1916-03-14

[Stage Direction]
Sir ROBERT BORDEN laid on the Table, in accordance with an order of the House passed on March 13, 1916, a copy of the pension list in force in Canada for disabled soldiers, and the petitions, letters and other documents relating to the amendment or readjustment of the same.
On motion of Sir Robert Borden, the said papers were ordered to be printed forthwith, and were referred to a committee composed of Messrs. Green, Hazen, Le-mieux, Macdonald (Pictou), Macdonell (South Toronto), Oliver and Scott, to consider and report upon the rates of pensions so authorized, the establishment of a permanent Pensions Board, and other matters relating thereto or connected therewith.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day-:
Mr. J. J. HUGHES:: I am in receipt of a number of letters and telegrams in regard to transportation between Prince Edward Island and the mainland. These letters and telegrams, which are pretty strongly worded, are to the effect that the efforts made to bring the car ferry steamer Prince Edward Island to Charlottetown are not successful; that the steamer is being injured by the strenuous work to which she is subjected in going through the ice; that

the mails are delayed; that travelling is hampered; that trade is tied up, and that apparently a few people in the capital are the cause of the trouble. Charlottetown is the centre of population in Prince Edward Island, and, if the steamer can make trips to that point, that is the place where she ought to call; but if she can not and can make daily trips to Georgetown, it would be wise to have her call there. I would like the minister to consider the matter, because the people are greatly inconvenienced. They allege that the steamer is being injured, and that by some means or other pressure is being brought do bear upon the department to have the steamer call at Charlottetown.


Mr. HAZEN:: The same instructions have been given to the captain of the car ferry Prince Edward Island that have been given in previous years to the captain of the Minto or whatever boat was maintaining the winter service. Those instructions were to continue the service to Charlottetown so long as it was practicable to do so, having regard' to Weather and ice conditions, and if it was found impossible to maintain that service, then to have the vessel go to Georgetown. Thus the matter is left, as I understand it, in the hands of the captain of the boat. It may be that the steamer now goes less frequently to Georgetown than in previous years; but this, I suppose, is owing to the fact that 'the Prince Edward Island is a stronger icebreaker than the boats formerly engaged in this service. I understand that the Prince Edward Island has missed only one daily trip during the present winter, and that by reason of a heavy snowstorm which prevailed, and it has missed the railway connection only on seventeen days. I will make inquiry into the statement that has reached the- ears of my hon. friend, that the ice conditions being encountered in going to -Charlottetown are so serious that the boat is being somewhat damaged. If that is the case, i-t would be a strong reason why the boat should be diverted from her present route and put upon the Georgetown route.


James Joseph Hughes: I suppose, Mr. Speaker, I should be in order to state the information I have received, which does not agree with that received by the minister. I have been informed-


Mr. SPEAKER:: I would call the attention of the hon. member to the rule.


James Joseph Hughes: The point I wish to state is not controversial.


Auguste-Charles-Philippe-Robert Landry: If it is the desire of the House that the hon. gentleman should speak, I have no objection; but I would call the attention of the hon. member and of other hon. members to the practice as explained at page 476 of Bourinot:
Questions have been asked, when the orders are called, relative to the state of public business or other matters of public interest: but no discussion should b? allowed when a minister has replied to a question, nor after a member has made his p .rsonal explanation.
Of course if no objection' is taken to the hon. member speaking, I shall raise none.


James Joseph Hughes: It is a personal explanation.


Sir ROBERT BORDEN:: Could not the hon. member give the information to the minister?


James Joseph Hughes: I would rather give it now, if I am permitted.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Douglas Hazen: If my hon. friend will send me a memorandum stating the information he has, I will have the matter looked into at once.



INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY CAR SHORTAGE.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Air. LEMIEUX:: I would like to call the attention of the acting Minister of Railways to the car situation on the Intercolonial railway. Yesterday I received from a large firm dealing in lumber and pulpwood in Quebec City a letter, from which I will Tead two or three lines:
We thought we would drop you a line in regard to the car situation on the Intercolonial railway. For the past two months we have been supplied with very few cars for our pulp-wood shipments to the States and when we have received cars, in some eases they have remained on the sidings where loaded for several weeks waiting to be moved.
The Intercolonial railway officials give as their excuse that the weather conditions were very unfavourable and that they are very short of power to move both empties and loaded cars, and in consequence it is impossible for them to do anything.
Can my hon. friend give me some information with regard to the car shortage and can he alleviate it in any way? Because I understand from this letter that the situation is very serious and that the lumbermen especially are very much hampered in their shipments on this account.


Mr. REID:: I am aware that there has been a little trouble on the Intercolonial, but not more, perhaps not as much as on the
other railways throughout the Dominion. The hon. member knows that during the last month or six weeks, not only the Intercolonial, but almost every other railway in Canada has been tied up by the great snow storms. The Intercolonial as done good iwork ini pushing traffic through as well as it has done in spite of the snow blockade. The motive power has been used largely to get the passenger trains through, and tlhe trains conveying troops. In addition to that, munitions and war supplies have been given the right of way. It is absolutely necessary to get that freight *through to load the transports waiting at Halifax and St. John. For these reasons, local freight has had to be delayed a little more than would have been the case otherwise. In Montreal the yards, not only of the Intercolonial but of the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific, [DOT] have been filled to their utmost capacity with cars held up by the blockade. I received a telegram yesterday from the general manager of the Intercolonial, and have asked for one to-day, dealing with the situation. In yesterday's message it was stated that the Intercolonial was clear, was running 175 cars a day, and anticipated no more trouble. I feel sure that the trouble with regard to local freight will soon be overcome. The people along the line must have a little patience on account of the absolute necessity of moving war supplies.
I think the hon. gentleman will agree that war supplies and munitions must take precedence.	.



LOCAL FREIGHT AT CHATHAM, N.B.

[Stage Direction]
On'the Orders of the Day:
Mr. LQGGIE:: As a matter of importance, I would like to draw the attention of the Acting Minister of Railways to a letter I have received from my home town, Chatham, N.B., to the effect that the station-master there has instructions not to receive freight for local points. One of the important shippers there required to send supplies to Blackville, a tpwn twenty-five miles away on a branch line, but the station-master refuseci the freight. The grievance that this letter expresses is that freight is 'being received at Newcastle station billed to the same point, Blackville. The shipper claims that he is at a disadvantage. I would ask the minister if he would give instructions that the town of Chatham be treated in this regard as liberally as other towns.


John Dowsley Reid: I will have the matter looked into. The same reply that I gave to the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) applies to this.


William Stewart Loggie: Chatham is on a branch line.	*


John Dowsley Reid: We will try to have it put on the main line, so far as freight is concerned.



HOUSE OF COMMONS READING ROOM.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
James Joseph Hughes: I desire to call the attention of the Government, or whomever is responsible, to the use made of the reading room by members. It is quite a common practice for members to take away newspapers and keep them in their rooms. Those in charge of the reading room have no means of knowing who have possession of any newspapers so taken. If the reading room is for the benefit of a few members, I suppose this method is all right, but if it is for the benefit of the members generally, the newspapers ought to be there at all reasonable hours, at any rate. I believe that those who want newspapers in their rooms should subscribe for them. I merely call attention to this matter, as the evil seems to be growing. It has become worse since we moved to this building, notwithstanding that the facilities for reading in this reading room are better than in the old building.


Auguste-Charles-Philippe-Robert Landry: Orders will be given to the curator which will put a stop to the practice complained of.


Mr. OLIVER:: I find that a number of
the newspapers in the reading room have important articles clipped from them. That is something that does not reflect credit upon the members of the House who are guilty of it.



RELIEF OF GRAIN CONGESTION.


[Stage Direction]
Qn motion of Sir George Foster, Bill No. 58, to amend the Canada Grain Act, was read the second time, and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair.
On section-1 poiver of Board to order supply of cars:
Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: I explained the purpose of this Bill to the House the other day, and asked the members from the northwest who were particularly interested in it *to consider it in order that, if possible, it

might be passed with expedition when next taken up. It is a matter of moment; quick action upon it is necessary. Those members who heard my explanation the other day will understand the purport of the Bill. In a few words, its purpose is this: a large amount of grain in the West, particularly in some of the most congested districts, has not the benefit of warehousing or of elevator storage; it is simply lying in the fields. A great deal of this grain is in bins without floors. As long as the weather continues bright and cold, even if snowy, the grain will suffer practically no injury, but as soon as a thaw takes place the snow which is upon the grain will melt, and the grain will be liable to speedy damage. Car-order arrangements are matters of enactment. In section 207 of the Grain Act, after what you may call the standard arrangements for carordering are set forth, certain discretion is given to the Board of Railway Commissioners. That discretion is contained in four lines. The present Act says:
The board may in its discretion order cars to be supplied contrary to the provisions of this part, (a) to elevators that are in danger of collapse: Ob) to places where grain is damp and thereby liable to become damaged, (c) for the purpose of distributing seed grain to any point in the western division, and (d) in cases where the operator of any country elevator reports in writing under oath that some portion of the grain in such elevator is heated, and that in order to preserve such grain it is necessary to ship such heated grain to a terminal elevator for treatment.
The provision (b) allows discretion to the board in cases where grain is damp. The purpose of this amendment is to give the Board of Grain Commissioners disc; etiou to order cars for the carrying of this grain" in cases where it is liable to damage.


Mr. GRAHAM:: Will that work in harmony writh the amendment to the Railway Act which was passed the other day?


George Eulas Foster: Yes, except that the Railway Act refers to large sections, and to the operation of different lines of railway as to carrying points. This eues into detail, while the other was a matter of more general application. I may say that this amendment has been very strongly urged upon the Commissioners and upon the department by the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan. I have a long letter from him to the commissioners in which he makes a very strong plea for the immediate enactment of such legislation.


Frank Oliver: I imagine that anything that I can say will not affect the decision of the minister in regard to this provision.

My view is that every purpose that is ostensibly to be served by this amendment is already covered by subsection "b". The grain lying uncovered in the fields is in danger of destruction only from dampness, and if the point is taken that at the moment it is not damp, and, therefore, does not come under subsection "b", my view would certainly be that we should adhere to the principle of the (Bill and provide specifically for that particular case, rather than, by a provision such as this, simply destroy that feature of the Grain Act which has been most strongly held to 'by the farmers of the West, in season and out of season and und.er all circumstances. The principle of compelling the distribution of cars according to priority of order has been fought by every interest opposed to the farmer in the West. I am compelled to say that my hon. friend has to some degree already listened to these opposing interests, and in this section he proposes absolutely to place the grain at their disposal so far as the principle of the car-ord,er book is concerned. If this section passes, in my humble judgment, we can consider that that feature of the Grain Act is eliminated, and. that the right that the farmers have stood for during so many years, the right for which they have fought so hard, and which they have maintained so strongly, is taken away from them without good or sufficient reason.


Mr. KNOWLES:: At whose suggestion did the hon. minister say that this legislation is introduced?


George Eulas Foster: The Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan, Mr. Motherwell.


William Erskine Knowles: Is there correspondence about it?	'


George Eulas Foster: Yes.


William Erskine Knowles: Could we see it?


George Eulas Foster: I can read a portion of it, if that would satisfy my hon. friend.
Sir WILFRID LAURlER: Hear, hear.


George Eulas Foster: The correspondence began with a request by Mr. Motherwell that discretionary power should be given to the Board of Grain, Commissioners in order to meet this very pressing difficulty during the present season. The board replied to the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan that whilst they were entirely in sympathy with the purpose that he had
in view, they were devoid of power, because they could use their discretion only in certain specific instances. They pointed out to the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan that the very discretion which he wished to be granted to the Grain Commissioners in ord,er to alleviate tnis trouble had been applied for when the Act was being amended some two or three years ago. That provision had been passed by the House of Commons, but had been thrown out by the Senate. This reply was sent to Mr. Motherwell, who, after looking up the facts of the case, wrote to the effect, that he found that the Board of Commissioners was entirely right in that matter. He urged then that that discretionary power be applied for.
Mr. Motherwell, in a letter to Dr. Magill, Chief Commissioner, says:
It would take Parliament possibly an hour to pass this subsection through its various stages, including the Royal Assent, and I am strongiy of the opinion that it should he done. We cannot afford to fiddle over this business much longer as spring is rapidly approaching. It has been thawing here all week and in western Saskatchewan the Chinook has caused the streets of towns like Swift Current to run' with water,. A few more days like this, and the damage to the grain in question will begin. Surely, we are not to stand helplessly by indulging in further speculation as to what should he done and wait until the wheat actually is damaged so that it can he shipped out under subsection " b " of section 207 of the Canada Grain Act.
The Grain Commissioners do not believe that they have the power to act until the grain is actually proved to be damp. It may be that it is not damp under present conditions, but if it is left until it becomes damp, so that the Board of Grain Commissioners have power to act, the damage will have been done and it will be too late to salve the grain. Very gratifying reports come from the vicinities- of Saskatoon, Moosejaw and Calgary with reference to the usefulness of the Government storage elevators in these different sections. Quantities of damaged and damp grain have been brought in. We have the finest cleaning and drying arrangements that are possible in connection with these elevators, and thousands of bushels have already been salved and cleaned. A despatch this morning from the elevator at Saskatoon says that pretty nearly 3,000,000 bushels have been passed through that elevator and some 2,000,000 bushels are now in storage. That is a point at which the railway arrangements particularly effect the quick passage of grain. The Canadian Northern

railway is bringing out grain on short hauls from the congested districts and storing it in Saskatoon. The Grand Trunk is carrying it to the East; so that the transfer through the elevator is continuously going on; farmers get their certificates and their weights and are able to make their financial arrangements. They also have the advantage of having clean grain if they wish it, and they have it dried if it becomes damp. If subsection " b " covered the case, we would not want to ask for extra legislation. But in the opinion of the board and of the Minister of Agri-_ culture of Saskatchewan, it does not cover the case,


William Erskine Knowles: The trouble is that the amendment is addressing itself to the solution of a problem that perhaps should not be solved. The minister says that wherever there is congestion they can order this to be done. It is not congestion that is going to be the reason or justification for favouring any particular point. The congestion might be ever so great, but the principle that car orders should be given to people equitably should still prevail, and the congestion be left to be relieved in the ordinary course of events. If the minister provided that this board should have the exceptional power, not because there is congestion, but because the grain is damp or in real danger of becoming damp, he would be addressing himself to the state of circumstances that the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan seems to dwell upon. The subclause under section 207 of the Grain Act which is involved is:
The hoard may, in its discretion, order cars to he provided contrary to the provisions of this part.... (b) to places where grain is damp and thereby liable to become damaged.
Why should not the minister, in the wording of his amendment, continue to confine himself to the kind of grain that is to be handled, and not open up the whole thing and give the board discretion to favour certain places because there is what, in the board's opinion, constitutes congestion?
, Would it not be better for the minister to have his amendment read:	"To places
where grain has become or is in real danger of becoming damp." Or better words which the minister would find on reflection Why break in on the principle of equitable car distribution simply on account of con-jestion?


George Eulas Foster: If there were
no congestion there would be no necessity

for this clause. These men have grain lying in the fields, sometimes eighteen or twenty thousand bushels, without any covering, and liable to these processes as soon as the weather becomes mild and the snow begins to melt. If there were no congestion there would be no call for this, because there would be plenty of cars and the grain could be carried away. The trouble is that there is congestion and that car orders are in in advance of the orders of the man who has grain which is in a perilous position, and, unless there is something to step in between the general rule and that pile of grain, that grain is almost certain to be seriously injured. I think that where a man has grain stored under such conditions that it is not likely to be injured, his car orders ought to wait until the man alongside of him who has grain stored without the advantage of cover of any kind has had his grain moved.


William Erskine Knowles: There may be and has been congestion at many shipping points where the wheat is not in any danger. If the minister reads Mr. Motherwell's correspondence, he will see that Mr. Motherwell treats it largely as a geographical matter, referring to the fact that in the older districts, such as eastern Saskatchewan and all of Manitoba, although very often there is congestion there, yet the people are provided with facilities for storing grain on their farms; and so, although there might be congestion, there would be no peril or danger of the grain being lost, whereas in the newer places farther west the homesteaders, under more pioneer conditions, might he exposed to much greater danger of loss, even although the congestion were less. I do not think the minister should put upon us the grave responsibility of defeating this legislation, or of refusing it. We explained to him that all we, ask is that the Board of Grain Commissioners attend to the condition of affairs it is sought to relieve. We have congestion all through the winter at some of those points, but the danger does not come until the spring. The board might exercise that discretion at points where there was no danger of any dampness damaging the wheat, and relieve the situation at other points, as they are empowered to do. I do not think that the minister should place us on the horns of a dilemma in that way. All we ask is that this amendment be again amended to meet the condition of affairs. Many farmers would not object to letting the congestion remain, or to letting the wheat lie for a while until their brother

farmers in the pioneer districts had got relief, because the danger of damage to the grain is a great deal more pronounced there than in the older districts where they have granaries. I think my hon. friend the minister will see that our quarrel is not with the principle but with the wording of his amendment. '


George Eulas Foster: My plea would
be this: Provide for the known and uniform cases by actual enactment, and then leave this matter in	charge of the
Board of Grain Commissioners.	They
know the circumstances better than any of us can here, and if it is wise to give them discretion to go beyond those points, I do not think the House will make any mistake in just leaving the matter to their discretion. The point of urgency for the legislation comes just from the circumstances that my hon. friend has mentkmed, that in those districts at which we are looking at the present time there is a congestion of grain which is not housed. It is not a question of a man having his grain where it would not be damaged, and being able to wait for his cars. He is not being injured so far as the quality of his grain is concerned, but it is a case where a very large quantity of this grain is piled up on the open prairie, and if it remains there a month longer1 it will probably be very much damaged, if not absolutely spoiled. Whilst we are at it, we might just as well have some faith in human nature, and trust to the Grain Commission to do what is fair in the matter, as try to tie them down to every small detail of what may occur to us here in the Houser I do not think my hon. friend will be injured by that stretch of magnanimity.


Frank Oliver: The minister has asked
the House and the country to trust the Grain Commission. The whole purpose of the Grain Act is to depend on legislative enactment, rather than on official discretion. If his point is right, there is no reason why the Grain Act should remain on the -statute book. Now that we have a Grain -Commission, which is supposed to know more about the grain business than anybody else, we might just a-s- well, if we are to follow his argument, trust them in -everything, and say: The matter of the -control and handling of the western grain is in your hands; do with it as you please, and for the bes-t, and wipe the Grain Act off the statute. That is the logic of the minister's argument, I do not think that he will be prepared
to-day to carry his argument to its logical conclusion. I do not think he will be prepared to ask this House to wipe the Grain Act off the statute-book, and yet if there is any provision in the Grain Act that the farmers lay store by, and lay stress on, that they demand shall be kept away from anybody's discretion as far as possible, it is this provision in regard to car distribution. Wipe that ou-t and you might just as well wipe the Grain Act off the statute book; there is no protection in it so far as the farmer is concerned. I maintain that the provisions of subsection " b " as they stand cover the case that has been presented to the House by the min-siter. I take issue with the Grain Commission if they hold a contrary view, and I call upon the minister to interpret for them the proper meaning of the Act and their duties, and to see that they carry them out. My hon. friend the minister has said that the grain is going to be dampened when the warm weather comes if it remains piled up on the prairie. Has he not read the papers? Does he not know that warm weather has been experienced there for the past four or five weeks, that in the town of Walsh in the dry belt of the Canadian Pacific railway the people have been flooded out. Southern Alberta has been subject to a Chinook. The snow has gone and the grain is damp. It must always be .so. Thousands -a-nd -tens of thousands of bushels of damp g-r-ain have been taken into the elevators. The -condition of dampness is already great, actual dampness and damage, and therefore subsection "b" is in full effect, -so far as the grain of Southern Alberta and Southern Saskatchewan js concerned. I say again that if, when grain is piled on the prairie and covered with -snow, the Grain Commission, with the purpose and intent of subsection "b" staring them in the face, deny that that grain comes under the discretion granted by that subsection, that Grain Commission, I will say here on my responsibility as a member of this House, is not honest in the discharge of its duties, and requires to be disciplined by the minister in the interest of that industry which he and they -are in their positions to protect.


William Erskine Knowles: Does the minister not think himself that that clause covers it?


George Eulas Foster: I do not, and 1 would not take the responsibility of -saying that the Grain Commission should remove the grain which is now piled on the open

prairie, where the weather has not turned soft, even if it may he covered with snow. I would not ask them to read into their instructions under that subsection the power to remove that grain if it is not damaged. They have evidently had the subject under consideration, and they do not think they have such powers, and they have not exercised those powers. I am not going to instruct them to do so. My hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) says if they have not that discretion, we might as well repeal the whole Act. We have given them discretion in four points already. There is no business man in the world, no corporation, no legislator in the world, no business anywhere which does more than provide for general policy, and general principles, leaving in t'he hands of the management certain discretionary powers. You have to do it; you cannot get along in business without doing it. Something turns up that no 'legislator thought of, that no director had provided for, and you have to have a certain amount of discretionary power. In regard to the Grain Commission, the House acknowledge that, and gave them discretionary powers. *It is now asked that these discretionary powers be extended so as to cover these cases. That is all we ask, and I did not suppose that the House would offer any objection.


William Erskine Knowles: I am sorry that - the minister feels so surprised. The last time I referred to the subject-I do not think the minister was present-the Minister of Railways said that he would have a statement made up to date as to how much grain they had taJken into the Government elevators.
And I understand that there is what we call an embargo until the fifteenth of this month. As it affects the question of this hauling of grain, it is more particularly under the Railway Department. But the embargo has the effect, as I understand it, that priority is given to cars that are used only for the purpose of hauling grain to the elevator as against the cars which may be tied up for two or three weeks going all the way to Fort William. That is something that concerns the grain trade very much although I rather question if it is not technically a matter which the Railway Commission, under Sir Henry Drayton, has under its jurisdiction. I understand that it has worked out very well and that, whereas when I referred to the matter in the House late in January or early in Feb-

ruary, there was a very small percentage of the capacity of the internal elevators filled. I understand that since a very much greater quantity of grain has gone into the elevators. If my information is right, that it is proposed to take that embargo off at the middle of this month, I would ask the minister whether it would not be well to continue it until these elevators are filled right up.


George Eulas Foster: I think I might suggest to my hon. friend that this is a matter which does not directly affect the passage of this amendment.


William Erskine Knowles: I think it has a great deal to do with it


George Eulas Foster: Perhaps my hon. friend thinks so. If he does it is a matter for himself.


William Erskine Knowles: It relieves the same situation that this relieves.


George Eulas Foster: It does relieve it, because it ehables more grain to be carried out than otherwise would be. Do what you can, you get by the short hauls a large amount of this grain hauled out at this period of the year, or about the first of March, but you still leave a very large quantity of grain which will not have been moved even when March, or April, is done. The usual effect of the short haul business has been to increase the efficiency of the service by the railways. Instead of making the trains carry the grain from distant districts all the way through to Fort William, or to eastern elevators, it is carried by means of the short haul to the central elevator and then the cars go back and get other loads. They probably make half a dozen hauls where they would only make one haul to the eastern, or lake head, elevator. That is working very satisfactorily. I cannot give my hon. friend the exact number of bushels that have gone to each elevator, but all the elevators are filling up and the Saskatoon and Moosejaw elevators are emptying out as well as filling up and thus the grain is kept moving. But the point now is as to this particular amendment. I do not want to press the committee at all but Iamobligedto go away a little past four o'clock and I
4 p.m. would 'like that we should confine our remarks as nearly as possible to.the amendment in hand so that if possible I may get the Bill through before I have to go away.


William Erskine Knowles: The minister runs a good department and he keeps the grain administration very tree from politics and I shall not say anything unfavourable ' to him. If there is one part of the Administration that is run in a very high class way, it is the minister's conduct of the grain business and I do not want to cross, him at all. But the question of the equitable distribution of cars is the lock, *stock and barrel of the Grain Act. While the minister does not see it as I do, I am sorry that I feel it to be my duty to place myself on record as to the amendment that the minister introduces and I therefore propose that the following be adopted:
That we amend clause " b " of section 207 of the Canada Grain Act, chapter 27, hy adding, after the word " damp " in line 4, the words " or unhoused."
It would then give the Board power to order cars to places where the grain is damp, or unhoused, and thereby liable to become damaged.


George Eulas Foster: This matter has been brought to my attention by the Board, which has given it very careful consideration. The Board has asked for the powers of discretion which I have provided for in the amendment, and I would rather stand behind the Board and give them that discretion and thus restrict the matter by two details, or one detail, in addition to what is given in subsection "b" than to provide other means for discretion being used by the Board under equally pressing circumstances and with results which would equally imperil in some degree the grain left uncarried. I would like to ask the committee to pass the legislation which has been asked for by the Board and which I have submitted to it.


Mr. LEVI THOMSON:: I trust the minister will still make up his mind to accept the amendment proposed by my hon. friend from Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles), or something to that effect. I feel very much as other western friends do, that I do not want to throw anything in the way of the minister in this matter. But I have to ask the minister to remember that he is getting back to the old fight that we have been carrying on for the last twenty years or more, and the western farmers feel that a great deal is at stake in connection with the passing of such an amendment as this. We have fought our fight, a very bitter one, not only against the elevators, but also against the railway companies and other institutions of that kind. The-railway companies
in the early days insisted that all grain must be shipped through elevators. We had a hard time, as my hon. friend knows, to get the right to ship out cars on order. This question has been up in the House before, and some discussion has taken place. The farmers of the West realize that if you pass such an amendment as this it will mean that the commission, or some other body, will have the power to say that the regular order shall be deviated from when there is grain damaged or in danger of being damaged, or when the elevators want more cars than they are entitled to according to the strict provisions of the Act. I know very well that the feeling that the farmers of the West will have in regard to this matter is that it is simply a way of getting back to the old elevator monopoly. I share very largely that suspicion with the farmer, and I would be very glad indeed if the minister could see his way to accept the amendment of my hon. friend from Moosejaw, or something of the like effect, and not get us up against this important question that we have been up against so often. It is a very serious question, and one that we should not be put' up against any more.


The CHAIRMAN:: It does not appear to me that the proposed amendment of the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) is an amendment to the Bill under consideration. As I understand it, the Bill is for the purpose of adding subsection " e " to section 207 of the Grain Act. The proposed amendment of the hon. member for Moosejaw is to amend subsection "b" of the Grain Act, so that it is not, in my judgment, an amendment to the proposed amendment. In other words, the proposed Bill could he passed and it would still be open to the hon. member to move a further amendment; but his motion is in no way an amendment to the Bill before the committee. .
Mr.'PUGSLEY:	1 understand that my
hon. friend suggested to the Minister of Trade and Commerce that this amendment be substituted for the one now before the committee. In order to put it in proper form, all that would be necessary would be to say that section so-and-so be struck out and so-and-so be substituted therefor. I assume that the Minister of Trade and Commerce will not take any advantage of the point, because it is so easy to correct it.


George Eulas Foster: I have no intention of taking any advantage. What I want is to have the best legislation possible; but

I have a conviction that the proposed amendment of my hon. friend is not the best legislation, and that this House would be wise to stand by the recommendation of the Board of Grain Commissioners, backed up as it is by the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan. My hon. friend (Mr. Thomson) referred to the old fight; but we are no longer back on the ground of that old fight. The conditions were very different then, as my hon. friend knows, and he would have to imagine that the Grain Board would join hands with the railway companies and the elevator men to get the position of the last few years reversed. I assure him that is not the wish of the department, nor is it the wish of the Board of Grain Commissioners. I still think my hon. friend will sleep well at night even if this section is appended to the Bill.


Mt. SCHAFFNER:: So far as Manitoba, and even so far as that part of Saskatchewan which my hon. friend represents, is concerned, this makes very little difference; but farther West there is no doubt that it does make a difference. If my information is correct, the Board of Grain Commissioners are already using, but in an illegal way, the discretion which they are asking for in this proposed amendment. I understand that from conversations with the Grain Commissioners.


Mr. TURRIFF:: In my judgment, the
amendment of the hon. member for Moose-jaw covers exactly the point that the hon. minister wishes to cover, that is, to look after grain that is liable to be damaged. I think it is a very praiseworthy and necessary action to take; but if the amendment of the hon. member for Moosejaw covers the point sufficiently, why amend the Act-in the way proposed by the minister!-' While I have every confidence that the Board of Grain Commissioners would carry out the proposed amendment properly and fairly, and use it only with regard to grain likely to be damaged, at the same time there is a great deal in what my hon. friend from Qu'Appelle (Mr. Thomson) has said. The farmers are very jealous over the privilege of equal distribution of cars, and there has been -all along a desire and an attempt on the part of the railways to get aw,ay from it; and if you have the railways and the Grain Commissioners working together, with the law giving them power to send cars where-ever they wish, you will put the farmers in the position that they will never be sure of getting cars when they want them, and

even if they -are getting fair play in many cases, they will feel, when they do not get the cars they want, that it is owing to this amendment now proposed by the minister. There would be nothing more objectionable to the farmers than to have , to go back to the old position where the railways and the Board of Grain Commissioners would have the say as to the distribution of cars. .


William Erskine Knowles: Mr. Chairman, since you ruled my amendment out of order I have been trying to put it in order-or is that point waived?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Not at all.


George Eulas Foster: My hon. friend will have to put himself in order and move an amendment which is germane to the Bill. He has a perfect right to do that. Mr. KNOWLES: Bill 58 says:
Section 207 of the Canada Grain Act, chapter 27 of the statutes of 1912 is amended-
It is section 207 that we are proceeding by legislation to amend. The minister proceeds to amend it in one way and I proceed to amend it in another, -and, with all deference to you, Mr. Chairman, it seems - to me that my amendment was in order, because it was an amendment to section 207 by way of substitution,.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The amendment as proposed by the hon. member is an amendment to section 207 of the Canada Grain Act, but it is something entirely foreign to that portion of the section which is proposed to be amended by this Bill. My hon. friend, in his amendment, which I ruled out of order, proposed:
That we amend clause " b " of section 207 of the Canada Grain Act, chapter 27, by adding after the word " damp " in line four, the words " or unhoused."
This Bill does not propose to amend subsection "b" of section 207 at all; it proposes to add a further subsection to the existing section.


William Erskine Knowles: I take the view that we are not amending any particular subsection, but that we are amending section 207. I will put it in this way.


George Eulas Foster: Will my hon. friend allow .me to make a suggestion in order to facilitate matters and ease the conscience of hon. gentlemen opposite? Suppose we amend the section in this way:
Whenever after due examination the board considers necessary and advisable, in order to relieve congestion and facilitate the despatch of grain which is insufficiently housed and liable to become damp-	.

I am willing to make that amendment, *and I think that is as far as I can possibly ge.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: Would not the minister just transpose certain words and. say:
Whenever after due examination the board considers it necessary and advisable, in order to facilitate the despatch of grain which is insufficiently housed and liable to become damp, and to relieve congestion in respect thereto-


George Eulas Foster: I read it in this way. It is advisable in order to relieve congestion-in wh'at respect? In the facilitation of the despatch of grain which is insufficiently housed or liable to become damp or injured.


William Pugsley: In the way my hon. friend has it, the commissioners will be likely to read "or" in place of "and." By transposing the words you would, make the amendment clear to every one.


George Eulas Foster: , That the following words be added after the word " grain " : " that is insufficiently housed and liable to become damp or injured."


John Gillanders Turriff: That may limit it to
grain not housed and liable to be injured; but it seems to me to divide the provision into two, which would give the commission authority to send cars where there is congestion and the grain is not liable to injury' Mr. KNOWLES: I do not wish to impose on the minister, but I am going to try him with this:
Whenever after due examination the board considers it necessary and advisable, in order to relieve congestion in respect of grain which remains unhoused and is by reason thereof liable to suffer damage


George Eulas Foster: I am afraid that is so involved that the Grain Commissioners would not understand it.


Frank Oliver: Would the minister say
that in his judgment the amendment he proposes does confine the discretion of the Grain Commission to grain that is unhoused?


George Eulas Foster: I find it easier to legislate, or rather to propose- legislation, than to give a judgment as to how the legislation will be interpreted. But I think that is very largely the way I would interpret it. If there is any extra discretion, that is provided for. I do not think it would militate against the operation of the Act.


William Pugsley: It would seem to me
that the Minister of Trade and Commerce 108
wishes to meet the views of the members from the West, but he is afraid to interfere with the phraseology of the Bill as sent to him by the Grain Commission.


George Eulas Foster: You can put
it that way if you like.


William Pugsley: How does the hon. gentleman want to put it?


George Eulas Foster: Any way that will suit you.


William Pugsley: No, I will put it to suit the hon. gentleman. He says he does not undertake to interpret the law. I think he did study law once.


George Eulas Foster: I found out what it was like and left it.


William Pugsley: Like the student who was in the lawyer's office for two days and left saying he had learned enough to disgust him with the whole business. In this section the minister has the words: " To relieve -congestion and facilitate the despatch of grain which remains unhoused." If he does not know, the very excellent lawyer who occupies the position of Postmaster General (Mr. Casgrain), than whom there is no better lawyer in Canada-


Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1( stuck to it.


William Pugsley: -and wisely, too; the
Postmaster General will tell the hon. gentleman that icnuris very often interpret "and" as "or," and vice versa. And the Grain Commission, which may be called a court, may interpret this "in order to relieve congestion ' or ' facilitate the despatch of grain." Now, the hon. gentleman does not mean that. Why use the word "congestion" by itself? Why not say, "congestion in respect of grain -that remains unhoused and is thereby li-able to suffer damage?" That is so plain that it could hardly be misunderstood.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Does not the commission wish to go further?


William Pugsley: No.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I understand they do.


William Pugsley: The Minister of Trade and Commerce thinks not. If he leaves this as it is, the -commission will say: "Some stupid person has put "and" there when he means "or." It does not mean anything unless it was intended to give the commission discretion with Tespect to other grain than that which remains unhoused. The minister has said he intends it to apply



to unhoused grain which by reason thereof is liable to damage. If he does mean that, why does he not say that in express words, so that there will be no doubt as to the meaning?


George Eulas Foster: I think my hon. friend went a little further than my words would justify. I did assume that there might be a modicum or discretion which might be directed towards points which were congested, even if the element of damp or injured grain was not involved, ind I wish that to form a part of the amendment itself. Now, we have pretty well discussed this matter; let us express our minds about it and go on with further business; otherwise, I shall be obliged to ask the committee to rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again; and probably the point between us is not sufficient to make that necessary.


William Erskine Knowles: I will place my amendment on record. I move:
That all the words after the word "amended" in the second line he struck out and the following: substituted : " By Inserting the words ' or unhoused ' after the word ' damp ' in the fourth line of said section 207."
I move that specially because the minister has said that the purpose is to give the Grain Commissioners discretionary power to relieve congestion where there is no danger of the grain suffering, and, foi my part, I am absolutely against that. If I understand the minister's purpose, then there is a great difference between the way he looks at it and the way I look at it. _


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have only this moment seen this proposed amendment, but, as I understand it, it is not an amendment to the amendment that is already before the committee. It must 'be the desire to substitute this for the amendment of the Minister of Trade and Commerce; and the point would be met, it seems to me, by putting the amendment of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and if it carried, this further amendment would be unnecessary. On the other hand, if it failed, the hon. gentleman would have an opportunity to move his amendment.


William Erskine Knowles: I would submit, Mr. Chairman that this proposed legislation is to amend section 207 of the Grain Act, " by adding thereto."

Amendment to amendment negatived, amendment agreed to, and section as amended agreed to.
Bill reported.



THIRD READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 34, to authorize certain extensions of time to Insurance Companies.- Sir Thomas White.
Bill No. 33, to amend The Bank Act.-Sir Thomas White.


[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the proposed motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for a committee to inquire into purchases of shells or other munitions or goods by the Shell Committee, resumed from Thursday, March 9.
William Pugsley: My right hon. friend the Prime
Minister, toward the close of his speech on this resolution, made a very important statement, which will be found in Hansard, on page 1592. Referring to the right hon. leader of the Opposition, who moved this resolution, the Prime Minister is reported to have said:
If, however, he or any of his followers has a charge to make against any member of the Government with respect to the Shell Committee or with respect to anything else, let him or his follower stand up in his place, and on his responsibility as a member, make that charge, and it will be investigated thoroughly and completely.
Later on he says:
But there is something else to be said, and I repeat that if my right hon. friend or any of his followers has any charge to make against a member of the Government in regard to any of these matters, let him make that charge in distinct and understandable terms, and he will have the investigation as soon as he so desires.
The hon. member for Carleton, N.B., in supporting the resolution, presented to this House an array of facts in reference to purchases which were made by this Shell Committee of, I think you will agree with me, Sir, a most startling character; facts given with circumstantiality and detail, which must have convinced hon. members of this House, as I know7 they convinced the country, that the hon. member for Carleton had definite and positive information of the matters of which he was speaking. In view of the statements made by my right- hon. friend the leader of the Opposition in moving the resolution; and in view ori all the information which has

been given to the House, I should have supposed that the charges made were sufficiently definite and of a sufficiently grave character not only to justify but to demand an immediate investigation by a committee of this House. But, Sir, my right hon. friend has stated that he desires that some member of the House shall put these charges in direct and understandable form. I suppose he means that they should be put in concrete form; that some member of this House should rise in his place and take upon himself personally the responsibility of making a charge against the Government or some member of the Government in respect to the matters with which the Shell Committee has dealt. The reason for that is, as you know, to prevent the time of Parliament being taken up with the investigation of charges with regard to which a member of the House is not prepared to take responsibility as such member. You know, Sir, as well as I, what are the consequences which fall upon a member of the House if he is found to have made charges of a character which cannot be substantiated. He will not only be treated with contempt in the House, but the consequence which falls upon him ordinarily and almost necessarily is that he is obliged to forfeit his seat. Well, Sir, speaking as a member of this House, and realizing as I do the gravity of the charges which are made against the Shell Committee as the appointees of this Government, and also necessarily against the Minister of Militia as a member of this Government who made the appointments of that committee and was constantly in touch, as he says, with that committee, and to whom that committee reported from week to week, as we have had it in evidence; I, Sir, knowing the facts and knowing how grave they are; knowing how grave was the charge which, as I have said, was made against the Shell Committee and the Minister of Militia; knowing what vast sums are involved; knowing, Sir, that the evidence has disclosed to this House that in connection with the $300,000,000 and upwards of contracts given by the Shell Committee there has been, beyond the shadow of a doubt, absolutely wasted upwards of $80,000,000-somewhere between $80,000,000 and $100,000,000 of the money of the people of Great Britain and the people of Canada-Sir, I feel that I would be derelict in my duty, I would be acting the part of a coward and of one unworthy to occupy the position of a representative of an important constituency of this Do-1084
minion, if I were to hesitate to take upon myself the responsibility of'accepting the invitation which my right hon. friend the Prime Minister has given, and of putting these charges in concrete and understandable form, and bringing upon myself the responsibility which will devolve upon me and which will properly devolve upon me-if I should, in case a committee is granted, fail to make good the charges which have been presented to this House. I accept the responsibility; and now, Sir, (reading):
I, William Pugsley, a member of this House, in support of the motion now under consideration, standing in my place in this House and on my responsibility as a member of this House, declare and charge that the Shell Committee, appointed by the Minister of Militia and referred to in said motion, fixed excessive and unreasonable prices for shells and for other munitions and goods to be furnished to the British Government (which by arrangement between the British Government and the Canadian Government were to be paid for in part by Canada.)
That such prices were fixed without competition and were far in excess of what would necessarily have been paid if ordinary business methods had been pursued, thereby involving an unnecessary excessive expenditure of many millions of dollars, conservatively estimated at at least eighty millions, which will be improperly taken from the people of the United Kingdom and Canada.
That said committee gave large orders at such excessive prices and without competition to companies in which members of the committee weTe largely interested, and of some of which companies members of the said committee were the directing heads.
That there has been great and wholly unnecessary delay in furnishing the completed shells for use of the Canadian and British forces at the front.
That the said Shell Committee neglected and delayed for an undue period of time to provide the fuses necessary to render the shells effective, and, failing to endeavour to provide for their construction in Canada, as they might have done, proceeded to give and award, through J. Wesley Allison in the United States, contracts for fuses amounting to $22,000,000, on which they made an advance of $3,750,000. That the making of the said contracts through said Allison was unwise and improvident and was entered into with the knowledge

and connivance of the Minister of Militia, and the said Shell Committee failed to Obtain, delivery of said fuses for an unreasonable time.
And I do also charge that the Government of Canada had, through the Minister of Militia, to whom the said Shell Committee reported weekly, knowledge of such irregular -and improper methods and acts of the said Shell Committee, and while having the power at any time to put an end thereto the said minister improperly consented to such irregular and improper methods and acts and permitted the same to continue.
Having read this charge, I submit it for the consideration of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister and the consideration of the members of,this House. I shall deal with it a little later on, and for the moment I shall devote attention to some remarks which were made by^the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. E. B. Bennett). I am bound to say, Sir, that I do not find much to answer in the speech of that hon. gentleman. His speech was a very eloquent one; it was a very interesting one. That speech stamps the hon. gentleman as one of the most forceful and able and eloquent members" on the other side of the House. That gentleman has had many opportunities of getting inside knowledge of what has been going on in connection with the purchase of munitions for the Canadian and British Governments. Ever since that most valuable and honoured member of this House broke away from this Government on an important occasion when this Parliament was asked to- ratify an agreement made with one of the important railroads of this country, and which that hon. gentleman denounced in the strongest possible terms, this Government, Sir, have shown a very conciliatory course towards the hon. member for Calgary. They are determined that he shall not get away from them again. If I am correctly informed, the Prime Minister scarcely ever takes a trip abroad without inviting the hon. member to accompany him. He even accompanied the Prime Minister as far as the trenches, and I saw by the papers that he had gone ,as the personal attendant and personal adviser of my right Ihon. friend the Prime Minister. Well, Sir, that hon. gentleman has not ventured to challenge the accuracy of the figures which were presented to this House by the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell). Need I argue that it was because it could not be done? The hon. member for Calgary is industrious and is

most able and most intelligent, and if it had been possible to question the accuracy of the figures or statements presented by that hon. member, you may depend, and I am sure this House will agree with me, that the hon. member for Calgary would have devoted himself to that task. He did not do so. He did not discuss whether or not excessive prices had been paid. He said he had nothing in the world to do with the question whether or	not "orders for
shells had been given to members of the Shell Committee or to companies in which they were interested, or to cousins or uncles or aunts or other relatives of themselves. That was a matter of no interest to him. All that he was concerned about was that while the war is on we should not investigate these matters, no matter how horrible they might be, and no matter how much might be shown against the Shell Committee. He compared the position of those of us who wanted an investigation to that of a man whose house was burning and who wanted the firemen to cease their operations while he began to examine into the cost of the hose that was being used for the purpose of extinguishing the fire. My hon. friend went further and said that the boots ought never to have been inquired into by this House, and he rather found fault with my right hon. friend the Prime Minister for granting the boots inquiry. He said he had been pressed unduly from some quarter, what quarter he did not say, to have the investigation; but he ventured to say that the Prime Minister would not repeat the experiment and have an inquiry into matters concerning the Shell Committee.	*
What was the argument used by my hon. friend? Why, he said, the result of that investigation was to prevent Canadian boot manufacturers from getting very large orders in France, because the people of that country had become convinced that Canadian boots were not as they ought to be. With those patriotic gentlemen on the *other side of the House it is all a question of money, apparently. It did 'not seem to impress the hon. gentlemen's mind that there was complaint with regard to the boots which were furnished to the Canadian soldiers-that letters were coming from the front stating that the bools were unfit to wear. My hon. friend was not impressed with the fact that the newspapers of Canada were clamouring for an investigation before that inquiry took place, claiming that a great injustice was being

clone to the .soldiers by providing them with defective boots. That did not seem to impress my hon. friend from Calgary at all. It did not seem to make any difference to him that, as a result of that inquiry, there was a great improvement in the class of boots furnished to the soldiers. My hon. friend said that the Canadian boot manufacturers had lost large amounts of money by reason of that investigation, and that therefore it ought never to have taken place. When my right hon. friend the Prime Minister proposed, that investigation, and himself moved for the committee in this House, it is a wonder that my hon. friend from Calgary did not rise in his place and tell the Prime Minister that, in moving for an investigation while the war was on, he was like the owner of a house whose house was on five stopping to inquire as to the cost of the hose. The same argument would have been as applicable to that case as to this.
When the inquiry was being held by the Committee on Public Accounts with reference to the purchase of horses, why did the hon. gentleman not rise in his place in the committee and say: Now is not the time to investigate with regard to horses; if it goes abroad that poor horses have been bought for the use of the British or Canadian soldiers, the impression will be entertained across the water that Canadian horses are no good, and money will be lost to the farmers of Canada. Better, according to the hon. gentleman, that they should go on selling those old horses at prices in many cases three times what they were worth, than that there should be an investigation, and that the facts should become public. I wonder what my friend, the former member for Kings, Nova 'Scotia, thinks of the speech which my hon. friend made. His regret must be that the hon. gentleman had not spoken out a year or more ago, when it was proposed to investigate the purchase of horses. He might have saved the former member for Kings his seat in this House, and the right hon. the Prime Minister the painful duty, as the result of the investigation in the Public Accounts Committee, of reading the member for Kings out of the party.
And what about binoculars and bandages? They are necessary for the carrying on of the war. When the committee began to investigate the question of binoculars and bandages, why did my hon. friend from Calgary not get up, and, in eloquent and
stentorian tones, such as he and only he can use, say: "Stop, the war is on; you are like the man whose house is burning, and who stops to inquire into the cost or quality of the hose; stop, the Empire is at war, thousands upon thousands of young men are sacrificing their lives upon the battlefields in the defence of the country, and all the energies of our people ought to be directed towards bringing this war to a successful issue: why stop to investigate boots, binoculars, horses and all such trivial matters? leave these questions, for Heaven's sake, leave them till after the war is over, and do not allow any investigation * for fear that the good name of Canada will in some way be brought to the dust." That is the argument which my hon. friend used, the only argument which he presented to this House.
What about the Davidson Commission? What a dreadful thing it must have been in the opinion of my hon. friend from Calgary, to have the evidence brought out- in regard to the purchase of horses in Ontario, which had the deplorable result that a member of the legislature was compelled to resign his seat, and, when he went back to the people for re-election, they refused to declare their confidence in him and elected his opponent by a very large majority. What a grave injustice, in the eyes of my hon. friend, was done to that gentleman, and what a grave wrong was done to the country because that investigation took place when the war was on.
Then, with regard to submarines, with regard to those great war vessels which, according to the cablegrams from the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, the Chilian Government found themselves unable to accept and take over? What about those great war vessels for which thirty or forty per cent more was paid than ought to have been paid? What a terrible wrong was done by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister when he appointed Sir Charles Davidson to investigate the purchase of the submarines. Word might go to England, and even to Germany, to our enemies, according to my hon. friend, that we were really questioning, that we in Canada had found it necessary to question, the utility of those submarines, and the interest of those who had been engaged in (the purchase of them. What a terrible injury, according to my hon. friend, was done to the people of Canada and to the Empire by the investigation which Sir Charles Davidson conducted.

What did my hon. friend from Calgary, in the very height of his eloquence, and with the most profound seriousness, say? What statement did he make to this House, based upon his inner knowledge, upon his trips across the Atlantic, upon his close *association with the members of this Government? He said:
Sir, I have a profound conviction that when this war is over and when an investigation into its conduct has been held alike in the Mother Country and in the overseas dominions, some reputations that are now looked upon as great will fall. I have a profound conviction, too, that men who have proflted by the necessities of the state; who have washed their hands in blood money, so to speak-they and their children's children-will be remembered with execrations and curses by the men who come after.
Serious words, these, Mr. Speaker. It seems to me that when my hon. friend used these words he either said too much .or too little. If my hon. friend, with his *close and intimate knowledge of what has *been going on since the war broke out, with his close association with ministers, knows of men now standing high in the councils of the country, or having a high reputation, whose reputation will fall when the war is over-if my hon. friend knows of men who have taken advantage of, and proflted by, the necessities of the State, who have " washed their hands in blood money, so to speak," and who, " with their children's children, will be remembered with execrations and curses by the men who come after them," surely it rests upon my hon. friend as a member of this House, as one who represents the people of this country, to disclose to this Parliament what he knows with reference to those men who are profiting by the war, and " washing their hands in blood money, so to speak." My hon. friend ought not to wait until the war is over in order to expose the wrong-doing which he has reason to know exists to-day. He should come out in the open, and tell this House and the people of this country what he knows with reference to those wrong-doings.
Now, my hon. friend has made a most serious statement which he would not have made if he had not had knowledge of that whereof he speaks. He says:
But now is not the time, in the midst of this great conflict, to cease our activities, to wear out our energies beating against the rock.
I am not able to see any reason why we should wait until the war is over. I do not see why we should not investigate these matters now, and I think the people expect us to investigate them now. No
[Mr. Pugsley.j
harm was done to this country, no harm was done to the Empire, military activities were in no way interfered with, war preparations were in no way impeded, when the investigation into boots took place. When the investigation into charges concerning binoculars, bandages, drugs and submarines took place, no harm was done to this country, and military activities were in no way impeded. I am not able to see what injury would possibly be caused to Canada or the Empire by an investigation into the matters which have been brought before the House with respect to the purchase of shells and other munitions of war.
How could any injury be done? There would be no stoppage of the manufacture of munitions. The manufacture of munitions has now been entrusted to the Imperial Munitions Board. The old Shell Committee did not die a natural death; it was put to death by representatives of the British Government who came to Canada to investigate its conduct. The new Imperial Munitions Board can go on with the work just the same whether this investigation takes place or whether it does not.
Then, my hon. friend says, that the managers of factories and of various industrial establishments would be brought to Ottawa and be kept dancing around for weeks perhaps, and that their industries would be neglected. There is no need of that. It is proposed that a small committee shall be appointed, a majority of whom would be representative of hon. gentlemen opposite. That committee, I take it, would carry on its work in a reasonable and proper manner, and in such a way as to suit the convenience of the various witnesses who would be required. The inquiry would not take a very great while and I am unable to see how there would be any great inconvenience to those who would be summoned as witnesses, or how the work of manufacturing munitions, or the work of the Imperial Munitions Board, would be interfered with. But, surely, when these charges have been made, chargee which have startled the people of the country who are not able to believe it possible that the business of the Empire, which has 'been entrusted to the Government of Canada, is being 5 p.m. carried on in such a reckless and improper manner, and that these vast eums of money are being taken out of the taxpayers of the United Kingdom and of Canada, the fact that a few people may be temporarily inconvenienced by being brought here as witnesses, ought

not to prevent this Parliament from doing its duty and having an investigation into these important matters.
I do not think I need answer more fully the arguments which my hon. friend from Calgary has made, because, as I have said, he does not pretend to question the accuracy of the figures presented by my hon. friend from Carleton. He simply puts his argument against an investigation upon the ground that it in some way or other might interfere with the work of the Imperial Munitions Board and with the military operations to which the Government is attending. I had almost forgotten that the hon. gentleman eaid that this Government were overweighted with great responsibilities and that it would be a cruel thing to place this extra burden upon them. I admit that the right hon. the Prime Minister has grave responsibilities resting upon him, and I admit that the Minister of Militia and Defence has grave responsibilities resting upon him and that his work would necessarily be increased. I think probably also that the Minister of Finance has added responsibilities of a grave character; but how about the others? How about my genial friend the Minister of Public Works? No matter how much he might pretend to be worried by responsibilities connected with the war, he could not make me believe that he really was worried in the slightest degree. His work has not been added to. His work is not one-tenth what it was before the war. If ' what he says is correct, and I do not desire to question what he says, he is only carrying out existing contracts as to which everything of a preliminary character has been done, as to which the plans and specifications were all prepared long ago, and as to which the contractors, under the supervision of the department, are simply carrying out the works to completion. What is to hinder the Minister of Public Works, able man as he is, from giving attention to an investigation of this important subject? What about the Solicitor General? Has the fact that he has been recently elevated to cabinet rank added to his duties, burdens, or responsibilities? I do not think so. What about the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) who has lately added a large number of lawyers to his staff to enable him to attend to the law business of the country? If any additional burdens have to be borne, the Minister of Justice takes care to bring lawyers from a distance to Ottawa for the
purpose of bearing them, and he pays them good fat retainers at the expense of the people of this country. I cannot imagine that the war would prevent him from giving personal attention to the examination of these questions. What about the members of the Government without portfolio who belong to the class that we down in the province of New Brunswick call the forecastle members of the Government? They have no important duties to attend to. What about the Secretary of State. He is an able lawyer, or an able notary public; 1 have no doubt that he would be able to give some attention to this investigation, to see that matters were considered properly, and that the truth was fully and plainly brought out by the committee without any bad feeling or any inconvenience to anybody. What about the hon. gentleman who occupies the position of Minister of Mines and Inland Revenue? His work has not been increased'by reason of the war. Then, there is the Minister of Labour, who says' ir. the most positive way that while this war is on he has a feeling of uncertainty as to whether we are going to win or not, that we ought not to consider any social questions, and that we ought not to consider the question of whether we should engage upon a system of technical educr tion because, I suppose, the benefits of these things might pass over to the Germans in case they should conquer the Empire and take Canada. The Minister of Labour says: Hold, stand still, while the war is on. Surely, under those circumstances he would have plenty of time for an investigation into these ques

tions. There may be otheT members of the Government in the same position. Oh, yes, there is the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. He has not had grave responsibilities, because, very early in the war, he took all the pains he could to put all his war vessels out of commission so that he would not have anything to do, and so that there would not be any responsibility resting on his shoulders. He thought the best thing to do was to leave the trade routes to be guarded by the warships of the Mother Country, and of Australia, and of Japan. Certainly it was the easier way, and it relieved him of a great deal of responsibility, so that I think he will agree with me that he would have plenty of time to work on this committee if it should be appointed. Surely the argument raised by my hon. friend from Calgary that we ought not to add to the burdens and respon-
172U



COMMON.-'

[Stage Direction]
siibilities of this Government in war time is not a very strong one, and is not calculated to impress this House or this country, and surely the appeal, -which the hon. gentleman made to us that, above all, we should hot obtrude into public questions at the present time what might seem to be partisan matters, ought not to prevail. Let me say to my hon. friend from Calgary that we do not approach this question in any partisan spirit; but if criticism on the part of an Opposition of wrongdoing or improper expenditure of the public money is an evidence of partisanship, we plead guilty, because ever since the commencement of the war, we thought we had a right to take the Prime Minister at his word when, [DOT] upon the occasion of his asking us to vote to the Minister of Finance .all the moneys he might require for the purpose of carrying on the. war, he told us that he would afford us an opportunity of investigating into all public expenditures while the war was on. When he have taken him at his word, and when, confronted as we are with the fact-may I not truly and properly say the disgraceful fact-that at least $80,000,000 have been improperly taken out of the pockets of the people of Canada and of the Empire, and when in the discharge of our duty we have determined that this matter should be investigated, we ought not to be charged with partisanship. But if that is to be the dividing line between us and hon. gentlemen opposite; if they say that the lid must be kept down until the war is over; if they are to be allowed to say that there will be no examination into public expenditures until then, we, on the other hand, say that we, as the representatives of the people, have a right to demand an investigation into the expenditure of public money. If that is to be the dividing line, then we are willing to admit that we cannot agree with hon. gentlemen opposite, and we are content to' be classed as partisans. My hon. friends opposite, taking the position which they do, must, of course, choose for themselves the word1 which will properly describe their attitude, but the people of this country will have no difficulty in finding language which will fittingly describe it.
My hon. friend from Calgary also urges that there is a grave constitutional question involved in this resolution, and that we cannot properly or constitutionally investigate the expenditure of these moneys until an item appears in the Public Accounts; in other words, until the Minister of Finance and the British Government [Mr. Pugsley.J
make an adjustment of the accounts as between the two countries and, the amount that we pay appears in the Auditor General's Beport. That was not the view taken by the Prime Minister when, in 1903, he voted for a resolution proposed by the Hon. Mr. Monk, one of the greatest constitutional lawyers Canada has ever produced, a . gentlemen who occupied a high position at the bar in his native province, and who was also a distinguished professor of law in Laval University. He took the view and pressed it home strongly that this Parlia ment would not be discharging its duty ir it did not investigate the purchases mad-' for the British Government during the Boer war, and, when the question came lip for decision, the Prime Minister, who i? also a very able constitutional lawyer, felt, constrained to vote for the resolution, as did all his followers, and when the genera1 elections came the charge was made by the right hon. gentleman's friends that the Liberal party had sought to prevent an investigation into the purchases which were made for the British Govern ment at that time. The people, in 1911, tooK the view that the Liberal party was no longer worthy of the confidence of the majority of the people and the present Prime Minister and his party were returned to power. Are they to go back now on the record which they made for themselves in 1903? They are in charge of the affairs of this country to-day; are they to be allowed to say: Although we believed in the position which we took in 1903, yet to-day, because we are in office; because we want to keep the lid down and prevent the people from knowing what is taking place, we are going to vote against any investigation and against the facts getting before the public. That apparently is the position which my right hon. friend is taking; it is the position which my hon. friend from Calgary has pressed him to take; but now that I have complied with his request and have submitted this charge in a form which certainly my right hon. friend can understand and which every man in this country who can read will understand, I hope that he will not adhere to the views which he has presented to the House, or act upon the request of the hon. member for Calgary.
But, the hon. member for Calgary says: Oh, this was not Canadian money at all and we have no right to investigate the expenditure of it. I think we may deal with this question from two standpoints:

one that these shells are being purchased with Canadian money by a partnership consisting of the United Kingdom and of Canada. We have the statement made bv my hon. friend the Minister of Finance early in the session in answer to an inquiry which * I presented to him, that under an arrangement come to between the British Government and the Canadian Government, every dollar expended in connection with the Canadian Expeditionary Forces shall be paid by Canada. This is the statement of the Minister of Finance as reported on page 42 of Hansard:
In a general way, I may say to my hon. friend that the Government of Canada is bearing the entire expense of Canada's participation in the war. There will necessarily be certain accounts which cannot be adjusted until the war is over, or until a later date. .. .
Mr. Pugsley: That means, of course, all the ammunition, all the guns, all the boots and shoes, and all the clothing used by the Canadian soldiers at the front?
*
Sir Thomas White: ... In other words, we desire to pay the entire cost of the Canadian Expeditionary Force abroad.
That includes the cannon, the rifles and the shells which are used by the Canadian soldiers. Therefore, so far as Canada's money is concerned, though the United Kingdom pays for these shells in the first place, a proportion is charged to Canada, the adjustment of the exact amount Canada is to pay being postponed to a later date. What difference does it make whether we pay ten millions or twenty millions now or whether we agree to pay the Mother Country as soon as the accounts are adjusted. From the statement of the Prime Minister it further appears that for the purpose of carrying out this arrangement in good faith, Canada to-day is financing the British Government during the purchase of these munitions of war in Canada. The Prime Minister's statement, on page 30 of Hansard, reads:
I believe that of all the payments to be made during the present month of January, the Canadian Government is providing at least one-half so that we are not only doing our part in producing these munitions of war, but we are also doing our part in temporarily financing for the British Government about one-half of the payments.
The effect of the statement of the Minister of Finance is that these purchases are made and from time to time there will be an adjustment of the accounts as between the British Government and the Canadian Government, and Canada will recognize her liability for her portion. I defy any
hon. gentleman to show that there is a difference between the case as it is and the case as it would be if Canada w'ere to give her own cheques immediately upon these shells going into the possession of the British Government.
But even if that were not the case, the members of this Shell Committee are the appointees of the Minister of Militia, a member of this Government, for whose actions the whole Government is responsible. I notice a disposition on the part of some hon. members to dissociate the Minister of Militia from other members of the Government. I notice especially that when they speak of Colonel Allison, they try to associate the Minister of Militia with Col. Allison. But if the Minister of Militia is associated, rightly or wrongly, with Col. Allison in the purchase of munitions, every member of this Government is equally associated with him.' That is the constitutional principle; that for every act of every member of the Government every other member of the Government is responsible just as if he performed that act himself.
I submit, and I shall be able to prove it, if it is not already proven to your satisfaction, Sir, and to that of members of the House: that the members of this Shell Committee were the appointees of the Minister of Militia. I was indeed surprised when the Prime Minister sought to convey the impression that all that the Minister of Militia had done was to name eight or ten men and to submit those names for the approval of the British Goverftment. I was surprised that my hon. friend from Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett) should follow the Prime Minister in that idea. There is not one word in the record, or in the correspondence, or in the testimony available to the House, to show that the Shell Committee were the appointees of the British Government; but there is evidence of an overwhelming character to prove that that committee were the appointees of this Government, and of this Government alone. As evidence on that point, we have first the statement made by the Minister of Militia and reported at page 295 of Hansard:
I now come to a very interesting part of the discussion, namely, the Shell Committee. And here let me frankly admit to the House that it is my baby; I am the father of the concern, be it for good or he it for bad, and I purpose sticking to it as long as it has a button left on its jacket.	.
I would like to say to the Minister of Militia that the place in which to stick to the Shell Committee is not on the sunny
[Stage Direction]
beaches or in the shade of the sheltering palms of Florida, but it is in this House, in this Parliament of the nation, and in sight of the people of this country-that is the place in which the Minister of Militia should stand by his " babyhe should not have gone away and left his "baby" to the fate which will befall it. As further evidence, we have the statement in the report prepared by Colonel Carnegie to be signed by General Bertram, and read by the Prime Minister in this House, as appears at page 1570 of Hansard. The Government cannot repudiate that report, because they themselves submitted it for the information of this House. In that report it is stated:
The executive work of the committee has been very wisely entrusted to the chairman. Colonel Bertram, who reports weekly to the Minister of Militia and also to the committee when it meets (which is usually monthly) or more often, at the call of the minister.
There you have the official statement that the committee reports weekly to the Minister of Militia and that it meet's subject to the minister's call, as at the call of an honorary chairman. We have also the letter from Mr. Hichens, who represented the British Government, and who was entrusted with what, I suppose, must have been the unpleasant task of disorganizing this Shell Committee and providing for the appointment of an Imperial Munitions Board to take its place.
I ask hon. members to listen to the words of Mr. Hichens in the letter written to'the Prime *Minister and by him submitted to this House on the 7th instant, for the purpose of giving it knowledge of the position in which matters stood. In his letter to the Prime Minister, which may be found on page 1581 of Hansard, Mr. Hichens says':
In order to carry out your wishes and to make it clear that the purchasing- agency is administratively independent of the Canadian Government, the members of the existing Shell Committee have tendered their resignations to the Minister of Militia, by whom they were appointed.
Consider for a moment what was desired. When Mr. Thomas and Mr. Hichens came to Canada it was desired that this purchasing agency should be kept administratively independent of the Canadian Government. Is that not a statement, as strong as xa statement can be, that the old Shell Committee was not administratively independent of the Canadian Government? Is that not a statement as strong as language could make it, that the old Shell Committee was in reality a branch of this Government, appointed by the Minister of Militia, and

acting for the Minister of Militia and for this Government? In order that the administration of the purchasing agency should Ibe separated from this Government it was required that the Shell Committee should resign and that a new board, to be called the Imperial Munitions Board, and to be appointed by the Imperial Government, should take its place. Mr. Hichens says that the object of the change was to make it clear that the administration of affairs connected with purchases should be altogether independent of the Canadian Government. Listen to the words of Mr. Hichens:
The members of the existing Shell Committee have tendered their resignations to the Minister of Militia, by whom they were appointed, and a new board entitled the " Imperial Munitions Board " has been constituted by the British Minister of Munitions as from November 30, 1915.
In other words, this committee, which was administratively a branch of the Canadian Government; which was administratively attached to the Department of Militia; which reported weekly to the Min-about once a month or oftener at the call about once a month or oftener at the call of the Minister of Militia-this Shell Committee, as Mr. Hichens says, resigned to the Minister of Militia, by whom they were appointed, and a new committee called the Imperial Munitions Board was constituted by the British Minister of Munitions as from Nov. 30, 1915. This shows as clearly as it can be shown, that in order that the Shell Committee appointed by the Minister of Militia should be done away with and a new board appointed by the Imperial Minister of Munitions, the members of the Shell Committee were required to resign. They promptly resigned to the Minister of Militia, and a new board was appointed by the Imperial Minister oif Munitions to take their_ place. I do not see how it is possible for me to present any stronger evidence than that that the Shell Committee was the appointee of the Minister of Militia and, accordingly, of the Canadian Government.
Sir, what further argument is there for an investigation, altogether apart from the question of the appointment of the Shell Committee? It is said by gentlemen opposite that the British Government requested the Minister of Militia to name a committee. Granting for a moment that that was all that the British Ministry did, surey that was entrusting an important matter to the

Canadian Minister of Militia. Surely in a most important matter the British Government were relying on him to select the men to do this work. The Minister of Militia names these * men and they go on and make purchases. They waste the money of Great Britain to the extent of millions of dollars; waste it to an amount not less than $80,000,000, as we allege, and more likely to upwards of $100,000,000. Surely the Minister of Militia has the right to investigate the manner in which these men whom he named have discharged their duties. But, Sir, the Minister of Militia was asked to name this committee not because he was Major-General Sir Sam Hughes, but because he occupied the important position of Minister of Militia. He was in that respect, as in all other respects, the trustee of the people of 'Canada. The honour of the people of Canada was entrusted to his keeping and to the keeping of his colleagues in the Government. 'The people of Canada to-day demand an investigation as to how these men named by the Minister of Militia have discharged the sacred trust which was vested in them. It is no use trying to balk this inquiry by technicalities. The people of Canada are saying to-day, that in respect of this vast expenditure of money they have a right to know the facts. Hon. gentlemen on the other side say: Oh, the British Government have not asked for an inquiry. Sir, there is something else besides the mere wish of Mr. Hichens or of other gentlemen who are connected with the British Government. As I have said, the honour and the good name of Canada are involved in this matter. In view of the facts which have been presented by the hon. member for Oarleton, the people have the right to have this matter investigated by Parliament; they have the right to ascertain the facts with reference to these grave charges; they have the right to be informed by sworn testimony as to whether any answer can be made to these apparently unanswerable charges. If any answer can be given they have a right to know what that answer is.
The hon. member for Calgary says: you are seeking to besmirch the honour and good name of the manufacturers of Canada. Sir, I deny that. We have not on this side of the House made a single charge against any manufacturer in this country. It has not been suggested, and it cannot be proved that the manufacturers of Canada have combined to raise the prices to the
Shell Committee; it has not been suggested and it cannot be proved that they ever demanded any fixed price for the manufacture of these munitions of war. The evidence is that the 'Shell Committee themselves voluntarily fixed the prices and gave to the manufacturers the prices which they so fixed. The simple question for the manufacturers was as to whether, at the prices fixed by the Shell Committee, they were willing to fill the orders offered to them. I repudiate, therefore, as absolutely without a shadow of foundation the statement that we are seeking to besmirch the good name of the manufacturers of this country, or to impeach their honour in any way.
In answer to the charges made, the Government talk about what has been done by our soldiers who have gone to the front; they talk of the splendid bravery which our men have displayed, the noble manner in which they have been willing to lay down their lives for the Empire. According to these hon. gentlemen, the braver our boys are on the battlefield the greater can be the bungling and boodling at home. That is apparent from the argument of these gentlemen, because that is the only excuse they offer for this dreadful waste of public money. You will remember, Sir, that when the Minister of Militia addressed the House that was the only answer he had to the charges which the hon. member for Carle-ton (Mr. Carvell) and I ventured to put before the House in the debate on the Address. We have made grave charges against the members of the Shell Committee and against the Minister of Militia, and necessarily against the Government by reason of the Minister of Militia being a member of this Government. Putting the charges in concrete form, what is alleged? In thesfirst place it is alleged:
That the Shell Committee fixed excessive and unreasonable prices for shells and other munitions and goods to be furnished to the British Government, which by arrangement between the British Government and the Canadian Government were to be paid for in part by Canada.
Is that not absolutely true? Is it not absolutely true that these munitions were to be paid for partly by the British Government and partly by Canada? Can anybody doubt that it is true that the Shell Committee fixed excessive and unreasonable prices for shells and other munitions, and goods to be furnished to the British Government? Sir, I say it is true. I defy any member in this House to combat the figures, and the arguments resulting from them,
[Stage Direction]
which have been submitted by the hon. member for Carleton. They are absolutely unanswerable. The Minister of Militia did not-shall I say dare not-venture to remain here in this House for the purpose of answering them. He knew what the charges . were before he left, and he did not venture to remain in this House for the purpose of attempting to give an answer. The hon. member for Carleton gave the dates of these various orders and he showed beyond question that at the very time that this Shell Committee were giving orders to small companies, mushroom companies, at prices which the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) says were sufficiently high to cover the cost of the plant, they were giving large orders at the same prices to established concerns which had already been paid many times over the cost of their plant, and which received in that way enormous profits from the orders which were so given to them. That is the statement we make. We not only make it, but we substantiate it by the facts; and, Sir, upon my responsi'bilty as a member of this House, and knowing the grave consequences which would necessarily fall on me if" I should fail to make good the charges which have been made, I declare that this charge is true. I declare that the Shell Committee did fix excessive and unreasonable prices for shells and other munitions. The next charge, put in concrete form, is:
That such prices were fixed without competition and were far in excess of what would necessarily have been paid if ordinary business methods had been pursued.
Is there any doubt about that? Did any one of the hon. gentlemen opposite, from my hon. friend the Minister of Militia down to the hon. member for Calgary, pretend that the Shell Committee asked for competitive prices?
Mr. B. B. BENNETT:: Was not every price, in every instance, for every class of munitions, fixed by the Imperial Government before the contracts were awarded?


William Pugsley: I would say, no.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That would settle the whole question.


William Pugsley: I have no information that it was. But suppose it were so-and I have yet to learn it was so-'but suppose it were so, is that any justification for these men -who were upon the spot allowing the British treasury to be robbed by the giving of these excessive prices? We have heard it said that these British officials had no
idea of the possibilities of manufacturing shells and other munitions of war in Canada. We have been told stories of the amazing stupidity and want of knowledge of Canada on the part of officials of the British Government. I do not wonder at that when we find that the Prime Minister never, apparently, had sufficient faith in the resources of Canada to stand up and tell some of these British officials that they had a very inadequate knowledge of the resources of Canada when they put forward their statements as to what Canada could do and as to what Canada could not do. I say, Sir, we do know that the Shell Committee, in many cases, gave to these big firms-many of them companies in which they were largely interested, and of which they themselves were directors, in some of which they were the managing heads and the controlling factors-practically the same enormous prices which they gave to other small companies engaged in the manufacturing business. And when we show that these companies have made millions and millions beyond what would naturally have been paid if ordinary business methods had been pursued; when these prices were fixed not by the British Government, but by the appointees of this Government through the Minister of Militia, are we to be told that because the British Government officials, 3,000 miles away, having no knowledge of the industrial possibilities of Canada, knowing nothing pt our great factories, or of our skilled workmen, not believing it was possible that Canada could do as much in the way of manufacturing as the people of any other country in the world, and do it as quickly; is it any excuse or answer to the charge we make as to these enormous prices being paid, to say: Oh, well, the British Government did not complain; they did not object to the prices which the Shell Committee fixed, and, therefore, no matter what was paid we have no right to investigate.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Will the hon. member be good enough to specify what company he refers to whose managing head and controller was on the committee and which got large contracts at excessive prices?


William Pugsley: If my hon. friend desires to know, I will tell him. There was the Nova Scotia Steel Company.


Arthur Meighen: That is what I wanted to know.


William Pugsley: There was the company at Welland, of which Mr. E. Carnegie was

-MARCH 14, 1916
the managing director, and of which for a time Colonel David Carnegie was also a director; and there was also another company in which Mr. Watts was largely interested, and then there was-


Arthur Meighen: Which one was that?


William Pugsley: I do not remember
exactly, it was given by the hon. member for C'arleton, In addition to that there was the Bertram & Sons Company of which General Bertram was vice-president.


Arthur Meighen: And does the hon.
member state that 'General Bertram was largely interested in controlling that company?	[DOT]
Mr. PU'GSLEY: Mr. Bertram was in that company; he was the vice-president.


Arthur Meighen: How much?
Air. PUGIS'LEY: He has not chosen to tell us: how much.
Air. AliEIGHEN: One share.
Air. PUGISiLlEY: He said he had one share in that company, but he has not told us whether that one share was for $1,000 or $50,000.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He says the shares are.$100 each.


William Pugsley: He has not told us that. Aly hon. friend knows there are companies and companies, some with shares of $'100, some with shares of .$1,000, and some, in small syndicates, with shares of $50,000.
Ah-. AIEIIGHEN: Does the hon. gentleman not think that lie should find out, before he says that Mr. Bertram manages and owns that company?


William Pugsley: I said that the members of the Shell Committee were largely interested in companies, and that in the case of some of them, the members of the Shell Committee were the directing heads. That is the statement which I have made, which I am prepared to stand by, and which we will prove, if the Prime Minister permits that a committee be appointed.
It is also charged that the unnecessary and excessive expenditures of the Shell Committee amount to at least $80,000,000. Hon. gentlemen opposite may think that is of no consequence. I think my hon. friend from Calgary said it was only a sort of piffling matter.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I said the charges were, not the sum.


William Pugsley: The extra charges were $80,000,000. Mr. Lloyd George has said that the time may come in this war when the battles will be won by silver bullets. Sir, here are 80,000,000 silver bullets that have been thrown away, and improperly and wrongfully taken from the pockets of the people of Canada and of the Mother Country.


Arthur Meighen: Did Mr. Lloyd George
ever say that the war would be won by mvestigations?


William Pugsley: ,It does not require
Lloyd George or anybody else to tell the people of Canada that they have a right to investigate the conduct of the men who are the employees and appointees of the Government. The good judgment, good sense, and conscience of the Canadian people tell them that. It does not require Lloyd George to tell the people of Canada that they know their duty to the Empire in this war. It does not require any one to tell the taxpayers of Great Britain, and the taxpayers of Canada that the British Government, and this Government, are charged with certain duties and responsibilities in connection with the purchase of munitions. /* does not require any one to teach the people of Canada that they have the right to know in what manner that trust has been discharged. They have the right to know whether it has been discharged in such a manner as to bring disgrace upon the good name of Canada, or to bring honour and respect, to the people of Canada. They have the right to know that, and a portion of the people of Canada through me, as their representative, have the right to know whether there has been mismanagement, whether there has been bungling, and whether, what hon. gentlemen opposite call mistakes, have 'been made on such a vast scale that they become crimes, through which this enormous sum of $80,000,000 has been taken from the pockets of the taxpayers of Great Britain and of Canada. And yet, hon. gentlemen opposite say: Oh, you must not investigate these matters while the war is on for fear that in some way the reputation of Canada will suffer. So says my hon. friend from Calgary. If the reputation of Canada suffers, it will be because of the disclosures made when the investigation takes place. If my hon. friend has regard solely for the good name of Canada, if he believes that these charges are unfounded, he should welcome an investigation, and have the

facts brought to light; if the Shell Committee and the Minister of Militia are blameless; he should have their good name and good reputation made to shine before the 'world, and so prevent Canada from standing in the position, in which she would otherwise stand, of having deliberately wasted this vast sum of money, while the Government of the country, whose duty it is to have' an investigation, shut down the lid. and call upon their followers to sit upon it, to prevent any facts from coming to light. That ie what will injure the good reputation and character and standing of the Dominion of Canada.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock PRIVATE BILLS.



THIRD READING.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. BLAIN moved the third reading of Bill No. 26, respecting the corporation of the city of Brantford, and to change the name to "an Act to enable the corporation of the city of Brantford to own and operate the Grand Valley railway."
George Perry Graham: I want to take the same objection I did yesterday to this Bill; that is, that we in this House have no authority to enable the city of Brantford to do anything. It gets that authority from the Legislaure of Ontario. We have authority in this House to enable the Grand Valley Railway Company to do something. The title ought to read about this way: "To enable the Grand Valley railway to be operated by the corporation of the city of Brantford."


John Dowsley Reid: Does the hon. gentleman suggest that the title should be changed?


George Perry Graham: I am not sure that my hon. friend can change the title of the Bill, because he did not change the Bill at my suggestion; but to be consistent, I say the title should so read. We are not giving the city of Brantford any rights to anything, my contention being that that power comes from the Ontario Legislature, under whose jurisdiction the municipalities are. The railway is under our jurisdiction, and the object of this legislation is to allow the operation of the railway by the city of Brantford. My hon. friend did not accept my suggestion, and therefore he will have to allow the Bill to go through in this way; but my objection is well taken.


John Dowsley Reid: I know the objection that the hon. gentleman raises, but I cannot see that that will make any difference so far as the Bill is concerned. It is the corporation of the city of Brantford that is making application to have this Bill passed transferring the Grand Valley railway to the operation of the city of Brantford. If the suggestion made by the hon. member had been taken in committee-


George Perry Graham: I raised the same objection, but it was not acted upon.


John Dowsley Reid: I mean in the Railway Committee. Personally, I do not see that it makes much difference; if we change, the title now we will have to make the rest of the Bill fit in with it. I do not think anything Will be gained by the change, and we might as well let the Bill go through.


George Perry Graham: I am not objecting to the Bill going through, but my opinion, although I am not a lawyer, is that as a matter of law we have no right to enable municipalities to do things. That right comes from the province. We have the right to give power to the railway company. This Parliament incorporated this railway company, and we are really giving the railway the right to be operated by the city of Brantford.


John Dowsley Reid: Sometimes a layman's opinion is a good deal better than a lawyer's.


George Perry Graham: I have made myself clear anyway.


Mr. ROGERS:: You will not be held responsible.


George Perry Graham: I think that in future
we ought to be careful to have Bills worded properly, so that no question can arise as to a municipality exercising powers that it does not possess. If the province of Ontario did not give the city of Brantford this power this Bill would be of no use to the city. .


Mr. COCKSHUTT:: There is one precedent for this, and that is the case of the city of London, which runs the Port Stanley road.


George Perry Graham: I have no objection to it at all. I am objecting only to the technical wording of it.


William Foster Cockshutt: I understood that the hon. gentleman was objecting to the city having povrer to run the railway.


George Perry Graham: No.


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

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee on Private Bills, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair.
Bill No. 23, to incorporate the Ontario Niagara Connecting Bridge Company-Mr. German-further considered in Committee.
Mr. PARDEE:: I will have to ask that this Bill stand. There has been an amendment proposed, it was handed to me only to-day, I have not had an opportunity of communicating with the promoters of the Bill, and the hon. member for Welland (Mr. German) is not here.


John Dowsley Reid: I proposed that amendment. When this Bill was before the Railway Committee I thought that the clause I had proposed had passed, and the solicitor of the Department of Railways and Canals told me that this clause as I 'had suggested it was to be inserted in the Bill. He cannot understand why it was left out. It is in every railway Bill.


George Perry Graham: That is the standard
clause?


John Dowsley Reid: The standard clause; that is the reason I proposed it. The hon. member for Hamilton (Mr. Stewart) has handed me an amendment which he wishes to have inserted in the Bill. He tells me- that he has. mentioned it to the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Pardee). As the Bill is to stand, I will give notice of the amendment. It is proposed to amend section 10 by adding a subsection to be known as subsection 2 and to read as follows:
The company shall not construct any of the works mentioned in section 8 in or over any property of the province of Ontario or under the control of the Commissioners of the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park without the consent of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.
I suppose there is no objection to giving the jiotice and we can discuss it when the Bill comes up again.
Progress reported.
Bill No. 28, respecting the Kettle Valley Railway Company, and Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern Railway and Navigation Company-Mr. Green-further considered in committee.
On the schedule:


George Perry Graham: Is this to confirm an
agreement?


Mr. GREEN:: This is for the ratification of an agreement between the Great Northern
Railway Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for running rights over the Kettle Valley railway. The Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern railway is a branch of the Great Northern.


George Perry Graham: And the Canadian Pacific controls the Kettle Valley?


Robert Francis Green: Yes.
Bill reported.



SHELL CONTRACTS.


[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the proposed motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, for the appointment of a special committee to inquire into the purchase of shells, etc., resumed.
William Pugsley: Mr. Speaker, I purpose devoting a very short time to some remarks on the question of shells, and then I will proceed to discuss the question of fuses, and in connection with that I purpose reading to the House a communication which I have received from Colonel Carnegie, a member of the Shell Committee, and which I deem if only right and just to him to read to the House, because he has expressed a desire that I should do so.
With regard to shells, there has been an effort made by the Minister of Militia and others to convince the House that the making of shells was a matter attended with very great difficulty and that it was almost impossible to induce Canadian manufacturers to engage in the. work. It is interesting to compare the statements which the Minister of Militia and other hon. gentlemen opposite have made at different times. I find on page 305 of Hansard the following report of a statement made by the Minister of Militia:
On the 24th August, 1914, the War Office sent us a letter, asking if we could procure for them a small order for shells in the United States. On reflection, it struck me that the highly equipped industries of Canada, which were standing idle at the time, could readily manufacture shells. I had seen shrapnel shells being made in the arsenal at Quebec, and it is merely a blacksmith's fob. Accordingly we called a meeting of the Canadian manufacturers.
The Minister of Militia says that the making of shrapnel shells is merely a blacksmith's job. In another part of his speech the minister sought to convey the impression that the manufacturers were timorous about engaging in the work, and he gave the idea that there were great difficulties attending it. That statement conflicts with the statement made by

Colonel Carnegie in 'the report of the work of the Shell Committee which was submitted to the House by the Prime Minister, and the portion of which I am about to quote will be found on page 1569 of Hansard. After referring to the meeting of certain manufacturers with the Minister of Militia, it goes on to say:
At a meeting of the above, the whole question was fully discussed. Lt.-Col. Lafferty described in detail the manufacture of the shells and their component parts, and Col. Greville Harston dwelt with the system of inspection. Drawings and specifications were shown and explained, after which the meeting assured the minister that the work could be done in Canada.
Yet the minister would have us believe that it was a number of days after that meeting before any manufacturers could be induced to engage in the work.
Now, wilh regard to the Minister of Militia being in constant touch with his appointees, the Shell Committee. I will give some evidence in addition to that which I have already given, and which I think should be convincing to the House. I find that the Minister of Militia made this statement, as reported on page 308 of Hansard:	[DOT]	[DOT]
X felt that, having got the British Government into the scrape, it was my personal business to see that the thing was run right, and I have yet to iearn that it was not run right; and therefore I am at General Bertram's hack morning, noon and night in this business.
That statement is confirmatory of all the evidence we have, that the Minister of Militia was in constant touch with the Shell Committee and is responsible for what that committee did. It appears that they reported to him every week; he regarded the committee as his particular bqby, and he said that, as he had got the British Government into the scrape so far as the appointing of the Shell Committee was concerned, it was his personal business to attend to it, and to see that things were run right.
It was said by my hon. friend from Calgary that the representatives of the British Government, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Hichens and another gentleman whom he named, raised no question with regard to the actions of the Shell Committee, and that Parliament would be acting as a busybody if it sought to inquire into the matter. I am not impressed with that argument, because, as I have said, this is Canada's business just as much as it is the business of the British Government. The gentlemen who made these purchases were the 
appointees of Canada-for the Minister of *Militia is merely the trustee of the people of Canada-and the moneys whiqh were being expended and the debt which was being incurred were as much the moneys and the debt of Canada as of Great Britain, except that the share of 'Canada would not be so large as that of Great Britain.
But let us see if this hon. gentleman was right in saying that the representatives of the British Government were entirely satisfied. Beading (the reports of interviews which Mr. Thomas gave from time to time, we find that he was far from satisfied. On one occasion he spoke of " lifting the veil," -a singular expression for a man to use who had found everything satisfactory and who felt that the veil could be lifted without injury to anybody's feelings and without disclosing anything wrong. The report of an interview with Mr. Thomas was submitted to the House by the Prime Minister himself, and I take it that the right hon. gentleman is satisfied that it is an authentic and correct report.. In that account are these words:
He-
That is, General Bertram.
He has distributed the orders for the smaller shells in lesser quantities and over a wider field than .Mr. Thomas, looking at the matter from the British tax-payer's point of view would have done. But in that General Bertram was guided by a wish to relieve industrial depression prevailing in Canada over as . wide an area as possible.


Mr.   BOGEBS@: Hear, hear.


William Pugsley: " Hear, hear." says the Minister of Public Works.


Mr.   BOGEBS@: That is right; quite right.


William Pugsley: I could understand, if
this Government wras paying these extra charges out of the treasury of Canada, that it might 'be justifiable for the appointees of the 'Government to give encouragement to industries throughout the country, and to pay higher prices than they otherwise would for that reason. But what right had these appointees of Canada to take the money of the British treasury, not for the purpose of helping the Empire to win the war, but to encourage the industries of Canada and relieve industrial depression? There is no doubt this Government was anxious to give to their favourites in different parts of Canada orders for shells. I give them credit for being desirous, and honestly desirous, of relieving industrial depression in Canada. But what they ought to have done, if they thought that

desirable, was to give a bonus out of the Canadian treasury, instead of taking the money out of the pockets of the British tax-payers. Would not that have been the fair and honest course? To-day, the Government stand in this position: that their appointees have taken from the British taxpayers the enormous sum of upwards of eighty millions of dollars; and these gentlemen say: We were seeking to encourage industry in Canada and to relieve industrial depression. Is it not a shame and a disgrace that gentlemen should be called upon and compelled to defend the action of the Shell Committee upon such a ground as that?


Robert Rogers: It is a greater shame to make the reckless statements the hon. gentleman is making.


William Pugsley: In his heart, my hon.
friend knows that the statement I make is absolutely true.


Robert Rogers: Absolutely reckless.


William Pugsley: And ^if he reads the records, he will be the first to agree that I am stating what is true. He will make these charges without the evidence, without knowing the facts. But let him learn the facts, and he will hesitate to make statements of this character. He knows, or ought to know, and will know if he reads the evidence submitted by the hon. member for Carleton, N.B., that I am stating what is true. Let him compare the excessive prices paid for these shells with what they could have been made for, allowing a reasonable profit to the manufacturers, and he will agree with me-that when I put the sum at eighty millions of dollars, I am putting it below the amount at which it might well be put. This account of Mr. Thomas's views goes on:
The profits of the manufacturers, in Mr. Thomas's judgment, had been higher than they were entitled to.
Is that the evidence of a man who is satisfied that business methods have been pursued? Mr. Thomas comes out from England upon a very delicate mission. He comes because of the dissatisfaction existing at the centre of the Empire, and his mission is to look into the question and get rid of the source of the evil by which the British taxpayer is being mulcted to a large amount. He goes to work diplomatically; for he necessarily must be very cautious in what he says. There is every reason why he should speak as favourably as he can of the actions of the Shell Committee; and 109
he must have every desire not to quarrel with the Government whose appointees the Shell Committee are. Still he feels compelled to say that the profits of the manufacturers have been higher than they were entitled to. And he goes on:
This was perhaps difficult to avoid under the circumstances.
And what were the circumstances? One important circumstance was that the Shell Committee was endeavouring, not to fulfil primarily the demands of the war, but to relieve commercial depression throughout Canada; and to this end they were giving small orders and encouraging the creation of these mushroom companies in different parts of the country. Under these circumstances, it was difficult to secure shells at fair and reasonable prices. The account proceeds:
Anyway, that is past history, so far as Mr. Thomas is concerned.
He had spent three long months looking into this matter, to see how he could get rid of the Shell Committee, and he succeeded at last. He saw the Imperial Munitions Board in <sight, but in leaving the country he tells the people that prices have been higher than they ought to have been, and also, that he would not have distributed the orders over a large area and in small quantities, as the Shell Committee had done. But he recognizes that the object is to relieve industrial depression in Canada, and, under all these circumstances, he says, perhaps the high prices could not have been avoided.
This Shell Committee, influenced by somebody-influenced probably by the gentleman to whom they reported every week; influenced by the gentleman who appointed them, influenced by the gentleman who would recognize as well as any one else what benefit it would be to this Government-was desirous, to get something started which would relieve the industrial and commercial depression which had come to Canada, which had spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific a year before the war started, and for which the inactivity and want of progressive ideas on the part of this Government were largely responsible. Under these circumstances the Shell Committee w as obliged, under its non-competitive policy of having fixed prices at definite times, to give the same price to the large manufacturers with established plants as they gave to the small companies. In the latter case an order for,n say, 10,000 shells



would embrace the first cost of the plant as well. If is no wonder, Sir, that under these circumstances profits to those having large orders ran to enormously large amounts. It is no wonder that Mr. Thomas was amazed when he came to Canada and found that these high pricjes had been paid. It is no wonder that although he desired to smooth over all difficulties as well as he could, he was obliged to say that he would not have done as the Shell Committee had done; that, while'higher prices prevailed under all the circumstances, this, perhaps could not have been avoided. Then he said that under the new system of competitive tendering which has now been adopted by the Shell Committee-he. preferred to call it the Canadian Munitions Committee-there would be no cause for complaint in this respect. What stronger condemnation can you have than that?-that	Mr. Thomas came to
Canada and found the state of affairs to which I have referred-which has been proved conclusively to this House, and which no one has questioned. He found that the Shell Committee were not asking for tenders; that the prices which they were fixing covered the cost of the plant, thus giving the advantage to the big manufacturers whose plants had already been paid, for two or three times oxer He immediately put a stop to this. When he succeeded in making arrangements for the new Munitions Board it was provided that they should call for tenders. I say 'that that was a strong condemnation. Hon. gentlemen say that this was a mere mistake. The right hon. the Prime Minister says that no doubt the Shell Committee made mistakes; the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett) says the same thing. But, in view of the fact that these mistakes have cost Canada and Great Britain the enormous sum of $80,000,000, a man would he very tender in his feelings towards the Shell Committee if he did not think that these things amounted to more than mistakes; that they ran into such misconduct and such malfeasance -as would justify one's characterizing them by a much harsher name.
The right hon. Prime Minister made 'an extraordinary statement with regard to the manufacture of shells. He has told this House that almost ever since he and his colleagues came into office they had the feeling that there was danger oif war between Germany and the British Empire. He stated probably a year ago

that as long 'ago las January, 1914, owing to secret information which was received from the British Government his Government took action to organize a service which would he devised, by the deputy ministers of the different departments, and a committee was formed, at the head of which was Sir Joseph Pope. Yet as 1 late as August 24, nearly a month after war had been declared-when the Minister of Militia, observing the manufacture of shells at the Quebec arsenal, had seen than it was only a blacksmith's job-the Prime Minister had grave doubts as to whether shells could be made in Canada in any large quantities, in the immediate future. When the Prime Minister and his far-seeing businesslike colleagues, gentlemen with business acumen, heard that there was likely to be war, would you not have thought that, if they had a reasonable regard for the interests of the country, they would have looked into the question of what Canada could do in the way of making munitions? Did their vision never go beyond the sending of our men to take their places in the batfle line? Did they not think of shells, guns, rifles, explosives? If the Prime Minister and his colleagues had visited the Quebec arsenal they would have found them manufacturing shells there. True, the manufacture of shells at the Quebec arsenal is carried on only in a small way; but one would have supposed that, if hon. gentlemen saw this great danger to the Empire, they would, months before the war broke out, have taken steps to enlarge the arsenal and equip it with proper machinery, so that if the day of battle should come Canada could be in a position, through her own arsenal, to turn out munitions of war for the assistance of the armies of the Empire. Does it not seem incredible to you, Mr. Speaker, that a month after the war had broken out the Prime Minister had doubts as to whether shells could be made in Canada in any large quantities? One would almost think that the Prime Minister had been asleep during the fifteen or eighteen years of Canada's wonderful prosperity, One would think that he was oblivious to the fact that great industries had been created during those years; that marvellous strides in the way of industrial development had been made, and that, when war broke out, as has since been demonstrated, Canada, in proportion to her population, was better equipped for carrying on manufacturing of any kind or description than any

other country in the world. These gentlemen express themselves as amazed at what Canada did, and at what the Canadian manufacturers did, as if they were surprised to learn that Canadian manufacturers are just as skilful, just as energetic, just as resourceful as the manufacturers of any part	of the British
Empire or of any other country. They seem to have been amazed to fin'd Canadian workmen as skilful and intelligent as the workmen of any other country. We on this side of the House have nothing but praise for the manufacturers of Canada. What we are astonished at is that gentlemen on the other side of the House should be so amazed to find that the Canadian manufacturers could do as well as the manufacturers of any other part of the British Empire. We are not astonished that they were able to do as well as they did. We should have been astonished and amazed if they had not done as well as they did, because we knew of their capabilities, their energy, -their intelligence; we knew of the skill with which the workmen would apply themselves to the task of turning out these munitions.
Before dealing with the question of fuses, I wish to say that I received a letter from Col. David Carnegie which I think it is only just to him that I should read to the House and place on Hansard. I am sure that that is his wish, because he requests that I should give publicity to .his repudiation of the charge which he thinks 1 preferred against him. The letter is as follows:
Imperial Munitions Board,
Ottawa, February 26, 1916.
Dear Sir,-A few days before leaving- England I received a cutting from the Toronto Star of January 20, in which the following statement was made purporting to be an extract from a speech made by you in the House of Commons, Ottawa, January 19:
"What did General Bertram do after receiving his knighthood which I believe must have been given him as a handy way to get rid of. him? General Bertram declared that he himself and he alone fixed the prices. But he hasn't stated the whole facts. Col. Carnegie was associated with him and these two men distributed favours to their friends and themselves. This was entirely irregular. Millions of dollars have been taken from the British taxpayer by reason of the system."'
I should have passed the matter over as unworthy of notice had it not been raised in Parliament by a responsible member such as yourself with a decided intent to reflect upon my integrity. Whatever prompted you to associate my name with irregular practices I care not, but I cannot allow such statements to pass unrefuted as you have personally attacked me. I not only resent with my whole soul the charges it is reported you made, that I with General 109*
Bertram placed contracts with friends and favourites, but I deny them absolutely.
I have the charity to believe that you have: given utterances to allegations about which you: had no ground for proof and that you have noknowledge of the man whose character you have impeached. Confident of this I give at some length an account of my connection with the committee and demand a public explanation and apology.
If you are in doubt about the character of the man against whom you have launched such charges I would refer you to my records for fifteen years in the Government service at Woolwich Arsenal, for four years at Hadfield's Sheffield, and for four years at Samuel Osborn's, Sheffield, and latter to my career as private consulting engineer in London.
If you will inquire at the various learned societies in England and Scotland; if you will inquire into my social and public work for my fellows in the cities in which I have lived; if you will closely investigate every act of service I have rendered to the .Shell Committee since September, 1914 ; if you will examine the records of all transactions with which I have been engaged; if you will discuss with manufacturers minutely my dealings with them and also inquire of the gentlemen who visited Canada from England with the object of investigating the work of the Shell Committee, I defy you or any other man to find the slightest trace of any irregular practice of conscious wrongdoing in any work with which I have been connected and with any part of the committee's work I have handled.
I have received words of appreciation from Lord Kitchener and the personal thanks of Mr Lloyd George in connection with my services on the -Shell Committee.
I came to Canada at the beginning of the war a comparative stranger. I have laboured incessantly not only in connection with the work of the Shell Committee but with a view to the industrial development of the country and I believe I have the confidence of the Prime Minis-teL. Sir Robert Borden, and the Minister of Militia, General Sir Sam Hughes, who have closely followed the work I have done in connection with the committee.
Reference has been made to my connection with a Welland company. About four years ago I visited Canada with the object of investigating how far the steel manufacturing industry could be developed in the country and I ultimately decided with other friends to start steel manufacture in Welland by utilizing the cheap electric power obtained in the district. I invested my own capital and induced others in England to invest theirs. Being an expert in steel manufacture, I was appointed a director of, and consulting engineer to the company, and at my office in London designed the works which were ultimately completed just before the war broke out. Instead of taking the usual consulting fees such as I received from clients for whom I was doing similar work in Britain and the continent, I decided to accept payment over a period of five years so that the company would not at the outset be taxed unduly, f did this because the company had difficulty in raising capital in Canada which the Canadian directors fully expected to oh'tin.
I arrived in Canada tow? j the end of September, 1914, with the obj' f starting up the new works. Before my ai ,al the Shell Committee was formed, an order was placed with the Welland Company for shells, and the first price to be paid was already fixed.

I had no knowledge whatever that a Shell Committee had been formed or that shells were to be made in Canada, until after I arrived. I wish to emphasize this fact as it has been stated that I was party to the placing of shell contracts with the Welland Company at the high price originally given by the War Office.
Having a thorough knowledge of shell manufacture, being for many years in charge of the various branches in the shell department at Woolwich Arsenal, the attention of General Hughes was drawn to this fact and my services were commandeered right away for three months to instruct Canadian manufacturers in the art of shell making.
As the Welland Company with which I was connected had received an order for shells and my brother, Mr. E. Carnegie, was general manager and also member of the Shell Committee,
I placed my resignation in the hands of the board and also suggested the withdrawal of my capital, notwithstanding the fact that General Hughes and the members of the committee knew my connection with the Weiland Company before my appointment as Ordnance Advisor. My fellow directors would not at first accept my resignation as they stated it would jeopardize the interests of the shareholders who had been induced to place their capital in the company because they knew me and depended upon my expert help in making it a success. They also referred to the agreement I had with the company to give them my services as consulting engineer. Financially it would have been inconvenient at the time to pay me out, but I persisted in resigning immediately from the directorate, stating that I should give to them the same assistance as to any other company engaged in the manufacture of munitions. I stated also that I should withdraw my capital immediately X saw the company was in such a position that I could .sell out without interfering with its success. The company ultimately consented to liberate me from my obligations as their con-suiting engineer, and I have had no financial or other interest in the company since last September.	.
That was September, 1915, a year after the first order was given.
As my term of service with the Shell Committee as Ordnance Advisor was for three months only, X was advised by many of ^ my friends that I was making a needless sacrifice in resigning- my directorship of the Welland company. The committee at that time understood that no more shells would be required, and only a few companies were willing to undertake the work even after a guarantee had been given that any loss , would be made good in the event of the work not paying.
The Welland Company with which I was connected received the orders because of my brother's knowledge of shell manufacture, he being one of the few men In Canada who knew anything about the work.
At the end of three months I returned of England, saw the officials of the War Office, informed them of Canada's ability to produce shells and obtained their permission, after much discussion, to use basic steel in Canada for high explosive shells. This had never been previously granted and meant a very great deal to Canadian steel manufacturers who produced only basic steel. I also induced the War Office to place additional orders for shells in the Dominion.
I was asked by the Shell Committee if I would continue my service qs Ordnance Advisor

without stating any definite period, it being expected that the orders then placed would he completed in the spring. I threw in my lot not knowing how long I would be required to act, and on my return to Canada I had most attractive offers made to me by private companies, the remuneration from which was very many times more than that paid to me by the committee. I mention this fact simply to show that it was not a matter of money with me at all, but the highest sense of duty which impelled me.
While in England it was suggested to me hy Lord Moulton that we should try to manufacture trinitrotoluol in Canada. This was quite a new departure for Canada, and I urged that the matter be taken up with earnestness. Through the efforts of General Hughes and Mr. Plummer, of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, Sydney, N.8., plants were erected in less than four months for the production of toluol from the coke oven waste gases which were subsequently trinltrated and shipped to England. To-day several plants are now producing T.N.T. and approximately eight hundred thousand pounds are being produced.
At the suggestion of General Hughes, with the support of Sir Robert Borden, a commission was appointed to investigate the feasibility of refining copper in Canada and producing metallic zinc. I had the honour to ;be chairman of the commission on which Professor Stansfield, of McGill University, and Dr. Wilson, of the Mines Branch, gave most valuable assistance in accomplishing the end we had in view, and today both zinc and copper are being refined in Canada. I have striven to encourage the development of Canada's manufactures to include every possible material required for the complete round of ammunition. At the beginning of the war we were dependent entirely upon the States or England for many of our materials. To-day all classes of material required are now being manufactured in Canada. Some of the new industries established will become permanent in the supply of domestic requirements hitherto imported These facts alone are of more value to me than all the thanks and praise that man can give.
I just pause here to remark that the Minister of Militia led us to understand that the use of basic steel was entirely-owing to his original thought on the subject; but Col. Carnegie appears tcj claim that he is entitled to credit for that suggestion.
Last April General Sir Sam Hughes added my name to the list of members of the committee, an honour which I esteemed highly, particularly as it was unsought. During my whole connection with the Shell Committee, before I was a member and since I was appointed a member, it has always been a pleasure to work along with General Bertram and the other members of the committee. General Bertram and I were virtually the executive for many months together, until latterly when the work of the committee increased Mr. Riddell was appointed financial advisor.
During these months of incessant work from early morning until midnight, I have bad the pleasure of meeting many talented Canadians, whose ability, energy and charms I have coveted. I can say without the shadow of doubt that in all my associationes with the Canadian Shell Committee and the many manufacturers

with whom I have had the pleasure of doing business, I have not detected any sugest.ion of what is known in Canada as " Graft " or crookedness. Had I, as a stranger to Canada, believed that the men of business were soaked in habits contrary to the laws of morality such as some writers to the press would suggest, I would despair of seeing Canada that great and industrial asset of the Empire which I have not only dreamed it will become, but to which end I have worked with my whole strength.
While in England, from which I have just returned, I have been on, Canada's business working with constant diligence in securing additional orders for shells and materials, the details of which are well known to the ministry there.
I have written at length as a strong protest [DOT]and an' emphatic denial of the imputations made upon my integrity. I shall be the last to admit that in an organization such as the Shell Committee, which in the course of a year grew from a small institution to one of the most responsible in Canada, no mistakes were made in dealing with the many-sided problems which faced us. The wonder to me is that many more mistakes were not made. When the mistakes of the Shell Committee are compared with the mistakes made by similar organizations at home one xs amazed to find anywhere in Canada a discordant note regarding the work rendered by a body of men who gave their services so will-ir.gly during the Empire's struggle.
I remain, sir,
Yours vefy truly,
David Carnegie.
The Hon. Wm. Pugsley, M.P.,
Ottawa.
To that letter I replied as follows:
February 29, 1916.
David Carnegie Esq.,
Imperial Munitions Board,
Ottawa, Ont.
Dear Sir,-I am in receipt of your valued favour of the 26th inst., which I have read very carefully and with much interest.
As a considerable portion of your letter is oased upon what purports to be a condensed newspaper report of my remarks made in the House of Commons in criticism of the Shell Committee, I take the liberty of enclosing you herewith a copy of Hansard containing a full report of my speech. If you will he good enough to point out any portions of my remarks which were not correct, or of which you complain, it will afford me much pleasure to read your letter in the House at the first convenient opportunity. I should be very sorry to do you or any one else an injustice. You will please bear in mind that that part of my criticism to which you appear to give special attention, was directed against, what seemed to me, the improper and unbusinesslike methods pursued by the Shell Committee which resulted in greatly excessive prices being paid, and that companies of which members of the committee were either the directing heads, or in which they were largely interested, participated in these excessive prices so fixed by the committee. I am,
Yours very truly,
"William Pugsley.
To that I received the following reply:
Imperial Munitions Board,
Ottawa, March 3, 1916.
Dear Sir,-I thank you for your letter of the 29th February, received yesterday afternoon together with copy of Hansard containing a full report of your speech of the 19th January.
The condensed newspaper report of your speech (extract of which I gave in my letter of the 26th February) differs little from your statements on pages 79 and 80 of Hansard, which are as follows:
" This Shell Committee fixed the prices which one company, of which the Shell Committee's chairman was vice-president, and another company of which Mr. Carnegie, another member of the Committee, was manager, were to receive for shells. In other words, the Shell Committee fixed the prices in the benefits of which some of its members were to share."
It is quite clear to me that you thought I was manager of the Welland concern, and as manager was fixing prices for shells ordered from that company.
Let me pause here to remark that I did not mention the name of Col. Carnegie in that connection. Perhaps I did
9 p.m. not draw a clear enough distinction between Col Carnegie and Mr. E. Carnegie. I knew that Mr. E. Carnegie had been a member of the Shell Committee almost from the start, and I was informed that that gentleman was the managing director of the Welland company, which got a very large order at what Col. Carnegie himself says was a high price. That is what I had in mind, not intending to reflect on Mr. Carnegie's personal integrity, but as evidence-of the unbusinesslike methods which this Shell Committee had pursued. I say that it is wholly contrary to good business principles for men engaged as trustees in work of this character to he both buyers and sellers. It is entirely contrary to good business methods, and in ordinary business it would never be admitted. If a trustee bought for his trust estate property in which he was interested, the courts would rip up the transaction without looking into the merits of the case, because they would say that no man in that position had a right to occupy the dual position of buyer and seller. That is what I complained of, that a member of the Shell Committee was the managing director of the Welland company, which got an order running up to millions of dollars. That is not denied by Col. Carnegie; he only says:
" When you made that statement you gave Parliament to understand that it was Col. Carnegie, myself, who was the managing director of the Welland company, and that

statement is an imputation upon my honour; that is a charge made before the world that I did something I ought not to have done." By Col. Carnegie's judgment as to what is an impeachment of a man's honour, let other members of the Shell Committee be judged. Let his brother, who is the managing director of this company, and who was on the Shell Committee from the start, be judged by the. standard which Col. Carnegie lays down for himself; and let Col. Cantley and the other gentleman-I forget his name-who was on the committee also, and who was interested in some of the companies in Toronto which got large orders, be judged by the standard which this high-minded gentleman lays down as the standard which ought to influence and guide gentlemen placed in their position. He says:
It is quite clear to me that you thought I was manager of the Welland concern, and, as manager, was fixing prices for shells ordered from that company.
That is not what I meant at all. I did not say that he, as manager of that company, fixed the prices. It was the Shell. Committee who fixed the prices, neither the Welland company nor any other company in Canada had anything to do with the fixing of the prices. It was the Shell Committee who fixed the prices which applied to themselves, to their companies, and to the other big industrial companies which had, as I have said, already established plants, and to all the little mushroom companies which were given small orders at excessive prices, which include the first cost Of the plant as well. That, as I have said, was entirely improper conduct, and conduct which every business man would condemn. He proceeds:
You state on page 80: "I am told that Mr. Carnegie, whose company was receiving a large number of orders, was the only member of the committee who was acting with General Bertram; that it was these gentlemen who, in large measure, distributed these favours, as I have said, to the amount of a vast sum of money distributed them among themselves.
I wish to particularly emphasize that my brother Mr. E. Carnegie who does manage the Welland concern had no more to do with fixing the prices than any of the other manufacturers outside the membership of the committee. The prices were fixed by General Bertram alone, during the early part of the committee's work, and later by General Bertram and myself. I deny that at any time I distributed favours to manufacturers or to myself. It is gross libel and I will allow those who to know the work I have done and who are not led by misstatements In the press, to judge as to the integrity of my character.
Your references in your letter to the improper and unbusiness like methods pursued by the

Shell Committee give me not the slightest concern. I am quite happy to allow those who are in a position to know and who have already expressed opinions worthy of consideration, to judge of the valuable services rendered to the Empire by the members of the old Shell Committee.
I repeat my request for a public apology.
I, am. Sir,
Yours very truly,
D. Carnegie.
Hon. Wm. Pugsley, M.P.,	.
House of Commons,
Ottawa, Ont.
I have nothing for which to apologize to Colonel Carnegie. I am very glad indeed to do him full and complete justice as far as I can by placing upon Hansard the two letters which he has written to me. They state his position and it will be for the public to judge whether or not there has been any intentional slandering of him or any intentional impeachment of his honour on my part. I am not conscious of having done anything for which I should apologize, and I have nothing to retract from my remarks in my speech on the Address. There is nothing in Colonel Carnegie's letter to detract from the statement I then made, and which I repeat: that the members of the Shell Committee were directors, and in some instances the directing force, of companies which received orders for vast quantities at prices far and away beyond what was reasonable and fair. That is the important statement which I made in the debate on the Address and that is the important statement which I make to-night; that these gentlemen were in effect both buyers and sellers, and that as buyers they fixed the prices at which they would buy from the companies of which they were themselves the directors, which prices were far and away beyond what was fair and reasonable, that is the criticism which I make with regard to members of the Shell Committee. I do not charge them in that respect with fraud, I do not charge them in that respect with criminal intention, but what I do charge is that there was a duty- devolving upon them, a duty devolving upon the Minister of Militia and upon the members 01 this Government which appointed this committee, to see that they discharged the trust reposed in them in a reasonable and businesslike manner. When it is proved in this House-as it is proved by the figures presented by the hon. member for Carleton -that in the giving of these orders in a short period extending over some fifteen or eighteen months, there was unnecessarily taken out of the taxpayers of Canada and

of the United Kingdom the enormous sum of upwards of $80,000,000, we have the strongest possible ground for complaining of the unbusinesslike and improper methods that were pursued. I have already said that if the Government of Canada in the exercise of their judgment thought it wise to encourage industry throughout the country and to relieve industrial depression, the aid for that purpose ought to have been taken out of the Canadian treasury and not out of the pockets of the British taxpayers.
But, Sir, the Minister of Finance has been made very comfortable by these enormous war profits. I can well understand, whenever the Prime Minister would hear of these excessive prices, the Minister of Finance saying to him: My dear Premier, don't you worry. The Finance Minister is far-sighted; he is looking forward to the revenue. He said: Don't you worry over the $80,000,000 of excess profits which these war munitions manufacturers may get; I am going to take twenty-five per cent of it back and put it into the Canadian treasury; don't you worry, Sir Eobert. I can imagine the Minister of Finance looking towards the heavens with that beatific smile which covers his face when he is evolving some great and 'beautiful thought, and I can imagine him saying to the Prime Minister: Don't you worry. The Finance Minister has now come down with his taxation measures along these very lines and he proposes to take back twenty-five per cent of the profits which have gone to the manufacturers, and which aTe to be paid jointly by the British treasury and the Canadian treasury. If, as I suppose, the British treasury pays about ninety per cent and the Canadian treasury ten per cent, the Minister of Finance will be in the happy position that while Canada is only paying ten per cent of these excessive profits, he will get back twenty-five per cent and the Canadian treasury will be fifteen per cent to the good when the matter is finally closed. No wonder the Minister of Finance has been during all these months looking forward with happy anticipation to this means of supplementing the revenue. My hon. friend has also made the fact that he is going to impose taxes upon the manufacturers of munitions of war, an excuse for presenting it as a system of taxation and exacting taxes from the general business interests. He thinks he will be able now to say to the people: You cannot complain, because, as you see, we are taxing the war profits.
I would have supposedi that there were two or three plain duties devolving upon this Government and upon the Shell Committee. One, to get munitions of war at the lowest possible price, and another to carry out in good faith the assurance which my right hon. friend the Prime Minister had given to the people of Great Biritaw, that Canada was prepared to consecrate her resources to the service of the Empire. If the Government wanted to relieve industrial depression throughout Canada by establishing small manufacturing concerns and giving them small orders for munitions, they should have said to these concerns: You must take these orders at reasonable and fair prices. If the Government found it necessary to bonus them by paying them a price that would cover the cost of plant, they should pay it out of the Canadian treasury, and not out of the pocket of the British taxpayer. I would have thought that that would be the view which the Shell Committee would have taken.
I shall now, in concluding, make reference to the purchase of fuses. There is no question about the truth of the statement which was contained in the speech of my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, that there was great and unnecessary delay in the production of the finished shell which has greatly hampered the work of our armies at the front. If hon. gentlemen need any further proof of that, let them read the statement which was published by the Imperial Munitions Board, through Mr. J. W. Flavelle, the chairman, and in which he said that the Shell Committee had gone on making empty shells, and had paid no attention to the question of procuring fuses. He said that it would be a waste of money to continue turning out the empty shells until they could catch up with a supply of fuses. This is the statement, in concrete form, which is made: That the Shell Committee neglected, delayed, and failed to endeavour to provide for the construction in Canada of an adequate supply of fuses; that it proceeded to award to Mr. J. Wesley Allison, on behalf of a foreign corporation, a contract amounting to $22,000,000, and made an advance of $3,750,000; that the making of the contract through Colonel Allison was unwise and improvident, and was entered into with the knowledge and connivance of the Minister of Militia, and that the Shell Committee failed to obtain delivery of the fuses within a reasonable time. That is the charge which I

make and which we can prove if the motion of my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) is granted. And, Sir, is not that a serious charge to make against this committee and against the Minister of Militia? It is that that committee went outside of Canada to the United States for the purpose of obtaining an article which they could just as easily have obtained in Canada; that they negotiated there through Colonel Allison, giving through him an order for the enormous amount of $22,000,000. Think of it, Sir, $22,000,000 given to two companies who, as I charge, had no plants to enable them to manufacture fuses, and to whom the Shell Committee advanced the enormous sum of $3,750,000 in order to enable them to equip their plants so that they could engage in the manufacture of fuses. Why did they not do that for Canada? Is there any hon. gentleman opposite who will justify the Shell Committee and the Minister of Militia in respect of the giving of this vast order for fuses in the United States under the circumstances which I have mentioned? I pause for a reply. The Minister of Militia has gone away, and he has left here an hon. gentleman who, he says, will lepresent and defend him. I ask that gentleman to rise in his place to-night, if he will venture to do so, and say if he justifies the Shell Committee for giving this order for fuses in the United States. Sir, it cannot be done. The same advance of $3,750,000 to Canadian manufacturers would have secured the manufacture of fuses in this country just as well as such an advance could secure their manufacture in the United States. When I tell you, Sir, that not very long after this, upon the urgent request of a manufacturer in Canada, an order was given at a lower price and for only about half a million fuses, as was shown in the figures presented by my hon. friend from Carleton, N. B. (Mr. Carvell), you will see how utterly unjustifiable was this transaction. While in my speech on the Address I referred to this matter of fuses being ordered in the United States and made some very severe charges against the Shell Committee in respect of them, yet Colonel Carnegie, in the letters which he addressed to me, did not think it worth while to refer to the question of fuses at all, although I am told that Colonel Carnegie, the high-minded gentleman who wrote those letters, is the member of the Shell Committee who is largely responsible for the making, through Colonel J. Wesley Allison, of this improvident contract in the
TMr. Pugsley.]
United States. I am told-I do not know how true it is, but I believe it is the case; I shall be corrected if I am wrong-that those companies have not yet delivered a single fuse, notwithstanding the fact that the order was given a considerable time ago and that the enormous sum of $3,750,000 was advanced to them.	*
Now, Sir, I have taken a somewhat longer time than I expected to take; but the matter is of such importance that it seems to me it is worthy of the time which has been occupied. When in the debate upon the Address I made remarks of a general character, but remarks which I knew would, if necessary, be followed up by the eVidence when my hon. friend from Carleton came to deliver his speech, I hoped that in a matter of such grave importance, and one in which the people of Canada were so deeply interested, the Government would at once have said that the matter should be investigated; and then it would not have been necessary to make these statements to the House, and the facts would not have become public until they were presented before the committee of investigation. But, although I endeavoured to present, in a somewhat cursory way, the evidence which I had, so as to give to the House an idea of what would be proved in case a committee were formed, not treating the matter in any partisan spirit at all, what was the immediate result? My hon. friend the Solicitor General made one of the bitterest speeches which I have ever heard him make-and the hon. gentleman, although he may not feel any bitterness, can assume it. By his speech he sought to arouse all the worst passions existing in the bosoms of hon!. members on the other side of the House; he depicted me as everything that was unpatriotic and unworthy of commendation; and my hon. friends opposite, who usually have a somewhat friendly feeling towards me, seemed on that occasion to be exceedingly changed in their demeanour and almost to feel that I had done something very unworthy of a member of this Parliament.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.


William Pugsley: In the press of the
country, the course of the Solicitor General was followed, and my hon. friend from Carleton was also charged with doing what was unpatriotic and unworthy.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.


William Pugsley: We come now to the consideration of the resolution of my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), for whom every one has the highest praise, and we ask, in all candour and in tall sincerity, that this expenditure of $380,000,000, in which the people of Canada and the people of Great Britain are interested in proportion to the men whom they will have engaged in battle before this war is over, shall be investigated by a committee to be appointed for that purpose. We do not think that the people of this country will be content to wait, as my hon. friend from Calgary has asked us to do, until the war is over. If there is iany member of this Shell Committee, or any member of this Government, or any one who has been employed by the Shell Committee, who, in the language of my hon. friend from Calgary, has washed his hands in blood money, the people of this country have a right to know that fact now. They ought not to [DOT] be asked to entrust their business longer to men who are guilty in the way my hon. friend from Calgary has described; and it is not to the interest of the people of this country that our only rddress shall be that, as my hon. friend says, their children and their children's children shall be remembered with execrations and curses for the advantage which they have taken of the necessities of the people in this terrible war. We think the investigation ought to be now, because the people are demanding it and will be 'satisfied with nothing less. But, Sir, I cannot believe that hon. gentlemen opposite will be so unwise in their own interest as to refuse so reasonable a request. As I stated at the opening of my remarks, while I think that the charges already made were sufficiently definite, yet, in deference to my right hon. friend (Sir Robert Borden), who wanted some member of the House to rise in his place and take * the responsibility of putting these charges in concrete form. I have taken upon myself that responsibility. The Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen), I understand, is likely to follow me. If he does,, he may take the technical ground that this motion ought to be dropped and the charge presented in connection with a new and substantive motion. But that would be an objection of the most technical character. The only object of requiring the charge to be made by a member is to relieve the House from frivolous
charges being made for which no member ventures to take the responsibility. Let us deal with matters of substance and not with matters of form. We have heard the evi-[DOT] dence presented by my hon. friend from Carleton; we have the resolution of my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, demanding in the name of the people of this country an investigation into the transactions of the Shell Committee; and you have inyself, a humble member of this House, rising in my place in support of the motion, and taking upon myself the full responsibility, as a member of the House, of undertaking to prove these charges.
Mr. Speaker, this Government may ask their supporters to vote down this resolution. They may say to the people of Canada:	"No matter what mismanagement, no matter what waste of money there may have been; no matter how improperly this Shell Committee may have acted; no matter how much knowledge the Minister of Militia may have had of these improper and irregular practices; no matter what the evidence may be, yet we are prepared to vote against allowing the light of day to shine upon these transactions; we are prepared to call upon our supporters to prevent an investigation of this matter." But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that, although many things have happened during the months which have gone by since we last assembled in Parliament that have tended^ to weaken the confidence of the people in this Administration, no administration that ever existed in this country ever took a course more likely to be universally condemned by the people than will be the course of this Government if they vote against the passing of this resolution.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, I approach the
discussion of this resolution convinced, first of all, that it has not the zealous support even of hon. gentlemen in the minority in this House. I am convinced, furthermore, from observation of the course of the debate, that the heart of the mover himself, the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), is by no means behind the course he has taken. I am not one who can assume, having some knowledge of hon. gentlemen opposite, that there are going to be defections when the formal vote comes. But I am convinced of this, that there are hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House, not a few, who realize the position we are in and what this resolution means, and who, if they had the slightest

against the Government, and the Government resigned. Consequently, an investigation, or an attempt at investigation, followed. Those who have read the words of Mr. Gladstone at that time will realize the wisdom and prescience of that statesman in regard to the policy against which he protested and in respect of which he went out of office. He told the Commons of Great Britain that there could be no effective investigation; that any investigation that would be attempted would necessarily prove a farce; that it would do harm at home and produce disaster abroad. He rejoiced that his last words as a member of the Cabinet of the Earl of Aberdeen embodied a solemn protest against a proceeding which in his judgment meant weakness to his own country both at home and abroad. An investigation followed, and if ever there was a fiasco, if ever there was a farce pure and simple- except possibly the speeches to which we sometimes listen in this House from the hon. member for St. John-if ever there was a fiasco, it was the work of that investigating committee. 'Now, to prove just what that committee did and to enter a warning as to what would result should we follow the behests of hon. gentlemen opposite, let me read this from its report:
The difficulty of the task has been enhanced by the impossibility of bringing some persons as witnesses who could have furnished important information. From the same cause some persons are left under imputations in regard to which your committee regret that they can pronounce no conclusive opinion. The fullness of the inquiry has been restricted by considerations of state, so that at the outset of this report your committee must admit that they have heen compelled to end an Inquiry which they have heen unable satisfactorily to complete.
Here we have the admission of the men most favourable to the inquiry, the men who themselves accepted appointments on the committee, that they were unable to produce any adequate results. That was the last time the Government of Great Britain-even although serious charges of a certain nature were made-ever launched a general inquiry such as would expose to the enemy the resources of their country during a war. Do I hear the hon. member for Carleton say they did it in the South African war? Be tried to show the House that they did something, hut what they did was not at all as he described. It was a different thing entirely, in its character and kind, from the resolution we are asked to adopt. It was an entirely different thing in character and kind from the

resolution which carried in 1855, during the Crimean War. What was it that they did during the South African War? According * to the hon.. member for Oarleton they passed in May, 1901, a resolution in the following language:
That a select committee he appointed to consider and report upon any allegations of fraud and irregularity in connection with War Office contracts-
Does the House get the words? "Any allegations of fraud and irregularity." This was passed in May, 1901. Everybody knows what an irregularity is, especially when associated with the name of fraud.
Fraud and irregularity in connection with. War Office contracts during the last 12 months. That the committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records, and that five he a quorum.
At the same time a general inquiry was asked to be set on foot, an inquiry into the entire management of affairs connected with the war, an inquiry into purchases and the like; and that inquiry was refused by the Government of the day and postponed until the conclusion of the war. Why? Because you can inquire into a specific allegation of fraud or irregularity and not expose to the enemy any of the resources of the country. You could not set on foot a general searching inquiry and fail to do harm to the interests of the state.. Consequently anything in the nature of a general inquiry was refused, and refused in - the public interest, until the war was over.
Is there any charge of fraud or irregularity here? , Even were this shell committee, our committee, acting under our instructions, subject to our disposition and our supervision, a committee whose every act we supervised and were responsible-fox; even were it such a committee there is nothing brought forward and nothing urged to bring it within the purview of that British resolution and make-it the duty of this Government to grant an investigation. The hon. member for St. John, not five minutes before he sat down, made it clear to the House that he charged nothing in the way of fraud or irregularity even against the Shell Committee; yet who will ever forget the demeanour and the-language of horror, yes, of tragedy, with which he opened that address? He was going to meet the Prime Minister of the-day, and from his place in Parliament take the whole responsibility for the grave-and serious charges he was going to make; he was going to expose himself to the abdication of his seat in Parlia-

ment, and to the ignominy of his fellow members and the whole of Canada; he was going to make such charges against the Shell Committee and the Minister of Militia, and to take the full responsibility therefor. I congratulate him that he has not lost his sense of the dramatic. His knowledge of stage effect would compare with that of Sheridan himself. But I am afraid he does not judge aright the intelligence of this House, if he thinks that any member of the Parliament of Canada is going to call a thing a charge because he so denominates it. One may, of course, charge the Government and the Conservative party with being inferior in intelligence to the Liberal party and to the Government of the Liberal party, and he might clothe that charge with all th^ habiliments, all the trappings of great importance, and so endeavour to convince the public that he was making something in the nature of a charge involving the honour of a minister of the Crown. But surely he cannot so deceive the Commons of this country.
What has he done? Let us throw off some of the dressings; let us throw off some of the verbiage, and get down to the meat. Let us see what " charge " he actually does make against this Government, in respect of which he takes such a fearful responsibility on himself, a responsibility almost unprecedented in the history of Parliament, occurring only once in ten or twelve years, and by making which " charge " he places his own seat and his own reputation at stake.
He charges that we have a Shell Committee appointed by this Government. Surely it is appointed by this Government. In that respect the charge is true; he takes no risk in making that statement, because we have plainly stated so for over a year.
He charges that prices were fixed without competition, and were far in excess of what would necessarily be paid if ordinary business methods had been pursued, and, therefore, there have been wasted large sums of money, conservatively estimated at at least $80,000,000, which will be improperly taken from the people of the United Kingdom and of Canada. That is a charge all right; but I have sat in Parliament, I think, almost every day for seven years, and I do not think I ever sat here a day when I did not hear that charge, or some exactly similar charge, made on the floor of this House, that the Government had expended money where they should not have expended money, that they had paid too much for this or for that or for the other thing. Who
ever heard of an Opposition that was not charging that every day of its existence?
Then, he says that they gave large orders at excessive prices and without competition to companies in which members of the committee were largely interested, and of some of which companies members of the said committee were the directing heads. Is that a charge of fraud? He knows better than to call it so himself. He knows that, under the law of this country and of every country, even if what he says has a vestige of truth, you can deal with an incorporated company entirely irrespective of whether or not you yourself hold stock in it.
Furthermore, he charges that there has been great and unnecessary delay in the furnishing of completed shells for the use of Canadian and British forces at the front. Why, the Minister of Munitions in Great Britain admits that on behalf of the British Government. Is that a charge involving the honour of a Government?
Let me go a little further. Here is the most amusing thing of all: that the Shell Committee neglected and delayed, for an undue period of time, to provide the fuses necessary to render the shells effective. One would really think that we were firing off our shells in France without any fuses in them. One would think that we did not know that there had to be a fuse to fire a shell. As if those could not be made anywhere else than here, and as if in the arrangement at the War Office, involving, as it did, the whole of the Allies and the Empire as well, there was not some policy as to the distribution of the manufacture of the various parts of a shell. He charges that the Shell Committee,
-failing- to endeavour to provide for their construction in Canada, as they might have done, proceeded to give . and award through J. Wesley Allison, in the United States, contracts for fuses amounting to $22,000,000 on which they made an advance of $3,750,000.
That is the charge that is made. Call it whatever you like: call it a charge, or mere fault-finding, as the hon. member for Carle-ton denominated part of his own address, it involves nothing in the way of the honour of a member of the Shell Committee, let alone a member of the Government.
Then he goes on, and here is where what I might call the Pugsleyism of the hon. member for St. John comes in:
That the making of the said contracts through said Allison was unwise and improvident, and was entered into with the knowledge and connivance of the Minister of Militia, and the said Shell Committee failed to obtain delivery of said fuses for an unreasonable time. [DOT]

in any one of these companies? I ask him if he believes so.


Mr. CARVELL:: Does the hon. gentleman want an answer?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I made the statement
that he is an officer of one, and certainly I believe he is.


Arthur Meighen: I ask the hon. gentleman if he thinks he had any interest in any one of the three.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I say I do believe it.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman tell me where he inquired to find out?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: You go on and give us your side of it. You say you are going to give us the facts; let us hear them.


Arthur Meighen: He inquired where he inquires for everything; that is, he has resort tcf any newspaper that he can find, chiefly to the Liberal monthly, and if he fails to find support for his belief in any of them, he has resort to the-fathomless entity known as his imagination. Yes, I will give the facts. First of all I want to give the statement made (by the bon. gentleman to / show what he relied on and what he expected the House to accept as sufficient foundation for his assertion that when this committee gave contracts to any one of these three companies it gave contracts to General Bertram. He said that General Bertram is vice-president oi the John Bertram Company. That is cor rect. Then, he said that Mr. Henry Bertram is a' director of the Chapman Engine and Manufacturing Company, and that it is an allied company. He named all of the eight other directors but because Mr. Henry Bertram is a director of the company he claims that it is an allied company and consequently Sir Alexander Bertram is interested. Then he traces up the directors of the Chapman Engine and Manufacturing Company and finds that Mr. Pennington is a director of the Valley City Seating Company. Mr. Pennington is a director of the Valley City Seating Company and he is on the Chapman Engine and Manufacturing 'Company board. Then Mr. Henry Bertram is on the directorate of the Chapman 'company asjwell as on that of the John Bertram company, and therefore that is sufficient support in the mind of the hon. gentleman for the statement to

this House that because the Shell Committee gave contracts to eaeh one of these three companies it gave them to the chairman of the Shell Committee. Did anybody ever hear of an allegation against a man, public or private, resting upon a foundation like that? Does the hon. gentleman think that that was sufficient to found an allegation on before the Commons of this country? It everything he said was correct, it established no such conclusion, no part of such a conclusion, and it did not absolve him from putting himself in the position of being a reckless slanderer of public and private men. I make the assertion, which I have proof here to establish, that Sir Alexander Bertram has no beneficial interest in even the John Bertram Company, that he has no interest whatever in either of the other two, and that not one of the three has any relation to the other. I will weary the House to read the affidavit of Mr. George Williams with regard to this matter:
Province of Ontario, County of Wentworth, to wit:
I,	George W. Williams of the town of Dun-das, in the county of Wentworth and province of Ontario, make oath and say:
1.	That I am the manager and director of the Chapman Engine and Manufacturing Company, Limited, Dundas, Ontario, and have knowledge of the matters and things herein deposed to.
2.	That at the time the old Shell Committee placed with us orders for machining and assembling 18-pr. H.E. shells neither Sir Alexander Bertram nor any other member of the Shell Committee had any connection -with our company whatsoever, neither is he nor any other member of the committee connected with our company at the present time nor have they been at any time during the fulfillment of the orders above referred to.
3.	That at the time of receiving above mentioned orders our company was practically controlled by the Ontario Wind Engine and Pump Company, Limited Toronto, Ontario, who owned 500 shares preferred and 400 shares common stock of the total issue of 1,783 shares of the capital stock of the company.
4.	That at the time of the organization of our company Mr. Henry Bertram and Mr. J. D. Pennington were asked to become shareholders and officers of the company in order to make a convenient directorate and to give the company a certain amount of local standing.
5.	That Mr. Henry Bertram of the J. Bertram & Sons Company, Limited, Dundas, Ontario, in order to qualify as a director and officer of the Chapman Engine ond Manufacturing Company Limited purchased with each one share of the capital stock of the company.
6.	That Mr. J. D. Pennington of the Valley City Seating Company Limited, Dundas, Ont. in order to quality as a director and officer of the Chapman Engine and Manufacturing Company Limited, purchased with cash one share of the capital stock of the company.

7.	That the Chapman Engine and Manufacturing- Company, Limited was not at that time nor is at tho present time in any way connected with the J. Bertram & Sons Company, Limited, or the Valley City Seating Company, Limited.
Geo. Williams.
Sworn before me at the town of Dundas, in the county of Wentworth, this 13th day of March A.D., 1916.
John S. Fry,
J.P. in and for the county of Wentworth. So Henry Bertram, the brother, is the owner of one share in the Chapman Engine and Manufacturing Company, Limited.
I read the affidavit of Mr. Pennington, who, I am informed and believe-the source of my information is the hon. member for Wentworth (Mr. G. C. Wilson)-is a prominent Liberal of that constituency:
Province of Ontario, County of Wentworth, to wit:
I,	John D. Pennington, manufacturer, of the town of Dundas, Ontario, make oath and say:
1.	That I am president of the Valley City Seating Company, Limited, of Dundas^ Ontario, and have personal knowledge of the facts herein deposed to.
2.	That Sir Alexander Bertram, late chairman of the Shell Committee, has not nor has he ever had any financial interest in the said Valley City Seating Company, Limited.
3.	That none of the stock of the Valley City Seating Company, Limited, nor any securities of the said company are held by the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited, of Dundas, Ontario, or by any of its directors or officers.
4.	That neither the Valley City Seating Company, Limited, nor any of its officers or directors hold nor have they ever held any of the capital stock or other security of the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited.
5.	That there is no financial nor any other connection existing between the said Valley City Seating Company, Limited, and the said the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited, nor have the said companies ever been in anyway financially or otherwise connected.
J. D. Pennington.
Sworn before me at the town of Dundas, province of Ontario, this 13th day of March, 1916.
W. H. Moss.
J.P. in and for the county of Wentworth.
Then, I read the affidavit of Henry Bertram, which is the last:
Province of Ontario,
County of Wentworth,
To wit:
I, Henry Bertram, manufacturer, of the town of Dundas, Ontario, make oath and say:
1.	That I am secretary-treasurer of the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited, and have a personal knowledge of the facts herein deposed to.
2.	That Sir Alexander Bertram is vice-president of the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited.
3.	That the said Sir Alexander Bertram sold in the year 1905 his entire holdings of stock in the said company.
4.	That since the said year he has had no financial interest in the said the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited.
5.	That the stock book of the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited, shows the said Sir Alexander Bertram to be holder in trust of I share only of the capital stock of the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited.
6.	That this one share of stock is issued in the name of Sir Alexander Bertram for the -sole purpose of enabling him to act as a director of the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited.
7.	That no arrangement or agreement exists whereby any financial or other gain accrues to the said Sir Alexander Bertram from any of the profits of the said the John Bertram & Sons Company, Limited.
Henry Bertram.
Sworn before me at the town of Dundas, province of Ontario, this 13th day of March 1916.
John S. Fry, J.P.


William Pugsley: Did my hon. friend eee the report of the interview which Gen. Bertram gave before he left the country, in which he said he had an interest to the extent of one share in John Bertram & Sons, Limited, which share, as he said, he would not part with for 'all that the Shell Committee could give him?


Arthur Meighen: I presume he is going to keep that one share in the Bertram. family.


William Pugsley: He said he did not own any share but had one in trust.


Arthur Meighen: Might he not hold it in trust for his family?


William Pugsley: He does not say that.


Arthur Meighen: He says he holds it in trust-this one share of stock.


Robert Laird Borden: That is enough to justify the investigation.


Arthur Meighen: That is enough to justify the investigation. In the opinion of the hon. member for St. John, that share might be worth $1,000, or $10,000, or $1,000,000- who can tell?


William Pugsley: I said we do not know what it is worth.


Arthur Meighen: Time would be wasted to go any further in order to expose the utterly ridiculous, the almost insulting, character of the foundation upon which these gentlemen base their alleged charges. A million and a half of dollars went to those three companies, they say, and, by reason of this fatal one share in one of the companies, there ought to be an investigation into this very unpatriotic conduct



on the part of Sir Alexander Bertram- $1,500,000 out of what I believe is $380,000,000.
Well, we are not through with all of them yet; but I think that is 'Sir Alexander Bertram's family disposed of. I think the right hon. leader of the Opposition will admit that.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: No.


Arthur Meighen: We come now to Mr. George W. Watts, and, of course, some vicious misdemeanour had to be brought home to him; he had to be put in the same position as the others, of distributing favour's to himself. The hon. member for Carleton set about to see how best he could do it. He finds, of course, right away that Mr. Watts is, I think, works manager of the Canadian General Electric company, but in his look at the data that he got his eyes on somewhere, he finds, as he believes, that this Canadian General Electric company did not get any contract, and he says: "Well, that is hard,ly in line with my argument; I wonder how I am' going to get over that great difficulty;" and he devises a way to get over it, and this is his scheme. "Why," he says, "it is true that the Cana-' dian General Electric company did not get any contract but one small one, although Mr. Watts was connected with it, but the trouble is that it should have got them. "The Canadian General Electric Company" he says "is one of the largest 'and best companies in Canada; I have been doing business with it, and this is one of the companies that should have got contracts, and I arraign the Shell Committee because this company did not get any contracts." That is the charge he made in regard to the Canadian General Electric company. "Why," he says, "here is a company, not only one of the finest companies in Canada, but one that can make anything that any one in the world can make, one of the largest companies, including its parent company in the States, on this whole continent," and he finds serious cause of quarrel with the Shell Committee for daring to deny a contract to the Canadian General Electric company. That is how he undertook to get over the great difficulty that he thought he faced when he discovered that the Canadian General Electric company got practically no contracts, although Mr. Watts was. works manager. But he had to bring guilt home to Mr. Watts; and here is his language, as reported in Hansard:

I pass now to the next member of the committee, Mr. Watts, a gentleman whom X have never met, a gentleman with whom I have no quarrel whatever.
Just as he had no quarrel with any of them.
He is as modest as any of them; but he seems to he very closely identified with a firm of railway contractors who have been discussed in this House in the past to some extent, and with whom X have no great quarrel. I refer to the firm of Mackenzie & Mann. I find that the Universal Tool Steel Company, of which Sir Donald Mann is the president, the Hon. P. H. Phippen is secretary-treasurer, and Sir William Mackenzie, S. C. Wood, D. A. Cameron, William Clancy and Robert I. Henderson are the directors, received contracts amounting to $1,735,000 from the Shell Committee; and, as the list is not a very long one, I will give it to the House.
So he gives the list of contracts. Then he says further:
If one goes through the list of firms manufacturing shells, one will find plenty of mushroom companies throughout Canada able to take a contract for 10,000 shells at $5.70 each, and to buy the necessary machinery; but Mr. Watt's company-
This apparently becomes Mr. Watts's company at once, although he is not a director, and my hon. friend does not even allege him to be a shareholder; but, as he is closely connected with Mackenzie & Mann, therefore, according to my hon. friend, this is Mr. Watts's company.
-but Mr. Watt's company had to have a contract for 100,000 shells at the top-notch price.
Well, I have a letter from Mr. Watts, which I will read if the hon. gentleman wants it, in which he states that he has no connection, and never had any connection with Mackenzie, & Mann, and he says that he has no .connection with the Universal Tool Steel Company and never had. Sir William Mackenzie happened to be in the city to-day, and I asked him, and he said that Mr. Watts had never had any connection with Mackenzie & Mann in any character whatsoever. Nevertheless, according to the hon. member for Garleton, he is the man of the Universal Tool 'Steel Company, and consequently he gave himself $1,735,000 worth of orders. But let us inquire a little further. The Universal Tool Steel 'Company is the only example the hon. gentleman gave in the course of his speech of these " mushroom companies." He may know what a " mushroom company " is better than I do, but let me tell him what the Universal Tool Steel Company is. The hon. gentleman is on record as saying that it was organized to get these contracts and went right in for the shell business. As

a matter of fact, if he had gone to the Secretary of State's Department, he would have found out that this company was organized and got it's charter on 17th April,
1914,	some months before the war began. If it was organized for the purpose of getting contracts for shells, at least those who organized it had a better knowledge of the position of the British Empire in regard to war than had the hon. member for Carleton. But this company was organized to take over the Canadian Tool Steel Company, Limited, which had been doing a steel business for years. The capital was enlarged to take care of some process that had been discovered for the hardening of steel. Here was this old-time company, doing business for years, whose name was changed on 17th April, 1914, months 'before the war broke out, and this is the best example the hon. gentleman can give of this hideous nightmare of his, a " mushroom company."
Oh, but this General Electric Company- what a pity it did not get any contracts I thought I would make some inquiries. I knew this was a good company; we all know the Canadian General Electric, as a company long established in this country, one of our strongest industrial enterprises. I myself wondered that it had not got contracts, and could not see any reasons why it should not have got them ]f if wanted them. And I saw he quoted a com munication from the Shell Committee tc the British Government, to the effect that the Canadian General Electric would undertake to deliver 100,000 shells by 1st January.
1915.	That undertaking was given about the end of September, 1914. The hon gentleman laid stress upon the fact of this Canadian General Electric being ready to deliver 100,000 shells in the course of two or three months. They were not people to undertake what they could not do, and this showed that the shells were a very simple matter, and we should have had them earlier than we did. I made inquiries, and -will the House believe what I found to be the fact?-will the hon, member for Carle-ton believe it?-so far from not getting any orders, this Canadian General Electric got orders from the Shell Committee, or from the Munitions Board-mostly from , the Shell Committee-amounting to $10,749,440. Here is the Shell Committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Alexander Bertram, that commits the crime of giving a million and a half to three companies in which General Bertram has one share in trust, and the hon. gentleman complains of failure
110J
to give business to a concern which in fact received orders for over ten millions of dollars. One would think, and I must say, after investigating this matter-and the facts I bring before the House are from the Imperial Munitions Board, who, the hon. gentleman says, are all right-I actually came to the conclusion that the hon. member for Carleton had made it his ambition, if he did get access to these papers, to winnow out every grain of truth, and bring into this House only the dust and chaff.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Does the hon. gentleman allege that I got access to any documents belonging to the Munitions Board of the Shell Committee?


Arthur Meighen: I do not know what the hon. gentleman got access to.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I want my hon. friend, to answer my question.


Arthur Meighen: Did I say so?-no; if he had got access to the right facts he would . not have said what he did. But I charitably assumed that he did get them somewhere else. I think the man who gave the hon. gentleman the data he brought into this House must have had some grudge against him.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: .Would the hon. gentleman give the dates of the orders?


Arthur Meighen: I have the whole string here-they are thirty or forty, in number.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It would be interesting to have them.


Arthur Meighen: I do not wish to encumber my speech by reading them.


William Pugsley: Members cannot see the dates.


Arthur Meighen: They start on 6th October, 1914.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I gave one.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman said they got one single order for 25,000 shells, and that before they had hung around for a year. As a matter of fact, they got the third ord,er given by the Shell Committee, or it may have been the fourth. And, just while I am on that point: Here is a company that, according to the hon. gentleman, could manufacture anything and never fall down; the hon. gentleman has done business with them and knows all about them; they should have gotten orders. Why did they not get a chance to make

100.000	shells? Well, they got an order for
15.000	shells on 6th October. They had undertaken to deliver 100,000 by 1st January. How long did they take to deliver 15,000? They took just seven months. This, of course, indicates that they have not anybody in their employ as skilful mechanically as the hon. member for Carleton-he could make this shell with a little brass, a soldering-pot, and a hammer; all it is, he says, is a lump of steel with a hole in the middle and tapering at the nose. '
I must not omit to read the letter of Mr. Watts. It is addressed to Mr. R. B. Bennett, M.P.:
I notice in to-day's papers Mr. Carvell is reported to have stated in the House of Commons yesterday that I " was associated with Mackenzie & Mann interests/' This statement of his is incorrect, as I am not and never have been associated with Mackenzie & Mann interests.
There was another company which drew tears of sympathy from the hon. member from Carleton. The Dominion Iron and Steel company. Here is a company, he said, that should have got some business, and " they could not get a look-in." It is at page 1598 of Hansard that he wails bitterly at the treatment accorded this poor corporation:
I wonder 'if the fact that the great business competitor of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company happened to he the Nova Scotia Steel Company, the manager of which happened to be a member of this Shell Committee, had anything to do with it.
They never got a chance to do business, never got a look-in, until October or November, 1915.
I do not think the House would be surprised to know the facts in this matter. I am not sure whether the hon. member for Carleton will be surprised; he may have ascertained the facts since. At any rate, the facts are that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company had orders amounting to $4,100,000 in February, 1915. Does the hon. gentleman dispute that? I do not know what they got afterwards, but on February 20, 1915, they had orders to the amount that I have stated, about three times what the Bertram Company got altogether.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What was it for?


Arthur Meighen: $600,000 was for shrapnel shells-not for the whole shell, I think; simply for the steel of the shell. The rest was for some other part; I am not familiar with these mechanical terms. At all events, they were contracts from the Shell Committee; they were contracts just the same as others. The Nova Scotia Steel Company

got similar orders until February, I think. That is all they got till then; then they got orders for some shells.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Oh no.


Arthur Meighen: That is what the hon. gentleman put on Hansard; perhaps that is wrong, too. The presumption is that it is, although I had not time to go into all these things. I assumed some of them to be unimportant.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: On December 17, 1914,
$100,000, machining and assembling.


Arthur Meighen: That is what I thought, they did not get it at the first either.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: $25,000, machining and
assembling.


Arthur Meighen: The Dominion Iron
and Steel Company got orders of $600,000 and $3,500,000 in February, 1915. It has been suggested ito me that perhaps we ought to reserve our policy. We have now arrived at the startling discovery that the Nova Scotia Steel Company got its complete shell contract in December and that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company got theirs in February; surely that is a sufficient ground for investigation!
Complaint has also been made with regard to fuses. If there is one thing upon which hon. gentlemen on the other side oi the House are unanimous, it is that we have had awful treatment in the matter of the supplying of fuses. One could scarcely refrain from weeping in listening to the right hon. leader of the Opposition, who rallied all his eloquence in order to depict to the House the distressing condition of the British soldiers at the battle of the Marne. They were compelled, he said, not to follow up the victory; later they were compelled to stand still because, forsooth, we did not get fuses; we were making only these empty shells. In the first place, it is correct that the American Ammunition Company got a 'contract for fuses in June, 1915, for 1,666,666 of the graze fuses and 833,334 time fuses. One would think, listening to hon. gentlemen opposite, that just as soon as the Shell Committee was appointed they- had carte blanche from the British Government to buy anything that they wanted in the way of munitions of war One would think that all they had to do was to write cheques on the British treasury and buy munitions of war at any time, of any kind, quality and description thdy liked. Does it not appear to hon. gentlemen that it is altogether likely that the British

War Office exercised some control over what this committee bought? Harve hon. gentlemen any evidence that this committee had power to buy fuses before June? Oh, they say, they did not try; there is no evidence to show that they even tried. I tell hon. gentlemen that there is. The Minister of Militia is on Tecord in the House some timfe ago-and this was read to the hon. member for Carleton by his own leader- as saying that as early as 1914 he or the Shell Committee, had tried to impress upon the British [Government the fact that we could mate fuses in this country. They endeavoured to do this, but without success, and it was not until the end of the month of April that they were able to persuade the British Government that we could make fuses successfully in Canada. Up to that time I do not know whether the United States had made any fuses or not. The battle Of the Marne, if I remember rightly, took place in August or September, 1914, so that it would be pretty hard for the Shell Committee, having obtained authority at the end of April, 1915, to help out the soldiers of Britain at the battle of the Marne in August, 1914. What did they do after they got that authority? Mr. 'Carnegie, who was over there at Christmas, 1914, endeavoured to impress them with the fact that we could make fuses here. They let the first contract the first or second day of June, 1915. Shortly afterwards, early in August, they let another contract for 500,000 fuses to the Russell Company of Canada. They let the contract to tlie American Ammunition Company on the basis-I think my figures are correct-of $4.50 for the time fuse and $3.72| for the graze fuse. The hon. gentleman	says that the
price of the latter was $4, but a deduction for loading, which was not done by the holder of the contract, makes the price I3.72J. Two months later they let a contract to the Russell Company at a price averaging $3.50 for the graze fuse or $3.36 without loading. The Russel] Company did not until recently contract to make the time fuse. The British Government have always maintained that the making of both fuses, the time fuse particularly, is a matter of great technicality and of great difficulty and responsibility. However, it will be seen that there was no moTe than what was in all probability necessary delay in conducting the negotiations preparatory to entering into these contracts. I do not know that it is surprising that in a few
months the prices dropped. * I do not know but what the first prices may have beers too large. It may have been that some mistake was made. I should be surprised -yes, I should be amazed, for it would, have been utterly incredible-if any committee conducting operations of so oolossa] a character in so brief a time-operations of a business character, which were entirely or for the most part new to them- and not commit errors, not make- unwise and improvident expenditures. There never was a committee on the face of the world, there never was a business enterprise on the face of the world that under such circumstances would not make unwise and improvident expenditures, just as is charged by the hon. member for St. John.
It is complained-at least, this is the burden of the charge of the right hon. leader of the Opposition-that while others fight we lag; that no fuses were delivered. The right hon. gentleman arraigned the Shell Committee-and the Government'because the Empire suffered on account of the awful delay in the delivery of fuses. No fuses, he says, were delivered or have yet been delivered by this American company. The hon. member for Carleton was not satisfied with making that statement once; he came along with it every time he got on the fus6 subject. Why, he said, they never could make fuses; they did not intend to make fuses, and they have not delivered any; so far as the delivery of fuses by the American company was concerned, the British Empire might be smashed to pieces. We still wait, the hon. gentleman says, and we have not the fuses. Then, he says, the Russell company got a contract of 500,000 fuses in August and they delivered about
50,000	fuses. I have considerable confidence in .the Russell company. I have a great deal of confidence in Mr. Russell, and I should be jthe last to say- a word against the Russell Company or against its management. However, I do recollect that the very men who are now holding the Russell Company up as a paragon of business virtue -these very men, when it suited their political purposes, lampooned Mr. Russell and the Russell Company and held them up as to be avoided in the business world, as men who were profiteering at the expense of the country. I am -consistent in my belief in the integrity of Mr. Russell and his company. Mr. Russell and I were boys together, and I think my admiration for him is as genuine and perhaps a little more consistent than that of the hon. member

for Carleton. They have delivered about
50,000	fuses on their 500,000 contract. They aTe delivering now; I see they are doing very well. The contract in respect of which they have made deliveries was given to them by the Shell Committtee, not by the Munitions Board. They have got one from the Munitions Board, hut in respect to that they have made no deliveries. However, they are delivering, and I believe the fuses they are delivering are for the very substantial part made in this country. Of that I am glad and proud. But where are these hon. gentlemen when they make their comparisons? On what authority do they tell this House that the American company have made no deliveries? They should have made inquiries. It was stated in the House some weeks ago, at all events back in the old Parliament chamber, that they had made no deliveries. That was stated by the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham), and I disputed it and told him that deliveries had been made. Consequently they were put on their guard. Why did they not make some inquiries and secure information that would warrant them in making a statement of the character they did on the floor of this House? As a matter of fact, the American Ammunition Company have delivered 417,000 fuses in pursuance of that, contract, and are delivering right along.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Would the hon. member tell us how many fuses the American company delivered, say in the third week in January, when the matter was under discussion in the old House of Commons?


Arthur Meighen: I cannot tfell what they delivered in the third week of January; but I do know that they delivered practically 400,000 fuses when the hon. gentleman spoke in this House on the 9th of March, and when he stated that they had never delivered any fuses. One would think that the ambition of the hon. member was never to be satisfied until he reached the very perfection of error in all that he stated to this House on that subject. I have not yet got to the worst. There was not / a phase of the subject that the hon. gentleman discussed in reference to which he did not, one would think almost of intent, tumble into every pitfall and every blunder that lay along his path. Then he comes to this House and says: "These are specific facts," and he so thunders it out that one can scarcely fail to have a pallor pass over his cheek; and on the authority of the hon. member for

Carleiton the hon. member for St. John makes these heartrending "charges" on the floor of Parliament to-day. In regard to fuses, it may just as well be stated here that not only have the American Ammunition Company delivered 417,000 graze fuses, of the . kin4 they are assumed to make, but also some thousands of time fuses as well. They have manifested their ability to deliver both. They have not delivered very many of the time fuses yet, and I have reason to believe there is complaint as to the speed with which they are fulfilling their contract, that they are behind, and that some of the contracts have been cancelled. But I have absolute confidence in the present Munitions Board, believing that the interests of the Empire will be well guarded by them, and that this /company will be held to their contract, so far as the interests of the country can be served by doing so.


William Pugsley: No doubt they will do much better than the old Shell Committee.


Arthur Meighen: No doubt they will do much better than the old, Shell Committee?
I am now coming to a phase of this question which is very amusing in relation to that remark. My hon. friend from Carle-ton complains bitterly of the politics that entered into the actions of this Shell Committee; and yet every single fact that he adduced in support of this charge was an act committed by the Imperial Munitions Board. So the hon. member for St. John is now authority for the statement-if I establish what I have undertaken to establish-that the Imperial Munitions Board have been guilty of the politics charged by the hon. member for Carleton against the Shell Committee, but that. the Board are doing much better than the Shell Committee. For myself, I not only believe, but I am thoroughly convinced, and I believe hon. gentlemen opposite are also, that there was no politics either in the Shell Committee or in the Imperial Muni-/ tions Board, and that it would take them a long while to establish in the mind of any hon. gentleman on this side of the House who came in contact, just as hon gentlemen opposite did, with the Shell Committee, that there was any favouritism shown there-at all events to friends of ours.
I can remember, when I was on my feet before on this subject, that I threw a challenge out to the hon. member for Carleton.
I told him that for every company or person

associated with the Conservative party who-got a contract from the Shell Committee that he would name, I would name one associated with the Liberal party. He has talked nine hours on the subject since, but he has kept strictly away from that phase of the question, or even from attempting to answer that challenge. Now he tells us that members went there and interfered- that he is ready to name two, or three, or four who went to the Shell Committee and interfered. I challenge him again, and 1 undertake to say that for every one he will name of our friends who went there I will name, not one of his, because there are not as many of his, but I will go to the length of his number, and I will name members of the Liberal party who went to the Shell Committee and interfered in just the same way as did anybody on this side of the House.
While on this phase of the subject let me make a recommendation to the right hon. leader of the Opposition. He has heard all these discourses of my hon. friend from Carleton-how much he can do with a hacksaw, a hammer, and a piece of copper. I recommend that the leader of the Opposition take the hon. member for Carleton to the Imperial kjunitions Board and introduce him to that board, and tell them of the great services this hon. gentleman could render to his country if they would only put him to work making shells or munitions. I recommend his just doing as he did for his constituent from Arthabas-kaville; and he -could say ito the Munitions Board that the great value of the services he would render would consist, not in what he was going to do so -much as in .ceasing to what he has already done, to the great disservice of his country.
Now I come to these alleged political acts. The hon. member has not so much objection to the large contracts given. He thinks it is all right to feed the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, the Nova Scotia Steel Company, and the Canadian General Electric. These are great 'big -companies and they are, -according to him, the people who ought to get ithe business. He is -quite satisfied of that. He has fixed on the Liberal party, so far as he can fix it on them, the policy of giving the munition business to the trusts o-f Canada and failing to take into -consideration that we need the support and co-operation of the whole people of this -country, and not just of the jarge concerns of the Dominion, in this w-ar. He does excuse one of them. The
Nova Scotia Steel Company got $15,000,000 of orders. He has no complaint to make on that ground, and it is really amusing
as he runs over his -charges. Mr Bertram is the hardened sinner, of course, and Mr. Watts next in order; but when he got to Mr. Thomas Cantley, did any one notice the soft pedal he turned on? Mr. Thomas Cantley's Company, he says, got $15,000,000 worth of orders, but the hon. member has nothing to say against Mr. Cantley. He has had an interview, I rather suspect with the hon. member for Pi-ctou (Mr. Macdonald), and as a consequence he comes here, and says: " Cantley is not to blame at all; Cantley was in England all this time, and had not a thing to do with the orders to the Nova Scotia Steel Company, so we may as well eliminate Cantley from the discussion-although he was pointed out to-day by the hon. member for St. John as the chief sinner, because, forsooth, he was manager and had the control of the company that got the order. In this investigation, what are we 'to assume-that the hon. member for St. John is right, or the hon. member for Carleton? The hon. member for St. John says that the hardened sinner is Mr. Cantley, and the hon. member for Carleton says that Mr. Cantley is not to blame at all. Whose charge are we to investigate? I have no criticism to make of Mr. Cantley. There has not been a tittle of evidence brought -before me that Mr. Cantley took any undue advantage of his position to benefit his company. There has not been a suggestion of evidence of that by hon. gentlemen opposite. I have believed Mr. Cantley to be an honourable man-; I believe his company to be a credit to Canada, but he is just in the -same position as the other men lampooned by the hon. member for St. John and the hon, member for Carleton.
As to Mr. Carnegie, -and the company of which he is a director, it has not been shown that he has any substantial interest, and I have not had the time to find out whether he has or not, though one would suppose he had some interest in the company of which he is a director; but Mr. E. Carnegie is perhaps the only man in Canada who had previous experience of shell making, and Mr. Cantley was a member of the committee that was initially formed to provide, through the companies with which they were connected, in one way or another, those first orders of shells for the Government.

These are the men who were formed into a committee for that purpose initially. They made themselves financially responsible for the delivery of those shells; they were appointed because they knew the shell business, because they were the best men that appeared to he available for the purpose of acting on behalf of the British Government in the purchase of shells in Canada. " Oh," says the right hon. leader of the Opposition, " what I charge against you is this: It was right that you should appoint a committee; that was all right; but you should not have appointed men engaged in the steel business; you should not have appointed men who knew the steel business; there is where you made your great blunder, because they would likely be competitors for the business afterwards." I think they were the only men we would have been justified in appointing. The committee was appointed to supply the goods, and to deal with other men who would undertake to supply them. Who would be competent tfe deal with steel men, and to drive bargains with them in regard to supplying steel for munitions, if not men who knew the steel business, and knew all the secrets and tricks of the trade. My right hon. friend .says: "You should have appointed somebody else." If we had done so, we could have shielded ourselves behind the example of the right hon. gentleman himself when he was head of the Government; we could have appointed lawyers and politicians and members of Parliament and every other class of men except. those who knew the business which they were appointed to do. We could then have justified
11 p.m. ourselves by the precedent which he established. He appointed a commission to build the Transcontinental railway, and he chose a lawyer to build it and a politician out of the House of Commons and a box maker. We should not, he says, appoint a man who makes steel as a member of a committee who are to produce and supply steel to the British Government; we should follow the example of the leader of the Opposition and appoint a man who makes corsets instead.


Wilfrid Laurier: Whom did
you appoint on the Munitions Board?


Arthur Meighen: On the Munitions
Board there are still manufacturers of
steel.


William Pugsley: Who is the chairman?


Arthur Meighen: The feature that was
most in mind necessarily at first is no longer the most prominent feature of the work. They are now experienced in the work they have to do. It has become a great business which has to be presided over by a man of large financial grasp. It is on longer a business where the only work is to deal with steel men, and to have- the expert knowledge necessary to deal with them. But there are steel men on it still. Most of the men my hon. friends are complaining about are on it still. How comes it that on the first committee, the Shell iCom-mittee, they were all wrong, but on the Munitions Board they are all right? Mr. Bertram is on the Board, Mr. D. 'Carnegie is on it still, and I think there are one or two others who were on the old committee that are on the Munitions Board, but I am not 'sure. At all events those I have mentioned are there still.
I now come to deal with the political end, and I am going to quote, as I deal with it, a paragraph from the speech delivered by the hon. member for Carleton on March 9. He said he had come to the worst feature of the whole thing, namely the attempt to use politics, the political end of the game which the Shell Committee had played; and here is the way in which he exposed the iniquity of the political end to the House. He went over a list of ten companies, and I ask the House to approach this phase of the -subject with care. The hon. member for Carleton read a list of ten companies which he said had got orders. First, he described them as mushroom companies, but throughout the whole of his nine hours' speech he did not show that a single company was -a mushroom company, nor has he shown that there would have been anything wrong or detrimental to the public interest in men who knew the work getting together to do the work to provide munitions for the War Office, even though a company was formed for that purpose. At all events, he has not shown that a single company belonged to that class. He opens his paragraph on the political end thus:
I find that the Dominion Harvester Company, of Medicine Hat, were able to get an order for 10,000, and up to a month ago they had not le-li\ered a single shell. The International Supply Company, of Medicine Hat, got an order for 10,000 and not a shell has been delivered. The Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works, of Winnipeg, got an order for 20,000, and not a shell has been delivered.
I ask the House to note this interruption:

Mr. Hanna:	What is the date of those
orders?
Mr. Ca'rvell:	I could not say exactly ; it was
during the summer of 1915. I am only giving these to show the political end of the transaction.
There is no doubt as to what he was trying to say; he was trying to bring home to the Shell Committee the guilt of utilizing their office to distribute patronage among manufacturers for political purposes, to the detriment of the nation, in that they never supplied the goods. That was his object. I have read the names of three companies that he enumerated, and I am going to go through the whole ten in order to see how he brought home this -charge of guilt to the Shell Committee.
There was an order given to the Dominion Harvester company. It will be recalled that the Shell Committee went out of office on the 30th day of November, 1915, and that since that date the Munitions Board has been in control, and the Shell Committee is no more. It is necessary to keep that in mind, because the hon. member for Carleton rested his attempt to bring home to the Shell Committee, who were all wrong, not, of course, to the Munitions Board, who are, he said, all right, the guilt of distributing political patronage to people who never supplied shells at all. The Dominion Harvester company, to which he refers first, got an order, he says, for 10,000, and none had been delivered up till a month ago. Does he know when they got the order? The hon. member for South Lanark (Mr. Hanna) asked him that question on the floor of the House, and he said it was in the summer of 1915. The fact is that they got that order on the 12th day of January, 1916, from the Munitions Board. Does he complain that the shells have not been, delivered? Was his charge anything but a libel against the Dominion Harvester Company? If he does complain, how does he come to blame the Shell 'Committee, who were out of existence for a month before that order was given?
We pass from the Dominion Harvester Company. The International Supply company got an order, he says, for 10,000, and not a shell had been delivered. Here is another example, according to my hon. friend, of the political end of the business of the Shell Committee. The International Supply Company did get their order for
10,000	shells, but it was on the 12th day of January, 1916, from the Munitions Board, and not from the Shell 'Committee at all. The 'Shell Committee had nothing to do
with it. One of these companies-I will not say which, -because 1 would not like to be wrong-has had its order cancelled since by the Munitions Board for failure to deal fairly with its employees.
Then we come to the third one. We have passed the other two, -and I am sure the hon. 'member is proud of the charges he is levelling against these Ebusiness concerns in Canada and against the Shell Committee, that had nothing to do with them. The Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works are next. The hon- gentleman says that they got an order for 20,000 shells and that not a shell has -been delivered. He had hardly taken his seat until the answer to this libel was hurled at his head in a telegram from the Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works themselves and he was compelled to admit on the floor of Parliament next day that so far from having stated the truth, the actual truth was that that company had had three orders, that the first two they had delivered in full and on 'time, that the third was only given recently and that it would be delivered on time as well. That company has already delivered 47,880 shells, and that is the company which, he says, has not delivered any. Its last order for 20,000 shells was given on the 28th January, 1916, and therefore he brings home guilt to the Shell Committee which went out of office on the 30th November, in the year before," because in giving this contract to the Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works, they were distributing political patronage. The hon. gentleman made a statement in the House -he had. often made it before-as to what he was ready to do and to be interesting I am going to read that statement. He was going to apologise. Here is what he said:
It is true that sometimes we have a lot of difficulty in getting- information and possibly we might not be right exactly to a cent, but I am sufficiently assured of the facts that I am going to read to the House to stake my reputation as a member of that-
I congratulate the hon. gentleman that he did not make the stake any higher.
-if you will give me a committee I will prove them to the hilt or apologize to this House and to the committee and say that I did not know what I am talking about.
In fulfilment ol that contract, it is the duty of the hon. gentleman, in respect to these three companies to which I have already alluded, to admit that he did not kn-ow what he was talking -about and to apologize to the House and to the country. I wait with considerable interest, but with

more interest than hope, to see whether he does so. Well, I pass on to the other seven.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Get up; get up.


Auguste-Charles-Philippe-Robert Landry: Order.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Give us the committee and we will show you.


Arthur Meighen: Now he wants a committee so that he will have a chance to apologise. Having got through with the Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works, I come to the Manitoba Shell Company of St. Boniface. He says they got an order for
10.000	shells, and that none of them have been delivered. They got an order for
10.000	shells, and when did they receive it? -in December, 1915, almost a month after the Shell Committee went out of existence. That is the position of that company, and of course this is another nail in the coffin of the Shell Committee, and a bringing home of the charge that they used their position to distribute political patronage. Now I come to No. 5. The Transcona Shell Company of Winnipeg, he says, got an order for 250,000 shells and nothing delivered. The Transicona Shell Company did get orders for 250,000 shells, hut, so far from having delivered nothing, they have delivered 28,530 shells, and the order fox
200.000	shells was not received until the 4th January, 1916. Perhaps there should be an investigation, but it is not into the Shell Committee. The hon. member for Carleton possibly knows where the investigation is most required. Then, the Vulcan Iron Works are the next offenders. The Vulcan Iron Works Company is a firm, I do not know how large, but of long standing in this country, doing business in Winnipeg when I went there in 1898, and I believe for many years before. That is the next company that comes in for castigation and lampooning at the hands of the hon. member for Carleton.' They got an order for
20.000	shells, and nothing delivered. Well, they got orders for 50,425 shells, and they have already delivered 46,416, and the
20.000	order was not given until the 4th January, 1916. Another apology from the hon. gentleman !
These facts were just as accessible to him as to me. He could get them to-day or to-morrow or any other day, and he has been told that by members of the Government repeatedly. The members of the Munition Board are ready to give any member of Parliament these facts. They do not feel justified in exposing to the country prices

and other matters connected with the resources of the country, but they are ready in regard to these matters to take any member of Parliament into their confidence and reveal to him any facts to which he feels that as a member he has a right.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I wish to state to the
hon. gentleman that within a month I received from the hon. the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Hazen) a copy of a letter purporting to be from the Chairman of the Munitions Board-I do not have it with me-practically refusing me all the information which my hon. friend is now speaking about .


Arthur Meighen: I do not fully know the contents, of that letter. I am disposed to think-I may be wrong-that the letter stated that if the hon. member would go to the committee he would get the facts.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I will go to the committee.


Arthur Meighen: But they do object to
stating it in writing. At all events, the hon. gentleman can go and get such facts as he desires. He has just as much right to those facts as any other hon. member of this House and will have just as little difficulty in getting them. The Western Shell Committee, he says, got an order for 300,000 shells and not a shell delivered. The fact is that the Western Shell Committee has delivered 198,178 shells. I am of opinion that this Western Shell Committee is a committee of the different factories out there who are doing the work, and while I do not wish to say positively, I have been inclined to believe that this represents other orders, and [DOT]that to count these with the others would mean to count the others twice. However, of [DOT]the orders for 300,000 shells, 198,178 have been delivered.
That concludes the hon. gentleman's allegations as regards the three Prairie Provinces. The bon. member for Carleton, of *course would not give any contracts to those provinces at all. He would *confine his operations to the big trust? in the East. He would ignore the smaller factories everywhere. That is the inevitable conclusion from his argument. He said so in so many words: "Here is the way they have done; here is the way they have lived up to their contract!"-and on the strength of that he libels them before the people of this country and before tin? world. The Vancouver Engineering Works, he says, got an order for 340,000 shells, of which they have

delivered 39,000. They got orders for 30,000, for 15,000 back in the summer, and for 40,000 in October, 1915. Instead of their only having delivered 39,000, they have delivered 66,442, and finally the last two contracts were only made, one on October 8 and one on October 18. These contracts were made under the eye of the British representative, Mr. Thomas, made while he was here, and in fact directing the work of the Shell Committee. Was Mr. Thomas a party to the distribution of political patronage? Over and over again the hon. member for Carleton says in his address:	"Is it
any wonder that the British Government sent out a representative to investigate those things?" It seems never to have occurred to his mind that the very things of which he was complaining were done after the British iGovernment had sent out their representative.
Victoria Machinery Depot of Victoria. I
think this is in the same position as the Western Shell Committee, that is to say, an organization representing those that supply shells. They got an order, he says, for 220,000 and only about 10,000 have been delivered. There have been 12,684 delivered, but the point of the thing is this, that the order for
200.000	shells was obtained on the 18th day of October, 1915, just a little while before the Shell Committee went out of existence, while the British representative himself was here and while every contract was made under his very eye and with his approval.
The Vulcan Iron Works of New Westminster is the last of the ten. He complains because they got orders for 150,000 and only about 35,000 have been delivered. He is wrong as to that, because they have not delivered that many, but it would, of course, be inconsistent on the part of the hon. gentleman to be right, even were the correct figures in his favour. He seems to have made up his mind to have the facts all wrong on one side or on the other. I do not know whether that company has delivered any-my note is not complete in that regard-but they obtained an order for
150.000	on the 19th day of October, 1915; that is to say, they too obtained their order while the Shell Committee had the British representative amongst them, and while he himself was supervising and approved all the work and all the orders.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Will my hon. friend
state now the number of the deliveries that have been made up to a month from the time that I was speaking? because, if he will refer to page 1628 of Hansard, the first
reference I made to those ten companies was as follows:
I find that the Dominion Harvester Company,
of Medicine Hat, were able to get an order for 10,000, and up to a month ago they had not delivered a single shell.


Arthur Meighen: That is exactly what I read, as said by the hon. member for Carleton in respect of the Dominion Harvester Company, but he did not say that in respect of a single other company. But here is the point of the whole affair: the Dominion Harvester Company got its order on the 12th of January, 1916. In the name of common sense how much would my hon. friend expect them to have delivered a month ago?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Will my hon. friend give the information as to what deliveries had been made up to a month ago?


Arthur Meighen: In almost all the cases the orders were given only a few weeks before a month ago. My hon, friend does not, except in respect of that one company, use the words "up to a month ago" when he says that they had not delivered any shells. Why does he seek to modify his language now? but, modify it now as he will, it does not substantiate to the millionth part of a minute any single charge he has made. If they had not made any deliveries up to that time, is that a charge against the Shell Committee, which did not distribute 75 per cent of the orders of which he complained, and which, in regard to the other 25 per cent, distributed them under the eye and under the supervision and approval of Mt. Thomas himself? I was going to say that is a narrow hole to try to get out of, but it is not a hole at all; it is closed absolutely. If the hon. gentleman wants to comply with his contract, he has nothing left to him to do but to apologize to the House at the first opportunity. Why, he says, nothing delivered up to a month ago! The Dominion Harvester Company got a contract on the 12th day of January, 1916-it is an awful thing that they had not delivered anything up to a month ago ! "The Canada Cement Company," he says, "is the company that you should have dealt with and that could have delivered shells." Is my hon. friend aware that the Canada Cement Company took a contract on the 2nd day of November, 1915, and, in respect of part of the contract has not even the plant in yet and has not delivered a shell in respect of any part of the contract?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Does my hon. friend want an answer to that question, because he put his remark in the form of a question? I

am aware that the Canada Cement Company did not agree to furnish the forgings for the first part of their contract; they did agree to furnish the forgings for the second part.


Arthur Meighen: That is right.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: They are and have been for some three weeks ready to go on machining shells, but the parties who are responsible for producing the forgings have not done so, and, that is the reason why the Canada Cement Company has not furnished shells.


Arthur Meighen: All the same, why does the hon. gentleman not tell the whole of the truth while he is at it? The Canada Cement Company, when they put in their tender for those shells in relation to which they did not have to supply the forgings, stated that they expected to have the plant ready by the 15th of January, or two and a half months after the contract was let, and, as a matter of fact, they got it ready to commence work in February; that is to say, it took them-I am not making any complaint against them because it is a large plant and would necessarily take a long time to make ready-three months to get ready one plant in relation to one part cf the contract, and in relation to the other part they have not the plant ready yet. Nevertheless, my hon. friend complains that the Dominion Harvester Company had not delivered a month ago shells for which they got the contract on the 12th of January of this year, and he holds up the Canada Cement Company as the company that we ought to have dealt with, and that would have saved the lives of the soldiers at the front.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: They are making 9-2 shells, while the others are only making 18-prs.	[DOT]


Arthur Meighen: No, they are not making any at all; they will be making 3.2's later, and doubtless their plant is heavier than that of the other companies. I have not the slightest doubt that the Canada Cement Company are putting the plant down as fast as possible; I believe they have a careful manager; and, further than that, I know it is a fact that, in relation to this order, the Shell Committee were not in a position to let it until very shortly before they did, and, in relation to the other, the correspondence will show that no complaint was made by them against the company at all, but complaint
rMr. Car-veil.]
was made because they were not in a position to get orders of the size and extending over the period for which the Canada Cement Company wanted orders in order to deliver the shells at the price quoted. Any one who has the slightest conception of business knows that a large concern, provided that they can get a large contract extending over a long period' of time, can undertake to deliver at a much cheaper rate than can a smaller concern which has not so large a contract; and a small concern, if it could be arranged with them that they would have all they could make within a year or two years, could make the prices considerably lower than they could in the absence of such an agreement. But the Shell Committee were not in a position to deal without reference to the British Government. They did deal after reference to the British Government, and they gave their contracts under their direction and every price in every instance was approved before a contract was let. Yet we are asked by the hon. member for Carle-ton and the hon. member for St. John to sit in arrogant judgment over the work of the British Government and to tell.them that they know nothing about the price they ought to pay for shells.
I had no thought of detaining the House to so late an hour. I think I have pursued the assertions made by the hon. member for Carleton from end to end of his remarks. I do not know' of anything that I have omitted.	.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: You have not referred
to prices yet.


Arthur Meighen: I think I have referred to prices, have I not?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have not heard it.


Arthur Meighen: I think so, but I did
set out to say this, that I was not going to add to the injury that the hon. member had done to this country by exposing to the people of the world what the British Government do not want revealed. I am going to keep my contract whether the hon. gentleman keeps his or not. I do not pro-PQse to share with him the guilt that he already has brought upon his own head.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The hon. gentleman is not likely to talk prices.


Arthur Meighen: 
Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Go on now.


Arthur Meighen: I have said where I will go and where I will stop, and the hon. gentleman shall not persuade me to go further. What does the .hon. gentleman *care? He is ready to sit in judgment on the British Government or any other authority so long as he can bring a little of this counterfeit glory around his own head, and rail and rage and rant before the House -of Commons or make a pyrotechnic display before a committee of the House. These hon. :gentlemen do not want a commission. The hon. member for Carleton is on record more than once as saying they do not want a judge looking into this thing, but what they want is a committee. Why do they not want a commission? I will tell you- it is because they do not want a verdict. All these hon. gentlemen want is a chance to do what they are doing and have been *doing for the last month, under cover of a supposed truce-they want to take stray portions of the evidence, leaving out the contradictions, qualifications, modifying explanations, to take stray portions of the evidence, though these may have been *demonstrated to be false, and scatter broadcast throughout the provinces this poisonous political garbage. That is the policy of these hon. gentlemen.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: With the permission of the hon. gentleman I would ask one question before he leaves the point about these western companies. I would like him to look over his notes and see if it is not a fact that the Dominion Harvester Company, of Medicine Hat, received an order for 20,000 shells early in 1915 of which they had not delivered a shell when they got their second order in 1916.


Arthur Meighen: I presume that somebody has sent that to the hon. member. It is not in my notes; there is a note that the Dominion Harvester Company delivered some through the Alberta Foundry and Machine Company as sub-contractors. I do not know whether or not that is what he refers to. At all events, the order of which he complains was given at that later time.
The hon. gentleman is very anxious about the matter of prices. I know enough about that matter to know that for the House of Commons to pass the resolution he supports would be as manifest and blazing folly, having regard to the interest not only of Canada but of this Empire, as was ever perpetrated in a deliberative assembly. I know that whatever prices were made were made by the British Government, without dictation, without suggestion, without supervision, and, consequently, without responsibility, on the part of this Government. I know that the responsible Government for the prices is the Government of Great Britain; and if it is felt by the British people or the British Government that errors were made, and if they will either make an investigation themselves or ask us to make it, we will hasten to comply with their request in whatever form it takes. And no one would be more pleased than myself to receive that request. For, one thing it will do is to remove imputations from the heads of men in this country who have no right to bear those imputations at the hands of hon. gentlemen opposite; and another thing it will do is to bring home to the hon. member for Carleton and the hon. member of St. John the fact that they stand, and have stood since they made these charges, as *profligate and abandoned slanderers.


Wilfrid Laurier: Order.


Auguste-Charles-Philippe-Robert Landry: Order.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Let him go on, Mr. Speaker; it does not hurt- anybody.


Auguste-Charles-Philippe-Robert Landry: I would remind the hon. member (Mr. Meighen) that -such language is offensive and unparliamentary.


Arthur Meighen: be conveyed, and I know that if I did that I should be guilty of an offence of which I should not like to be guilty. I have Eound the leader of the Opposition a very fair debater. I did not intend to convey a wrong impression of what he said, and I did not do so. I did leave out something at the beginning and something at the end. I do not know of any way of making an extract except by leaving out something at the beginning and at the end. But I did not leave out anything which modified the view expressed by him in what I quoted. The view he expressed was that, in regard to the motion for the production of papers bearing on transactions made by departments of his Government with the British Government, he would not be justified in granting it, nor would he be justified in referring it to a special committee. He said he would not refer it even to the Public Accounts Committee. He went on to say that if charges were made against the Government, then he would give an investigation. The charges he referred to were charges involving the honor of a minister of the Crown. If such charges had been made here, then it would have been my bounden duty to quote that portion of his speech, because it would have modified the view he expressed in relation to the point I was arguing. But no such charges were made then, as no charges are made now, against the Government, of the nature he meant- and he will not deny he meant charges of that nature, for if he does I can show that that is what he must have meant. Consequently, the remarks I left out had no relation to the point discussed either then or now. He refused in that case even to produce the papers, because he said they related to the conduct of a department of his Government acting for the British Government. I stated that he could not consistently refuse that then, and now say that we should grant an investigation in regard to the conduct of a committee, not a department of the Government at all, nor could he argue, even if they were a department of the Government, that we should grant an investigation. For, even had they been a department of the Government, we would have been in exactly the same position as he was in at that time. I think he was wrong at that time, and that the present Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) was right. The war, being over, and the work having been done by a department of the Government, he should have brought down papers. But he refused to do so. I did not then try, and I do not try 
now, to shelter myself or the Government behind the precedent he then established. I think that precedent was wrong. I say that he certainly could not consistently take that position then, and take his present position now. In quoting what I did I quoted everything that bore in the slightest degree upon the argument that I had or upon the argument that was sought to be made by the hon. gentleman himself. I quoted everything that bore in the slightest degree upon the point that was under discussion; the rest bore on another point altogether, upon a subject which did not enter into consideration of the facts at that time and does not enter into consideration of the facts now. I make these remarks only because the leader of the Opposition went pretty far when he said that I had garbled what he said. He did not, however, go so far as certain newspapers have since gone in endeavouring to interpret his remarks. I do not want to be guilty in this House of garbling the remarks of any hon. gentleman; if I cannot argue fairly, I prefer not to argue at all. I may have spoken very strongly with regard to the conduct of the hon. member for Oarleton and of the hon. member for St. John, but they have repeatedly in this House of Commons made assertions in regard to the truth of which they had made no adequate investigation. On the basis of assertions of this kind they have hurled recklessly at the head of various citizens in this country and at the heads of members of the Government-which is not so important a matter- charges of the most reckless and most damaging kind. I do not Relieve that such practice comports with the dignity of Parliament, and I propose whenever it is done to use language as strong as I can, within the rules of Parliament, to rebuke it. I have no personal animosity against these hon. gentlemen; I do believe that I have done no more than my duty as a member of this House in describing, in the only fit language that can be used, the conduct of which they have been guilty in regard to the motion that is before the Chair.
On motion of Mr. F. F. Pardee (West Lambton), the debate was adjourned.


Wilfrid Laurier: What business to-morrow?


Robert Laird Borden: The Budget.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: The Budget
resolutions?


Sir THOMAS WHITE:: The tariff resolutions and the new taxation resolutions.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the House adjourned at 11.41 p.m.

Wednesday, March 15, 1916.