1916-03-23

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

Mr. WILLIAM CHISHOLM:: 1.	What was the cost of establishing the flower garden at Antigonish station?
2.	What was the amount expended, the cost of material used, and of work and labour done in connection therewith?
3.	Who is in charge thereof, and at what salary, if any?


Mr. REID:: 1.	Material, $10; labour, $139.05; total, $149.05.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	H. Power, agent at Antigonish station, without remuneration.


IMPORTATION OF HORSES.
Mr. KAY:: How many horses were imported into Canada ' from the United States, respectively, between August 1 and December 31, 1911; between January 1 and December 31, 1915, and during January, 1916? .


Mr. REID:: Horses imported from the
United States which have been entered for consumption:	Between August 1 and
December 1, 1914, 1,474; between January 1 and December 31, 1915, 858; between January 1 and 31, 1916, 73. It is not in the public interest to state the number of horses which passed in transit through Canada since August 1, 1914.


IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. J. J- HUGHES:
1.	What was the total amount of^the annual imports and exports between .Canada and the United States in the fiscal years 1910-11, 1912-13 and 1914-15?
2.	What was the total annual imports a.nd exports between Canada and Great Britain for the same years?
John Dowsley Reid: 1.-
Imports entered for Consumption.
	$284,934,739
lc 12-13	 441,142,593
1914-15	 428,616,927
1912-13
Exports.
Domestic.
. .$104,115,823 .. 139,725,953 .. 173,320,798
Foreign.

Total.

Imports entered for Consumption.
1910-11 .			$109,936,462
			138,761,568
			90,160,781
	Exports.		
Domestic.	Foreign.	Total.1910-11	. .$132,156,924	$ 4,80S,187	$136,965,1111912-13	. . 170,161,903	7,820,099	177,982.0021914-15	.. 186,668,599	25,090,264	211,758,863


INDIAN LANDS COMMISSION.
Mr. BUCHANAN:: 1.	Who are the members of the Indian Lands Commission ?
2.	How much has each member hem paid since the commission was appointed?
COMMON ri
3.	What has been the total cost of the commission up to the present time?
4.	What is the Dominion's share ot :his expenditure?


Mr. ROCHE:: 
EXPORTATION OP WOOL,.
Mr. BUCHANAN:: 1.	Is there an embargo at the present time on wool going into the United States?
2.	Is it the intention to retain this embargo?
3.	Are United States buyers permitted to buy in Canada under license? If so, will this system be continued?


Mr. REID:: 1.	Wool of Canadian growth is permitted to be exported to the United States under license and guarantee as to its use.
2.	The question as to future action in this case has not been considered.
3.	Answered by Nos. 1 and 2.


RIVERSIDE LUMBER COMPANY.
Mr. J. J. HUGHES:: On whose recommendation was the Riverside Lumber Company, referred to on page 103-ZZ, Vol. 4, Auditor General's Report, placed on the patronage list in the Militia list, as asked to supply the goods purchased from them?


Mr. KEMP:: The name of the Riverside Lumber Company, Limited, Medicine Hat, as mentioned in the Auditor General's Report, does not appear on any patronage or purchasing list in the Militia Department.


INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY-ACCIDENT AT YAL BRILLANT.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
John Dowsley Reid: During my absence yesterday the attention of the House was drawn to an accident at Val Brillant station on the Intercolonial railway. This morning 1 received this letter, which gives all the information t have in connection with the matter:
Moncton, N.B., March 23, 1916. Dear Mr. Reid:
I regret to report that at 11.05 p.m., March 21, immediately in front of Val Brillant station, an accident occurred which resulted in the death of fireman Felix Lagouffde, Able St. Am-and, of Ste. Louise, and Jos. Thibault, of Saya-bec, who were riding in a car containing five horses. Engineer William Killam died yesterday as a result of his injuries. Engineer H. Maisey and fireman McNeish are still in a serious condition owing to injuries received.
The accident consisted of a front end collision between two double header freight trains, probably caused by the disregarding of orders on the part of the north bound extra. Investigation being held.
Three engines are badly damaged and the fourth requires to go to the shop for repairs. Six cars of the west bound freight were badly damaged, including one car containing ' five horses and two men above reported.
The main line was blocked twelve hours on account of this accident.
Will advise you further as to monetary loss later when I get further reports.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) F. P. Gutelius.
(Later.)
Coroner's Verdict re Val Brillant given last night is as follows:
" Accident caused by collision between trains at Val Brillant and that no blame is attached to any one except engineer Killam on engine 31.''
This was the engineer of the leading engine on north bound extra who died. Evidence so far points to the fact that he was asleep. Had ample rest before leaving and was on . duty about eleven hours at the time of accident. Our investigation being started Campbellton today.	.
(Sgd.) F. P. Gutelius.


Mr. MARCIL:: The point raised in the message I read to the House was that the accident was caused by the congestion of cars on the sidings. I am glad to learn that such is not the case.


John Dowsley Reid: We are having an investigation; but from the general manager, who is at present in Ottawa, I understand that both freight trains were supposed to stop at the station and make a crossing; that this train evidently ran through without stopping at all; and that that is probably how the accident occurred.


ST. PETERS INDIAN RESERVE.
[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. W. J. Roche (Minister oi the Interior), the House went into committee on the following proposed resolution, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair:
Resolved, that it is expedient to provide that patents of land included in the St. Peters's Indian reserve, in the county of Selkirk, in the province of Manitoba, issued by His Majesty lie confirmed and made good, (a) in cases where lands were unsold and were held by Indian patentees on the first day of June, 1915 ; (b) in cases where the additional sum of one dollar for each acre of such lands included in such patent or sale, together with interest at the rate of five per cent per annum from the first day of June, 1915, until payment has been or is paid to His Majesty ; and (c) in cases where the owner gives His Majesty a lien creating a first charge upon the lands for the sum of one dollar for each acre of such lands included in such patent or sale, payable in five equal instalments with interest at five per centum per annum from the first day of June, 1915; the first of such instalments and interest to be due and payable on the first day of June, 1916 ; and that procedure be prescribed for the effecting and discharge of the said lien; and that in any enactment based upon this resolution it be provided that such enactment shall be deemed to have come into force on the first day of June, 1915.
Mr. ROCHE:: It will hardly be necessary to enter into an elaborate explanation for the benefit of the older members of the House, as to why this resolution has been introduced, because it has reference to a matter which formed the theme of discussion both inside and outside of this House for several years. It will refresh the memory of some hon. members on the subject when I recall that in September, 1907,, a band of Indians, known as the St. Peters band, occupying a reserve adjacent to the town of Selkirk, surrendered their lands to be disposed of in order to allow the development of the town and of the adjacent neighbourhood. Objections were taken to the .manner of that surrender. It was considered to be null and void, partly by reason of the fact that the interpretation placed upon the law which states that before the surrender could be valid it must have been approved of by a majority of the male members ,of the band. That was interpreted at the time to mean a majority of the male members who attended the meeting at which the vote on the question of the surrender was taken. 'Those who objected to the surrender also contended that the meeting was not called properly; that it was held at the wrong time of the year to give the Indians an opportunity of being
heard; that it was held on too short notice; that improper overtures were made to the Indians at the meeting, in order to induce them to vote in favour of this surrender; that the hall in which the meeting was held was too small to admit the crowd, and that a number of Indians were outside the building and had not an opportunity to hear what was going on within, so that many of them voted in ignorance of the terms of the surrender. As a result of the objections, the registrar in the land titles office in Manitoba refused to register the title. A petition from some of the Indians was presented to the Provincial Government, asking the 'Government to cause an inquiry to be made into the method of the surrender and into whether the surrender was valid or otherwise. The Provincial Government appointed a commission of three county court judges: Judge Prud-homme, Judge Eocke, and Judge Myers. This commission went thoroughly into the circumstances, and, as a result of their investigation two reports were handed in, a majority report signed by Judge Prud-homme and Judge Locke, and a minority report signed by Judge Myers. The majority report was in effect, that the surrender should be declared null and void, and this principally by reason of the fact-although ' other reasons were also given-that it did not conform to the statute requiring a majority of the male members qtf the band to vote in its favour; that Judge Myers reported that the provisions of the Act had, in effect, been complied with. Owing to the report of this commission, the registrar still refused to pass favourably upon the titles, and the matter has since remained in that unsettled condition. It was claimed at the time that the Indians had not received full value for their lands. Of the 45,000 acres, in round numbers, that constituted the reserve, some were allotted to the individual Indians (I think 16 acres per head), amounting in all to some 18,600 acres. The greater portion of these lands were sold individually by the Indians. Other lands included in the 45,000 acres-between 15,000 and 16,000 acres-were sold at public auction at an average price, I believe, of about $5.65 per acre. It was claimed that the Indians had not been fairly dealt with; that, ae usual upon such occasions, advantage had been taken of the Indians by the private purchasers, and that the sale had not been conducted in such manner as to ensure the most competition. At any rate, this Gov-

ernment felt that the Indians had not been fairly dealt with, and that the surrender had not been valid. Consequently, some two years ago or thereabouts, the Indian Department handed this case over to the Justice Department with instructions to take whatever action they in their wisdom should deem necessary. The case was entered in the Exchequer Court of Canada.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Between what parties?


William James Roche: The Government on the one hand, and the purchasers of the lands on the other. After a time, overtures were made by the purchasers of these lands desiring to effect settlement with the Government without having the case proceed to trial. Negotiations were conducted for some considerable time between the Justice Department and the barrister representing the purchasers of the lands, and for a long time they failed to arrive at any satisfactory solution of the difficulty. In June of last year, in view of that uncertainty that always exists with regard to the termination of legal cases-for whichever party lost there would be an appeal to the Privy Council-also in view of the fact that the development of the country adjacent to the town of Selkirk would be held up, and that the purchasers of these lands would be placed in an unenviable position, it was deemed advisable to accept an offer which was eventually made by the purchasers of the lands. It was decided that we should confirm the surrender and allow the titles to be passed upon favourably by the registrar, upon the payment of an additional dollar per acre by the purchasers of the land. This would mean, in round numbers, an addition to the Indian Fund of about $43,000 or $45,000. The Registrar of Titles in the province of Manitoba, after some correspondence last summer with the Solicitor General and with the Indian Department, decided that he would pass favourably upon those lands if the Superintendent' Genera] of Indian Affairs would give the assurance that at the next session of Parliament he would introduce an Act to confirm the surrender, and the present titles of the land, upon the payment to the registrar of this additional dollar per acre, and that, in the case of those who are not paying in cash, we should take a first lien on the land. That assurance was given by me as Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, after consultation with my colleagues. Hence this resolution has been introduced, and
fMr Roche!
upon it a Bill will be founded. It is not necessary for me to enter into a minute history of the charges and counter-charges which were made in regard to this matter. In concrete form, the matter stands just as I have explained it.


Hon. FRANK OLIVER:: This question of the sale of St. Peters Indian Reserve has been before the House so frequently that I am sure hon. members will not care to hear it discussed at any great length on this occasion. At the same time, it is in order that it should be pointed out that the action now taken by this Government is a complete and absolute justification of the action of the previous Government and a denial of all the charges, allegations and insinuations that were made against that Government by hon. gentlemen opposite, who were then in opposition, and in particular the hon. membeT for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury), who, I observe, is not in his place to-day. I cannot imagine how any other conclusion can be reached from the proposed action of the Government. If the statement made by the minister to-day is read in conjunction with the statements that were formerly made by members on the other side of the House it will be seen that their contentions have been absolutely disproved on investigation by the Government now in power, or else the Government now in power is lending itself in every degree to the alleged injustice that was done the Indians and the alleged mishandling of the public business of which the late Government was said, to be guilty. The horn, member for Selkirk, and other members who took it upon themselves to make the contention, said that the lands dealt with were of a value of $15 an acre and upwards. These lands had been sold at an average price of $5 or $6 an acre, by public auction and by private sale, and the contention was that the Indians had been cheated to the extent of a minimum of at teast $10 an acre, or double the price they received for the land. To-day the minister proposes to wipe the slate cleap upon consideration of the purchasers of this land paying an additional amount, not of $10 an acre, but of $1 an acre. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, either the contentions that were made against the action 'of the late Government have no justification, or else the action of the present Government has no justification, I certainly cannot congratulate the Government, when it is compelled to negative the contentions

of its supporters, that it has not done so gracefully, and, I will take the liberty of saying, honestly, by admitting that the transaction was in all respects what they now in effect admit it to have been. There never was any ground whatever for the contentions that were made by members of the then opposition in regard to this land transaction.
I shall take the liberty of saying that the fact that the purchasers of this land were not able to>
register their title, under the administration of the late Manitoba Government, was neither more nor less than a political hold-up, arranged between private members on the then Opposition side of the House and the then Manitoba Government, which had control of that registration, a political hold-up in the expectation that some political or personal profit could be made to accrue to the parties concerned. If the registrar of land titles of the province of Manitoba was at that time justified in refusing registration of these titles because the surrenders had not been legally made, he certainly was not warranted in accepting registration of them now, when there is no further evidence that the surrender was legally made. The surrender stands just as it did before. If this officer refused registration because he considered a sufficient price was not paid for the land, then I submit that the payment of an additional dollar an acre does not warrant him in accepting registration. The purchasers of these lands were entitled 'to the property they had bought for the money they had agreed to pay, and it was up to this Government, or to those who were contending against the validity of 'the former transaction, to prove that that transaction was not straight and in all respects according to the larw. They could not ,do it, although they have had nine years in which to do it, and the result is that they have given up the attempt and have practically surrendered to the position as it was before. I perhaps speak somewhat strongly in regard to this matter. Having been the minister in charge of Indian Affairs at the time the surrender was taken, I was subjected to a very great deal of very venomous and unwarranted criticism, both by those who knew better and by those who knew nothing at all about the case. Therefore I feel warranted in taking this opportunity of placing before the House, and thereby before the country, the facts as to the complete exoneration of the officers of the department
and of myself, and of the purchasers of the land, in fact all who were connected with the transaction, on the authority of the Minister of the Interior and on the responsibility of the Government of which he is a member, as shown by the action that he is now taking. Not to delay the committee, I simply wish to say that the surrender of the St. Peters reserve was in the interest of the Indians; it was in the interest of the surrounding community; it was in the interest of the province and in the interest of the country generally. It received the approval of all those several interests, and the fact that it was delayed in its execution until the present time was simply, I repeat, a political holdup, the result of which will be, I fancy, the retirement of one or two members of this House to private life when the next election takes place.
Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Solicitor General:) The hon. gentleman's arraignment of the resolution proceeds on the assumption that it is a justification of the action of the late Government in regard to the St. Peters reserve. He did not favour the House with any explanation, or present to us any foundation for his contention. He forgets that the worst crimes are those which do not admit of expiation, and the worst forms of political malpractice are those which cannot be visited with an adequate remedy. This is one of those forms. The late Government took upon itself to adopt certain methods, and also later on to ratify the methods adopted by those acting under them, with regard to this legislation, which, at the time, justly brought upon the Government very severe criticism in the country. The late Government remained in power, however, for some time after the reserve was given up, and after the whole transaction was, so far as it was concerned, closed. In the meantime many other considerations reared their heads and complicated the whole subject with dif-Acuities that prevented an appropriate remedy being bad.
Now, what are those considerations? It is clear to every one who has had any experience, either in business or in litigation, that the tying up of the title to land that is involved in protracted litigation brings with it very severe injury and a very severe penalty upon thosB who are in no way connected, and indeed are in no way primarily concerned, with the cause of the litigation. That is ' true even in regard to special

parcels of land that have in the past been involved in long litigious proceedings. Here we have a very pronounced case of that kind; here we have a case of the continuance of litigation which necessarily could not be set in motion until some years after the transaction itself transpired, and some years after various innocent interests necessarily had arisen; here we have a case of not one special parcel, but of literally thousands of acres of land in which the whole community is interested, that must necessarily he tied up as' to its title, and in respect of which development must stop, until that litigation proceeds to its termination. It must be clear to the hon. member for Edmonton that, no matter how ill-founded and no matter how inherently wrong the original transaction was; no matter how unjust it was to the Indians and to those connected with them, there necessarily will come the interests of 'the community which must suffer by the only remedy that can be adopted to set right the wrong that was done. Consequently that must he taken into consideration by a Government that proceeds to: set right the wrong; that must be taken into consideration when- any offer of settlement presents itself that enables us to" do at least some form of justice, without involving too much injustice with it, to those who were not guilty of the original transaction. In that connection it must he borne in mind that the town of Selkirk itself, which is situated beside a large portion of these lands, is concerned in removing the cloud that rests upon the title. It appears that some industrial enterprises had located in the neighbourhood of, and I believe right on, some of the lands concerned, and consequently the town of Selkirk, which, as a corporation, which as an industrial enterprise, had nothing whatever to do with the original wrong, had nothing whatever to do with the original surrender, was in no way in complicity with the late Government in what they d^d, suffered and had no remedy that could be applied, entirely irrespective of the wrong that gave rise to the necessity of a remedy.
Furthermore, the owners of the lands adjoining the town of Selkirk, outside of what may be termed municipal interests, are concerned to see that somebody gets to own these lands, to know who does own them, and to see that the lands will admit of that development which adds to the value of adjoining lands. These owners are innocent parties in every sense, and we 
should take care to visit on them as little as possible the inevitable penalty that comes from tying up the title of these lands.
There is another consideration still. While the surrender may have been invalid, while in my humble judgment it was invalid legally, and while I think that that would have been the ultimate decision of the courts, this is this fact, that there were some concerned with that sale who were by no means as guilty as others, and there ' were some whose interest subsequently arose, and in whom there could be no guilt at all. The men who did wrong, at all events the men who were enabled to do wrong by the action of the late Government, who perpetrated the wrong upon the Indians, were able to get away with the results of their wrongdoing before this Government came into power. They imposed upon the Indian, they took advantage of the opportunity, and as soon as they had done feo, they made a sale claiming that they had a right to do so, and relying on the Government to say that it was a just and honourable action; and the innocent purchaser comes in and finds that these men have got away with the money and that there is no way of recovering it. Many who are now interested in these lands are not those who themselves took advantage of the opportunity afforded them by the late Administration, and consequently it would be unfair to exact from them that portion of their profit, or whatever you may call it, that actually has already been disposed of by the really guilty ones who went before them.
All these considerations must be kept in mind, and in the presence of them it is impossible to do actual justice. It may be impossible to do what one would describe as substantial justice. All we can do in the presence of these facts and circumstances is to meet the case in the most adequate way we can; and it was deemed best, indeed, the only way that a settlement could be arrived at, to accept a certain amount per acre in respect of those who held the lands obtained at that sale, or who obtained from the Indians lands by virtue of the surrender. Consequently, any one who eo holds these lands must, before their title can be made complete, pay to the Government of Canada one dollar per acre in respect of them. The Indian himself of course does not have that .to pay. Those Indians who hold what they got there hold it still, and hold it without any cloud, or without any lien on the part of the Government of Canada.

The hon. gentleman says that the action of the registrar of Manitoba was a political hold-up, executed by the Registrar General at the instance of the then Government of Manitoba, and I presume of the present Government of Canada. I do not know what he means by a political hold-up.


Frank Oliver: I did not say it was by the present Government; the hold-up was by the Provincial Government of Manitoba, before this Government came into power-.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: My hon. friend says that the Manitoba Government used the judiciary of the province as an instrument to carry out a hold-up. That is the charge?


Frank Oliver: That is the charge.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend says
that is the charge.


Frank Oliver: I beg my hon. friend's pardon; I did not say that they used the judiciary. They exercised their authority over their appointed officials,


Arthur Meighen: I said the judiciary and the hon. gentleman assented. It must have been the judiciary that they used as their instrument, because the judiciary of Manitoba, by a majority of two to one, decided that the reserve was not legally taken, and that it was the duty of the Registrar to refuse to pass the title.


Frank Oliver: The point is, who was the registrar, and who appointed him.


Arthur Meighen: The point is, who were the judiciary. The judiciary came to that decision, and my hon. friend must take either one horn of the dilemma or the other; he must either say that we were right in our contention, or that in this political hold-up the judiciary of the province was utilized as an instrument.


Frank Oliver: Not at all.


Arthur Meighen: I know of no other
course he can take.


Frank Oliver: The judiciary did not
make the hold-up; it was the officers of the Government of Manitoba.


Arthur Meighen: The judiciary found
that the contention of the then Opposition was correct,, that the reserve was improperly taken, and that justice bad not been done to the Indian, and consequently, as a result of the finding of the judiciary, the registrar of the province refused to pass the title.


Frank Oliver: He refused it first.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know that he did; I do not think he did. But, if he did refuse it first, his action was determined to be right and proper by the judiciary. But I think my hon. friend is wrong; I do not think he refused it until after the finding of the judges.


William James Roche: And on the recommendation of Chief Justice Howell.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, and on the recommendation of Chief Justice Howell. I need make no remark on the eminence of that member of the judiciary of Manitoba. So much for the charge that there was a political hold-up. After all is said and done in so far as this settlement is effected, the principle for which we have all along contended is vindicated. The Indian who has lost is the Indian who now benefits. His fund benefits to the extent of about $40,000. No one contends that $40,000 represents the amount which my hon. friends opposite permitted the men to get away with, but the $40,000 represents the amount As nearly as we can judge which we are able to get, and which will do a measure of substantial justice in the presence of the circumstances that have arisen, and which deny to us the possibility cf securing actual justice for those who suffered by reason of the action of hon. gentlemen opposite.
Perhaps I may explain before I sit down that the Bill doe? not force a settlement upon any one. Any one who feels that he has no right to pay this money may continue the litigation. I do not know that any will avail themselves of that opportunity, because, speaking frankly, the the amount is not high; but at all events it must not be understood that we are forcing this by way of a levy. We are simply saying to those who are ready to pay that the offer should be accepted, and to that extent that the land should be freed from the cloud and removed from the terrors of litigation.


Hon. WILLIAM PUGSLEY:: Have the Indians been consulted in regard to this proposed settlement?


Arthur Meighen: Does my hon. friend
mean the 'Indians themselves?


William Pugsley: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: The Government of
Canada represents the Indians; the Indians are our wards, and we are making the settlement as their guardians.


William Pugsley: That does not answer my question. I would like to know whether or not the Indians themselves have been consulted with regard to this proposed settlement.


William James Roche: We have had many representations from the Indians approving of the settlement.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend knows perfectly well that, in regard to disposal of their lands, there is a mode of consulting the Indians. Notice is given of the meeting at which the Indians are allowed to assemble and the matter is brought before them, and they determine as to the action they should take. What occurs to me is that, according to the view which has been presented by the Solicitor General, and also, I think, by the Minister of the Interior, the surrender was void. If it was void, then the lands still belong to the Indians. One or the other must be true; either the surrender was good and valid, and the Indians parted with their property in a perfectly legal way, or the surrender was void, and, therefore, the lands still belong to the Indians. Now, I do not think that the Government really relies upon the contention that the surrender was void, for they propose to make a .settlement which would effectually take from the Indians any possible claim they would have to these lands. The Indians ought to have been called together and consulted in the regular way as to the' disposition which would be made of the interests which the Government contends they still had in the lands, notwithstanding the surrender which was alleged to have taken place. I understand the Objection to the alleged surrender on the part of this Government, and upon the part of the registrar in Manitoba, who was an appointee of the Roblin Government, was that the Indians were not properly notified, that they were not properly called together in council, ant^ did not, therefore, have a fair opportunity of considering the proposed surrender. But now the Government, notwithstanding that it is pretending to this House that there is no surrender; that the proceedings were wholly void, and that the Indians still remain the owners of the lan^s, is proposing, without consulting the Indians at all, and without calling them together in council, to ask this Parliament to completely and absolutely alienate their rights, whatever they may be. That is the position in which this Government stands. It does seem to

me that the Government is not in a position to say that the 'surrender which took place some years ago was void, because from its conduct it must be inferred that it is of the opinion that in law and in equity the Indians have no title to these lands, that they have surrendered their title. But, as there is an opportunity to obtain from those people who had bought the land and paid their money, an additional amount which they are willing to pay rather than be compelled to go to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and to incur large expenses of litigation, the Government is making that an excuse for settlement, and is now coming to Parliament and asking it to ratify the proposed settlement simply because it is getting an additional sum of $.1 per acre out of the purchasers of this land. More than that, the excuse that is made by the Solicitor General is that there are some people who are absolutely innocent, and there are some people who have been guilty of very grave wrong-doing. Yet, the Government is proposing to treat all alike on the principle that the sun shines equally on the innocent and the guilty. Does the sun of this Government shine equally, and with the same intensity, upon those who are guilty as upon those who are absolutely innocent of any wrong-doing? The result is that the innocent man, the man who has been guilty of no wrong-doing whatever, who acted in the most perfect good faith, who paid his money believing the transfer was altogether just, proper, and legal, in order to get his title, is compelled to pay the same amount of money that this Government is exacting from the man who, it believes, was guilty of very grave wrongdoing. Is that fair? Is there any principle of justice in that?
The Solicitor General puts forward another excuse. He says that they might appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and that the title of the land might be held to be void, but that it would take a long period of time to decide. This Government has been in power now for upwards of four years and an ordinary appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council takes, at the very outside, twelve months. Appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council are disposed of rather speedily, and if the Government had chosen to bring this matter to the test of law within a reasonable time after it came into office, this Whole question would have been settled long ago. But after wait-

ing for four years, the Government comes now, and, for a paltry additional sum of $1 per acre-which it is not exacting in cash but which it is allowing the
4 p.m. grantees to extend over a period of years, and upon which they are paying 5 per cent interest-it is proposing to make this settlement by which those who are innocent of wrongdoing and those who are guilty are put in a position of absolute equality. If there was fraud, if there was wrongdoing, if the surrender was absolutely void, then the Indians own the land. If the land was worth $15 per acre, as was alleged some years ago so strongly by hon. gentlemen who are now occupying the treasury benches, this Government ought not to have compromised for the small sum of $1 per acre, but the Government ought to have carried the case to the highest court in the realm and had it settled long, long since.
There is one other consideration to which my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) has referred. The official of the Roblin Government in Manitoba declined to recognize the transfer because the surrender was void and therefore the transfers were void. I would like to know how it comes that he afterwards recognized these transfers at the instance of this Government. If they were ever void they are void to-day. This Government, without legislation, has no power to make them valid, and how is it that at the instance of this Government the registrar of Manitoba has allowed to be recorded certain transfers which previously he had held to be absolutely void and which he had held he had no power to place on record? The Government is to-day seeking retroactive legislation to make legal what they say the registrar of Manitoba has done, and in order to validate what the Minister of the Interior did a good many months ago, and which he did, according to the Government's view, absolutely without legal authority.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is forgetting that action of this official in Manitoba of which he complains was committed by him as an official of the new Norris Government some months after that Government came in.


William Pugsley: By the new Norris Government? At whose instance? Was it the same official?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, but under
the instructions of the new Attorney General.


William Pugsley: If it was under the instructions of the new Attorney General, then that means that the new Attorney General of Manitoba believes that the surrender was absolutely valid and perfectly legal. That must be the opinion of the new Attorney General of Manitoba, and it is a proper opinion.


Arthur Meighen: You do not get the
reason there.


William Pugsley: But notwithstanding
that the opinion of the Attorney General of Manitoba is that the transfer was perfectly legal and valid, and that the people who paid their money have a right to have their deeds of transfer registered, this Government has threatened to carry the case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council unless these people, innocent and guilty alike, pay into the treasury the sum, according to the Solicitor General, of $1 per acre, extending that over an unlimited period of time and paying interest at 5 per cent per annum. It does seem to me that the action of this Government in this respect is not defensible. Either that transfer was legal or it was illegal. If it was illegal, then the Indians are entitled to their lands; they are entitled to be consulted; they are entitled to be called together in the regular way to be informed of their legal position, and their rights should be guarded by this Government, which is the trustee for the Indians. I would like to know what right a trustee in an ordinary case would have to act as the Minister of the Interior is acting in this case in reference to these Indians whose trustee the Minister of the Interior is. Hon. gentlemen upon the other side of the House have alleged th|at this land was worth the very large sum of $15 per acre. They have alleged that fraud was perpetrated; that the interests of'the Indians were sacrificed, and that an average of ten dollars per acre was unlawfully taken from them. Yet, to-day, without consulting the Indians, the Government ask to have what they have done confirmed simply by providing an additional fund for the Indians of the sum of only one dollar per acre as compared with ten dollars per acre which they alleged the Indians were unlawfully deprived of in the past.


Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice) :: I think the reasoning of the hon. member for St. John (Mr Pugsley) would lead to the conclusion that no lawsuit ever should be settled. He argues, on the one



hand, that a settlement should meet all the requirements of what would happen if the Government should succeed in ite litigation, and he finds fault if we do not get that. Then, on the other hand, he finds fault with this settlement because the parties settling and making the payment are not going to get all that they would get if it was decided that they were right; that is to eay, that they were to retain the land and pay nothing. I have always understood that it was in the nature of a settlement and compromise that the parties should get together, basing their action necessarily on the leaving aside for the moment of the absolute determination of who is right and who is wrong; and, that this Government should be willing under those circumstances to come to a settlement which does not produce all the results that a successful lawsuit would produce, seems to me only the ordinary conduct of any one who joins in a settlement. We did entertain-and I may say that we entertain still-a very strong conviction that that surrender was illegal, and was ineffective; but our predecessors in office had so arranged matters that, out of that surrender, it must necessarily follow, if our view was right, that the Indian would suffer eerious loss. I am not in a position to speak of the exact amount of that loss, but we are quite satisfied that the bringing about of that surrender in the way in which it was brought about, necessarily created a situation where, if it stood, the Indian was going to suffer considerable loss. The action of our predecessors not only entailed that loss if the surrender stood valid, but, furthermore, it created a condition where, inevitably, what happened was to be expected, that is to say, that persons not connected with the original transaction, and having before them the fact that the then representatives of the Indians had sanctioned and approved what had been done and were standing behind the titles, invested their money in those properties, which, as the hon. Solicitor General has pointed out, were passed over, enabling those who were parties to the original transaction, which we believe and still believe to have been tainted with fraud, to pocket their profits. Creating that situation, our predecessors created a situation where just what has happened necessarily must have been anticipated, where, if the surrender were set aside, as we contend it ought to be, then necessarily there must be suffering entailed upon per-
sons who, to the extent of having acted in good faith, were innocent in respect of the validity of their title. I do not go so far as to say that, as a matter of law or even as a matter of justice, a man who acquires a property to which the vendor has no title, is necessarily entitled to claim that he is wrongfully treated, when the invalidity of his title is determined, because it is no doubt his duty to inquire into the validity of the title. But necessarily the action of our predecessors, as we understand it, not only gravely prejudiced the Indian, but created a condition of affairs where this grave prejudice to innocent third persons was possible, and also created a condition where it was only reasonably to be anticipated that that injury to third persons would come about. Now, we are in face of a case of that kind where, if our view is right, the Indian was deprived of his property. We are, of course, in face of people who seriously contend that oqr position is invalid. That does not alter our view about our position, but we are not so unreasonable as to treat our opinion as infallible -and I think the hon. gentleman himself will admit that it is not the very best lawyer who, because of the strength of his own opinion, will always repudiate a proposed settlement which gives some advantage to his client, even though it does not give his client all that he is entitled to. Settlements practically invariably are of that" nature. There is no doubt room for difference of opinion-and in saying that I do not depart at all from the opinion which I have already expressed, and which I entertain very strongly-and there is always uncertainty in the determination of questions of law, and more particularly I may say, do you find yourself exposed to uncertainty when you present yourself before a court with a question of law, the abstract determination of which, in either one respect or the other, must necessarily entail hardship to innocent people on one side or the other. I think any lawyer, dealing with a case of that kind and looking at the question of the probable result of his case, would feel that be was bound to give serious consideration to the possible effects on the determination of the question of that condition of affairs, namely, one where a determination in absolute accord with the strict law must necessarily entail hardship upon innocent third persons. Those are the conditions in which that case stands. Furthermore, with regard to the Indian, this, I think, is fairly to 'be pointed

out that, assuming the absolute success of the Government as the representative of the Indian, assuming a judgment in the sense which we contend, and still believe the judgment ought to be rendered, there would remain the fact that such persons as dealt with this property innocently and in good faith would be, as a matter of simple equity, entitled to represent to the Government of Canada that the Government of Canada at the time, then acting as the agent of the Indian, then being the person in whose hands the Indians' interests all were, had failed in its trust to the Indian as we understand it, but being always the trustee of the Indian, who, the outside party has a right to assume, was acting lawfully on his behalf, had brought about and created this situation, causing the serious loss that was entailed upon such parties as were innocent by the judgment that I assume to have been rendered. In that condition of affairs I think it would present a very serious question whether or not a Government, even in the face of a determination of the illegality of all this transaction, would feel called upon to do something to meet the position created by .a Government of Canada and resulting in the suffering of those innocent acquirers. Under all these conditions, it would seem to me, if ever there was a case that was an ideal case to settle, that this was the case, and that, without derogating in the slightest from the earnestness of my conviction that upon the law of the case the Government ought to succeed. The reproach is now made that, in proceeding to make this settlement, we do not make certain that a sufficient surrender has been made. That is equivalent to saying that we do not settle on the basis of having already a judgment determining the question. How are we going to settle with people if we throw their rights back on a determination of the main question? If we settle we must proceed to that settlement without determining absolutely who was right and who was wrong. We realize that the Indian is not getting all that he would get if we succeeded, as I think, from all I have seen of the evidence, that we should. On the other hand, the parties who obtained the property will pay very much less than they would pay if we succeeded. They are getting a clear title, and they are, at all events, paying something to compensate the Indian for the loss entailed upon him. It is said that we ought to discriminate, first finding out who were the innocent and who were the guilty 1301
parties, and not deal with both indiscriminately. That is'one of the questions that would be determined if the lawsuit went on. But we are making a settlement. It is not impossible that some party or parties have had knowledge of this matter that would entail at least a moral responsibility; it may be possible that some of those whom we thought to be in good faith may not have been in good faith, and, on the other hand, that some whom we thought to have been in bad faith may not have been in bad faith. These are questions that would have to be submitted to the court and passed upon. We are getting a settlement because we believe that, on the one side, the Indian is, at all events, securing a measure of compensation, and that, on the other side, we are acting in the public interest, because, as the Solicitor General pointed out, we are acting in such a manner as to enable us to avoid unnecessary loss to such oi these persons as were in good faith. I think that, so far as absence of complaints on their part can show, they stand perfectly willing to make this settlement. Nobody is opposing it. But no man who is in good faith and who believes he has a good	title is
to be forced to make this payment. If he believes that his case is good, he can go on and fight it out. All we propose to do is to make a settlement with those who are willing to make a settlement. There is no doubt the Indian is left without an adequate remedy if we are right; but that is the case with every party who settles his case. In view of the difficulties I have pointed out of doing absolute justice to everybody, even if we succeeded, it seems to me that the criticisms made of this suggested settlement can hardly be justified.


Frank Oliver: I believe it is an understood principle of British law that every man is held to be innocent until he is proven guilty. We have heard speeches by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) and the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) to-day based on the assumption that somebody unnamed is guilty, notwithstanding the fact that although these hon. gentlemen have the authority to go to the proof, they have not gone to the proof. I think it would have been more in accordance with justice, if not in' accord with law as administered by our friends opposite, if these hon. gentlemen had recognized the fundamental principle to which I have referred, and had not repeated, the assertion that wrong had


Arthur Meighen: I have no desire to add to the heat of the hon. member for Edmonton; I do not think that he misapprehended the course I took in the few remarks that I made a little while ago. The hon. gentleman argued that the course that we are taking now is an exoneration of the late Government. I sought to meet that argument, and to contend that our action was no exoneration of the late Government. I did not go back of that and enter into the merits of the original dispute to show where right and wrong was. That was debated in this House for hours, indeed, for days and weeks, and ha? been session after session. I do not think it, is the desire of hon. gentlemen that we should go back into that field of controversy now. I do think that I met the contention of the hon. gentleman by showing that in introducing this legislation we are by no means exonerating the late Administration and are by no means taking a, position inconsistent with the position we took when the late Government wTas in power. That was all I argued. If it is the desire of the hon. gentleman to do so, he can have an opportunity any time he wishes of introducing a motion or otherwise, and we will go back with him over that old ground again; I am just as ready to do it as he is. I think, however, that we have better use for our time on ,the present occasion and better use for our time this session than to do that. I wish to refer, however, to one or two points raised by hon. gentlemen opposite. It is said by the hon. member for St. John-in this he is supported by the hon. member for Edmonton-that we should in this case have gone to the Indian and had him justify our proceeding by accepting this settlement, along the line and parallel to the procedure laid down in the Act for us in respect of a surrender itself.


Frank Oliver: My contention is not that the Government should do as it is doing. My contention is that the Government should drop the whole affair and allow the property to be registered.


Arthur Meighen: I have passed that point; I am dealing with a specific argument of the hon. member for St. John, which was- supported by the. hon. member for Edmonton. He says that the original Act provides- that before a surrender shall be valid the Indians shall be gathered together, and, after certain form of procedure, they shall ratify it by a majority. He says that inasmuch as that is laid down as the procedure before a surrender in the first place shall be valid, we now, proceeding to validate the surrender, should take their consent also to that validation. It is to my mind clear that it is proper that the Indian should be appealed to before so simple a thing as a surrender is taken from him. The band may be quite competent to decide whether or not it is in their interests to abandon their property and accept some other property at a distance away in lieu thereof, and to accept very simple and, very easily understandable terms. That is one thing, but it is quite another thing to argue that we should have gone to the Indians of St. Peters reserve and submitted to them the legal arguments on one side as to the validity of the surrender and the legal arguments- on the other side as to its invalidity, and then ask them to weigh one against the other and decide whether the difference is worth $40,000. That appears to me to be a most absurd proposal to submit to a band of Indians. If they could decide that we had better liberate and emancipate them, act no longer as their guardians, make them ordinary citizens.


William Pugsley: I was basing my argument entirely upon the theory advanced by the Government, who are the trustees for the Indians, that there never was a surrender and that the land still remains the land of the Indians. What occurred to me was that, in order to be consistent, the Government ought to have called the Indians together and said: there is an alleged surrender of this land, but in our opinion there has been no surrender. We can settle the matter upon certain such and such terms; we advise you to consent to settlement; we want your approval.


Arthur Meighen: I quite agree with that if we won, it would be in our interest to do that. Even if we were positively certain that we should succeed, then we would require to go back to the Indian-it would be common sense to do so-and have a surrender taken in the usual way. Then the Indian would have to decide upon issues that the country's laws say he is capable

*of deciding upon. But under the present [DOT]circumstances, to lay before him a legal pro- [DOT] position, to throw controversy into the Indian's camp and ask him to decide the [DOT]question, appears to me to be too absurd for argument. Furthermore, there is the practical fact that the Indians to-day are for the most part away up somewhere north of the lakes, on another reserve. They are scattered more or less to the ends of the earth, making such procedure a practical impossibility. It is said that I have stated that some of those now interested in these lands are innocent parties. They are innocent, in that they are in no way concerned or implicated in the original wrong as we contend it to have been. Yet in another sense they are not; they have taken title from those who were implicated; they derive their title from them, and in a sense, they purchased at their peril. Consequently, it is nothing in the nature of a hold-up to say to those who have bought, knowing the facts, before you are removed from this cloud under which you never should have come, you must pay this compensation to those who were the original owners of the land.


Mr. BURNHAM:: Is the argument of the Solicitor General, in which we are assumed to take an intelligent interest, based upon the justifiability, if I may use such a word, of the contract? Is it that, since the Indians are not able to administer their own affairs and the Government is therefore the guardian of these Indians, we must fall back upon the first principle, and that is the morality of the agreement itself? Is that correct?


Arthur Meighen: I am afraid I do not
understand the question.


Wilfrid Laurier: Did I understand that Chief Justice Howell had expressed an opinion on this transaction?


William James Roche: Yes.


Wilfrid Laurier: In what circumstances?


William James Roche: Chief Justice Howell was appointed, I think, by the previous Government, to examine into certain grievances of these Indians. He did so. When the Commission appointed by the Provincial Government were taking evidence, they summoned him to give evidence and he was asked:
Q. After the surrender you had nothing further to do with the whole matter?-A. No. I made my report and closed it, and the Indians

came swarming up to me here and I took it upon myself to go over to Mr. Macara's office (Mr. Macara being the registrar of land titles) and try to stop the patents going through, for which, in Parliament, I think, I got a lot of abuse.


Wilfrid Laurier: This puts not altogether a new face upon the case, but simply adds to the opinion I formed from the discussion which went on. I agree altogether with the Minister of Justice, that it is always preferable to settle cases rather than to go to the extremities of the law. But there are eases upon which there can be no settlement. No man will settle a case in which his honour is impugned. He will never accept anything short of a full apology. No trustee has a right to settle a case for his ward upon a question of fraud. He should not do so, he has not the right to do so. This case has long been familiar to the older members of the House, as was stated in the opening remarks of the Minister of the Interior. We have had it up in the House again and again. The contention which was made by gentlemen who now sit upon the Treasury benches and their followers was that the Indians had been cheated; that they had been victims of a fraud; that their lands had been wrongfully sold by the Government of that day; that these lands were worth at least $10 to $15 an acre; that they were sold for something like $5 an acre, and that the Indians were cheated of the balance, amounting to something like $450,000. If the gentlemen who made that contention were sincere and honest when they said the Indians were cheated, they have no cause and no right to do what they are now doing, that is, condone a fraud. This is not an ordinary case of the interpretation of a contract. It is not a question of law. It is a question of fact-were these Indians cheated or not cheated?


John Hampden Burnham: Hear, hear, that is what I asked.


Wilfrid Laurier: If these Indians were cheated, as was asserted by the gentlemen who now sit on the other side of the House, to-day these hon. members are doing nothing else than condoning a fraud, and cheating the Indians of something like $[DOT]400,000. Well, Sir, I do not believe they are doing that. I do not believe that the Indians were cheated. I think the accusations made were wrong, and that this legislation is the best vindication of my friend the then Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver), who was responsible for the transaction. Can it be conceived that the hon.

member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury), or the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen), or the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Roche), if they really believed what they asserted four, five or six years ago, when in Opposition, that the Indians had been cheated, would to-day consent to the bringing in of such a Bill as this? To me this is a very happy solution of a long standing difficulty, and, I think, a full vindication of the Government that was in office when the transaction took place.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Mr. ROCHE thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 67, relating to the St. Peters Indian Reserve.


William Pugsley: I do not wish to be technical, but would it not be necessary to preface this resolution with the statement that it has received the consent and approval of His Royal Highness the Governor General?


William James Roche: I was advised that it was not necessary to do so in this case.


William Pugsley: My view would be that, as it deals with the disposal of public lands, it should first receive the approval of His Royal Highness.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I shall give my decision on this point when the Bill is up for a second reading.


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

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. C. J. Doherty (Minister of Justice), the House went into committee, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair, to consider the following proposed resolution:
Resolved, that it is expedient to amend the Judges Act, chapter 138 of the Revised Statutes, 1906, and to provide:
That the salaries of the judges of the Court of Appeal, and of His Majesty's Court of King's Bench, for Saskatchewan, shall be as follows: (a) the Chief Justice of Saskatchewan, if he is also the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal, and if not, to the Chief Justice of Appeal, $8,000 per annum; (b) three puisne judges of the Court of Appeal, each $7,000 per annum; (c) the Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, $7,000 per annum ; (d) five puisne judges of the Court of King's Bench, each $6,000 per annum.
Wilfrid Laurier: What change is there from the existing law?


Charles Joseph Doherty: This resolution is introduced for the purpose of basing upon it an Act to meet a new situation created in the province of Saskatchewan.
By legislation enacted in 1915, that province substituted for its Supreme Court two distinct courts, a court of appeal and a court of first instance, to be called the Court of King's Bench, and determined the number of judges of those prospective courts. The purpose of this legislation is to provide the necessary salaries* for the payment of the judges of the courts so constituted. I may say that we have had very strong representations from the Government of the province as to the necessity of this change in the constitution of the courts, and of our meeting it by providing for the appointment and payment of the judges of those courts. These representations have been confirmed from other sources, by those in a position to know the necessities within the province.


Mr. R. B. BENNETT:: Possibly I should have made these observations when the Speaker was in the chair:	that the
judges of the province of Alberta think they are not too* fairly treated. We have no court of appeal in Alberta, but our judges constitute an appellate division, and so obviate the necessity of creating a court of appeal. Many of our judges who would not otherwise obtain the experience that is obtained by an appeal judge get it in that way. They go out and take trials, and then when they come back they may be allotted to the appellate division for three months, or for six months. They get a taste of appeal work for a portion of the year, and take nisi prius work for the rest of the year.


Mr. McCRANEY:: How many judges have you?


Richard Bedford Bennett: while to the east of us the Chief Justice of (Saskatchewan will draw $1,000 more than the Chief Justice of Alberta. When one considers that the judges of Alberta are discharging the duties of nisi prius judges and appeal court judges I think the case on their behalf is much stronger than it would otherwise be. I would suggest, as I have suggested to the minister, that where an appellate division has been created from the existing judges, without the creation of a court of appeal, these judges who constitute the appellate division should receive the extra remuneration, that would come to them if they were a court of appeal; and also that the Chief Justice should 'at least be placed in the same position as a chief justice of a province in which there is a court of appeal. I realize the difficulties which the Minister of Justice has very frankly stated he would experience in dealing with the question in that way, because it might necessitate dealing with the whole question of judges' salaries, and this is not the time to do that. But if all the judges west of the lakes were to be treated on the .same basis as to salaries as those in Eastern Canada it would involve a charge upon the revenue of but $22,000 per annum in addition to the extra amount that might be paid to the chief Justice of Alberta. I bring this to the attention of the minister because I think he is sympathetic. I feel that dt would be hardly fair to the province in which I live if I did not do so, where judges are discharging the duties of a court of appeal, as in Alberta the Chief Justice, at least, should be in the same position, and have the same status and salary as the Chief Justice of Saskatchewan or of British Columbia.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I appreciate the force
of what has been said by the hon. member for Calgary (Mir. Bennett), always assuming that justice between judges of the different courts and different provinces absolutely necessitates equality. Therefore, I am not disposed to quarrel with the suggestion that the judges in the province of Alberta might possibly be better paid. But the suggestion would come with equal force from the judges in other provinces. To take up the question of the salaries of judges in provinces where their positions are being in no way changed, would necessarily, as a matter of fairness, necessitate our dealing with the whole question of the salaries of judges throughout the country.

I think the reasons are obvious why we should not select this particular moment to deal with these salaries from the -point of vietv of increasing them. I may point out that the position of the judges of Alberta will not be one particle worse because it so happens that, being called upon to provide salaries for the judges of newly established courts, we make these salaries conform to those allotted to the judges of similar courts in other provinces which have similar courts. This does no injury to the judges in Alberta; it leaves them absolutely in statu quo.


Wilfrid Laurier: No injury, but the subject of envy.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes. It seems that if you do something for somebody else it is more resented than if you fail to do something for the person complaining. However that may be, I do not want to be understood as speaking otherwise than sympathetically with regard to the position in which the judges of Alberta find themselves, but for the reason I have given I cannot see Why I should pick them out for special treatment now, without justifying similar representations on the part of other provinces, situated as Alberta now is, and raising the whole questtion of judges' salaries.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I do not desire to join issue with my hon. friend, but that is hardly the fact, because there are nine judges in the province of Alberta, and four of them are doing appeal court work all the time. The court is practically sitting all the time, and the other members of the court are doing duty as nisi prius judges. If the province of Alberta constituted and created a court of appeal consisting of a Chief Justice and three puisne judges of the court of appeal, we would be called upon to pay exactly the. same sum as is now being paid in Saskatchewan. It would not increase the number of judges but would give each of those four judges $1,000 a year more. It does seem anomalous that those gentlemen are performing the duties of court of appeal judges, the same as in Saskatchewan-only we call it an appellate division-and that they are not getting the same emolument.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not dispute the
anomaly at all, but there are other anomalies. I would not be dealing with the judges of Saskatchewan to-day if it were not for the absolute necessity that is created by this legislation. The legislation of the

* province of Saskatchewan when brought into force, as it is intended to be, by a proclamation of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, will create a situation where there will be no courts in Saskatchewan unless we provide judges and salaries for the newly constituted courts, because they have abolished the existing courts. That is the reason I am dealing with Saskatchewan. With reference to judges in other provinces who may think that their salaries are too low, I am acting more in their interest by dealing with the judges of Saskatchewan in the direction of levelling them up with those who are better off rather than levelling them down to the level of those who are not so well off. This legislation may, when it is enacted, afford an additional argument to strengthen the position of those judges who have the lower salaries. I do not think it is possible for me to single out the judges of Alberta for exceptional treatment or to take up the whole question of salaries of judges at the present time. It is necessary that we should deal with the salaries of the judges of these new courts in Saskatchewan and the only way in which we could get equality with the judges of Alberta by means of this Bill would be by reducing the salaries that it is proposed to give to these judges of the newly constituted court in Saskatchewan. I do not understand that anybody suggests that.


Wilfrid Laurier: Everybody
knows that the Minister of Justice has no alternative in this matter, and that he is compelled to bring in this legislation. This is in consequence of the extraordinary provision of our constitution which places the constitution of courts in the provinces, and the payment of judges in the Dominion Parliament. So long as the constitution remains as it is there will always be anomalies, such as there have been since Confederation, and which have made the position of the Minister of Justice not a bed of roses. I am satisfied that my hon. friend has been pestered day after day and year after year with applications for the rectifying of inequalities in the salaries of judges not only in Alberta but in every other province in the Dominion. There are inequalities that cannot be justified- as between the remuneration of judges performing similar duties in different parts of the Dominion. How this condition of affairs is to be remedied it is difficult to see except by an amendment of the constitution which nobody would be prepared to advocate at the present time, and I am afraid that the judges of Alberta will have to remain under what they think is an injustice. As long as they see the judges in a neighbouring province receiving better pay than they are, they will always say that they are not being properly treated. I was a good many years in office and I am familiar with this question.


Richard Bedford Bennett: We will pass an
Act in the Alberta Legislature next year creating a Court of Appeal and then our judges get the added salary.


Mr. MACDONALD:: The population in our province is equal to that of Saskatchewan, the service is performed, and performed very satisfactorily indeed, by six judges and the chief justice at salaries of $7,000 for the chief justice, -and $6,000 for each judge. It is now proposed, because the Legislature of Saskatchewan chooses to create an Appellate Court, to provide for ten judges altogether, including two chief justices at higher salaries than are paid in Alberta. It is proposed that these chief justices should get $8,000 each, the judges of appeal $7,000, the chief justice of the court of King's Bench $7,000 and the puisne judges $7,000 each. If this were not a year where economy was absolutely essential, the minister might take up the question of judges' salaries. If this were a year in which the whole matter could
5 p.m. be discussed with fairness, I think the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) would be eminently right in the position he takes, not so much upon the ground that the Alberta judges will be envious, but upon the ground that so far as the judges' salaries are concerned, there should be no increase from this House unless the minister is going to deal with the whole question, which, manifestly he cannot do on account of the necessity of strict economy all round. I think that it is important, when the country is in a position to do it, that steps should be taken to provide ample salaries for a good judiciary.


THE ROYAL ASSENT.
[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by J. D. St. Denis Lemoine, Esquire, I.S.O., Serjeant-at-Arms of the Senate, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Deputy of His Royal Highness the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the Chamber of the honourable the Senate.
[Stage Direction]
Accordingly, the House went up to the Senate.
And having returned,
The Speaker informed the House that His Honour the Deputy of His Royal Highness the Governor General had been pleased to give, in His Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following Bills:
An Act to incorporate the Canadian Indemnity Company.
An Act respecting Queen's University at Kingston, and to amalgamate therewith the School of Mining and Agriculture.
An Act respecting the Burrard Inlet Tunnel and Bridge Company.
An Act respecting the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Farnham and Granhy Railway Company of Canada.
An Act respecting the Peace River Tramway and Navigation Company.
An Act respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
An Act respecting the Pacific Northern and Omineca Railway Company.
An Act for the relief of Lena Pearl Potter.
An Act for the relief of Robert Napper.
An Act for the relief of Sherwood Norman Hill.
An Act for the relief of Ida May Woltz.
An Act for the relief of Cecily Ethel Maude Farera.
An Act for the relief of Lillian May Dent.
An Act for the relief of Harry Lome White Cunningham.
An Act for the relief of Henry John Thomas Wardlaw.
An Act to incorporate Les Sceurs de l'As-somptlon de la Sainte-Vierge.
An Act respecting W. C. Edwards and Co., Limited.
An Act respecting a patent of James W. Owen.
An Act to amend the White Phosphorus
TVTfitphptj A nf
An Act to amend the Winding-up Act.
An Act to authorize the raising, by way of loan, of certain sums of money for the public service.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed in Committee, Mr. Blain in the Chair, in consideration of the proposed resolution wiith respect to the salaries of judges in the province of Saskatchewan.
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Instead of a Supreme Court, consisting of a Chief Justice and four puisne judges, the province of Saskatchewan now proposes to have a Court of Appeal composed of a Chief Justice and three puisne judges, and another court known as the Court of King's Bench, consisting of a Chief Justice and five puisne judges. In other words, there are now to be ten high court judges in that province. As the right hon. leader of the Opposition pointed out, under the constitution the determination as

to the number of judges and the manner of dealing with the cou'ts rest entirely with the Provincial Legislature. They have chosen to say:	We will require twice as
many high court judges as we now have. That will give in the province of Saskatchewan no less than twenty-seven judges, including the county court judges, whereas in the province of Nova Scotia, with the same population, we are getting along with thirteen judges altogether, or less than half as many.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: Out in the West the people are more vigorous.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Probably so, but it seems to me they will have ample courts hereafter.


Mr. KNOWLES:: I am under the impression that quite a number of the county court judgeships have not been filled.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I take the figures
from the Estimates of this year, which provide for seventeen judges in Saskatchewan. Whether that is right or wrong, apparently in this Parliament we cannot question the action of the Provincial Legislature, so that it is only interesting to mention the matter by way of passing reference, so far as the consideration of this proposition is concerned, and my contention is that those judges who are to be taken from the Supreme Court as it now exists to the Appellate Court ought to be content, until the war is over, with the' same slaries as they have enjoyed heretofore. If the judges who are on the Supreme Court of Saskatchewan are to be promoted, in the ordinary sense of the word, to this Appellate tribunal, they will be rid of the trouble of going on circuit and they will have nothing to do except to sit at the central point where the full court holds its sittings and hear cases on appeal. I say to my hon. friend from Calgary (Mr. Bennett), who puts forward the invidious distinction between those two provinces, that he does not put the case on the ground which we in this House ought to take, and which we can take in regard to this matter. When we consider, for instance, the economies practised by men in high positions in England, and when we realize that for the first time we are proposing direct taxation in Canada, and that that taxation must be increased before our war problems are settled, it seems to me clear that the gentlemen who are to be appointed to this tribunal should be content with $7,000 for

the chief justice and $6,000 for the puisne judges, until the war is over and matters adjust themselves. Under normal conditions, I am in favour of liberal compensation to men who occupy these high positions. I do not know what the policy of the Government is with regard to the appointment of judges to the appellate court, but in my judgment the judge in the appellate court should be a man who has had experience in the court of first instance. I think that every man who has had experience at the bar will agree that we are not imposing any hardship upon these gentlemen in this year of war conditions if we say to them: whatever we may do when we come to readjust salaries later on, in view of the special circumstances no extra salary will be given now. Of what use is it to talk economy to the people of this country, of what use is it to tell them from the public platform of the problems that face the Dominion, if in dealing with these gentlemen in high positions-estimable gentlemen as they are; my remarks aTe not made in any personal sense-we give them an extra thousand dollars all around just for luck. That is not the true position for this Parliament to take at the present juncture.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I understand that the point made by the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) is that we should level things down. The hon. member for Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett) thought that we should level things up.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: They should be left as they are.


Charles Joseph Doherty: They cannot be left as they are with regard to a tribunal, the salaries for whose members have never been fixed. I could, level things down from what is usually given to judges of the courts of appeal-though I do not say that is applicable to all the provinces. As to the suggestion of the need for special economy just now, it is true economy is of the very greatest importance. But the economy suggested would be, for this year, a matter of $4,000. I think that hon. members generally will agree that when the salaries of judges of a province are once fixed it takes a tremendous force to alter them. It would therefore seem to be wise, when we are called upon to fix salaries as we are called, upon in this case, to so fix them that we may hope that it will be a considerable period of time before it will
be found necessary to do anything in the way of an increase. It does not seem to me that the economy to be effected by putting the judges of this Court of Appeal on a different footing from the judges of the Court of Appeal of the adjoining province of Manitoba, for instance-


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: How about New
Brunswick?


Charles Joseph Doherty: It may be that we are profiting by our experience in the case of New Brunswick. If, when the Appellate Court of New Brunswick was constituted, the matter had been dealt with as it is proposed to deal with this, perhaps we should not have had the anomaly that exists in relation to the court in New Brunswick. But, as I said, in answer to the hon. member for Calgary, we have to deal with Saskatchewan to-day, and I think the wisest way is to deal with it in what we may call a permanent manner.


William Erskine Knowles: As to the comparison made by the hon. member for Pictou between Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, even his figures, I think, woulc( not justify keeping the salaries in Saskatchewan at the same figure as those in Nova Scotia. Our judges in Saskatchewan are resident in a province where living is undoubtedly more expensive than in the province of Nova Scotia.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What proof is there of that?


William Erskine Knowles: All the data is to that effect, and I think there is no questioning the statement; I cannot speak from personal knowledge, as I have never been in Nova Scotia. As the Minister of Justice has said, the court is now being constituted and this is the time when the salaries have to be fixed on the merits of the case. The argument of leave well enough alone does not apply, because we are dealing with a new court in which the appointments have yet to be made. 'There is nothing on the record to show that the present members of the Saskatchewan Bench will be appointed to the Supreme Court, although some of them may be. The new appointments are to be made, and naturally we want the best men who can be obtained. The salaries must be fixed accordingly, which is altogether a different matter from increasing the salaries of men who have made a contract with the Government practically for life. It is only ordinary busi-

ness to say that the salaries should he made of sufficient magnitude to attract the best men. I do not wish to reflect on the money-making powers of members of the legal profession in Nova Scotia, but I suspect that the money-making power of those in Saskatchewan is greater. The cost of living is higher than in Nova Scotia. Consequently before you can hope to draw men away from a comparatively remunerative profession, you will have to make substantial provision for their emoluments in their new positions. I think that in the province of Saskatchewan the salary should be still more liberal. I see that we have five judges of appeal in Ontario, each of whom is paid $8,000 a year. The cost of living in Saskatchewan is higher than in Ontario-higher - for the judge and higher for his family. To educate his children he will probably have to send them away from home. If he takes a holiday, it is a matter involving great expense. There are a hundred ways in which I could illustrate the greater expense resting upon those who occupy judicial positions in Saskatchewan than on those in similar positions in Ontario. I have thought for ten or eleven years that members of Parliament from the West should be paid more than members from Ontario and Quebec, because we are away from home all the time, and have a longer distance to travel. I would move a resolution like that myself, but it would not be in order; it would have to obtain the approval of His Royal Highness in Council. What is the modus operandi of getting these appointments?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I could tell something
about the modus operandi of giving them, but not about the modus operandi of getting them.


William Erskine Knowles: The Provincial Government has to make a proclamation approving the discontinuance of the old court, and on the passing of that proclamation the new court is brought into being. In connection with the new court, the Government has to make appointments. What I want to know is, which of these two steps is taken first?


Charles Joseph Doherty: My understanding of it was that before we should act at all, the Gbvemment of Saskatchewan should issue a proclamation fixing the time when their law should go into force, but the Government of the province of Saskatchewan would not proclaim their law until we first passed

a law providing for the salaries. For my part, I think that the proper administration of justice and the giving effect to this Act was more important than the punctilio as to whether we should step out first or whether the Government of Saskatchewan should step out first. Although I thought and still think that it belonged to them to step out first, I am stepping out first. I am providing that the Bill based on this resolution shall go into force only upon the law in Saskatchewan having been put into force by the Government of Saskatchewan, and thereirpon, by proclamation of the Governor in Council here establishing that fact. I hope that we shall get co-operation in that way to bring this law into effect.


William Erskine Knowles: I do not yet understand my hon. friend's answer. Do they make proclamation first, or does the minister make the appointments first?


Charles Joseph Doherty: This Parliament cannot provide salaries for a court that does not exist; therefore, this legislation of ours can not be effective until the Government of Saskatchewan-I must' say in parenthesis that it looks as if it had a terrible hesitation about its own law-will choose to proclaim its own law, which is the condition of its coming into force. The moment that they are pleased to do that, we will bring this Act into force by proclamation here, and the judges will be appointed and the salaries provided. For my part, as long as we get the practical result of putting the law in operation, I am willing that the Government of Saskatchewan should step out first and that I should step out behind, or that I should step out first and let them step out behind.


William Erskine Knowles: I understand, then, that the Saskatchewan Government makes its proclamation creating the new courts, and the minister afterwards makes the appointments.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Immediately upon the proclamation issuing by the province bringing the law into force; our proclamation will issue and appointments be made and salaries provided.


William Erskine Knowles: I do not think the explanation that the minister made with regard to bringing in the Bill naturally arose out of my question. I was not asking about the future.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I thought the hon. gentleman wanted the whole modus operandi; I did not know that he drew any

specific distinction between the future and the past.


William Erskine Knowles: If that is the minister's view, his answer was quite consistent with it. The minister has gone into the question of who should step out first and who should step out second in this procession. I may say that there went out to the Conservative press in Saskatchewan an account of an alleged interview between Hon. Walter Scott and the Solicitor General, and it was stated that in that interview there had been some conflict of opinion. Mr. Scott states, however, that there was no such conflict. He says that when he was in Ottawa he had an informal interview with the Solicitor General, and that he, Mr. Scott, took no particular stand as to his position on this point. The matter was one that did not come within Mr. Scott's department, and he gave absolute contradiction to the statement that he in any way had locked horns or joined issue with the Solicitor General or with the Government on the question as to who should step out first.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I was not referring to any interview between the Solicitor General and Mr. Scott. I am not finding fault with the Saskatchewan Government because they have one view of what ought to he done and we have another. It was not my view that it was for us to act first, but I was willing to yield my opinion in that regard. It was very firmly indicated to me that the Government of Saskatchewan would not act until we did. That being so, and the matter being of not material importance, I was willing to let my opinion be passed over in order that the people of Saskatchewan might get the kind of court that, by their Legislature, they had said they wanted.	-


William Erskine Knowles: Up to about seven years ago, we had no district court judges in the province of Saskatchewan. When district courts were introduced which corresponded with the county courts in the older provinces, what procedure was followed? Who stepped out first then?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have not looked it up, and' I do not know:


Mr. PROULX:: I concur in the remarks made by the hon. member for Pictou to the effect that in these times, when economy is necessary, the salaries of these judges should not be increased. The judges who sit in the Supreme 'Court are just as well
qualified as those who sit in the Court of Appeal, and I do not see why there should be a difference in the salaries. A salary of $6,000 a year, or $500 a month, should be amply sufficient, having regard to the fact that the position is far life, and that generous provision is made in the way of retiring allowance.
The judges are better paid at $6,000 than ministers of the Crown are at $7,000, and they have nothing like the same expenses. I submit that the salaries of the judges of the Court of Appeal should be on the same plane as those of the Supreme Court. They require no greater knowledge of the law. Judges who go on circuit have less time to deliberate, and the cases come before them in less carefully prepared form than before the Court of Appeal. They really have to be better qualified than the judges who sit in appeal. There should be no difference; it creates jealousy and is invidious. The chief justices, of course, should receive higher salaries.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN:: To my mind we have too many judges in this country.


John Hampden Burnham: Hear, hear.


William Findlay Maclean: The number ought to be greatly reduced, and a better system adopted by which we would have younger judges, who would, be paid better salaries. As I read the signs of the times, there will be a demand in this country, after the war, for a recasting of our whole system of jurisprudence, a simplification of the courts, and a speedier system of obtaining judgment, with fewer appeals from one court to another. Thus we could have fewer judges and pay them better salaries. The jurisprudence in Canada is altogether too elaborate, and is becoming more elaborate and more costly; more men are identified "with the administration of the law than would be required under a reformed system. In Great Britain to-day there is a general protest against the old system of jurisprudence, and especially against the undue influence of the legal profession upon the conduct of public business. The people of this country want a change; they want a simplification of the whole system of jurisprudence, they want quicker judgments and fewer appeals from judgments when they have been rendered. If that. reform is not worked out and we go on. increasing the number of officials, and the number of persons who have to be pensioned, a very emphatic demand will come from the public for a change.


Frank Oliver: Has the Minister of Justice gone into the question of the need of these appointments in Saskatchewan? I take it that this means the appointment of four additional judges at the increased salary. I have been under the impression that although the population and the area of Saskatchewan are larger than those of Alberta, still, owing toi the variety of business in Alberta, there is probably as much work for the courts in that province as in Saskatchewan.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have not made any inquiry to ascertain how Saskatchewan compares with Alberta in that respect, but, as I have said, the necessity for this change has been very strongly impressed on me, and it has been urged, by the Attorney General of Saskatchewan, by those in the active practice of the profession, and by the judges who are administering justice that there was need for this reconstitution of the courts in order f-o secure . the proper expedition of public business. But, even if I thought this was not desirable, under the constitution, if any province determines that it needs this sort of machinery to carry on the administration of jurisprudence, it has, under the British North America Act, the power to determine that. It has control of the constitution of the courts, which involves the determination of how many courts and judges there shall be. In this particular instance, if we failed to meet this demand we would either compel Saskatchewan to go on with a system which its legislature, which has the power to determine the question, has decided is not suitable, or, if the Legislature brought its law into force, we would leave the province with no courts at all. So, while I have made some inquiry to satisfy myself that, at all events, there is evidence that it is not an unreasonable request, at the same time I am not an absolutely free agent to sit here and determine whether this change ought to he made or not. My belief, from information derived from what I believe to be reliable sources, is that there is justification for the desire for the additional number of judges and a better system of disposing of the public business.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Mr. DOHERTY thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 68 relating to the Superior Courts of Saskatchewan, and to amend the Judges Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.
[Mr. W. F. Maclean. 1

[Stage Direction]
'On motion of (Hon. J. D. Hazen (Minister of Marine and Fisheries), Bill No. 59, to amend the Vancouver Harbour Commissioners Act, was read the second time, and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair.
Mr. HAZEN:: I fully explained this Bill to the House on its introduction. The hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) asked me some questions with regard to it at the time. He spoke to me this afternoon, when I told him the Bill was going to come on, and I think that any objection my hon. friend had to the Bill had been fully met, and that he will now offer no objection to it. I had received some protests, as he had, but subsequently I received telegrams withdrawing those protests. I think my hon. friend is perfectly satisfied with regard to it.


Wilfrid Laurier: What is the
present law?


John Douglas Hazen: It is proposed to strike out this section:
The imposition of such tolls, rates, fees and clues, other than pilotage dues, sick mariners' fees, and steamboat inspection fees, as would be payable in the case of a harbour to which the Canada Shipping Act applies.
-and to substitute a section exactly the same, except that these words are omitted:
As would be payable in the case of a harbour to which the Canada Shipping Act Applies.
Under that language, it is impossible for the Harbour Commissioners of Vancouver to raise enough revenue, because in a harbour, to which the Canada Shipping Act applies, it is only permissible to charge a vessel two sums of five dollars each, each year. This amendment, as I explained in introducing the Bill, has been considered by the representatives of the different shipping interests at the harbour of Vancouver. They feel that is desirable that the Harbour Commissioners should have a reasonable revenue in order that the harbour may be properly equipped and maintained. Before a by-law containing the scale of fees becomes law it has to be submitted to and approved by the Governor in Council, and before any such by-law becomes law an opportunity will be given to the different shipping interests, if they desire, to submit any reason against the scale.


Wilfrid Laurier: This is simply to increase the revenue of the Harbour Commissioners.


John Douglas Hazen: Yes.


Wilfrid Laurier: And I -understand my hon. friend to 'Say that the shipping interests have been consulted, and have agreed to it?


John Douglas Hazen: Yes, they have all agreed.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Dominion Lands and Parks-salaries ot the outside service, $465,600.
['The minister has made\ngreat progress. We have put through about $4,000,000, and that is pretty good work in these hard times. I congratulate him on being surrounded by such a strong force of followers to-night. I do not think I have seen any minister have such strong support in putting through his Estimates at such a late hour as this. It is a good thing we had this vote, because a number of members took part whom we do not often see at this time of night. It is a good thing to have a variation and to see some strange faces. Some of us are here every night till this hour, and it feels lonely to see empty chairs. I congratulate my hon. friends opposite upon staying with us so late. Item 64 might go through as there seems to be no possibility of inculcating the minister with the necessity for a reduction at this time, and then we might adjourn.\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Mr. Hazen, the House adjourned at 11.59 p.m.\nFriday, March 24, 1916.']
William James Roche: This item was under discussion upon one occasion when I had my Estimates up, and it was allowed to stand at the instance of the hon. ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver), who asked for certain information which I supplied him since.


Frank Oliver: I wish to make some remarks in connection with the administration of Dominion Lands that, it seems to me, might properly come under the discussion of this item. I find that this item stands at the same figure for 1916-17 as for the year 1915-16. From the information supplied by the hon. Minister of the Interior (Mr. Roche) I find that the expenditure on this item since 1910-11 has been as follows:
Year.	Amount.
1910- 11	 $319,000
1911-	12	
337,0001912-	13	
369,0001913-	14	
421,0001914-	15	
443,0001915-	16 (9 months)	
348,000
The inference would be that the expenditure for 1915-16 would be at least equal to, if not greater than, the expenditure for 1914-15. It will be observed that the estimates for the year 1916-17 is about $150,000 greater than the expenditure for the year 1910-11, the year before the present Administration took office, showing that there has been a very substantial increase in the expenditure under this item beginning with 1911 and running up to the present year. At the same time the business of the department, as indicated by the number of homestead entries, has shown a very substantia] decrease. I may say that it is on the number of homestead entries that the whole fabric of the administration of Dominion Lands rests. Given an increase of homestead entries, there is an increase of business throughout the whole department; given a decrease of homestead entries, there is a corresponding decrease of business throughout the whole department, and therefore a reason for a lessening in the amount and number of salaries paid. Since 1911 the number of homestead entries, preemption entries and purchased homesteads, as given by the minister, is as follows:
Year.	Homestead Pre-emption Purchased
entries. entries, homesteads.
1911	
44,479	15,618	1,7601912	
39,15.1	10,211	1,4081913	
33,699	8.577	1,0801614	
31,829	6,164	7561915	
24,088	2,845	3501915-16 (9 m.)	14,349	1,962	256
In all probability the returns for the whole of the current fiscal year would be substantially less than the returns for the previous fiscal year. While the business of the department showed a falling off in five years of nearly one-half in the matter of homestead entries, a reduction of one-sixth in the matter of preemption entries and of one-sixth also in the matter of purchased homesteads, the expenditure on salaries in the department not only kept up but increased. My contention is that in this department, as in other branches of the Government, due consideration has not been paid to the service required. There has been an expenditure beyond the measure of the service rendered, the fact reducing itself down to a condition in which the service has been run rather with regard to political exigencies than in the public interest. Now, I would like to say a word with regard to the administration of this whole branch. I have only spoken of the salaries in connection with the Dominion Lands Branch, but I would like to point out that the total expenditure for the branch runs in this form:
Year.	Amount.
1910- 11	$1,617,000
1911-	12	
2,216,0001912-	13	
2,462,0001913-	14	
3,084,0001914-	15	
3,532,0001915-	16	
3,679,000
And the Estimates for 1916-17, in which there is a decrease, are $3,304,000. In the year 1910-11, when the department was conducting more than twice as much business as it is now, the cost of the department was less than half what it is now. There

has been a doubling of the cost and a cutting in half of the business. We are under war conditions and naturally there is a demand for a curtailment of expenditure. Reasons that might be given and that would be perfectly good for the maintenance of a certain scale of expenditure had peace conditions continued do not stand good today under war conditions. When we consider the enormously increased burdens that the country must necessarily bear as a result of war expenditure, in regard to which we have been informed by the. Minister of Finance and which we have reason to know because of the taxation proposals that he has put through, we understand that the call is for a greater exercise of economy than ever prevailed before instead of for a doubled expenditure in the face of the cutting in half of the requirements. Just on that point, let me read a quotation from the Premier of Great Britain that I think is apt to this case. A deputation had called upon Mr. Asquith protesting against the closing of the museums and art galleries which were under the control of the British Government. The reply of the Premier- and I commend it very strongly to all those who have responsibility in the management of the affairs of the country at the present time-was this:
In view of the stupendous and unprecedented liabilities and obligations which the war is imposing upon us, if we are, as I think we are still agreed that we are to subordinate every other purpose to its effectual and successful prosecution, one of the first means which prudence and policy prescribe in the attainment of that object is the temporary reduction of every form, both of public and of private expenditure, which can be shown not to be directly conducive to that purpose.
I cannot bring any higher authority in support of the view that I have expressed. I did not, however, wish to bring these facts before the committee merely in a fault-finding spirit; I wanted to impress upon the committee and upon the minister and the Government this fact, that, if money is spent for those purposes that are not essential and that can be dispensed with, it is not then available for expenditure on the purposes that are essential and that cannot, in the interest of the country, be dispensed with.
A great deal has been said in the newspapers and upon the public platforms as to what will occur at the close of the war, and, as I read these statements, there is a concensus of opinion that the future of Canada rests and will rest upon the increase of production from the land. War
CMr. Oliver. I
conditions seem to have brought home this idea more strongly to the minds of those writers and speakers than it ever was before. It is agreed then that we must look forward to the increase of agricultural production. In order to increase agricultural production, we must have labour applied to the land, and in order to get that labour applied to the land we must offer the conditions that will be attractive to labour, or otherwise we shall not get that increase of production upon which every one is agreed that the future of Canada is absolutely dependent. The experience of the past shows that the great factor in securing the agricultural development of the Canadian West, upon which development the industrial and commercial development of the rest of the country has depended in large measure, has been the attraction of free prairie land under conditions suitable for occupation and profitable production by the homesteader. The free prairie land of our western country has to a very large extent passed from the control of the Crown, having been alienated in one form or another. Any one who takes the trouble to look at one of the homestead maps issued by the Department of the Interior, in which the condition of settlement is very lucidly set forth, will see that that part of the western provinces which constitutes the great prairie area of the Red river and the Saskatchewan drainage basins, has been alienated, and therefore, so far as that area is concerned, we have no free land to offer to new settlers. The question then is: are our possibilities exhausted or have we further possibilities available; and, if so, in what direction and under what circumstances? Outside of that area which is already occupied, there is to the north a partially wooded area. I am going to speak now of the province that I represent and principally of my constituency which covers a large part of northern Alberta. In northern Alberta, adjoining that area which is already settled and which might be called purely prairie land, there is a vast territory of timbered or partially timbered country of good soil and favourable climatic conditions, and available for free homesteads, but not as attractive as the purely prairie area. The land is there available, but, being partially wooded country, the difficulties of access to all parts are stupendously greater than they are in the purely prairie areas where, under ordinary conditions in the summer time, a man could hitch up his team and drive

anywhere without road-making; whereas, in this wooded or partially wooded area, the settlement can go only slowly as roads are built and as accommodation is provided, and people cannot branch out a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles away from other settlements as they could on the open and cleared prairies. Beyond the prairies of the Saskatchewan lies the partially-timbered region of the Athabaska, of which I have been speaking, and beyond that lie the prairies of the Peace river. The Peace river prairies are not a continuous area like the prairies of the Saskatchewan. In the Peace river country there are true prairie [DOT] areas, hut there is also a great deal of land partly timbered. There is no continuous stretch of hundreds of miles of prairie in the Peace river country as there is in the Saskatchewan country. These prairie areas of the Peace river are recognized as being very productive, and they have already attracted a large settlement. People have passed through the timbered country of the Athabaska to the prairie areas of the Peace river, and have occupied some of these prairie areas under circumstances of very great difficulty. The prairies of the Peace river are from 300 to 400, or even 500, miles distant from the railroad centre of Edmonton. This means that, while men may push their way through into these distant prairie areas and establish themselves as pioneers, they cannot by any possibility become producers on any considerable scale that would add materially to the wealth of the country unless and until they have railroad communication. The partially-timbered regions lying between the Saskatchewan and the Athabaska, and this prairie areas of the Peace, are dependent upon railroad development for their full occupation to a very much greater degree than were the open prairie areas of the Saskatchewan country. The Government of Alberta has recognized the needs of the pioneers who have gone into this northern country, and, by guaranteeing the bonds of the Canadian Northern railway in some instances, and in other instances the railroad enterprises that are headed by one J. D. McArthur, it has been able to secure the construction of a very great mileage of railways. Trains are now running from Edmonton to Peace River Crossing, a distance of 310 miles. They are also running by a branch line from this line to Spirit River, a distance of 357 miles, and from Spirit River to Grand Prairie they are either running now or will be within a very few days, a distance 131
of fifty miles further, or a total distance from Edmonton of over 400 miles. To the north-easterly, the Waterways railroad has steel laid for a distance of 180 miles, and the grading is completed to Fort McMurray, a distance of 300 miles from Edmonton. These roads,- with one exception that I shall mention, are being constructed wholly on the guarantees of the Provincial Government; they have not cost the Dominion Government a cent, although the Provincial Government of Alberta has no responsibility in regard to the development of the province. The responsibility of the Provincial Government is to find accommodation for people who are there, but on the Dominion Government rests the responsibility of developing the natural resources of the province, because the Dominion Government owns the lands, the timber, and the minerals of Alberta, as it owns those of Saskatchewan and of Manitoba. This responsibility cannot by any process of reasoning be placed primarily upon the Provincial Government. Notwithstanding that fact, the Provincial Government has guaranteed railroad bonds for 400 miles from Edmonton to Grand Prairie, by way of Spirit river, and with a branch of 50 miles to Peace River crossing; also 300 miles on the Great Waterways railroad to Fort McMurray. These are the McArthur railway enterprises. The Provincial Government have also guaranteed the bonds of the Canadian Northern railway for approximately 100 miles from Edmonton to Athabaska Landing, and from Edmonton north-easterly to a village called St. Paul de Metis, and north-westerly 130 miles to White Court. All these lines are in settled territory of the partially wooded character of which I spoke. 1	.
My reason for bringing this matter to the attention of the House at this time-and I am glad to see the Acting Minister of Railways (Mr. Reid) in his place -is this:	The Provincial Government
has gone as far as it can go -at least that would be my judgment-in the guaranteeing of these lines. These guarantees have produced magnificently great results up to the present time, but, unfortunately, it has not been possible up to the present moment to realize all the expectations that were entertained when the guarantees were given. Let me say, however, that I notice in the Estimates an item indicating that the Dominion Government propose to give a bonus of $6,400 a mile for that section of the Dunvegan rail-



way line from Spirit River to Grand Prairie. That, I think, is very proper, but that 50 miles is the only portion, of the whole length of about 1,000 miles that I have mentioned as having been guaranteed by the provincial government, towards which the Dominion Government will have contributed a cent.


John Dowsley Reid: What does the hon. gentleman include in that 1,000 miles?


Frank Oliver: I gave the figures, but I
will repeat them, if I may:
Dunvegan railway, 400 miles to Grand Prairie-50 miles to be bonused by this Government; a branch from McLellan to Peace River Crossing, 50 miles. Waterways Railway: Edmonton to McMurray, approximately 300 miles. Canadian Northern: Athabaska line, approximately 100 miles, completed; the St. Paul de Metis branch of the Canadian Northern, 100 miles, only partly graded and none of it ironed. Peace River Branch to White Court, 130 miles, of which 66 miles to Sian Gudo, has the steel and the balance of the line graded. So, as a result of the provincial government's guarantee, we have 1,000 miles of railway completed or to be completed on provincial guarantees alone without any assistance whatever from the Federal Government.
We have 50 miles that is about completed with assistance from the Federal Government, and we have 230 miles of Canadian Northern that is incomplete at the present time. I do not wish to be considered as advocating the interests of the Canadian Northern Railway Company; I am here to advocate the interests of my constituents and of the pioneers in other sections of the country whose present and future is dependent on the early completion of these two branches. My contention is that if it is necessary to secure the completion of these branches by assistance from this Government over and above the guarantees given by the Provincial Government, it would be a very much wiser expenditure of the resources at the disposal of the Government than the expenditures that are asked for in the excessive Estimates that are now before the House. What I would urge is that, instead of the resources of the country being expended in the maintenance of a number of officials over and above those that are necessary for the business that is being done, the money be used to make sure that the partially or entirely wooded free-gramt country can be reached
TMr. Oliver.]
and developed by those who enter into it and undertake the tremendous labour of clearing it. At the present time the road for 100 miles northeast of Edmonton is incomplete, and about sixty miles of the road norhtwest from Edmonton is incomplete. It is absolutely urgent, in the interests of the settlers who are now in occupation of that country, to say nothing of the future development of the country, that these sections of the road be completed without delay, and I take this opportunity of bringing the matter as strongly as I can to the attention of the Government. I have drawn attention to what I consider the over-expenditure in the Interior Department, not for the purpose of finding fault, but for the purpose of suggesting to the Government that in making appropriations for the completion of these two necessary lines of railroad they would be conserving the country to very much greater advantage than they are at present by unnecessary expenditure in the Interior Department.


John Hampden Burnham: Is not the policy that my hon. friend advocates entirely contrary to that which is being developed the world over, namely, the intensive treatment of agriculture? Does he think it wise that population should run all over the face of the earth, dragging railways after it and pushing them ahead of it, instead of settling within reasonable areas and cultivating rapidly and properly a country. which can be reached much more easily and at less expense?


Frank Oliver: I am strongly in favour of that system, which in ten or fifteen years, brought Canada from the end of the procession to the head of the procession. That was the policy of throwing the land wide open and of giving to the man who wanted to use it every facility for taking it up. I am not an advocate of what my hon. friend calls the intensive cultivation of land as our means of securing national prosperity. My idea is to bring into production the vast areas of land that are now producing nothing, even if that production should not be absolutely up to the standard of the intensive cultivation that my hon. friend has in his mind. The good results to the country at large will be achieved by bringing as many people into as strenuous activity as possible, and you can do that best by offering to them the reward of free land for their enterprise.
I have spoken of the railroad lines running northeast and northwest from Edmon-

ton. I want to speak of two further ex tensions of the Dunvegan line that I consider are very necessary to the welfare, of the people immediately concerned, and would be enormously helpful to the further development of the country. From Spirit river the distance to the boundary between Alberta and British Columbia is some sixty miles, and beyond the boundary is what is called the Poucg Coups prairie, an area of four or five townships of prairie which are already occupied by settlers. This is a part of what is called the Peace river block, an area of 3,500,000 acres. It is within the province of British Columbia on both sides of the Peace river, but it is the property of this Government. The Government of Canada has assumed ownership of it and is responsible for its development.
This Pouce Coupe prairie is not withm the province of Alberta, and therefore is not in any way under the control of. the Alberta Government. However, the Government of Alberta has guaranteed the bonds of the Dunvegan railway from Spirit river to the provincial boundary. Every one knows that you cannot raise grain, or do a farming business, sixty miles from a railway through a wooded country and make money or secure any considerable development. I do not know whether the railway company will be able to make that extension or not on the provincial guarantee, but if they are not able to do it on the provincial guarantee I submit that this Government may fairly and properly come to the assistance of the company with the ordinary railway bonus. The other location that I wish to speak of is on the north side of the Peace river, extending from Peace river, crossing westerly to a point opposite Dunvegan, a distance of sixty miles. I visited that particular part of the country last spring, and I would say that there is no other area in the prairie West that is of equally good, quality throughout as that stretch of sixty miles from Peace river crossing to Dunvegan on the north side of the Peace river. This stretch of country, which is from fifteen to twenty miles wide, and runs from the river northward, is already occupied by a most energetic and enterprising class of people. The improvements that they have mad(e there are simply remarkable, in view of the difficulties that they have had in reaohing that country before the completion of the railroad. When the railroad is completed as it is now to Peace river crossing, these people will have to haul their grain 10, 15, 13H
20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 miles, as the case may be, to the railroad, and in doing so will have to descend into the Peace river valley, a depth of some 800 feet, besides crossing a river some 2,000 feet wide. It is true that these people are carrying on business there, and that it is a prairie area, so that the roads are fairly good. But if that area, and that which lies beyond on the north side of the river for a distance of 200 miles from the crossing-to Hudson's Hope, are to be developed, the railroad must be carried across the river and out of the valley up to the upland and along that upland for some distance. The Provincial Government has given a guarantee of bonds that would cover the railroad for some 50 miles beyond the crossing, but, even if the bonds could be sold, that guarantee would not be sufficient to cover the enormous cost of carrying the railroad out of the valley, a depth of 800 feet. If that settlement on the north side of the Peace river is to get railroad communication, and if the country beyond, which is equally good although not yet settled, is to be developed by railroad, that railroad must be extended across the river and out of the valley up to the upland. I am speaking on this occasion without authority from the Provincial Government or from either of the railroad companies concerned. I am not interested in either one or the other; but I am interested in the development of the country of which I speak, and which I have the honour to represent in this House. I am sure that the country at large is as much interested as I am, and it is the business of the Government to be interested in it also. T; 5 settlers who are there are in need of relief such as I have spoken of as a result of the Provincial Government's guarantee; but the further development of the Peace river country must depend on further extension of railroad communication, and I place before this Government on this occasion this argument, that it is upon their shoulders, and not upon the shoulders of the Provincial Government, that the responsibility for the development of that country rests.
To repeat my argument, I consider that the expenditures which are being made by the Department of the Interior at this time, considering the amount of business transacted, are abnormal. In order to bring the business of the country up to normal again, further railroad extensions will have to be made. I am placing the facts as I understand them before the Government for their best consideration.


William James Roche: A good deal of the criticism that has been offered by the exMinister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) has nothing whatever to do with the item under discussion, or with the department over which I have the honour to preside. However, I am sure the House has listened with great interest to his remarks touching this country, a greater portion of which he has the honour .to represent, and its needs and requirements. I quite agree with him that ' it cannot be expected that that part of the country can be settled without adequate railway transportation facilities, and I think he himself afforded the key, in a portion of his argument, to the reason why the homestead entries have fallen off to some extent. We cannot expect the homestead entries to be maintained at the level of a few years ago, when practically all free land south of the latitude of the city of Edmonton has been taken up, so that settlers desiring homesteads now have to go many miles away from transportation facilities. It is not much inducement to settlers to go into a remote country when if they do raise crops they have no tran .-por'tation facilities to convey them to the market so that their raising of crops would prove most unremunerative. However, when the hon. gentleman speaks of the necessity of this Government taking into, consideration the subsidizing of certain branch lines of railway in that country, that is something with which I am personally not very conversant. I am nothin a position to state whether or not it is the intention of the 'Government to bring down any railway subsidies, but, in so far as this particular portion of the country is concerned, there. is an item in the Estimates, to which the hon. member has referred, by which it is shown that the Government is recognizing the necessity for transportation facilities in that part of the country and is subsidizing, to the extent of $6,400 a mile for a certain mileage, in that country. I take issue with the hon. gentleman when he states that the cost of administering the' Department of the Interior is . double what it was a few years ago, whereas the business of the department has practically been cut in -two. It is all right enough to take up the Estimates of a certain year, say .1910-11, and compare them with those for 1915-16 and say that the expenditure under the head of Dominion Lands, for instance, has increased by $1,000,000 or $2,000,000. In order to have a 
fair comparison, you must look into the details. There are items under these heads for 1915-16 which were not included under the same headings when the hon. gentleman was minister. There is upwards of $1,000,000 in the Estimates for the present year that were not included in 1911, that was voted under other heads. For instance certain items that are now included under Dominion Lands and Parks were placed in 1910-11 under miscellaneous.


Mr. TURRIFF:: What items?


William James Roche: Take the Parks Branch,
which was established only a few years ago. Then there are a number of other items the necessity for which have arisen since 1910-11.


Frank Oliver: I think the Dominion
Parks were included in 1911.


William James Roche: Yes, 1911 was the first
year they were included. The following items which are voted under Dominion Lands and Parks for 1914-15 were voted under miscellaneous for 1910-11 or are votes for services the necessity of which has arisen in the past few years. Take, for instance, Canadian National Parks. In the year 1914-15 the vote was $649,630. I have cut that almost in two for the present year, and there was voted under this head $349,000 instead of $649,000, a reduction for this year of some $300,000 in connection with parks. Then, again, there was the printing and engraving of maps, $78,000. That was included under miscellaneous in 191011. Then there 'is the cost of litigation and legal expenses, $11,000. Then we have an item in the past year, irrigation $40,000 and Southern Alberta Land Company, refund, $190,000; relief to the town of Frank, etc. Thus we have a number of items, which go to make up a sum total of upwards of $1,000,000, which were voted under other headings when the hon. gentleman was Miuister of the Department. When the ex-minister states that the. homestead entries afford a very good index as to the business being done in the department and the necessity for so large a number of officials, my views do not harmonize with his in this respect either. We must realize that, while the homestead entries afford a very good index as to the number of people going upon the land, it does not necessarily follow that they afford an index of the business done in the various land offices. As a matter of fact, the taking of patents involves very much more work than the

taking of applications for homestead entry, and protests come in sometimes from men who have put in applications for patents which cause reference back to files, and considerable correspondence with the various agencies and sub-agencies and necessitates, on many occasions, as the hon. gentleman well knows, special inspection on the part of the homestead inspectors. He will see by looking at the list of applications for patents that the number of patents issued has kept up very well indeed, and that they have not fallen off like the applications for homestead entries.


Frank Oliver: They have fallen off some.


William James Roche: Very little. Even if the homestead entries and applications for patents fall off, should we disorganize our service by dismissing officials from the various land agencies? There is other work for them to do, and, besides, it would prove a hardship to those men who have families dependent upon them to dismiss them as soon as business falls off. That is not what the ordinary business man does, and it is less the practice in the Government service.
I would ask my hon. friend's attention to one point, in connection with those officials, which he has overlooked entirely. The item is for the salaries of the outside service. From the outside service of the Department of the Interior there have enlisted up to date upwards of 160 officials. That is quite a drain upon the outside service, and, as we have, to pay them their salaries while they are absent, the expenditure keeps up just the same. One hundred and sixty officials of the outside service have enlisted, and in addition there is a number of pending applications.


Mr. GRAHAM:: Has my hon. friend not got along without them?


William James Roche: Quite a large number of other applications for leave of absence for the purpose of enlisting have been before the department, and they have not been favourably passed upon up to date by reason of the fact that our agents in the West report that they cannot get along without substitutes. I was going to say before my hon. friend interrupted me that out of , the 160 who have enlisted, we have replaced only 40, leaving about 120 whose places have not [DOT]been filled. We are getting along 9 p.m. without them by doubling up the work; it is better to do that
than to dismiss men when the work falls off. It is one thing to double up the work, and another to dispense with the services of men once they are in the Government employ. My hon. friend has had sufficient experience of the working of the department to know that it is very much easier to increase the staff than to reduce it.. Once men are on the permanent staff, even although the work does fall off, it does not always follow that dismissals should take place right and left.
There are several branches of the Interior Department for whose establishment I am not responsible. I am not offering any adverse criticism of the minister who preceded me because he made them separate branches. There are the Forestry Branch, the Irrigation Branch and the Water-powers Branch; they have their various heads and staffs whose work has been of a most important character and has developed to a very great extent during the ,last few years. Take the Forestry Branch; we have enlarged our forestry work, not as one hon. gentleman suggested a few nights ago for the purpose of creating officials, because it was done on the representation of the head of the Forestry Branch, and not on my own initiative. From time to time there have been added to the forestry reserves large additional areas. Four or five years ago, I think there were somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3,000,000 acres, and these reserves have been increased to 23,000,000 acres. The forestry service requires a staff to properly safeguard the forest wealth of the country. We all recognize the devastation that has taken place, particularly in Western Canada, as the result of fire. If we were to follow out the recommendations made by the Conservation' Commission, the Lumbermen's Association, and the General Forestry Association of the Dominion I would have to ask Parliament to vote considerably larger amounts of money than I do at the present time. I have tried to keep pace with what I think are the requirements of the country with the view of securing better fire protection for our large timber areas in the West. Then, although we have a large number of forestry officials, we have not anything like the number that there is in the province of Ontario. There are large areas to control in that western country, and those hon. gentlemen who have read the reports of the destruction that has taken place during the past twenty-five years will realize what a national asset our timber reserves are. and

how careful we should be to see they are not devastated by fire.
In addition, we have, in connection with the Interior Department, created new land districts, and new land offices. We have opened, I think, four at Revelstoke, Wey-burm, Maple Creek and Peace River. These all required additional staffs. We have increased not only the land agencies but also the sub-agencies. In the northern portion of the country, where distances are great, the settlers are averse to travelling 100 or 200 miles to make an entry, or prove a claim, and we have endeavoured to keep up with the requirements by placing subagencies where the conditions did not warrant the establishment of agencies. Of course, it is very much more expensive to establish a Dominion land agency than it is to establish a sub-agency, but 'the multiplication of these sub-agencies have increased the number of officials materially in connection with the administration of the affairs of the department.
There are many things of that nature that I might refer to. Take our ranch regulations. We toad, a ranch commission, which reported a ferw years ago, and which recommended that we should inaugurate new ranch regulations. I think the old regulations applied only to lands south of Township 44, or thereabouts, but under the new regulations they apply all over the three western prairie provinces where lands have been pronounced unsuitable for agriculture, and they have necessitated the appointment of additional ranch inspectors.
Then we have opened up a new forest products laboratory in the city of Montreal, in connection with the forestry branch of the department. I venture to say that comparatively few members of this House are aware of the fact that during the past two or three years we have been conducting a forest products laboratory in connection with McGill University, and if any hon. members would visit McGill University and see the work that is being done there under the auspices of the forest products laboratory, they would be filled with pride I am .sure. I was surprised myself at the official opening some months ago, to see the splendid work that is being carried on there. That entailed alone the addition of some forty employees. The laboratory was established not to. give employment to political supporters. As a matter of fact, merit is the qualification for the appointments. We appointed experts, men who were recommended by the head of the branch,
fMr. Roche.]
and we did not allow politics to play any part in the appointments whatever.
If there are any other questions that hon. members would like to ask, I am quite prepared to. answer them, or, if the Acting Minister of Railways desires to say anything on the railway situation, I will give way to him. Notwithstanding the fact that the staff .has increased, we are asking for a smaller amount this year than last. I do not think that, under all the circumstances, much as we would all like to economize in this time of stress, I would be justified in reducing to any extent the salaries or the number of officials under present conditions.


John Gillanders Turriff: In spite of all the explanations that the minister has given with regard to the continued increase in the cost of running this department, and while there may be one or two items in the vote that were not there five years ago when this Government came into power, the fact remains that the cost of running the Interior Department has practically doubled. As my hon. friend from Edmonton has pointed out, the amount of work done has been very greatly reduced. I quite agree with the minister that the cutting in two of the homestead entries would not mean the cutting in two of the work of the department. Nobody would expect my hon. friend to cut the staff in two simply because the entries have been cut down so much, but, while we have had a falling off during the last two or three years in the amount of work, and while this falling off would indicate that a smaller staff would be able to do the work, and that the department could get along very well with a smaller expenditure, we have the expenditure practically doubled. My hon. friend referred to the fact that he had opened new land offices, and that this always means expense. I am very well aware of the fact that the opening of new land offices increases the yearly expense, and I also know that in some of the northern parts of the country there is no doubt that new land districts are necessary when a new country is brought under settlement. But for every land office that my hon. friend opens up in the northern part of the country, he could close an office in the southern or older settled parts, where so many land offices are unnecessary. In my own constituency the land district was divided, and two land offices w^re established when there was no necessity for a new land office. It was a political job. The second land office was established for

the purpose of carrying out a political scheme and to give employment to a few officials. "Under the present war conditions my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White), in putting new taxes upon the people, and these are absolutely necessary if no retrenchment is made. If there is to be no economy in the expenditure of the Government, these taxes are necessary. If there is to be no retrenchment additional taxes will be necessary. If the Department of the Interior, and other departments, would reduce their expenditure to what it was four years before, when the Government came into office, a great part of the taxes that are being put on the people would not be necessary. There is no reason why it should cost almost double to run the department as compared with what it cost ,four years ago, especially in view of the fact that the amount of business done is a great deal less now than it was then. The cost is altogether too high. While there may be some difficulty in reducing the cost, if an effort was put forth, there is no doubt that considerable progress could be made. It appears that the minister thinks that if he keeps the cost from going beyond what it was during the previous year he is doing well. If the minister had practised that for the last four or five years the expenditure this year would be very little over half what it is. But my hon. friend did not do that. The -expenses have gone on piling up year after year and this year, in spite of the war, in spite of the new taxes, the minister is making very little attempt to cut down expenditure. My hon. friend referred to the fact that 120 men have enlisted and have not been replaced. That shows that they can get along very well without these men. Whilst it is a very nice thing to be able to give employment to people who ask for it, it is hardly fair that the country should be taxed simply for the purpose of giving employment to people for whom there is not sufficient work. We have, in this item, a number of very large expenditures and I am sure that the minister could cut them down materially without interfering with the public service, help out the economy his colleague, the Minister of Finance is always talking about and enable him to get along without taxing the people to the extent that he now proposes to do.


Mr. DOUGLAS:: Would the minister be good enough to give me some information in reference to the Forest Protection Department? He says that the Government have now 23,000,000 acres under the control of the Forestry Branch and that there have been a large number of enlistments from that branch. To my mind the Forestry Branch is a very important one and if the department does not keep up the work in connection with the prevention of forest fires it would be a very grave error. I would like to know if the branch has suffered from the enlistment of that number of men.
Mr. ROdHE: Twenty-two in the Forestry Branch, outside service, have enlisted.


James McCrie Douglas: What is the method oi guarding against fires?


William James Roche: We have the country divided into fire areas, all in charge of a chief ranger who has a staff of forest rangers under him. There is a supervisor for each forest reserve and there are forest rangers on these reserves. Each one has his location upon the reserve and resides upon it. They have methods of communication by means of telegraph lines, look-out stations, and so on, they are supposed to patrol their beats every day and they keep a memorandum of where they are and what they are doing each day which is submitted to their chief at the end of each month.


James McCrie Douglas: Is there a space around these forest reservese cut out, or ploughed, in order to guard against fire?


William James Roche: In some cases but not in all.


James McCrie Douglas: I noticed that in the Elk Park reserve, near Lamont, a certain amount of this work had been done but apparently it had not been done systematically. A road was cleared to a certain extent and a little ploughing done, but not to my mind in such a way as to prevent a fire from getting in there. The importance of having these reserves properly protected so that they will be of value at some future time is very great; and, while I am inclined to think there have been no serious losses up to the present time, yet one can never tell -when a very serious fire might occur in a place as close to that settlement as Elk Park.


William James Roche: That is a park, not a forest reserve.


James McCrie Douglas: But the same regulations govern both?


William James Roche: Much the same, but there is noT quite so much fire protection in regard to parks.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend said that economy was exercised in the protection of the forests. Now, he must have been a party to and' had full knowledge of a Bill that is now before the House in the name of the Finance Minister designed to discourage the railways from protecting the forests through which they run. The Canadian Pacific Railway, at an expense of something like $600,000, prepared its motive power for the use of fuel oil; the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway remodelled its motive power in the same way; but the Government of which my hon. friend is a member has a Bill before the House for the purpose of taxing fuel oil. The object of that Bill, which was explained fairly well, was to encourage the use of coal and discourage the use of fuel oil. Now, it seems strange that one branch of the Government is ask. ing us to vote them a large sum of money to protect the forests and another branch of the Government is bringing in a Bill to discourage the use of fuel oil, which the railways were asked to use for the protection of the forests. In a memorandum which I have seen, it is stated that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway, not on the order, but at the suggestion of the Board of Railway Commissioner 3, and at the suggestion of the Government of British Columbia, substituted fuel oil for coal. After they have done that along the line which my hon. friend has suggested for the protection of the forests, he is assisting a colleague to tax them for doing so and to discourage them at a certain rate per gallon. Fuel oil will now cost a very large sum of money, and, if these two companies find it less expensive to go back to the use of coal, as is hoped at least by the people in the coal business, then my hon. friend will find that by his own act he has prevented the protection of forests.


Mr. SHEPHERD:: Might I ask the hon. member if he is of the opinion that the use of fuel oil is the only method by which the forests may be protected?


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: It is the best
method.


George Perry Graham: Not the only one, but ' the one which the Government of British Columbia and the Board of Railway Commissioners suggested to those railways, and,

of course, they must have had some evidence before them in order to arrive at that decision. Enough timber has been destroyed in Canada by sparks from the smoke stacks of locomotives burning coal to build up almost as many railways as we have in Canada at present. One of the great problems before this country for some years has been to protect the forests, not only during railway construction, which is a very dangerous period, but during the operation of the railways. During the construction of the Transcontinental through the forests of the Maritime Provinces an arrangement was arrived at between the Provincial Governments and the Federal Government by which its right of way was patrolled and guarded most carefully in order to protect the forests, and very little, if any, fire occurred. When I was Minister _ of Railways, complaint was made to me time after time by the people of British Columbia that there was danger of fire in the forests of that province owing to the operation of the railways. That problem was impressed upon the present Government of British Columbia; it was impressed upon the Government of Sir Richard McBride, because I am informed that his Government intimated to the railways that it would be in the interest of the province if they could see their way clear to introduce the use of fuel oil as a locomotive power. I am only calling the attention of my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior to the fact that, while on the one hand he is asking for money to protect the forests, on the other hand he is assisting in passing a Bill which is contrary to the protection of the forests.


James McCrie Douglas: Last year I called
the attention of the minister to the case of some settlers west of Wetaskiwin in connection with some lands that had timber on them and to which they had been granted homestead entry by the Department of the Interior. The patents have been held up for quite a long time now, and I am informed that as yet nothing has been done, although last year the minister promised that he would look very carefully into the case, and I believe he did send out some special inspectors to report upon it so that he could adjudicate upon the question. I do not wish to cast any reflection upon any party interested in this matter, but it is my absolute conviction that it is nothing but a matter of political patronage in the district of Wetaskiwin that is holding up this case. I had hoped that the minister

would be inclined to adjust this case without having to be at the beck and call of every inspector in that district. From my personal knowledge of the case, a great deal of political patronage has been injected into the matter. I trust the minister has done something to adjust the grievances of the settlers in that western district.


William James Roche: To show how astray the
hon. gentleman is in his facts, it is only necessary for me to say that I have fulfilled the promise which I made to him last session. I had two independent timber rangers visit the particular district which he desired me to have inspected and reported upon. Notwithstanding the fact that those rangers handed in a report stating that those gentlemen had made an entry, I must say, in contravention of the laws of the country, because, although they had to make a declaration that there were twenty-five or less acres of timber on a quarter section, it turned out in many instances that there were 75 acres, 60 acres and so on; notwithstanding the fact that those timber inspectors recommended that those gentlemen get patents on the condition that we would survey out 25 acres, allowing them to select their own 25 acres, and that we would throw the surplusage of the timber open to permits for adjoining settlers, we recognized that there would be some little difficulty in carrying out that scheme, and some time ago I gave instructions for patents to issue to the very gentlemen to whom the hon. member desired to have patents issue.


James McCrie Douglas: Thank you.


George Ewan McCraney: Might I ask the minister if he has any scheme of reforestation apart from the protection of forests, or whether any experiments are being carried on?
which we hope is going to be a very important part of our forestry branch. The demand for these trees is increasing year by year. In addition, there is to be inaugurated a work of re-foresting many of the areas in the forest reserve that have been burned over.


George Ewan McCraney: I was aware of the policy of the Government in the distribution of these trees, and the work of the farm at Indian Head and also the distribution of the trees at Saskatoon has been very highly appreciated. What I had in mind was more the matter to which the minister referred in the latter portion of his remarks -the re-foresting of tracts of land which have been burned over. That seems to me a very important work, and I am very glad to know that it is to be gone on with.


Frank Oliver: I wish to put on record for the information of the House the facts given to me by the minister as to the number of patents issued, in order that the record may be complete:
Patents
issued.
1911..
1912..
1913.. 191*4. .
1915.. 1915-16
(9 months)
21,754
19.354 24,965 21,053 24,260
13.354
The number for nine months being 13,354, we may reasonably assume that the number for the whole year would be about 16,000 or 17 000-or about one-fifth less than for 1910-11. There has not been the same falling off in patents as in homestead entries, but there has been a serious falling off this year as compared with 1911.
Would the minister please inform me, is there a sub-land agency at Fort McMurray?


William James Roche: Yes.
Mr., ROCHE:	Under the Forestry Act
we have a large number of trees which are being distributed in increasing numbers of recent years to the farmers who apply for them. I think there were 4,000,000 trees ready for distribution last year and there are about 5,000,<XK) for the present year. So large has been the demand for those trees from our Experimental Farm at Indian- Head that we have had to establish another nursery, and that is another reason why the expenditure has been increased. In a place called Sutherland, near the town in which my hon. friend resides, we have established another nursery which is only in its infancy as yet, but


Frank Oliver: Is there one at Vermilion?


William James Roche: Yes.


Frank Oliver: Is there one at Hudson Hope or St. John?


William James Roche: Instructions have been
given to open one next month at St. John.


Frank Oliver: Is there one at Pouce
Coupe Prairie?


William James Roche: Yes, the office was established there less than a year ago.


George Ewan McCraney: There is an estimate
here for engraving and lithographing.

Would the cost of the atlas come out of that item ?


William James Roche: Yes.


George Ewan McCraney: Could the minister tell me the cost of the atlas?


William James Roche: The atlas is not meant for general distribution but for distribution to universities, colleges and high schools, and to parliamentary representatives and other public men. We are selling it to outside parties at the bare cost of printing and binding, which, I believe, is about $3.


William Pugsley: This being the last
item to be considered, I suppose it was understood that all other items might be discussed on this?


William James Roche: There was no understanding of that kind, but I have no objection.
PUGSLEY:	I had not the opportunity of being here all evening, and if the ' minister has explained the point I wish to ask about I will not trouble him to repeat. This item is for salaries of the outside service, the amount being $465,000, the same amount as last year. That strikes me as rather extraordinary in view of the statement made by the minister that a good many young men in this service had enlisted for the war.


William James Roche: The item is to pay salaries of timber inspectors, homestead inspectors, inspectors of land agencies, Dominion land and Crown timber sub-agencies, and so on. There are quite a number of these offices in Western Canada. I think I explained practically what the hon. gentleman (Mr. Pugs-ley) is asking about before he came in.


William Pugsley: Did the minister explain why the same amount is asked for as last year.


William James Roche: Yes.


William Pugsley: Perhaps the minister
would state, without going into details, if fewer men are expected to be employed during the coming year than in the current year.


William James Roche: We have not made up our minds to dispense with the services of any of our permanent staff, especially in view of the fact that 160 have enlisted, of whom only 40 have been replaced. We pay the salaries of those who have enlisted. There have also been a number of applications before the department for leave of absence, for which we have not as yet given 
our sanction, because of the representations made by the superior officers of the applicants that their places would have to be filled in the event of their being allowed to go-a pretty good indication that we cannot get on without them.


William Pugsley: The minister is carrying on the department as if there were no war in existence or even dreamed of. The hon. member for Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett) recently, in a very able speech in this House, argued very strongly that every public interest and every private interest should be subservient to the war, that we should realize that this is the first and greatest business in which Canada should engage. The minister tells us that 160 young men, whose salaries are covered by this item, have enlisted, and that he has filled the places of 40 of them at all events. It does seem to me there might be some economy in this department while the war is on.
The Finance Minister told us that while he was asking us for the very large sum of $190,000,000 for the coming year, the different ministers had actually had printed in the Estimates the enormous sum of $29,000,000, which the exigencies of the public service would not require to be expended during the coming year. But when the different items' of the Estimates are under consideration we are denied information.
I d,o not think that we are being fairly treated by the different members of the Government. The hon. Minister of the Interior tells us that many young men of his department want to enlist. Why do they want to enlist? Because the Empire demands their services; demands that they should make the supreme sacrifice that every loyal citizen who is capable of going to the front feels that he ought to make. Yet the minister coolly tells the committee that he declines to let them go.


William James Roche: I did not say anything of the kind.


William Pugsley: Upon the report of their superior officers he has declined to let them go.


William James Roche: That is quite wrong.


William Pugsley: Then what did my hon. friend say?


William James Roche: I said that these applications were still pending. I did not say that I had declined to let them go.


William Pugsley: 
William James Roche: Not to my knowledge-that is, for this particular item.


William Pugsley: Speaking generally of the minister's Estimates, will there by any supplementaries for the- coming year?


William James Roche: Not to my knowledge. There may be some that I am not aware of at the present time, but if there are any they will be comparatively small.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. member for St. John was good enough to make a passing reference to myself. I feel quite certain that were it any place other than Parliament, and were it any person other than the distinguished member for St. John, most members of this committee would say that he had embarked upon what we call in common parlance a leg-pulling expedition. But I do not think the minister or any one else proposes to suffer any leg-pulling through the medium of any such observations as those which have just been made by my hon. friend. If he had been in the House he would have heard the former Minister of the Interior discuss with much care and not at undue length the very matters about which that hon. gentleman has a far wider and more correct knowledge than the hon. member for St. John. But with that desire which is always manifested by my hon. friend, to seem to have a working knowledge of everything and a. particular knowledge of nothing, he insisted upon embarking upon the discussion of an item which might have been fully explained to him had he been here and heard the hon. member for Edmonton. What are the facts? The fact is that 160 men enlisted, and 40 men only have taken their places and are doing the work they did before as well as the work of the 120 men who have gone. An Order in Council was passed providing that the salaries of these men as civil servants should be paid. If the bon. gentleman objected to the policy of the department by which it was agreed that the salaries of these men should be paid while they were on active service, the time and place for him to have talked was some two years ago. I suppose he does now object to these men receiving their pay; he prefers that they should not be paid by the State while serving the Empire of which he talks so glibly. Well, the Government concluded to pay them, and I have not heard any gentleman here make any complaint in that respect. The Order in Council was subsequently amended, so that the

amount paid is now the difference between the military pay of the individual in question and the amount which he was receiving in civil life while he was in the employ of the Crown. It does not seem to me that that is a very serious matter. It would' follow almost from necessity that if the same staff is being paid there would not be very much diminution in the Estimates for their payment, especially in view of the fact that 160 of them are not here and that 40 men have been taken on to do the work of that 160. There is nothing serious about that. When my hon. friend talks about the necessity for economy, he would in this item at least question the policy which allows men on active service to receive the pay that they were receiving before they enlisted. If I remember rightly the hon. member for Edmonton did not dispute the soundness of that policy. It does seem to me to come with ill grace from the hon. member from St. John at this time, after nearly two years of war, to question the policy of the Administration that provides that a man who was the servant of the Crown, at a compensation which was none too large, and is now serving the Crown in another capacity, risking his life, shall be paid what he received in civil life, or the difference between that and what he received as a military man.


James McCrie Douglas: Does that apply to all
men who have enlisted?


Richard Bedford Bennett: My understanding of the Order in Council is that all those who were employed as servants of the Crown and who enlisted when the war broke out continued to receive the pay that they- were receiving as in civil life. Later, when it was found that the number of men enlisted was much larger than was originally contemplated, the Order in Council was amended to provide that they should receive the difference between what they re-cived in civil life and their military pay.


William Pugsley: Could my hon. friend
say how many enlisted before the 1st of November last and how many after?


William James Roche: I think over 100 out of the 160 enlisted before the 1st of November.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I have been over the
three western provinces a good deal in the last two years, at the points where the Interior Department officials are mostly employed, and I do not think any man in this House who would see their daily grind would not say that they had plenty to do.

The seed grain and relief work added materially to the work of the servants of the Crown, so far as Calgary, Edmonton, and I think probably Saskatoon and other land offices throughout the West are concerned. As the minister explained, new land offices are being opened up in the country north of Edmonton, owing to the extension of railroads in that territory.


John Gillanders Turriff: And in the south also for political purposes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: My friend says the railways are being opened up for political purposes.


John Gillanders Turriff: No, land offices.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I beg his pardon, I had not heard of anything like that-in the locality 'in which I live-in southern Alberta. Perhaps my hon. friend has' wider knowledge than I have.


John Gillanders Turriff: I am only speaking of
my own quarter.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It may be that in the
locality to which my hon. friend belongs it may have been necessary to open a few land offices in districts which had been neglected by the late Government. Looking over the list of land offices, I am bound to say that the difference between the number under the late Administration and the number under this Administration is not very great, and we have had the development of the north country in which I understood the hon. member from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) to say it would not be out of place to have a few more offices opened. As to the salaries of the officials, in my judgment they are underpaid, even in war times. This relates particularly to the junior clerks. Many of these receive only $48 a month. Such a salary is wholly incommensurate with* the duties devolving upon these officials. I think it is as much our duty in war times to take care of the people in our own country and give them a reasonable wage to live on, as it is to provide suitable food and clothing for those at the front. Many of the employees of the Department of the Interior in the West are inadequately paid. I have discussed this matter with the minister on several occasions, but he says it is impossible to increase salaries in war time, and I had to accede to his views. I do not believe that any more hard-working and efficient men and women are to be found in any department than are scattered through the West

in the inside and outside service of the Department of the Interior. Homestead inspectors who discharge arduous duties in travelling through the country in all kinds of weather to inspect homesteads, are certainly not overpaid at $100 a month. I desire to make these observations in fairness to the men and women employed in the service of the department in the West. The greatest complaint I have heard against the administration of the Department of the Interior is that, too many of the appointees of the late Administration have been permitted to retain their positions and draw their salaries, despite the fact that during the term of office of the Tate Administration they were very bitter and offensive partisans. No charges have been-definitely made against them and so the matter has not been proceeded with; but if there is any complaint it is more largely against those who served the Crown before 1911 than those who have served it since.


William Pugsley: I am sorry if I have
taken up any time in asking about a matter in respect of which the hon. member for Calgary is perfectly satisfied.


Richard Bedford Bennett: So is the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver).
Mr. PTJGS'LEY: I have not heard any expression of satisfaction on his part.


Richard Bedford Bennett: You were not here for that.


William Pugsley: All I have is a guarantee of the hon. member for Calgary that he is thoroughly and entirely satisfied, that his only complaint is that the expenditure is not greater. I was not speaking of the salaries paid to civil servants in the West who are doing work for the public; what I was complaining of was that in these very hard times, which began not concurrently witfi the war but shortly after this Government came into power and whicn resulted in a great falling off in immigration, a falling off which began within a year of the advent of this Government to power-


William James Roche: Is the hon. gentleman quite right in his facts?


William Pugsley: Yes, about 1913.


William James Roche: In the fiscal year ending 1913 we had the largest immigration in the history of Canada, that is 402,000 people. Up until a few months prior to the opening of the war, that is the fiscal year ending March 31, 1914, we bad 385,000 immigrants, so there was a very small falling off.


William Pugsley: That was a considerable falling off, and my hon. friend knows perfectly well that a wave of depression was flowing over the whole Northwest at least "a year before the war began. He has only to take the statements of the presidents of the different banks, including Sir Edmund Osier, a prominent member of this House and president of the Dominion bank, that the war was in no way responsible for the hard times. Anybody who realizes what is taking place in this country to-day must admit that had it not been for the war and the stimulus that has been given by orders by the British Government for munitions of war and other war supplies in this country, the depression would have been very great indeed, as compared with what it is now. What I contend is that, our immigration having fallen off from upwards of 400,000 down to about 40,000, we do not require the same number of employees in the Department of the Interior as would be required if the immigration was as large as in previous years. That is the argument which I make and it has not been answered. The figures presented to the committee by the Minister of the Interior necessarily make us keep in mind not only the large expenditure in his department but the large expenditures in all the departments of the Government, the total of which to-day is pretty nearly double what it was within two or three years of the late Government going out of power.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Nonsense.


William Pugsley: No, it is not nonsense. Take the Public Works alone.


Richard Bedford Bennett: You said all the departments.


William Pugsley: Take the total expenditure for 1908 and compare it with the expenditure for the present year. I have not the exact figures, but I venture to say that the expenditure is about double for the coming year what it was in 1908, when the country was in the high tide of prosperity, and was going ahead by leaps and bounds. That is something to make every well-wisher of his country despair for the efficient administration of the affairs of the country by the Government which is now in power. We have to criticise these dif-
20M

ferent items, and I will venture to criticise them, notwithstanding the statement of my hon. friend from Calgary that I am seeking to pull the minister's leg. I have no idea of pulling the leg of the Minister of the Interior. What I desire to do is to pull back to the treasury of this country some of the money which he proposes to take out of it, and to keep in the pockets of the taxpayer some of the money which he purposes distributing among his officials whom he proposes to continue to employ during the coming year. What about the policy of the Government in paying the civil servants their full salary while they are in the service of the Empire? I will tell my hon. friend what I think about that. I think that the proper policy to adopt is to deduct from5 their salaries the pay which they receive as privates or officers.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what is
being done now.


William Pugsley: That is what the Government ought to have done in the first place, but the Opposition were not consulted about that matter any more than they were consulted about other matters in connection with the war. This Government has taken upon itself the Whole responsibility. It has done things which my hon. friend must admit were wrong, and which the Government itself admitted were wrong when they passed the Order in Council in November last. They did those things without thought. Even to-day, I venture to say that the minister cannot tell me whether the officials of his department Who have gone into the Government service since the war began will be permitted to enlist and will receive their salaries the same as the officials who went into the service before the outbreak of the war. Will the minister tell me?


William James Roche: I believe that the Order in Council only allows pay to those who were in the Government service at the outbreak of the war.


William Pugsley: 1 congratulate my hon. friend upon having learned that during the last week or two. When I addressed the question to the members of the Government previously-I think my 10 p.m. hon. friend was present,-at all events the Minister of Militia was present, and he told me he was not aware of any such distinction, and yet within a day or two afterwards I found the Order in Council passed in November-it

was published in the newspapers-stating clearly that that distinction had been made. It is impossible for any man to justify the different Orders in Council that have been passed with reference to civil servants enlisting in the service of the Empire. You cannot justify them. They had one order before the 1st of November; they have had another since the 1st November, and a different order applying to young men who have gone into the service subsequent to the breaking out of the war. These men may make equally good soldiers; there is no reason why they should not; they may do equally good service for the Empire, and yet they are treated altogether differently from those who may have gone into the service two years ago, before the war broke out. '
My hon. friend from Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett) says that the fault he has to find, or the fault which he has found, in the Northwest, is that the minister retains in the service of the department too many men who were appointed by the previous Government. Let me tell him that if conditions in the' West are at all like what they are in the East, if there had been a shadow of excuse for turning men out of office, they would have gone, and gone very quickly. My hon. friend rather admits, indeed I think he has frankly admitted, that it was because no specific charges could be made against those men in the West that they were not dismissed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I said so frankly.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend admits that the wielder of the axe was abroad in the Northwest just as he was in the eastern provinces?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The trouble is he has
always been abroad; he is never at home.


William Pugsley: Wherever there was the slightest excuse for cutting off the heads of officials in the service of the Governirient, the axe was wielded, and wielded most efficiently, and many men who had been a lifetime in the service, and who had been very faithful in the discharge of their duties were turned out into the streets.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There has not been a
single case in Western Canada.


William Pugsley: They were turned out
without any justification whatever. I have in mind one gentleman down at Ooaticook.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is not in the Northwest.


William Pugsley: A gentleman whose only-fault was that, in the election of 1911, when members of the Nationalist party were declaiming against the Mother country, when some of them were going upon the public platform and declaring that the people oi Quebec had only been enabled to breathe the air of liberty through shooting holes in the British flag, he wrote a letter protesting against such disloyalty; and my hon. friend the Minister of Customs, upon that ground, and that ground only, turned him out of office and sent him adrift. Such men who have been loyal to-the Crown, and faithful in the discharge of their duties, were turned out of office for no reason whatever except that their places were wanted for politcal partisans whom the Government were desirous of serving


Richard Bedford Bennett: Some of them were building sawdust wharves.


William Pugsley: -in return for services rendered to candidates of the Nationalist and Conservative party in 1911.


Mr. BOULAY:: (Translation). Before we put this item through I should like to make a few remarks. With a good deal of attention I listened to what the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) had to say and I find that, as is usual with him, he struck a patricularly patriotic vein in speaking of the resources in the West and chiefly of the needs in that part of the country which he represents. While finding much to criticise in the Government expenditure, he thought fit to ask at the present time grants for different railway lines that go through that section of the western country that he represents. Methinks he could have spared himself the trouble of insisting on that subject, at a time when all the country's resources go to meet the actual requirements of the war. I think it was more reasonable on his part to insist on a reduction of the expenditure for Dominion parks. And, as for me, an eastern member, I should not object to the dropping of those items which relate to the protection of forests in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Aliberta. Those residents of the West are indeed privileged. The Government pays them fabulous amounts to protect their forests while the province of Quebec does not get a cent for that purpose. Here is an item of $750,000 for the protection of forest trees in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, etc. I should gladly see that item ' dropped, when our western members;
such as the hon. member for Edmonton, are asking for a general reduction in the country's expenditure.
One hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars is also asked for 1916-17, to meet the expense of the investigations and reports on water-powers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. There is another item of $349,670 for the maintenance of Dominion parks. Those parks arc situate in the West only and are of no utility except in the West. We who reside in the East derive no profit from those parks, yet I believe that the Government could let us have a share in those Estimates. The answer was given me the other day that we pay for the western parks because they are government lands. Well, it seems to me that instead of paying for the maintenance of twelve or fifteen national parks in the West at such a fabulous price, we had better sell the land and with the price buy land from the provincial governments either in Quebec or New Brunswick. We have the same need of national parks in the' East as an attraction for tourists as have our friends of the West. We have lakes of large extent and full of fish, which would draw the American tourist as readily as in the West, if we were only given the same opportunities. I then believe that we should get from the Government a share of this encouragement, instead of all the money going west for the maintenance of national parks.
In my constituency of Rimouski are found splendid lakes, such as Metis lake and Metapedia lake, where with a little money American tourists could be attracted for fish and game, since even to-day they come there although the Government contributes nothing and they have not even good roads to get in.


John Gillanders Turriff: (Translation). You
should vote against the Government.


Mr. WILSON (Laval):: (Translation). No chance.


William Pugsley: (Translation). Why then do you vote with the Government?


Herménégilde Boulay: (Translation). I take issue with our friends from the West who criticise a policy which is favourable to them. It seems to me that of all people they have no reason to complain. I have set out my point of vieiw, and I think it is based on common sense. We do not share in those moneys and yet those who are first to complain are our western friends.	.
The hon. member for Edmonton stated

that as the Government owned land in the West, it had to see to the development of all the natural resources in the West. I am inclined to think that it might be in the general interest to hand over the title in those lands to the western provinces instead of keeping the ownership of them and having to pay millions and millions of dollars to those (provinces. Only last year, the western farmers came here with a request to the Government for ten millions for seed grain, while in the East not a cent could be bad for helping districts which were handicapped through the failure of the crops. Those people are always applying for help to the Dominion Government on the ground that the Dominion owns those lands. I'f we have to carry such an expenditure because those lands belong to tihe Dominion, I fail to see why we should not let.them go to the provinces.
Regarding item 297, which is under consideration, I should make a last remark to the honourable the minister, for the purpose of suggesting 'that in future he favour us with geographical maps printed in French. I have noticed that for a number of years, all the maps which have been published at the country's expense and printed by order of the Minister .of the Interior are all in English. The French portion of the population pay their share of that expenditure equally with our English compatriots and yet we are not favoured with a single French map. We should be pleased, if every five or six years, there were a French edition of those maps, so that foreign immigrants from France, Belgium and other French-speaking parts could learn the names of different places in Canada and recognize those names on the map.
Immigration-salaries of agents and employees in Canada, Great Britain and foreign countries, $630,000.


William Pugsley: How do you account
for that increase of $10,000?


William James Roche: The increased amount was placed in the Estimates principally for the purpose of providing for any additional boundary inspectors we might have to engage and also for any increase in salaries if they were necessary in order to secure competent men or to reward those who are on too low salaries. I am not sure that that will be drawn upon to any appreciable extent, but we would like to include it in the Estimates.


Charles Marcil: Are you keeping the same staff as last year?	'


William James Roche: Yes,*we have a great many men who are at the front and we had to increase our staff along the boundary line, especially since the opening of the war. We were criticised here a few days ago for having a tool ax boundary inspection, and if we revise our form of examination it will entail a larger number of boundary inspectors who will have to go into the United States to meet trains there and make a special examination or investigation of people coming into Canada. In the West during the past year all the officers were engaged in connection with the seed grain work. We have our old country staff as well. A great many of the members of our old country staff are at the front. Of the immigration staff in England about 30 are at the front and we have not filled the places of any of them during their absence.


William Pugsley: Are they in the British or Canadian army?


William James Roche: Nearly all in the British
army.


William Pugsley: Do you pay them their salaries while they are in the British army?


William James Roche: They get the difference
between their military and civil pay.


Charles Marcil: Are you keeping the same staff in Belgium, France and the other countries of Europe?


William James Roche: We had practically no staff in France; we had only one agent there.


Charles Marcil: More than one.


William James Roche: There were four on the staff; there was only one agent.


Charles Marcil: One in France, one in Belgium?


William James Roche: Yes.


Charles Marcil: One in Great Britain, one in Ireland?


William James Roche: We have a large number in Great Britain and Ireland.


Charles Marcil: Why do you not reduce the staff?


William James Roche: I have just explained that over thirty of those have enlisted and we have not appointed any one to fill their places.


William Pugsley: 
William James Roche: My hon. friend has stated that we should not vote this money unless we can get results, but he has been looking at the question of immigration purely from a European standpoint. We are carrying on a very large immigration propaganda in the United States; in fact, I have been strongly urged to double my expenditure, if necessary, in connection with the activities of our immigration agents in the United States during the ensuing year, and those representations have come to me not from my political friends, but from my political opponents. It is true that immigration from the United States has fallen off just the same as immigration from other countries, but the hon. gentleman will admit that, when a country is at war, is not a very good time to attract immigration to our shores even although the war is not being waged on our own soil, and we have been working under many handicaps in connection with our propaganda in the Urjited 'States. As all hon, members are aware, from items which have appeared in the press during recent months, owners of large tracts of land in the United States, the railway companies and the press there have been doing their utmost by misrepresentations to stem the tide of immigration that had- set ini some years ago from' the United States to Canada, especially into the West, and we have had to combat those misrepresentations by a very wide propaganda of publicity, all of which is costing a considerable amount of money. In the United States we have added to some agencies, we have opened up some new agencies during the last few years, and we have been strongly advised not to diminish but very largely to increase our expenditure in connection with immigration from that country, and, as I say, this
is not a political pressure at all in order to afford places for political friends, I had the privilege, six weeks or so ago, of attending a -conference of our immigration agents at Chicago at which the Provincial Governments were represented, and at which the whole question of immigration from the United States was discussed, and while we do not expect any large immigration from there during the war, we think it necessary to correct the erroneous impressions which have been left upon the mind-s of the people of that country, and by means of which many who no doubt intended coming to Canada have been deterred from doing so. The impression has been spread abroad throughout the United States that there is conscription in Canada; that there is war taxation, that in Western Canada there is a very large land tax imposed by reason of the war, ranging all the way to $5 an acre. All that had, to be combatted. In connection with our immigration from the United Kingdom, we cannot see our way clear to shutting up our immigration agencies and dispensing with all our staffs there. We cannot say how soon the war will end and we want our staffs ready to take up the work again immediately the war is over.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Are you practising any economy in yo-ur department at the present time?


William James Roche: I am showing my hon.
friend why it is necessary to keep on those agencies.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: But you should not do so.


William Pugsley: The minister is not
answering my question. I asked him if he would kindly tell us how the $620,000 was expended during the current year.


William James Roche: This propaganda of which I have been speaking covers some of the expenditure during the current year.


William Pugsley: There must be so much expended in Great Britain, so much in the other countries of Europe, so much in the United States, and so much for services along the boundary line. My hon. friend must have a detailed statement of that. I do not want very small items, but under those different heads he can tell us how that $620,000 was expended.


William James Roche: The salaries of the staffs in the Old Country are much the same as



t
they were before. I have the last published printed list of 1914-15 before me, and the salaries are very much the same as during the current year.


William Pugsley: Can the minister give
us the different amounts paid?


William James Roche: There was paid in the
British islands $357,065; on the continent, $21,011; in the United States of America, $340,793, and in Canada, $910,009.39, or a total of $1,828,878.39. That is for the year 1914-15, and there has been very little difference during the current year.


William Pugsley: The expenditure has
increased by nearly $300,000. It is $1,820,000 now, including salaries and contingencies.


William James Roche: Yes, including contingencies.


Charles Marcil: The reason for this expenditure is that we are paying for people who are not doing immigration work at all, but who are at the front. Would it not be better for the department to state that it is paying so much for its employees who have gone to the front and so much for those who are doing immigration work? I do not object to paying the salaries of those who have gone to the front, but it is misleading to ask the money for immigration. You are paying $300,000 in Great Britain. How much of that will be applied for immigration during this year?


William James Roche: Well, as I say, thirty of our agents in Great Britain are doing duty at the front, but they are drawing salaries as immigration agents, that is, the difference between their civil and military salaries.


William Pugsley: I suppose their salaries would not average over $3,000 apiece, or say $100,000 for the thirty agents. In that case you have $250,000 which must 'be paid to people who might just as well be sleeping in their beds so far as effective immigration work is concerned. The people in the British islands will not listen to them. Supposing they attempted to deliver lectures on immigration to Canada, who is going to listen to them? Who is going to read their literature? The British Government will not allow men to leave the country. You are simply spending $250,000 which you might as well take down to the Ottawa river and throw it in and let it sink to the bottom.	[DOT]


William James Roche: Would the hon. gentleman have us close up all our immigration offices?


William Pugsley: Certainly I would, during the war. We have to give up thousands of things during the war.


George Perry Graham: Many businesses in Canada are giving up things.


William Pugsley: Homes are being broken up and businesses are being disarranged in every way. Why should we keep in the public service men who are doing no good and who cannot do any good for Canada so long as this war lasts? I can understand the difficulty in the United States while the war is on. I quite agree that it is desirable to meet the incorrect stories that are being circulated in the United States with reference to the prospects of the immigrant into Canada from that country. Stories are in circulation that there is likely to be a war tax on the land-though I do not know how anybody can give an assurance that that will not take place, in view of the surprise the Finance Minister has given to the people engaged in business, not only by the taxes he imposes, but by making those taxes retroactive. I rather think that people contemplating coming into Canada and settling on our land would require very strong assurance to satisfy them on that point. Another deterrent to immigration is the fact that the" American settler in Canada is beginning to realize that his neighbour whom he left at home is placed at an advantage of something like ten cents a bushel on the wheat that he raises; and I am told that thousands of the American settlers coming into Canada to make their homes in this country have turned back in despair, and gone back to their own country. I was told that in almost every part of our prairie country through which I travelled last season. That is a difficulty that the minister cannot overcome by increasing immigration expenditure. Until these conditions are altered the minister cannot meet the objections that the Americans have in coming into Canada. When they came in such large numbers they did not dream that such a spirit of madness would settle down on the people. They are beginning to realize it, and are going back to their own country by hundreds and by thousands. If, with our magnificent country, and with the great many American settlers who are already here and who have produced splendid crops surpassing those produced anywhere in the


world, people will not come in greater numbers than 40,000, instead of 400,000 a few years ago, would it not be better for us to stop this large expenditure until the war is over and devote our money to the development of the country? In 1911, when there was this enormous immigration, the Government spent a total of a little over a million dollars for salaries and contingencies in connection with immigration, but in the coming year, with the- comparative impossibility of securing immigration, and notwithstanding the war, the declining revenue , and the necessity for increased taxes, this Government proposes to. expend half a million more- in the coming year on immigration than in 1911. Can the minister justify this? Does not he think he ought to justify it, or attempt to justify it, before Parliament? As I have said, we on this side are in despair. We ask the ministers to give us evidence of the good faith of the Finance Minister when he said that he was going to save 529,000,000 in these Estimates that would not be required. Here is the Minister of the Interior asking for millions, and when we appeal to him' for information we cannot get it. I -suppose it will be the same with every other minister. I do think the Minister of the Interior ought to reduce his Estimates by at least one-half, and if any hon. gentleman on this sid,e will support me I will m.ove

I do *move-
That the Item " Immigration-salaries of agents and employees in Canada, Great Britain and foreign countries, $630,000," he reduced by one-half.


Mr. EOCHE:: 
Charles Marcil: They could enlist.


William Roche: Many of them could not enlist.
132i


Charles Marcil: They cannot secure immigrants during the war.


William Roche: If we were to act on the suggestion of my hon. friend and cut this appropriation in two, what would it mean? We should throw out of employment a very large number of employees who are dependent on their salaries for a livelihood. And, if the war should close within three or four months, what could we- do in the way of immigration propaganda? Everybody who speaks on this -subject says that at the close of the war we are to have an untold immigration. There may be a difference of opinion as to that. For my part, I should doubt very much that we are likely to have a very large immigration of the agricultural classes from Europe after the war is over. I may be wrong in- that. The Immigration Department deals with human lives, and you cannot deal with an expenditure of this kind in the same way -as you would with an ordinary -expenditure. Last year, our immigration -staff in Canada were not idle, but were engaged, -as I have explained, in this great distribution of seed grain to relieve the people'of the West. We pressed into service all the spare men we had in the Interior Department, including the Immigration Branch. I do not think it would be wise- to cut off the salaries or reduce them by half under present circumstances.


Charles Marcil: The men in Britain cannot do immigration work while the war i-s on.


William Roche: No, but the hon. gentleman knows that all classes of civil servants who have -enlisted are being paid by the Government.


Charles Marcil: The minister is paying them full salary. These men are not making much of a sacrifice in comparison with the -soldier-s of France who are getting only five cents -a day.


William Roche: Does the hon. gentleman advocate that pay for our men?


Charles Marcil: No, but when they are paid their full -salary they cannot be said to be making a very great sacrifice as compared with the men alongside of whom they are fighting and who get only five cents a day.


William Roche: We are not paying those who have enlisted in Great Britain full salary. Some of our agents have given u,p their lives in the war.


Charles Marcil: But what I object to is paying immigration agents who have not work to do.


William Roche: They cannot do work when they are fighting.	,


George Perry Graham: There are certain articles manufactured in Canada the importation of which Great Britain has prohibited. What would the hon. minister think of a board of directors or a manager who would insist on sending an agent to sell these goods in Great Britain? A board of directors would be financially insane if they continued to try to sell goods in Great Britain when they knew that they could not send them over because their importation into Great Britain was prohibited. That is what my hon. friend is doing in this case. He is keeping his staff engaged in endeavouring to get immigration from Great Britain when he knows that he cannot get them, and that Great Britain would not let them go even if they were convinced that it would be well for them to come to Canada. What is the use of spending money in trying to do what is impossible? If the staff can be put to some other use, well and good; but so far as the work of immigration is concerned the money spent on the continent of Europe might better be given to the war and these gentlemen allowed to do something else. I am not one of those who like to,turn men adrift, but these are times when thousands of men are being turned adrift in Canada. Young professional men are giving up a comparatively bright future, turning the key in their offices, and are receiving no salary save the small amount given to them by the Militia Department. It is asking us to be almost too humane to say that we must keep a staff in Great Britain at an expense of $300,000, when every one admits that they cannot get immigrants, and that if they did Great Britain would not allow them to come over.


William James Roche: The salaries to agents in Great Britain and on the continent amount to only $78,000.


George Perry Graham: But the expenses are


William James Roche: That includes contingencies.


George Perry Graham: If you do away with the salaries, you do away with the contingencies as well.


William James Roche: This $300,000 includes advertising.


George Perry Graham: Do away with the advertising too.


William James Roche: It includes advertising and rents. Our expenditure on the continent of Europe is very limited.


William Pugsley: What do the rents
amount to?


William James Roche: I have not a special note of the rentals, but I can get the information for the hon. gentleman. In France the total salaries amount to only $5,380, in Denmark $1,800, in Belgium $1,800.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The Minister of Finance appeals to the citizens of Canada to practise economy in their private 'business. This country has already been bound to large commitments on account of interest upon the large debt that is accumulating, and at least $25,000,000 a year will have to be added to this expenditure for pensions. Yet the hon. minister comes down with an estimated expenditure $500,000 greater than the expenditure of the department was five years ago, in the piping times of peace. The people of this country will expect hon; gentlemen opposite to practise what they preach. Does my hon. friend not feel, as a responsible minister of the Crown, that he should show at least some semblance of economy in the administration of his department? What sense is there in keeping offices open and paying rents and officials anywhere on the other side for immigration purposes? Great Britain will not allow any one to leave that country. Not long ago a man who was born in England, but who had lived in Canada for a long time, went home, and as a result of the operation of Lord Derby's Act, he is not permitted to return to his wife and family. Yet this Government persists in paying men on the other side, where it is absolutely impossible to get a single immigrant. As the hon. member for South Renfrew has said, there is no use in maintaining an immigration propaganda in- a country where the people are fighting for their lives. My hon. friend should reduce this expenditure and suspend these operations, which can be productive of no results until there is a change in the war situation. Is the Government ever going to economize, and if so, in what department?


John Gillanders Turriff: The hon. minister gave as a reason why he could not economize


Edmond Proulx: Did the minister appoint any immigration agents last year?


William James Roche: I think that either two or three have been appointed in the United States.


Edmond Proulx: Any in Canada?


William James Roche: I have appointed a number of boundary inspectors in Canada, who are doing boundary duty at points where steamboats enter Canada or where railway lines cross the border.


Edmond Proulx: Has he appointed any
immigration publicity agents in Canada?


William James Roche: Not under that name.


Edmond Proulx: In the Maritime Provinces?


William James Roche: 
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Who asked for his
appointment?


William James Roche: If my hon. friend will consult the Debates of last session he will see that I was urged to make the appointment of this gentleman; in fact when I would not commit myself to the appointment I was rather reproached.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I would like the
minister to bring down these papers. I do not hesitate to say that this gentleman's services as an immigration agent are absolutely nil. His chief occupation is that of a recruiting officer in the militia, and if he is in the employ of the Immigration Department he is doing nothing for his salary. Previous to two or three years ago suich a suggestion as the maintenance of an immigration agency at the town of Windsor in Nova Scotia never occurred to any one. Windsor has no steamboat communication with any foreign port, and no

immigrants ever enter there; yet, purely for political purposes, my hon. friend created an agency there, as he has done in other places. This agency cost $2,250. Can my hon. friend tell me whether any work was done at that agency?


William James Roche: 
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: In war time the office is of no value. My hon. friend might as well throw the money into the river. This is one of the economies my hon. friend might easily effect if he was sincere in his desire for economy. So far as our province is concerned, such an expenditure in these war times is a grotesque absurdity, in view of the financial condition of the country.


Charles Marcil: The minister might well give consideration to the suggestion we have made. The position in Canada to-day is very serious. We are spending $350,000 a day for war purposes. We have a Budget of $425,000,000 this year and will have one of $500,000,000 next year. We will have a public debt, within three years, of $1,000,000,000. I read extracts the other day from speeches of the political leaders in England calling upon the people to economize in every respect, personally and publicly; yet we are asked to-night to spend this large sum on immigration from Europe, when the Governments of European countries, even France, England, Ireland and Scotland, would not permit their people to leave the country. When the war broke out Great Britain had an army of only some 100,000 men. In the effort to create an army which would enable Great Britain to make a respectable showing on land, as she could on

sea, a coalition Government was formed. That was very different from the procedure here. In England men of both parties worked together in the interest of the state. Here they seem to work only for the advantage of their own party. The Derby scheme was brought forward, -and the statesmen of England worked night and day in the effort to create an efficient army. Yet we continue in this country to pay immigration agents to bring people from the other side when they would not be permitted to leave their country. We go on with these reckless expenditures at a time when people in all parts of the country are trying to make both ends meet. I think the proposal of the Opposition should be accepted by the minister, and if the Government is sincere in its pretended desire for economy, it should drop all this immigration expenditures, which cannot be effective. The best answer to the suggestion that the war will be over in a few weeks or months is to be found in the efforts of the Canadian Government to raise the strength of our army to 500,000 men. We have 280,000 men enlisted at the present time, and if the enlistment of 500,000 men is conducted on the same lines, before we get that number enlisted, equipped, drilled, across the seas, and to the front, the war is going to last for some time, or else we are wasting our money and our time recruiting these men. I have met soldiers who told me that they had been walking the streets of Montreal and Ottawa in khaki for the last year, or year and a half, wondering why they had not been sent to the front. They said: We enlisted to go to the front, and we are still in Canada. We have thousands of men in the same position. With a Budget of $500,000,000 staring us in the face next year, the time has come for serious action, and I think the minister ought to be delighted to hold up this item, in order that he may confer with his colleagues, and see that we are asking what is not unreasonable when we urge him to discontinue all expenditure in connection with the immigration from Europe at a time when immigrants cannot be brought from Europe. During the past 15 years I have heard it said that the salvation of this country, so far as immigration is concerned, would be British born settlers, but you cannot bring to this country any British bom settlers at present. You cannot bring immigrants from the continent of Europe at present. All you can do is to bring immigrants from the United

States. Our friends opposite when in opposition used to speak lightly of the immigrants brought into Canada from the United States. They used to say that they were not to be compared with those brought from the Mother Country, that we did not know how those American immigrants would turn out in the future. We do not know what they are to-day, whether they are Germans or Austrians or of any other nationality. We do know that they are not of the stock and blood of the majority of the people of this country. We cannot get people from, the British Isles just now; therefore, is it a sane policy for us to continue to fill up Western Canada with people who will probably become good Canadian citizens in time though that remains to he seen? The best stock in this country came from France in the first instance, and from the British Isles in the second instance. If we cannot get immigrants from Britain, why waste our money as we are wasting it now. So far as salaries are concerned, Canadians are fortunate. They are being
11 p.m. paid their full salaries, and they are fighting alongside of the heroes of France who are getting 5 cents a day, and who at first got only 2 cents a day. If any sacrifice is being made, it is the Canadian people who are making it. Every man, woman and child is feeling the pinch, and the proposal to vote $500,000 or any other sum for immigration from Europe at the present time is so nonsensical that I think the Government, for its own reputation for sanity, ought to withdraw the item entirely.


William Roche: My hon. friend is quite wrong when he says that we are not getting immigrants from Great Britain. The hon. member for Assiniboia said the same thing. He said that they would not allow them to leave Great Britain. Would he be sur- , prised to learn that in the ten months of the present year we have had 8,000 immigrants from Great Britain?	.


Charles Marcil: What kind of men are they?,
*


William Roche: The hon. gentleman is now taking another tack. They belong to the class of immigrants that we have been getting for many years. The men are probably not of military age, but, as the same time, they are as good a class of settlers as we have been getting for many years. I would gather from the remarks of my hon.
friend that he is opposed to immigration to this country entirely.


Charles Marcil: I am not.


William Roche: He condemned immigration from Great Britain and Ireland at the present time.


Charles Marcil: Not at all. I said that the men of Great Britain and Ireland are needed over there for something better than settling in Canada. They are needed to fight for the Empire.


William Roche: Those who are coming here are not men of military age.


Charles Marcil: The Salvation Army are sending over widows and orphans.


William Roche: With regard to the hon.
gentleman's remarks concerning immigrants from the United States, I think if he had a heart to heart talk with the hon. member for Edmonton and with other members from Western Canada he would probably be enlightened in regard to the character of those immigrants.


Charles Marcil: It is an experiment.


William Roche: It is an experiment that
has been pretty well tried out. They have been coming into Western Canada for many years, and they are among the best settlers we have in the West.


Charles Marcil: They are going away
again.


William Roche: It is true that many of
them have gone, but the reports concerning the exodus have been grossly exaggerated. They have not been going out by the thousands as the hon. member for Assiniboia stated. We are conducting an investigation to find out just how many have gone, and the cause of their going. I admit that a certain number have gone, and it is reported that they have gone because they were afraid of conscription. That has been assigned as one reason, but I do not think it applies to many instances. Fifty per cent at least reported by the United States immigration officials as having returned to the United States from Canada have not done so, I am sure that the investigation which we are conducting will bear me out in that.
With regard to salaries, I have already explained that 31 of our officials in Great Britain and Ireland have gone to the front, and their salaries are being paid. The total amount of salaries paid to officials in

Great Britain and Ireland is only $68,000. Of the 31 officials who went to the front, two of them have laid down their lives in defence of the Empire. Does my hon. friend want us to close all our immigration agencies, and to disband all the staffs? There are many inquiries being made at the immigration offices, and it is necessary to have a staff there to give information to those who are coming to Canada. It is true that we will not have so large an immigration while the war lasts. I do not wish to prophesy as to the close of the war, but in the event of the war being over before next session we desire to have our staffs Organized and ready for work to meet the condition of affairs that will then arise.
With regard to the vote for contingencies, we are reducing the amount of contingencies in Canada, and of the British and foreign agencies and the general immigration expenses- by $300,000. I wish once more to emphasize the fact that our immigration officials have been employed in Canada during the past year in connection with the seed grain business. That was an emergency which none of us could foresee.


George Perry Graham: You are not going to use them this year?


William James Roche: You cannot tell what will happen this year. I submit that it would do no harm to vote this money. It does not necessarily mean that it will all be expended. Out of this year's appropriation there will be $350,000 unexpended, and there was no harm done by Parliament voting that money last session. Nor am I going to say that all the money voted now will be expended during the coming year, but we desire to have the money in case of an emergency arising, the conclusion of the war, or anything else, so that we can utilize our immigration vote. If we were to close our offices in whole or in part, and an emergency arose like that of last year, we would have to go out into the highways and byways to get men, and pay them out of another vote entirely, or we would have to raise the money by Governor General's warrant. I dp not see the force of the hon.' gentleman's remarks with regard to immigration. As I have pointed out, our immigration has undoubtedly fallen off, but we expect that it will be restored after the waf, and we desire to be in a position to cope with the requirements and not be accused by hon. gentlemen opposite of negligence because we were not prepared.
I am not sure as to the amount of immi-

gration that we may expect after the war. We may have a considerable immigration from the British Isles, but Whether the immigrants will be of the character which we have been encouraging to come in the past is another question. From the Continent of Europe I doubt very much whether we will have a very large immigration of men of the agricultural class. To what country in Europe are we going to look for immigration? I do not know what country we are going to get immigrants from. We may get some from Russia, and that is the only country that we can get any large number from. We may get a few from the Scandinavian countries. Are we going to get any from Germany? I doubt very much if the people of Canada want them, and furthermore. Germany would not allow them to come. Are we to. look to Austria for agricultural immigrants? Austria has 'been worked pretty strenuously in the past. We did not work it, but the Canadian Pacific tried to work it and got into trouble because the Austrian laws did not permit the carrying on of such a propaganda. The Canadian Pacific were of the opinon, even before the war broke out, that they had pretty well exhausted the possibilities in the British Islands in so far as getting agriculturists were concerned, and -they were then devoting their attention to the continent of Europe, and among other countries, to Austria; But that source of supply will be cut off, and I do not think we will regret it. I doubt if we can count upon any large agricultural population coming to Canada from the continent of Europe right after the war is over We can expect a certain number of immigrants from the British Isles. I look for a large influx of immigrants from the British Isles after the war is over. It is stated that some of the young men who are now in the trenches will be so much enamoured of the outdoor life that they will not be willing to return to their usual vocations indoors. But these are not the kind of immigrants that we have been encouraging to come to Canada. 'They will not go upon the land; it is people engaged in agricultural occupations that we desire, Therefore, we want our staff retained so that we can cope with the immigrants that do come to Canada. We will have to have the co-operation of the various provinces in working out some land settlement scheme. This is one of the questions that is engaging the attention of the Commission on Economic Development and Resources.

I do not know what the report of that commission is to be, but if it recommends some land settlement policy, or something of that kind which will require a pretty large appropriation, we want to have the money available to carry out its recommendation, should we decide as a Government to adopt it. I cannot see the force of the hon. gentleman's contention that, because the war is going on just now and .there is a drop in immigration, we should wipe out the whole immigration staff, dismiss them and send them adrift notwithstanding the fact that we expect to have immigrants coming to Canada, certainly in diminished quantities, but yet in considerable numbers. In so far as the United States immigration is concerned, I am more hopeful than the hon. member for Bonaventure. He does not seem to be enamoured of immigration from that country at all; in fact, he rather condemns it.


Charles Marcil: I have heard it argued
in the House that the efforts of the Government should be directed to getting immigrants from the British Islands.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There are not less than
100,000	in Saskatchewan now.


Charles Marcil: I understood that the
policy of this Government was to have people from the British Islands brought to this country in as large numbers as possible. If you cannot get them during the war why should you continue to waste money in an effort that must result in failure? Are you going to raise 500,000 men off your own bat or are you undertaking this at the request of the British authorities or from information you have received from the other side? If you have received information from the British Governfent that 500,000 will be needed, if in a year and a half's time you have only sent 125,000 and if you have some 130,000 in this country, how long will it be before your 500,000 men are enlisted, trained and sent forward?


William James Roche: We have to provide against every possible contingency. A soldier cannot be trained in a day, or a week, or a month, and we must get our men so trained that, should it be necessary to call upon them, they will be competent to take their places with their fellow citizens in the trenches.


Charles Marcil: Is it wise for the Government to undertake to enlist this number of men unless they have some information
that they will be required? Sir Thomas Shaughnessy says that you have thousands of young men parading the streets of our cities. If they are needed, why are they not sent over? There are regiments fully equipped and prepared for active service and still they are not sent over. If we have only 280,000 men enlisted up to the present time, how are we going to increase that number to 500,000 unless the war is going to last very much longer than is expected?


Mr. MIDDLEBRO:: The hope of Canada in the future is in the amount of immigration that we shall receive from foreign lands and in attacking, a vote of this kind I think you are really attacking the future of Canada. All the newspapers are urging the slogan of 10,000,000 or 15,000,000 people within the next four years. In the headlines of the Montreal Star I gee that slogan every day and every paper in the Dominion is urging a similar slogan and justly so because the hope of Canada's future lies in her immigration ^ policy in the next ten or fifteen years.


William Pugsley: What did the Minister of Trade and Commerce 6ay as to that?


William Sora Middlebro: I do not care what the Minister of Trade and Commerce said; I am speaking of the immigration policy which we should pursue. Are we, for the sake of the small amount of $76,000 paid in salaries going to jeopardize and dislocate the whole immigration organization at work in those distant countries which we depend upon as the hope of this country in the future? They are having meetings in Great Britain now and I have read reports pf those meetings. The object of those meetings is to get returned soldiers upon the land in Great Britain and the same thing is being done in France and other countries. The very fact that it is going to be hard to get immigration from Europe is a reason why we should keep our organization intact. I feel a good deal like my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior. I do not think we are going' to get the number of immigrants that the public believe we are. Where -are we going to get them? We are not going to get them from France because France will need every man in her reconstruction period after the war and because France will have lost so many men either disabled or killed in the war. The same applies to Great Britain and to some extent, it applies to Russia and to the other Allies. We shall have a struggle to get im-

migrants to come to this country especially for two or three years after the war and because we will have a struggle we need the machinery for the purpose of fighting our battles there. It would not be in the interests of the people of this country, of our rural population particularly to do anything that would cripple this service. I am at a loss to understand why, during the present session, hon. gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House appear to be making an attack on the rural population, When this Government brought down a Bill to tax the rich corporations, which these hon. gentlemen have been attacking in the past, we find them defending these interests. At the first opportunity we have of making them pay their just share of taxation these hon. gentlemen come to their defence. Then we found these hon. gentlemen attacking the rural mail system and now we find them attacking the farmers of this country because, if there is one thing more than another that the farmers desire, it is to have agricultural immigration coming into this country for the purpose of assisting them in carrying on their work. Yet these hon. gentlemen are prepared to cut off that service which is necessary to secure that immigration which we regard as the future hope, of this country.


Mr. COPP:: My hon, friend seems to admit the fact that the advice given by the Minister of Trade and Commerce the other day has fallen on barren ground so far as hon. gentlemen opposite are concerned. My intention, however, is not to answer the remarks made by my hon. friend. I want to get a little information from the Minister of the Interior an regard to immigration matters. A few moments ago the hon. gentleman gave us the number of, immigrants who have been brought into this country during the past tea months. How many did he say there were?


William Roche: In the last ten months, a little over 8,000.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Will the 'minister be good
enough to tell me how many came in during 1914-15?


William Roche: During the fiscal year of
1914-15, 43,276, that is the British immigration.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Can the minister give me the number that came into the province of New Brunswick during that year?


William Roche: I doubt very much if I
have a list showing the number going into each province.


Arthur Bliss Copp: I have before me the Auditor General's Beport for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1915, and as the expenditure on immigration in the province of New Brunswick interested me, I looked it up. Although I do not know the exact number, I have some idea that only a very small number of immigrants came into that .province. On looking into the expenditure I find that we have an agency at Fredericton, one of the inland towns of the province, so that there are no vessels coming in there at all. I find that Mr. Wilmot, the agent there, is employed by the Government at a salary of $1,800 a year; that he has an assistant agent, also stationed at Fredericton, enjoying a salary of $1,000 per year; that there is a stenographer there with a salary of $600 per year, and that there is someone to build up the fires at a salary of apparently $180 for some two months. It seems to me that, unless the Minister of the Interior can give some assurance to the committee that through this agency sufficient immigrants have been brought into the province of New Brunswick to prove to the people of that province that they are getting value for the money that is being expended, the expenditure in that agency should be reduced. There are some vessels coming from the Old (Country to the port of St. John, and I learn occasionally of a few immigrants landing in that City and I know of a few who have remained in the province of New Brunswick. I am speaking entirely subject to correction and I do not want to be unfair to the minister or to the department, but I do not think we are getting enough immigrants in our province to warrant an expenditure of some $4,047 for the agency at Fredericton. At St. John, we have an agent, a medical inspector and so on, and the expenditure there is about $10,000. There is also an hospital and a detention house there at an expenditure of about $5,000, or making a total expenditure of about $19,000 in the province of New Brunswick for immigration purposes. As has been said by hon. gentlemen on this side, we are perfectly willing that a reasonable amount should be expended for immigration purposes, if results are being produced, but the objection taken by hon. members is that a sufficient number of immigrants are

not coming to this country to justify the amount that is being expended, and that therefore it is time for the Minister of the Interior, to economize, to call a halt in expenditure for the time being, and the same is true of any other minister of a department that is not getting value for the moneys expended. Every financial newspaper has commended in the highest degree the business acumen of the Canadian Pacific railway that, when hard times come to them, they commenced to economize; they laid off some of their hands, and they carried on their business in an economical manner and will continue to do so while the war is on. Every other corporation or private company throughout the country is doing the same thing. The hon. Minister of Finance told us, in the Budget debate, time and time again, that we must economize, and he said: The only way to economize is to get down to the old-fashioned way and save the cents and the dollars will take care of themselves. That advice which he gave to hon. members is good advice and advice that we would like to take, and while the Minister of Finance is not here to guide his flock along the path of economy, we would like to remind them that he has laid down the proposition that the only way in which to practice economy is to begin by paring down expenses in connection with the smaller matters to the ver^'n lowest possible amount.	, ' ' .
My hon. friend says: We have, tliese ! immigration agents and we cannot dismiss them; we cannot ask them to do without their salaries during war time. The agent at Fredericton is a personal friend of mine, and I know him very well, but, as the Minister of Marine and Fisheries knows, he is a lawyer of good standing in the province of New Brunswick, and it seems to me it is a very poor excuse to give that they cannot ask Mr. Wilmot to retire from the office for a year or two while the hard times are on, because he can easily go back to his law practice and follow the advice of the Minister of Finance and practice economy, just as the rest of us have to do if we are not making as much money out of our professions as we did before. It is certainly not necessary to keep a professional man at the head of the immigration office at Fredericton if he is not getting immigrants and showing results for the salary that he is receiving. I am sure the Minister of Marine and Fisheries will agree with me that there cannot be enough work at the immigration office at Fredericton to justify keeping on Mr. Wilmot at a salary of
$1,800 a year, and an assistant at a salary of $1,000 a year. I refer to those matters simply because they affect my own province. If my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior cannot give me now the information in regard to the number of immigrants who have gone into the province of New Brunswick during 1914-15, he can give it to me some other time when his Estimates are before the committee.
At Halifax the expenditure on immigration is something over $20,000. If one goes through all the list of immigration offices one will find striking evidences of extravagance where the expenditure could very well be reduced. I do not think the province of New Brunswick would suffer if the expenditure on immigration was reduced. If I thought that the interest of that province or of any other province in the Dominion would suffer on that account, I would be the last one to ask the minister to cut down the expenditure. I have not had time to go into the matter at length, but it does seem to me that a very large amount of money is being expended, and if the expenditure in other provinces is similar to that in my own, I think we are getting very little return for our money.


William James Roche: The number of immigrants into the Maritime Provinces for ten months of the current year has been 5,198.


William Pugsley: Does that mean landing or remaining?


William James Roche: Remaining. As to the
criticism of the Fredericton agency, of course that agency does the same character of work as the others. But as to the agency in St. John, that is a general agency and has to handle immigrants that are going through to other parts of the country. There is a detention hospital there which cost $4,000 or more, and that is included in the expenditure of the agency. It would not be right to leave the impression that the expense of the St. John agency is attributable merely to the work of bringing immigrants into New Brunswick.


Arthur Bliss Copp: I understand the explanation of the minister. I am obliged to him for the facts he has given me. Has he before him the number of immigrants into the Maritime Provinces in 1914-15?


William James Roche: The number was 11,104.


Edmond Proulx: What is the number of the staff employed at the port of Quebec?


William James Roche: That, of course, is a very important port. During the summer

months, many vessels come there. We have a very -good hospital there, and extensive accommodation for immigrants. The whole staff there, including doctors, officials and employees, numbers about 51 persons.


Edmond Proulx: Have they been decreased since last year?


William James Roche: Yes, the staff is being decreased. I have been investigating these offices to see whether it was possible to make reductions, and the port of Quebec is now under investigation.


Edmond Proulx: What is the difference in the immigration into Quebec now as compared with the years before the war?


William James Roche: I have not the figures under my hand, but I will procure them for the hon. gentleman.


Edmond Proulx: I just wish to point out that while the immigrants entering at the port of Quebec have decreased, the expenses of maintaining the staff has not decreased by one per cent. Included in that staff are medical men who have their private practice and who would not be thrown on the street if their services in connection with immigration were dispensed with. I have no doubt there are other employees also in the same position.


Mr. MORPHY:: 
John Gillanders Turriff: If my hon. friend had an agency in the Old Country maintained

by a staff of ten men,, he would be the last man on earth to keep those men employed over there after the outbreak of war, if they could do no business. He would be the first one, and he would be perfectly right, in cutting the expenditure in two at least, and that is all we are asking the hon. minister to do. It will be no discredit to Canada to adopt a system of economy in respect of this service when we can get no results from it at the present time.


George Perry Graham: Follow the advice oi Lloyd George.


John Gillanders Turriff: That is the advice oi Lloyd George and of Mr. Asquith. But hon. gentlemen on the treasury benches do not seem to take that advice.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Imperial Gov ernment have not closed up their consular service or their commercial offices.


John Gillanders Turriff: I am aware of that, but the members of our immigration staff are not consuls. At the present time they cannot accomplish anything, though that is not their fault. We do not suggest that when the war is over this work should not be resumed, but at a time when every man, woman and child in Canada, outside of the Government, is practising economy, why should not the Government practice it as well?


Mr. BLAIN:: In looking over the list of officials in the Old Country, I find that Mr. Obed Smith is the highest paid official; he receives a salary of $4,000 a year. Does my hon. friend suggest that his salary should be cut off and that he should be dismissed?


John Gillanders Turriff: I intend to support the proposal of the hon. member for St. John city to cut this vote in two, and I leave it to my hon. friend the minister to decide who shall be dismissed and who shall be kept on. I should not like to suggest that this one or that one should be dismissed, though if the minister asks me to do so, and will agree to carry out my suggestion, I will very quickly say who ought to be dismissed and who ought not. To my mind it is an utter absurdity to go on spending more money year by year on a service of this kind at a time like this. I do not agree [DOT]with the hon. member for Perth in the suggestion that it would be a disgrace to Canada if we should economize in this respect. The objection to this economy on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite is absolute evidence of the fact that while they talk of economy they have not the slightest intention of trying to practice it.


Mr. EDWARDS:: I dare say the minister is anxious to get his Estimates through.


John Gillanders Turriff: So are we.


William Cameron Edwards: Hon. gentlemen are not showing very strong evidence of it. I have no doubt that the minister regards this discussion as, to a large extent, wasted time. I do not regard it as a waste of time, because if it has not done anything else it has given some gentlemen on the other side of the House an opportunity to talk economy, which they did not practise for fifteen years while their party was in power At that time they never thought of the word economy; for fifteen years it was not in their dictionary. So we should rather regard it as a good thing for the country, in a way, that hon. gentlemen opposite have had an opportunity of making use of the word economy. I think it would be extremely foolish for the Minister of the Interior to take the advice that has been offered by hon. gentlemen opposite. It would be very foolish for him to take the advice of the hon. member for St. John. In fact, I may make the general statement that it would be bad for the Minister of the Interior at any time to follow the advice of the hon. member for St. John. The last man in the world who ought to talk economy is the hon. member for St. John, the exMinister of Public Works. The man who had the record that he had when he was Minister of Public Works is the last man who ought to try to make the country believe that he is sincere in his desire for economy. And the hon. member for Assini-boia, who has backed up every sawdust wharf transaction that this country knew, and who had a very close interest in a good many deals, I believe, in the western country-the Merwin deal, the North Atlantic Trading Company, Saskatchewan iand deals, timber and that sore of thing-is a gentleman whose remarks with regard to economy we would be justified in taking with a large grain of salt. What is the use of having immigration agents while the war is on, the hon. gentleman says. The answer comes from the Minister of the Interior that in the fiscal year 1914-15 over
40,000	immigrants came from across the seas to this country, and war was in progress during eight months of that fiscal year. We find also that during the same year some 11,000 came to the Maritime Provinces, and, in the first ten months of

the year, 5,198 came to the Maritime Provinces. It appears, therefore, that even with the war in progress, we may get some immigrants from Great Britain. I venture to say that they will be a better class of immigrants than we would get from the United States. For that I have what hon. gentlemen opposite would probably consider to be the best authority in this House, that of the right hon. leader of the Opposition. Speaking in the debate on the Address this very session, the right hon. gentleman informed the House that the reason why so many Americans left the Northwest and went back to the United States was-not the reason given by the hon. member for Assiniboia-that they desired to escape the possibility of being called upon to go to war. I do not know what they are going to do now, when the United States is at war with Mexico. They will not dare to come back here for fear they will have to enlist, and they will not dare to live in their own country for fear they will have to fight Mexico. Th*ere will be no place for them, unless it be China or some country of that kind. One reason why I think it would be very unwise to cut down the immigration vote is this:
The immigration figures show that since the outbreak of the war the number of immigrants coming to this country has fallen off considerably, that in the first year of the w^r a number came to Canada, notwithstanding the war. But as the struggle became more strenuous and more severe, the number of immigrants lessened. Now, what will happen when the war closes? As has been said, no person can tell when the war will end. It may end in a few months. Does any person suppose that, the moment peace is declared, all the men who are at present in the army will at once return to their former occupations? Not at all. It will take months, even after peace is declared, to bring our own soldiers back to this country. But the thousands and hundreds of thousands of men who are in the armies of England and France at the present time, when peace is declared will be looking around for a suitable place to settle, and I think their attention will naturally be directed to Canada. It does seem to me then that, as soon as peace is declared, as soon as it becomes apparent that the more strenuous part of the war is over, that the testing time has passed, and that the services of many -soldiers can be dispensed with, it will be the part of wisdom to have our full organization of im-

migration staff on the other side of the water in order to see not only that Canada gets its share of the men who are quitting war for peaceful occupations, but that we have trained officials there to make our selection of the best men and get these men to come to the country. The matter of a few thousands of dollars, seventy-eight thousand, or one hundred thousand dollars, us a small thing compared with the interest that the agriculturists of this country have in this vote. The farmers of the Dominion of Canada to-day, especially in the older provinces, are up against a shortage of labour, and they are very deeply interested in the bringing into this country of even a few thousand immigrants. Go Where you will in the rural sections of Ontario and ask the farmer what his chief trouble is to-day, and he will tell you it is -a shortage of labour, that he cannot get the necessary assistance to cultivate the land. Hon. gentlemen opposite say, as do the members on this side, that we must have increased production. But the trouble on the farm today is that you have not the men to produce the crops. I maintain, that in the interest of the agriculture of this country, we should see to it that our staff of immigration officers is maintained, that the organization is kept up in order that at the earliest opportunity we may have all the necessary machinery to bring to this country the assistance of which the farmers of the country are so much in need.


Frank Oliver: There seems to be an
attempt to create the impression that something went wrong with the immigration to this country when war broke out. The figures I have show that there was something wrong before war broke out; that while we were increasing our expenditure from year to year the number of people we were getting on the land from year to year was decreasing. In 1911 the immigration vote was $915,000 and the homestead entries 44,479. The next year the expenditure was $1,276,000, and the homestead entries 39,151. In 1913 the expenditure was $1,520,000 and the homestead entries were 31,899. For the year ending March 31, 1915, we spent $2,103,000 on immigration and we got 24,088 homestead entries.


William Cameron Edwards: How many immigrants?


Frank Oliver: We got 384,000 immigrants. For the current year our Estimates for immigration are $3,150,000, and it is estimated

that we will have 20,000 homestead entries in this year.


William James Roche: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon, hut he is leaving a wrong impression upon the House. He states that for the current year the Estimate for immigration is $3,150,000. Now, in that vote is included for seed grain advances, $1,275,000.


Frank Oliver: Very well. If you subtract $1,275,000 for seed grain advances, that will still leave approximately $2,000,000 for the current year as compared with less than $1,000,000 in 1911, and with 20,000 homestead entries in this year as against
44,000	in 1911, leaving the seed grain out of the question altogether. I submit that we have not been spending our money advantageously or we would have been getting more satisfactory results in the settlement of the land. The returns show that increase of immigration expenditure, if not wisely made, does not produce satisfactory results. It proves exactly what is being urged from this side of the House to-night, that the money voted for immigration has not been wisely spent, and it will not be wisely spent if it is spent in maintaining agencies where there is no possibility of securing results from them. One would imagine, from what our friends on the other side of the' House have said, that public office was a private snap, and that a man who once had the good fortune to be employed by the Government of Canada thereby had a pension for the term of his natural life. Every business enterprise, I fancy every province, certainly every municipality, has found it necessary to retrench during the past couple of years. I know that in the city from which I come they have had to cut down their current expenditures by the amount of approximately half a million per year. They have had to do that by reducing the number of employees. When times were good, a man was engaged by the city and. he had his living assured. But when times became hard and money to pay these .salaries had to come out of the pockets of the tax-payers, then, in response to the call to reduce the expenditure of the city, the expenditure was reduced. And may I say that the reduction of the expenditure by the city of Edmonton improved the credit of the city, very much to the city's advantage. (Now what is true and necessary 'in regard to a city is just as necessary in regard to this country of Canada. The Government has seen fit to add, by increased taxation, to the burdens
of the people in the past two sessions of Parliament, a sum of $50,000,000, .and they propose to add in this session of Parliament a further burden of $25,000,000. We suggest that where these enormous additional burdens are being made upon the people there shall be exercised due economy in the expenditure of the money in the Department of the Interior, in the branch of immigration, and all along the line in the Government expenditures.
Amendment (Mr. Pugsley) negatived:
yeas, 19; nays, 31.


George Perry Graham: The minister has made
great progress. We have put through about $4,000,000, and that is pretty good work in these hard times. I congratulate him on being surrounded by such a strong force of followers to-night. I do not think I have seen any minister have such strong support in putting through his Estimates at such a late hour as this. It is a good thing we had this vote, because a number of members took part whom we do not often see at this time of night. It is a good thing to have a variation and to see some strange faces. Some of us are here every night till this hour, and it feels lonely to see empty chairs. I congratulate my hon. friends opposite upon staying with us so late. Item 64 might go through as there seems to be no possibility of inculcating the minister with the necessity for a reduction at this time, and then we might adjourn.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Hazen, the House adjourned at 11.59 p.m.
Friday, March 24, 1916.