1916-01-18

[Stage Direction]
Mr. ROBERT BICKERDIKE (Montreal, St. Lawrence) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 2, to amend the Criminal Code.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. BICKERDIKE:: Mr. Speaker, I have explained this Bill so often that I hope this will be the last time it will be necessary to explain it. If this Bill becomes law, it will have for effect the abolishing of legalized murder in Canada, and also of largely reducing the number of homicides and all other crimes in this young country of ours. It will also have the effect" of making convictions for crime much less difficult, as juries will not hesitate to bring in verdicts of " guilty " when they are sure, if a mistake has been made, there will be time for the prisoners to prove their innocence; while if the law continues as at present, juries will hesitate to bring in verdicts of "guilty" in murder cases.


An hon. MEMBER:: But explain the Bill.


Robert Bickerdike: The Bill will do
away with that evil.


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

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Sir ROBERT BORDEN moved:: That a committee composed of Sir Robert Borden, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir George Foster, the Hon. Geo. P. Graham, and Mr. R. B. Bennett, be appointed to prepare a resolution of condolence on the death of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Tupper, Bart., G.C.M.G., and report the same with all convenient speed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Report of the Department of Customs for the year ended March 31, 1915.-Hon. J. D. Reid.
Printed copies of proclamations, orders in council and documents relating to the European war, compiled by the Department of the Secretary of State; also supplementary copies of proclamations, orders in council and documents relating to the same subject compiled by the Department of the Secretary of State; also a list of the orders in council which have been passed between the 29th April, 1915 and the 12th January, 1916.-Sir Robert Borden.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. WM. PUGSLEY:	I desire to ask
my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White) if he will kindly lay on the table of the House, or if he can give now, information in a concise manner as to the arrangement between the Government of Canada and the British Government as to what proportion of the expense in connection with the carrying on of the war, in so far as Canadian soldiers are concerned, is to be borne by the' Government of Canada. I desire to know whether all the expense of ammunition, guns, equipment, etc., is to be borne by the Government of Canada, or what the arrangement is.
Sir THOMAS WHITE (Minister of Finance):: The matter will be dealt with probably by my right bon. friend the Prime Minister in introducing the war Appropriation Bill, which will provide means for continuing our participation in the war, or, if not, by myself in the Budget Speech, which will be made at a later date. In a general way, I may say to imy hon. friend that the Government of Canada is bearing the entire expense of Canada's participation in the war. ' There will necessarily be certain accounts which cannot be adjusted until the war is over, or until a lateT

date. Recently I had >a conversation with Col. Ward, who is immediately in touch with the situation in London, and I understood from him that the Canadian Government is to-day paying all the expenses connected with the Canadian Expeditionary Force at present in England, and is paying the men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France, and Belgium, but that there will be certain adjustments of accounts necessary between the Government of Canada and the British Government at is later date covering .such items as rations, supplies, and. other equipment for the Canadian troops who aTe actually on the firing line. That matter is not susceptible of calculation and adjustment to-diay, but the Canadian Government is responsible for the entire expense of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: That means, of course, all the ammunition, all the guns, all the boots and shoes, and all the clothing used by the Canadian soldiers at the front?


William Thomas White: Our understanding is that the Canadian Government will pay all, but that an adjustment is necessary and will have to take place later.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN:: Does that include transportation?


William Thomas White: I speak subject to correction by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, but I believe that the Canadian Government has agreed to pay all the cost of transportation 'also; in other words, we desire to pay the entire cost of the Canadian Expeditionary Force abroad.



THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH.


[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Mr. Alfred Thompson for an address to His Royal Highness the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, resumed from Monday, January 17.
Hon. T. CHASE CASGRAIN (Postmaster-General) :: Mr. Speaker, it must have been a source of gratification to my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden)-it certainly was a source of gratification to his colleagues-to notice the acclaim with which the people of Canada received the announcement made by him at the beginning of the year that half a million Canadian soldiers would be raised to participate in this war few the

vindication of British justice and British freedom. So far, two leaders of the Opposition party have so expressed their views on that announcement that no doubt remains, if ever there was a doubt, about its unanimous endorsation by the whole people of Canada. We already had some indication a3 to how this announcement had been received by what had appeared in the press of the country. The comments of the leading Liberal journals of Canada proved that the Prime Minister was right in believing that although Canada had been doing her share in the war up to the date of the declaration made by my right hon. friend, Canada was ready to make still further sacrifices to support the cause of the Allies. May I give some citations on this point? Le Soleil, of Quebec, after discussing the question of the contribution of Canada to the cause of the Allies, ends an article of the 7th of January, 1916, by saying:
It cannot be decently pretended that this sacrifice-
Meaning the sacrifice of five hundred thousand men.

is above the forces of Canada; it is a little more than one-eighth of the total male population of the country.
A correspondent wrote to the Toronto Globe asking what would George Brown say if he were living and saw the tremendous expense to which this country was put by its participation in this war. The Globe answered on the 11th of January:
But on the main issue Sir Robert Borden is right, and the great mass of the people of the Dominion, irrespective of political ties, will endorse his decision. Canada joins with Britain in the declaration made by Premier Asquith on her behalf when he said:	" We shall not
sheathe the sword, which we have not lightly drawn, until Belgium has recovered more than she has sacrificed; until France is adequately secured against menace; until the rights of the smaller nationalities have been placed upon an unassailable foundation, and until the military domination of Prussia is finally destroyed." If George Brown were here he would say amen to every word in that declaration of the nation's purpose.
In an article which appeared under the signature of my hon. friend from Bonaven-ture (Mr. Marcil) in the Montreal Herald of the 6th of January, I read:
The announcement made by Sir Robert Borden that his government have decided to authorize the enlistment of 500,000 men for overseas service will not be a surprise to the country. It will be a welcome announcement to the Empire and will demonstrate once more that Canadians are in this war in earnest, and that they are decided to leave nothing undone

to achieve victory and a lasting peace. Sir Robert and his colleagues have had carte blanche, from the very start, the Liberal leader, .Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and his colleagues in the House having assured the government of support in their military measures. Not only have ' the federal Liberals done this, but many leaders in the provincial field, Sir Lomer Gouin ir. Quebec, Mr. Rowell in Ontario, and the other Liberal leaders in other provinces having promised and given support and co-Operation The moment Canada entered the ring it coulc not rest with any half measure.
These articles, I believe, Sir, represent the sentiments of the country. In the speech which my hon. friend the member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) made to the House last evening, he made allusion to the number of men which the Government had decided to send to the other side; and without criticising at all the tremendous outlay which this involved, he expressed the feeling of -anxiety of the people of this country at the delay between the recruiting of the regiments and their despatch to the trenches. My -hon. and gallant friend, the Minister of Militia (Sir Sam Hughes) will no doubt give a full explanation of this; but as far as I can gather from the information I have, it is due to no fault of the Government. One must take into consideration the difficulty of transportation, and then again, if I am correctly informed, we send across as many troops as possible unde: the circumstances. Once they arrive on the other side they are under the control and command of the British authorities.
May I say, Sir, that the speech of the hon. member for Red Deer commended itself to me by its dignity of tone; indeed the tone of the debate so well set by my hon. friends who proposed and seconded the Address, the hon. member for the Yukon (Mr. Alfred Thompson) and the hon. member for l'lslet (Mr. Paquet) has been characterized by the loftiest patriotism. I commend particularly to the attention of the House the remarks made by my hon. friend from l'lslet. The members of the House who could not follow him in the language in which his speech was delivered, I arc sure will find in the translation of that speech the real sentiments which animate the people of . the province o! Quebec in this momentous crisis I trust, Sir, that in the tew remarks whiol I am about to present to the House, 1 shall say nothing in manner or in form which may -be disagreeable in any Way to my hon. friends on the other -side, or tc any one in the country who may diftei from me on the great questions at issue.
My hon. friend from Red Deer alluded to the splendid spirit w-hioh exists in the
West, and I am a witness to the truth of what he -says. Last sumiper I had occasion for two purposes to visit the West

that great portion of our Dominion of which we are so proud. The first purpose which I had in view was to judge at first hand, to hear with my own ears- and to see with -my own -eyes, the postal situation there. The second purpose, and probably the most important one, was that I wished to allay certain prejudices, and to conv-ey to any who might be misled conr-ect opiln-ion-s and ideas as to the situation in Quebec.
I had read in some of the western papers that there was such an anti-war feeling in the province of Quebec that the Liberal party-and I do n-ot wish to make the Liberal party responsible for this- wished to profit by this feeling to bring on an election, hoping by that means to secure a greater number of supporters in the province of Quebec. It seems to me-and I -think I am -correct in this view-that there is nothing which will detract m-o-re from the unity and harmony which should exist between all sections of the country, than the arousing of -suspicions and pre-/ judices between those of different race and faith who compose our federation. I wished to d-o as much a-s I could to allay those prejudices -and- susceptibilities-, and suspicions, and to work so far -as lay in my power for that brotherly love and good will which above all other things, should exist at this time dn Canada.
Everywhere I -went in the West I was received not only with the greatest courtesy but with the greatest sympathy. It *was impressed upon me everywhere-that I was indeed a welcome messenger from the province of Quebec. Upon my return to Eastern- Canada it seemed to me the imperative duty devolved on me of going into my own province, and placing before its people the real issues which confronted them. In the -month of September, October, and a part of November, I held eighteen or twenty meetings in the eastern -section of the province. My colleagues the Minister -of Inland Revenue (Mr. P-aten-aude) -and the Secretary of State (Mr. Blond-in) held other meetings in the central part of the province and in the district of Montreal. The reason for holding these meetings was to bring home to the people the origin and nature of the present conflict, and the results which were bound to follow from the unthinkable possibility of a German victory. As far -as I could see while addressing audiences -sometimes twenty-five hundred or three thous-

and people in the most remote districts, my remarks were well received. I was listened to not only with courtesy, hut with sympathy, andi the opinions and ideas which I gave expression to were received with approbation 'by the people of my province. These meetings were held with no political object in view, and it is scarcely necessary for me, I hope, to deny the unworthy allegation made in _ some quarters, that, under the guise of holding patriotic meetings, we were holding political meetings in which to expound the principles of the Conservative party. I believe that under the system of Government under which we live it is the duty of the ministers of the Crown to visit from time to time the different parts of the country, and more particularly the different parts of the provinces they represent, so that there may be a bond of sympathy and union between the ministers of the Crown and the people whom they represent. I believe that in that respect we should take a leaf from the book of the great English statesmen, who are continually speaking to their constituents. That is the reason why I thought it was incumbent upon me, and why my colleagues in the Government from the province of Quebec thought it was incumbent on them to explain directly to the people the real position of affairs, so that they might judge for themselves of the action and conduct of the Government. It is true, Sir-and I must tell the whole truth- that at these meetings I defended the Government from what I considered to be unfounded and unfair attacks; but on no occasion did I make any attack on my political opponents, or introduce any controversial matter. It was not that I think the case we Liberal-Conservatives are called upon to defend is not a good case; not that I think there is no cause of complaint in respect to the opinions held on the other side; but it was that I did npt think the occasion warranted any controversy. It was because that I sincerely believe that the only subject that should occupy the attention of our people at the present time is this war in which the very existence of this country is at stake.
I wish, Sir, to render justice to whom justice is due. It was not only the Conservative ministers who held patriotic meetings in the province of Quebec. The right hon. leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) held such meetings, some of which I had the honour to attend. The hon. member for Eouville (Mr. Lemieux), 
and the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) also took part in patriotic meetings. I regret, however, that others who should know better did not follow their leaders, but gave expression to opinions in some distant parts of the country which were not in consonance with the expressions which fell from the lips of their leaders. But, so as not to detract from the tone of this debate, which has been conducted on higher than party lines, I shall say no more on this at present, leaving to another and perhaps less dignified - occasion its discussion.	'
What struck me most in these meetings in the province of Quebec which I attended was the manifest prosperity of the farmers. Everywhere we went we saw evidences of this great prosperity. I well remember that at a large meeting in the constituency of my hon. friend from Chicoutimi and Saguenay (Mr. Girard), at which there were' present at least three thousand people, in that new country, which but a few years ago was- nothing but a forest, we saw the farmers coming to the meetings in their automobiles and in carriages -drawn by teams of splendid horses. Everywhere was to be found convincing proof to our friends from the other provinces, should they come to visit us, that Quebec is one of the most prosperous provinces in the Dominion.


Mr. PROULX:: That was the result of Liberal rule.


Mr. CASGRAIN :: I do not agree with my hon. friend. When we were in these more remote districts of the province of Quebec, we seemed to be very far indeed from the scene of the war. The residents have not yet felt the touch of the war; and such was the prosperity and peace wjaich prevailed that we could not help thinking that even moire than three thousand miles separated us from the theatre of hostilities. It has been said by an hon. member in this debate that recruiting was not quite so rapid in the province of Quebec and the eastern provinces as in the West. But let me point out that with the first contingent we sent 2,500 FrenclnCanadians. Let me mention to my hon. friends the names of some of the officers who are serving in this war. At present we have in Canada Colonels Dansereau, Barre, Derosiers, Majors Do Serres and Ranger, and Captains Leprohon and Roy, who have returned to Canada from the front and who are either organizing new battalions or otherwise help-

ing to recruit new regiments in the province of Quebec. Among those still in the theatre of the war we have Brigadier General Landry, Lt.-Col. Edouard Banet, Lt.-Gol. Henri Panet, Majors Lebel, Gagnon, Verret, Milot, Chaballe, Captains Lefebvre, McDonald, Lemieux, Lacroix, Brosseau, Darche, H. Beaudry, Lieut. Pinnode, Capt. Garon, Capt. Leblanc (son of Quebec's Governor), Capt. Caron, Capt. Du-chene and Capt. Picard. Some of the best families in the province of Quebec are represented, among them De Beaujeus, DeSalaberrys, Laviolettes, Babys and de Lanaudieres. And surely it is a spectacle to be admired when we see the descendants of those who fought against the British for supremacy in Canada fighting side by side with the Allies.
My hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) has the proud advantage of having one if not two sons at the front. Let me congratulate him sincerely. And may I be permitted to say that there are five men of my own name, of my own flesh and blood, who are now wearing the King's uniform and doing their duty" in this war- there were six, but one has made the supreme sacrifice on the- field of battle.
I have shown that the Prime Minister's announcement at the beginning of this war was vrell received by this House, by the press, and by the country, and that is due, I have no doubt to the united efforts of the political leaders.' Let me call attention to a point which was referred to in the speech of my hon. friend from L'Islet (Mt. Paquet), and it is this: the Catholic Church in the province of Quebec, as in days of old, has done its duty. At the very beginning of the war, a pastoral letter was issued by the archbishops and bishops of Quebec calling upon their flocks to respond to the call of duty and to serve the flag. The memorable words quoted in this House the other day by my hon. friend from L'Islet and also by my .hon. friend from Yukon (Mr Thompson) are there to show that the Catholic Church, the hierarchy and the clergy, in the present war as during the Napoleonic wars, are faithful to the British flag and to the free institutions which have given them such great liberties in the Dominion of Canada.
And what has been the result of all these efforts? Up to the first of December, 1915, there were at least 9,-000 French-Canadi^ns enlisted in the army. It is difficult to tell the exact number of French-Canadians now enlisted or the number that were enlisted at that time., because -as hon. members of
the House are aware, many of those British soldiers who came across with Wolfe settled in Quebec and adopted the language of those among whom they came to live, so that to-day there are Frasers, Blackburns Warrens, McLeans, and many others of similar names the descendants of. these hardy British soldiers, who speak not one word of English. But I take from the official lists which have been furnished me by the Militia Department, that on the first if December last, there were 9,000 men bearing French names who had already en-isted.
This is not enough. We did not consider [DOT],he province of Quebec, when it enlisted ),000 men was doing its full duty, and every effort has been put forward to ensure that n this great cause the province of Quebec thall bear its full share in the defence of :he Empire. At the present time, apart 'rom the regiments of Colonels Gaudet and irohambault which are on the other side * )f the ocean, there are now organized or reing organized in the province of Quebec, [DOT]egiments under Colonels Dansereau, Barre, Readman, Piuze, and last, but not least, mder Major Asselin, the Nationalist. Let ne say here that all praise is due to Mr. isseli-n. I take it that it is not a crime for i man to change his views or his political ipinions.


Mr. MURPHY:: When he changes them rightly.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: When he changes them right. In the words of M. Guizot, ' celui qua ne change pas d'avis est un sot." But, Sir, when I spoke of the unanimity of sentiment in the province of Quebec I was not forgetting what had been published in a paper which is well known to many members of this House, and from the columns of which I desire to read a few articles. On September 18, 1914, Le Devoir, of Montreal, under the signature of M. Henri Bourassa, published an article in which that gentleman first laid down the principle that- Canada, as an irresponsible dependency of Great Britain, had no moral or constitutional obligation in regard to or immediate interest in the present conflict, and then diis article proceeded:
Independently of these colonial obligations, which from the standpoint of history, the constitution or the facts, are inexistent, is it possible for Canada as a young nation (nation embryonnaire), as a community of men, to remain indifferent in respect to the European jonflict?	.
To this second question, as to the first, 1 ,-eply without hesitation : no !


Hon. RODOLBHE LEMIEUX (Rouville):: Mr. Speaker, let me at once congratulate my hon. friend, the Postmaster General (Mr. Casgrain), on the very able and very patriotic address which he has just delivered to the House. I was unfortunate last year to be absent from the House mostly every day during the session on account of illness, but I have been amply repaid today in listening to my hon. friend. Let me say to the right hon. gentleman who leads the House (Sir Robert Borden) that he and his party are to be congratulated on their new acquisition. In speaking as he has spoken, the Postmaster General has followed and obeyed life-long convictions; the language which he has used to-day is the language which he used in 1911 and in all the general elections which have taken place since he entered politics. During the recess the hon. gentleman visited the West, and there delivered many patriotic ad' dresses. These addresses were received in the spirit in which they ought to be received. Passing from the West my hon. friend came East. He was needed in the East, as you know, Mr. Speaker; he addressed several large gatherings; and I can give him credit for this, that at least he made two important converts. If there is such a thing as a ministerial heaven, there should be more rejoicing in that heaven
over the two sinners whom he brought with him than over many of the just that are around him.
I now pass to the speech of His Rdyal Highness the Governor General. For the third session Parliament has lived under the shadow of the greatest conflict in the history of mankind. I need not repeat, Mr. Speaker, what has been said from the beginning of the sittings of this House, that there can be only one opinion, only one determination, as regards the great issue confronting us: that we must help carry to a successful conclusion this terrible war. The issue is and must be all-absorbing. All others are mere contingencies compared with it. All others should fade away and vanish. Sir, it is in that spirit that the members of the Liberal party have approached this great issue. Prior to the declaration of war on the 4th August, 1914, the right hon. the leader of the Liberal party (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), the veteran among the privy councillors in Canada, and probably in His Majesty's dominions, spoke thus:
I have often declared that if the mother country were ever in danger, or if danger even threatened, Canada would render assistance to the full extent of her power. In view of the critical nature of the situation, I have cancelled all my meetings. Pending such great questions there should be a truce to party strife.
Sir, as a humble follower of my right hon. friend, I am proud to say that he has lived up to that patriotic pledge. During the recess he ~ has addressed meetings at Napanee, in the province of Ontario, here, in the city of Ottawa, in his old native village of St. Lin, at Sherbrooke, and, a few days ago, in Montreal, and he has consistently and eloquently appealed to the yeomanry of this country to buckle on their armour for service in His Majesty's army. That has not been the attitude only of my right hon. friend individually; it has been the official attitude of the Liberal party. On the 21st December last representatives of the Liberal party met in Ottawa, and they unanimously passed the following resolution, which speaks their sentiments and their opinions:
The National Liberal Committee is of opinion that so long as the war lasts, the Liberal party should continue as it has from the first to give its chief attention to the tremendous struggle in which the country is engaged and that, to that end, it should continue to give loyal support to all necessary war measures whilst exercising a vigilant supervision of the conduct of the Government, both in military and civil matters.

I am pleased to hear that my hon. friend from Peterboro (Mr. Burnham) has asked the Clerk of the House to wipe out from the Votes and Proceedings the notice of motion which he gave at the beginning of this session. My hon. friend from Peterboro reminds me of the Lord High Chamberlain in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster. We know that for three hundred years, at the opening of Parliament, the Lord High Chamberlain, accompanied by the Yeoman of the Guard, and all bearing halberds and carrying lanterns, visits and scrutinizes the regions underneath the Parliament buildings at Westminster, to see if, perchance, he can find any Guy Fawkes of gunpowder plot fame . My hon. friend has fortunately found out that this meeting of the members of the Liberal party a few days before the opening of this Parliament did not smack of any Guy Fawkes or gunpowder plot.
Sir, there is a truce, but that truce, I must say, does not spell abdication. We agree, both sides of the House, both currents of public opinion in Canada, as to the essential thing, namely, the legitimate prosecution of this war, but as to the scope of legislative enactments, as to the expenditure of public money, as to the mode of taxation, I reserve my right to be critical and to investigate if need be. The Government must expect to-day more than ever a strict control and scrutiny of its actions. The functions of the government in any British country are of the nature of a trust, generally speaking, and more so during a war when the expenditure are as stupendous as they are to-day. It is not a trust in the ordinary sense of the word; it is a sacred trust, and surely the Government will expect that His Majesty's loyal Opposition will be inclined to ask questions and be critical at times. This perhaps may surprise some of my fellow members, but I take my brief from probably the greatest of all parliamentarians in Great Britain. I refer to the immortal Burke. When he, for the first time, offered himself as a candidate in the old city of Bristol, he used the following language:	'
Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment and betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices that to your opinion.
As a Liberal, as a Canadian, as a free citizen of a free country, though I agree with the Government on the essential thing, the legitimate prosecution of the war, and the necessary expenditures entailed by that

war, I wish to reserve for myself the right to criticise and to investigate if need be. Let me give a case in point. Without traducing any one, without making any accusations, I am simply referring to the rumors which are at the present time / saturating the atmosphere of this capital city of the Dominion. We all know that, acting under the direction of this Government, a commission has been appointed to give shell orders for the British authorities throughout the various industrial centres of Canada. That commission has been replaced of late. It is being said, and it has been said, that large orders were given without any tender. It is being said, it is hinted, that orders were distributed amongst the members of that commission. It is being said that extensive profits, profits abnormally high, were made. I do not know, I am not in a position to state if this is a true statement of the fact, and I make no accusations, but I say, Sir, that it is the duty of this Parliament to investigate, to scrutinise and to know whether such is true or not.
Oh, I know that people say that this ' Government, that this Parliament, has nothing to do with that commission, that the money was spent ^on behalf of the British Government, and that therefore we have nothing to investigate. Let me give the answer to that quibble by citing the words emanating from the trenchant pen of one gentleman who sat in this House when first I was elected in 1896, from a man whose crisp style is well known to the Conservative organizers in this country -I refer to my friend Mr. Ross Robertson, of the Toronto Telegram. Here is the answer made to that quibble by Mr. Ross Robertson writing in the Toronto Telegram of November 30, 1915:
The worst sort of quibble travels in the suggestion that the shell committee was spending the money of the British taxpayers, and the work of that committee is therefore none of Sir1 Robert Borden's business. The shell committed was acting on behalf of Sir Robert Borden, just as Sir Robert Borden was acting on behalf of the Canadian people. The shell committed was not the steward of Canada's money. Thd shell committee was the steward of Canada's honour.	>.
I make no accusations, I feel sure that the right hon. gentleman, who is the steward of Canada's honour, as was so well said and penned by my friend Mr. Ross Robertson, can answer any charges that may be made on account of that committee's action.
This being said about our right to criti-

else and to investigate, let me now pass to tlie speech from the Throne and state at once that it is an agreeable duty for me to join with my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Oasgrain) in saying that the speech from the Throne this year reflects the admiration and the pride of the Canadian people at large for the noble achievements of those who fought and died in the trenches in Flanders. At Festubert, at Langemarek, and at St. Eloi, our soldiers, as the right hon. the leader of the Opposition well said yesterday, fought like veterans and heroes. They maintained high the traditions of the nation; they made immortal the name and the fame of our common country Canada. Sir, my right hop. friend the leader of the House was kind enough yesterday to mention the noblq deed of Major Roy who fell in the trenches. Let me reciprocate with him and take off my hat in mentioning the name of Guy Drummond who left his palatial home in Montreal, who had in his possession all the happiness which life could yield a man, million's to spend, a bright intelligence, who left the shores of Canada with the Princess Patricia Regiment, and wiho fell like a hero in the trenches of Flanders. The effort of Canada is happily summarized and fully justified, it seems to me, in two phrases of the speech, as follows:
The Empire's part therein has been amply maintained at sea by the aspiring1 achievements of the Navy and on land by the distinguished valour of the great armies which have enrolled themselves in all parts of His Majesty's dominions for the common defence of our liberty.
And further:
Equally praiseworthy and impressive has been the self-sacrificing and loyal spirit shown by all the Canadian people who have freely dedicated their manhood and substance to the common defence of the Empire.
I have no hesitation in proclaiming high and loud that the common defence of the Empire means in my humble judgment the common defence of our liberty. In this sense my hon. friend the Postmaster General is right when he says that in the present war the first line of defence of Canada is in the plains of Flanders. I forget the name of the American statesman who once said, " I stand for my country right or wrong." The more I study the causes of this conflict, the more I am convinced that Great Britain is in the right in this war. The crime of blood guiltiness does not lie at her gate. History will say that she sought to prevent the strife from the very beginning, 4
but that she could not view with indifference the brutal outrage perpetrated on poor Belgium and the unprovoked terrorism displayed on the Meuse and further on in Champagne. Great Britain was not attacked:	France and Russia were attacked.
Britain might have awaited the onslaught; she might have stood clear even; she might have husbanded her resourced of men and money; she might simply and swiftly have prepared; she might even have loomed over the stricken adversaries in the end and claimed for herself the hegemony of Europe: but Britain did not do so. In the light of history it will he said that Britain did not do so; that she spontaneously and bravely threw her trident into the scale; that she threw her gold into the scale; that she threw her racial record, her great prestige; that she threw and is throwing in the balance the whole puissance of the .mighty British	Empire-and	all
for what? for that principle of the liberty of the individual which is the mainstay of the British institutions as against mediaeval autocracy. In the light of history, in the eyes of civilization. Germany on the contrary stands at the bar. She, and she alone, is responsible for this awful conflagration. Her aim, lust of conquest; her ambition, the domination of the world. And in order to dominate the world she had to crush the small nationalities. In order to dominate the world she had to maim France for the second time. In order to dominate the world, she had to humble the British Empire. This is why I say that in the present conflict the common defence of the British Empire, as stated in the Speech from the Throne, means the common defence of our liberties.
It has 'been said that we owe nothing to England. Sir, the whole structure of the British Empire is 'based on freedom, religious and civil freedom; and the fall of the British Empire would mean the destruc. tion of those liberal institutions which 'are so necessary to mankind. It would mean the revival of autocracy and the disappearance from the world of those principles of government 'by the people for the people which were once so eloquently defined by the greatest of Americans, Abraham Lincoln. Need I say with my hon. friend the Postmaster General that we of French origin in this House and in this country, inspired by the memories of the past stand by the British ideals of government in this crisis. We know, as students of history, what is Britain's true glory. Britain's true glory,. Sir, is not Agincourt, it is not even


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: The ghost is in the
closet now.
Mr., LEMIEUX: It is an old man with a long beard. His name spells deficit, and he seems to be installed in the Post Office Department, not for many years to come, I hope, but for some time at least, unless my hon. friend takes a leaf from my book or from the book of Sir William Mulock.
Now let us take the Post Office Department. In 1896 the expenditure in the Post Office Department was $3,752,805. In 1911, when a handsome surplus' was shown, it had increased to $7,954,000 or an increase of a little over $4,000,000 in fifteen years- and we were selling stamps at two, cents instead of three cents. By the way, let me congratulate by hon. friend on having relieved the people from the task of having to lick two stamps for every letter. In fifteen years we increased the expenditure by only $4,000,000. When the Hon, Mr. Pelletier appeared in that department and when he hugged the ghost, the expenditure increased from $7,954,000 in 1911, to $12,822,000 in 1914, and to $14,956,000 in 1915, an increase of nearly $5,000,000 in the three years and of nearly $7,000,000 in the four years. In other words, the increase in the annual cost of administration of the department for the fifteen years prior to 1911 was something like $4,000,000 while the increase for the four years following was something like $7,000,000. My hon. friend is a business man, besides being a brilliant jurist. I will ask him to restore the surplus which had superseded that ghost, and to rid once more the department of that deficit. Of course it
means hard work on the part of my hon. friend. I am glad to see that he is still young hardy and jaunty. He has broad shoulders. It requires, indeed, quite an Atlas to carry the burden left to him by his immediate predecessor. I must not forget that he has three hundred and fifty thousand Pelletier padlocks to carry in the Post Office Department. If that is too heavy a load for his shoulders let him send them to the scrap heap or to the Shell Committee who might use them to make shells. Sir, in these days of loans and huge expenditures, let me tell the Minister of Finance that he might well adopt a policy of economy and retrenchment. I said in those days of loans. I hope that some time during this session the Minister of Finance shall be permitted to explain to the House, to the country, and to the noble seventeen of Toronto, how it came that he went-yes to New York to borrow money from the American financial institutions ; he borrowed money from the United States! No truck, no trade with the Americans save when it is necessary to run a Tory Government machinery! Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend became a convert or a pervert after that famous meeting in Toronto when it was announced as part of the political gospel of hon. gentlemen opposite that there should1 be no truck and no trade with the Yankees. Before that he was, I know, a sound and consistent Liberal, and though it is true that he broke away from modern Liberals like the right hon. the leader of the Liberal party, surely he must hold dearly in his memory and green in his heart the name and fame of Mr. Gladstone. I shall not surprise my hon. friend when I say that Gladstone was, perhaps, the greatest exemplar in public finance in any country of the world. So keen was Gladstone in his battle for economy and retrenchment that that master of phrases, Disraeli, once said of him: "His duty is to supply ways and means, yet he is proposing votes with innuendo and recommending expenditures in whispered invective." My hon. friend the Minister of Finance	learned	in	thewhispering campaign	of	1911	how	towhisper. I know that	he	is	notstrong in invective.	He	has	not	the
vocabulary of his friend the Minister of Militia and Defence. He is the Webster of the ministerial party, so far as invective is concerned. I would ask my hon. friend to learn invective from that Webster-I do not refer to the Webster of Broek-ville-Yes, I would ask my hon. friend

to iearn how to, whisper invective when the Minister of Public Works, or the Minister of Customs, or even the Minister of our Navy, are besieging him for such huge expenditures as appear in the blue books this year. The words of Gladstone should be remembered by my hon. friend. What did Gladstone say?
Economy is the first and great article in my financial creed. . . The Chancellor of the Exchequer should boldly uphold economy in detail and it is the mark of a chicken-hearted chancellor when he shrinks from holdng economy in detail, when because it is a question of only two or three thousand pounds, he says that it is no matter. He is ridiculed no doubt, for what is called candle ends and cheese parings, but he is not worth his salt if he is not ready to save what are meant by candle ends and cheese parings in the cause of the country.
I know the Minister of Finance is the salt of the earth, but he is not worth his salt if he cannot save the candle ends and the cheese parings for the cause of his country, which is now engaged in a terrible conflict, involving large inroads upon the revenues of the country, a country which is being taxed, and taxed severely, because of the war.
We must not forget that when peace is restored this country will be saddled with a huge war* debt. The public debt in the month of November last was $501,668,167.71. If the war lasts two years longer Canada will be saddled with a debt of over rather than under one billion dollars. Therefore, the first lesson which my hon. friend the Minister of Finance has to learn is the lesson of economy, the most stringent economy. He has been borrowing and wasting too much, and a halt should be called, because he should not forget that while the burden of debt must be borne, the capacity to bear it is limited. Peace will some day be restored, and this country will have to face most serious problems. The land problem seems to me the most important, and I congratulate my hon. friend the member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) on the compliments which he paid in his speech yesterday to the farmers of Canada. The farmers of Canada are' to-day, and to-morrow will be, the best hopes of this country. The roots -of manhood are in the soil of Canada. "That mation is strongest," said Froude, "which -has the largest proportion of its people with a direct interest in the land." In some jparts of it, Canada may be an industrial country, but to a limited extent. Canada is bound to become the greatest farming section of the American continent. Our system of immigration in the past has net

been as successful as it should have been. Thousands of immigrants have left their homesteads for city life; there is a congestion in the cities .to-day, and many of these immigrants are a burden on the municipalities. With the fertility of our soil, with the advertising given to Canada abroad during the last 20 years, we should have had in this country a population of at least 20,000,000 people, whereas we have barely a population of 8,000,000. The farming industry of Canada must be specially looked after when peace is restored, because it is our great national asset for the future, as it has been this year, and unless we increase out output we cannot hope to meet our annual interest payments on the huge war debt that will be accumulated. The world, we know, is-hungry for the foodstuffs of Canada, for her wheat, and for her meats and dairy products. We have millions of vacant acres, i and with men eager for work, land needing to be worked, and the world ready to buy the products of such work, our country should emerge successfully from the wave of economic depression which now exists. I read only yesterday a description of the probable situation in Europe after the war, a description which is very graphic, in my judgment. This is published in the Daily Mail, of London, England, by Mr. T. Wells. He says:
Twenty-five million men have taken up arms. It is estimated that nine million already have been slain or disabled, and that the total destruction of life in Europe in two years of war wifi be twenty million.
This is the combatant waste alone. Civilian populations everywhere in Europe, even of neutral nations, are affected by the physical and nerve stress of Armageddon. Nearly everywhere the birth-rate is falling, the death-rate rising. British births are already 40,000 a year less and deaths 50,000 more than in 1913, a net deficit of 90,000 lives a year-the total population of whole towns like Coventry or Northampton, Paris is losing similarly, and Berlin and Vienna much more heavily.
When the great war is over a shrunken Europe will realize that no plague of the Mid- ' die Ages ever ravaged it like the black death that came from Potsdam.
The direct monetary cost of the war to the belligerents can he put at nearly ten thousand million pounds a year, figures that, like the astronomers' distances, outpass the human conception. Titanic as they are, the figures of the indirect cost of the war exceed them; lost trade, lost production, and creations of science, art, humanitarianism and discovery that have perished in embryo.
Europe after the war will be a little Europe, with a population not much greater than the population of Europe before the - Napoleonic wars, a Europe with these stupendous social problems:
Three women to two men of marriageable ace.

More old men than young men.
More boys than workers in their prime.
More physically unfit than physically fit.
Millions of men to be fitted again into civil employment, millions of women who have learned man's work and earned his wages.-
Millions of manual workers who will have become accustomed to wages twice or three times as high as they earned in pre-war days, and who will still expect those wages.
Greatly diminished food supplies for many years owing to ravage of cultivated lands, diminished breeding stock, and shortage of production.	,
High commercial freights, dear imports, and handicapped exports, owing to shortage of ships.
These are only a few of the major problems that will confront Europe after the war.
Sir, out of all this "awful welter Canada may benefit, Canada may profit, and that profit will go, must go first to the tillers of the soil. The farmer will secure a high price for his produce. So the policy of the Government at the present day should be to increase our farming population, to increase the yearly volume of agricultural products and to do away with the artificial barriers which exist in the West, to give the farmer of Canada fair play, a free hand and thus help him to make , headway after this waT is over.
New conditions will be created in belligerent countries and in neutral countries as well.- Has the Government provided for the return of our soldiers? Has the Government provided 'fior the return of those soldiers to civilian life and industry? The employment of our returning soldiers is one question and the large influx of immigration to Canada after the war is another. A meeting was held the other day in Montreal under the chairmanship of the Anglican bishop-His Lordship Bishop Farthing. At that meeting a memorandum was prepared which in a few days will be presented to the Government. That memorandum contains data and facts as regards the conditions of unemployment in the large centres and as regards the .urgency of the establishment of labour bureaus throughout Canada. What reliable nation-wide organisation does Canada possess to deal with the following gigantitc problems at the close of the war? The replacing of returned troops in suitable occupation; the readjustment of dislocated industrial conditions and the transference of workers from war industries to normal industrial occupations; the industrial training and technical equipment of potential citizens to meet the strenuous and fierce competition for industrial and
commercial expansion; the handling of the stream of immigration which will set in when peace is concluded; the replacing' of interned aliens from concentration camps throughout the country. These aTe the questions which were discussed the other evening at that meeting in Montreal at which the largest and most influential bodies in the city were represented. The memorandum will be submitted to my right hon. friend in a few days. A deputation headed by the Bishop of Montreal will he here. I hope that the Government will take the necessary measures to protect our returning soldiers, to protect. the immigrants who will come into this country in large numbers after the war and to provide as much as possible for the distribution of employment among the various industrial centres of Canada.
I have just mentioned the question of technical education. There is a most interesting report on the shelves of the Department of Labour on the all-important question of technical education. Has the Government taken any action on this report? Has the Government the intention of taking any action on it? We know that the success of Germany and of the United States from the industrial point of view, and, in a measure, of England and France, is due to their system of technical education. I am pleased to know that there has been established of late years a splendid technical institution in the city of Montreal. But that is not enough. The Federal Government ought to help the provinces to establish and multiply technical institutes in order to equip the young men of this country for the economic battles of the future.
One word about another question. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister yesterday said that he would apeak until after six o'clock in order to impart to the House the result of his trip to the Mother country during the recess. I waited and waited and listened attentively with bated breath to my right hon. friend as I always do. I expected something startling from him and yet, Mr. Speaker, will I surprise him when' I say that I was sadly disappointed in his statements. It is very interesting indeed to know that he met the Prime Minister of England and the Minister of Munitions, Mr. Lloyd George, that he discussed the question of remounts and other sundry matters, but 'I expected from him a statement as regards

that promise which he has made on so many occasions to the faithful jingoes of *Toronto. Long before the war, my right hon. friend repeated time and time again, - is he has done since the war, that the old *rder of things had passed away and that tow on, Canada would have a voice in the affairs of the Empire. To be just with my right hon. friend let me quote his ipsissima verba in Toronto in 1913:
Those whom those questions concern must always reckon with the Inborn feeling in the Canadian breast that a British subject living in this Dominion must ultimately have as potent a voice in the government and the guidance of this worldwide Empire as the British subject living in the United Kingdom.
And after this deliverance I know that the stout and faithful from Toronto expected that within a very short time indeed that voice would be heard in the councils of Downing street. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) went further. Speaking in April last in Toronto again he said:
Before the war many persons argued that Canada ought to have no foreign' policy. Now Canada had a foreign policy and that was the policy of the British Empire. For good or ill they had taken an advanced position, and from tihis time forward they must have a united foreign policy.
At Folkestone in England on the 4th of August, 1915, my right hon. friend the Prime Minister said:
The old order has in some measui'e passed away. Once for all it has been borne upon the minds and souls of all of us that the great policies which touch and control the issues of peace and war concern more than the peoples of these islands.
I know the old historic city of Folkestone, and I feel that perhaps the words of my right hon. friend, eloquent and wise as they were, had not much effect on the plain people of Folkestone; but I know that when he spoke at Folkestone he spoke for the stout and faithful of Toronto.


Robert Laird Borden: As a matter of fact I did not speak at Folkestone at all.


Rodolphe Lemieux: It is reported in "The New Empire Partnership," a book published by Mr. Percy Hurd, page 289. I will pass the book to my right hon. friend. Anyway, did he use anywhere the words that I have quote?


Robert Laird Borden: That is very likely.


Rodolphe Lemieux: An event took place
anyway which was heralded by the jingo [Me. Lemieux.]
press as really an epoch-making event. On the 15th day of July, 1915-


Charles Murphy: What is the date?


Rodolphe Lemieux: On the 15th of July,
1915-not the 12th-the English . press reported that by the invitation of the British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, the Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada, attended a meeting of the Cabinet at Downing street. If my right hon. friend can break the news to an impatient listener, I would like to know if he was present at that meeting of the British Cabinet as a spectator or if he was there as a participator; or let him say at once what I suggest as the case, wras he playing to a Toronto gallery? The country is entitled to know this. Trub, Mr. Bonar Law said at Folkestone on the 4th of August, 1915:
The time will come wjien the whole of the self-governing dominions, in proportion to their population and resources, will share with the motherland in the duty and honour of governing the British Empire."
But this is a mere opinion, an obiter dictum of Mr. Bonar Law, who no doubt clings to the opinions he held before being a member of the coalition government. But the statesman who really spoke for the British Government is Mr. Asquith, who in 1911-and I wish my right hon. friend would think of this-was present at an Imperial Conference in which the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition took part when the proposal was made by Sir Joseph Ward, the Prime Minister for New Zealand, for the very thing which has been propounded so assiduously and so insidiously by the right hon. gentleman during the last few years, that is, the idea that the Dominion should have a voice in the councils of the Empire and should dictate the terms of peace and war in the foreign policies of Great Britain. Mr. Asquith's answer was very plain. It reads as follows:
It would impair, if not altogether destroy, tha authority of the Government of the United Kingdom, in such grave matters as the conduct of foreign policy, the conclusion of treaties, the declaration and maintenance of peace, or the declaration of war, and indeed, all those relations with foreign powers, necessarily of the most delicate character, which are now in the hands of the Imperial Government, subject to its responsibility to the Imperial Parliament -that authority cannot be shared, and the coexistence side by side with the Cabinet of the United Kingdom of this proposed body-it does not matter what name you call it for the moment-clothed with the functions and the jurisdiction which Sir Joseph Ward proposed to invest it with, would in our judgment, be abso-

lutely fatal to our present system of responsible government.
Now, Mr. Asquith has not varied his opinion; he has never said that he has retracted that statement, and until he declares that he has retracted it, I say that my right hon. friend in his claim for a voice in the councils of the Empire is only playing to the gallery. The modem, the sane idea of the British Empire is that of Gladstone, is that of Asquith, that its unity is based on the freedom of each of its component parts. Sir, freedom alone breeds the loyalty of the dominions. For my part, notwithstanding the hopes expressed by the right hon. the leader of the House, I am satisfied with my lot as a Canadian and as a British subject. Canada has won responsible government. Formerly England drafted our tariff, managed our post office, looked after the public works-and perhaps it was not a bad thing for Canada compared with the present-day administration-involved us in her commercial treaties, and defended Canada with her regulars. But, Sir, we have outlived that policy; we have moved towards greater efficiency, greater self-reliance and more complete self-government. I am proud of what we have acquired-our full freedom, -and I do not care to be involved in the foreign policies of Downing street. As Canadians we are masters in our own house; we none the less recognize the Empire as a fact; nay, we welcome it as a trust. As our freedom grew our reverence for the Motherland grew, proceeding from the depths of our hearts. Sir, when, in August, 1914, the tragic hour came, the Canadian people, before responding to the call of duty, did not insist that they should have a voice in the councils of the Empire. The Canadian privates, the Canadian officers, did not volunteer on any sordid considerations of a preferential tariff policy. They knew that, though fighting for Britain's cause in their full freedom, they could at the same time tax British imports. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian people responded with one heart and one voice to the call oi duty. They were moved by higher, loftier motives than those suggested by some jingoes. Of our soldiers it might well be said, as the Latin poet said of the Rom an legions, "Amor patriae'ratione valentior."


Mr. W. F. COCKSHUTT (Brantford):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate our hon. friend from Yukon (Mr. Thompson) on the splendid address he gave us yesterday, showing a great deal of thoughtful research,
and drawing to our attention many facts of history that were both inspiring and educational. The hon. member who seconded the resolution (Mr. Paquet) also made an admirable address. I am sure both these hon. gentlemen are worthy of the thanks of this House for the manner in which they dealt with the important questions-that are before us. The Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) also gave us a very excellent resume of his visit to the front, and I am sure that his words of encouragement and praise of the Canadian soldier found an echo in the hearts and minds of all on both sides of the House.	*
The war in which we are engaged has called for very strenuous efforts during the year through which we have passed and since we last assembled here. It will call, perhaps, for a great deal more vigorous efforts in the future than it has called for up to the present. I am sure there are no hon. gentlemen on either side of the House who will begrudge in any way the expenditures that have been made in connection with the sending of our forces overseas. -Up to date, as I understand it, we have vpted about $150,000,000. Probably not the whole of that is yet expended, and that has run us for nearly a year and a half of the war. In that time 80,000 Canadian soldiers have crossed the water, probably 100,000 or 120,000 have been gathered ready to cross the water, and a further call is now being made for 250,000 more troops to be prepared to take their places at the front as soon as their services are needed.
These, of course, are very large matters for a country such as Canada which has not been accustomed to efforts of this kind within the past hundred years. We have been brought up to believe- that we lived in a country of perpetual peace, that our peace was never likely to be assailed from outside our own borders. For this reason when the war broke out Canada's permanent force consisted of probably not more than three or four thousand men, and the militia, which is the backbone of the defence of Canada, consisted of not more than fifty thousand men-though nominally, perhaps, seventy-five thousand were-enrolled. I question if more than fifty thousand were ever under training in any one year. So it was a very large undertaking that faced the Minister of Militia (Sir Sam Hughes) when he was called upon on very short notice to prepare the first expeditionary force. The call that went out in August, 1914, met with a more hearty

response than might have been expected under the conditions that then prevailed. Upwards of thirty thousand men answered the call almost immediately, and within a few weeks were embarked to cross the water. That is not a very large force as compared with the armies of Europe, it is true. Yet that flotilla that went from Canada at that time, consisting of the transports and their naval convoy, was the greatest force that had ever crossed any sea since the world began in any one unit, so far as I am aware, and I think I am speaking according to the records of history. Upwards of thirty thousand men were embarked on these transports, and they were convoyed by a large number of cruisers and battleships and some of the lesser arms of the naval service.
All of these troops were successfully landed on the shores of Great Britain; not a man was lost. And in all the transfers that have been made to and fro during the war across the Straits'into France and overseas, and also to the Mediterranean, scarcely any mishap has occurred. That speaks volumes for the efficiency of the British fleet. We have cause for thankfulness, in the opening .of the New Year, that the British fleet, which was supreme when the war began, still commands the Seven *Seas, and is supreme upon every water. This is a fact that cannot be gainsaid even by our enemies, and day by day the blockade of German ports is being tightened by the watchfulness of that fleet. It is true, in the early stages of the war, the- British fleet did not perhaps put into force all those measures that we may now think should have been put into force earlier. The Declaration of London, under which we as an Empire were endeavouring to work, and which has perhaps received very little consideration in this House, has made a very important change in the manner of naval warfare, and in regard to those articles that were considered contraband of war. Therefore, for a considerable time the enemy received a very large supply of articles that were absolutely necessary to enable it to carry on the war effectively. Particularly was this true of cotton, which was allowed to cross until a few months ago, and which, though perhaps it was not landed directly in Germany, no doubt found its destination there very soon after it had crossed the water. Also, German reservists, under the Declaration of London, were allowed to cross in neutral vessels and take their places in the ranks of 
the German army, though Britain could have seized them in the early stages of the war and taken them off these ships, as she is now prepared to do. But at that time the enemy was given the benefit of every doubt and the naval service was conducted with a laxity which some might have said was commendable, but which in reality was feeding the enemy in such a way that its cost was all the higher in the late stages of the war.	[DOT]
This, however, will all be corrected as time goes on. It was inevitable that the education of the British people to meet the conditions of a world-wide war should be a matter of gradual growth, and so it has been a matter of gradual growth. But to-day the old lion, which some people think has been rather slow to wake up, has finally got going pretty strong; and if the signs do not fail it appears to me that the enemy will have reason to regret that he has twisted the tail of the lion. Britain has now under arms probably four millions of men, with possibly 250,000 employed in the naval service of the Empire; and further calls have gone out in Britain lately, and it is not un reasonable to expect that in the very near future we shall have five millions of men under arms in Britain and serving in Flanders, France, the Near East, Mesopotamia, Egypt, South Africa and other countries in which the war is being carried on. The vastness of the war has been something that was not contemplated in its earlier stages, and there has been a tendency on the part of almost everyone to underrate the capacity of the enemy and so to underrate the requirements of men, munitions and ships. For this reason we were pretty slow in getting started in that great conflict. It took Great Britain about three weeks to get the first 120,000 men on the firing line, and probably Great Britain's standing army at the moment war broke out did not exceed 150,000 of thoroughly trained and effective troops, ready for immediate action. Thank God for that small army! It was not large, but it did its part at a time when it was very much needed. It was on the spot at the time when the critical stage of the German advance on Paris was reached. We all know the history of the great fight at Mons and where the British were first engaged; and how both Great Britain and her French Allies were gradually driven back until the Marne was reached and German guns were almost heard within the city of Paris itself. They came very close to the city of Paris-they reached a point

only about twenty-five miles from the Capital of France.
The right hon. leader of the Opposition expressed the horror with which he views the possibility of conscription. It is to be hoped that we will not require conscription in the Dominion of Canada. Probably, in the present state of public opinion no government could live that attempted to put conscription in force in this country at the present time. But while we may not be ready at the moment to adopt it ourselves, we should be very slow to condemn [DOT]it in others, because it is conscription that has saved the day and that has put us as near victory as we are. If you condemn conscription you condemn the policy of France, of Italy, of Russia, and of Servia, as well as of Germany. In other words, all the Allies of Great Britain to-day are fighting under, a conscriptive system. Where would France and Paris have been had France been as unprepared as the British were on land? Let anyone think of that for one moment. France was an armed camp the day war was declared. Every man knew his place, every man knew his duty; and to-day there is not an ineffectual man, we are told, in the whole of France who has not donned the arms and insignia of the French army and taken his place at the battle front, while the women and the old men are carrying on the work of the farm, in the field, in the factories and in the marts of commerce. That whole nation to-day is one armed camp as a result of the conscriptive system and of the universal training system which has done so much to head off the enemy. A great war is a good deal like a great fire. Those members who have been in Ottawa a good many years have seen some very threatening conflagrations in this neighbourhood, and very close to this city. A fire brigade that can put two good streams of water on a conflagration when it is starting is worth more than a fire brigade that can put on two hundred or three hundred after the conflagration has spread. It is the same way with regard to a nation. A nation thoroughly prepared, that can immediately jump into the breach and take its place against the enemy, is in a better position than one that has to hunt around, as Canada had, to get new recruits who know nothing of war, to train them and equip them as soldiers, send them across the sea and get them into the firing line. Time was the essence of the contract, and time was on the side of the man who was ready; and had it not been that our great
and bold ally, France, in this war was more ready than we were, on land, we would have had a sorry tale to tell to-day, there is little doubt of that. The same may be said with regard to Belgium. Belgium was a peaceable country, a land that had not been led to expect that it would have any part in any great war in Europe, its neutrality having been guaranteed by all the great powers. And so Belgium was not well prepared for war. But for three weeks almost, that little country, with its gallant little band of 150,000 men, held up the German hordes at the border, and that three weeks enabled the British to get their forces across and tackle the enemy about the time the Belgians were exhausted. Look what happened in the country of Belgium, a little land but with almost the same population as the whole of Canada, seven millions of people, where we have perhaps seven and a half millions! For three weeks that little gallant band of Belgians held up the whole of the German army, and that gave Britain a chance to get her 120,000 men of the first division across, and gave France a chance to have her millions prepared, which she did in short order. Russia came forward with an immense army; Serbia was early on the field, a little country, gallant but impoverished and decimated and devastated to-day in a way that challenges the sympathy and pity of all communities. That lot might have fallen to us had it not been for our geographical position; and while we to-day have heard the sound of no foreign gun in Canada, and perhaps will not, if we a.re fortunate, in the whole course of this war, yet the fight is just as much ours to-day as it is the fight of Belgium, of Serbia, 'of Russia, of France or of Great Britain. We are then a peaceable country, a country where from almost every pulpit peace has been preached, and the wonder is that our people have been able in so short a time to overcome a prejudice that had been inculcated into their minds from their youth up, and to take their place now and rank with the armies of Europe in valour and in glorious deeds upon the battlefields. The roll of our first contingent, made up from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and comprising representatives from every province, from every city, from every town, from every hamlet, and from many farms scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land, included men who it vras said were somewhat lacking in discipline; but though they had comparatively little preparation

for the fray, they went to the front, and wihen the crucial test came at Langemarck, at St. Julien, at Givenchy, at Ypres, and at other points of which you all have heard -when the trial came, the Canadians were just as good as the best. Even the Germans themselves admitted that uip to that time they had met no better soldiers than those who came from the western plains and the eastern provinces of the Dominion of Canada. We were all proud of the gallant deeds they performed on that day, and when the startling news came to us in the latter days of April that more than one-hajf of our first contingent had been wiped out, after three or four days of the most strenuous fighting that had taken place since the war began, the spirit of the Canadian soldier was reflected in the Canadian people at home. There is no better test of the vitality and endurance of a people than adversity, and the grim determination with which Canadians received the blackest news that has ever come across the Atlantic to this country, and learned that upwards of ten thousand of our men had gone down in that one fight-I say the grim determination with which our men, yes, and the mothers, and the wives received that news showed that the Canadian people were a people who not only could stand prosperity, but had the grace of God in their hearts to carry them through the days of adversity.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


William Foster Cockshutt: 
Rodolphe Lemieux: I do not disagree with my hon. friend as regards the war expenditure; I stand with the Government as regards that. What I objected to was the huge ordinary expenditure. That is where I wish the Government to practise economy.


William Foster Cockshutt: I did not wish to misinterpret my hon. friend, and therefore I asked the question. We can conclude that as regards Canadian expenditure as compared with that of Great Britain, we are not doing too much if we provide 500,000 men.
Let us now see what Australia, the next elder member of the British family of nations is doing. Canada as the eldest child in the family should be the leader and not the follower. We have the resources, the population anil the extent of territory. Why should we follow any of the other members of the great family contained in the British Empire? As being the eldest and the first-born, so to speak, we *should show the way. In comparing our expenditure and also our resources in men,


William Pugsley: What portion of that $225,000,000 is for munitions of war manufactured by the Australian Confederation?


William Foster Cockshutt: I am sorry that the information I have at hand does not permit me to answer the question. The estimated cost of the forces is all put in in one lump sum. The number of men, I presume, would answer that question, because the expenditure is almost entirely for the raising and equipping and the sending forth of those forces.

New Zealand, only about one-fifth the size of Australia, has a record about as good as that of Australia. South Africa first attended to a very serious insurrection on her borders, and finally put it down, and then that gallant soldier and loyal premier, Botha, who has the admiration of this House, because the right hon. the leader of the Opposition on many occasions has thrown a bouquet to that statesman over the seas, immediately steps out of the House where he -was leader and premier, buckles on the harness, and goes to show which side he is on and which side he is prepared to fight for. I say that the lead given by that hon. gentleman to the British Empire is one to which we should all take off our hats and say, God speed him. He has done nobly. I only refer to this in order that we may see that Canada is not alone in the great efforts she is making.
Then let us come to the great Empire of India. What has been done there? Immediately on the outbreak of the war they offered their resources of men and money. The princes and the rajahs cjme from far and near bringing their tributes of horses and camels, of jewels and silver and gold, and saying: Take these for that great Empire that has done so much for us. India was thought by the enemy to be on the verge of insurrection. Germany believed that the moment Great Britain got into a war, India would rebel and Britain would be unable to send her forces from that country. But we see that India is at the back of the Empire too.. There are three hundred and fifteen millions of people in that little empire-it is little by comparison, scarcely one-fifth the size of the Dominion of Canada. It has been shown that these darkskinned sons of the Empire know a good thing when they see it. Knowing British rule, British justice, British honour, British fair play, they declared: Though Britain has done some things that are not altogether to our taste, we prefer to have the rule of the good old benificent British Empire than to have Hun rule as exemplified in the continent of Europe. And so to-day we have a united Empire where Germany prophesied we should have discontent and division. Germany believed that Canada would take no part in the war; that India would break away, and above all that Ireland would immediately be in insurrection and that not only would England b'e unable to find a man jack in Ireland to send to the war but that she would have to send many troops to Ireland to keep the peace

there. These prophesies have failed. Some of the most heroic deeds of the war have been performed by Irishmen. Perhaps I may be pardoned if for a moment I tell *what was done by Michael O'Leary. Before dinner I recounted some deeds of Canadian valour and heroism; let me recall to you what that brave Irishman, little Mike O'Leary did. And, troth, I believe that Mike O'Leary lived for seven years in Western Canada and was a member of the Mounted Police when he enlisted, for the war. Michael O'Leary came of humble parents. We are told that they lived behind the hill fourteen miles from nowhere. But Britain does not forget even the humblest of her sons who performs a great deed, and when Michael O'Leary won the Victoria Cross, and won it in the most gallant way, his parents in their little home were advised by telegraph of the fact. The company in which Mike was serving was ordered to retire as the fight looked hopeless. But Mike said, " Sure I am not going to retire; I will fight it out myself." And he J>roke from the ranks, jumped into the German trench, killed five of the enemy and captured two and the machine gun. That is what Mike did. And when he was asked by a friend how he did it, he replied, " Why, faith, I surrounded them." So, the British Government telegraphed to Michael's mother that Mike had won the Victoria Cross. The dear old lady had never received a telegram in her life before and was naturally very much flustered, iiut very soon telegrams came pouring in from everywhere congratulating her on having such a brave son. Then came the dreadful news that though Michael O'Leary had won the Victoria Cross he had been killed. And the neighbours all turned out to mourn with the bereaved parents and to hold a wake. But while the wake was in progress came the news: Mike is not dead at all, but is alive and in London. And it is said that the mother declared, " I never believe again that Mike is dead until he tells me so himself."
This was the exploit of Michael O'Leary. And I think that we can claim that something of the heroism that he showed was built up in him by the seven years he served in the Mounted Police in Canada.
It is very pleasant to recount the daring deeds of our own countrymen and of the sons of the Empire. But we must remember that, we have a lot to do yet. If it was "A Long Way to Tipperary" when the war broke out eighteen months ago, it looks
almost as if it were a longer way to-day. Some think we are farther away than we were eighteen months ago. I never have been an optimist on this war. I have for years expected exactly what has come. As I do not want any hon. gentleman to say: It is easy to be wise after the event, I have taken the precaution to bring a clipping from the Mail and Empire of February 10, 1910, the heading, of which reads: "Immediate Aid to Empire Fleet- Empire Club Applauds Mr. W. F. Cock-shutt's Remarks-Danger from Germany- No Sacrifice too Great to Save Nation for Posterity." And here is the report of the address in which I endeavoured to show to the people of Toronto that, as I saw it, we were in danger then of exactly what has since then happened. I take no credit to myself for believing at that time that danger existed. I had read the remarks of such men as Earl Roberts, Mr. Maxse and Mr. Blatchford, the Socialist. As a Socialist, Mr. Blatchford did not believe that workmen should be called upon to engage in war, nor was he convinced that Germany intended to fight Britain. But he made up his mind to go to Germany and learn the facts in order that he might be able to contradict the statements that were made. He went a believer in Germany, a believer in peace, a believer in the peaceful designs of Germany in relation to Britain, a believer that there was no emergency and no danger. But he came back a converted man, and declared to the people of Britain that not only was there danger for. the future but that that danger then existed and that they could not prepare too quickly to meet it. It was reading the remarks of such men as these, men who faithfully endeavoured to tell the Mother Country of that peril that faced her, that convinced me eight or ten years ago that we must meet just such a crisis as that which has arisen.
It may be said that if Great Britain is furnishing about four million men and is spending about twenty-five millions of dollars a day, she is doing more than she ought to do. Let me state briefly what she has been doing up to date. I do not speak now of what she has done on the sea-as to that she has proved that Britannia rules the waves as she has done for hundreds of years and as she will do, I believe, to the end. But what is she doing on the land? It will be necessary to give a few figures which I will simply quote from memory. On the west front, the battle-line extends

for about five hundred miles, from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. It was upwards of a year before Great Britain held one-tenth part of the ljne. She held only thirty miles of that five hundred miles for over a year, only thirty, and that with the assistance of Canada, Australia, the Indian Empire, and all of her overseas Empire! She held thirty miles, while France looked after four hundred and seventy miles. All honour to that brave nation that for upwards of a year has held as though it were an impregnable fortress four hundred ' and seventy miles of battle front against the most powerful enemy and the best equipped nation the world has ever seen. Britain held only thirty miles, so I think that France had every reason to ask the Mother Country to stretch her lines; but with heroic fortitude she hung on and did her share, and she waited and waited until, after the end of the first year, Britain has now extended her lines and is to-day holding about one hundred miles of that five hundred miles, or one out of five, leaving France four-fifths 'and taking care of one-fifth, so that we, as Britons, cannot say that we are doing too much as compared with that splendid ally, France, who, as I said before dinner, has every man, woman and child that is able to do a stroke for the country at the country's service. There is no haggling about rights, about whether I am doing a little too much and the other fellow a little too little; but every man, and every woman, and every child, has placed his or her services unreservedly at the command of the nation, and has said: Where I can serve, send me ! That is the spirit which we must display if we are going to wiri this war.
What have we won up to date? I do not want to be a pessimist, and it is not because I am a pessimist that I am trying to show you a few plain facts with regard to the war. But what have we gained up to date? Not one foot of German territory has yet been conquered, on the right, on the left, on the north or on the south- not one foot. Instead of that Belgium has been devastated from end to end; Poland has been devastated from end to end; Serbia has been devastated from end to end, and millions, yes millions of men, have bit the dust in this great war. The hon. member for Eouville (Mr. Lemieux) estimated the casualties up to date at twelve millions of men, and I think that is not very far wrong. I estimated from figures I have endeavoured

to collect with some care that about ten millions of men have been put out of business in this war up to date. Britain's casualties are a little over, half a million, five hundred and twenty thousand, including Canadians, Australians and others; so that Britain has lost about one-eighth part of her fighting force, provided she has four millions of men under arms. Thus she has lots of reserves left. Canada and Australia have both suffered, but, while we mourn our losses in Canada, let us remember, in comparing ourselves with others, that Australia has suffered more than twice as much loss in men as we have-and in a far more hopeless task. I was a pessimist when I spoke in the House on the Dardanelles situation a year ago. I was a pessimist on that, and anybody who refers to my speech on that occasion will see that when people were talking in the House and out of it of wheat pouring out of Russia in the near future through the Dardanelles I made the remark that it is a long way to Odessa, a long way to Constantinople, and that the Allies would not be through the Dardanelles for a long time to come. That prophecy has more than come true. The event has been far worse thap. I anticipated, and to-day the whole peninsula has been evacuated; we do not hold a foot of territory there and the Australians, whose lives have been sacrificed, are buried in that lonely land. To-day	we have a force of two
hundred and fifty thousand men at Saloniki and I trust their fate will be more satisfactory than that of the British expedition in the Dardanelles. That goes to -show that when anybody sets out to tackle an enemy such as we are lined up against they must have reserves of men, guns and munitions of war, and that is where we were sadly lacking. That is where we were outclassed, so to speak, by the enemy, because they had been preparing for years while we had made comparatively little preparation. The result was that when the war began England had little in the way of munitions, guns or anything else necessary for fighting on anything like the scale that has been required in this war. That was a pity and cost us deaTly. But we are making up for that, and we are now called upon in Canada to raise another two hundred and fifty thousand meh. I want it to he distinctly understood that in anything I say with regard to conscription I am expressing my own view and speaking for myself alone. I am only a comparative back

bencher and do not claim to speak for anyone else. But I do believe that it will be necessary to take some other means before we get the five hundred thousand men we are asking for. I say it may be, and I think it will be necessary to take some more drastic means than we have taken with regard to the obtaining of recruits for the overseas service. Again I will quote from Australia, because there you have a democratic government and you have a labour government and surely what they do cannot be very far wrong. They are talking of conscription very strongly in Australia and have been for several months, under a labour government and it is a question to-day, if it were brought up in their House, whether it would not pass by three or four to one. That is the position in Australia. Let me tell you two or three of the arguments that they advance. This is what is said in one of their publications:
The unsatisfactoriness of the voluntary sys, tem is not only that it does not produce a sufficiency of aid in proportion to capacity, hut also that it induces the best to serve and leaves untouched the residue of careless and selfish, the " slackers " and the " cock-tails." The young men who have volunteered are among the best the country has. Thoughtful people ask whether it is justifiable that the flower of its youth should, by a process of " unnatural selection " be sent into the field whilst a larger and unworthier section remains behind.
That is one of the arguments used by the so-called conscriptionists in Australia. I shall read from a paper called the Bulletin. It is not the Edmonton Bulletin, but the Sydney Bulletin of Australia. That paper says
The time is ripe, has been ripe for months, for the abandonment of the old conventions. The first anomaly that ought to go is voluntary service. The business of wailing for recruits by means of posters, politicians' speeches, white feathers, and so forth, is as degrading as those other appeals by which our hospitals are periodically rescued from insolvency. Speaking broadly, the system gets the wrong men- the best-leaving the bad patriots and the cowards behind. There is everything against voluntary service as a means of raising a national army, and nothing but a few deceptive old catchwords in its favour. It is especially fatal in a war where every fit man is wanted, inasmuch as it can never rope in all the nation's fit men.
Now, I hope that conscription is" not necessary in Canada. I hope that it will not be necessary in Canada. But I make this statement-I do not know whether I am the only man who will make it in this House or not: If I have to choose between going in for conscription or the loss of this 5
war, I am going to be a conscriptionist. That is my view. I say that rather than lose this war I am going to be a conscriptionist, and I say that knowing that every member of my family fit to go has already enlisted and that therefore conscription has no terrors for me, and the old man who has his harness on to-night has placed his services in the hands of the minister to be used at any time he can use them; and when men of my class go I am prepared [DOT]and hope to go, but I say this House must realize that every fit man is wanted and wanted now. Our boys need them at the front. Why should we- not go over and rescue the prisoners who. have been held for a year in Germany? Why is not tnat front bench occupied by the late Postmaster General, a man whom we recall with honour to-night, Dr. Beland, who has been a captive in that far off country all these months? I say that calls like that ought to rouse every Briton. No deaf ear should be turned to a cry like that of our late Postmaster 'General. Let me give another instance. Talk about frightfulness in this war, talk about the frightfulness of the enemy! Was there-ever a more frightful deed in the history of the world than the murder of that faithful women Edith Cavell at the hands of the Huns? And will you say that recruits will not go when men deliberately march out a woman and put her up against a wall and shoot her down-one of the most heroic spirits the British Empire has produced in later years? I say the blood of that murdered nurse cries out to every Canadian from the ground to-night:	Will you enlist in the
service of your King and country? That is a cry that should be heard, and it should be heard now.
These five hundred thousand men are wanted, and they are wanted now, there is no doubt of that; and we should be ready* at the call of our King and country to say that we are prepared to go if you can use us. That is the spirit that we must have, ancl the voluntary system is on its test right now. The test of the voluntary system is this, that if it does not produce the goods it is not the right system. It has been tried in Britain for generations, and in all ordinary wars it has filled the bill. But this is no ordinary war, whether you look at it in regard to the extent of territory ravished, the number of peoples at war, or the sacrifices we are making in material and financial resources. Viewed in that respect, all the wars of all the ages, as

My advisers, however, are of the opinion that the wishes of the Canadian people and the present requirements of the war would be best met by avoiding- the distraction and confusion consequent upon a general election at so critical a time.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not intend tonight to discuss the advisability, or otherwise, of extending the term of Parliament. That is a question which will come up when the resolution, of which notice has been given, receives consideration. But let me just' say, Sir, in passing, that in my judgment it is a most serious matter for this Parliament,, created as it was by the British North America Act, by agreement between all the provinces, and having its constitution fixed by the Imperial Parliament-it is in my judgment a most serious matter to alter the constitution and to extend the life of Parliament. Those who occupy seats in this House, private members as well as members of the Government, have been sent here by the people to serve them for a specified period of time; *and under our constitution, as it stands today, when that time expires we are obliged to go back to the people and resign to them the trust which they have placed in our hands. Therefore, as I have said, it is in my judgment a matter ot the most serious importance that Parliament should be asked to empower the Government to request the Imperial Parliament to make provision to extend the life of Parliament. I have no doubt that the Government have taken that point into their seTious consideration, and when they state that they are of the opinion that " the present requirements of the war would be best met by avoiding the distraction and confusion consequent upon a general election at so critical a time," we must assume that, having considered the importance of the situation, the Government would not ask Parliament to have this change made in the constitution unless for the gravest possible reasons. I, as one member of this House, will await the statement of these reasons with the greatest possible interest, and if these reasons commend themselves to me, it will afford me very great pleasure to comply with the wishes of the Government in this respect. Since this war began I, conjointly with the gentlemen with whom I have been associated in this House, have complied with every request which the Government has informed Parliament it was necessary to comply with in order to enable it the
fMr. Pugsley.]
better to take part in the carrying on of this war.
But, Sir, I shall be obliged, during the remarks which I feel it my duty to make to the House, to depart somewhat from the course which has been taken by hon. gentlemen who have spoken, and to find fault with certain actions of the Government, and also with their want of action, since this war began. I trust I shall not offend anybody by throwing into the discussion what may be deemed a discordant note. I do not intend to do so. My only purpose is to call attention to what I think have been the errors which have been committed, in the hope that these errors may be rectified and that a different course may be pursued in the future. When we feel there is anything to criticise or with which to find fault, I consider it our duty, sitting as members of Parliament, to criticise and find fault. If we are here simply to register what the Government brings down, to say no word to indicate our real views in regard to its conduct or misconduct, in regard to its actions or want of action, then we might better have stayed at home. We have come here under false pretenses, and we have no right to draw our indemnity if we fail to express our views on the questions which are before Parliament and the people. Therefore it is that I intend, in the discharge of what I believe to be my duty, to call the attention of the House, and, through the House, the attention of the country, to what I think have been grave errors of judgment committed by this Government since the war began. There are matters in regard to which, through their agents or through their appointees, this Government have been guilty of misconduct of the gravest character. I do not say that they have been guilty personally, but I say they have been guilty of wrongdoing through their agents, through those whom they have appointed to carry on matters in connection with this war.
First, in regard to their errors of judgment. Let us go back to the commencement of the war. Everybody who gave any thought to the matter must have been of the opinion that this was going to be a long war, that it was not going to be settled in two or three months, that it was going to be a war of long continuance. Everybody knew from the very day that the war began that Germany had been making preparations for a great many years. Everybody realised that she had vast stores of muni-

tions, that she had a vast army, that the war would be not only a great struggle, but a struggle which would not be easily ended, and that it might reasonably be expected to last for a number of years.
What steps did the Government take when the war broke out to prepare to do its duty and take that part in the struggle that the Canadian people, wished it to take? There were two matters to which attention should have been given at tne outset. 1 speak now with all respect, and as one humble member of this. House who feels bound to express his opinion with regard to these matters. One was the great subject of transportation. Canada is a great agricultural country, a country of abounding resources, a country in which the farmers produce, taking them man by man, many times as much as is produced in almost any other country. Canada has often been described as the granary of the Empire. Under proper cultivation Canada would be able to feed the British Empire. The Government very properly urged the farmers of Canada to increase their production. Produce, produce, produce, was the watchword which the hon. Minister of Finance and other members of the Government spoke to the farmers of Canada. The farmers of Canada responded nobly. They tilled the soil with great care. I am told by some of my hon. friends from the West that on hundreds of thousands of farms they went over the land two or three times with the harrow in order to prepare it thoroughly well for the crop of the coming year; they used the very best seed they could get; they bought additional machinery and teams of horses; and the result was that they produced the greatest crop known in the history of Canada. It has been said during this discussion that in the West alone the wheat crop amounted to 8139,000,000 bushels this year.
Was there not another consideration which the Government should have had in mind, and was not that the getting of the crop to the market or over sea to feed the Allies? What would you need for that? You would need proper rolling stodk upon the railways, proper ships and an abundance of ships upon the Atlantic, so as to assure to the producers of the country and the consumers on the other side of the water the transportation of these foodstuffs at reasonable rates. Was not that 'something which went right to the root and foundation of the production of the great
crop in Canada? What did the 'Government do? They bought not a single ship, they established not a isingle shipyard, they took no steps to build a single merchant vessel in Canada. Although they knew that the British Government would commandeer nmny British vessels, this Government took no steps whatever to ensure that the products of the Canadian people would he sent to the Allies at reasonable rates. What is the result of this want of action, Sir? That grain produced in our western country, brought from a long distance over the railways and reaching the Atlantic, has to pay a rate a thousand per cent greater than the rate was before the war broke out. The Government say: We are powerless to control the rates which are charged upon the steamers. Powerless, they say, we are, even in regard to those ships to which we pay enormous subsidies, notwithstanding that we have power by out contract with them to control the rates. Yet they say we are powerless, and as a result every bushel of grain which is crossing the Atlantic to-day is paying a thousand per cent more in freight than what the reasonable and ordinary rate was before the war began. Surely in that the Government fell down absolutely.
But what more was needed, and no one knows this better than my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Hazen). You must have elevators in different sections of the country, you must have great storage elevators upon the Atlantic coast, if you are going to ship your grain across the Atlantic. The Government had before them at that time the fact that there was- just lately completed the Transcontinental railway running from the city of Moncton, and through the Intercolonial extending from the ports of Halifax and St. John on to Winnipeg, and by means of its ally the Grand Trunk Pacific railway through pne of the most fertile sections of the Canadian West. This was a system of railways which was admirably adapted to bring the products of the West to the ports of the Atlantic, from which they might be sent across the ocean. Although nearly two years ago the grain elevator at the port of St. John connected with the Government railway system was burned down, this Government, although they appealed to the patriotism of the farmer to produce more and more grain, took no steps whatever to rebuild that elevator, and to-day its ashes remain as


Mr. ROGERS:: Where?


William Pugsley: I could tell my hon. friend of a number.


Robert Rogers: Tell us one.


William Pugsley: I will tell you one. Just take one on Monday night. My hon. friend the Minister of Militia (Sir Sam Hughes) went to Prescott with about half a dozen Conservative members of this House, who were to speak, and not a single Liberal speaker was asked to address that meeting. Every speaker was put up to tell the audience that General Sir (Sam Hughes was the greatest soldier-perhaps he did not use these very words-who had appeared since Napoleon, and perhaps before.


Robert Rogers: Quite right. There is nothing political about that.


William Pugsley: I could tell my hon. friend about many others. The Postmaster General to-day admitted that he and his colleagues went around the province of Quebec professedly holding recruiting meetings. He said: It is true we defended the Government from the unjust attacks of the Opposition, but that was only in the line of our duty to the country; those he says were not political meetings. When I used to be a member of the Government half of my time in addressing meetings was taken up with the defence of the Government of which I was a member-and properly so. It is the duty of the Opposition to attack the Government in respect u>
matters which they think are worthy of attack, and it is the duty of the Government to defend themselves, and I venture to say that when the time comes that this Government must go to the people of this country the very largest part of the time

that they will take up in public meetings will be in defending themselves from the attacks which their opponents will make upon them.


Robert Rogers: That will be easy.


William Pugsley: All the Postmaster General was doing was taking a preliminary canter along those lines down in the province of Quebec, and he called them recruiting meetings. If these gentlemen, however, had not the time to devote to these matters why did not they ask my hon. friend the Minister of Militia? He must have known that this would be a war of metal as well as of men. He must have known-he ought to have known, and this Government ought to have known also-that in this Dominion of Canada there is a class of manufacturers, who, for executive ability, for the ability to turn out machinery of the very highest character, are not excelled by the manufacturers in any part of the world. Would you not have thought, Sir, that he would have at once endeavoured to mobilize the industries of this country? Would you not have thought that he would have arranged in England to bring out experts, or to have got men from the United States, where, for many years, they have been manufacturing shrapnel and high explosives? Those great and magnificent workshops which have been built near the city of Winnipeg, those magnificent workshops in connection with the Intercolonial which have lately been erected at Moncton, those new shops at Quebec which are nearly or quite completed -would not .you have expected the Government to place , these great establishments at the. service of the Empire, saying to Great Britain and to her Allies: We will engage in the manufacture of these munitions which will go as far towards the ending of the war as even the sending of men, and we will furnish thm to the Empire at actual cost. We all know that Britain is engaged in a struggle which means civilization or barbarism, which means liberty or slavery, for the people of all the world. Canada is interested in this great struggle beyond any other question. Would it not have been reasonable then that the Government should say: We will put our men, our resources and our workshops at the service of the Empire to turn out shells, machine guns and field guns, not only for the use of the Canadian soldier boys, but for the use' of all the soldiers of the Empire, without exacting any profit for the people of Canada. Would not that have been the noble, the patriotic
and the wise course? But did the Government take that course? No.
Apparently, from the statements which the Minister of Militia has made, the first thing he knew about shells being required was when he was requested by the Home Government to order two hundred thousand shells in the United States. Why had not the Home Government been informed before this that Canada could turn out shells in any quantity required? If the members of the Cabinet could not go to Europe, where was the High Commissioner for Canada? Could not he have told the officials of the War Office something of the resources of Canada and of the ability of her manufacturers to turn out shells in great quantity? How different was the conduct of this Government from. the conduct of the Australian Government to which I will invite attention a little later on. Instead of utilizing the Government workshops to turn out munitions for the service of the Allies, the Minister of Militia and this Government proceeded to form a Shell Committee, and that Shell Committee's record is one which brings shame to the people of Canada. The actions of that Shell Committee have produced scandals from which this country is reeking almost from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The press has been filled with the stories of these scandals, and newspaper after newspaper, Conservative and Liberal, have joined in demanding that this Government shall investigate the actions of that Shell Committee. The Shell Committee proceeded upon the theory that their organization was a great machine through which favouritism could be shown towards those who were closely connected with its operation. They proceeded to give orders for millions of dollars to companies with which their members were closely associated. They gave the firm of John Bertram & Sons, a company of which Sir Alexander Bertram, the chairman, is vice-president, orders amounting to upwards of a million dollars. They gave to a company with which Mr. Carnegie, another member of the Shell Committee, is not only closely connected but is the directing head, orders for upwards of a million dollars. Orders for other vast amounts were given to other companies with which members of the Shell Committee are closely connected. And did they call for competitive prices? No, they fixed the prices far higher than would be reasonable to pay even if the shells were not being turned out in large quantities. And what was the excuse

they made? It was that they made a price at which manufacturers great_and small could produce. So, the company that was producing a million shells would get the same price as the firm that was turning out a small order of five thousand. This was the excuse given by General Bertram in his extraordinary valedictory when he retired from the chairmanship of the Shell Committee, taking with him the honour of knighthood and going away for a rest. He said that he had fixed these prices in order to enable orders to be placed throughout the country so as to relieve the industrial depression then existing. Sir, one would have thought that the supreme object would be to furnish munitions for the Allies at actual cost, and not to distribute these favours throughout the country in order to create small industries that could not possibly turn out shells at anything like the price for which they could be turned out by properly organized industrial establishments.
The story of the Shell Committee is one of very great interest, and as it will take some time for me to dispose of it, I will ask my hon. friend (Mr. Rogers) who* leads the House, to permit me to move the adjournment of the debate. Though it is only half past nine o'clock, still it is half an hour later wian the time at which the Postmaster General (Mr. Casgrain) moved the adjournment last night.


Robert Rogers: Go on until ten o'clock.


William Pugsley: I will go on until twelve o'clock if the hon. gentleman wishes. If a commission is appointed

and I should like my hon. friend's assurance that it will be appointed-to investigate the actions of this Shell Committee, it will be .shown that through the bungling of this Government Prices were paid for shells far beyond what was reasonable and fair, and that the Allies have been called upon to pay vastly larger sums than would have been necessary if proper organization had taken place. Note the contrast. The Australian Government organized the industries of the country in the manner to which I intend to call attention when I address the House to-morrow, and fixed the price which they would give for shells. And remember, this was the finished shell, the eighteen-pounder high explosive shell, and the price they fixed was $5.05, which is about $2 per shell less than the price fixed by the Shell Committee of Canada. When I tell you that and when you bear in mind how much further advanced Canada is in manufacturing than is Australia, you will realize how excessive
[Mr. Pugslev 1
were the "prices fixed by the Shell Committee; prices, in which, as I have said, General Bertram, Mr. Carnegie, and I think possibly other gentlemen of the Shell Committee participated from the outset. This price of $5.05 fixed in Australia included the steel used for the making of the- shell, whereas the price of $5.70 fixed by the Shell Committee did not include the steel, but the [DOT]steel was furnished by the Shell Committee free of all cost to those who did the machining of the shell. The.result is, I say, to make the price fixed by the Shell Committee $2 per shell more than the price fixed by the Government of Australia.


Mr. WILCOX:: How did the Canadian price compare with the price that was paid in the United States at the same time?


William Pugsley: I take the statement of Mr. Thomas, who says that the price was higher in Canada. Mr. Thomas is a gentleman who was sent out from England in consequence, I take it, of the dissatisfaction which existed.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Will the hon. gentleman take all of Mr. Thomas's statement?


William Pugsley: I am quite willing to take all of Mr. Thomas's statement. Let my hon. friend take particularly Mr. Thomas's statement when he says that if he could raise the veil just a little-


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman quote that from Mr. Thomas's statement?


William Pugsley: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: All right, bring it out.


William Pugsley: I will do so; I should like to oblige my hon. friend. I think it was in Montreal that Mr. Thomas made the statement; if my hon. friend will allow me, I will give it to him before I get through with my remarks. In that statement Mr. Thomas says also that he is a politician himself, and he rather conveys the impression that he found a great deal of politics in Canada in connection with the Shell Committee. He says also that the prices are rather higher in Canada than in Great Britain or in the United States, and that orders will he given to Canada provided the prices are fair and reasonable.
Let me tell hon. gentlemen another thing that has come to my knowledge. I do this, Sir, because I believe it is in the interests of Canada that these matters should be cleared up. I am not making an attack upon the manufacturers of Canada; their

enterprise, their energy, their skill and ability are worthy of all praise. But they did not fix the price of the shells; the price was fixed by the creature of this Government, the Shell Committee. The manufacturers were not asked to tender; they took the price fixed by that committee. The matter which I am about to mention is a very important one, and should, I think, receive the very serious attention of this Government. As the Prime Minister said to-day, fuses are required in large quantities, and orders for fuses were given by the Shell Committee. I am told-these things get abroad; they are talked of in Toronto; they are talked of in Ottawa.-that something like $24,000,000 worth of orders were given by this Shell Committee in the United States. I have not the shadow of a doubt that this statement is correct; it will be found in a statement in Toronto Saturday Night. Included, I presume, in that $24,000,000 was an order for about 4,000,000 fuses. While that order was under consideration, so I am told, by the Shell Committee, a gentleman of large manufacturing experience, representing a thoroughly equipped company in Canada, went to the Shell Committee and said that he was prepared, by himself and his associate company, to make a bona fide offer to supply these fuses in Canada at about $4 each. While, as he supposed, this offer was being considered, the Shell Committee, through, I am told, Mr. J. Wesley Allison-I beg his pardon, Lieut.-Colonel J. Wesley Allison- placed an order in the United States for 4,000,000 fuses at prices of $4 and $4.50 per fuse-almost 4,000,000 fuses at the very high price of $4.50.


Robert Rogers: You cannot get them foi any less to-day.


William Pugsley: Let me tell my hon. friend that not long after that, so I am informed, the Canadian company which was seeking the larger order took from the Shell Committee a smaller order at prices ranging from $3 to $4 per fuse.


Arthur Meighen: Have they produced any?


Mr. GRAHAM:: Has the other company produced any?


Arthur Meighen: Oh yes, they have produced some.


William Pugsley: At any rate, if my information is correct, $2,000,000 beyond what was a fair and reasonable price, was paid
to a company in the United States for these fuses. I will not say that Col. J. Wesley Allison got any part of that $2,000,000, because my hon. friend the Minister of Militia says that Mr. Allison is a true patriot, and that he worked absolutely without pay so far as the Canadian Government was concerned, expecting to receive nothing but due recognition for his services in purchasing these goods for the Allies, including the British Government. It would be most unjust, therefore, for me without having knowledge on the subject, to say that any part of this $2,000,000 of excessive price went to J. Wesley Allison, the middleman through whom, I am told, this order was placed.
I am suTe that a committee of investigation will be appointed by this Parliament to inquire into these matters, because the Government would not venture to refuse a commission to examine into a question of such importance, involving so many millions of dollars, and in which the people of Canada take such a great interest. If that commission is appointed I shall be [DOT]able to show that in a large establishment the reasonable and fair cost of machining an 18-pound high explosive shell is about $1.85, as against $5.70, which was the enormous price paid by this Government through the Shell Committtee for the supplying of shrapnel shells and high explosives to the soldier boys at the front.
The actions of the Shell Committee, Mr. Speaker-I make this statement with full knowledge of the responsibility that rests upon me as a membeT of this House appeared to have been animated by a desire to distribute favours to friends of the party in power and to give them the opportunity of making money out of the manufacture of these munitions.


Robert Rogers: I am afraid that is not correct.


William Pugsley: I should like my hon. friend the hon. member for Picton to be here.


Robert Rogers: Who is he?


William Pugsley: My hon. friend from Picton, Ontario.


Robert Rogers: You mean from Pictou, N.S.?


William Pugsley: No, I mean my hon. friend, Mr. Hepburn, who resides in Picton, and who represents Prince Edward County. Now, Mr. Hepburn, not un-

naturally, wanted to get his finger in the pie. He had been taught this fallacy, that the -Shell Committee was not the creature of this Government but that it was an Imperial committee appointed by the British Government and therefore it would be right-


Robert Rogers: Quite right.


William Pugsley: Hear, hear, does my
hon. friend say? I hope I will be able to convince him in a short time that -he cannot shelter himself or his Government behind the suggestion that this was an Imperial committee and that no matter what their wrong-doing or errors of judgment, sins of omission or sins of commission, might be, he can refuse to allow Parliament to investigate them.


Robert Rogers: We are not looking for
shelter; let the hon. member not make any mistake about that.


William Pugsley: Before we get through
with this discussion we will find that Parliament will demand an investigation, and that the gentlemen who sit behind my hon. friend, while they may not do it publicly will privately demand it as strongly as the members on this side of the House. If there is an investigation this will be shown: That there were enormous profits in the manufacture of shells. That was the discovery which was made, there is no question about it. People came here from all parts of Canada, politicians, canvassing agents, committee men, influential people from different sections of the country, all clamouring for orders for shells, and among others my good friend, the gentleman to whom I have referred, the member for Prince Edward county, obtained for his company a large order. His company is not engaged in the manufacture of steel. It owns a planing mill, I understand, and is engaged in the manufacture of wooden ware. I could understand if he had limited his application to shell boxes that would have been a worthy ambition which could have been fulfilled by the utilizing of his machinery. But he got an order for shells, and the people of Picton naturally supposed it would mean the creation of a local industry which might have justified him in pressing upon the Shell Committee and the Minister of Militia that he was right in using his influence to secure this order so as to enable a steel plant to be erected in my hon. friend's home town. But he got an order for shells and took it to Montreal, and the

shells are being made there now in the east end of Montreal by another concern, the member for Prince Edward county being simply the go-between or the middleman in connection with the transaction.
Then, again, I am told that another gentleman, a gentleman of my own profession, a lawyer in the city of Montreal, who contested the constituency of Richelieu at the last election, Mr. Morgan,-


Rodolphe Lemieux: Not Pierpont?


William Pugsley: No, Mr. E. D. Morgan.


Robert Rogers: Pierpont's brother.


William Pugsley: Pierpont's brother? If
he keeps on manufacturing shells he will be Pierpont's partner and it will not be long before he can laugh at Pierpont Morgan. This gentleman, I am told, got an order at a considerably higher price than that which had been previously given, and at a very recent date, showing that the Shell Committee was disposed to recognize the arduous services which had been performed by Mr. Morgan in his efforts to defeat the Liberal candidate in the constituency of Richelieu. Then, again, as showing that the Shell Committee were looking around to find where favours could be bestowed, we find that a merchant in one of the constituencies in Ontario-I am not sure whether it is the constituency represented by the Minister of Militia-got an order for shell boxes. He had no plant, none whatever. He immediately proceeded to farm it out, gave it to a man having a planing mill, and that man proceeded to fill the order. And so I am sure, if my information is correct, all over this country orders of that character were given, given to the middleman, the man who had no machinery, and given in this way for the purpose of distributing patronage and doing * what was a gross injustice to those who had manufacturing plants.


Robert Rogers: Unfortunately about 75
per cent of the orders went to Liberals.


William Pugsley: Weill,


Mr. HAZEN:: That is certainly the case
in the city of St. John in my hon. friend's constituency.


William Pugsley: In my own constituency? I suppose the hon. member refers to Haley Bros.


John Douglas Hazen: To the Messrs. McAvity
and the Phoenix Foundry.


William Pugsley: The Messrs. McAvity
got their order as a sub-order from the Canadian Car Company, as part of an order which the Canadian Car Company had obtained for shells for the Russian Government. And while, my hon. friend is upon that subject, what would he say about the York and Cornwall Cotton Mill?


John Douglas Hazen: What would the hon. gentleman say about it?


William Pugsley: They are very worthy
people and make splendid cotton. There is no better cotton mill in Canada than the York and Cornwall Cotton Mill. Their whole buildings are well filled with their cotton manufacturing plant. Their people are well employed in making cotton and I do not think from the intelligence of the gentleman-take my hon. friend Senator Thorne, one of the directors of the York and Cornwall Cotton Company, a most worthy gentleman, a gentleman of the very highest intelligence, who would not for a single moment mistake a shrapnel shell or an 18-pound explosive for a ball of cotton.
Well, all over this country investigation will disclose that fact. But, more than that, it will disclose the fact that there were scores of plants throughout Canada capable of turning out shells which were not employed and which to-day are standing idle. It will disclose the fact, which 1 know, that in some cases manufacturers of wooden goods were demanding orders for making shell boxes, gentlemen who had all the machinery, all the plant for the purpose, but they were told at Ottawa, by General Bertram, Chairman of the Shell Committee:	Nothing doing, orders all
filled. And yet these orders had been given to middlemen who had no plants, machinery, or buildings, but who were simply getting orders in order to farm them out to others. The investigation will show more than that. I am only glossing over these matters at present, only speaking of some of those to which my attention has been particularly called, but it will show that one manufacturer in Ontario, who had an excellent plant, whose factory was examined by the inspector for the Shell Com mittee, and who was told he would get an order for shells, who went to an expense of $15,000 in getting additional lathes, when the day came and he was expecting the order, was waited upon by two gentlemen, one of them very closely connected with the Chairman of the Shell Committee, and was informed that he could not get the
order unless he paid a commission of one and one-half per cent upon the cost. And there have been brought to my attention the cases of three other manufacturing concerns which were in exactly the same position.


Mr. STANFIELD:: To whom was this
commission to be paid?


William Pugsley: To be paid to these
gentlemen who called for it.


John Stanfield: I thought you meant
to the Shell Committee.


William Pugsley: Oh, no. I said a commission of one and a half per cent on the contract price. I do not pretend for a single moment that any of this was to go to the Shell Committee. I do not pretend for a single moment to say that anything was given to any one associated in any way with the Government, or with this House; I make no pretence to say that, but what I do say is that it was a most improper thing; that it was an act which ought to meet with the most^ severe condemnation of 10 p.m. this Parliament and of the courts of this country.


Charles Murphy: Did the man not get
the contract?


William Pugsley: The man declined to pay 1J per cent, and he did not get the contract. 'Now, whether my hon. friend from Colchester (Mr. Stanfield) would draw any inference from that fact in favour of the Shell Committee or not, I do not know. The two things synchronized, as my hon. friend the Minister of Finance would say. These two gentlemen approached the manufacturer who had already, as I have said, installed $15,000 worth of plant, and they demanded 1J per cent on the contract as a condition of his getting it.


John Douglas Hazen: Who are they?


William Pugsley: My hon. friend will heai of them when the commission is appointed.


Arthur Meighen: It will be like the submarine inquiry.


William Pugsley: Does my hon. frie:ad want me to go into that? Let me tell him that he should hesitate before mentioning the submarine commission because, Sir, the investigation-the most shallow investigation-at which the Government refused to allow counsel to appear on behalf of the people of Canada, the examination, shallow as it was-


Arthur Meighen: Does my hon. friend
say-


William Pugsley: -the examination, shallow as it was, brought forth this fact,-my hon. friend the Solicitor General will have ample time to answer me; if he will only allow me to finish my sentence I will sit down-the examination, shallow as it was, brought forth this fact, Mr. Speaker, that the Government, of which my hon. friend tire Solicitor General is a member, paid for those submarines, although they had been rejected by the Chilian Government because they were not up to the specification, $332,000 more than the Chilian Government would have paid if they had been up to the specifications.
Mr. MEIGHEN,: Will-the hon. gentleman say, if he complains of the investigation, why after making the charges in the House he was not there to substantiate them?


William Pugsley: Let me remind my hon. friend that a very able lawyer, one much better able to conduct the case than I would be, appeared before the commission in the city of Victoria, and asked that' in the interests of the people, and in the interests of the Liberal party, of which party I happen to be an humble member, he might be permitted to appear before the commission, to produce witnesses and to examine witnesses, and that right was denied him by the chairman of the commission.' I had it from the gentleman himself, because I happened to meet him in the city of Vancouver, and he told me of the application he had made, and which I had also noticed in the newspapers, and he told me that the chairman of the commission had denied him the right to appear and to examine witnesses.


Arthur Meighen: He was not denied the right to produce witnesses to substantiate the charges if he could.	[DOT]


William Pugsley: That is quibbling not worthy of one occupying the distinguished position of Solicitor General of this country.


Arthur Meighen: Let us have this clear; it is just as well to have it cleared up.


An hon. MEMBER:: It cannot be cleared
up.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman says that the right was refused to counsel to produce witnesses and cross-examine witnesses. I am aware that counsel representing the Liberal party was refused the right of cross-examination for the reasons given

by the Commissioner, who has been commended by almost every Liberal paper in Canada. .


Mr. MACDONALD:: Not at all.


Arthur Meighen: He was not refused the right to produce witnesses.


Mr. CARVELL:: It was the greatest whitewashing operation in Canada.


William Pugsley: I would not like to say one word against Sir Charles Davidson, but from my long experience in the courts, where you have a lawyer on one side, and no lawyer on the other; where you do not have a lawyer to examine and cross-examine, the judge may unwittingly do the greatest possible injustice. Let me give an illustration. I watched with considerable interest the newspapers in Vancouver when I happened to be there for a day or two, to see whether it would occur to the gentleman who represented this Conservative Government; the Government with which Sir Richard McBride is, or was, so closely allied before a certain event took place; I watched to see whether any question would be asked of Mr. Logan as to how it was that he had carried on the negotiation for the purchase of the submarines for a fortnight and yet did not know what the price was to be, and why he simply whistled oyer the telephone when he found that the enormous price of $1,150,000 wias named. I was struck with amazement to find that when Mr. Paterson, the man who had been in Seattle when the submarines were tested, and when the experts of the Chilian Government refused to accept them-I was struck with amazement to find that he was not asked as to the nature of the test, or as to how the submarines acted under the test. I was amazed to find that Mr. Paterson had not been asked to produce his. books. I was amazed to find that no question had been asked of Sir Richard McBride, or of Mr. Paterson as to the grounds on which the former had represented that the Chilian Government were not able to pay for the submarines-a government which in respect to one article alone receives a revenue every year of $45,000,000; a government which has never defaulted during the past fifty years, at least in respect to any of its obligations; a government wihich stands high in financial circles, as a government which always carries out its obligations; I was amazed to find that the Commissioner had not asked him whether or not the Chilian Government had practically paid the whole amount of

the contract price before the inspection and rejection took place. I was amazed to find that not n word, had been asked upon all these vital questions, which a law student of six weeks' experience would have felt it necessary to ask.


Arthur Meighen: Why* did you not go and ask them?


William Pugsley: I was not at the investigation ;


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: He would probably have been refused.


William Pugsley: If the Government had said to me: We will allow you to go to Victoria to act as counsel and to examine and cross-examine witnesses before Sir Charles Davidson, I would gladly have gone, and I would not have asked a farthing for expenses, because I would have elicited the truth, I think. But further, I was surprised to find that none of these gentlemen were asked to explain why three .cheques were given, why a draft on a Seattle bank was given, and why the remainder was divided *into two sums, one of which was a Bank draft amounting to $500,000 'and the other was foir the balamee out of which the bank charges 'and exchange were taken, Not oinie single question was aislked in regard to that. What was asked of these witnesses was: did you pay any graft in Canada; did you pay .any graft or commission to anybody in iCanladlal? forgetting, apparently that Seattle in the United States is onlly forty miles away. Weill,possibly my hon. friend is sabiisfiecL


Arthur Meighen: I am satisfied of one thing only, and that is that the hon. gentleman is absolutely unfair and has deliberately misstated the facts.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Mr. SPEAKER:: 


William Pugsley: Mr. Speaker, do not ask the hon. gentleman to take it back.


Auguste-Charles-Philippe-Robert Landry: If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Pugsley) is satisfied -


William Pugsley: Perfectly satisfied. If the hon. gentleman forgets himself and ceases to act as a gentleman, I forgive him. Mr. Speaker, having made these preliminary observations, I would move that the debate be now adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. ROGERS moved the adjournment oi the House. He said: I would like to read a message of even date which I have received and which is as follows:
Please state in House that I have remoVed resolution from Order Paper so that Government may have clear right of way for war measures.
(Signed) J. H. Burnham.
Motion agreed to, and the House adjourned at 10.05 p.m.
Wednesday, January 19, 1916.