited upon him any punishment whatever after he knew the facts, then he might have absolved himself. Did he know the facts? He did not deny this afternoon that he knew the facts; he knew of the deeds when they were being perpetrated; they were brought to his attention at the time, and the letters are on the file. He kept Mr. Davis in office, however, and he thereby added his seal to the wrongs perpetrated by Mr. Davis in that district.
But the Davis case is not all; the Cruise case is not all; there are ten more and they seem to grow in importance, each one over the one before it. We come next to the Pedley ease. Mr. Pedley is dismissed,. it is true, or he has resigned-I do not know which, and I do not think it makes much difference. Mr. Pedley has resigned and because he has resigned, the hon. member for Edmonton says: you do not need any report on this matter at all; why do you send Mr. Ferguson after Mr. Pedley when Mr. Pedley is not an officer of the department? Nobody knows better than the hon. member for Edmonton that, when Mr. Ferguson started -out after Mr. Pedley, and when he acquired a knowledge of these nefarious transactions, Mr. Pedley was still Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, and the reason why he does not hold that position any longer is this, that as soon as the facts were revealed by the Ferguson report, he threw down the seals and fled from his office as from a hissing -snake; but he would not be out of his position to-day if it had not been for Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Ferguson's report, and according to the hon. member for Edmonton he should not be out of his position yet. Does he condemn the transactions of Mr. Pedley? Did he do so when he was on his feet this afternoon? No, Mr. Pedley had not one word of criticism at my hon. friend's hands. Speak about certificates of character! My hon. friend gave Mr. Pedley a certificate of character just as valuable as the one Mr. Ferguson gave him. Why, he said, Mr. Pedley is an honourable man; he can stand up and look the Prime Minister of Canada or anybody else in the face. Be is a friend of Mr. Pedley's still. And, Sir, Mr. P-edley, the man found guilty on hi-s own evidence, is to-day in the employ of the Liberal party, their organizer in Northern Ontario. Mr. Pedley is out of office to-day; there is no doubt about that.
He got out of office very quickly, as soon as he was found out, and he will be out of office until a certain day and no longer- the day when the Liberal party is restored to power in this Dominion. Then he will get his reward the same as Wagner got his reward, the same as many others got their rewards, when the ex-Minister of the Interior was in office.
Mr. Pedley in the year 1902 received applications for grazing leases in the Blood reserve. He got one in December of that year from Mr. McLaughlin -and Mr. Millar, of Toronto. These men were in correspondence with Mr. Pedley for this grazing lease. As a result of that correspondence and of an interview with Mr. Pedley of the 21st of April following, they came to the conclusion that they were entitled to the lease and proceeded to arrange their affairs accordingly. They proceeded to secure a number of cattle to stock the land, and to employ a foreman and to prepare to take possession, believing that the lease was at hand and that they were the first and were entitled to it. What happened? The interview to which I have referred was on the 21st April. On the 22nd April an application comes in by Mr. Donald Mc-Ewan of the city of Brandon, asking for a grazing lease for the same land. On the 6th of the same month Mr. Pedley, at the request of a legal firm in Ottawa, acting supposedly for this same Donald McEwan, wrote Mr. McEwan a letter authorizing him to go upon the reserve and make any arrangement he could with the Indians inhabiting the reserve. It was apparently his intention, as far back as the 6th of that month, to grant this grazing lease to McEwan. On the 22nd, after he had written the letter, the application comes in. Now, this application of Donald McEwan is revealed by the evidence to be really the application of Peter Ryan, of Toronto, who used the name of McEwan and gave McEwan four shares of the stock of -the company for the use of hi-s name. Mr. Peter Ryan, of the city of Toronto, is shown to be a close friend of the-Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs. So close friends are they that when Mr. Ryan is hard up he draw's and kites upon Mr. Pedley, and when Mr. Pedley is hard up he operates through Mr. Ryan. Such is the evidence given by Mr. Ryan himself. That has been going on for some years. So Mr. Ryan comes along with the-application in the name of Donald McEwan; and from that hour until now

Messrs. McLaughlin & Millar, those who have rights by priority, are hurled to the winds, and Mr. Ryan is the only man considered. Why? There is a declaration of trust set out in the evidence verbatim, produced and made an exhibit, which shows that Mr. Peter Ryan held this 6 per cent of the stock of the company that was to get the lease for Mr. A. C. Bedford-Jones, a lawyer of the city of Toronto. And there is a declaration by Mr. Bedford-Jones, who takes the 6 per cent, naming himself as trustee, and stating that he holds that f>
per cent for Frank Pedley, of the city of Ottawa-a declaration of trust not made in writing, and exposable in writing, but made by Mr. Bedford-Jones, according to his evidence under oath, and latterly admitted by Mr. Frank Pedley himself.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who is Mr. Pedley?


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Pedley at that time was the Deputy Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs under the Government of that day; he was the man who had the granting of these leases; he is the man who turned McLaughlin and Millar down, and took Mr. Peter Ryan, under the name of Donald McEwan, as the proper party to get the lease. Six per cent of the stock Mr. Bedford-Jones holds as trustee. These facts are brought before Mr. Frank Pedley in evidence. He is confronted with the declaration by the commissioner that he was the real owner of that 6 per cent. What does he do? He denies it under oath- never heard of it; did not know anything about it; denies it over page after page of the evidence. I can read his denial. 1 turn to page 15 of his evidence:
Q. Were you ever offered by Peter Ryan or any person on his behalf, or on behalf of Donald McEwan or Donald McEwan and Company, any interest in that privilege of concession?-A. No, never.
Q. And you never acquired any interest in it?-A. No, I did not.
Q. Do you know of any officer or official either in the Indian Department-I am putting it correctly, when I say Indian Department, am I not?-A. Yes.
Q. Well, do you know of any officer or official in the Indian Department who acquired any interest in it directly or indirectly either from Donald McEwan, Peter Ryan, or any person else?-A. I do not.
Q. Now, referring to these documents. I see in one of the documents to which i have just referred, dated 10th October, 1904, of which Peter Ryan of Toronto is the party of the first part and Alban C, Bedford-Jones party of the second part, Jones is set out there to be
trustee. You see that, do you not?

A. Yes,
I see that.
Q. I wish to know from you if you know for whom Jones was trustee?-A. I do not.
fMr. Meighen.j
Q. Jones is on the face of that document apparently trustee for some person?-A. Yes.
Q. Now I ask you if you can help me to ascertain who that person is for whom he was trustee.-A. No, I do not know anything about it. The first time these documents came to us would be as per the date of Millar's letter, the 17th December, 1912.
Q. I see by these documents to which I am referring and in which Alban C. Bedford-Jones is trustee that he acquired from Peter Ryan as trustee six per cent of the total profits resulting from the enterprise which Ryan assigns him?-A. Yes.
Q. The enterprise referred to, as appears by this document, is the ranching enterprise on the Blood Indian Reserve granted to Donald McEwan?-A. Yes.
And later on:
Q. I put it to you that when Jones received that cheque of $1,000 from Charles Millar, he gave you, if not the entire sum, a portion of it, did he?-A. No. .
Q. You say you had no interest in it at all? [DOT]-A. I beg your pardon?
Q. You say you had no interest in it at all? 

A. No, no interest at all.
Q. And you never received any part of that thousand dollars?-A. No.
Pretty strong evidence, pretty strong swearing by this gentleman who could look anybody in the face, even the Prime Minister of Canada. I quote further from his evidence:
Q. Then Peter Ryan was not indebted to you in any money at the time of the assignment of this 6 per cent interest to A. C. Bedford Jones?-A. Oh, no.
Q. So that that could not have been given by Ryan to A. C. Bedford-Jones in payment of any moneys which he owed to you?-A. No, it could not.
Q. Is it possible that Peter Ryan assigned this interest to you in the Blood .Indian reserve to pay any moneys he owed you?-A. No.
Q. I am referring to the agreement between Peter Ryan and A. C. Bedford-Jones of the 10th October, 1904, and I show you the papers. That is the paper to which we have been referring in your examination this morning, which purports to be a copy of the agreement of the 10th of October, 1904, between Peter Ryan of the first part and A. C. Bedford-Jones, trustee, of the second part. This is the agreement to which we were referring this morning?-A. Yes.
Q. I am now saying that that was not given by Peter Ryan and could not have been given by Peter Ryan for any moneys he owed you? -A. No.
Q. Or for any indebtedness of Peter Ryan to you?-A. No.
It is apparent that no matter how often the question was repeated; he was ready with a denial of the suggestion that he ever had the slightest interest in that lease; that he ever had the slightest interest in Mr. Bedford-Jones's trusteeship; that he ever received a dollar from him; that on account of any business relations between

him and Peter Ryan there could have been an .assignment of that interest for him, or a declaration of that interest as held in trust for him. I quote further:
Q. Was there any dealing between you and Peter Ryan or anybody on his behalf whereby you should receive or that anybody should receive on your behalf that 6 per cent interest? -A. No, there was not.
This is important evidence, in the light of the facts which are revealed a few pages further on.
Q. Had you any understanding about any per cent of interest?-A. No.
Q. With any person?-A. No.
Q. What does Jones mean when he says he remitted you out of the moneys which Charles Millar paid him, a certain portion of that money?-A. Well, it means I did not get it, if he remitted it.
Lost in the mails.
Q. Had you any knowledge that he was making a remittance to you of any money, or that he ever did make a remittance of any such moneys?-A. No.
What turns up a little later? Mr. Bedford-Jones is again examined; Mr. Bedford-Jones produces his cheques, and then the commissioner comes back to Mr. Pedley, who, as the hon. member says, using the words of Mark Antony, is an " honourable man." Page 28:
Q Now, you got $1,000 in money; that is to say you got $900 in 1908?-A. Yes.
Q. And Mr. Jones kept $100 for his services, which he charged against you out of the $1,000? -A. Yes.
Q. So that you practically got $1,000 of the money?-A. Yes.
Later he endeavours to make an explanation. Oh, he says, I was endorsing certain notes for Mr. Ryan, and I took this $1,000 as security that he would pay the notes. It is a form of business transaction entirely new to me-perhaps the hon. member for Edmonton has heard of it before-where a man who endorses a note for another takes the other man's cash by way of security. There is page after page of explanation here by this " honourable man " to the effect that Mr. Peter Ryan, instead of paying his debts, chose to draw upon Mr. Frank Pedley for a few hundred dollars and then pay Mr. Frank Pedley money with which he might have paid his debts. High finance! frenzied finance! but a form of finance thought of by Mr. Frank Pedley when he was giving his evidence, and not before. I quote further from his evidence:
Q. Does Peter Ryan owe you any money today?-A. Well, In that sense he does. I am on his paper to-day.
Q. To whait extent?-A. I think it is three or four hundred dollars.
Q. If Mr. Ryan took up that four hundred dollars to-day or to-morrow, then you would not have to pay any of it?-A. If he took that up, of course, my account would be relieved to that extent.
Q. Then would Mr. Ryan be entitled to receive back the sum of $1,000?-A. As far as I am concerned, be would.
Here is Mr. Frank Pedley, an honourable man, holding the $1,000 which he says is Peter Ryan's, and holding it for fear Peter Ryan will not pay a $400 note upon which Frank Pedley is endorser. Did it ever occur to Mr. Frank Pedley that possibly $400 of Peter Ryan's money might have been remitted to Peter Ryan and that Peter Ryan could then have taken up his note and have become entitled to the other $600? I wonder why that never occurred to these great business intel-10 p.m. lects, Mr. Peter Ryan and Mr. Frank Pedley. I will tell you why it never occurred to them: because the $1,000 was Mr. Frank Pedley's money; he got it for giving the preference to his friend, Peter Ryan. Does the hon. member for Edmonton believe anything else? He knew of this transaction. He has read the evidence; he gave some of it this afternoon.


Frank Oliver: I beg the hon. gentle
man's pardon. I did not know of the transaction, and I did not read the evidence.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman ventured to tell the House what the evidence showed; he ventured to tell the House that this $1,000 went to Mr. Ryan.


Frank Oliver: I told the House what
Mr. Pedley told me, and I told the House that it was what Mr. Pedley. told me.


Arthur Meighen: What does the hon.
gentleman say now when he finds what Mr. Pedley said under oath? Did Mr. Pedley tell him this after he gave his evidence?


Frank Oliver: On Saturday, if I remember rightly.


Arthur Meighen: Of this week?


Frank Oliver: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: That is when he was down here attending committees of Parliament in order to get campaign literature.


Frank Oliver: I guess he got plenty.


Arthur Meighen: If he had waited a little longer, he would have got some more.


Frank Oliver: I think the hon. member is quite right.


Arthur Meighen: These are the doings of Mr. Frank Pedley. Because he was found out and because he chased himself out of the office as soon as he was found out, the hon. member tells the House that we should not have started the commissioner on his trail; that it was not worth the money to ascertain that a man holding a responsible position as head of the Indian Department of this country, under the Minister of the Interior, was a man of the calibre and character of Mr. Frank Pedley ; to ascertain that wie country was well rid of his services. Is $30,000 too much for that truth alone?
But Mr. Frank Pedley's depredations did not end there. He thought of another scheme. At the time he thought of this he was not Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, but he did hold an important office in the Department of the Interior. The other man associated with him was the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, and had to do directly with the lands concerned in this transaction.
Did anybody ever conceive of such a scheme as this ? Here is Mr. J. A. Smart, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs in the Government of Canada, afterwards promoted for his efficiency, no doubt, to the office of Deputy Minister of Militia.
Here is J. A. Smart, charged with the disposition of the Indian lands of this country under the law and under the minister. He forms a partnership with Mr. Pedley, in the department, and with Mr. White, who has to do with some other branch of the service
immigration, ,1 believe. They are the men who open the tenders in connection with the sale of Indian lands. They are the men and the only men-the public have no access or insight-they were the men who have access and insight into all data as to the value of those lands and who know the tenders that are received. They form a company, they employ the same Mr. Bedford-Jones, trustee, of the city of Toronto. First of all they do not become incorporated, they are just a body of associates, a sort of family compact. They go down to Mr. Bedford-Jones and arrange with him that, at a figure that they shall name and on receipt of their instructions, he shall put in tenders for 45,000 acres of Indian lands in the Moose mountains. And on a certain date, just as the time is up to close all tenders for In-

dian lands, Mr. Bedford-Jones sends a telegram to Mr. Smart: "Package received,- everything arranged for all right." I think I have that pretty close. The exact words are:
Package received, suitable party procured, instructions understood. Complete matter tomorrow.
A. C. Bedford-Jones.
Language intended to be mysterious, but indeed very clear to any one who has read telegrams of this kind. Afterwards Mr. Jones admits that the package received was a lot of tenders filled in by these same gentlemen in the office of the Minister of the Interior, the price at which they were to buy filled in. And then they, having hied themselves back to the city of Ottawa, open-their own tenders and award the lands to themselves ! Oh, says the hon. member for Edmonton, they had to be the highest bidder or they could not get it, and if they did not get it they_ went down the same as anybody else. They went down? They put in,
I think, three or four hundred tenders, and all their tenders were accepted but eight or ten. What excellent guessers they were of the price at which they might get Indian lands !


An hon. MEMBER:: Who accepted them?


Arthur Meighen: Who accepted them?
They accepted them themselves, they" were the buyers and the sellers, they were dealing with these lands as trustees, dealing with the property over which they were trustees. These are the honourable men whose conduct in this matter to the hon. member for Edmonton is ratified by him and he declares that, having done it, they can look any man in Canada in the face. This is the man taken up by the Liberal party and sent over Canada to organize for their victory and his own victory and re-instatement in office at and after the next election. They did not confine themselves to the Indian lands of Moose mountain, they went into other lands. But in Moose mountain alone they bought some 45,000 acres of land and they paid for that land in November, 1901, $54,850. As I remember they did not pay up for quite a while after that; I think they paid it out of the sale price, putting up a little in the meantime. They bought it in November, 1901, for $54,850 and sold it in April, 1902, for $112,500. They make a profit on these lands of $57,150 in three or four months, dealing with lands for which they are trustees under the Government of Canada, dealing with them unfairly,

illegally, illegitimately as against other tenderers and as against, the (people of this country. They pocket the money, the result and the reward of their nefarious transaction, and they get the imprimatur of the bon. member for Edmonton for doing so. There may be fraud perpetrated under this Government, there may be parties in one extremity of Canada or the other who abuse the trust imposed in them; but there has been a Government in office since the 10th day of October, 1911, who, when they find out that these frauds are perpetrated and who the perpertrators are, do not stand at the door and block, do not render immune from punishment, do not reward for their offences, but who pursue them and punish them, and where legally possible, recover the money for the people of Canada.


Mr. PROULX:: When lias the Government done it?


Arthur Meighen: When has the Government done it? There is one unfortunate thing, I do not know whether the hon. member for Prescott wall! be able to fully get his mind about this, but there is one unfortunate fact that the Government of to-day legally is the successor of the Government of yesterday; that when the Government of yesterday does a certain act and it is ratified by the then minister, the Government of to-day is bound by it. But there are men who do not come within the protection of that rule, -and I do not think the hon. member for Prescott will be quite so anxious to spring the subject of restitution when he comes back to Parliament-if he ever does again.
Another transaction was referred to and admitted by the hon. member for Edmonton this evening. I do -not wish to delay the House by going over -aJll these matters; other members of the House have read them also. They have been exposed to view, open to perusal for days. But there -is one matter to which I wish to r-efeT because -it has been covered in the speech of the hon. member for Edmonton. In the year 1905 the hon, member was and had been many years proprietor of the Edmonton Bulletin, a newspaper published in his own city, a newspaper which, since its inception, had been the personal -asset-, had been the personal organ of the hon. member for Edmonton. That has been known from end to end of Canada -as his own personal organ, as the particular engine of publicity by which he has effected, from time to time, his recurring elections to this House. The Edmonton Bulletin becomes incorporated in 1905.
The bon. member has an interest- in it and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company come along and subscribe $15,000 to the Edmonton Bulletin and become stockholders -to that extent. Now, what are the circumstances? Why did they do so? Is there any ground of -offence, any cause of offence in that transaction? Is it something upon which the people of the country should look with favour or with frown, and why? The Grand Trunk Pacific was incorporated in 1903, incorporated for specific and definite purposes by an Act of this Parliament. I have read its charter a-nd I am not able to find in it that a part of its purpose or a portion of its power consisted in running newspapers. I have not been able to -ascertain even that it had the power, that it had the legal capability, of investing any of its funds 'in newspaper enterprises. But in the year 1903, they -make a contract with the people of Canada, the most important, one of the most momentous and by far the most disastrous into which the people of this country ever entered; a contract by virtue of which they have extracted with regularity millions and millions from the treasury of this country. They make their contract in 1903, they secure a modification of the contract hugely -to their own advantage in 1904. This they secured at the hands of the Government, of which the present leader of the Opposition was the head. They come back in the year 1905, they amend the contract again, they come back in 1906, and still important concessions are made to the Grand Trunk Pacific. Objection was taken to that contract from the first on the part of the Opposition of that day, strong objection was taken to it on the part of the distinguished leader of the Opposition of that day, but at every point at which the Opposition of that time sought to amend the contract in the interests of the people they were met with the assertion on the part of the then leader of the Government that a contract was a contract and that it was too late to change it whether to the advantage of the people of Canada or not. But it was changed. It was cast iron as against the people of Canada but it was soft and plastic as against the Grand Trunk Pacific. They came back in 1904, 1905 and 1906 and they got $5,000,000 of cash that had lain in the Treasury as security transferred and reincarnated into $5,000,000 of bonds, and they got the power to declare their parent, the Grand Trunk Railway Company, to be the owners by virtue of an ad-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Arthur Meighen: There is no subject comprised and treated of within the four corners of the Ferguson report that is not of as much importance, and that does not reveal just as astounding details as does this. But more than that; more than has been revealed within the four corners of the report, is the astounding pronouncement read from the files of the Interior Department to Parliament and to the country by the Minister of the Interior in this House to-night. What shall we hear about that? What will be the pronouncement of the leader of the Opposition on that? Can it be said that the hon. member for Edmonton made a mistake? I may say that I thought so myself when I first heard it. I do not think any member of this House was more surprised than I. If there is one man within the four corners of Canada who should have
known	and	did	know the facts,	it was thehead	of	the department	who	hadto do with such transactions. One would expect that a farmer who got a patent	for	a	quarter-section	and	whowould	read	in	his patent that	the	mines
and minerals were reserved, would know that they were reserved, and every farmer does know it. One would have expected that the minister of the department, who himself reserved them, would also know that they were reserved. But one would certainly be doubly sure that he who was both the patentee and the minister would know that the mines and minerals were reserved. And knowing that they were reserved, and knowing that in these minerals he had no interest whatever, and knowing that he had no part or portion of proprietorship in these minerals, it is astonishing to find that the minister, who is the patentee, should affect to deal with these minerals, and did deal with them, and that he in his personal capacity, instead of as a minister of the Crown, receives a royalty month after month and year after year, and never . accounts for that royalty. It is an astonishing pronouncement. I do not think there was any porch-climbing to get it; it was revealed on the face of the.file. I do not know in that case who the thug was, but there it stands. It might never have been known if the hon. member had not come forward, when his Government were hurled from office, and ask for a lease of the mineral rights, but he came forward and asked for a lease in November, 1911, and that lease is there, and since November, 1911, everything is open to the face of day, and that revealed what had gone on before in Oliver's time. The minister never disclosed to the Crown, of which he had the honour to be a minister, and never disclosed to the people, of whose wealth and whose assets he was the trustee, that he was collecting and pocketing money that was not his but theirs, and to which he had no right.
I opened my remarks by saying that there was no necessity, and no attempt on our part to hurry this matter at all. It is a matter of pressing importance, and it is my desire, and I speak the wishes of hon. members on this side I am sure, that every opportunity to defend or explain be given the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugs-ley), or any other hon. gentleman opposite -and I mention the hon. member for St. John merely because I see him at times coming close to the hon. member for Edmonton, and I know of no better wrecking-tug in the Opposition than is the

hon. member for St. John. It is our desire that the utmost opportunity of defence be given, and there is no purpose to the contrary. This is before Parliament, and almost this alone is before Parliament, and we on our part are prepared to stay here and discuss it, and if necessary to revive from day to day this discussion, until the fullest justice is done to all concerned.


William Pugsley: I cannot fail to respond to the invitation of the Solicitor General to make a few remarks on this motion which was made by my hon. friend from Edmonton. I was not quite able to hear the description the Solicitor General gave of me, but I thought he said I was a good wrecking something.


Arthur Meighen: Wrecking-tug.


An hon. MEMBER:: He did not say you were a thug.


William Pugsley: I may be able to rescue a good many things, hut I do not know that I could rescue gentlemen on the- other side of the House from the hole into which they have fallen this session. Whatever else I would be willing to do, I would be very sorry to undertake that job. There is something peculiar about these attacks which the Solicitor General and the Minister of the Interior have made to-night. I was particularly struck with the remark of the Minister of the Interior when he said that he was a man of peace, and a man of moderate views, and the gave the House to understand that he would not have made this attack upon the ex-Minister of the Interior if it were not for certain statements which had been made by the Liberal members of this House during the last few weeks. I suppose the Minister of the Interior was referring to the disclosures which have been -made in the committee about boots, and t'hir disclosures in the committee on public accounts about binoculars, and bandages, and drugs, and horses-


John Dowsley Reid: And jams.


William Pugsley: Yes, and jams. I suppose that what the Minister of the Interior means is that in consequence of the very strong remarks which have been made by members on this side of the House and by newspapers in the country, he felt constrained to make an attack on the ex-Minister of the Interior, which he would not otherwise believe it to be his duty to make. That also explains the very warm attack which has been made upon the hon. member (Mr. Oliver) by the
[Mr Meighen.]
Solicitor General. In other words, they are trying to draw a red herring across the track; they are trying to divert the minds of the people of this country from the disclosures which have been made during the last few weeks by seeking to revive not only ancient history but ancient romance. The Solicitor General and the Minister of the Interior have referred to the report made by Mr. Ferguson, and they stated that it has been brought down just as soon as it was reasonably possible to do so.
Is this quite accurate? We have the fact that for about three years-scarcely long enough to earn $40,000-Mr. Ferguson has been engaged in these investigations, and we have a right to assume that many of these reports were ready a good many months ago and that many of them might have been laid upon the table of the House at the commencement of this session of Parliament; but it looks to me as if they had been reserved for some such occasion as this-as if hon. gentlemen opposite thought that there was scandal in the air in connection with these war expenditures and that disclosures would be made which would shock the people of this country, and as if they kept this report back until the last moment, hoping to bring it down at a time when there would be scanty opportunity of answering the arguments, when many of the members of the House had gone to their homes and when many more would have so completed their arrangements to go home that it would be at very great inconvenience that they could remain here.
Speaking particularly to the charge which has been made with respect to a homestead entry granted to Mr. Cruise, the hon. member for one of the constituencies in Manitoba, there is not any ground whatever for reflection upon the action of the department, because so far as the department and the late Minister of the Interior are concerned, all the requirements of the law were complied with. The allegation is that Mt. Cruise purchased upon credit some seven cattle in order to make the number up to 20, and that, alleging that he was possessed of 20 head of cattle, he was entitled under the law to a homestead entry. It is alleged that in respect of that Mr. Cruise deceived the department; but that shows no fault or irregularity upon the part of the department; it is a charge made against Mr. Cruise. That hon. gentleman, however, went home before this report was brought down, and to him it is very un-

fortunate and unfair that the report should have been held to this late date. Although my hon. friend the Solicitor General says, "we are prepared to stay here and give ample time for this discussion," he knows that upwards of a month ago the Government prepared for an early prorogation, giving notice of .morning sittings, taking .all private days for the discussion of Government measures, and also taking Saturdays. "When this is done members begin to make preparations to go home, because they feel that prorogation will take place at an early date, and many members went to uieir homes before this report was brought down.
I am not going at length into these matters; but I want to speak of a charge made that there was an irregularity in connection with a sale of land to Mr. Brown in the valley of the Last Mountain lake. I want to speak of this, because when I have referred to all the facts which have been brought out by Mr. Ferguson, his including this in the list of these scandals which he says he has discovered during his long period of investigation, and it being one of the most important things which he was able (to discover, when hon. gentlemen see the triviality of it and see how groundless is the charge which he makes, they will realize that there is very little in these allegations after all; because ordinarily in the case of an investigation of this character, particularly an ex-parte investigation as these were to a large extent, from one you can very well judge all. When you find that the commissioner has been straining at an effort to discover some one guillty in connection with this matter you can well believe that there is a distorted report in other matters. What are the- facts in reference to this matter? To begin with, the quantity of land bought by Mr. Brown was nbt 1,000 acres, as I understood the Minister of the Interior to say, but only something like 500 acres.


William James Roche: I stated 530 odd acres at $1 an acre, and the balance making up
1,000	acres on which he placed halfbreed scrip.


William Pugsley: I think my hon. friend is wrong as to the difference between 530 acres and the 1,000; I think. Mr. Brown was the owner of that land a considerable time before he bought the 530 acres. It will appear in the report of Mr. Ferguson that Mr. Brown was a very large farmer and rancher, owing 170 head of cattle, a large number of horses, -and cultivating a 163
large area of land, being one of the largest farmers in that section of the country. He had bought a very considerable amount of land from The Canada Northwest Land Company that had purchased, a.s my hon. friend knows, from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, the original grantee of the Crown; he had bought from people who had obtained patents and altogether he was the owner of about 2,000 acres of land, a part of which was in the valley known as the outlet of the Last Mountain lake. A considerable portion of the land was on a hillside, and a large area of some 400 acres upon the level land at the .top of the valley. He was using all this land together as being a part of his farm. Among the other pieces of land which he had bought, he had acquired out of section 5 in the valley at the foot of the Last Mountain lake 122 acres or thereabouts, which was the only portion of the section which had been surveyed for settlement or sale. When the land was surveyed, it was found that upwards of 500 acres of section 5 was covered by the waters of Last Mountain lake, and so worthless did it ap.peaT to the surveyors that they did not survey it, and they reported it to the department a.s land covered by water. When the Canadian Pacific Railway Company took their grant within the 20-mile belt, they refused to take any part of section 5 except the 122 acres by reason of the fact that the remainder was covered with water. When the survey was made, the valley of Last Mountain lake was usually .pretty well covered with water for a long period in the summer. I know the country very well because I was there in 1883, and at that time the foot of Last Mountain lake was somewhere about four or five miles further to the south and east than it afterwards came. The water of the Last Mountain lake dried up to a certain extent and receded, as was the case with many other lakes in our northwestern country. The result of that was that after a few years, a portion of the remainder of this section 5 became so dry that a quantity of hay could be cut over a considerable part of it in some years; but there was always the danger of recurring floods, and the land was regarded as being of comparatively little value. There was a rule in the West, as it is the rale generally in all of the provinces of Canada, that where a man owns land fronting upon a -lake or river, the Government will not grant what is called the fore-shore of the lake or river to any one but the riparian owner. That land was .left there; and when Mr. Brown as the



riparian owner of these 122 acres applied for the land, it was recognized that he was the proper person to whom the title should be given, if he were willing to pay the ordinary price for land of that quality. After considerable inquiry the value of the land was fixed at $1 an acre, and at that price the land was sold to Mr. Brown. It will be found by the report that negotiations for the purchase were entered upon in 1900. This land formed a part of a very large farm, about two thousand acres, upon which Mr. Brown carried on large farming and ranching operations, on account of which it was desirable for him to get all the hay he could in the valley of the Last Mountain lake. As I have said, the Last Mountain lake had dried up to a considerable extent, and for a good many years all that section of country in the vicinity of the Last Mountain lake, especially the land to the West, was regarded as a dry section in which farming could not be carried on successfully. The railway, the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan, was built from Regina to Prince Albert, going into the valley of the Last Mountain lake, northwards to the west of the lake. And though that road was completed-and I was connected with that road-from 1890 down to 1900, there was no travel to speak of over the road, and it scarcely paid its running expenses. It did not pay interest on its debentures nor anything to shareholders, but barely paid expenses, though it was operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and operated as well as any good railway company could operate it. All that district lay stagnant. There were a few enterprising people like Mr. Brown, who engaged in general farming and ranching. They were excellent farmers and ranchmen, and they stayed on in the country in spite of the discouragements which drove many people away. It was not until 1900 that there began to be any development in that section of country. I venture to say that at the time when Mr. Brown bought that land, a considerable portion of which had been previously covered with water-dry in some seasons, but in others covered with water- one dollar an acre was the full value of the land. But what does Mr. Ferguson say with reference to the value? Does he say that this is too little to pay? Not at all; he makes no such charge, although from the argument of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Roche), one would think, if he had not read the report, that the land for which Mr. Brown had paid $1 an acre had been found by the commissioner to be
worth much more. At page 162 of this part of the report, he says:
Whether or not these lands in question were valueless-
Not pretending to know from the evidence whether they were valuable or not.
*-I wish to say that in my opinion the disposal of public lands without full knowledge is an unbusinesslike proceeding which ought not to be permitted.
That is the gravamen of the charge-that, even though this land may not have been worth more than one dollar an acre, even though the price obtained by the department may have been a good one, an improper course was pursued because it was sold without inspection.


Arthur Meighen: Where does the hon.
gentleman find those words-that the price received by the department was a good one?


William Pugsley: No; he says:
Whether or not these lands in question were valueless, I wish to say that in my opinion the disposal of public lands without full knowledge of their value is an unbusinesslike proceeding and ought not to be permitted.
I say that is not a finding on the part of Mr. Ferguson that those lands were sold below their value, it is an admission that they may not have been worth more than a dollar an acre. But it says that they ought not to have been sold without a thorough examination so that the department would know their value. Was there not an examination? When the lands were surveyed, the surveyors would go upon every section, and they would make a report stating whether the land was stony or free from stone; the slope of-the land, whether towards the north or in any other direction; the nature of the soil, whether clay, loam or gravelly, and also whether any part of the land was covered by water. And in the files of the department, available every day to the officials, there would be found the report of these surveyors who made a careful examination of this land stating that only 122 acres was such that the Canadian Pacific Railway could fairly be called upon to take it, the rest being covered with water. Surely that was a report upon which the officials of the department could act; and when they were offered $f an acre they were getting, as they thought, a fair and reasonable price	for the land.
As the hon. member for Edmonton has stated, at that time the very best land in the province of Saskatchewan was being sold at from $1 to $2.50 an acre. The rail-

[DOT]2537
way company to which I have referred sold their entire land grant, in respect of the first twenty miles of their railway, for $1 an acre and were glad to get it. Before 1902 the " American invasion " had begun. These experienced farmers had begun to come into that dry section of country. Having had the soil analysed and having knowledge of a process of farming in semidry countries which had then come into vogue, they were satisfied that the land in that country could be cultivated to advantage. As late as 1902, after so many thousands of Americans had come in and shown the capabilities of that country, the very best land, the pick of the land of that whole portion of central Saskatchewan, was under option to my knowledge for a period of three months at $1.50 an acre, and nobody could be got to take up that option or invest in the land. That is the very pick of the whole country which is now the garden of Saskatchewan. The fact that in the years from 1902 to 1910 land kept jumping up in value, rising at the rate of $2 an *acre a year, does not prove that a way back before 1902 that land bought by Mr. Brown had any greater value than $1 an acre.
What happened later which caused the Government to expropriate? Both sides of the Last Mountain lake were rapidly settled by good settlers. One or more steamers having been placed upon the lake, it became necessary-because the water in the lake had fallen to a depth of five or six feet, making it too shallow for the steamers-to undertake a plan to place a dam across the creek which runs out of the lake, and so to hold back the waters and raise the level of the lake for the accommodation of the steamers and to permit the navigation of the lake. Thio is a lake of about 60 miles in length, and its navigation is desirable in the interests of the settlers.. Besides, Last Mountain lake, being a large area of water, was calculated to become a great summer resort for the city of Regina -in fact, it has become such a resort. That is in a country where great lakes and rivers axe comparatively scarce. Undertaking, as we did, the project of increasing and improving the navigation of Last Mountain lake, it became necessary to dam the creek, and in flooding back the waters of the lake we flooded the land owned by Mr. Brown and others at the foot of the Lake. So it became necessary either to pay damages and let Mr. Brown retain his land, or to expropriate the land and cause the Crown to become the owner. If 163J
I remember rightly-my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior will tell me if I am wrong-something like 1,200 acres of land owned by Mr. Brown were expropriated. Am I right in that?


William James Roche: That is approximately
correct.


William Pugsley: So that there would be 700 acres of land in addition to the 500 which had been bought some years before from the department ait $1 per acre. I was Minister of Public Works at the time this expropriation took place, and I thought that it would be very much better to expropriate the land and secure an eiftire title to it than simply to pay damages and allow Mr. Brown to- continue in ownership. In this way, the Crown could better go on with the improvements. We did expropriate the land, and it will be remembered that we took not only that land owned by Mr. Brown which at certain times, even before the dam was built, was flooded with water, but also the dry land, the best part of his farm; we took both good land and bad. The Exchequer Court valued the whole 1,200 acres at this price of $25 an acre, so that while he was getting an average price of $25 an acre a good deal of the land of which he had been the owner before he bought the land from the Crown was worth perhaps three times as much as the land which at certain seasons was covered with water. More than that, the ^expropriation of the land meant the breaking up of Mr. Brown's ranch and farming enterprise, because the taking away of 1,200 acres of his land would necessitate his farming elsewhere. Unless, therefore, one knows all these facts, one can hardly say either that the judge of the Exchequer Court allowed too much, or that Mr. Brown paid too little some years before for that portion of the expropriated land which had been covered with water. It has been stated -and no one ought to know this better than my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior -that land which in 1900 and in 1902 was not worth more than $1.50 or $2.50 an acre, even before 1907 had risen to $15, $20, $25 and, in some cases, even $40 an acre. A great advance in the price of land took place, because the people had begun to come in. No matter how good the land is, there will be no increase in value until there is an bicrease in population, because it is popu-.ation that makes a demand for and increases the value of the land.
I should like to say just a word in reference to the Edmonton Bulletin. The eon

missioner, Mr. Ferguson, the Minister of the Interior, and the Solicitor General went far afield to make a charge against the Minister of the Inferior when they dwelt at length upon the fact that in 1905 the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company took stock in the Edmonton Bulletin. One would think, to hear these gentlemen talk, that this is the first great railway company that ever took stock in a newspaper. I remember when the late Peter Mitchell, formerly a member of this House and one of the most honourable gentlemen in this country-a gentleman who, as my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries knows, stood very high in the estimation of the people of New Brunswick and who occupied a very influential position in the government of the country-was editor of.the Montreal Herald. The Montreal Heralld was supposed to be owned by one of the railway companies of Canada, a company which has during all the years of its corporate existence, had to do with the different governments of the day. All railway companies, as hon. gentlemen know, have business to do with the different governments of the day. All railway companies, as hon. gentlemen know, have business with the Government and with Parliament. But no one ever suspected for one single moment that Mr. Mitchell was thereby influenced or induced to show any favouritism .towards that railway. I happen to know that in New _ Brunswick not long ago a railway company took stock in a new.spaper. The .fact became public; no doubt the same thing has been done privately on many occasions. So far as I am concerned, I never supposed that that circumstance would influence the proprietor of the newspaper in the way of extending any favouritism to the railway. What was the condition at the time the Grand Trunk Pacific Bailway Company took this stock? The contract had been entered into in 1903,and the amending contract in 1904. So far as those interested in the newspaper might assume, the contractual relations between the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company and the Government of Canada were fixed and settled. It might have been different if at the time that the company were before the Government in connection with entering into the contract, they went to the proprietor of any paper who was a member of Parliament or a member of the 'Government and made a suggestion as to what they would do if their project were supported. But in this case nothing of that kind occurred; everything was settled. One can very well

understand that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company would take stock in the Edmonton Bulletin without the slightest idea that that would cause them to be entitled to any favour from the member for Edmonton.
Mr. SAM. SHARPE: The contract was modified in 1906.


William Pugsley: Yes, but the modification was of the very slightest character; it was one which was not in contemplation in 1905. Hon. gentlemen may 11 p.m. ask, as the Minister of the Interior did ask, why the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company took stock in the Edmonton Bulletin. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company was interested more than any other company in the development of the northern country, and in the development of the city of Edmonton. Is it not a well-known fact that real estate men establish newspapers at their own expense for the purpose of advertising the country in which they are interested ? The more rapidly Edmonton was built up and the more widely its resources became known-.and they could not be made known in a better way than through the medium of a strong, energetic newspaper published in the city- the better it would be for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. One can well understand that the enterprising manager of that company would be well disposed to encourage the existence and the successful carrying on of a newspaper in a city in which they were so deeply interested. If hon. gentlemen want to be suspicious, of course they can conjure up some sinister motive on the part of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Compatiy, but I think it cannot be said either that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company intended to influence the hon. member for Edmonton or that there is the slightest ground for suspicion that the hon. member for Edmonton ever was influenced by the fact of their having taken .stock in the Edmonton Bulletin.
The hon. Solicitor General says that as a matter of fact the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company did get favours from the late Government. I venture to say that there never was an instance in which the Government drove so hard a bargain with a railway company as it made with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company at that time. How different it was from the contract made by the Conservative Government with the Canadian Pacific Railway!

Hon. gentlemen know what concessions were made, I will not go into them; but witth the Grand Trunk Pacific there was not an acre . of land given, not an acre of land which they could sell to settlers, not an acre of land which they could divide up into city, town or village lots, not one. In that respect they were treated in a manner wholly different from that in which the Canadian Pacific railway were treated. They were compelled to pay, by way of rental, interest on the entire cost of the road after the expiration of seven years from the time of construction. I say that was a hard bargain which the Government made with the Grand Trunk Pacific Company; and never afterwards did they show any disposition to treat that company in any very lenient manner, simply doing justice to them, holding them to their bargain. Again, my hon. friend says: Why they came later on and they got $5,000,000 which they had deposited with the Government, in exchange for bonds of an American railway company. Now that is a specious statement for the Solicitor General to make-if you are to allow your imagination to lead you into drawing conclusions from a statement which really contains nothing. The Solicitor General does not say that these securities were worthless; he does not say that they were not interestbearing securities; he does not say that they were not worth par; he does not say that they were not just as good as gold, or as bank notes; and yet, without giving you or this House the slightest information as to the value of those securities, :he would rather lead you to believe that some great favour was given to the company because an exchange was made. Take the insurance companies doing, business in Canada, they are required to put up security but they are not compelled to put up gold; they are allowed to put up securities in the way of bonds, Canadian, American or British, so long as they have a market value equal to the amount of the security which they are required to give.
Now, with regard to the Alberta Land Company. I must confess that I am not able to follow the commissioner or the Minister of the Interior in the suggestion that the department was guilty of wrongdoing in connection with the Alberta Land Company. The fact is that that company, according to his own admission, have expended $6,000,000 upon the enterprise in which they are engaged; and that very soon they will have that undertaking completed
and will have so completed an enterprise which both Governments recognize will be of an enormous importance to the country. Then what is there to complain of? My hon. friend in some portions of his speech says that concessions were given to a company that did not put up any money; but he complains of the concession to that company because they have put up the enormous sum of $6,000,000 and have carried out their undertaking almost to a succesful conclusion, and he says that because of the hard times, because of their not being able to go on with their own means and complete the undertaking this Government have returned to them the sum of $150,000 in order to encourage them to,complete this most worthy, most meritorious enterprise. That is the effect of what my hon. friend says. I would like to know, under those circumstances, what there is to complain of so far as the action of the department is concerned.
It seems to me to be another evidence of the fact that this Mr. Ferguson felt he had to earn his $40,000 in some way or other and that, if he could not find any good ground on which to condemn the late Administration, he must report upon matters in regard to which there was very little to complain of, hoping, I suppose, that the Minister of the Interior and those associated with him would take the bulk of his report in lieu of the quality and by reason of the many thousands of pages which he could obtain they would be satisfied, would never take the trouble to read it through and would pay him accordingly. A reference has been made to a lease of grazing lands in connection with the Blood Indian reserve. This House should always bear in mind that there is no allegation that the association of individuals who got that grazing lease did not pay all that the land was worth. There is no suggestion of that kind, there is no suggestion that it was leased by the department to them for one dollar less than it was fairly worth. The whole allegation is that the department turned down a gentleman, -whose name I have forgotten for the moment, and gave the lease to a Mr. McEwan. They say that Mr. McEwan represented a gentleman in Toronto, Mr. Peter Ryan, whom I have always heard spoken of as a very worthy gentleman indeed.
Mr. SAM. SHARPE: Pretty tricky.
Mr. PL1GSLEY:	Have he and the hon.
gentleman ever hunted together?

Mr. SAM. SHARPE:	He was an auctioneer.	.


William Pugsley: I have known some very respectable auctioneers. He occupies the very responsible position of registrar of deeds in Toronto. I have always understood that he is a gentleman of high character and he has been registrar for something like 25 years occupying the position under both Governments and it remains yet for somebody to make a charge that he has ever failed to perform his duties in a manner entirely satisfactory to the public. It is said that Mr. Ryan gave a one-sixth interest in this grazing lease to a Mr. Jones, and that Mr. Jones held it in trust for Mr. Pedley. That may be so or it may not; but this must be borne in mind, that the commissioner, Mr. Ferguson, as I remember reading the report-I do not confess to have been able to read it very carefully as I did not see it until this afternoon

but as I remember from my cursory reading, the commissioner does not say that he has any evidence which would show that up to the time of granting the lease to Mr. McEwan there was anything irregular or that the matter was carried on except in a straightforward way-not the slightest evidence which would justify him finding that and he does not find it. This is a fact which will not be disputed that, according to Mr. Ryan's evidence, Mr. Pedley had of late years been assisting him a good deal financially. Mr. Pedley had been endorsing his notes, he had been accepting his drafts and, as I remember his evidence, he said that years ago when Mr. Pedley was poor and he was better off he used to assist Mr. Pedley, but in later years the obligations had been entirely the other way, Mr. Pedley had been assisting him. And I would judge from the evidence that Mr. Ryan, having got this grazing lease, thought that he would put one-sixth of it in the hands of Mr. Jones as security for the meeting of his obligations to Mr. Pedley. That does not appear to have been communicated to Mr. Pedley at the time. The commissioner does not intimate anything of the kind and it is not entirely unreasonable that Mr. Ryan had done it in that way. At all events, we must be fair to a gentleman who has been charged with wrong-doing and, in the absence of evidence, we have a right to assume that he was innocent of any wrong-doing.
That appears to be the transaction. Later on, when the property was sold, Mr. Jones, who had had transactions also with

Mr. Pedley, sent him the sum of $900. Mr. Pedley thought apparently that that was a return of moneys which Mr. Jones was owing to him in connection with other transactions. Afterwards they got together and both agreed that this would be the proceeds of the sale of this one-sixth interest. Mr. Pedley swears that when these obligations of Mr. Ryan, in connection with these notes and drafts, are taken up this money will all belong to Mr. Ryan. This is not a very important matter, but it does not appear that Mr. Pedley had any knowledge whatever that Mr. Ryan was holding this one-sixth share until long after Mr. Pedley could be of any further assistance as far as the lessee was concerned.	.
There are some other matters referred to with which I do not intend to take up the time of the House. But before passing away from this subject I want to say that Mr. Pedley's conduct came to the knowledge of Mr. Sifton who was then Minister of the Interior. Are hon. gentlemen going to declare before this House that they are of the opinion that Mr. Sifton would allow dis-. honesty in his department? I have heard pretty nearly every hon. gentleman here praise up Mr. Sifton to the skies.


John Douglas Hazen: No, not always.


William Pugsley: Not always, but of late years. I have seen the most eulogistic statements made in the newspapers of the Conservative party in regard to Mr. Sifton, and M.r. Sifton is a gentleman whom hon. gentlemen were 'apparently proud to follow in the fall of 1911. I know Mr. Sifton. I know him to be an honourable man, and when this was brought to his attention by a gentleman who had been a competitor for this lease, I do not believe that Mr. Sifton would so fail in his duty as to allow it to go uninvestigated at the time. I believe he did look into it and came to the conclusion that there was no wrong-doing on the part of Mr. Pedley. He continued Mr. Pedley in the responsible position which he was then occupying in the department.
I pass over this and come to a matter which perhaps might better be left to the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) himself to answer. I would leave iit to him of course, with full confidence' that he would be able to answer to the satisfaction of this House. But my hon. friend is suffering from a cold, and he might not want to go into these matters'to-night. Hon. gentlemen know how much affected his throat is. I would feel it my duty just to make

a reference to it in view of the Statements which have been made by the Minister of the Interior and in view of the 'letter which he read to this House. What is the allegation there? It is that a Mr. Fahrni had purchased some 3,000 acres of 'land in the Michel Indian reserve in 1906, that after that gentleman had made his first payment of something like $5,000 for the lanu he had not been able to pay any more. Apparently he was not able to get people to put their capital into it because he was not able to raise any more money and he was in danger of losing the property. The suggestion of the minister is that the department at Ottawa, from some 'sinister motive, notified Mr. Fahrni that they would cancel the agreement for the sale of the property, forfeit the money which had been paid and resume ownership and possession of the property. Then it is stated that subsequently, by reason of Mr. Anderson, who was a son-inrlaw of Mr. Oliver, interesting himself in the matter and desiring to make the purchase, the fact that the department had cancelled the sale might be taken as evidence that they were bringing pressure for an illegal purpose upon Mr. Fahrni so as to enable Mr. Anderson to obtain the property at a very much less amount than its fair value. I think I have stated fairly what is the suggestion of the offence as made by the Minister of the Interior. If that were the design one would think the Department of the Interior would have continued in existence the cancellation of the agreement for sale until Mr. Anderson had consummated the deal and made the purchase. All the evidence is right to the contrary. The evidence is that the department rescinded the order of cancellation and rescinded it before Mr. Anderson had made the purchase. It appears from the letter which the hon. Minister of the Interior had read that when Mr. Fahrni sold to Mr. Anderson he had the notice from the department that the order of cancellation had been rescinded. Therefore, he was quite free to hold his land knowing that the department would wait on him for his next payment. Let me read the letter:
X need not go into all the details as, as I have already stated, you are without douht familiar with same, but the letter which was written by your department, .notifying my father of cancellation for the sale of land had the desired effect on my father, and after receiving same he was prepared to do anything, in order to save whatever possible of the money which he had paid down.
Just at this stage, your son-in-law's enquiries came to hand, and naturally we were
ready to clutch at anything which would he of advantage to us, and we were prepared to sell at a sacrifice if necessary, provided we could give title. As soon as the question of our ability to give title arose, along came the notice from your department, dated June 7th 1910, in which you re-instate our contracts; thus malting it possible for us to put a legitimate deal through and your son-in-law, through fraud and mis-representation with the connivance of the Department of Interior, succeeded in obtaining the lands at about one quarter of their real value.
What does that show? It shows that after Mr. Fahrni had got notice from the department that the agreement was cancelled by reason of his failure to pay, Mr. Anderson got into communication with him and he said that he could not deal with Mr. Anderson, but that fortunately there came notice from the department that the order of cancellation had been rescinded. He does not pretend that he had come to any agreement with Mr. Anderson before that. He certainly had made no sale to him before that, but the fact of his getting notice from the department left him free to make an agreement with Mr. Anderson, and it placed him in a position in which he could give title. Is not that an extraordinary thing if the department were desiring to force Mr. Fahrni to sell his property at a sacrifice? Is it not remarkable that if through the desire of the department, before any binding agreement had been made, or any agreement at all had been made, between Mt. Fahimi 'and Mr. Anderson, they should rescind the order of cancellation and so in effect notify Mr. Fahrni that there was no necessity for him to sacrifice the property, but that the department would wait upon him for the payment which was then due.
I do not know what the property was worth. One complaint of the Minister of the Interior seems to be that a great injustice has been done because the $5,000 that Mr. Fahrni had paid had not been forfeited and gone into the Treasury of this country. The Minister of the Interior talks about these different transactions in which he says great losses occurred, but let me tell him that if he puts all these together they would not in the whole amount to the value of that land at Prince Albert which was sold to Mr. Donaldson by the Department of the Interior after this Government came into office, for the magnificent sum of ten dollars. All put together would not amount to what was taken out of the Treasury of this country in that one land transaction, and yet the Minister of the Interior bemoans the fact that some $5,000 which

Mr. Fahrni had paid to the Government was not forfeited, but that Mr. Fahrni was allowed to get his $5,000 back.
There is another remarkable fact about this letter, and one which is worthy the attention of members of this House. This is a copy of a letter which was sent, not to the Minister of the Interior, but to Mr. Frank Oliver, M.P., and a copy of it evidently has been sent to the Minister of the .Interior, in order that it might be used in this House on this motion. This precious letter is dated Gladstone, March 9, 1915, and I shall quote one statement from it:
It appears most conclusive to me that we have been defrauded out of some $50,000, which I have no doubt can be obtained by carrying the matter to a civil court, and it further seems to me that a perpetrator of a crime of this kind would also be criminally liable. What I ask and what I must insist on having is some restitution of this damage, and unless the same is made immediately all the documents shall be handed over to my solicitor for his attention.
When I used to be practising law, the writer of a letter like that was called a blackmailer, and I have always understood that a gentleman who accepts a copy of a letter like that and endeavours to use it for the purpose of intimidating the person to whom it is addressed, becomes associated in that attempt at blackmail.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh!


William Pugsley: I have always understood that to be the law. Let me read that portion of the letter again:
It appears most conclusive to me that we have been defrauded out of some $50,000, which I have no doubt can be obtained by carrying the matter to a civil court, and it further seems to me that a perpetrator of a crime of this kind would also be criminally liable. What I ask and what I must insist on having is some restitution of this damage, and unless the same is made immediately all the documents shall be handed over to my solicitor for his attention.
And I suppose his solicitor has been handed a copy of this letter as well as all the documents, and the solicitor has handed them over to the Minister of the Interior. I do not know anything about what the writer of this letter states, but I am inclined to think that some degree of credit will have to be given to my hon. friend, that he has resisted this attempt at blackmail, and that he has in effect said to this man: If you have any claim against me, either civil or. criminal, go ahead and take the matter into the courts whether you wish to resort to civil or criminal proceedings; you have no claim against me,

no shadow of conspiracy can be substantiated against me, I will not be compelled by your threats to accede to your demands, go and do your worst. That is in effect what my hon. friend from Edmonton has said. And because evidence of wrong-doing has been made apparent to my hon. friend from Edmonton, as it has been made apparent to the people of this country, and because frauds have been committed in the purchase of war supplies, my hon. friend felt it his duty to denounce the wrong-doing, it has remained for the Minister of the Interior to lend himself to the efforts of this blackmailer who attempts to asperse the character of the hon. member for Edmonton.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, at this very laJte hour I do not propose to trespass for any considerable time upon the patience of the House. It has been .my privilege to be intimately acquainted with the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) ever since I went to western Canada, now some seventeen years ago, and I say in all sincerity that because of my relations with him, which were always friendly, I hesitate to discuss this report in the sense in which I otherwise would. It is not always pleasing to find that a public man in whom you have placed confidence is not worthy of the confidence you have reposed in him. It is not always pleasing to find that a public man whom you believed to be a man of integrity and probity is the opposite. It is not always pleasing to believe that those who have been charged with the administration of departments of the Government, have been unworthy of the confidence that has been placed in them and have been derelict to their duty. And, Sir, for those reasons, more in sorrow than in anger, I direct attention for a few moments to-night to the report which has been laid on the table of the House. I cannot but conceive this to be the end of the public career of the hon. member for Edmonton, as it should be the end of the public carrer of the hon. member for As-siniboia (Mr. Turriff).
I should like to say to this House as one coming from western Canada, that those who live in eastern Canada have very little understanding of what has taken place in (that country during the past fifteen or sixteen years. There are very few public men in eastern Canada who have taken the trouble to study the conditions under which we have lived; the conditions under which we were per-

mitted to exist by the Government led by the right hon. the leader of the Opposition. During the fifteen years that Government was in power, what did they do? They were not content with taking the fishes in the takes and granting fishing monopolies to their friends, but they took the waters in the streams which give life to the parched and arid lands of the plains and they handed these waters out to their friends to monopolize and to prevent their use by the poor. Not only this, but the timber and the trees of the forest they handed out to favourites, and to-day honest men in the Senate, whom we heard referred to the other day, are timber licensees throughout western Canada. Does my hon. friend say that if you cannot find the name of Tom Davis among these licensees you will not find the name of some other equally reprehensible senator? If you cannot find the name of a senator who has a timber lease or a water-power, you will find the name of one who has a lease of coal lands, which by some method he wrung out of the reluctant Minister of the Interior of that day. And, not content with exhausting the fish and the waters, and the timber and the coal, they had a scheme for getting the other mineral resources under the surface of the earth. The coal lands were gone, and when they were gone they issued grazing leases to their friends, their brothers-in-law, their uncles-in-law, their sons-in-law, and every other relation they could possibly conceive of. When you cannot get a son-in-law, you get some one else who will -answer just as well and when you cannot get a brother or e cousin or -an aunt, you get -some one relates in some way or other, -and you hand him or her part of the public domain. During the fifteen years from 1896 to 1911 everything that could be done to alienate the public resources of Canada by conspiracy on the part of the hon. gentlemen who then were administering the country and -their -friends, was done. There is not time to-night to go into all the details, because it would take hours to do it; but I live in the province of Alberta, and I sa,w men with nothing, grow suddenly rich at the expense of the public. I saw the land of this country being alienated-graft is the proper word to describe the situation-by men whose corrupt ideas degenerated -and degraded the public life of Ith-e country; and when an election came around, we found them acting as the camp-followers of the then Minister of the Interior. They were
the porch-climbers and the thugs to whom he referred; they were the men who in 1905 and 1913 robbed and opened the ballot boxes of Alberta; they were the men who interfered with the -sanctity of the ballot, and who did not permit the people of the province to express th-ei-r will -at the polls. I presume- my hon. friend referred to them this afternoon when he spoke of porch-climbers and thugs, for they wer-e the porch-climbers and thugs, and I engaged the time of a detective agency for two years until I traced to its source the opening and robbing of the ballot boxes by these men. I suffered from their work, because I was chosen by the electorate of -the city of Calgary, and the ballots of the constituency were opened and the ballots abstracted and I was counted out. But o-ne would think that it would be sufficient that -all these things should have happened, but it was not. Lo, the poor Indians they must suffer ! The wards of the nation! The aborigines of Cahada! The men whose rights they were sworn to protect were the victims of the conspiracy of a Turriff, a Ped-ley and -a White. If anything has ever in the annals of Parliament been placed upon the table of -this House calculated to bring the blush of shame to the face of any Canadian, it is the revelation contained in the evidence that is here to-niarht.


John Gillanders Turriff: I would like to correct
my hon. friend; I was never connected in any shape, form or manner, directly or indirectly, with the Indian Department.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman who has just spoken is quite correct as to not being associated with Mr. Smart and Mr. Pedley and Mr. White. He chose his brother-in-law, Mr. Adamson, as his associate.
As if that were not sufficient, my hon. friends opposite had to proceed to corrupt public opinion. One would think, Sir, that after having exhausted every known means by which to exploit the public domain to the limit, the fishes in the sea, the heavens above the earth, and the water under it, my hon. friends opposite would have been content. No, public opinion must be corrupted with a subsidized press. The bon. member for Edmonton, in Ms own person, stood here to-day, as the proprietor nominally and as the editor in fact, of a Grit journal that existed by the money of a great transportation and public service company for the purpose of corrupting public opinion. These are the indictments which this report makes against these gentlemen-conspiracy, fraud, dereliction of duty, breach of trust, and, above all,

a deliberate attempt and intent to destroy and corrupt public opinion. What, Sir, happened in Alberta? At the very time that the hon. gentleman from Edmonton was negotiating a little deal with Mr. Frank Scott of the Grand Trunk Pacific, at the very moment that he was inducing him by honeyed words to put $15,000 into his great journal, that great fireside journal, his henchmen had charge of the campaign in which the ballot boxes were robbed. If any man is curious to-night to know in what manner public opinion was dealt with during those days, let him go to the Parliamentary Library and read the Edmonton	Bulletin	of	those	days.	Ah, Sir,I am a personal sufferer; I have been the	victim	of	the	$15,000 filched
from this public service company; I have been the subject of the attacks of these hired assassins; I know whereof I speak, and I speak feelingly. The people of the province in which I live suspected that these men had not suddenly grown so wealthy that they had thousands of dollars to cast about the streets in maintaining this gang of camp followers who went to the polls throughout the province; we did not believe that they had suddenly found the wealth in the soil and dug it out and spread it around in this way; but little did the confiding electorate of Alberta believe that the great stalwart, sturdy, determined, outspoken, grimly honest man, as he said, had sold for $15,000 the independence of the press. What will they say when they find that these attacks that have been made upon the public men in the province in which I live, who do not see eye to eye with some hon. gentlemen opposite, were being paid for by a great railway company? When the hon. gentleman the other day in such measured tones deprecated the passing of the legislation that we were about to pass dealing with the Grand Trunk Pacific, when he expressed the great fear that he did that vested interests would be interfered with, that the credit of the Grand Trunk Pacific might be affected, little did we think that $15,000 of the money of that very company was speaking.
Ah, Sir, it is indeed a sad spectacle. A long career- of great usefulness to his friends and himself is about ended. I have stood as chairman of a great public gathering and introduced on a Dominion Day my hon. friend the member for Edmonton as a citizen of whom we might well -be proud; I have pointed out those sterling qualities that have made for him a great 
place in the state; I have pointed out those qualities of heart and mind that he had from the day when he crossed from Winnipeg to Edmonton until he sat here as a minister of the Crown, little dreaming that such a report as this would indicate how little warranted was my confidence in him. I speak the thoughts of the many thousands of the province of Alberta who to-morrow morning will read my words; when they understand that this their one time idol has feet of clay, when they find that those feet of clay are firmly embedded around about the Bonaventure station in Montreal; and when they realize just exactly what his obligation and duty are to the Grand Trunk, they will say: " Our idol has fallen." It was only fitting that the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition should have entertained the same opinion, for to-night he deserted his one-time colleague and friend. Ah, well, my hon. friend from Edmonton after all was the heir to some of these things about which we have spoken to-day, and he did not create-nay, he only had to carry out. When one contemplates that, one might think that he would say with Wolsey:
, " Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my King, he would not in mine age,
Have left me naked to my enemies."
If he were not so disposed to think in the words of Shakespeare, he might have thought in the words of the Psalmist:
" If it were an enemy that had done me this dishonour, I could have borne it; but it was thou, even thou, my own familiar friend. We took sweet counsel together."
Deserted in the house of his friends, flung to the dogs, forgotten, remembered no more. The right hon. gentleman who led the Government for fifteen years; and had him as his colleague for six, speaks no word of commendation, no word of defence, no word of. recognition of the sterling qualities that endeared him so to the people of the West. Gone, forgotten, remembered no more! Peace be with him! And so he passes from the public life of Canada, forgotten, I take it, for his leader has forgotten him, remembered no more except for the wrong he has done and the legacy of evil he has left with us.
And now whom do we pass on to? We pass on to the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff). And who, contemplating that noble form in our public life, can fail to feel the force of the observations he made touching the public service of Canada? Who can fail to remember his

observations touching the British preference and other matters? Think of the way in which he discharged his duties as land commissioner, and his noble thoughts for all those friends of his who are remembered now not as common men, but as huge colossi, I suppose, who look down upon us poor common mortals. Millionaires! some are knights, and some are about to pass out into dark night forever. Let us deal with him. Why, when first I came into this House and ventured to raise my voice here, the first words I heard snarled across the House, were " C.P.R." Think of' the hardihood of the man capable of doing that. And he talked about " unholy hands " the other evening, and called upon high Heaven to be witness to his honesty, his integrity, his nobility of character, his splendid fervour for the public weal. And did he think then of the Brown lease? Sir, some man we know not who, some hand we know not whose, between the time a certain document passed into the hands of the hon. member for Assiniboia with "32" written upon it changed that to "60" and it never went out of the clutches of the hon. member for Assiniboia. I should like-indeed, I should like -to deal with many of these matters at length.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But I am not going to, because the hour is late. I want to make a few observations only touching the Department of the' Interior in connection with one or two of the matters which have been mentioned here to-day. The hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) has endeavoured to-night to support the position of his friend from Edmonton. With that sense of loyalty in which he is not lacking and which did not distinguish his sometime leader, he rallied his splendid talents to the support of his friend from Edmonton. But the woeful cry almost from the beginning indicated to us that it was not a congenial task; it was a work too great even for his master-mind.
There is one matter about which especially I desire to speak-the Brown grazing lease. What are the facts? A man named MacGregor, a beneficiary of the system came down to Ottawa and happened to run across a man named Brown. He said: " If I want a lease perhaps you will let me use your name. I have all the area I can hold in my own name." "Certainly," was the answer, "Ido not mind a little thing like that; I live down in Montana." The application was put in. The hon. member for Assiniboia was
Commissioner of Dominion Lands. MacGregor looked the thing over and did not think much of it. A man named Bell thought he would like to look into it. Later it transpired that a gentleman named Adamson thought it would be a good thing to get hold of. Mr. Adamson happens to be a close relative of the hon. member for Assiniboia. One good turn deserves another. Brown had sent in an application for
32,000	acres of land under a closed lease- arid a closed lease in the terminology of the department, meant a lease that might be subject to cancellation after two years' notice,-and, under the control of the gentleman who now sits in this House and talks of " unholy hands," there came out an irrevocable lease for 60,000 acres.


John Gillanders Turriff: I do not know whether
the hon. gentleman wishes to be fair orgiot, but he must know that that lease was issued a year and a half after I left the department.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, certainly that is so. The hon. gentleman realizes as he told us the other night, how poorly paid the civil servants were, and he too was in that case when he left the Civil Service; he was still poor on the occasion of his leaving the Civil Service. He left behind him this memorandum, that an application for a closed lease for 32,000 acres should become an irrevocable lease for 60,000 acres. And it was his handiwork and nobody else's. It is idle to try to get away from that. I have the evidence. He was summoned and gave evidence before the commissioner and explained exactly what happened.	That
evidence is too long to read.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Read it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, it would take too long to read that evidence to-night. Hon. members themselves can see the bulk of it. He was not, as some one has said, taken unawares; he was confronted . with the facts and given an opportunity to explain them; and his evidence as to how it happened is upon that record. It will be printed; it will be read by the people of Canada; but there is only one explanation the people of Canada can gain from it, and that is that anxiety to assist a brother-in-law brought about the change from 32,000 acres to 60,000 acres. That is the fact and no glossing over, no sophistry, no endeavour to get away from the real facts, can disguise this-that there was alienated

in the province in which I live a most valuable tract of land, one that should have settlers upon it. To satisfy the avarice and greed of a brother-in-law,
60,000	acres of the best land in that province was alienated on an application that went into the hands of the hon. member for Assiniboia as an application for 32,000 acres. And the lease is irrevocable, though the application was for a closed lease. I say that there is no explanation that can be given to the people of this country that can change the opinion in the province I come from that this was a deliberate act on the part of this machine to take from the people for the benefit of political favourites a part of the great resources that should be held in trust for the people and not for one or two political heelers and partisans. Why, Sir, there is only one person who benefited by the increase in that acreage, and that is Mr. A. J. Adamson, who was then after the lease. He concealed his connection with it from the department until July, 1905, when he sent to the department a quit-claim deed from this same man, Brown, to the Galway Horse and Cattle Company-which was Adamson, under another name, and enclosed a cheque for $650 for rental. Thousands of dollars of rental were left uncollected, for the rental was not paid between the date of the granting of the application and the issue of the lease in 1905. And the man whose handiwork this is, is the man who goes through the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta supporting the party of hon. gentlemen opposite and who dares to come into this Parliament and talk about "unholy hands." There may be travesties of justice, arid there may be things that bring the blush of shame to Canadians, but what disgusts most men in Canada is the rank and arrant hypocrisy of some of our public men. The evidence is that this deed, which was brought to the department in 1905, was dated September, 1903; the name of the person to whom it was assigned was left blank, and this was afterwards filled in. Then what happened? The Galway Horse and Cattle Company was not in existence at the time of the assignment, nor was it in existence for some time afterwards. It was a company which was formed by Adamson for the purpose of holding this tract: that is embodied in the evidence that he himself gave. They allotted to the members of this little company their shares, and when Mr. Turriff-not as the hon.- member for Assiniboia, but as the former Commissioner of Dominion Lands-testifying before the com-
missioner, was asked upon his oath to explain how the change respecting the increase in the area had been made, he could offer no explanation whatever. There is no doubt that he did it for Adamson, and Adamson, having decided not to go into the ranching business, turned the lease over for $22,500 to John Cowdry. All that it had cost Adamson for rental was $650; this he paid in July, 1905. The report showed that he should have paid $2,400 more for arrears of rental at that time, and that the department allowed the lease to be issued without demanding the money which should have been collected as rental-they practically made a present of $2,400 to Adamson and his company. I ask the hon. member for Edmonton, I ask the right hon. leader of the Opposition, whose supporters these gentlemen are: can any excuse be given to the people of the province of Alberta-Brown swears that he made no application and did not know that the lease had been changed until he gave his evidence before the commissioner-why that closed lease was changed to an irrevocable lease of 60,000 acres while the transaction was under the control of the now hon. member for Assiniboia? You may offer excuses; you may trifle with the truth; you may endeavour to palliate the effect, but there it stands, in all its grim reality. It was but one instance of the working of a system from which the people of western Canada suffered for fifteen years. I do not present that single instance as standing alone. The instances multiply; the illustrations increase. They are not isolated; they are not one here and another there; they are a continued, considered, persistent series of illustrations and instances showing a deliberate conspiracy on the part of a few men to enrich themselves at the expense of the people of that day and of the posterity that was to be. It was a deliberate attempt on the part of those men to filch from the settlers and from the settlers that were to come the public domain of the province of Alberta and to hold it until they could turn it over at a profit, as speculators and exploiters, to the loss of the people of Canada.
When you couple that single illustration, of which I have given the details, with the others that are dealt with in the report, and remember that iln that province there is no voters' list-nothing but a system of enumerators worked by political partisans before the election-when you keep that fact in mind, together with the observations made

by the hon. Solicitor General, I ask, what elections have we had in Alberta or in Saskatchewan during the last fifteen years? The party press rejoices, and in flaring headlines holds up to the public the story that the Liberals won in Alberta and Saskatchewan; but I say that there has not been an election in. either of the two provinces, since they became provinces, that is worthy of the name of an election. There has not been conducted under the auspices of the Conservative party in these western provinces a single election since 1896-and the population of those provinces was then but a few thousands, a handful of people. AH the new settlers who came from across the line and from foreign lands across the seas have been brought into Canada and taught the damnable doctrine that public men holding high offices are there to corrupt, not always with dollars, but oft times with the natural resources of the country: a coal lease here, a fishing permit there; an irrigation right here, a quarter-section there. Then, when that failed, if the poor, untutored Indian happened to have a few acres of land, he was not free from the avarice and the greed of these Shylocks of out land. Is it any wonder that public opinion is outraged? Is it any wonder that the public conscience is aroused? Is it any wonder that when men went through the country
12 p.m. and spoke to the people from the public platform, they said: "these people are right at heart"; yet when the votes were counted on election day, the results were quite different? The right hon. gentleman who leads the Government went through western Canada and found a sound sentiment and a splendid response to the principles that he enunciated, but when the votes were counted, his candidates were always in the minority. Why? Ask Cruise and Davis and Turriff and Adamson and Oliver and Marshall, and that gang of freebooting buccaneers who went round the country as campaign followers of the then Administration. These are strong words, but these are the words which the dictionary says describe the men that I mention, and I know of no other language which I can use to do justice to the occasion.
This Aylwin tract affair is one of the most despicable transactions that was ever endeavoured to be put through in this country. I want to be fair to the hon. member for Edmonton. He protested as long as a man could, but finally, as compromise is the price of all government, he yielded, and
to-night he pays the price of his yielding to his friends in the Cabinet. The Aylwin tract lies east of Calgary. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company several years ago was carrying on large irrigation works in that locality.
Suddenly there appeared one McGregor. I would like to traverse his history this evening and tell this House of that long and devious trail that leads from Brandon to the Yukon and from the Yukon to Medicine Hat and along through the Southern Alberta Land Company and then back to Brandon again; but I have not time. Suffice it to say that having conceived the idea that where water would flow down hill there might be a chance of making some money by using it on the arid lands of the province, he organized a company. It is a sad story. If I had time to tell of the English investors who paid 40 shillings in the pound for their shares that have gone to six shillings ! I know of widows in England who put money in the South Alberta Land Company's stock. I know of the absolutely untrue statements contained in the prospectus, and how that money was obtained. I know of the sanction given by the late Government to the operations of the company. My hon. friend from Edmonton was not then minister, let us be fair. But that reminds me that there was not only Mr. McGregor but several other gentlemen. One of them is now in the Senate, my friend Senator Ross, of Moosejaw; he was there and Hitchcock was there, another relation of somebody's else's relation, and these men foregathered and conceived the idea of the company. They obtained certain concessions. [DOT] They purchased certain cattle. The Grand Forks Cattle Company turned in its property. It is too long to tell about tonight, but they got their company and when Aylwin and his friends saw the splendid exploitations made by this company in London, when they saw the way in which the English investor caught at the bait held out about this irrigable land and what fortunes there were to be gathered from it, they said:	This is not
right, we want some too. You know there is nothing equal to the avarice that a transaction like that sometimes creates in human nature, and so Mr. Aylwin looked about and said:	There is 350,000 acres of
land not far from this tract in southern Alberta, and if we can get some water from the river for irrigation there is a fortune in it. So they came down to my friend from Edmonton; and on the 1st of August, 1906, he wrote a letter in which he said:

This is a very important matter. . . The question is one of engineering, which must bo very definitely settled, especially as the area involved is considerable. You may rest assured there will be no loss of time in arriving at a conclusion in regard to it.	[DOT]
That was a proper course to take, the course you and I would expect any reasonable minister to take. He said that as it was a serious matter it required to be carefully considered. But that was not sufficient for Mr. Aylwin for I find on the 21st of September, 1906-mark you that the first letter was on August 1, and on the 21st day of September of the same year, when my friend the Minister of the Interior returned from a little trip to England, there was placed before him a memorandum by the then and now Deputy Minister of the Interior which will, I trust, direct the attention of the right hon. gentleman to the ignoble part he played in connection with this undertaking:
Ottawa, September 21, 1906. Hon. Frank Oliver,
Minister of the Interior.
Memorandum.-I beg to submit herewith the papers in connection with the application of Mr. Aylwin for a tract of land in connection with his' irrigation scheme. As per the terms of your letter to Mr. Piche, Sir Wilfrid instructed me to have Mr. Stewart make the inspection therein mentioned; his report is attached.
Peradventure there may be another Sir Wilfrid rather than our own right hon. gentleman, but at least his name and fame are not known to the Canadian people.
The memorandum continues:
On the receipt of Mr. Stewart's report the matter was again submitted to Sir Wilfrid, and he desired me to state to you that in his opinion the application should be dealt with in the same manner as the Robins' application, and that he would have granted it and passed the necessary Order in Council but for the fact that you were then on the ocean on your way home. On that account he thought it better to let the matter stand until your return, for the necessary action.
So that these gentlemen, having retained the services of a then Liberal member of Parliament, Mr. Pichei, to act as their solicitor, after the hon. the Minister of the Interior of that day had instructed the engineer to make a report, during his absence had taken the matter up with the right hon. gentleman who was then the Prime Minister and Acting Minister of the Interior and he was prepared to grant that application, according to the statement made by the Deputy Minister of the .Interior. But that is not all. I observe that these gentlemen found, when the hon. member for

Edmonton came home, that he was not quite the easy man to deal with they thought he would be, because he said: I do not quite see it that way. He conceived the idea that he would not tie up those 350,000 acres for these people and he did something else-He said: " I am going to throw some of this land open to homesteaders "-and he did it. Mark you the determination of the hon. member for Edmonton; mark you the noble patriot desiring to assert and protect the rights of the people; for a year he did it. A whole year had gone by and the thing had not been put through. Behold this illuminating epistle from Mr. Robert of Montreal regarding this action of the hon. member for Edmonton:
Montreal, March 18, 1908.
H. A. Aylwin, Esq.,
Winnipeg.
My dear Aylwin,-Your telegram to hand, and in answer would say that I understand that Oliver has thrown tract open to homesteaders, but other than being evidence that Oliver has not been straight in the matter, I would not let it worry you unduly, as the matter is in such shape that they cannot but grant it, and will have to give you a tract of similar size, and I am satisfied that from my last interview the matter will be granted this session.
I am going up to see Sir Wilfrid in a day or so, and trust to have some good news for you on my return.
Keep your friends quiet until you hear from me, and I am as certain as ever that you will get your grant of land. The delay has been very annoying and disgusting, but they are in a worse position to refuse it to-day than tbey were a year ago.
I trust Mr. Newton is keeping better; give him my kind regard.
I remain,
Yours truly,


E. A. ROBERT.
[Stage Direction]
That was in March, 1908. The general election was approaching; always, with stealthy tread, nearer and nearer it came, and, peradventure, far be it from me to suggest it, Mr. Robert may have been a prospective campaign contributor. Far be it from me to suggest it, but what followed? The hon. member for Edmonton, with that sturdy independence which characterized him on an occasion which perhaps he has forgotten, was still determined that he would not even then hand the tract over to these men, and so for a year he stood out. Mr. Robert felt confident of what he could do; he had only to see Sir Wilfrid. And so we find this letter, on the 27th of July, 1908, a few months later-the election was approaching nearer:
Dear Sir,-Yours of the 24th to hand, and in reply would say that I have no objection to

meeting Hudson, but rather think our best course would be to keep ourselves as free as possible until we get matters straightened with the Government.
I am supposed to have my interview with Sir Wilfrid next week to finish up matters, and will let you know the result as soon as possible.
With kind regards.

[Stage Direction]
This is the gentleman whom the right hon. gentleman hardly knows.
William Pugsley: His brother.


Richard Bedford Bennett: 
An hon. MEMBER:: What about the system?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The system had not
been working well just then. Mr. Robert wrote the following letter:
September 21, 1908.
I am in receipt of yours of 8th, but owing to my absence I did not get it till my return from Ottawa, and I intended writing you at once, but had to leave town unexpectedly the next morning, and only just returned.
I was unaware that Mr. Newton was on the note concerning deposit with Government.
I do not want to .put up the money at present moment for this deposit, especially as the money lies at our credit in hands of Government and your Bank has transfer for same.
Then he discusses what is to be done:
On my last trip to Ottawa, I had the whole matter approved and accepted, and the order is on the table, signed by minister, and has approval of Government, and will be signed by Government and Governor General before November 1st.
Notice, about November 1. This is September. Why delay? Far be it from me to
say what the reason was. October 26 was the fateful day and of course this waits until the 1st November. Then he says:
We have made note due November 24th to enable the whole matter to be finished, so that we will, I hope, be able to make a part division before that date.
The spoils of war!
I have spent a considerable sum already on this, and have assured its successful completion within a few weeks, and do not, under the circumstances, think it out of my way to ask you to put this through, when I give your Bank another name on note as good, or possibly better than the one they have now, and trust you will arrange matter.
This suggested a change in the name of one of the endorsers and gave the name of [DOT] Westgate, who was said to be worth a quarter of a million instead of the name of somebody else. Mr. Robert said that he wanted eighteen cents an acre for his influence. I do not know what that word ''influence" means. There is evidence that this term indicates an ability on the part of some gentleman to get very close to the ministers of past days and induce them to do certain things regardless of the public interest and the public weal. Influence and prices seem to have a fixed relation to each other. If the price of land is good the price of influence iis high, if the price of land is low influence is cheap. If the lands of the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Valley Company -are only worth $1.25 an acre the price of influence is away down, but if on the other hand, the price of land goes up then the price of influence goes u.p too. I do not know what influence was worth in the market at that time, but I know that in this case the influence of Mr. Robert was being sold at eighteen cents an acre and that they divided the spoils.


An hon. MEMBER:: Cast lots?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, they did not cast lots. They should have cast lots as to which should have gone out even as one in ancient times went out and made away with himself. What happened? As soon as these gentlemen got this land they incorporated a company called the Alberta Land Company, not the South Alberta Land Company. Robert and his associates then made an effort to hold up McGregor. It must have been a novel sensation for him. They went to him and said: We have this land. Oh, yes, says McGregor, but do you not know that I was ahead of you, that I saw the Minister of the Interior and I got all the water. You have the land and no water; what'-are you going to do about it? The minister had handed

these people out a lemon in the shape of land with no water on it. What a sardonic smile he must have had on his face when he sold them this land without any water! What happened? Alexander Smith, of Ottawa, now appears on the scene. I know this House has never heard of that little transaction which he put through. McGregor found the money to buy up the Alberta Land company, the result of which was that the 69,000 acres passed into the hands of the South Alberta Land Company. They had the water and they got the land. The right hon. leader of the Government seems to have been very anxious to put this proposition through, but in the absence of the Minister of the Interior he thought he had better wait until he came back. When he came back he found him very reluctant, very obdurate. He was, to use the words of an hon. member of this House, a bucking broncho from the West who, .when driven to make possible the sale of this land by his Prime Minister, handed out this lemon in the shape of the land without the water.
There was another transaction in my country in connection with the Kanana-kis coal deal, in which there figured not only the names of Howard Douglas, two sons and his son-in-law, but two or three government officials. One of them never heard of the fact that he had ever been a great landed proprietor till the investigation. He merely signed his name, he did not know that anybody else signed his name in his absence, but as a result there passed out of the hands of the Crown a very valuable coal property that has since been sold for $500,000. There is another case not far from my own country in connection with the Blood Indian reserve which has been touched upon. Then they talk about these conspiring and culpable officials being dismissed. If there is one thing more than another that should convince this House that the Government of this country cannot be carried on by a Conservative Government with men of this stamp occupying administrative positions it is the evidence that was given by Pedley, by White and by Smart. I do not want to traverse the ground gone over to-night by my hon. friend the Solicitor General, but if ever there was a self-convicted perjurer, it is Frank Pedley. If there ever was a man who admitted that he had perjured himself in the endeavour to steal a few dollars, if there ever was a man who was a self-confessed perjurer and a criminal unfit for the public service of Canada, it is Frank Pedley. It is time for us to revise our ideas about this matter. L say as a supporter of the Government

that they have been entirely too lenient with civil servants who have prostituted their positions. I say that all the wrongs we have had in this country, all the offences that have occurred since the defeat of the Liberal party have been the result, not of the actions of this Government nor of tne ministers who compose this Government, but of the men who were occupying positions in the public service when this Government came into power and who have given evidence of the training which they had in former days. How can you expect men to be loyal to the public service who have been recreant to their trust in days gone by? You have the cases of Pedley, Smart and White. Smart has now left the service, but White is kept there against my protest. How can you expect a man of that type to discharge the duties and functions of his office when he has been recreant to the trust reposed in him by the people and the Government of the day? These men have admitted that they have committed acts which stamp them as being unfit for the public service; if men such as they are going to have the sympathy and support of hon. gentlemen opposite, what must the people of Canada think of them? I have heard men stand up here and take hours talking about dismissals from the public service, 'but no wonder the public service is rotten if you have hon. members opposite standing up and vindicating the position taken by a Pedley, or a White or a Smart. This thing must stop, and this report will enable it to be stopped. I cannot continue longer, for ' the. hour is late.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am not making a speech about this; I only rose to make a few superficial observations. This all may sound to some hon. gentlemen to be a very light thing, but it is not. It strikes at the very root and foundation of our institutions. I do say, Mr. Speaker, in all seriousness, that I have endeavoured during the time I have lived in western Canada to play my small part in the public life of that country, and I have been disappointed, as many men have been, by reason of the various results in elections. I have taken the trouble to ascertain the reason why. I have seen men of integrity-at least, I thought them so- and of worth, and of character, succumb to the powerful influences, to the tremendous pressure that can be exercised upon them by reason of the facts to which I have directed attention. I appeal to the right hon. gentleman opposite, with his

forty-one years of parliamentary experience, to at least stand in his place, before this matter ends, and make a declaration that will make for the integrity and for the uplifting of the public life of Canada. I at least hope that as a resuH of these unfortunate revelations, and they cannot be less than matters of great sorrow arid sadness to most men, good may come. Do you mean to say to me	that a matteT	of this kindwhich strikes at the very existence of the body politic, is lightly to be passed over? You laugh when the member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury) endeavours to do something to protect the poor red man, and you laugh because the red man's heritage is taken from him on the Blood reserve or somewhere else, and we talk about the glories of our democracy and the freedom of our franchise, but if men occupying high public places are permitted, with the approval of their leader, to go back to the electorate and ask for their support after they have been shown to be guilty of acts so nefarious, so dishonourable, so destructive to the morale of the community and so degrading to the national life, then there is absolutely no hope for democracy or for the proper development of Canada. I appeal to men, to whom, after all, love of country is greater than love of party, to read those reports as they are published. They are not partisan reports, they are not violent attacks upon men, or individuals, but a plain laying open to the perusal of the people of Canada of chapters in its national life that are degrading to that life, and humiliating to every man who calls himself a Canadian. That is the reason I ventured to speak in general terms of all these things dealt with in the report, and to direct specific attention to only one, or two, or three of them. We know what the hon. gentleman from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) pointed out with his camera in days gone by as to what took place with timber limits, and we know he was laughed to scorn. Why, Sir, look at the timber limits of western Canada and the men who own them. Go study""the men; study these different coteries who got these limits by a system that could only be operated with the connivance of the officials, and that is so clear and so palpable that it does not require proof. Why, some of these men have the hardihood to appeal to the electorate, and some of them fold their arms smugly and say: What have you to say about it; we have the support of the people behind us. I do not often tell stories, but I	will	tell this
one. Once in western Canada a man was charged with stealing a pig, and the evidence was clear, and a verdict of guilty seemed inevitable, but to the surprise of the judge and counsel, the jury filed into court and pronounced him not guilty. And when the prisoner was discharged his counsel said to him: "How do you account for this verdict?" and the late prisoner replied: "Say, that's easy, don't you know that each man of the jury had a piece of that pork?" And, Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) comes back and talks of the magnificent majorities he has got in times past,
I refer his electorate to the story of the Riding Mountain, the alienation of the public domain, which took place in his time, and then I think how the men who had a bite of the pork can be competent to judge between him and the best interests of this country. I would like to, and I shall do it later, review the evidence in these cases from my own provinces. I am content to place myself on record as regretting, perhaps more than I can say- although it may be of benefit and advantage to the party I support in this Parliament-my feeling of real sorrow and very great regret that these things should have happened in the province in which I live.
I hopefully look to it, in fact I almost believe, that the right hon. the leader of the Opposition, notwithstanding his connection with some who are guilty, will before this Parliament prorogues, in his place, give to the people of Canada some encouragement or some word that will indicate that regretting as he does the past he looks forward to a brighter future, although he has no hope or expectation of ever being in a position to duplicate the past.


Frank Oliver: Mr. Speaker, I would claim the privilege of answering the personal references made by the Minister of the Interior, but I regret that my voice will not enable me to do so, and for that reason I shall not ask the privilege of the House. As the matter related to two departments, I brought in a recommendation to Council myself that a commission should be issued and a gentleman named for the purpose of inquiring fully into all the matters which had been alleged. The inquiry has now been completed, and I desire leave to lay upon the table of the House the evidence that was taken upon the inquiry and the report of the commissioner.
Motion for the adjournment of the House (Mr. Oliver) negatived.


PROKOGATION OF PARLIAMENT.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. SPEAKER read a communication from the Governor General's secretary, announcing that His Royal Highness would proceed to the Senate Chamber on Thursday, the 15th April, at 4 p.m., for the purpose of proroguing the present session of Parliament.

Robert Laird Borden: May I, with the consent of the House, lay on the table the report of Mr. R. A. Pringle, K.C., commissioner appointed to inquire into certain matters connected with the construction of drill halls at Orono, Meaford, Blackstock, Markdale, and other places in the province of Ontario. Information came to me some two or three months ago dbarging that certain irregularities and certain frauds had been committed in respect to these drill halls, some of winch were under construction by the Department of Militia and some by the Department of Public Works.
Sir ROBERT BORDEN moved the adjournment of the House.


Wilfrid Laurier: As there has been no intermediate proceeding, this motion is out of order.


Robert Laird Borden: The motion is quite in order. There has been a proceeding which will be recorded on the records of the House.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is not a proceeding.


Robert Laird Borden: It is a proceeding in the judgment of John Bourinot, because I have heard it so ruled by the Speaker.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the House adjourned at 12.35 Thursday.
Thursday, April 15, 1915.