1916-05-12

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair.
Railways and Canals-chargeable to income -Grand Trunk Pacific Company-loan not exceeding $8,000,000, repayable on demand with interest payable half-yearly at the rate of six per centum (6 per cent) per annum; to be used for expenditure made or to meet indebtedness incurred in paying interest upon securities of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, to meet deficit in operation and for the purchase of rolling stock; said loan to be secured by mortgage upon the undertaking of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company containing such terms and conditions as the Governor in Council may approve. The disposition of the loan to be subject to the direction of the Governor in Council, $8,000,000.
['And the Minister of\nRailways and Canals in the late Government stated in this House only about a year ago that the proper time had come,', "that they could not build too soon; and he said the same thing in the debate on the Canadian Northern Railway in 1911.\nAt six o'clock, the House resumed and then took recess.\nThe House resumed at eight o'clock."]
Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: I followed somewhat closely the speech delivered the other day by the former Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) in regard to the proposed aid to the Canadian Northern Railway Company and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. What he said was that the present railway situation in this country was not permanent, and that if it had not 'been for the war and the consequent general dislocation of business all would still be well. His conclusion was that the sun would shine again; that things would come back to their normal; that the railway situation in this country would come all right once more. In other words, he endeavoured to justify the proposition that no fundamental error had occurred in regard to the railway situation. My contention is that the war which is now waging has disclosed the dislocation of the railway situation in this country. Not only may the war have helped to bring on this dislocation, but it has disclosed a railway situation that is unspeakably bad and against the general interest of the country. The situation must be remedied. I disagree with my hon. friend when he says that everything will come back to normal. I say that the people of Canada will have to come to the conclusion that the railway situation in this country is fundamentally bad and must be cured. I am going to prove my contention by pointing out these things to him. The Globe newspaper says: The railway situation is unutterably bad; the people of this country think the same thing, and I will read

the confession, of Mr. Smithers, Chairman of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. On the first page of his letter addressed to the Prime Minister are these words:
Sir,-I have brought before the board the result of my conversations with you and some of your colleagues during my recent visit to Canada, as to the financial position of the Grand Trunk and Grand Trunk Pacific Companies from the 1st of January next.
I told my colleagues that at the interview 1 had with you on November 25 I disclosed to you very frankly the situation with which the Grand Trunk and Grand Trunk Pacific Companies would be confronted in the immediate future. I also told them that after full consideration, and with the deepest regret I had proposed to you, as the only safe solution of our difficulties that the Government should take over the Grand Trunk Pacific railway as from the first January next, with all its branch lines, together with its development company, and other subsidiary companies, with all the as. sets, the Grand Trunk Railway Company to surrender to the Government the whole of the common stock of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company on condition of the Government relieving the Grand Trunk Railway Company of all liabilities in respect of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, its branch lines, its development company, and other subsidiary companies, and repaying to the Grand Trunk Railway Company any money advanced by the Grand Trunk Railway Company to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, or its branch lines,, and Development Company and other subsidiary companies.


Mr. GRAHAM:: Will the hon. member allow me? , I want .to read to the House from the 'same letter a paragraph which, I submit, proves my contention. This paragraph appears on page 6 of the statement respecting the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company:
If the Government accept the proposition of the Board, I feel confident that whatever the liability the Government may assume will he amply repaid in a few years by the increased traffic arising from the development of the Northwest, and the bringing of new land under cultivation. What that development may mean is foreshadowed in the amount of the record crop just gathered in the Northwest, the production of wheat alone being 320,000,000 bushels, as against only 140,000,000 bushels in 1914; with other crops showing considerable increase in yields. The board feel that they may be severely criticised in a few years for parting with the property, and nothing but the necessity of saving the money which the present investors have put into the property would have induced them to do so. The deficit of the next few years, at a time of unprecedented strain owing to the terrible war in Europe, is the danger to be avoided, but an amount of deficit which is impossible for a company to finance is quite possible for a nation.
Mr. Smithers assures the Government that it will get all the money back and that the investment will be a paying one.


William Findlay Maclean: My contention is that Mr. 'Smithers shows by his letter that he has a lame duck upon his hands-


George Perry Graham: For the present.


William Findlay Maclean: -and he propoeee to hand it back to the Canadian people if they will repay him all the money his company have invested in it, and if they will relieve that company from the agreement by which they are bound. I claim that the argument is a double-edged one. Mr. Smithers drunk or Mr. Smithers sober is anxious to put this burden on the shoulders of the people of the country. My main object to-day is not so much to argue that the bargain was bad, as to. bring this Parliament to a recognition of this fact disclosed by this company, notwithstanding the conditions attendant upon the war, that the system we have been following in the past, of using the public treasury, and the legislatures and the Parliament of this country, to carry out the ambitions of ambitious men in connection with railways-, is bad, is irretrievably bad, and must end here and! now. This contention is proven toy the words which I have just read from the. letter of Mr. Smithers. I ask the ex-Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) to read the Globe these days on the mistakes which have been made in connection with railways-, and to note the attitude it assumes towards the railway situation. As I have said, I do not intend to hand out criticisms, especially in the way of blame; perhaps nearly all of us are more or less to blame in this matter. But the facts have disclosed a situation that cannot be justified, and the facts have done more; they have brought about-and I wish to say this in the way of advice to the Minister of Finance-they have brought about the psychological moment to administer a cure for this condition. There never will be such an opportunity as this to administer the cure, whatever it may be, to -this railway situation.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: What is the cure?


William Findlay Maclean: I was- just about to deal with that. I hardly need to tell the House what my cure is, my cure is public ownership, and now is the time to apply it. I give the Government credit for saying that public ownership may have to come, and that they intend to look into it by means of a commission appointed to investigate and advise. I do not need any

advice from a commission of this kind on this subject, and the people of Canada have made up their minds what they intend to do. They are ready to assume the responsibility of applying this cure of public ownership to the transportation situation which has arisen at this time, and which has been aggravated by war conditions. Public ownership of railways, when it was first suggested in this House, was described as being almost lunacy; the best that could be said of those who favoured) it was that they were enthusiasts. But the whole history of progress in relation to railways is a history of advancing public ownership. Britain to-day is a public ownership country practically, so far as her railways are concerned, and she never intends to part with the control of those railways that she now has. I shall be asked: If we are to have public ownership, what practical suggestion have you to make as to these railways -granted that the time is opportune? A friend behind me says, " That is the point." I say that the worst thing that can befall us in this matter is a continuance of the present system; and the best thing is that, having faith in public ownership, we should try it out. I am told that this would involve an immense sum of money. Perhafps it would. It involves taking over commitments that already exist. But, as a matter of fact, we are committed to these commitments and must assume them whether we will or not. The very reason why this difficulty has arisen is that the railways are in such a state of misfortune that they must be rescued. There is no other way than by the assumption of these liabilities by the country. We are called upon to perform a work of salvage, nothing else and the question is whether we are to make it a temporary salvage or a permanent salvation.
How are we to proceed? I would assume the duty, whatever it involves; but there are various ways of procedure. For my part, I am willing that we should first deal with these two lame ducks, the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Northern. But the really easy way to proceed, the one that should be followed if I had my way, would be to nationalize the Canadian Pacific. I am willing, however, to proceed in the other way for the present. I would treat the Grand Trunk, perhaps, a little differently from the Canadian Northern, for the Grand Trunk has confessed bankruptcy in connection with this proposition. It says it is not able to continue the business and

wants to hand the railway back. It wants to get its money back and be forever absolved from the engagements and commitments it has made in connection with the situation. The first thing I would say to the Grand Trunk-that is the Grand Trunk proper-is:	"Mr. Grand Trunk,
we will not release you from your engagements unless you propose to turn over not only the Grand Trunk Pacific but the old Grand Trunk." This is the Grand Trunk that we know in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario as the greatest railway of its kind in Canada. There is no such fine railway in Canada as this Grand Trunk. It runs through the settled portions of the country and it reaches the factories. It touches the city of Quebec, it runs opposite Three Rivers; it has great facilities in Montreal; it reaches Ottawa, and it runs to Toronto, Hamilton, London and nearly all the cities and towns of southwestern Ontario; it reaches the two international rivers, the Niagara and the Detroit; and it has important terminals on Georgian Bay giving access to the West. This Grand Trunk is so good a railway proposition that, even though it has made some mistakes, it will pay. It was getting out of the woods at the very time it made these commitments in connection with the Grand Trunk Paci-fiic. It is the greatest railway in Canada, the one that can earn the most money, if it were administered from Canada, as Mr. Hays had begun to administer it; and it would have achieved success and been a paying proposition to-day, notwithstanding the enormous mistakes made in its early construction, had it not been for these unforeseen difficulties. I would leave the early shareholders to look after themselves. The road is admitted to be bankrupt. If the Grand Trunk Pacific is absolutely hopeless so is the old Grand Trunk proper, facing default, and ready for liquidation.


George Perry Graham: You say that is the old Grand Trunk?


William Findlay Maclean: It faces default according to this letter and is ready for the knacker if the knacker comes for it.


George Perry Graham: Do you mean the Grand Trunk proper?


William Findlay Maclean: That is the confession. They say: " If you force us to carry out our agreement, we are bankrupt. The lawyers will tell you that when you go to court, and when the bonds come due

the bondholders will to the Grand Trunk treasury and demand payment. Here is an opportunity which presents itself for the first time, by reason of the war and as the outcome of our policy in the past. For the results of that policy I am putting no more responsibility on one side than on the other. The Grand Trunk Pacific is at our door in the position of a suppliant-and that word " suppliant " to me is the key to every important question of this kind which has arisen in Canada. It always happens that the persons or the companies that aTe the cause of grievances in this country are here this day and the next day as suppliants, and we miss the whole teaching of our English language and of the progress of liberty if we do not seize the opportunity which is afforded us by the presence of these suppliants seeking a cure of the grievances which they themselves have brought about. The old Grand Trunk is here as a suppliant asking for relief. I do not believe in taking over the Grand Trunk Pacific and relieving the old Grand Trunk of their engagement, letting them go scot free. I say: summon Mr. Smithers to Canada; tell him to bring over his board of directors and to go into session in the city of Montreal, where the head office is. We should say: we will talk with you here and now as to how we are to acquire and take over the Grand Trunk with the Grand Trunk Pacific. They will be glad enough to give it to us in order to be saved from liquidation. I would give them some little compensation in connection even with the old original stock; it would not be much, but it would be a little. But they will lose everything if this Government demands what it has a right to demand of them:	that they pay their commitments ; that they run the Grand Trunk Pacific; that they take over the Transcontinental, as they are bound to do. It may be argued that the time has not yet arrived for taking over the road, but I say that this is the opportunity to remedy the situation by faking over the old Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific. It is all very fine for these opponents of public ownership when they are in trouble to say to the people of Canada, as they have said in the past:	"Take over the dead
horses and the lame ducks, and leave us the profitable ends." They have public ownership of telegraphs in almost every country in the world except our own, but whenever there is a weak line in this country for which there is no business and no profit-let the Government build it.


George Perry Graham: Or to be bought.


William Findlay Maclean: Or if there is a line to be bought, let the Government take it. And the Government takes it. They put the Transcontinental on us; it is not productive just now, although I think it has a great future. I am not going to profess lack of faith in my country so far as the future of the Grand Trunk Pacific is concerned; I hope that even the right hon. gentleman will give me credit for that. But this is the psychological moment to administer a cure to prevent the recurrence of the railway evils that have arisen in the past. In a word, that is my proposal as to dealing with the Grand Trunk. Let us say here and now, when they are suppliants at our door: " All right, gentlemen, we will take this road over and relieve you if you give us the old Grand Trunk upon certain conditions that we will name to you."


Mr. MORPHY:: What does the hon. gentleman say as to this being the proper time to finance a proposition of that kind?


William Findlay Maclean: You do not have to
finance it; you have to assume commitments. I made that argument in this House some years ago in connection with the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific. On one or two occasions in this House I have said: "How will you finance it?" The late Minister of Finance thought he was taking a shine out of me when he said: "We should have to raise millions and millions of money." I said: "No, you will have to assume commitments." We will have to assume the commitments of the old Grand Trunk if we take it over. But the last thing that I am in favour of suggesting to the Canadian people-I do not think this Government will suggest it-is that they should relieve the old Grand Trunk and take over the lame duck, the Grand Trunk Pacific. The stars of fortune of these two railways will never again come so close together; rather, there is a conjunction of circumstances affecting the fortunes of these two railways which will never occur again. It is this circumstance which gives us an opportunity to take them over and to use them for the benefit of the people.


Mr. STEVENS:: What would the hon. gentleman do with the 'stockholders of the Grand Trunk?


William Findlay Maclean: I said a moment ago: notify Mr. Smithers, get his board of directors to come over heTe by the next boat and hold a meeting in Montreal. Have
3a30

them bring some authority from their shareholders in England to negotiate with this Government; otherwise, let them go into court and defend an action for the liquidation of both roads. We do not have to go tp them; they are here now as suppliants.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Supposing they did give you such authority, what would my hon. friend do with these stockholders?


William Findlay Maclean: Give me the responsibility and I will deal with them. That is my answer to my hon, friend. I am ready to assume that responsibility, or rather to associate myself with gentlemen in this House to appeal to the people of Canada on a programme of that kind. The Minister of Finance and the Government are preparing to assume that responsibility, but the minister wants .to take time to consider it. When he has considered it, the opportunity may be lost, and that is what I want .to point out to him. That good old Tory organ, that great exponent of private railways, the Montreal Gazette, yesterday, undertook to tell an awful story of the obligations and entanglements and-still more dreadful thing-the great financial difficulty that must be encountered in raising money to take over the railways. The Montreal Gazette says there will be an enormous undertaking in making a flotation. But you do not have to do anything of the kind. You simply have to assume certain of the liabilities and refuse to assume others. The Canadian Government is on record as having come to the relief of this road many years ago. You will find a very large item in the funded debt of Canada for money advanced for the benefit of the shareholders of the old Grand Trunk Railway. We have helped them in times past; some of that old stock is held to-day by families of the original investors, and, largely, by men who are engaged in stock broking in London, and by speculators who use it for their own advantage. Yet these people come here to-day and ask the people of Canada to make a deal with them, to let them out in regard to the dead horse, but to let them have the profitable end of it. I say, no. Make them come here and deal with us; make them give this railway to us, or let them go into liquidation.
What would you do with the Canadian Northern? They also are here as suppliants. The Canadian Northern is a great

railway in many ways; of the Transcontinental lines it is probably the best located, traversing the richest and best country. I believe it has potentialities. It is fine to hear capitalists arguing about potentialities. It is fine to hear an exminister talk on potentialities. It is a very fine argument.


George Perry Graham: I was filling in the gap which my hon. friend left.


William Findlay Maclean: But if it comes
down to potentialities, they are in the Canadian Northern, and in that condition we. are particeps criminis; fwe are partners in the crime, so to speak. We own 40 per cent of the road, and we are asking ourselves to give enough money to relieve the railroad. We have to relieve both railroads.


An hon. MEMBER:: We are responsible for four-tenths of the crime.


William Findlay Maclean: Yes, four-tenths of the crime is at our door. But what should we do with: the Canadian Northern? It is so easy a proposition compared with the complexity of the Grand Trunk .case. I would say to the Canadian Northern: we own 40 per cent of your proposition; it is a good proposition; its potentialities are great; what will you take for your $60,000,000 of stock? If the responsibility were on my shoulders I would make a settlement with them. I would say: What is the lowest you will take? I believe that they would take, perhaps, $6,000,000 or $8,000,000. That is only my own guess, but I have studied the question, and I think they would surrender that $60,000,000 worth of stock for that amount. If I were a financier as is my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, whichi I am not, I would say: what annuity will you fake for twenty years?


Sir THOMAS WHITE:: I understood my hon. friend, to suggest that the Grand Trunk railroad could foe forced to do a certain thing 'because of its legal position?


William Findlay Maclean: Yea.


William Thomas White: Now my hon. friend says that $6,000,000 should be paid. What about the legal position of the Canadian Northern?


William Findlay Maclean: I would say that probably they are committed just as much. It is a long story. However, I admit that, perhaps, I am inconsistent.


George Perry Graham: 
William Findlay Maclean: I never charged1 anybody with inconsistency. I remember quoting in this House before whajt Sir Henry Maine said in connection with politics; he referred to the doubtful virtue of consistency. It is a very doubtful virtue, and I may be inconsistent. But I would like to deal with the Canadian Northern in a short and sharp way, and if they could be brought to abandon their position we would have to give them help to tide them over as we propose to give to the Grand Trunk. But it would be on condition of turning the proposition over to this country, and I think you could get the Canadian Northern with all its potentialities, which are very great, though its commitments are also, for a comparatively small sum. I would say 10 per cent of the stock, or say $6,000,000.


Mr. MACDONALD:: Does my hon. friend seriously mean to say that he thinks the controlling interest of the Canadian Northern would sell out to the Government for 10 per cent of their stock?


William Findlay Maclean: I would offer them that;
I would say; what will you do? I would say come into the captain's office when you are a suppliant. The trouble in this country is that nobody ever calls those people who come as suppliants. They come asking-money and we say: what can we do for you; what can we do jto hel|p you to put it over the Canadian people.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What would you do if they would not sell?


Mr. TURRIFF:: Foreclose.


William Findlay Maclean: I take the hon. gentleman's confession that he would foreclose, only, they say it is on record that, when the settlement of 1914 was made, there was an understanding that Mackenzie and Mann as railway builders had something coming to them for their services. I cannot place my finger on that statement, but I think it was made. With all their faults, I do believe that Mackenzie and Mann and the original promoters of the Grand Trunk Pacific were trying to give this country service and to help to build it up. But they are both here now as suppliants, and one of them has great potentialities. The old Grand Trunk is, to my mind, the greatest asset in this country. And now, when they are here in this position, is the time to secure them. This ie the psychological moment. It needs courage and faith, but. by taking these roads under Government control now, these potentialities can be developed.
Now, I want to come to the other railroad, the Canadian Pacific, the .best transcontinental, or any other railway system, in the world. It is to the credit of the Canadian people and of the members of this House as it was then constituted, both Liberals and Conservatives, that the construction of the Canadian Pacific railway was brought about. For this I give credit all round. This great railway to-day pays its shareholders 10 per cent, partly out of traffic earnings, partly out of revenue from land and from investments in other railways. The Canadian Pacific is not here as a suppliant, but it fears what will happen to the suppliants who are here and that i'f these Toads are taken over by the Government the Canadian Pacific will be greatly damaged and its potentialities jeopardized. What would you do with the Canadian Pacific in connection with this public ownership proposition? I want the members, of this House to realize that I am not pressing this matter for the first time. I have been here now for twenty-four years.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: And	looking younger
every day.


William Findlay Maclean: Not looking younger, but feeling younger and having greater faith in public ownership than ever I had; and I am .still talking, I suppose, as a dreamer; yet I have the example of all Europe ahead of me and I have the example of the things that we have found out in this country.
Mr. iSCHAFFNER: How do the conditions in Europe differ from those found in Canada?


William Findlay Maclean: There are many differences; but I want to tell the hon. member (from the plains that the system we have is the worst possible system fox the farmers of the West, and that the way to .relieve them is to give them the cheapest possible transportation, as the Australians have done, and as we also can do. But what would I do with the Canadian Pacific? I would say to the shareholders of that road:	"You are earning 7 per cent on
your capital out of traffic and you are earning 3 per cent in profits on lands and other enterprises." They have additional assets-those they desired to have segregated-and they are very profitable. I would summon them here and say: " We will guarantee to you 7 per cent for twenty

or twenty-five years, and then we will refund the securities if you turn the railway over to us." I believe the shareholders would accept that. I have no authority from Lord Shaughnessy or the shareholders to say this; but they fear the situation which is developing in connection with the two other roads.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: You have said that they are already getting 10 per cent in perpetuity.


William Findlay Maclean: I did not say in perpetuity.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Well, as long as conditions hold; is that it?


William Findlay Maclean: Yes.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: And you are going to
give them 7 per cent?


William Findlay Maclean: Yes.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: And at the end of the
25 years-what?


William Findlay Maclean: Refund the securities if we see fit to do it. If the market were advantageous at that time, I would refund the obligations, relieve the shareholders, and give them something, if we had the opportunity of doing it, dependent upon the condition of the market.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Or buy them out?


William Findlay Maclean: Or buy them out. But I would have a terminable period in connection with the matter. Would the Canadian Pacific shareholders take 7 per cent? I do not know, but I would start negotiations with them and find out what they really wanted. I would say to them: "If *we get the Grand Trunk Pacific, the Grand Trunk, and the Canadian Northern on reasonable terms, and if you do not want to have the opposition of the new consolidated Government lines, now is your opportunity to come in, and what will you take if we take you in?" If they should say, " You are sacrificing our assets, you are confiscating our properties," I would say: " No, we will guarantee you dividends at the rate of 7 per cent for twenty-five years, and we will take you over." I do not come here proposing confiscation of any kind. I would even offer to pay something to the old Grand Trunk shareholders, I would give a reasonable amount to the owners of the Canadian Northern, and I would give guarantees to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for their railway.

What would happen if we took over one, two, three, or all of these propositions? In any case we have public ownership and we have opened the way into territory where public ownership will justify itself if it can. It never will justify itself by having ragged ends-lines away on the outskirts not coupled up or connected with the great lines of traffic. What is the fundamental error in the railway situation in Canada? The fundamental error is unnecessary duplication in the construction of lines. We have lines running in duplicate all over this country, which never 'should have been allowed. I live in Toronto; I come down here, often, as you do; we go to Montreal, the Montreal people come to us; and what do we see? Every night now there are five passenger trains running between Toronto and Montreal when two or three would do the business, give a better service, and save a lot of money? The unnecessary cost of duplication in construction is aggravated by the unnecessary, criminal, duplication of service. We have lost an immense amount of money by unnecessary duplication in construction. But, realizing that fundamental error, why ishould we aggravate it by insisting on this unnecessary duplication of service? That is something that public ownership will correct. It will not cure the unnecessary duplication of construction, but it will cure the unnecessary duplication of service. There are three lines from Winnipeg to Edmonton and perhaps five to the West. There, are three or five trains for the Pacific going out of Toronto every night. There will be the Transcontinental, the Government-owned system, there will be the Canadian Northern,-its trains will soon start to go out every night- and the Canadian Pacific has two trains going out of Toronto for Winnipeg every day. Two trains would do that service better than it has ever been done.


Henry Herbert Stevens: In winter, but not in
summer.


William Findlay Maclean: So much the better for the system if we can have three or five trains every night. I want to see five trains going out from Toronto to Winnipeg and from Montreal to Toronto if the business calls for them; but I do not want to see an unnecessary duplication, something that I can see every morning when I look out of the window. I live near the railway track, and I can see three, fine express trains all coming over the Canadian Pacific to Toronto, and they run what trainmen call a ghost train.


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: Do you say there are five transcontinental trains going out of Toronto every night?


William Findlay Maclean: The Canadian Pacific
have two going out of Toronto.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: They have one going out of Montreal.	-


William Findlay Maclean: One out of Montreal.
Every other night there is one on the Grand Trunk Pacific and every other night one on the Canadian Northern; so that there are four trains and there will soon be more. There is not enough business for all of them to do. I say that this is unnecessary duplication, and that the train service can be reduced.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Has it not been reduced?


William Findlay Maclean: Not very much. They
are putting on more trains because of the competition.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I know that on the
Ottawa line of the Canadian Pacific the service is reduced on account of the war.
.Mr. MACLEAN: Not between here and Toronto.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Between here and Montreal.


Rodolphe Lemieux: And also between Montreal and Quebec.


William Findlay Maclean: So much the better;
they see that they have had to reduce the number of their trains.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: In New Brunswick we
complain of the reduced accommodation.


Mr. R. B. BENNETT:: Because the people generally have to pay for it.


William Pugsley: No, because they want
the accommodation.


William Findlay Maclean: You can cut out a lot of unnecessary train services, and you can improve the construction. Take, for instance, the traffic out of Toronto. The Grand Trunk has .the worst grade of its system at Scarborough going out of Toronto. Four miles north there is what is called the Wexford grade on the Canadian Pacific. It is one per cent grade at the steepest part and it takes the line over the same elevation. But, strange to say, the Canadian Northern, following in the steps of some of the Canadian Pacific engineers, four or five years ago found between these two lines four miles apart, a one-half of one per cent
grade over Scarborough Heights; they have located it, and ultimately it will be built. If there were a consolidation we could wipe out these two expensive grades; we might even transfer the rails and build on this new grade, which would save the situation there forever. All over the country you could make improvements in this way.
Now, I will tell you how a public railway would work with respect to both freight and passenger service. You would get the Intercolonial railway, which is a Government-owned railway to-day, at Halifax, and come to Montreal; you would come to Ottawa and go on to Toronto by the o'ld Grand Trunk; from Toronto you would want to use the best transcontinental railway, and you would take the Canadian Pacific to Sudbury; from Sudbury you would go to lake Nipigon by way of the Canadian Northern; you would build 25 miles from lake Nipigon to the Transcontinental railway; on the fine grade of the Transcontinental you would go on into Winnipeg. Then you would go from Winnipeg to Edmonton over either the Grand Trunk ot the Canadian Northern, and you would certainly go to Vancouver by the Canadian Northern. In addition, if you had public ownership, you could link the systems up so as to get the advantages that linking up or grouping would give you, and you would have a real solution of the transportation problem in this country.


Henry Herbert Stevens: How would the hon. gentleman operate?


William Findlay Maclean: How do France and
Germany operate their systems and how do we operate the system we have? I would put them all together in charge of a board of three or five of the ablest railway men in this country, and we could pick them up in Canada to-day. I know where the men are; we could get them; and these men would run that system as it should be run. There might be a proposition to take the men employed on the road out of politics and deprive them of their votes.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Would the hon. gentleman double-track one right of way?


William Findlay Maclean: I would have the
railways administered * in the public interest. I would take off any unnecessary trains and link up the systems with a view to giving the best service. In that way great savings would be effected and an improved service would be given at lower rates. It may be said that it is impossible to

carry out such a scheme, hut I do not think so. Now is the time to take advantage of the situation, and the Government say they are going to take advantage of it. They may come to public ownership. At all events they are going to appoint a commission of three to consider the matter, and, if we can read how others interpret that, we are almost sure to have public ownership if the commission report in favour of it. But I do not propose to surrender my judgment to any three men on this subject; nor will the people of Canada. They have come to the conclusion to have public ownership, and they are going to have it; it is in the air. The success of the Hydro in Ontario is something we can look to with pride, and the success of public ownership in a great many ways leads me to believe that it can he successfully applied to the railway situation, if only we will alter our political system in this country.
In the presence, of this war the day has come when we must stop patronage in connection with our public institutions1. We must reform our public service, and banish the member of Parliament and the politician from the door of the Minister of Railways, or whoever it may be has to administer the railways of this country. And we can do these things. If there is anything I resent it is a man in public life in Canada saying to me and to this House:	"You cannot trust the
Canadian people with a railway -franchise of their own." The Canadian people are just -as -big, just as good, and just as dlean as the people of any other country. It ie we public men who are in the wrong in this country. The people are all right, arid I will trust them with the railways. I am not going to put a etigma upon ,my fellow-countrymen in connection with railways in this- country. That is the one thing I have always noticed in these political discussions; it is the answer that is always given to me. Imagine the answer yesterday of the Montreal- Gazette, that paragon of political virtue, that we are such a corrupt lot of people that we could not run our railwaysI believe we can.


Mr. OLIVER:: The Gazette is the spokesman of the Government party.


William Findlay Maclean: I do not know so much about that. It is certainly the spokesman of the Grand Trun-k Railway and of the Canadian Pacific Railway; I am sure of that, but I think I have seen the Gazette turn the Government down on occasions. I have every confidence in my fellow-countrymen. I have confidence that the -Canadian people could effect greater economies in the roads, give an improved service, and in that way help to settle the West. By taking over these railways we should remove the greatest dan-
3 p.m. ger from our political life, because we should be putting the owners of private-owned railways out of politics in this country. The present system is wrong. I am not going to pass much criticism of what has happened in the past. The charge that has been made is that the owners of railways and railway promoters have broken into our politics and more or less demoralized us. I am not going to repeat that charge now. But I believe our public life would be -better and purer, and certainly we should have a better railway service, if we applied public ownership to our railways, and applied it in a proper way. But we do not want any more public ownership of this kind: of the Intercolonial taking up all the lame ducks of the East; helping to build roads and then taking them over because they Tun through a new 'country where there is not much local traffic. I do not believe in the policy of taking over the weak spots in the Canadian Northern or any other railway. Let us go the whole hog or none; let ns get the productive ends as well as the weak ends, and link the various systems up. The salvation of the Grand Trunk Pacific, and something that will add to the glory of hon. gentlemen opposite, for this road is their child, is to incorporate it into a great public system.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Into whose hands would my hon. friend put the three transcontinental systems if they were nationalized today?


William Findlay Maclean: As a democrat, I
would say into the hands of the people, represented by a commission.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I understand that. I
am not opposed to nationalization; I advocated it myself the other evening. But what men would my hon. friend choose?


William Findlay Maclean: The veTy best I could get; and you can get good men. I still have faith in the railway men.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Would you take a man like Baron Shaughnessy to administer the roads?


William Findlay Maclean: I would take him
for one, if I could get him.


Rodolphe Lemieux: That is what will happen.


William Findlay Maclean: In the past on this
American continent, the most able lawyers and capitalists, the able administrators of public services of one kind or another, have gone into the employ of the great corporations, and made money for them and fortunes for themselves. But a strange thing has been happening in the last twenty years in the United 'States, and I begin to see it coming in this country. They are developing men over there, and we are beginning to do the same here, who see that the greatest opportunity that can come to any man is public service. I know young men in our universities who have had experience as railway men, experience in the financial institutions of this country and with business corporations. I could find you twenty men about thirty-five years of age who have this passion- and it is a grand passion-for devoting their lives to public service. And life is not worth living these days if we have not the vision and the disposition to give ourselves to public service in a great cause. I would have a commission in this country. Yes, I would have Baron Shaugh'nessy. I do not think, Sir William Mackenzie is a railroad operator, although he is a Napoleon in building; but he has two men in that system both of whom are great railroad men. Mr. Bury is a great operator who would serve thie state. Has any one objection to Mr. Gutelius as a great railroad man? Take the roads out of politics and put them in charge of three or five men of this calibre. Take the roads out of politics-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Saying so will not do it.


William Findlay Maclean: It is worth while
trying to do, and I would sooner try that than go on under the present system. I will trust Canadians every day. I would like to see the hon. member, who challenges the integrity of his fellow countrymen


Richard Bedford Bennett: I repudiate the observation. I did not challenge the integrity of my fellow countrymen. What I said was that, unfortunately, you cannot take the roads out of politics simply by saying so.


William Findlay Maclean: I adjust myself to the orientation of my hon. friend from Calgary. I have no hesitation in saying that I would nationalize these roads, and I would get
Canadians to administer them and to remedy these evils for the benefit of the Canadian people.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Does not my hon. friend think that those men whom he would name would be the kings of Canada?


William Findlay Maclean: Three wise men came from the East, and Heaven be thanked that they recognized something on a certain day in the history of the world, and brought frankincense and myrrhi.


George Perry Graham: Who were the other two?


William Findlay Maclean: Would the hon. gentleman like to be one? He is looking for a job, it is said.


George Perry Graham: I was asking who the other two wise men were to whom my hon. friend referred.


William Findlay Maclean: There are plenty of wise men in this country, some of whom are supposed to come from the East, and some of whom are in the West. The finest type of man and woman that the world has ever seen is in this day and generation growing up in this country of ours. In my personal acquaintance of the last year or two I have never seen a finer type of youth than the genuine Canadian boys whom I know in my own city and in my own township who are going to the front. The spirit of sacrifice and fidelity and patriotism shown by those boys is what gives me confidence that the Canadian people can run these railroads to the advantage of the nation. I could speak for a week on this subject-
Some hon. MEMBEES: Go on.


William Findlay Maclean: No. I do not intend to say mueh more. I am so convinced that this is the psychological moment for the. nationalization of the railways of Canada that I think Parliament ought -at once to instruct the Government to carry out that project, because the Government can do anything. I wish to warn the Government of the great danger they are in of not seizing the psychological moment to deal with this question. An election is not far away, and there is a temptation to these railway magnates that we know to butt into that election, and if the psychological moment has arrived to absorb the railways, to head it off. I hope the right hon. leader of the Opposition, who is the father of the Grand Trunk Pacific, sees the error of the father, and that he is prepared to assist the Govern-

ment in carrying out this project. There would, of course, be a great temptation to him, as he may have a political triumph ahead of him in the coming election-no one knows what is going to happen in an election-to come hack with a programme to restore and carry out the original intention of the Grand Trunk Pacific and the old Grand Trunk and to put them in competition with all the other lines. I do not want to see that, I would like to see both sides of the House do their best to prevent that and deal with this question now. The key of the situation is to take over one railroad-I do not care which one you take if you get a transcontinental system. The Canadian Northern joined up with the Intercolonial and the Transcontinental would be a splendid transcontinental system; it would touch every point but that part of the province of Ontario west of Toronto, and that part is full of railroads.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Terminals.


William Findlay Maclean: Yes, I am going to
speak about terminals.


Mr. NESBITT:: I am very interested
in this discussion, and before you go into that, I would like to know what form of commission you would suggest in order to take it out of politics and party patronage.


William Findlay Maclean: I would take it out of
politics, and the people of Canada would see that the men whom they sent to Parliament and the men whom they entrusted with this work would be kept out of politics. . Public men can he disciplined. The people of this country from this time on are going to discipline their public men. In England they are to-day making their public men walk the plank if they do not do as the people' wish. Every hon. mem-*ber here to-day knows that he is under, the eye of his constituents and subject to their discipline more than he ever was before. The public conscience is aroused; public duty is demanded; consecration of service is demanded and the people will insist on getting that and they will get it. If the leaders of the people advise the people aright, all well and good; if they do not advise the people aright, the people will take the matter into their own hands. In regard to duplication of service, Sir Adam Beck has petitioned this Parliament to aid certain lines that he has in hand in Ontario.


Mr. MOBPK  Y@: He says that he does not want any aid.


William Findlay Maclean: He has petitioned this
Parliament and he proposes to foui'ld certain lines. In order to work out salvation as he views it, Sir Adam Beck wants to duplicate a line in the province of Ontario. My contention is that we have there all the railroads that are required. When I said that the Canadian Northern had no lines west of Toronto, I knew, of course, that we could take running Tights over existing roads in that part of Ontario, and in that way make out of the Intercolonial, the Transcontinental and the Canadian Northern a splendid transcontinental system, by which we would get into every part of this country. That system with the Grand Trunk linked up to it would make a magnificent railroad. The best transcontinental system of all, of course, would be the Canadian Pacific joined up to the Transcontinental and the Intercolonial, and I would be willing to make very liberal terms with the Canadian Pacific Bailway Company in order to carry out a project of that kind.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The branch lines of the Canadian Pacific are better, hut its main line is not as good.


William Findlay Maclean: The Canadian Pacific is better in Quebec, where railroading started in Canada. The most extravagant of all proposals is this proposal of unnecessary duplication of terminals in Canada. I first want to deal with terminal seaports, and we have room in Canada for seaports at Halifax and St. John and also at Quebec and Montreal. We cannot afford at the present time to have great seaports and all the terminal facilities that go with great seaports in connection with four ot more cities, but we could have one, two, or three. We could start with one at the best seaport on the continent of North America, and that seaport should be under the British flag. We are making Halifax a seaport; St. John is here as a suppliant in connection with her port, and she is getting something; we are making Montreal a great port, and, in fact, almost all those seaports could be justified.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Halifax will be
the best harbour in the world when present contemplated improvements are completed.


William Findlay Maclean: The best port in Canada for general business. In regard to city terminals, I believe that the Grand Trunk station at Bonaventure street was burned recently. Mackenzie & Mann are boring a tunnel through Mount Eoyal for the great terminal station in Montreal. The Canadian

Pacific have built an enormous -terminal, recently enlarged, at their Windsor station. There ie no room tor three terminals in Montreal, but there is room for a great terminal of the largest kind.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is it not too late now, in view of the expenditure already made?


William Findlay Maclean: No, I am told they are rebuilding Bonaventure station now.


George Perry Graham: Only temporarily fixing it up.


William Findlay Maclean: Yes, but I understand they want to build a great terminal. I have 6een plans for a Canadian Northern terminal at Montreal which would involve an expenditure of thirty or forty millions of dollars.


George Perry Graham: They have spent a lot of money.


William Findlay Maclean: Probably the best entrance to Montreal is by the tunnel of the Canadian Northern, and probably there is room at the city end of that tunnel for a great terminal station. But there ought to be only one terminal in Montreal as there ought to be only one in Toronto, and in every other large city except where there are special advantages to be gained by having sub-terminals, and there aTe such cities. Why should we be committed to these unnecessary terminals, especially when this is the day of terminals? The termial costs are the great costs in connection with railways to-day. There are two big termials in Winnipeg, and I understand that in Vancouver there is a proposition to have another terminal.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The bonds are sold to the extent of ten millions.


William Findlay Maclean: Devote these bonds to the purposes of the war.


Henry Herbert Stevens: In Vancouver we are bringing four roads into one terminal.


William Findlay Maclean: So much the . better. Surely hon. gentlemen are not saying anything against the concentration of traffic in these days.	One of	the greatcauses of expense is the terminal sidings owned	by rival	lines in
our cities. The Railway Commission has succeeded in consolidating these terminal sidings in some places, but surely it is plain what an improvement it would be if all the terminal sidings in a big city like Montreal were under the control of one administration and were used for the service of the people instead of as at present as a means of extortion. One railway cannot use another railway's sidings except on condition of giving them all their freight. One great advantage of public ownership would be in the means it would afford for improved terminal facilities in the leading cities where the economies effected in the collection and distribution of trade are something enormous. The railways have spent immense sums, unnecessarily at times, to acquire terminal and siding facilities in the cities. All these things could be improved. It is a hard thing to do; the problem is great; but there is nothing for you or me as legislators in this country but to take up the burden of these enormous problems that present themselves to-day. They must be dealt with; we cannot sidestep them; the future of the country and its development, and the happiness and harmony of our people, can largely be promoted by improving our system of transportation. We must correct the errors of the past; one thing that stands to the credit of the really penitent man is that hot only is he penitent but willing to lead a better life


Richard Bedford Bennett: To bring forth fruits meet for repentance.


William Findlay Maclean: I accept that -though
I do not set myself up as an example. I have stated the case in a broad way, and especially I have tried to tell the Government the danger there is in throwing this proposition over into the election that is coming, and it must come. My appeal to the Government and to the right hon. leader of the Government is that at this stage it should take over one road at least. I do not care which one, hut if it is the Grand Trunk then it should be the whole Grand Trunk, or if it is the Canadian Northern it must be the whole of the road, or let it be the Canadian Pacific.	You can	get the Canadian
Pacific to-morrow, and you can get it without one dollar of expenditure. You have only to take it over and guarantee certain dividends on the stock. I know how you can get it. I present myself in this House ready to associate myself with others to go to the people who will authorize such a thing to be done, and it can be carried out; I will undertake to find the men who will do it. That is a rather broad statement. I am not blocking any proposition- here to-



day. It is incumbent upon the Government to. come to the relief of these railways. It would be bad policy to. force them into liquidation if peaceful possession can - be obtained. I believe you can obtain it; the danger is in not going at it now, but in putting it over until after an election and the report of the proposed commission.
I have no objection to a commission, but I am not going to- let the commission make up my mind for me. I would urge upon the leader of the Government and upon the Government as well, that the right hon. gentleman should tell the people that the * substitute he, was prepared to offer for the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite in relation to the Transcontinental railway was public ownership. There is .the offer, in the letter of Mr. 'Smithers, to carry out this policy. I put it right up to the right hon. leader of the Government that now is the time to act. He can succeed if he will act now, and a more favourable opportunity will never come than that which exists today.


Wilfrid Laurier: The hon. gentleman thinks that consistency is a doubtful virtue.


William Findlay Maclean: That has been proved many a time.


William Pugsley: With the hon. gentleman's consent, I desire to ask a question.


William Findlay Maclean: Certainly.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman is understood to be in the confidence of the Government. There is a vote of $18,000,000 in the Estimates for the purpose of making a loan to the Grand Trunk Pacific. The proposal and absolute statement of Mr. Smithers must have been withdrawn, or at least sufficiently withdrawn to enable this proposition to be made, which seems to be entirely different. I suppose that the hon. gentleman, in caucus, has been informed upon that and can enlighten the House.


William Findlay Maclean: I am sorry I cannot enlighten the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley). There may have been a release, but I know nothing about it. The commitment is there acknowledged by Mr. Smithers, and it is on the statute bocks of Canada.


William Pugsley: Why offer a loan of $18,000,000 if he will not accept it?


William Findlay Maclean: I suppose he has said he would accept it. I do not recall having

seen any man around this Parliament buildings who. would not accept anything he could get. No, I should not say that, for I have seen people to whom propositions have been made and they did not take them, -and those who made them went away; that has happened not often, but it has happened. I do not think Mr. Smithers is going to be released, but I would not release him from any of his commitments. Now is the opportunity; it will never come again. I say again to the leader of the Government that he told the people of Canada that public ownership was the thing to apply to the Transcontinental proposition of the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). Now is the day and now the hour to carry out that plan. To-day the Grand Trunk is suppliant at our door; never will such an opportunity come again. We can take over the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific, link them up with the Intercolonial, and make of these roads a great system, giving the people a better service, building up the Canadian West and giving better Tailway rates. Then you will be able to use railroads as Bismarck said they should be used; for the national pur- >
poses, for national defence, most of all for national upbuilding. What is the secret of German advancement in the world, notwithstanding their attack on the world's liberties? The case of Germany is the most marvellous instance in the history of the world of the development of a nation having many men but no great resources-no iron, no coal, and practically no trade. Bismarck said: "Nationalize the railways; use them to build up industries at home by giving them improved railway facilities; use them to give cheap rates to assist our ships in carrying raw products back to us and in carrying our exports to * the markets of the world.


George Perry Graham: But the federal authority of Germany does not own the railways.


William Findlay Maclean: I did not say that it
did, but- the federal authority in Germany, working with the minor authorities have used the railway for national purposes, first, for the defence of the Empire, second, for the promotion of trade. The secret of the great growth of German trade was that the nation could use its railroads for the encouragement of trade.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And to absorb
part of the freight rate in bringing to the

seaboard towns that were far away from the seaboard.


William Findlay Maclean: I had forgotten something; the hon. gentleman reminds me of an awfnl heresy which I propose unfolding to this committee.
Do you know what you can do when you have a Transcontinental line? You can valorize the cost of transporting a bushel of wheat. In other words, a man who grew a bushel of wheat in Manitoba or Saskatchewan or Alberta would get the same price for it no matter on what siding of the railway it might be delivered. That may be another heretical doctrine to propound; I do not propose it juet now. But the only way you can valorize the price of wheat is by owning the railways so that the freight charge on a carload of wheat going to the seaboard would be the same from Manitoba as it would be from Saskatchewan or Alberta. Probably that is the way you are going to get settlement all through the western country:	by giving
equal railway charges to all people. They have actually recognized that doctrine in Germany, Austria and Hungary in regard to the transportation of workingmen. Whether the distance be five, ten or twenty miles, the workingman can go to work in the morning, upon practically the same ticket in each case. This is done under national ownership. You can do a gTeat many things by public ownership of railways; certainly you can improve the West.


Richard Bedford Bennett: 
William Findlay Maclean: 
Henry Herbert Stevens: I do not intend to detain the committee at any great length at this date in the session.


Mr. BURNHAM:: Hear, hear.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend from
Peterborough says " Hear, hear " with his usual frankness. However, there are a few things that I think I "ought to say to this committee. First, I must congratulate the hon. member for South York upon the splendid presentation of his case that he made this afternoon. I have listened to it, and I have enjoyed every moment of it. A great deal that he has said will be very profitable to me. Ever since I was a young lad I have dreamed of the coming of public ownership of great utilities in Canada. It was always in my mind; it is in my mind to-day as an ideal to be sought after, and, if possible, attained. But I find, as I grow older, that there are two things facing you; one is the ideal, and the other is the attaining of that ideal. There is the theory, and there is the practice, and when I consider the great problem facing the people of Canada to-day in regard to the - nationalization of the railway systems, after many decades of private ownership, I am almost overwhelmed by the stupendous problem which faces those who are called upon to work out the details. To put it in an illustrative way, my hon. friend (Mr. W. F. Maclean) would take a gun, put it to the head of the Grand Trunk and say: Come to Ottawa, talk this over, and liquidate or deal; one or the other. It is a spectacular way of putting it, and I appreciate it from my hon. friend's standpoint, but there are other considerations that must be kept in mind. In the first place, we must consider the indirect effects upon the country generally of a revolutionary movement of this kind, and, having in view the carrying out of the nationalization of the railroads, we must, as far as possible, minimize the disruption of trade, or the dislocation of the various interests that would be affected.
It is not my intention to go into a long argument, or to follow my hon. friend, because in my own mind I agree with him entirely. We simply dilier on this point, that he is exceedingly hopeful of the simplicity of the process, while I am overwhelmed with the conviction that the process is a most intricate and difficult one. For instance, my hon. friend says he would summon the Canadian Pacific Railway, offer them 7 per cent for twenty years, and, he says, ,we could get the Canadian Pacific system to-morrow. It sounds good, and I think my hon. friend is sincere, but when I think of Baton Shaughnessy, of Mr. Bury and the army of experts and legal advisers, of the large amount of

stocks and bonds, of the financial institutions affected, the hotels, steamships, terminals, elevators, and the other ramifications of that great system, the very thought of it is confusing to the mind. It would take a commission of the ablest experts at least a year, in my judgment, to investigate the matter, and that is exactly what the Government proposes to do. They say: give us $150,000 and we will secure the best experts we can get, put them on the job for a year or nine months, and then, at the next session of Parliament, we will present their report with ours giving the Government view. That is what they are proposing to. do at the present time. So far as I am concerned, I think the Government's course is wise, safe, and businesslike.
I wish to refer to some of the arguments presented by hon. gentlemen opposite in connection with the railway problem that is facing Canada to-day. My hon. friend from South Renfrew (Mr. Graham), my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), my hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Pugsley), and others, have continually dinned into our ears in this House that the whole railway trouble in Canada lies west of the Rocky mountains. They say that if we could get Tid of this incubus known as British Columbia, everything would be lovely and we would not have any problem on our hands to-day.


Frank Oliver: Would the hon. gentleman stop talking nonsense.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I thank my hon. friend for his interpellation, but I am not talking nonsense. My hon. friend stated on the floor of this House not more than a week ago, and -has stated time after time, that the fault lay in the extension of those lines to the Pacific coast.


Frank Oliver: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon-


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have no time to look up Hansard.


Frank Oliver: I just wish to say that the hon. gentleman's statement is incorrect.


George Perry Graham: The hon. member puts it as if we had said that we should get rid of British Columbia. I never said a word about British Columbia. I stated distinctly that I thought the time was inopportune to build through to the Coast, but that eventually the road should be built. I took

exception to building being proceeded with at that time, but I said nothing about British Columbia, and I was speaking of the Canadian Northern.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friends cannot get away from the fact that this session, and in other sessions, when the railway situation has been under discussion in this House, they have continually TefeTred to the' British Columbia end as the chief difficulty in the situation. Of course, being entirely responsible for the Grand Trunk Pacific, they have not cast any reflections on that Toad. So far as the Canadian Northern in British Columbia is concerned, it passes through a very rich territory, and I purpose giving the House some idea of the possibilities of the Pacific coast province. So far as the territory from Edmonton to the coast is concerned, my hon. friend from Edmonton knows very well that one of the richest parts of the. province of Alberta lies between the summit and Edmonton. He also knows that immediately west of the pass on the British Columbia side, we have some of the most magnificent farming lands to be found in Canada. The British Columbia Government at this very moment own in the Peace river district of British Columbia
6,000,000 acres of excellent farming land, 4,500,000 acres of which have been reserved exclusively for pre-emption purposes.


Frank Oliver: Will the hon. gentleman tell us what on earth that has to do with the Canadian Northern?


Henry Herbert Stevens: If my hon. friend will only contain himself for a moment I will tell him. I am not saying that the Canadian Northern runs through that part. I am saying that there are west of the Rocky mountains tracts of land capable of development which will create traffic and trade not only for the railroads there now, but for other railroads not yet constructed, but which ought to be constructed. For instance, the extension. of the Dunvegan line from Edmonton to Fort George would pass through that district.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend conveyed to the House the idiea, if I gathered his remarks correctly, that he was going to tell us what area was being developed by the Canadian Northern in British Columbia.


Henry Herbert Stevens: 
Frank Oliver: Will the hon. gentleman-say that any part of the money expended upon the Canadian Northern has any bearing upon the area of land he spoke of?


Henry Herbert Stevens: No, it passes through an area of land between the point where it leaves the Canadian Pacific railway north of Kamloops, or opposite the Canadian Pacific railway, and a point straight north at the North Thompson river. It passes through a district which is one of the most fertile in the province of British Columbia, or even in the Dominion of Canada, a district which was not touched by any railway, and which was inaccessible, so far as railway traffic was concerned, up to the time when the Canadian Northern was constructed. The district is also exceedingly rich in minerals. It may be that the construction of the Canadian Northern, paralleling the Canadian Pacific railway through the Fraser valley could be criticised, but, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the Fraser river and the Thompson river run from Kamloops to the coast. This river is a wide and turbulent stream, and the railway runs down one side. It is impossible to serve the other side of the river from the railway line, but the Canadian Northern takes the opposite side of the river, and where the Canadian Pacific railway crosses the Canadian Northern crosses to the other side. In this way both sides of the river have been served. It is a costly thing to double track the Canadian Pacific railway through ' what is known as the Fraser canyon. You virtually have in the construction of the Canadian Northern down the Fraser valley a double-track railway created out of the Canadian Pacific system. I say that merely to show that the construction of the Canadian Northern on the Pacific coast is not the incubus that many hon. gentlemen would lead us to believe. It is rather a striking statement but it is an actual fact that the grade from Edmonton to the coast on the Canadian Northern railway is a better grade than from Edmonton to Fort William on the same system, and it is an infinitely betteT grade than that which the Canadian Pacific have


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Does my hon. friend call Sir Hibbert Tupper an agitator?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am not referring to
him. I say to my hon. friend what I said to the hon. member for Cape Breton the other day: that Sir Hibbert Tupper made the attack he did on the provincial Government because he felt the administration was not suitable to his ideas. He never offered a single criticism of the administration of the affairs of British Columbia by the Dominion Government.


William Pugsley: Nobody is speaking of
that at the moment.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend was
undertaking to defend British Columbia.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I told my right hon.
friend that I had no brief for the Government of British Columbia, but that I had a brief for the people of British Columbia. I do not intend to sit in silence in this House while my hon. friend from Pictou or
anybody else casts aspersions on the province without offering facts by which the House could judge of the merits of the ease.


William Pugsley: I have been here during the entire session, and have been almost continuously in attendance, and I have not heard a single member of this House malign or cast any reflections on the people of the province of British Columbia, not one. To cast reflections on the administration of provincial affairs, are two entirely different things.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend can take whatever consolation he likes out of his own ideas; but I have eat here a little more continuously, 1 think, than he has, and I have heard these statements made.


William Pugsley: By whom?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I quoted one a moment ago. I am not going to quibble about this.	My hon. friend can have his own
way if he wishes. I ask the House to judge of this administration-


William Pugsley: That is better.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The revenue of British Columbia in 1913-14 was made up as follows: Land sales, $1,172,950; land revenue, $218,000; water leases, $62,000; real property tax (the tax on real estate, which some hon. gentlemen in this House are very strong on) $501,000; wild land tax, $660,000; or a total of $2,613,950. In mining we have a revenue o'f $556,000; timber royalty and leases, $3,000,000. This amount is from royalties, timber licenses and leases, but the greater part of it is from royalties which run from fifty cents to a dollar a thousand. Then sundry items of revenue are as follows: Personal property, $212,000; motor licenses, $90,000; income tax, $350,000; succession duties, $250,000; law stamps, $100,000; registry fees, $750,000; game licenses, $108,000; fire insurance, $46,000; fishing, $40,000. Por 1913-14 there was a total revenue of $12,500,000 in the province of British Columbia, derived almost entirely from the natural resources of the country. I have here also a few items of expenditure.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What is the exact amount of guarantees that the province of British Columbia bias assumed in connection with railways?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have not the figures here, but they are given in the pamphlet my hon. friend has before him. I think it is in the neighbourhood of $47,000,000.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is only for the Canadian Northern; what for the other railways as well? If my hon. friend is going to give us the financial statement of the province, he should tell us what the debt is.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I will give an estimate of it in a moment or two. The revenue was expended on the following items: On education $1,141,000-a large amount for the province to spend on education, in addition to what had been spent by the cities and incorporated municipalities and towns. That sum of $1,141,000 was spent on a system of education which bias absolutely nothing in the way of a sectarian school. Every school from the highest to the lowest is a public school. We spent
4 p.m. on roads and bridges $5,322,000 in 1914-15, and $9,600,000 in 1913-14, (in ten years the province has spent $20,000,000 on roads and trails) on hospitals and charities, $704,000; on the insane hospital, $496,000. I am giving these ( items to show the manner in which the Government of British Columbia is looking after the interests of the people of that province.
My hon. friend asked me a moment ago about railway guarantees. I understand that the guarantee of the Canadian'Northern railroad is in the neighbourhood of $40,000,000. While on this, point let me say that the National Transcontinental cost this country $129,000 per mile. Am I right or not? Surely if the people of Canada oan afford to pay $129,000 a mile for the construction of a transcontinental railway it is not bad business to guarantee a railway to the- extent of $35,000 or $40,000 a mile, or to the extent of $40,000,000 for the whole province.
Mr. MACDONALD. What is the population of British Columbia?


Henry Herbert Stevens: A little over half a million. In 1901 the population was 175,000. With the population increasing at that ratio, there is an exceedingly bright future for British Columbia. Let me remind1 my hon. friend, who wishes to compare population with railroad construction, that the Canadian Pacific railway was constructed when there were only 170,000 people in the whole territory between the Great Lakes and the Pacific coast; and it is well that he bear that in mind when considering this question.
There is the question of the standard of construction, about which we hear a great 
deal. The ex-Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), frequently impresses upon this House that the. construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific is of a very much higher standard than the construction of the Canadian Northern, and in that he finds some comfort for the late Government. We have heard a lot about its permanent and final construction. Does the hon. member for South Renfrew know that only last December the wooden bridge at the crossing of the Minnewashta creek, west of Winnipeg, was blown over? That high trestle was. a quarter of a mile long, and of the type of permanent construction that we hear so much about. Hon. gentlemen who took advantage of the Canadian Northern trip to the Pacific coast last year will agree with me, I am sure, that the roadbed of that railway is of a very high standard, One locomotive successfully hauled a train of 16 Pullmans, a dining car and, I think, a recreation car over the Summit, a feat that has never been accomplished before, and which it is impossible for any other railway to accomplish. I am not saying this because I have any particular liking for the Canadian Northern railway, but to show that the money spent on the Canadian Northern railway in British Columbia has been spent to good advantage. What is the use of trying to give the impression that the province of British Columbia has guaranteed the bonds of some useless institution, and that, in consequence, a debt of $40,000,000 is hanging over them? As a matter of fact, for every dollar guaranteed the Canadian Northern railway by the provincial Government, there is real value, and a great deal more, in the road itself.
It may be an eye-opener to hon. members to know that in the last month of operation.-and operation was begun only in the month of November or December- the earnings exceeded the operating expenses. I think that is a pretty good record; it is better than the five or six years of dead loss on the Transcontinental. It is a pretty good business investment when you can get a railroad to earn sufficient revenue to cover its operating expenses within four months after the commencement of operation, and that in face of the fact that the Panama canal has been blocked ever since last August, so that grain could not be shipped by that route.
I hesitate to weary the House with more illustrations, but I wish to say a word or two as to the city of Vancouver as a great seaport. My hon. friend (Mr. W. F. Maclean) mentioned some of the great seaports

of Canada. I hold that Providence has given us in Vancouver one of the greatest national seaports in the world.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: What does a protectionist country want with seaports?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I reply to my hon.
friend exactly what I said to my hon. friend from South York. I have been a dreamer of the theoretical possibilities of free trade; but the theory of free trade and the practice of it are two entirely different things when you come into competition with other nations, as Canada is doing to-day. I do not want to enter into a discussion on free trade with my hon. friend, because I like him too well.


Michael Clark: The practice in England has been changed since the war.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend is getting on delicate ground. I do not want to remind him of the recent conference at Manchester, nor of the conference at Paris.
I do not want to remind him of the fact that the space in the daily newspapers not devoted to war news, is full of what is to be the fiscal policy after the war.


Michael Clark: The ports are
lull as well as the newspapers.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend had better leave the matter alone. In regard *to Vancouver, I find that in 1909-10 the exports from the ports of British Columbia, largely from Vancouver, were $25,000,000, the imports for consumption, $27,000,000, and the duty collected $5,750,000. In 1913! 14, the exports increased to $33,000,000, the imports for consumption increased to $56 -000,000, and the duty collected increased to $11,000,000. That is an indication of the growth of trade. I will also quote the Post Office and Inland Revenue figures, indicat-mg the increase in trade in British Columbia-and I am making this argument for the purpose of justifying the investment in railways in British Columbia, and to inspire, if I can, in this House a little faith m the future of that province. In 1901 the post office at Vancouver had a revenue of $56,000; in 1911, when my hon. friends opposite went out of office the revenue was $350,000; in 1913, it was $500,000. The money orders in 1901 amounted to $240,000; in 1911, to $1,500,000; and in 1913, to $2-
600,000.	'


John Gillanders Turriff: What is the figure for
1915?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have not that. There was a decrease last year, but now the monthly reports show that things are rapidly coming back to their normal condition.
In regard to inland revenue, the figures are: for 1908, $438,000; for 1913, $728,000. For Customs the figures are: for 1906, $1,785,000; and for 1913d4, $11,366,000. I quote these figures simply for the purpose of demonstrating to the House the fact that, in your investment in British Columbia, as' the representatives of the people of Canada you have good security. I could go on for hours illustrating the increase in the industrial facilities of British Columbia. Last year forty new industries located in and around Vancouver, with 4,000 employees and a pay-roll of $3,000,000 a year. I deprecate the suggestion thrown out from time to time that British Columbia has its windows boarded up. There is to-day no part of Canada where the outlook is more optimistic than in British Columbia; there is no place in Canada where the people are more willing to bear their part of the burdens, not only of the war, but of the building up of this country.
'Mr. PUGSLEY: Will my hon. friend tell me what the surplus ot deficit, as the case might be, was of British Columbia during *the past year?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have not the figures before me; but from the year 1908 to the year 1911 there was a surplus every year. In the year 1912-13 there was a surplus of $2,000,000: in the year 1913-14, if I am not mistaken, there was1 a deficit.


William Pugsley: How much?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Quite a considerable deficit; it might have been two or three million dollars.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend remembers the surpluses, not the deficits.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Not at all. I am telling my hon. friend as frankly as I can the exact situation. My hon. friend is surely not going to quarrel over the fact that there was a deficit the year after the outbreak of the war.


William Pugsley: The hon. member said the year 1913-14.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I meant the year 1914-15.


William Pugsley: The deficit is. said to be about $5,000,000. What I said was: With the magnificent revenue of $12,000,000, how

does it come about that there was a deficit of $5,000,000? That does not look like a good illustration of prosperity.


Henry Herbert Stevens: During the ten years prior to 1913-14, we spent in British Colum-bit $20,000,000 on roads and bridges and trade. Although that is really capital expenditure, every dollar was taken out of revenue, and the deficit of which my hon. friend speaks was due to a capital expenditure of over $13,000,000 on public works, roads, bridges and trails. Eight or nine hundred thousand dollars was spent on school buildings. We put up in the city of Prince Rupert the court house and other public buildings at a cost of nearly half a million dollars. Those expenditures are really capital expenditures, but they were all included in the so-called deficits. It is not really a deficit, so far as revenue is concerned.


Mr. KNOWLES:: Does the hon. member say that all the roads in British Columbia were built out of revenue?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I do,


William Erskine Knowles: And not built out of money derived from the sale of lands and other resources.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I admit there would-


William Erskine Knowles: That is all-


Henry Herbert Stevens: Wait a moment; my hon. friend is not going to confuse the issue. Out of $12,000,000 revenue for 1913-14, the returns from land sales was $1,170,000. The rest was practically revenue derived from the natural resources of the country. And, mark you, in that same year what I call the capital expenditure-and, I am justified in so calling it,-was about $13,000,000.


William Pugsley: Does the hon. gentleman call expenditure on roads and trails capital expenditure?


Henry Herbert Stevens: To a certain extent it
is. The expenditure on schools and courthouses is certainly capital expenditure. Take the court-house at Vancouver, one of the finest buildings in Canada and that was built out of revenue. Take the court-houses in all the British Columbia cities-splendid buildings that are good for a hundred years-the new one in Vernon cost a quarter of a million; and there are other new buildings in Victoria, Prince Rupert, New Westminster and many other places. I want hon. gentleman to be fair on this question, because these statements that are 
spread abroad are doing British Columbia harm, and they are doing Canada harm, for the credit both of British Columbia and of Canada, is injured by allowing these false ideas to go abroad regarding the expenditures of that province. I repeat, the capital expenditures of British Columbia have been made out of revenue up to about two years ago on the outbreak of the war. An addition has since been made to the debt of the province, but that is covered by $43,000,000 still owing on the sale of public lands.- I want to say a word on that.
I have heard it said, it has been stated in the Liberal newspapers, that the Government has squandered its public lands. One of my hon. friends in this House asked me to make a statement on that subject because this false impression was widespread in eastern Canada. Now, these critics can take either horn of the dilemma thej like. Either they can say that the land on which that $13,000,000 is owing is excellent security for the amount, or, if it is never paid, then, the lands which they have valued at $5, , $10,	$15, or $20 an
acre, come back to the ownership of the province and remain still an asset of the province. You cannot get away from that. And so I say that our province to-day is in excellent condition; not only has it survived this strain but it is going to come to the front again very rapidly.


William Erskine Knowles: The hon. gentleman is
familiar with the facts, and his opinion would be valuable. He does not need to answer if he does not wish, but I would ask him, with his permission, if he thinks that the administration of the affairs of British Columbia has been economical and wise.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I do not know that that has to do with the discussion other than in a general way. But I will answer it, and my answer is, yes. British Columbia has made mistakes, of course; it has done things that I did not agree with and which I would have criticised had I been a member of the legislature. On the whole, the figures that J have quoted show that the province has had a fair, decent administration; and, furthermore, there has never been one single statement brought before the people that has been demonstrated to reflect upon the personal honour and integrity of the present Prime Minister of British Columbia, Hon. W. J. Bowser. They have attacked, abused, and maligned him, but not one thing has

been laid at his door that has not been in the strictest sense honourable and honest.


William Pugsley: How does the hon. gentleman account for the general condemnation of him in the two great cities of Victoria and Vancouver in the last election?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am sure my hon.
friend does not want me to discuss that; it is a long story and there is a great deal to be said about it. I can tell him that the people are to a large extent sorry; and let me tell him something further that will account for ninety per cent of it: To-day there is going on in the courts of Vancouver and before the Elections Committee an exposition of a most rascally and scandalous plot for plugging by bringing in over two hundred men from Seattle- and that was done by the political friends of my hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Pugs-ley).


John Gillanders Turriff: No.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: Brought in by the friends of the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Stevens).


Henry Herbert Stevens: No, these hon. gentlemen are mistaken. I am stating what is true; these men were brought in for the purpose of plugging in the intorestsr-


John Gillanders Turriff: How does the hon, gentleman know?


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is proven in the courts. That is the only corruption that I know of there. Now, I had not intended to bring up this matter, but my hon. friend has forced me to it. Let me conclude-I have tried it half a dozen times and I hope he really will let me conclude this time-by saying that we have excellent security for all the money that is being expended in British Columbia; and no one in this House or out of it need have the slightest doubt that British Columbia will take care of all its obligations. And, further than that, I am convinced that the railway which is so much maligned will prove in time one of the best-paying systems of Canada.


John Gillanders Turriff: I do not think any one who has ever visited British Columbia will question one of the statements made by my hon. friend from Vancouver (Mr. Stevens), and that is that the province of British Columbia is a great province, a rich province, a province of splendid resources. At the same time, I do not think he has given quite a fair statement of the position of that province. For instance, he gives the revenues of the province of British Clumbia up to 1913, and there he very conveniently stops-


Henry Herbert Stevens: For 1913-14. v


John Gillanders Turriff: Well-and there he very conveniently stops and tries to make out that the depreciation of the revenue has been due to the wax. Nothing can be further from the fact than that statement. I was in the province of British Columbia three years ago last fall, and half a dozen people in the city of Vancouver told me that during the year at least 20,000 people had left the city, and the same proportion held true of the city of Victoria. This could not have been on account of the war, because it was a year or two before the war broke out.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Last year they had the largest school population in Vancouver they ever 'had.


John Gillanders Turriff: It was not on account of the war, but on account of the depression which affected all Canada. It is no dis- * credit to have a depression in British Columbia any more than in any other part of the country. But conditions have gone back very much, not only in British Columbia, but elsewhere, since then. Two or three months ago the local Government, to whom the hon. gentleman gives such a good character, estimated a revenue for the coming year of about five and a half million dollars and an expenditure of about ten and a half million, dollars. Here was a government going into large expenditures which their revenue was only about half enough to meet. My hon. friend tried to make out that-the Government were paying for public works out of revenue, though they were at the same time selling their public lands and timber in order to raise revenue. There is no doubt that a great deal of the land and timber sold will come back into the hands of the Government, for they were sold during boom times. Those sales were one great cause of the revenue in British Columbia, which turned out to be a bad thing in the end, because it led the Government-as I presume it would have led any government-into great extravagances, just as the bountiful revenue that we had in this Dominion some years ago led the people of Canada and the Government into extravagance, the results of which vre have now to face. But conditions in British. Columbia got very bad, and

I think this was largely owing to the way provincial affairs were administered.
However, that is not the subject we were discussing. My hon. friend tries to make this House believe that the money put into the Canadian Northern railway by the province of British Columbia during the last few years is money well invested.
I do not think that one member of this House believes that the money put into the Canadian Northern railway by the provincial Government ot by this Government in connection with the building of the line from the Rocky mountains to Vancouver is money well invested, because a great part of the line is simply a duplication of the Grand Trunk Pacific and of the Canadian Pacific railway. From the city of Edmonton the lines run paiallel for a distance of almost 200 miles, if I remember rightly; in many cases you can throw a stone from one track to the other. When you get near Fort George the Grand Trunk Pacific verges to the northwest and the Canadian Northern proceeds in a southwestern direction, striking the Canadian Pacific at a point near Kamloops. My hon. friend has described how the two lines run down the Fraser river. No doubt my hon. friend is right in saying that the Canadian Northern, where it parallels the Canadian Pacific rail- * way could be used in connection with the double-tracking of the Canadian Pacific railway ; probably this method of double tracking would be as cheap as if the Canadian Pacific Railway Company bad undertaken to double track their road. In that respect the Canadian Northern line may some time be useful, but any development of traffic along that part of the road is out of the question.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend is mistaken. There is a lot of traffic down the Fraser river; some of the biggest ranches in Canada are tributary to that road.


John Gillanders Turriff: 
William Findlay Maclean: How much, have we in them now?


Mr. COCKSHUTT:: I have not entered into a close calculation as to that but I should think probably not moTe than 15 or 20 per cent of that amount. My hon. friend probably knows better than I do.
It may be said that these railways should not be bought at their face value. That might be considered fair provided you could get the railways to see it that way, but it must be remembered that a great many people in the Old Country have put their money into these railway enterprises in good faith and they cannot reasonably be crowded out without giving them a comparatively fair and square deal. If we do anything else it will injure the credit of this country and we should not endeavour to drive a haTd bargain with the bondholders and stockholders in foreign countries without giving them a reasonable chance to say whether or not they are prepared to accept it.
I did not hear what proposition my hon. friend from South York made in regard to the acquirement of these roads, and that is a very important matter. I want to commend my right 'hon. friend (Sir Robert Borden) for the statesmanlike action that he is taking on this railway problem. There are three courses confronting the Government and the Minister of Finance at the present time. The first is to continue the present position, go on advancing money from year to year to one or both of these great trunk lines in order to aid them in their financial operations, taking their securities and deriving from them what they will yield which may not be very much.) This year Iwe take $23,000,000 in round figures. That is the first proposition and that is the one that is made _ for the immediate relief of the railway situation. The next proposition that I / have heard put forward is to allow the trunk lines to go into a receiver's hands if they cannot stand on their own financial basis. That would be very serious for the railways, it would be very serious for the people of the country and it would be very serious for those who advanced money in foreign lands to build and equip these great enterprises. I for one consider that an unthinkable proposition, and I trust this country will never allow its credit to be dragged in the mud, as it undoubtedly would be if these roads were allowed to default and were placed 
in the receiver's hands. A third proposition is that we face the matter fairly and squarely-take the bull by the horns, so to speak,-and nationalize these great trunk lines, and perhaps all railway lines. I do not know what the view of the hon. member for South York is with regard to taking over all the roads;
I did not hear that part of his speech. But these two transcontinental lines have to be dealt with almost immediately, as I understand the statement of the Prime Minister, and it is necessary to advance this amount of from $20,000,000 to $23,000,000 to tide the railways over the current year. A commission is to be appointed with full powers to examine into the whole railway situation, and submit to this House at the earliest possible date a report in concrete form, showing what the nationalization of these railways will mean, what amount of capital will be required, and what are its prospects of financial success. I am not one of those who believe that, with an investment as great as I have spoken of you will be able to reduce either freight rates or passenger charges in the immediate future. I may be wrong about that, but I am very' much in doubt whether it i= fair to go upon the public platform and endeavour to enlist the approbation of the people of Canada m this immense proposition in the expectation that a two-cents per mile rate is going to prevail all over Canada, and that freight rates are going to be much lower than the rates now charged by private companies. I question very much if either freight or passenger rates will be materially reduced in the near future, in view of the necessity of taking care of overhead charges and the interest accruing on this vast investment.


William Findlay Maclean: Is there not a
prospect of the rates being reduced, if unnecessary duplication and unnecessary competition is cut out under public ownership?


Mr COCKSHUTT:: That is a fair and
proper question and I was coming to that. I think it quite probable that a considerable amount may be saved by cutting out this multiplication of boards and directorates, and this unnecessary duplication of lines, which entail unnecessary overhead charges. But that will altogether depend upon the ability of the commission that is to be appointed to solve this problem. I believe with the hon. member for South York that

very material savings could toe effected. I do not want him to go away with the idea that I am at all opposed to public ownership, for I am very largely impressed with the idea that it is the only good 5 p.m. solution in sight. It is a difficult solution, but it is the only sound one. Until the report is submitted I am not prepared to commit myself absolutely to saying that all the railways in Canada should be nationalized. But nearly all the enlightened countries in the world to-day do own their railways. At the present time 230,000 miles of the railways of the world are public-owned. Great Britain, recently, in war time, took possession of parts of the railways in the British isles, and has been operating them, I believe, satisfactorily. And what has been done in these other countries can be done in Canada; there is no doubt about that. But it will require men with excellent judgment, and an honour that is above reproach; men with a keen sense of responsibility to the people of Canada, a sense that is rarely met with in individuals. They will have to be selected with the utmost care from the very best ability in railway enterprise that Canada or the United States can produce. But I trust that it may not be necessary to have all these experts come from either Great Britain or the United States.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend has observed that some of the railways in Great Britain have been nationalized. Does he infer from the fact that it has been done successfully in Great Britain, which is not as large as some of our smaller provinces, that nationalization could therefore be advantageously adopted in Canada, with its immense area?


William Foster Cockshutt: I think it would be very much more difficult in Canada than in Great Britain. Great Britain is a very small country; the railways are very short, and they have an immense freight haulage all along the line. They get freight rates that we know nothing of in this: country. We often hear complaints about high rates in Canada, but I have known farmers in the midland counties in England pay higher rates to have their produce hauled from the midland counties to London, a distance of 200 miles, than would be paid to take the same produce from the city of Montreal, unload it at Liverpool, and trans^ port it over the English railways from there to London. Such is the railway situation
in Great Britain. Their capitalization per mile is probably twice as much as it is in Canada. In Great Britain nationalization was a comparatively small proposition, as the hon. member for Pictou has pointed out, and it will be a much larger proposition for us. But let us remember that Australia is about as large a country as Canada, and every bit of railway in the Commonwealth has been state-owned, not federally-owned, for many years past, and the roads, I understand, have been operated successfully. Does any one mean to say that we cannot do in Canada what has Ibeen done in Australia successfully? And they are not following the most enlightened policy there. I travelled in Australia some six years ago. Every state there has a different gauge railway, and, therefore, when freight gets to the boundary of one state, every car has to be unloaded and the freight reloaded on caTs of the other state railway. That is the policy of the Federal Government, which is supposed to control the railway situation there. The labour situation in Australia has been such that the Government has been unable to unify the gauges. Labour says: You would destroy our labour; at the present time we get work loading and unloading these cars, and we refuse to have the gauges of the different railways unified. The result is that there are five or six different gauges in Australia, yet even with that disadvantage I believe the roads are run successfully; so I cannot see why we should not make a success of it in Canada.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Is my hon. friend sure
that the Australian Government is making a financial success of it?


William Foster Cockshutt: I would not say that they are in all cases, but they have operated some of the roads with success, and the roads generally have been operated to the satisfaction of the people for a great many years. I cannot say that they are paying dividends; I do not think they are; but probably they do not intend to pay dividends. They try to make the road selfsupporting, and I presume that all the railways in Australia have been self-suppoTt-ing. Now this policy of transferring freight when it gets to the boundary of a state is a proposition that no enlightened country should put up with. I do not wish to cast any reflections on Australia, but I am making the point that the labour party in Australia will not allow the gauges to be unified because it would cut down labour.


William Erskine Knowles: Does not that illustrate the contention that political influence enters into the operation of railways? It must be political influence that prevents them changing to one gauge-the influence of the labour vote, I presume. Is not that just an illustration of one of the great dangers of state ownership?


William Foster Cockshutt: I do not think it can be the fault of the labour vote, because a labour Government is in power.


William Erskine Knowles: All the more reason.


William Foster Cockshutt: Australia is the land of the workingman, and the workingmen certainly manage to get into power there and to remain in power for a long time. If you please the labouring man, you please every one else so. far as public ownership is concerned. For myself, I am willing to travel on a railroad, whether it is publicly owned or privately owned, so long as it is well run and' safe, but I do not want to be ditched; I dlo not want to travel on a line that is not safe, nor in rolling stock that is not in proper condition. The people of Canada to-day have their eye on the railway situation, and it is going to be one of the great questions before the people when this or any other Government goes to the polls. The railway situation must be grappled with and settled with a stoong hand. I congratulate the Prime Minister on being prepared to face the situation in such a splendid manner.
I was perhaps wrong in saying that the railways in Great Britain have been nationalized. I do not know that I am warranted in using that term in the sense that they .have been bought outright by the British 'Government, but at present they are all being operated, and successfully operated, under the Government.
In regard to the appointment of a commission, as I have said, it will be necessary to select the biggest, brainest, and most capable men in .the Dominion of Canada, or if they cannot be got here, in the neighbouring Republic or in Great Britain, to handle this immense railway proposition. The suggestion that has come from the Minister of Finance and from the right hon. leader of the Government, is, I think, one of the best auguries1 for the solution of this question. The first ray of light that I have been able to see in the railway situation in the last twenty or thirty years is the proposition that the question shall be thoroughly investigated iby a commission which will

look into the questions, of how,the financial and other responsibilities will be taken care of, what it will cost to continue the present system, or what it will cost to take over the railways and make of them a great national enterprise. In my opinion the last solution is the best, the soundest, and the safest, but I do not want the House to believe that the outlook will be rosy; that the freight charges or express charges or passenger charges will be very largely reduced in the near future.
Just one word more. I have spoken longer than I intended, but as I do not often speak in this House, I think that, as a business man who takes a deep interest in the transportation situation in this *country, I have a right to say something on a proposition such as this.
I want to refer to the labour situation that will be created. The labour situation is one that must be reckoned with and taken into very serious' consideration in nationalizing the railways of the Dominion, as that will mean the employment on all the railways of Canada of probably 200,000 men of the most skilled and intelligent mechanics and labourers that this country possesses. The last census, I think, shows that the number at present employed on the railroads is about 150,000, and I believe that in the very near future 200,000 will be employed. If those men are all under one commission and if anything should go wrong between the Commission and them, you have the possibility of a general strike which would tie up every mile of railway in the Dominion of Canada. I do not know whether my hon. friend from South York (Mr. W. F. Maclean.) who is full of solutions, has a solution for that difficulty, but that is a serious matter that must be reckoned with. Those men will be all under one management and if they become dissatisfied with their rates of pay, or their hours of labour, or the method of treatment, we might have a national railway strike on out hands.


William Findlay Maclean: The United States of America are to-day confronted with the possibility of a general railway strike and negotiations with the men are going on. Every road is tied up with the others in that threatened strike; the men are organized; the railroads are organized, and the danger that threatens is a general tie-up. The Government, however, are dSaliriig with the situation just as France has dealt with the strike that occurred there, and she got over it and she has national railways still.


William Foster Cockshutt: My hon. friend says it is quite possible that a strike might occur in the United States where the railways are under the management of a great many different companies. I quite agree that that is a possibility, but it is hardly as likely to occur as where men are under the management of one commission. I think that is a very serious question and one that will require very careful handling. There have been very few labour troubles on the Intercolonial Railway as I remember, but the Government have treated their employees liberally and the men are satisfied, as compared with the employees of other railroads. I do not know of any reason why things should not run smoothly, but I am asking the hon. member for South York to consider all the disadvantages as well as all the advantages, and to look at the proposition in a businesslike way and see whether it is likely to prove a financial and administrative success and whether it is likely to be of advantage to the people *of this country. I for one am very hopeful that that will prove to be the case. The hon. member for South York has done a great deal towards advancing me, so to speak, on the road towards being in favour of the nationalization of railways.
The money proposed to be spent on this commission will be the best money voted in this House next to the money voted for the war, and next to the war, this is the biggest question on our hands from a financial point of view. I am sure the Minister of Finance will agree with me that the railway situation is as bad financially as the war situation, and that it looks as if some of the money proposed to be invested in the railways will be wasted just as some of the money spent on the war is being wasted. It must be admitted that we have built railways in advance of our time; that we have far more mileage than the business of the country warrants, and that the building of the eastern section of the Transcontinental was intended as a waste and is going to be a waste of money for years to come. It is a white elephant of the largest type; I think it is the largest of its kind and if Barnum were still living I would advise him to get it into his museum.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Is my hon. friend
not aware that the Acting Minister of Railways has announced that there has been a profit on the operation of that road by the Government?


William Foster Cockshutt: Do you mean the
road from Winnipeg to Moncton, or only from Winnipeg to Cochrane?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I mean from Winnipeg east.


William Foster Cockshutt: How far east? It is only operated: as far as Cochrane, as I understand it. And my hon, friend is taking no account of interest charges, but is speaking only of the operating expenses. What about the interest charges on that vast investment? The $13,000,000 that was going to pay all the interest certainly will not pay it; it will -take nearly $30,000,000 to pay the interest. Then you have the Quebec bridge and all that Eastern section.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The hon. gentleman deals in -millions very easily and hands

them out-


William Foster Cockshutt: I am as careful with my figures- as is the hon. gentleman. I certainly would not like to be guilty of as many wild statements as he.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: There was just one point-bow does he work it out to $30,000,000 for annual interest charge?


William Foster Cockshutt: That is for six years.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Hfe said $30,000,000 a -year.


William Foster Cockshutt: I do not think I said that; I certainly did not intend to. There was a construction period of several years, and I said that the $13,000,000 which hon. gentlemen opposite said would pay the interest was not enough, and that it would be $30,000,000. I was putting this $30,000,000 in contrast with the $13,000,000, and I think Hansard will show that that was the effect of my statement. My hon. friend (Mr. Macdonald) did not see that he was entering into a gigantic speculation which would end so disastrously. -But we saw it, and it has cotne out exactly as we expected -only worse. The Quebec bridge alone is going to cost nearly as much as the whole Eastern section was to have cost. Now, I would like to ask the hon. gentleman, who knows so much about running the eastern end of thi-s railway, how he expects the line from the Quebec bridge to Moncton to pay when it parallels the Intercolonial, -which does not pay? How are you going to make two roads pay when there is not traffic enough for one?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The hon. gentleman ought to get his facts right. The Grand

Trunk Pacific docs not parallel the Intercolonial 'all the way.


William Foster Cockshutt: It parallels it nearly all the way.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The hon. gentleman should visit the Maritime Provinces.


William Foster Cockshutt: How far does it parallel the Intercolonial; let the hon. gentleman state.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will send my hon. friend the figures.


William Foster Cockshutt: The hon, gentleman will not give the figures now, for he knows that what I say is about right.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: They run parallel
for a short distance in the province of Quebec, but thp Transcontinental runs the other side of the mountain and diverges, and from a point in the county of Dorchester it runs miles and miles away from the Intercolonial.


William Foster Cockshutt: Does not it end in
about the same spot; and does it not start from about the same point? In order to have one railway parallel another, you do not have to have both run on the same right of way.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I say it serves a different section of the country altogether, and the hon. gentleman does not know what he is talking about.


William Foster Cockshutt: If I did not know
anything more about business than some of the lawyers know about law, I should not have much to say in this House. Let me tell my hon. friend that this House is about sick of legal arguments, mere hairsplitting, and we want a little business common-sense. We do not want to hear it $aid that one railway does not parallel another because it does not run on the same road-bed. It depends altogether on the traffic. Railways running fifty miles apart may be said to parallel each other. In the country to which the hon. gentleman refers there is no traffic to be developed. He knows that you parallel a railway if you put another within even two hundred miles of it if thereby you divide traffic which was not enough for the first railway. If there is not freight for one, you certainly cannot have freight for two. The hon. gentleman is simply trying to draw a red herring across the track. He knows that that road could not have been built as a freight or passenger road; it was a political 
road, and the effect of its construction has been to bring about the expenditure of $40,000,000 more than was necessary to build it, as was shown by the report of the Transcontinental Commission. Knowing that, it does not become my hon: friend to talk as he does. He might make an impression among a lot of lawyers, but he cannot go into any enlightened business community and show them that this road was the outcome of the application of business principles. The interest runs night and day, whether the freight is carried or not, and now where the railway was we have two streaks of rust. How much trade has been done over that road up to the present? How much was likely to be done in that country in the near future? Can the hon. gentleman tell that?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The hon. gentleman spoke of a road "through a country like that." What does he mean?


William Foster Cockshutt: I mean a country that affords no freight for the railway.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: How does the hon. gentleman know.


William Foster Cockshutt: Does the hon. gentleman think I have never been in the Maritime Provinces?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I do not think you have.


William Foster Cockshutt: Oh, yes, I have. The wise men came from the East, and sometimes they stayed West after coming. I had not intended to enter into a controversy with my hon. friend', but. he is anxious for it. I simply rose to give the business view of a very difficult situation, not the legal view. My desire is that we should face squarely the financial obligations that are going to rest upon this country, no matter what is done, to waive aside all minor considerations and enter into a serious calculation as to what will be necessary to invest in these great enterprises and how it is going to pay when it is done. I say the Government are to be commended for the proposition they have brought in, to appropriate $150,000 to thoroughly investigate this situation in order to bring in a report upon which- we can bank as absolutely correct. This is one cf the best day's work that has been done in this House in a business way for years, and I shall hope for satisfactory results from it. I believe the Finance Minister will sleep better in his bed

when he sees thee solution of this great railway question.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I
desire to say just a word in regard to the eastern section of the Grand Trunk Pacific, or, as it is known, the National Transcpn-tinental. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Cock-shutt) belongs to that class of little Canadians who would shut out the Maritime Provinces altogether from


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Yes-would shutout the Maritime Provinces from any participation in the transportation plans of Canada. It is quite common now to blame on the war the financial condition of this country. The Finance Minister takes the position with regard to the additional vote which he is asking for the railways, that had it not been for the war it would not have been necessary to ask for a vote. He justifies a second or third financial provision for the railways upon the ground of the war. Let us see how this applies in connection with the question as to the utility of the eastern section of the Transcontinental. My hon. friend talks about the policy of the Government of the day in contrast with that of the Government that was in power in 1994.
My hon. friend knows that the verdict of the people of Canada in 1904, reiterated in 1908, and the well understood opinion of business men who were imbued with the hopefulness that existed throughout Canada during those years, was that tne Transcontinental railway was a necessity and that it should be built. Were it not for the fact that the war has paralyzed immigration into Canada and has seriously interfered with the development of the country throughout that section in which the road has been built, we should have had an ample and complete vindication of the wisdom of constructing this railway-a vindication so complete that even my hon. friend would have been satisfied. My hon. friend is one of those, I am sure, who would desire a continuance of the policy of sending the trade of western and central ' Canada through our Atlantic ports. If the war were to cease within a year and a period of prosperity, involving extensive development and large increase of trade, should come to this country, does my hon. friend say that Canada should he satisfied for all time with the avenue of exit or entrance afforded by the Intercolonial railway?


William Foster Cockshutt: What about the
Canadian Pacific railway? Have they not a line to St. John?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The Canadian Pacific railway has a line with its terminus at St. John, but that line does not run entirely through Canadian territory. The necessity of having a road entirely within our own territory is shown by the fact that no matter how pressing the necessity may be, you cannot transport through the foreign country through which the Canadian Pacific railway runs anything relating to supplies for the war. Is that not so?


William Foster Cockshutt: No.


Mr. CURRIE:: When did the United
States place an embargo upon the shipment of munitions through the state of Maine?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The Minister of
Railways has been stating publicly in this House, and, I have no doubt, privately to his friends, that the reason the business of the Maritime Provinces has been congested and absolutely paralysed is because the Intercolonial railway is the only railway that has been hauling war supplies to the East.	[DOT]


John Allister Currie: That is because most of the munitions were being shipped from Grand Trunk territory.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend will say that to have a railway running through foreign territory, if it has a terminus in Canada, is just as good for this country as if the whole railway were on our own soil.


John Allister Currie: The Canadian Pacific railway was just as much congested last winter as was the Intercolonial.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Not at all.


John Allister Currie: I know better.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I admit that my hon. friend is very well informed on a great many subjects with regard1 to which I Should not venture to question his assertions, but I say to him that when he seeks to instruct me with regard to business conditions in the Maritime Provinces, I wiill not defer my judgment to his.


John Allister Currie: I want to tell the hon. gentleman that I do a great deal more business over the railways in the Maritime Provinces than he does. I have had thousands of dollars worth of freight going

over these railways, and I suppose my hon. friend never shipped a ton.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: All I can say with regard to that is that I have the statement of the authorities of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company that there was no congestion or delay on their road, that they were prepared to take freight to St. John, Ibut that they were unable to take freight to points east of St. John or to give rreight to the Intercolonial for carriage to points east of St. John because of the congestion that existed on the Intercolonial railway.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman's
statement is perfectly correct. The congestion was common to both roads and to all roads in the East. If the money that ' was expended on the Transcontinental to Moncton had been expended on doubletracking the Intercolonial, they could have carried four times the tonnage that they are carrying now on either road.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: It is unfortunate for my hon. friend and for his party that he has not been Minister of Railways during the last two years. He would have had a chance to put into operation some of his theories in regard to this matter, and I am sure we would have been delighted to watch him work them out. If my hon. friend's argument amounts to anything it is this: it is just as good for Canada to have its transportation lines run through a foreign country as it is to have them all on her own territory. I am sure my hon. friend is not prepared to stand by that assertion. The hon. member for Brantford, who indulged in some wild talk with regard to the Eastern section of the Transcontinental and with regard to the inutility of the line which runs through the western part of Canada, does not know anything about the subject that he is dealing with. When that line in New Brunswick is properly operated and proper connection is afforded at its western end; when the line is complete as a through line from Winnipeg to Moncton, the wisdom of the policy of 1903-4 will be vindicated.


William Foster Cockshutt: If that is correct, why does not my hon. friend show the -rand Trunk Company, who agreed to take over the road, that that is the fate that will overtake them if they take over the enterprise? The Grand Trunk undertook to take it over; now they want to retire after spending $100,000,000 on it. Would they retire if

it were as rosy a proposition as my hon. friend states it to be?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If they retire it will be for the same reason that they retired from the western proposition:	that the
errand Trunk is controlled 'by directors who live across the ocean; that they have lost the controlling influence of Mr. Hays, who directeu the operations which culminated in the Grand Trunk Pacific proposition. The road is under the control of men who, on account of the war, want to run away from the whole thing. They asserted in their letter to the Premier in December last that although they believed they would be blamed by the directorate for doing so, they begged the Government-on account of the war, of the existing conditions, of their financial obligations being too great-to take the road over. That is the reason why they dealt with the western proposition in that way; that is the reason why they dealt with the eastern proposition in that way. The confidences which are expressed in this letter as to earning powers and successful operation apply as much to one section of the road as to the other. But my hon. friend speaks of a line which is not completed. He condemns the whole thing on a limited knowledge of tjie facts. Until connection is made between the Maritime Provinces and the western portion of the system no one will be in a position to tell what the result will be.


William Pugsley: The trouble with
the hon. member for Brantford and the hon. member for North Simcoe is that they have been reading the remarks of the 'Solicitor General in regard to the Transcontinental. They probably saw in the newspapers a short time ago the report of a speech which the Solicitor General made in Eastern Canada, in which he said that the Transcontinental simply consisted of two streaks of rust and a lot of decaying sleepers, or something of that kind.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: I mentioned the debt, too.


William Pugsley: It was the two streaks of rust that impressed him most, as apparently it has impressed the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) and the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Currie). If these hon. gentlemen had the pleasure of being in the House when the Acting Minister of Railways presented his admirable statement with regard to the traffic upon the Trans-

continental they would have entertained a different opinion. The Acting Minister of Railways did not speak of it as two streaks of rust. He spoke of the splendid road-bed and of the very great and satisfactory traffic which was being carried over the Transcontinental. Unfinished at it is-being in the position of a house which has to be completed by the contractor, which is to have three stories and has only two stories completed, which is to have two bathrooms and has only one, and which this Government would call a completed house as they call this railway a completed railway, even although they themselves admit that it is not completed-even in its uncompleted condition the Transcontinental is to-day a great factor in connection with the transportation business of Canada. I was told just the other day that, if you go to any point on the Transcontinental in New Brunswick, every day, and almost every hour, you will see trains half a mile long, trains with 50 cars being hauled by one locomotive and transporting vast quantities of freight. The authorities of the Intercolonial Railway are using that road to far greater advantage than they would have been able to use the Intercolonial even if it had been doubletracked. Let these hon. gentlemen take comfort and hope from the statement of the Acting Minister of Railways, and realize, as they ought to realize, that the Transcontinental is one of the grandest and one of the most magnificent undertakings which have ever been carried out in any country. Let them take hope for its future, because they will have abundant reason for that hope. I trust that before making disparaging remarks again with regard to the Transcontinental the hon. members for Brantford and Simcoe will read the very interesting and instructive statement of the Acting Minister of Railways as to the business which it is doing, so far as eastern Canada is concerned.


John Allister Currie: I made no disparaging statement about the eastern section.


William Pugsley: Did my hon. friend not say in effect that instead of wasting money upon the Transcontinental it would have been infinitely better to devote that money to double-tracking the Intercolonial.


John Allister Currie: Sure it would. That is right, but I was not disparaging the road.


William Pugsley: Even if it had been double-tracked, the Intercolonial has not the splendid grades which the Transcontinental has. On the Intercolonial between Quebec and Halifax there are grades of li per cent in a number of places, while on the Transcontinental you have a grade of only Yio per cent. Go down east and you will find a locomotive on the Canadian Pacific railway or upon one of the lines of railway which it is operating, hauling eight or ten. cars while you will find the same locomotive potver hauling 50 cars on the Transcontinental. Cannot the hon. member see what wonderful difference it makes in the cheapness of transportation.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman is mistaking a local freight train for a through train.


William Pugsley: I am speaking about the difference in grades. On the Intercolonial, taking the whole district from Quebec to Halifax or St. John, a locomotive could not haul half the number of cars it could on the Transcontinental. The Transcontinental is a road of which we ought all to be proud. We ought not to speak of it as two streaks of rust, but as one of the greatest and grandest accomplishments in this country, or in any other country.


Arthur Meighen: It	is a psychological study to	sit on	this side
of the House and watch hon. gentlemen opposite when the Transcontinental railway or the Grand Trunk Pacific is under discussion. That any hon. member of this House, who had the remotest relationship with that undertaking of colossal folly, can stand before an. intelligent people and pronounce it to be a grand and noble success really passes human comprehension. My hon. friend from St. John says that if we only 1 iatehed to the statement of the Acting Minister of Railways we would take great comfort and encouragement, and would bestow our blessing on the late Government because they initiated the Transcontinental. The statement of the Minister of Railways shows this: That undertaking to operate the road as we would be forced to operate it-because those who fathered the road and forced it on the late Government would not operate it as a gift-the loss on operation alone is estimated $3,000,000 a year. That is what we are asked to take comfort out of in regard to this railway which has already cost the country $200,000,000, from Winnipeg eastward, and which will cost more than that. We find that with the probable necessity of loading our backs with

the Grand Trunk Pacific from Winnipeg westward, if we take it in the only way in which we now can, it would cost us $240,000,000 more. My hon. friend tells us that we have a fine road with fine grades and that a locomotive could haul more cars on the Transcontinental than on any other railway. Perhaps it could, if we had the freight to haul.
' Mr. PUGSLEY: You will have the cars.


Arthur Meighen: Would it not be better to have the road first. What is the good of having a road twenty years .before the freight comes.


William Pugsley: I have never seen a
case yet where you had the cars before you had the railway.


Arthur Meighen: Sometimes there is
freight when there is no road. The hon. member for Edmonton gave us an instance, and there are other instances where freight is waiting to-day and there is no railroad. The finances of this country are crippled because hon. gentlemen opposite built railroads where there was no freight. Yes, about $240,000,000 from Winnipeg westward -that is what it would cost us now if we took over the road with the debt which is against it. The road over the prairie, they said would be an immediately paying part that would be strong enough to carry the eastern division through troublesome years and lean years.


William Pugsley: Does the hon. gentleman mean to tell this House that the Transcontinental is not an essential factor in connection with the transportation business of Canada?


Arthur Meighen: It is just about as essential a factor as an air line. I would rather have the $200,000,000 that was spent upon it than this " essential factor." Hon. members opposite denounce the utility of the Canadian Northern and what it has done in return for what it has got. Last year that railroad carried nearly 40 per cent of the western grain, and the " essential factor," of which the hon. gentleman speaks, carried about 8 per cent of the western grain. This road, the " essential factor," has cost about $42,000 a mile, and, before we are through, it will have cost about $44,000 a mile. The other road cost $21,000 a mile and the $21,000 a mile road is carrying from 33 per cent to 40 per cent of the grain while the " essential factor " is carrying about a quarter of that.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Does the hon. gentleman think that the road from Winnipeg to Edmonton should not have been built?


Arthur Meighen: It should not have been built in the way it was built, and neither should the road from Winnipeg eastwards.-Four hundred and forty million dollars have been sunk in this road and the return in value to the Dominion is relatively infinitesimal. Yet, the hon. member for St. John stands up and says that this is a noble, a grand, a glorious work. What ties our hands in this war to-day financially?-the Transcontinental railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific. What loads the feet of this country ' and keeps us in our present


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What about the Canadian Northern, which has been assisted to the extent of $75,000,000?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman was >
chiding me for mentioning the Canadian Northern a moment ago; now, he wants to get away from the Grand Trunk Pacific by bringing in the Canadian Northern. This, gentlemen opposite tell us, was a grand and glorious project. When we get this $240,000,000 road from Winnipeg westward, where are we? What was the record of the road last year under private management, and what can we expect under public management?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: It earned $6,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: Returned $6,000,000?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I did not say "returned." I say earned $6,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: If it earned $6,000,000 count next the operating cost and what did it lose? It lost $1,552,000 on the mountain section, lost on nearly all its branch lines. On the prairie section in six months it made about $600,000,' leaving out fixed charges, and in stating the earnings it leaves out betterments, upkeep, even such items as throwing dust off the road that every railway charges against its cost of operation.


William Pugsley: Will the hon. gentleman tell me what the Canadian Northern lost last year on the mountain section?


Arthur Meighen: The Canadian Northern lost nothing on the mountain section because it did not open until November.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman
might very well answer the question because they have been operating since the first of November.


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman hae come to the House with a certain proposal, or his Government has, and he ought to be able to tell us how much the Canadian Northern lost during the time they have been operating the mountain section.


Arthur Meighen: I will tell the hon.
gemtleman something that will surprise him.


William Pugsley: You might answer that.


Arthur Meighen: I am going to answer
the hon. gentleman and I am going to do it in one second, but I would like him to tell me what he thinks of this. ' The " monument," the " essential factor," the " grand," the " noble work," lost $1,552,000 on its mountain section on operation alone, to say nothing of fixed charges and in the operation expenses did not include the upkeep of the road and the ordinary charges that every other railway company includes in operating expenses. On the contrary, here is a road that has been running in that section for only a few months, not years. The Canadian Northern opened in November and the Canadian Northern, for the present month, I am informed/'did not lose a dollar in operation and is making money on the operation of the mountain section. That is the difference between that road and the " essential factor."


William Pugsley: The hon. gentleman
takes one month in the spring of the year when there is a good deal of traffic, but he will not answer my question as to the loss on operation since the first of November.


Arthur Meighen: I have not the figures
for the first two or three months, and I have not the figures for this month, but who would expect any road to earn the cost of operation for the first two or three months, or even the first five months? But csmpare the Canadian Northern with the " essential factor," which not only did not pay, but is losing at the rate of $1,552,000 a year on the mountain section and losing on the branch lines on the prairies where of all places it ought to pay. It did not pay even the cost of operation or fixed charges notwithstanding the fact that it was carrying between 8 and 12 per cent of the grain of that western country.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Do you think there
was good .management?


Arthur Meighen: There was certainly
very poor management in the building of the road and in laying out the scheme. We are going to find out what the nature of the management has been. The hon. member for Pictou explained the situation by saying that Mr. Hays, the genius of the whole thing, died, and there was no man living to take his place.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I did not say that
at all.


Arthur Meighen: I understood that, and it appealed to me as the best possible excuse.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: You did not understand anything of the kind.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman tell me what he did say?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The hon. gentleman quoted: me partly correctly, as he usually does in discussing matters in this House, and then to suit his own purposes, he added that I said there was no man living who could take Mr. Hays' place. I said nothing of the kind.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman was complaining to us about the death of Mr. Hays. He diid not say that there was no one to take his place, but if there has been some one to take his place, then what is the difference? He died, as the hon. gentleman states, and I only added the essential factor to make his complaint commonsense. What did we hear the other day? We heard the other day from the hon. member for St. John that the folly of the Canadian Northern was really fathered by this Administration, that the mountain section was away out of the Liberal mind altogether, and that they had no thought of such a thing as a third transcontinental railway through the mountains.


William Pugsley: That is not just what I said.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman explain what he said, so that I will get it perfectly right?


William Pugsley: I said the late Government did not give any financial assistance to the Canadian Northern through the mountains, that while we looked forward to its being carried through the mountains in later yeaTS, we had declined to give financial assistance, and it is this Government, in conjunction with the Government

of British Columbia, which is responsible for the building of the mountain section and placing upon the road enormous obligations which rest very heavily on the province of British Columbia, amounting to something over 340,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman tell me how the late Government purposed that this new transcontinental railway from the Pacific coast to Montreal should get through British Columbia except by a separate line? What was their intention?


William Pugsley: The time had not arrived when the Government could arrange that, but I will tel] you what the late Government did. The late Government stipulated in the contract for the building of the Transcontinental that any other company should, with the approval of the Governor in Council, have running rights. I think that it would have been wise to have had an arrangement for running rights over the Grand Trunk Pacific more especially in view of the fact that even another road was built, and aided by the Government of British Columbia. I refer to the line from Vancouver to Prince George.


Arthur Meighen: The time had not come for anything but a transcontinental railway from this side of the mountains to Montreal. The time had only come for the providing for a future transcontinental railway, and the route to the Pacific coast was to be by means, of running rights over the Grand Trunk Pacific. That is the claim made on behalf of the late Government and that is the claim made by the hon. gentleman now. The route was to be by running rights. But legislation affirms that the time had come for a third transcontinental railway from the Pacific coast to Montreal, legislation passed in 1911. More than that, the Government of which the hon. member for St. John was a member, and during the time he was a member of it, not only by legislation pledged this country to the ratification of a third transcontinental railway right to the coast but they had the plans placed before them for the line and that line was approved under the hand of their Minister of Railways. How does the hon. gentleman square these facts, which I hold before me on the authority of the clerk of route maps of the Railway Department, with his now four years belated idea of giving the Canadian Northern railway running rights over the Grand Trunk Pacific or the Transcontinental.


William Pugsley: Let me ask my hon.
friend-


Arthur Meighen: Well, just wait till he gets the facts. On the 22nd of October, 1906, a route map was submitted for approval covering a line from Edmonton to Dean Channel on the Pacific coast. This map was never approved. On the 10th of September, 1908, a route map was submitted, covering a line from Tete Jaune Cache to Vancouver. This map was approved on the 18th of January, 1909. Again on the 21st of May, 1910, a route map was submitted covering the line from Edmonton to a point near the Pembina river. This map was approved on the 22nd of June, 1910. I am ready to folloV my hon. friend, with his route map approved by the department, and which, according to his own words in this House not a month ago, meant authority from the Government for the company to go ahead and build-


William Pugsley: To go ahead and build
without Government assistance.


Arthur Meighen: Without Government
assistance? How does that accord with his scheme of running rights over the Transcontinental? By route maps approved on the 18th of January, 1909, on the 22nd of June, 1910, and on the 8th of November, 1910, the late Government authorized the Canadian Northern Railway to build through their line to the Pacific coast, right through the mountains of British Columbia.
Mr. PUGSLEY': If they chose to do it at their own expense.


Arthur Meighen: Why did he authorize
that to be done if his real scheme was only to give them running rights over the Grand Trunk Pacific through the mountains? '


Frank Oliver: Should the Government
[DOT] have prevented them from building at their own expense?


Arthur Meighen: At their own expense? The plan of- the late Government, then, was this: to assist the Canadian Northern Railway over -the prairies and through Ontario, and when it came to the mountains, where the cost of construction was twice as much, let the company build at their own expense.


Frank Oliver: At the proper time.


Arthur Meighen: And the Minister of
Railways and Canals in the late Government stated in this House only about a year ago that the proper time had come,

that they could not build too soon; and he said the same thing in the debate on the Canadian Northern Railway in 1911.
At six o'clock, the House resumed and then took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 102, fox the relief of Martha Isabella Kenny.-Mr. Nickle.
Bill No. 183, for the relief of William Thomas Craig.-Mr. Pardee.

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Rhodes in the Chair.
Railways and Canals-chargeable to income -Grand Trunk Pacific Company-loan not exceeding $8,000,000, repayable on demand with interest payable half-yearly at the rate of six per centum (6 per cent) per annum; to be used for expenditure made or to meet indebtedness incurred in paying interest upon securities of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, to meet deficit in operation and for the purchase of rolling stock; said loan to be secured by mortgage upon the undertaking of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company containing such terms and conditions as the Governor in Council may approve. The disposition of the loan to be subject to the direction of the Governor in Council, $8,000,000.
Frank Oliver: When the committee rose at six o'clock the Solicitor General was speaking. Does he wish to continue his remarks?


Arthur Meighen: There are some remarks I wish to make, 'but I do not think it would be of any great advantage to make them at the present time.


Frank Oliver: I wish to say a little in regard to the general proposition that is before the committee and then to speak in regard to the vote of $8,000,000 in aid of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, which, I understand, is the particular item under discussion. I find my principal ground for criticism in the fact that has drawn so much commendation to the Government from the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt), and, I think, from the hon. member for South York (Mr. W. F. Maclean), namely, that the Government is now about to appoint a commission for the purpose of arriving at a policy to deal, either with the railroad situation created by the Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern railways, or perhaps with the whole railroad problem of the Dominion. Whether it is the one or the other, I want to say that I cannot join my friends in their commendation of the Government policy because I consider it not a policy, but a lack of policy. I do not favour Government by commission; I am for responsible Government in this country, and I take strong exception to the fact that this Government, since it has attained power, has adopted the principle of Government by commission to a degree that was never before dreamed of in this country nor, do I think, in any other self-governed country. There are circumstances and occasions when the appointment of a commission to deal with a special, or peculiar, or little understood question is desirable, but I submit that the question of how this country is to carry the responsibilities now resting upon it because of these two great transcontinental Tailroad enterprises, the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific, is not a proper subject for the appointment of a commission. This subject is of such a gigantic character; it is of such immediate importance to this country, that it must be dealt with by the Government of this country as a matter of policy and administration. It would be, in my opinion, as reasonable for the Government to place in the hands of a commission the administration of its affairs in connection with the war as it is to place in the hands of a commission responsibility for the direction of the government of the country in regard to these two great railroad enterprises. If the Government is a Government for the purpose of directing in any measure the important affairs of this country, this is certainly the most important affair that at the present time can come under its consideration'', aside from measures looking towards the prosecution of the war, and for the Government not to discharge those responsibilities but to side-step-I do not use the word offensively-its responsibilities by the appointment of a commission, is not a credit to the Government; it is not a credit to the country; it is not responsible Government. This Government have been in power since 1911, and the problems connected with the completion and maintenance of these two railroads met them when they entered office; those problems have been before them every day since they entered office, and they have been in office now for a matter of nearly five years. Who, in all the wide Dominion of Canada,

should know by this time what ought to be the policy in regard to these two railroads if not the members of the Government of Canada, assuming that they are discharging their duties and responsibilities?
When gentlemen who now form the Government sat in opposition, I was from time to time very much astonished to hear the present Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) and his Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster), then respectively leader of the Opposition, and bis first lieutenant, argue, in good set terms, that the condition of the country was net a matter of Government responsibility. I have heara tuern argue that if the country was prosperous that prosperity was not properly due in any important degree to the policy of the Government, but was due to the industry of the people, the bounty of Providence, and to the opportunities afforded by the country. I did not' take the argument seriously then, I assumed that it was merely a form of words used to cover up the evident fact that the policy and administration of the Government of that day had resulted in vast benefit to the country and its people, and that this was the only argument that our friends of the Opposition at that time, discharging their functions as critics as was their proper duty, could put forward to minimize the facts that were in the plain sight of everybody and of which everybody was receiving the benefit. But, if we are to take the facts as they are today-this policy of government by commission, and particularly the proposal that this great railroad question shall be dealt with, and presumably settled, by a commission-I can only conclude that our friends opposite were absolutely honest and believed what they said when, in opposition, they declared that the policy of the Government was not an important factor in securing the wealth of the country. That would be in line with their attitude to-day. They have declined to assume responsibility for the condition of these two great railway enterprises with which is interlocked to such a tremendous degree the welfare and progress of the country. I take the position that the Government of this or any other country, its policy and its administration, cannot fail to have an important effect upon the well-being of the country. And, if I may be permitted to take the time, I wish .to draw the attention of the committee to certain facts as they appear to me, concerning the policy and administration of the Government, [Mr. Oliver.!
which have led up infallibly to the present conditions in regard to one enterprise-the Grand Trunk Pacific-which we have to deal with to-day, and which the Government proposes to deal with by appointing a royal commission.
The Government was well aware, when taking office, of the character, purpose, and magnitude of the Grand Trunk Pacific enterprise, speaking of it as a transcontinental railway proposition, They knew its purpose; they knew approximately what its cost would be; and they must have realized how it was expected1 that the purpose would be achieved and how the difficulties that stood in the way of the achievement of that purpose were to be met. It would be absurd to suggest that such an enterprise as a transcontinental railroad could be completed without difficulty, or with absolute certainty as to what the result would be. These hon. gentlemen must have realized, if they realized anything, that, the enterprise having been entered upon and carried forward, as it had been carried forward with a certain definite purpose, that a responsibility in regard to it rested upon them, and that it was for them to make their decision either to carry that enterprise through to completion, with the intent of fulfilling the purpose for which it was instituted, or, in the alternative, deciding what other course they were going to pursue, and taking the responsibility of pursuing that course whatever it might be. But it appears to me that they did neither the one thing nor the other. In the discharge of the functions of government, even as they understood it, they were bound to fulfil the obligations entered into by their predecessors. And they were under equitable obligation to see carried out the contact for the construction of the Transcontinental. But, at any time, in the exercise of their sovereign authority, they could have altered the conditions to meet whatever line of policy they saw fit to pursue. They did not see fit to introduce any different line of policy in regard to this enterprise, they apparently decided to carry it forward, or to allow it to be carried forward, or to assist in carrying it forward, to completion. But the completion of a line of railway from Prince Rupert to Moncton was not a result, it was only a step in the fulfilment of a purpose, that purpose being to further the occupation and development of the country at large, without which, beyond any question, the vast investment of capital

in that tremendous enterprise must prove, measurably or entirely, unremunerative and the enterprise itself be discredited to that extent. When the Grand Trunk Pacific project was launched before the conn-try, the country had not traffic to provide interest upon its proposed enormous capital cost. The project was launched with the expectation that by the time it was completed the country would have advanced in development, in occupation and in production, to the degree that the enterprise would find traffic and yield profitable results.
When hon. gentlemen opposite assumed the responsibilities of government, having this enterprise on their hands, they did not pursue a policy of looking to the further development of the country, to that increase of occupation and promotion of trade that would naturally provide the traffic that would make the road profitable, and to create which the road was built. It is true that they carried out the project so far as securing the laying of the rails was concerned. But that was not the project; it'was only a step towards the achievement of the project, and while they took that step they refused to take any of the other steps that were necessary to secure the success of the enterprise.
From the day the Grand Trunk Pacific enterprise was launched in this House, the party in Opposition at that time, headed by the present Prime Minister, in season and out of season, by day and by night, in winter and in summer, on tlje floor of Parliament, in the press, and on the hustings, used whatever arguments they were capable of and every influence at their hand to discredit that enterprise in the eyes of the people of	Canada and in
the eyes of the world	at large.
No opportunity was ever lost by the then Opposition to discredit the Grand Trunk Pacific transcontinental railway enterprise in the minds of the people of Canada and of the people of the world at large. When they attained power and when they decided to continue the material completion of the project, it would have been reasonable that they should have reversed their policy in regard to the enterprise. They did reverse their policy in regard to other matters, and I do not know that they are to be seriously criticised for having done so. Consistency is the virtue of small minds, I believe it has been said, and I am sure that on that ground our friends on the other side could not be accused of being
small minded. But in this particular they maintained the virtue of consistency, and the same policy of destructive criticism that was the policy of His Majesty's loyal Opposition up to 1911 has been the policy of His Majesty's Government from September 21, 1911, until the 'present day, May 12, 1916, when the Solicitor General, not three hours ago, stood up in his place in Parliament and spoke of the Grand Trunk Pacific Bailway-I forget his exact words, but the idea was that it was a mad enterprise. How the people of Canada or this Government could expect that that stupendous enterprise, which depended upon the maintenance of its credit in the money markets of the world and in every other way, could thrive under such conditions, is certainly a mystery to me. The world knows that the enterprise depended upon the support of the Government of Canada. It was an enterprise in large measure of the Government and of the people of Canada, and when those who were more recently charged with the responsibilities of Government of the country decried the enterprise in every possible shape, form and manner from the day they took office as in the years before they attained office, surely they must have realized that even if they did stand by the actual contracts that had been made, which required that the rails should be laid for a certain mileage, they were destroying the enterprise just as surely as if they had refused to lay those rails. It may be that they did not know what they were doing. It is not for me to say whether they knew or did not know, but in either case the responsibility rested upon them, and to-day we are facing the results.
In the matter of the construction of the railway, I have said that they carried out the contracts that they found when they came into office. They did in some measure, but only in some measure. The rails are laid from Prince Bupert to Moncton, but the contract required that there should be terminal facilities at Quebec, which was the great Atlantic port of this great Transcontinental railway. When the time came that the rails had been laid and it would have been possible to transact business over those rails through that great Atlantic port of Quebec, were terminal facilities available there? No. How did this Government expect that the Grand Trunk Pacific Bailway Company were to handle the business of half a continent through an ocean port that did not have any terminal

facilities for the accommodation of their iraffic? This question arose two years ago and it was thrashed out in the House. The Minister of Railways and the Solicitor General argued that the Government had completed its contract with the company, that the company was now called upon to take over the road, that the road was completed. At the very same time that these gentlemen were standing in their places and asserting that the road was completed, the House was asked to vote the sum of $5,000,000 for expenditure on construction on the Transcontinental. The position is so absurd that it is only taking up time to dwell upon it. This Government was a party to laying 1,352 miles of rails from Winnipeg to Quebec. When the rails were laid and the $150,000,000 or $200,000,000 of expenditure made of which they complained so long and so loudly, they had not provided the means or facilities for handling traffic over these rails at the Atlantic port that the whole expenditure was made for the purpose of reaching and doing business at. A year has gone by since that time and we passed the other day an Estimate of $1,500,000 for construction on the Transcontinental. The Government made a bargain -wisely or unwisely, . never mind-they made a bargain with the railroad company that when that road was completed the company would' take it over and operate it on certain terms. The road has not been completed, and the company, in justice, as they set forth to their investors, are not able to accept an uncompleted road as a completed road. They are not able to take it over, and the condition is that more than two years after the last rail was laid, that road is not in a position to do business at the port of Quebec.
When the Grand Trunk proposal was placed before Parliament in 1903 by the then leader of the Government in the eloquent terms that he is so competent to use, he used the expression, in launching the enterprise, " Pray Gqd that it be not too late." This expression has been the cause of vast merriment, and of a large measure of sarcasm from that day to .this. But from year to year the railroad was pushed forward, and up to 1911 the production, upon which the success of the enterprise depended, was increased from year to yeaT. Had that increase of production been continued up till the present time, there would have been, not only ample traffic for the railroad to enable the company operating it to earn interest on the
[Mr. Oliver.!
cost, but such a pressure upon it that there would have been ample demand for the second Transcontinental railway. Unfortunately-and I will deal with that feature of the case a little later, if I may-production did not continue to increase under the benign policy and administration of our friends who occupy the treasury benches. It was not because the sun did not shine, or because the rain did not fall, or because the grass did not grow; it was because the policy and administration of the Government of the day prevented the producers of the West from securing that return for their labour to which they were entitled, and which they could have secured by the scratch of the pen of the Prime Minister of this country.
War broke out. That was a time when it was desirable that Canada should have ample communication from coast to coast, when it should have access to all ports, and' means of transport for her produce under the most favourable terms, for her produce for export, as well as for her imports. It was a strange coincidence; in fact, it was a set of circumstances that synchronized with the needs of the Allies, then at their height, when Providence blessed our country with the most .magnificent crop ever known in its history. We had in the Prairie West, without any very large increase of productive acreage, an enormous increase in natural production of export grain because Providence, was kind to us and gave us a return for our labours such as we had never expected and had never seen before. We had a crop of something like 350,000,000 bushels of wheat, oats to correspond, and barley to correspond, and the great need of the prairie farmer, of the prairie west, of all Canada, was that the grain should get to market and be turned into cash to be returned into the channels of trade throughout the Dominion in order that our people might receive the maximum benefit from it. We had the rails on the Transcontinental, built for the express purpose of coping with such a contingency, laid to-Quebec, to the ocean port. Thank God, it was not uoo late, so far as getting the railroad* constructed to tide water was concerned. Providence was not in fault in the matter. Providence had given a good* crop. The people of Canada, to their credit, had -supplied the money to build a railroad, but the Government of Canada, in control of the affairs of the people of Canada, did not see to the operation of that railroad.

so that the crop so produced could get to market and be returned in cash for the benefit of the people of Canada. Whose is the responsibility if to-day we have 125,000,000 bushels of wheat for the overseas market in this country at the present time. With a railroad built at a cost of $200,000,000, to give the shortest possible route under the best possible circumstances from the wheat fields to tide water. Over that road this year, when we had this tremendous crop, and two years after the last rail was laid, out of 350,000,000 bushels, we have hauled to the port of Quebec, it is claimed, but disputed, 3,000,000 bushels. I insist, Mr. Chairman, that this is not the fault of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway enterprise. It is not the fault of the Liberal Government that instituted it. It is not the fault of Providence, and it is not the fault of the country. It is not the fault of the war; it is the fault of the Government that did not realize its responsibilities and the possibilities of the enterprise, or at any rate, that did not use the proper means to realize on those- possibilities. Today our crop is still back in the country, we are without the money, the difficulties of getting across the ocean are increasing from day to day, and the responsibility is on the treasury benches.
We have heard to-day from the Solicitor General in terms that surely his colleague, the Minister of Finance must have regretted to hear him use, if he has considered how far his comments can reach in discrediting a great financial enterprise of this kind when we all appreciate that our enterprises need bolstering up instead of knocking down. We are asked to believe that this enterprise has not within it the elements of success, and we are told that its earnings during the past year have been limited to such a degree as to show that success is not possible. The Grand Trunk Pacific, as distinct from the Transcontinental railway, was intended to connect lake Superior with the prairies and then the Pacific coast. In order that the Grand Trunk Pacific in the prairies might be connected with lake Superior, a railway connection of 200 miles was built by the Grand Trunk Pacific connecting with the Transcontinental at a point about 250 miles out from Winnipeg. While the company would take advantage of direct connection between the wheat fields and the Atlantic port at Quebec, it would also have the advantage of direct connection between the wheat fields and the great lakes at Fort William.
For many years the Canadian Northern
had that connection and did business over it with great success. Ever since the inception of the Canadian Pacific, that company has done business over that route with great success. It was an essential part of the project of the Grand Trunk Pacific that it should have an independent outlet on lake Superior and it spent the money of its shareholders, and raised money on the credit of the company, in order to build 200 miles to make that connection. A year ago the crop was light in the West and traffic was light. When the business was not there the most capable management could not earn money. Then this Government come in and they say to the railway company: If you do not take over this uncompleted line between Winnipeg and Quebec, do not take it over in its uncompleted condition, and do not take it over on the terms we dictate, we will cut you off at Winnipeg from access to lake Superior as well as from access to Quebec. And they did it. To-day the Grand Trunk Pacific, that should have had its outlet on lake Superior and should have had the benefit of that outlet, having spent an enormous amount of money in constructing terminals there, providing elevator accommodation and in other ways to enable it to carry on trade on that lake in the past year, when there was abundant traffic, when there was more than abundant traffic, has been denied the opportunity to share in that traffic to the extent of one dollar. The Government took over theii traffic at Winnipeg and shut them out from the earnings of upwards of 450 miles of' road. Then the Solicitor General asks why the Grand Trunk Pacific did not earn as much in proportion as the Canadian Northern. The Canadian Northern, or any other road, would not earn satisfactorily if it. was- broken off 450 miles before it reached the terminals to which it was endeavouring to carry its traffic. The Government broke the back of the Grand Trunk Pacific when it took away from it the connection that it had to lake Superior and where it had-established its own terminals- at its own cost. It did that at a time when the company was at a disadvantage owing to the light traffic and the small crop and did it under the plea that the company was not dealing honestly by the Government in not undertaking to operate the line to Quebec when the Government had not honestly completed the line and fitted it for operation.
The three great points in the eastern operation of the Grand Trunk Pacific en-

terprise were: access to the head of the lakes at Fort William, aoce&s to the ocean at Quebec and access to the great distributing and collecting system of the Grand Trunk Railway Company throughout the eastern provinces. Nobody would have been mad enough to undertake to push a great railway enterprise only from Winnipeg to the Pacific coast. Such a road would have been a local road, a colonization road, and certainly no euch expenditure as was made on the Grand Trunk Pacific would have been warranted in euch circumstances. Had it been the policy of the Government to organize, or encourage a company that would give colonization railway facilities throughout the Prairie West from Winnipeg to the Rocky mountains, then each mile of road would have been constructed for half or a1 quarter of what the Grand Trunk Pacific main line cost. But, that was not the enterprise. The proposition was that they should build the Transcontinental Tailway from Quebec to Prince Rupert with an even grade and of as high a standard of construction as could be secured and such as no other transcontinental railway had. It was only as a transcontinental enterprise that this vast expenditure was warranted, and when our hon. friends broke the back of the enterprise, took over the operation of the road from Winnipeg to Quebec and from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay, absolutely disconnected the Grand Trunk system in the eastern provinces from the Prairie Provinces in the West, there was nothing to it; they had destroyed the enterprise just as absolutely as if they had refused to lay the rails between Cochrane and Quebec.
Then they come to the House and say: " We need $8,000,000 as aid to this broken backed railway, this bankrupt concern. We do not know what to do with it, so we are going to appoint a commission to tell us what is the matter and see what we are to do with it." These are the facts of the case and no commission is necessary to tell what has happened to the Grand Trunk Pacific up to the present time. No commission is necessary to tell what must necessarily have happened to it under siuch direction and control. There was no possibility, it having been diverted from its original purpose and that purpose having been absolutely destroyed by the intervention of this Government, of its success as a commercial undertaking.


William Thomas White: Does my hon.
friend suggest that the Government pre-
vented the Grand Trunk Pacific from operating the National Transcontinental?


Frank Oliver: Surely.


William Thomas White: And took away the section from Fort William to Cochrane?


Frank Oliver: I am absolutely saying so.


William Thomas White: Does not my hon. friend know that the Grand Trunk agreed to that and was glad to?


Frank Oliver: I do.


William Thomas White: How, then, can he accuse the Government of breaking the back of the Grand Trunk Pacific by taking away that branch?


Frank Oliver: The company had to agree to it. They were at the mercy of the Government.


William Thomas White: Oh, no.


Frank Oliver: Certainly; they had to agree to whatever the Government insisted upon. And when the Government was hostile-deliberately, publicly, avowedly and aggressively hostile to the company-what was there to be done but to submit to any terms the Government saw fit to dictate? There was no other recourse. The Grand Trunk Pacific had to come to this Government to enable them to complete the line to the coast. My hon. friend 9 p.m. has thrashed out that point time and again in the House, and explained how it was necessary. Well, the Grand Trunk Pacific cannot come to the Government and ask as a favour a certain concession, and then refuse the Government a concession it may see fit to insist upon. We do not need a commission to tell us that.
I am sorry the Minister of Trade and Commerce is not in the House, because I am going to refer again to a subject to which he takes strong objection-the question of free wheat. I have said that the production of the prairie west made a continuous increase from year to year up to 1911, in which year it reached its maximum for the time being. In 1911 there was a big crop, but harvesting conditions were unfavourable, and it became necessary and desirable from every point of view that as much as possible of that crop should be marketed south of the line. The Government had been newly returned to power on a policy opposed to the marketing of grain south of the line, and therefore they were absolutely consistent in their policy when they re-

fused to permit of that marketing south of the line. But the fact that they had refused to permit it cost the producers of western Canada figures that ran into tens of millions; and that refusal absolutely broke the back of production in the West. It was not that Providence had not given a good crop; it is true that Providence had given bad weather for harvesting, but the Government could have saved the situation in a large measure if they had seen fit to do so. But they would not do it because it was against their policy of trade restriction and of opposition to the movement of our grain south of the line. The year 1912 showed no increase in either acreage or crop; the year 1913 showed no increase in either acreage or crop. The year 1914 showed a substantial decrease in both acreage and crop; that, however, I will admit was in a large measure the result of climatic conditions. But before that we had had two years of stagnation, so far as production was concerned, absolutely as the result of the policy and administration of our friends opposite-years when we should have been increasing our production so that when these great transportation enterprises were completed there would be business for them to do at a profit both to them and the people depending upon them and to the country. The Government was opposed to grain being transported south of the line. It ought to go east, they said, and not south, and so they would not let it go south. And when the railroad is completed to the east, when the rails are laid and the trains running, we find, four months before the next harvest, surplus grain to the amount of 125,000,000 bushels still not having gone east, still not having gone south, still in the elevators of the West or in the farmer's hands. As their policy was to keep the grain from going south, on the plea that it ought to go east, they ought at least to have sent it east when they had the railroad to send it over, and when theirs was the responsibility of seeing that it found a market in that direction. They are now going to appoint a commission to tell us how to finance or manage or administer the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern Railway If they do not know now what is the cause of the present situation, no commission that they appoint will ever tell them, because the men they appoint will be like-minded with themselves, will hold the same point of view, and bring in a verdict accordingly. It is suggested that the 244
solution of the problem is Government ownership. Well, if that is the proper solution it is just as good to-day as it will be a year from now. What I complain of is that the Government is demanding over $8,000,000 to tide over the situation for one year, without any suggestion as to what is to be the situation after that $8,000,000 has been spent.
Coming now to another aspect, there is one condition under which Government ownership is desirable and necessary, and that is where any public utility is in the hands of a monopoly. If we had only one railroad operating in Canada we would surely need Government ownership to introduce competition. But I maintain that the difficulties of working out the problem of Government ownership satisfactorily are such that it is better not to undertake it unless it becomes a necessity. Our experience in Government ownership of railroads in Canada has not been fortunate. We have had Government ownership of the Intercolonial for many years. We complain that the Canadian Northern Railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific are not able to pay interest on their bonds; we call theml lame ducks and broken-backed enterprises! They are injuring the credit of our country; they aTe a discredit to the men who conceived the enterprises and who carried them on, because at this time, they are not able to pay interest on their bonds! My information is that the Intercolonial railway has never yet paid a cent on its cost of construction; that it has never yet come anywhere near doing so; that from year to year and year after year the cost of operation has been met by appropriations out of the public treasury. While that may not be the condition to-day, there is no doubt that it was the condition for many years, and I say that until under 1 Government ownership it has been demonstrated that we can earn some part of the interest upon the cost of construction of the Intercolonial, we are hardly the people to undertake lightly the project of managing such a vast network of railway systems as is involved in taking over the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern, which, if we are not able to manage them better than those who are now in charge are doing, and far better than we ever managed the Intercolonial, instead of lightening our burdens, are going to increase them vastly. Government ownership is an ideal condition. I have said-and I say it again foT the bene-



fit of my hon. friend from South York (Mr. W. F. Maclean) who did not hear it before -that it is only in the case of a private monopoly of any public utility that Government ownership becomes a necessity; but so long as private enterprise can be maintained in effective competition, my opinion, as the result of our experience, is that we are better off without Government owner- ship than with it.
Mr. W. F. MAiCLEAN: What will you do with the roads on your hands now?


Frank Oliver: I have been trying to explain to the Government how they have fallen down in regard to that matter, and I would suggest better management in that case. The difficulty of Government ownership is briefly this. In order that any enterprise may succeed, it must have a directing head, and that head must have a direct interest in the success of the enterprise. When the whole people are the owners of an enterprise, that direct interest is lacking; there is a diffusion of interest that does not tend towards energetic and successful management. That is the weakness of Government ownership. T speak with knowledge, because we have in Edmonton municipal ownership, which is on the same principle, and we find that difficulty.


William Findlay Maclean: The contrary is the case in Toronto.


Frank Oliver: That may be so, but we
find a great difficulty in working out municipal ownership successfully, for the reason that I have stated. It may be that, under the direction of my hon. friend's campaign of education, and under changed circumstances, we may arrive at a point where the public mind will be so seized Of its responsibilities as to enable us to manage these matters better in the future than in the past. I hope that time may come; it has not arrived yet. My faith is based rather in effective business competition, where that can be secured; and, before I close, I want to point out that the essential features of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway project and of the Canadian Northern Railway project, so far as the former Liberal Government was responsible for either or both of them, was that they represented effective railroad competition throughout the Dominion of Canada. It was for the purpose of securing effective railroad competition that these enterprises were severally instituted or aided by that Government.

Given that effective competition of these great utilities in the hands of men whose interests are in their absolute efficiency and success, and given a measure of Government control such as we have through the Railway Commission, and I think we have arrived at as near the ideal as- we can expect to get in the present condition of the public mind. I know it is usual to say: Government ownership is the solution of all difficulties. I do not, however, hold that tt) be the case. The railway problem is not solved by the Government assuming ownership; it is only at the beginning. I would have been better pleased if the Government had come down with a definite policy with regard to these railroads that would look to their being financed successfully during the present period of difficult finance, so that we might expect them to emerge successfully when that condition passed away. I regret that the Government has not adopted that policy because I believe it to be sound policy and the best policy. I am sorry that the Government has come down with a policy, every line and every word of which is absolutely to further discredit these two railways as business enterprises and render what formerly was difficult, now a practical impossibility, that is, to finance them further on their own account. I know that these are har'd times; I know that there are financial difficulties for the Government and everybody else; I know that we have sunk an enormous amount of money in these enterprises; I know that so far as earning their own interest to-day is concerned, they are failures; but we must take into consideration the fact that these are not the only enterprises that have failed to earn profits at the present time, and that this depression occurred-and remember that it was not due to the war condition, but to the condition before the war-at the time these roads were just completed, that is, at the most critical time in their career, because during construction all charges are carried out of capital,-but when they are completed they must be carried by the traffic, and the traffic must be sufficient to enable that to be done. Just at this particular time evil days have come and both enterprises are behind. My suggestion is that it would have been wisdom on the part of the Government to come down with a definite policy to carry forward these enterprises with a view to their becoming permanent and substantial competitive transcontinental railway enterprises for the benefit of the Dominion of Canada. That
\
\

is a somewhat radical, a somewhat serious suggestion; but we^ are facing a serious situation, and I have confidence enough in the country and in its future to believe that if these enterprises are properly handled, they will, in due time, work out successfully. I am, however, just as sure that, handled as they have been, hampered as they have been, by the policy of the Government of the day, they cannot possibly work out to a success under a policy of Government ownership unless we have a different kind of administration from anything we have had yet in regard to railroads or any other public utilities at the hands of this Government. Just a word in regard to the progress of affairs in Canada and the possibilities of the future. When the Canadian Pacific railway was first built across the continent the population was sparse; conditions were unfavourable; traffic was light, and I remember that during many years the passenger business of the Canadian Pacific was carried on by one ' train a day each way across the continent, and that the passengers on that train were remarkable rather for their absence than for their numbers.
I remember that, years after the Canadian Pacific railway was built, it entered the minds of the great men who were managing the enterprise to build a connection between St. Paul and the main line of the system at Moosejaw-what is called the Soo line. It looked like a splendid railroad proposition, and they expected that it would bring traffic. I have seen that train come into Moosejaw time and again-it came in every day-with engine, tender, baggage-car, second class car, tourist car, first class car, and Pullman, and with one solitary passenger on all that train. Today everybody knows that the Canadian Pacific railway is probably the most successful railway enterprise in the world. The traffic of their main line is so great that they have double-tracked a large part of that line, not only on the prairie, but also in Northern Ontario as well. Their Soo line is a magnificently paying proposition. Every part of the enterprise, as they have undertaken it, has turned out splendidly. But it did not turn out that way for many years after the inception of the enterprise. Circumstances were such that it could be carried on very much more economically than a railroad enterprise can be carried on to-day. Now, throughout the Northwest, on those wide, lone prairies, where we might expect possibly to have a
244i
train once or twice a week-and I remember that during eight or ten years all we had at Edmonton were two trains a week, and accommodation trains at that; so-called because they did not accommodate very much-to-day, between Winnipeg, Brandon, Begina, Saskatoon, and Edmonton, and between Winnipeg, Brandon, Regina, Moosejaw, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, and Spokane, Washington, you have railroad services that are not excelled on this continent. This is absolutely the result of competition, competition made effective by the introduction of the Grand Trunk Pacific andi the Canadian Northern railway enterprises info that country. It may seem to my hon. friend from South York (Mr. W. F. Maclean), living where railroads come in from every direction, where they are almost climbing over one (another, that we should not have railway competition, and that he can regulate railroads to run this way or that as he sees fit. But, looking at the circumstances as I see them in our country, and bearing in mind the conditions that we had under a monopoly as compared with those to-day, I say that present conditions are good enough for me. I do not want to revert to a condition of railroad monopoly, and I am not so sure that I want to see a condition of only government ownership, either.


William Findlay Maclean: Having listened to the discussion of the merits and demerits of public ownership, I still think that the arguments in favour of that system are sound and that it is the proper railroad condition for this country. I tried to make it clear this afternoon that the opportunity to bring about public ownership in this country is here, in this crisis created by the war or by something else, when we find two railroads asking Government assistance. The small attendance during this debate may be accounted for to some extent by the length of yesterday's debate lasting into this morning. But the thing that strikes me in this debate is that the Grand Trunk Railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the Canadian Northern Railway, are very much afraid that we are very near the open door of public ownership in this country, and they would like to see the country get past the present situation. That situation presents itself to Parliament, and it is upon Parliament I urge that that situation should be used for the purpose of trying out the system, of public ownership. I would like to see public ownership

tried with at least one of these railroads in the East 'which has connecting lines in the West. We have the Grand Trunk Pacific on our hands, or we have to finance it; and we have the Transcontinental certainly on our hands, and are running it. We have also the Intercolonial, and are buying other lines in the East. So, I say take over one line that is profitable in the East and is linked with these lines in the West, and let us see what we can do in competition with the other roads. My suggestion was to give a sum of money-I mentioned a certain sum as a feeler-to get possession of the road. The only road that I see in immediate sight is the Canadian Northern, which, I believe, would sell its interest for a very small consideration. The suggestion I made is entirely my own. These negotiations afford us opportunity to take over a good system that affords connection with our cities in the East. And with that one road, whichever it may be that we take, we should link the great transcontinental system that will give competition with the other lines. The operation of such a road would he more effective in moderating rates in the West than anything else I know of. It would do more for the public of the West than the Railway Commission with all its powers of regulation can do. It may be that we shall be forced to take them all by our still further experience or on the recommendation of the commission that we are going to appoint. I am not going to object to that commission, and, of course, its report may be	in
favour of public ownership. But I am not going to be guided by that.
I tell this Parliament again that this is the opportunity of trying public ownership, where you have a transcontinental line connecting the cities of the West with those of the East. I think the people of Canada will be rather disappointed when they know that this opportunity of getting a transcontinental system has been allowed to slip by. I should have thought that the member for Edmonton would have been prepared to accept that course at least as one measure of relief. He may blame this Government for the fate that has come to the Grand Trunk Pacific, the Transcontinental and all its alliances. That may be, but it has proved a failure and the failure having taken place and the Grand Trunk being responsible in a legal sense for what has happened, the greatest opportunity that has ever presented itself to a nation h'as .arisen, and to take advantage of

this opportunity would give us a railroad and a chance to improve conditions in this country. The conditions could not be worse than they are to-day; they could be much better. I absolutely dispute the doctrine laid down by the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat that to get good railroading you have to have the competition of privately owned lines. The whole experience of America is against that dogma being true or justified by the facts. Seventy-five per cent of the roads in the United States have gone into liquidation; road .after road has been wrecked, by railroad exploiters, and the system has proved to be the greatest failure in the way of railroading that has been known in the history of the world.


Frank Oliver: When the hon. member speaks of failure, does he mean financial failure, or failure as regards service rendered to the public?


William Findlay Maclean: Both. Service has not been given the public in the United States for the money invested that that money properly invested under judicious state administration would have given the public.


Frank Oliver: For the two cents a mile that a man pays to ride in a train in the United States, does he not get better service than is given anywhere else in the world?


William Findlay Maclean: I do not know that he does. In some ways they give a splendid freight service, but in view of the money invested and of the opportunities they have had in the United States, it has been an inferior service. I would remind my hon. friend that before many years he will see public ownership of railways coming in the United States. I have myself' put on record and I intend to keep it before the people of this country that the opportunity came here to-day for public ownership of at least one transcontinental system. Again I say that this administration and the Conservative party are on record as saying that public ownership of the Grand Trunk Pacific would have been better for this country than the privately owned system which was imposed upon the country by the Liberal party. The two parties were in issue on that question; now the opportunity has come and it may never come again. Things that may happen in connection with the coming election may deprive them of the opportunity that they have here to-day. But as a party they are on record as saying that the Grand Trunk Pacific should

be publicly owned and administered and that this system is preferable to the system which is shown to have failed. That system has failed; the documents making the confession are on record and now, I say, is the time to adopt the new and better system. If the argument of the member for Edmonton is good-the same may be said of the remarks of other hon. gentlemen who have spoken here to-day-we ought to give away the Intercolonial railway; we ought to get rid of it, bag and baggage, as a thing that the state should not have. I have heard these arguments time after time.


Frank Oliver: Does the hon. member
suggest that I said anything about giving away the Intercolonial?


William Findlay Maclean: No, but the hon. gentleman would'like to see it run in a different way. His hopes lie in private administration.


Frank Oliver: Yes; that is, judged by the results of the operation of the Intercolonial.


William Findlay Maclean: Well, as to private administration of railroads in competition we have had that and we are sick of it. We have put millions of money into that system and what have we got for it? Nothing. We financed them right to the hilt, and they are here again asking us to continue financing them. Moreover, they want us to help them over this period when public ownership is likely to be accomplished. All we are asked to do is to help them over this time of trial and give them another opportunity to attempt to succeed in their enterprises. The matter rests with this Parliament, and I am convinced that when the people hear of these facts it will be the general opinion that the opportunity came tor Parliament in this year to acquire at least one Transcontinental road and we did not take advantage of it.


William Thomas White: We have had a very interesting discussion, but we were here late last night and until rather early this morning. I would suggest that the Grand Trunk Pacific item be allowed to pass, and to-morrow we will take up the Canadian Northern railway item. Some other items have not yet been passed and we might make some progress with them.
Miscellaneous printing, $100,000.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is this for the printing of public documents?


William Thomas White: Miscellaneous
printing.


Mr. REID:: This is an item that is put in every year.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I understand from the Assistant's King's Printer, whom I met the other day, that only a few members receive copies of the evidence taken before the Royal Commission. It seems to me that the evidence should be distributed to all members of the House. I do not complain myself, because I receive copies of the evidence.


William Thomas White: I would suggest that my hon. friend raise the question tomorrow, when the Prime Minister is here, I have no information as to the matter.
Legislation-House of Commons, $10,687.50,


Rodolphe Lemieux: I wish to refer to a matter which is not specifically mentioned in this item, but which relates to the Houso of Commons.' I would first of all thank the Government for making provision for the payment of the indemnity of the hon. member for Beauoe (Mr. Beland). Last year the gentleman who manages the affairs at home of that hon. gentleman, his brother-in-law, suggested to me that the indemnity be deposited at the bank where the hon. member for Beauce generally deposited his money. I wrote to the accountant of the House of Commons, and he was willing to do so, but he explained that he had to get the permission of the Government, through the Minister of Finance or the Auditor General, I think. The reason for the request was that the hon. member (Mr. Beland) might get the benefit of the accruing interest during his detention in Germany. I would ask the Minister of Finance to see that arrangements are made to transfer the indemnity from the treasury to the bank.


William Thomas White: Was it done last
year?	'


Rodolphe Lemieux: It was done last year.


William Thomas White: My hon. friend might send me the name of the bank.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I will see that that is done.


William Thomas White: I need not say with what great pleasure we will do anything on behalf of the hon. member for Beauce, f6r whom we all have so much admiration, and whose absence we all so much regret.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What provision is made with regard to the payment of the

indemnity to members who are on active service, at home or abroad?


William Thomas White: Provision has been made in the Supplementary Estimates for the eases of members on active service.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: You will find it in the Estimate.
Customs, $4,215,000.


William Pugsley: Was the Minister of Customs asked with regard to the matter of the admission free of duty of large quantities of goods at Morrisburg?


John Dowsley Reid: We discussed that the other night at the instance of the hon. member for Assiniboia.


William Pugsley: I do not think that it
would unnecessarily delay the Estimates if this item were allowed to stand. The minister has been putting his Estimates through pretty rapidly. Is that upon the theory that prorogation is expected to take place shortly?


William Thomas White: It is due to an arrangement which we made before my hon. friend came in.


William Pugsley: This is a large item and I think the minister might let it stand over.


John Dowsley Reid: We are going to leave some items upon which you can discuss anything.


William Pugsley: I understand that when the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Pardee) agreed to the arrangement he was not aware that there was an item amounting to over $4,000,000.


John Dowsley Reid: It is exactly the same as last year.


William Pugsley: How many items will
still be left?


John Dowsley Reid: Quite a number.


William Pugsley: Then this might go
through.
Civil Government-Department of Public
, Printing and Stationery-to appoint Frederick Cook Assistant King's Printer and Controller of Stationery, at $4,000 per annum, from July 1st, 1915, $3,000.


William Pugsley: Is that our friend the
ex-Mayor of Ottawa?


William Thomas White: That is the gentleman.


William Pugsley: Surely he is not willing to take $4,000 in these times.


William Thomas White: My hon. friend
will remember the high cost of living.


Mr. PARDEE:: Is that a new office?


William Thomas White: I think it is. It has been in existence since July last.


William Pugsley: I think the minister had better let this stand. It is new and we had better have some information about it.
Item stands.
Mines and Geological Survey-Mines Branch -publication of reports, translation of reports into French, purchase books, stationery, chemical laboratories supplies, apparatus, instruments, office contingencies, additional assistance-further amount required, $50,000.


William Pugsley: In view of it being ten o'clock, and as most of us were up until five o'clock this morning, probably the minister would leave the rest of the items. There are not very many.


William Thomas White: Before the hon.
member came in, I put, not quite as nicely as he has, the same idea, that is that we were up late last night, or early this morning, and I thought it was desirable that we should pass these items and then rise. There are only four more items in the Supplementaries for 1915-16 and I suggest that we pass these and let the Supplementaries for 1916-17, containing about twelve items in all, remain until to-morrow.


William Pugsley: This is a pretty big
amount.


William Thomas White: Well, let it
stand.
Item stands.
Miscellaneous-to recoup vote " unforeseen expenses " for advances made to defray the expenses for the Economic and Development Commission, $8,500.


Frank Oliver: Is that commission the
eightieth or eighty-second?


William Thomas White: I have forgotten; it -may possibly be the eighty-first.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Who is the chairman?


William Thomas White: Senator Lougheed.
Progress reported.
On the motion of Sir Thomas White for the adjournment of the House:	.


William Pugsley: What business will
there be for to-morrow?


William Thomas White: Supply, the Canadian Northern loan, and any other items.

The Grand Trunk Pacific item was passed but the Canadian Northern loan will be taken up.


William Pugsley: I would like to give the minister notice of an amendment which I had intended to move, but which my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) will move for me, to the item providing for the $15,000,000 loan to the Canadian Northern. I propose that as a condition of the loan the Canadian Northern shall give to His Majesty an option which may be exercised at any time within five years for the transfer of all the property of the Canadian Northern railway and the connected systems at a price which may be fixed by the Governor General in Council. That is the effect of it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: May I ask the Acting
Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Reid) to bring down some information as to the two roads to be absorbed by the Transcontinental, the Quebec and Saguenay and the Lotbiniere and Megantic, the amount which the Government will have to pay for the roads, the cost of building them, their actual equipment, what remains to be built of both, the gross and net receipts of both and, generally speaking, such information as we should have to enable us to intelligently discuss this question? Would my hon. friend let me have that on Monday?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Or to-morrow?


John Dowsley Reid: I will get the information.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I understand the second reading of the Bill will take place on Monday.


John Dowsley Reid: Yes. .
Mr. LEMtEUX: Before we adjourn, Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that, as Chairman of the Citizens' Committee for the collection of funds, I have received a telegram stating that the 163rd French Canadian Battalion, started three months ago, is now fully enlisted, the number being 1,100 or more. I was pleased to receive a telegram from Major Asselin stating that he had received orders to leave by the middle of next week.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and. House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.
Saturday, May 13, 1916.