1917-09-06

THE WAR-TIME ELECTIONS ACT.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Secretary of State) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 133, intituled, "The War-time Elections Act."	.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this Bill is in the name of the Prime Minister; it is very much to be regretted that owing to his illness he will not be here to expound its provisions. As it is not probable that he will return to the House for some little time at least, I have been asked to make the necessary explanation in his place. The Bill is of such importance that I think a departure might well be made from the usual custom of Parliament, and that I might state very fully to the House not only the scope and purpose of the Bill, but also, in very brief terms, what we deem to be its justification.
As the title would indicate, the scope of the Bill, SO' far as the period of its operation is concerned, is limited indeed. Its provisions are to operate only during the period of the present war and of demobilization thereafter. That is to say, so far as the Bill amends the Dominion Elections Act, it amends it only to cover the now apparently certain event of an election during the war or before demobilization. After that the Bill ceases to affect the Dominion Elections Act; the general law becomes the same as it was before, the same as it is today. The necessity for the Bill arises out of the precipitation of an election in time of war. But for that becoming inevitable, there would be no justification for the measure; therefore we must reflect first of all on the conditions that we find ourselves in, facing, as we do, an appeal to the electorate under the wholly unprecedented circumstances of this fearful war.
The first consideration that presents itself is the absence overseas of a ls>rge section of our male population. Some 300,000 of the foremost and bravest of our sons are abroad, engaged in the strife, the turmoil, the ordeal of war. A Military Voters' Act has been passed, the purpose of which is legally to enable those men to exercise the franchise should there be a contest in their absence. In that Act machinery is provided that goes as far as Parliament can go to make it physically possible for these men to avail themselves of the electoral privilege. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that a large number of them-nobody oan say how large; it may be proportionately large, and it may not be so large as we anticipate-will not be able, no matter what machinery we have provided, to exercise that franchise. There are as well many thousands who are enlisted overseas, not in the Canadian overseas forces, but in the British forces. These men, though under the Military Voters' Act, they have, I understand, been given the right to vote, will inevitably in the main find it impossible to exercise that right. There are, besides, many thousands more who before the war were reservists in Canada-and some who were not reservists-who are to-day fighting in Europe or other continents the same battle in which we are engaged, but who are doing so as members of the Allied armies. They have not the legal right to vote; if they had it, they could not possibly exercise the franchise. An election is to be held at a time when the most deserving, the bone, sinew and virility of our country, are only partially at least enabled to take part in the contest by way of voting. There are also thousands who have fallen in battle, whose voices are stilled. There are, 'besides these, some thousands who are prisoners of war. Their voices also are silent; under no imaginable circumstances could they take advantage of the Military Voters' Act.
Nor can we forget what is a more potent fact still; that each and all of the men overseas are stripped of the influence which under normal circumstances they could exert among their fellows in an election contest.
Tnat personal force, that persuasive power, that electoral influence which, particularly appertaining to men of the nature of those who are overseas, is indeed a potent factor in any contest. That great factor is eliminated. On the contrary those at home-those who should be here and those at home who should not be here, are normally left in the full enjoyment of their electoral rights and
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privileges, and are enabled to exercise them to exert a control over the destinies of our defenders overseas.
Very briefly stated those are the main facts of the situation that confronts us, and they are sufficient, I think, to bring home to the mind of every member of this House the certain truth that on the franchise as it stands to-day, on what may be described as a peace franchise, a very grave and a very gross injustice will be done to those men. The injustice is done not only to them but it is brought home to Canada. The injustice really is done xo the Canadian nation, should an election take place on the franchise as it stands to-day, eliminating the influence of these men, eliminating entirely the voice of those who have fallen and are prisoners, eliminating entirely the voice of those who fight in the Allied forces but were formerly citizens of this country, stripping entirely thoseAnen of the personal force which they should of right exert.
It is mainly to meet those conditions that the Bill, which I now have the honour to move to introduce, is brought before this House. The measure constitutes an attempt to repair, so far as Parliament can repair, the injustice which I have described as falling under present legislation on our overseas forces, and ultimately on Canada herself. The only method of Teaching a result that may be said best to represent or to re-echo the voice of our soldiers abroad is to reach their representatives at home. If the direct vote cannot be obtained, if the direct influence cannot be obtained, then the best way to repair that injustice, at all events the only way that seems available, is to reach such of their kin at home who can best be said to be likely to vote in sucn a way and to influence the electors in such a way as they themselves would do were they upon our shores. Consequently, this Bill provides a measure of woman enfranchisement which endeavours to attain that end.
It will be remembered that earlier in this session the Prime Minister intimated to the House that there would be a measure of woman suffrage should an election appear in sight, a measure of woman suffrage granted under such conditions and limitations as Parliament might provide. Parliament is now facing the necessity of providing those limitations. In this connection hon. members should keep especially in mind the fact that a very substantial portion of the women of this country who are now British subjects, and who, under any general scheme of enfranchisement

would be entitled to vote, have become British subjects by a process of constructive naturalizaton, by the naturalization of a parent, or by marriage. Remembering this, it seems very plain, indeed, that it would be unfair and unreasonable at this time, and under the shadow of this war, that an unlimited woman suffrage should be granted. The necessity, then, of drawing a line is at once upon us, and it has been decided, and it is embodied in this Bill, that the line so to be drawn shall be the line of service. Not only do those who are nearest of Kin to the overseas forces more likely represent in sentiment and in purpose the voice and will of those who are fighting for us, out also those whose sons, whose brothers, and whose husbands have gone to the battlefield, have given a service and made a sacrifice in this war of a character higher and greater than that which any other person is -able to give or to make. Consequently, on the ground not only of their representative capacity, but of the service and sacrifice which they have rendered, it is not unjust or unfair that those nearest of kin to our soldiers overseas should be given special recognition at this time.
The Bill, therefore, provides that the wives, the widows, the mothers, the sisters, and the daughters of the members past or present of the actual overseas force shall have the right to vote -in the war-time election. This privilege does not extend to euch relatives of those of our expeditionary forces as have not gone overseas. They are still with us, and the same reasoning does not apply to them. They, of course, can vote, but their relatives are not enfranchised.
The Bill has another aspect which I shall now explain. In- this country we have a substantial portion of our population who are of alien enemy birth, or alien enemy blood, or near extraction. Many of these people have been citizens of Canada for a great number of years; many of them have become accustomed to our institutions, and as years have gone by they doubtless have been more arid more divorced in sympathy from the land of'-their nativity. But, on the other hand, there are a large number who are comparatively recent arrivals in this country, and who consequently have not the same sense of Canadian and-British nationality as have we, and who cannot be expected to have wholly separated themselves from the sympathies and predispositions which governed them in the land

whence they came. Furthermore, inasmuch as war service should be the basis of war franchise, -and inasmuch as from the commencement of this war, not only in Canada, but in Great Britain, it has been found undesirable and unwise to accept those of the citizens of the class I have described for the highest service of war, it does not seem unreasonable that they should not exercise, during the war, that control of our destinies which is vested in the franchise. It is in a sense unfair to those men themselves, many of whose sons and brothers are fighting in armies in Europe against us, that they should be asked to take up the real war burden and go to battle against their next of kin. It is also unfair to them that in the midst of such a war they should be called upon to determine by their vote the vigour, or the direction, which that war should take, while their next of kin and their brothers, or their sons, are fighting in the armies against us. That argument has been advanced to usbysome of this class themselves.
Not only is it unfair to them that they should be asked to decide the destiny and the vigour of a war against their brothers in Europe, but it is unfair to the rest of the population that they should have the right to so decide. I am quite free to admit, that, taken all in all, those who come from alien enemy countries have, in the main, during the progress of this war, conducted themselves satisfactorily within lines of obedience to the laws of Canada. It is not based on any complaint of that kind that the principle embodied in this Bill is adopted. It is because of the reasons I have mentioned, namely, that those who cannot in the nature of things be absolutely divorced in sympathy or sentiment from the peoples from whom they come should not be permitted, in justice to the rest of the population, to exercise a measure of control over the destinies of the war against those peoples, because it would be unfair to them to ask them to go to the polls and vote on an issue which decides to a degree the vigour, the purpose and the destiny of that war. It is also because war service should be the basis of war franchise. The two should go hand in hand- the obligation and the privilege. If, for reasons special to themselves, these people are not in a position to render war service of the highest kind they should not be entitled to the franchise while the war is on.
There has not occurred as yet in any great country engaged in this struggle of
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unprecedented dimensions a general election. Where democracy governs nations in this war, it has not as yet left to individualism, by means of the ballot, the determination of the conduct of the war, save in one country alone. That country is Australia. When they were, in Australia, facing a situation such as we face to-day, but by no means as aggravated as ours, they prepared by legislation for the contest along lines similar to those of this Bill. They, however, disqualified for the war time election all of their citizens who were of alien enemy birth no matter how long they had been in Australia or how long they had been naturalized. This Bill does not go that far. This Bill disqualifies, for the war time election, those of alien enemy birth, or of other European birth and of alien enemy mother tongue or native language, who have been naturalized since the 31st March 1902. All who were naturalized prior to that date remain in the enjoyment of the exercise of the franchise. In Australia they made exceptions of any who had sons or brothers enlisted in the overseas forces engaged in the war. In Canada we allow the exception to go further and we admit to the franchise any whose sons or grandsons or brothers are enlisted in the overseas forces. There was an exception also in Australia of Armenians and Syrians known to be entirely out of sympathy with Turkey. We are making the same exception here. But, for the wider exceptions which I have named, our law in this regard follows the lines of the Australian law. Aa far as the franchise is concerned, these constitute the two fundamental changes brought about by this Bill.
It is further to be noted that -whosoever is disqualified from voting by this measure is at the same time exempted entirely from combatant service in the war.
Heretofore the Dominion franchise has been, in seven provinces of Canada, the provincial franchise. Whomsoever the provincial legislatures admitted to the franchise was admitted to the fran chise in a Dominion contest, save in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Yukon. In those provinces and that territory, there has always been a Dominion franchise; that is a Dominion qualification for admission to the franchise at Dominion elections. By this Bill the provincial franchise is adopted in every province of Canada including Alberta and Saskatchewan. It cannot, of course, be adopted in the Yukon as there is no Yukon franchise.
Sir SAM HUGHES:: The provincial franchise?


Mr. MEIGHEN:: The provincial franchise, subject to the operation of the two principles I have described in the foregoing part of my address, is adopted in every province including Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Franchise, of course, is one thing and list making is another. The alterations in the franchise, described in that portion of the Bill dealing with the franchise which alterations I have endeavoured to explain so far, were such that there had to be variations an the elections' Act to enable the lists to be made. For example, in British Columbia and Manitoba, the lists that are now made contain the names of all women as well as of men; consequently we have addressed ourselves to the task of providing for the making a list to meet the franchise requirements*" of this legislation. In the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan there are no provincial lists and by our own Dominion Elections Act, which has been in force since 1905- indeed, I think before-the Dominion provides machinery for the making of the lists. By this Act the machinery which heretofore has been applicable only to the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan is made applicable to all those provinces where the present lists are such that new lists are necessary; namely to the four western provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and as well to Prince Edward Island. It was impossible to use any lists to be found in those provinces and consequently the machinery which has been in force for twelve years as to the provision of lists in Alberta and Saskatchewan is made applicable to the other three provinces.
This application, however, is subject to certain safeguards that have not heretofore existed. In the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan the lists are made by enumerators appointed by the Governor in Council or by returning officers, and are posted up eight days before the polling day-arid then are subject to certain revision by enumerators up to two days before the polling day when they are final, save with this proviso, that any voter can go to the polls on polling day and by taking the oath that he has the right to vote, cast his ballot in the same way as can any other voter who is on the list. That has been the law all along in these two provinces. In the province of Alberta there has been for provincial contests a partial safeguard provided

against the practice of swearing in votes on election day.
We adopt in principle the safeguard so provided, but we extend it. I shall describe that safeguard as we adopt it. Wherever a voter is not on the list as made up by the enumerator and olaims a right to vote and swears that he has a right to vote, he is on being refused able to go in and vote on election day. He is first entitled to and receives a certificate of refusal from the enumerator. He makes an affidavit of his right, His vote, however, is placed in an envelope, and on any recount, should it appear that there are enough votes placed in envelopes to affect a recount, the right to that vote is reviewed by a judge, and the vote is allowed if the voter had the right. Snch is, substantially, the safeguard that has heretofore obtained in provincial elections in Alberta,.
We, however, extend that safeguard much further. Not only may a man vote to whom the enumerator has refused a vote-his vote to go in an envelope and be afterwards judicially reviewed, but the vote of any man who is put on by an enumerator and whom the agent of .any candidate claims should not be put on may be challenged by that agent by affidavit asserting his belief that the voter has not the right to vote *and giving the reasons. If the agent does so that vote also goes in on envelope and is subject to the very 'same review. Consequently it will be seen that, while we adopt the provisions of the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta which have been in effect by Dominion legislation since 1905, we adopt safeguards against any work of the enumerator that might be objected to, with the ultimate result that the whole of the enumerator's work may, if desired, be subjected to judicial revision. It will, I think, appear to all that the objections that have heretofore been levelled, with some force, against the list-making provisions enacted in this House and applicable to Alberta and Saskatchewan, are eliminated in this Bill, and that such safeguards are provided as will render the making and operation of those lists absolutely fair.
I have covered the method so far as it applies to the four western provinces and Prince Edward Island. There are left the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in those provinces the women are not on the list last made up. In the province of Ontario the list last made up was prepared last fall and completed, I believe, in December. It

is only a male list. That list h.a6 also been judicially reviewed according to the Ontario law, -and there is noreason for throwing it away land making a new list by enumerators. -My words in that regard apply only to the counties of Ontario and to towns up to 9,000 population. In towns over 9,000 -and in cities, there are no completed lists. Consequently, as to towns and cities in Ontario, another method of making the list has to be devised. First let me deal with the counties oc Ontario. In the counties of Ontario there is a' list covering all places except towns and cities over 9,000 population. That list has been made up a-nd was revised judicially last December.
In Quebec, in the cities of Montreal and Quebec, there are also completed lists, and in all the rest of Quebec there are lists now approaching completion, and to be completed this month. Those lists should be kept in mind in conjunction with the Ontario lists in counties, because all are treated the same. Similarly in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia there are lists now complete.
Tihe lists so made up of male voters all judicially revised in Ontario and Quebec and revised by the provincial methods in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, are by this Bill adopted, so far as they go. The only requirement as to them is to add such of the women as by this Bill are to be entitled to vote and to substract such of the men, if any, as, by reason of alienage, should not be entitled to vote. This is done by means of a system of enumeration similar to that adopted in the other provinces. The names of women are enumerated along the lines of the present Ontario Act. I am not speaking now of the cities of Ontario; I shall ask hon. members to forget the cities of Ontario until I get through with the counties of Ontario and with the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. .As regards these latter the lists are adopted and the enumeration only goes to the adding of the names of the additional women now entitled to vote and to the striking off of those who by reason of alienage, and nothing else, are disentitled to vote. That is the province and duty of the registrars or enumerators, whatever you call them, and that alone. They cannot in other respects affect Those lists.. The work of the enumerators to that extent, namely the adding of the women and the taking off of the men by reason of alienage, is subject
to the same safeguards on election day as obtain in the four western provinces and in Prince Edward Island. That is to say, any one who is taken off by the enumerator and claims -the right to vote, may, by taking the necessary oath on election day, vote, and his vote goes in an envelope; and if any one has not been put on by an enumerator and claims the right to vote -and it must be a woman of course because no one else has the right to be put on-she may go and assert her claim, and if the enumerator refuses it -she may vote and her vote goes in an envelope. The vote of any one claimed to be wrongfully put on may be challenged, and it will then go into the protested lists and be subject, as all other protested votes, to revision.
I now come to the cities of Ontario. But perhaps I should first repeat that there is no review of what has already been reviewed; that is to say, of the lists as already made up in the counties of Ontario, in Quebec, in New Brunswick, and in Nova Scotia. There is no review of those lists except, of course, so far as the work of the enumerator goes, and the enumerator has power only to add the women vote and to 'strike off by reason of alienage. He can strike off for no other cause.. That work and that alone is subject to final review by a judge. The rest of the list is already completed and revised, and that stands for jjais election.
Coming to the cities of Ontario, the lists made up for those cities are only partial. Under the Ontario law towns and cities of over 9,000 population make up what they call part one and part two, which do not ' contain the manhood suffrage voters. Consequently, those lists cannot be used in any sense as final lists, the same as in the counties in Ontario, and the lists for the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Therefore in Ontario, in cities of over
9,000,	lists have to be made. The method adopted is virtually that provided by provincial legislation. Men are appointed whose duty it is, similarly as under the provincial legislation, to enumerate the voters in those cities, and to make out lists, and those lists so made out are revised immediately they are completed toy a Board of Revision, precisely the same Board of Revision as now revises in Ontario. I think it is composed of a judge and some other of the higher officers. At all events, there is judicial revision. That is to say, in towns and cities of Ontario of over 9,000, where

the lists are to be made, they are made up entirely, and they are subjected to the same judicial review as now obtains in those towns and cities under provincial legislation.
I may add further-and this applies to the whole of this list making from coast to coast-that wherever the enumerators have the duty of making up lists they are permitted by the Act to use as a basis any lists already made up, so far as they can be used. Using these, so. far as they go, as a basis, of course, is one thing, and making the lists complete is another thing.
Looking over the whole measure, so far as these list-making provisions are concerned, it has subjected the existing law to as little change as possible, and only where it is essential that such change should be made in order to get lists conforming to the franchise requirements of the Bill. Such is the spirit of the measure that there can be no lists for this contest that will not be, either before or after, in the method I have described, judicially revised.
I may add that the desire has been-and if the Bill does not fully carry out that desire, amendments to that end will be-welcomed-that all provision for list-making shall be absolutely fair, and that no party advantage shall be taken. We have to make provision- for the making of these lists within such reasonable time as will make the period of the election contest not unconscionably long. Consequently it is necessary, in the cities of Ontario particularly, that while we adopt the provincial plan, we make more expeditious the preparing of the list and the .revision.
Subject to the necessity of not extending too long the turmoil and too far the expense of a contest, and, therefore, the necessity of bringing the list-making to an end as so-on as could be done consistently with fairness and thoroughness, this Bill has, I think, omitted no safeguard.
I repeat, that the necessity of the Bill is brought upon us by the precipitation of a contest in time of war. That,.in our judgment, necessitates the changes in the franchise which this Bill proposes. These changes necessitate provision for a method of making the lists where no lists at present are in existence that can be of any practical value in this contest, and to supplement lists where necessary, and only to that extent is there any change whatever.
The purpose of the Bill is to endeavour that this contest shall be conducted in such a way, and by such a method, as will do 
justice to those to whom the best of justice must be done, namely, the defenders of our country; to see to it that the voice of lOanada, as heard in this contest, shall express the real views of the Canadian people, and that such injustice as would be done by the present franchise to the best of our sons and'to the nation itself, is repaired, so far as Parliament can repair it.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: Does the Bill make any provision in regard to that class of people who may be known as conscientious objectors to military service?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I said that we had endeavoured to frame the Bill on the principle that war service or the obligation of war service should be the foundation of war franchise, and, that principle has a bearing on that class of our population known as conscientious objectors. The Bill provides that all those exempted from military service by the section of the Military Service Act -which applies to certain Doukhobor and Mennonite immigrants shall be disqualified for this contest, and also, that all others who have applied for and have not been refused exemption from combatant service in the war on conscientious grounds are disqualified from voting. If, of course, such men are refused they have the right to vote. The Bill further provides that any who vote in the contest shall not thereafter be entitled to exemption on conscientious grounds. It seems entirely unfair that those who, for reasons special to themselves, are freed entirely from the burden and sacrifice of this war, in so far as the real sacrifice of war goes, should have a say in deciding the character and turn the war^may take.
The Bill goes further and provides that any who have been convicted of an offence under the Military Service Act shall thereafter for this election be disqualified.
I have now enumerated the main features of the legislation. I should have said that, as there are no lists in the unorganized districts of Ontario, it is deemed best that the unorganized districts of Ontario should have lists made up, on the same basis as the four western provinces.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Is there any provision as to the age limit for the women voters?


Arthur Meighen: All women voters must be as to age, race and residence, qualified in accordance with the laws of the provinces where they reside.


Mr. GLASS:: I should like to ask the minister if any provision has been made in

regard to the. female relatives of soldiers who are overseas, some 50,000 or so?


Arthur Meighen: That matter has been fully explained. They have a right to vote.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: I do not rise on this occasion to discuss the merits of the measure which has just been introduced by the Secretary of State; I simply rise for the purpose of asking questions on some points which I think I have rightly understood, because the statement of my hon. friend was lucid, but I desire to be doubly sure.
I understand from my hon. friend that he has taken the provincial franchise qualifications as the basis of the measure which he has just introduced. If I understand him aright, he has made quite a departure from those qualifications, because, in five provinces, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, women have now the franchise, but, under this legislation/ the women of those provinces, with the exception of those who happen to be relatives of men who have enlisted, are deprived of the franchise. Am I right in that?


Arthur Meighen: Yes. Except for the two main features of the Bill, the enfranchisement of women relatives of soldiers and the disfranchisement of recently arrived persons of alien enemy birth or extraction, and conscientious objectors, the provincial franchise is adopted.


Wilfrid Laurier: Am I right in this: that while the women of Ontario and the western provinces have to-day, under the laws of those provinces, the right to vote, they will, with the exception of those who are qualified as the relatives of men who have enlisted, not have the right to vote in this election?


Arthur Meighen: That is correct.


Wilfrid Laurier: It was understood on this side of the House, when my hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Pugsley) drew attention to the matter, that, in the next election, the women would have the franchise. Under this legislation, in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, where women have not the right to vote, those women who happen to be relatives of soldiers will have the right to exercise the franchise. To this extent the provincial franchise is interfered with. I thought I understood the measure correctly, and I see I am right. Did I
understand my hon. friend to say that Assyrians and Armenians, who are naturalized British subjects, were to be deprived of the franchise? -


Arthur Meighen: No. They will have the franchise.


Wilfrid Laurier: I am glad to hear that. In regard to Ontario, I understand that my hon. friend takes, as the franchise list, the list made up in the month of December of last year under
4 p.m. the Act which was repealed recently by the provincial legislature. The province of Ontario has provided for a new franchise, the vote being given to the women, and for a new method of making up the list. I understood from a cursory reading of this Act that the former Act was abolished and was no longer in force; but my hon. friend, if I understand him aright, takes the list made up in the month of December last and makes it the basis of this measure.


Arthur Meighen: That is correct.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.
The SPEAKER:: When shall the Bill be read the second time?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Now.


Arthur Meighen: To-morrow.


Wilfrid Laurier: I dare say that the Bill will not be ready until to-morrow. We should have some time to look over it.


Arthur Meighen: The Bill will be ready to-morrow.


Wilfrid Laurier: But I do not expect it will be discussed to-morrow; it is a very important measure.


Arthur Meighen: We would prefer to take it up to-morrow, as there is very little other work for Parliament to do. That is why we desire to take it up.


Wilfrid Laurier: I am sorry the measure was brought down so late, but, as it is a very imporant measure, I object to its being taken up to-morrow.



FIRST READING OF SENATE BILL.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 131, to incorporate The Army and Navy Veterans in Canada.-Mr. Bradbury.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by asterisks).

Mr. PROULX:: 1.	Is Lieutenant Wm. Gibson County Registrar in Kingston?
2.	Is he drawing salary as a military officer?
3.	If so, where is he located?
4.	Is he also drawing his salary as Registrar?
5.	Could not the duties he is performing for the militia be performed by a returned soldier?


Mr. MEIGHEN:: 1.	The county registrar is a provincial and not a Dominion official. We have no information.
2.	Yes, employed in internment duties.
3.	Camp Rapuskasing, Ontario.
4.	Answered by No. 1.
5.	Lieut. Gibson is acting in the capacity of quartermaster at Gamp Kapuskasing, where the duties are not light, there being about 600 prisoners there, divided into two classes, workers and non-workers, in addition to the troops required for guarding same and working parties. The D.O.C. of the district has instructions to employ a returned soldier in Lieut. Gibson's stead as soon as one of the necessary capacity is available.
MR. M. A. MeINNIS.


Mr. NEELY:: 1.	What are the duties of Mr. M. A. Mc-Innis, assistant to Mr. McGrath, Fuel Controller?
2.	What is the salary of Mr. Mclnnis?
3.	Has he special qualifications for this class of work?


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: 1.	Mr. M. A. Mclnnis is no longer on the staff of the fuel controller. He was employed for a period of two months on special technical investigation.
2.	$200 per month.
3.	Yes.


MAJOR LEIGH.
Mr. GAUVREAU:: 1.	What is Major Leigh's position or duties in military work in the province of Prince Edward Island, and what remuneration does he receive?
2.	What is the total amount received by him since the beginning of the war til] the present time?


Sir EDWARD KEMP:: 1.	Officer commanding artillery and infantry depots; $6.50 per diem pay and allowances.
2.	$4,163.46.


MAJOR BARTLETT.
Mr. GAUVREAU:: 1.	What is Major Bartlett's position or duties in military work in the province of Prince Edward Island, and what remuneration does he receive?
2.	What is the total amount received by him since the beginning of the war till the present time?


Sir EDWARD KEMP:: 1.	Officer in charge of supplies, transport and barracks at Charlottetown, P.E.I.; $4 per diem.
2.	$4,809.30.


LIEUTENANT-COLONEL S. R. JENKINS.
Mr. GAUVREAU:: 1.	What salary or remuneration does Dr. S. R. Jenkins, of Charlottetown, P.E.I., receive as Lieut-Colonel, and what are his duties in this connection?
2.	How much does Dr. S. R. Jenkins receive for examining recruits, and what is the total amount received by him since the war began till the present time, both in salary and for examining recruits?
3.	Has Dr. S. R. Jenkins an orderly? If so, what does said orderly receive, and what is his name?
4.	Has Dr. S. R-. Jenkins a stenographer or private secretary? If so, what is his or her name, and is the remuneration paid by the Dominion Government?


Sir EDWARD KEMP:: 1.	$4 per diem; Medical officer in charge of troops, Charlottetown, attending to troops located at Su-mmerside and Souris, also looks after returned soldiers at the Dalton Sanatorium. Lt.-Col. Jenkins also attends all medical boards.
2.	Nothing at present for examining recruits. Pay and allowances, $2,486.94; examining recruits in 1915 when not drawing other remuneration, $166.62; total $2,653.56.
3.	No.
4.	Yes; Miss Nora Jenkins-$2.50 per week while employed, including use of machine.


CAPTAIN R. V. HARRIS.
Mr. PROULX:: 1.	Has Captain R. V. Harris been attached to Military Headquarters, District No. 6, at Halifax, N.S.?
2.	If so, are his services actually needed?
3.	What is the nature of the services being performed by Captain Harris, and what pay does he receive?


Sir EDWARD KEMP:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.
3.	(a) District casualty officer; (b) pay of rank, $3; field allowance, 75 cents; subsistence, $1.50, $5.25 per diem.


NOVA SCOTIA PATROL SERVICE.
Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: 1 How many officers, men and boats, respectively, are in the Canadian Patrol service at Halifax or elsewhere in Nova Scotia.
2.	What is the usual size of the boat so employed and the number of officers and men assigned to each boat?
3.	What is the pay allowance to officers ana
men, respectively?	.
4.	What is the nature of the services performed by the patrol service boat, and where are such services performed?
5.	Is it proposed to further enlarge this service? If so, to what extent?


Mr. HAZEN:: 1 and 2. It is not advisable to publish the information asked by these questions under present conditions.
3. Pay and allowances same as authorized by Orders in Council, which have been laid upon the table of the House.
4 and 5. Answer same as Nos. 1 and 2.


REPORTED INCREASE IN PENSIONS.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Sir THOMAS WHITE (Minister of Finance) :: My attention has 'been drawn to this despatch .appearing in certain newspapers as coming from Toronto under date of September 5:
A sixty per cent increase in the pensions to be paid members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force is to be granted by an Order in Council to be passed in Ottawa within the next few Weeks
This Dominion Government announcement of such a large pension increase, amounting to many millions of dollars, was made to local officers of the G.W.V.A. by the Cabinet at Ottawa, according to their statement here.
I desire to say, as this report appears to have received wide circulation and currency, that there is no foundation for it. The question of the amount of increase in pensions has not been determined, and no intimation nor statement has been given or made by the Government respecting such increase.


CERTIFICATES TO THOSE MEDICALLY UNFIT.
Sir EDWARD KEMP:: I will look up my hon. friend's question in Hansard to-morrow. I am not prepared to give an answer to-day.


Mr. MACDONALD:: The minister will do so to-morrow?


Albert Edward Kemp: I will Uy to give my hon. friend an answer to-morrow or the next day.


OVERSEAS EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mt. F. B. CARVELL (Carleton):: I wish
to ask the Minister of Militia whether it is a fact that men who have been promoted on the field in France and Flanders, and who, having been wounded, return to the base or to Canada, receive only the pay of the position which they occupied when they left Canada, while men who received their appointment in England or in Canada, upon being wounded, receive the pay of their present rank.


Albert Edward Kemp: 
Samuel Hughes: I understand that
officers who revert to lower rank in order to get to the front were at one time entitled, upon so reverting in rank, to receive the pay of their previous rank. I believe that that practice has been discontinued, and that the men now receive the pay of the rank to which they revert. When the minister is looking up the information asked for by the member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) and the member for Caileton (Mr. Car veil), he might give me some information with regard to this matter.


Albert Edward Kemp: I will have the matter looked into.


ARRESTS IN MONTREAL.
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of .the Day:
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I have seen it stated in the press that certificates are shortly to be given to those men who have offered to enlist, but who have been refused on account of medical unfitness. Can the Minister of Militia say if that is a fact? Has any list been kept by the Militia Department of those who offered to enlist and were refused. If the minister has any such list, can he give to the House the number of such men?
On the Orders of the Day:


Rodolphe Lemieux: 1 wish to direct the attention of the Minister of Justice to the arrests that have been made in Montreal in connection with the dynamite outrages. I see by the press that at least three of the men arrested were old jailbirds, who were not long ago released on ticket-of-leave. Their names are: Blackwell, Monette, and Handheld, alias Leduc. Is that a fact?


Mr. DOHERTY:: I am not clear that
there were three who had been previously released on ticket-of-leave. I have been informed that of the three mentioned, two had been under sentence and were released on ticket-of-leave.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Lately?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Not very long ago;
within a few months. I can give the exact information if my hon. friend desires it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Will my hon. friend be good enough to lay the informati&n on the table of the House?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes.


SALUTES TO OFFICERS.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Edmonton):: I
have noticed in the newspapers the statement that orders have recently been issued requiring all,soldiers in London to salute ah officers whom they may meet-at any time or under any circumstances.


Samuel Hughes: Even with ladies.


Frank Oliver: I wish to know whether that order was issued by the Minister of Militia, and Defence, or by the overseas minister. Is the minister aware that the number of officers who are running loose on the streets of London, England, and not discharging valuable duties, is a disgrace to the Dominion of Canada?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. The hon. member is exceeding by far his privileges.


Albert Edward Kemp: With regard to the former part of my hon. friend's remarks, I would say that it is proper and Ught that members of the rank and file should salute commissioned officers when they meet them on the streets in any part of the Empire.


Samuel Hughes: Is it not the boun-den duty of any officer to salute a private?


Albert Edward Kemp: Certainly; his
duty is to return a salute. The member for Edmonton did not laise that question.


SUGGESTED REVISION OF PENSIONS SCALE.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. G. TURRIFF (Assiniboia):: The Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White) made reference to the fact that the matter of increase of pensions to soldiers was under consideration. I would suggest to the minister that when this matter is being

considered something should be done along the line of equalizing the pensions paid to privates and to officers. A general feeling exists throughout the country that the disparity between the amount paid to an officer and the amount paid to a private is too great.


WAR CHARITIES ACT.
[Stage Direction]
Sir THOMAS WHITE (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of Bill No. 130, relating to war charities.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion? Carried.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Will the minister explain this Bill? Nobody has a copy of it.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I declared the motion carried, but there is no objection to the hon. member speaking if the House consents.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: The Bill is not yet distributed.


William Thomas White: I had intended to explain the Bill in Committee. The Bill was introduced into and passed by the Senate, apd has now come to the House of Commons in my name. The statement was made that the Bill had not been distributed. I perceive by the Order of the Day,^ No. 21, that^it has ,been printed in English and in French; I understood that it had been distributed/ The Bill is of a comparatively unimportant character, and I think it is not necessary that there should be any delay. Its object is to provide that organizations making appeals to the public for war charities or alleged war charities must be registered under the provisions of this Act with the Secretary of State, or must obtain, in a( simple manner provided in the Act, exemption from such registration by the Secretary of State. In other words, the object of the Bill is to protect the public against possible frauds by those representing themselves as acting for war charities.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the second time.
The House went into Committee on the Bill, Mr. Rainville in the Chair.
On section 1-Short title:
William Pugsley: This Bill seems to be of considerable importance, and I think it is objectionable that it should be considered in Committee before copies have been distributed. I have just this moment received a copy. I do not think the min-

ister should proceed to the consideration of the Bill in Committee to-day. Members of the Committee are entitled to know the nature of a Bill before it is considered in Committee.


William Thomas White: This Bill has
been upon the Order Paper for some little time, and I was not aware of the fact that it had not been distributed. If hon. members think that under the circumstances we should not take up the Bill in Committee to-day, I am willing to suggest that the Committee should rise. The Bill has been printed and has been distributed.


William Pugsley: I have a file of all the Bills distributed. The Bill now before us came to me within the last few minutes.


William Thomas White: It is on my file.


William Pugsley: It is not on mine.


William Thomas White: It is on mine, and I do not think I have had any preferential treatment.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon.
friend has been better served than members on this side. It is not on my file.


William Thomas White: Under the circumstances, as there is evidently a mistake, I would suggest that the Committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.
Progress reported.


MEAT AND CANNED FOODS ACT.
[Stage Direction]
House proceeded to consider the amendments made by the Senate to Bill No. 73, to amend the Meat and Canned Foods Act.- Mr. Hazen.
Hon. Mr. HAZEN moved that the amendments made by the Senate be concurred in.
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: This Bill went
through the House originally under conditions which provided for extremely onerous changes in connection with the lobsterpacking industry. The attention of the House was not directed very closely to the changes, but on the matter coming before the Senate the wholesale effect upon the industry was pointed out, and it was indicated that those changes were of the most radical character and I am advised by gentlemen in my constituency who are connected with the industry and to whom, the matter
was referred, that the proposals made by the department in regard to them, as contained in the Bill originally, were of a character that would involve a serious disarrangement of the industry and a very large expenditure of money in connection with carrying out the details of the Bill. The objections which were urged in the Senate to this particular phase of the question were of the most energetic character and the whole case made by the senators .from Prince Edward Island who discussed the proposed Act indicated that the effect of this measure would be of the most serious character. Under all these circumstances the House should pay very careful attention to the amendments that have been made by the Senate and I trust that the minister will, at some length and in the clearest possible way, tell us exactly the effect of the legislation as it comes from the Senate.
Incidentally, I would like to ask if the action of the minister in arranging new seasons for catching lobster this year has met with the approval of those engaged in the industry. The extension of the season which, I understand, has been made till the tenth of this month, is also objectionable. I understand that the ground upon which it was done was the desire to increase the supply of food. There was no necessity for any such action in regard to the matter of food. I was amused at some of our good friends in Toronto calling it a perfectly wonderful performance that a car load of good fish had been brought up from the Maritime Provinces through the food controller to Toronto and sold at an extraordinary low rate as though the good people of Toronto and Ontario, who are apt to dictate to the rest of us, had heard for the first time that there are unlimited quantities of fish in the Maritime Provinces. The action oi the minister in extending the time for the purpose of providing more food was entirely unnecessary because any one who knows the conditions in the Maritime Provinces knows that the whole thing is a matter of transportation. At this time there is no reason why the conditions should be disrupted with the result that a heavy additional burden will be put upon the people engaged in the fishing industry.
In view of the fact that this measure passed this House without full attention being paid to it, very difficult and almost impossible conditions, as far as the industry is concerned, have been imposed by the Bill and in view of the fact that the Senate very

wisely and properly went into the Bill in the fullest possible way, the House is entitled 'to the most complete explanation from the minister in regard to every detail of the Bill.


John Douglas Hazen: The hon. member or Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), I am afraid, has received some incorrect information in regard to this Bill. There was no intention of imposing any onerous or improper conditions on people engaged in the business of packing lobsters. The Bill, as it came from the department, did not impose any such onerous conditions. The Bill was necessary because the work of inspecting establishments where fish is canned under the Meat and Canned Foods Act has been transferred to the Department of Marine and Fisheries. It was necessary, in order that the work might he carried on properly, that the law should be clearly defined. The Bill, as it came from the Department of Marine and Fisheries-and this is the only amendment made by the Senate-provided that:
Cans of lobster shall contain the following minimum amounts of dry lobster meat:
A one-pound can, 13 ounces, avoirdupois;
A three-quarter pound can, 9J ounces, avoirdupois.
And so on. The Bill was referred to a committee of this House composed of members of 'both political parties-the Select Standing Committee on Marine and Fisheries. That committee met, and, after considering the Bill, did not think this provision went far enough. Instead of providing that a one-pound can of lobster should contain 13 ounces of lobster meat, they amended the Bill and provided that a one-pound can should contain 16 ounces of lobster meat and cans of other weights in proportion. My hon. friend will therefore see that it was the action of a select standing committee of this House that imposed- if it can be said to have imposed-a more onerous burden on those who are the can-ners of lobsters. The Bill as it came from the department, and as it was introduced by me to the House, provided for the quantity of canned meat which had always been contained in a pound can, but the committee thought that when a man buys a pound can of lobster he ought to buy 16 ounces. Therefore the committee amended the Bill, it came before the House and was passed as amended. The Bill then went to the Senate, where, as my hon. friend says, there were a number of gentlemen who are very familiar with the whole lobster business, and it was considered very thoroughly in the Senate. The amendment the Senate 
made was to reduce the quantity of dry lobster meat that a pound can should contain from 16 ounces to 14 ounces, not to 13 ounces as was provided by the Bill as I introduced it to the House. The Bill comes hack from the Senate with the provision that a pound can of lobster shall contain 14 ounces of dry lobster meat and other cans in similar proportion. The reason given for this amendment to the Senate was that it would be a hardship to require 16 ounces of dry meat, because a pound of lobster meat requires 2 ounces of liquid to give it the proper quality and flavour. If 16 ounces of dry meat were required the cans would have to be enlarged, necessitating changes in the can making and stamping machines, in the size of the tin plates and in the cutting dies. These points were all considered by the committee, and it was believed that as the Act would not become operative until December, 1918, there would be ample time to ascertain if the increased quantity of meat required to be put in a can would cause a hardship to the^ industry. The Senate, after thoroughly considering the matter, came to the conclusion that 14 ounces, not 13 ounces, should be contained in a pcund can, for the reason that a pound can of dry lobster requires 2 ounces of liquid in order t-o give it the proper quality and flavour. That amendment is quite acceptable to the department and the Government. That is the only change, with this exception: There has been a can put up from time to time which is known as a picnic can. That picnic can contains 10 ounces. The Senate struck that out. They said that in view of the fact that their changes provide a can of 9J ounces, it is unnecessary to continue the picnic can of 10 ounces, because there is only half an ounce difference between the two, and to have one can of 9J ounces and another of . 10 would lead to confusion. I think there is something in that view of the case, and there is no reason why the picnic can should not be cut out. These are the only changes made by the Senate, and they are amendments which we are quite willing to accept.
,Mr. LOGGIE: I happen to be a member of the committee to which this Bill was referred but unfortunately I was absent when it was under discussion. I certainly would not have given my assent to the report of the committee as it came before the House, nor to the Bill as it passed the House and went to the Senate. As to the contents of tins, whether they should be 16 ounces of dry meat, or 13, or 14, or 15

ounces, that is a matter of opinion. It has not been the practice to put 16 ounces of dry meat in a pound can of lobster for a good many years. Dry lobsters are not considered as acceptable to the trade as those that have a little juice in the can when it is opened. It has been the practice for many years by most packers to put 15 ounces of meat in a pound can and one ounce of pickle; then when the can is opened it contains 15 ounces of meat and one ounce of juice, and so in proportion with the half pound, the quarter pound and the three-quarter pound tins. It is important that there should be uniformity, and I think there is a movement in another department to have the net weight put on all tinned goods. That is the law in the United States. For instance, a tin of fruit known as a No. 2 tin, commonly called a 2-pound tin, contains actually only about 20 ounces, and under the American law the net weight must be put on all labels. The minister is in error in saying that the picnic can and the three-quarter pound can are the same. The picnic can is a tall can about two and one-half inches in diameter and nearly four inches high. The three-quarter pound can that he refers to is a flat can.


John Douglas Hazen: I did not say that the three-quarter pound can and the picnic can were the same. I said that the picnic can in the Bill we introduced contained 10 ounces, but that as the Senate reduced the weight so that one can will now contain 10i ounces, they did not consider it desirable to continue the picnic can with 10 ounces.


Mr. LOGGIE:: The three-quarter pound
can is not the same shape as the picnic can and it is desirable to retain the picnic as there is a demand for lobsters put up in that shape; it is a can which contains 91 ounces of solid meat and 3 of an ounce of juice. There is a difference of one and one-half ounces between it and the three-quarter pound can.


John Douglas Hazen: Under the Senate amendments a one-pound can will contain 14 ounces, and the three-quarter pound 10| ounces. The picnic can contains 10 ounces.


William Stewart Loggie: But that 10 ounces is on the basis of 16 ounces to the pound. The real net weight for a picnic can should be 9 ounces or 9J ounces, so that I a>m quite right when I say that there is a difference of one and one-half ounces between the picnic and the three-quarter pound can.


John Douglas Hazen: The Senate struck out the picnic can altogether.


William Stewart Loggie: I am trying to show that it is a different size from the others and that it should not be abolished. I do not see why it should not be replaced in the Bill.


Mr. SINCLAIR:: The Senate is opposed to picnics.


William Stewart Loggie: There is a demand for this package in some parts of the United States and in the Maritime Provinces as well. I do not see any serious objection to the change in the weights. Is any provision made for the exportation of canned lobsters with no label on .them? The minister knows that there are dealers in France who use their own labels, and the trade would be handicapped if we were forced to put labels on the cans.


John Douglas Hazen: There is no change in the law in that respect. That refers to lobsters and salmon.


John Howard Sinclair: Does not the Bill provide that all cans should be labelled?


John Douglas Hazen: There is a provision that the minister may exempt cans intended for export.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I must remind hon. members that the House is not in committee; that one speech only is permitted to each hon. member, and that the motion before the Chair is that the House do agree to the amendments made to this Bill by the Senate.


John Douglas Hazen: May I say that the only amendments made by the Senate are with regard to the quantity of lobsters to be contained in each tin?


John Howard Sinclair: Reverting to the question whether the cans are to be labelled or not, section 12 reads:
12a. (1) All fish and shellfish canneries shall be inspected as provided by the regulations. All fish and shellfish packed in cans shall be subject to inspection during the whole course of preparation and packing and all such cans shall be marked with,-
(a)	the initials of the Christian names, the full surname and the address, or, in the case of a firm or corporation, the firm or corporation name and address or the name and address of the packer or of the fish dealer obtaining it dlirect from the packer;
(b)	a true and correct description of the contents of the can, including the vernacular name and the minimum net weight of the fish or shellfish in the can plainly printed in a conspicuous manner, and the name of the place where the same was packed.
Section 12g of the Bill reads:
12g. No person shall offer or accept for export or shall export any fish or shellfish sub-
/

ject to inspection under this Act, unless the requirements of this Act and of the regulations regarding Inspection and marking have been complied with, and every person offering any fish or shellfish for export or exporting the same shall furnish such proof with respect to inspection and marking as is required by the regulations, whether the fish or shellfish so offered for export or exported are subject to inspection or not.
It would seem, from the reading of those two sections together, that all packed lobsters must be marked with the name of the packer, and a description of the contents, and, unless this is done, it is not lawful to export them. I do not think there can be any doubt that tha't is the meaning of the regulation, however, I may be wrong.


John Douglas Hazen: Subsection 4 of section 2 gives power to the Governor in Council-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The motion before the House is that the House concur in the amendments made by the Senate to this Bill. It is not in order to discuss the Bill generally.


John Howard Sinclair: I may be out of order in referring to that matter, but it was brought up by the hon. member for Northumberland, and I thought it would be in order for me to make a few remarks in in Teply to him. On the question as to what the quantity in the can shall be, I am not able to give the House any special advice. I regret that- I was not present at the time this Bill was introduced. It was considered by a special committee. The minister will see that the trade ought to be notified as to legislation of this kind. I should like to know from the minister, when we come to deal with this question in committee, what notice has been given to the trade. It may be a matter of great interest to them to decide what quantity of fish may be in a can, and, while members of the House may not know much about it, they should put their constituents in touch with what is going on here, and give them an opportunity to be heard from.
I have not had the opportunity to communicate with my constituents, I was not aware that these changes were being made with regard to the quantity iliat was to he. placed in a can, and I should like to know from the minister, when we go into committee, what steps have been taken to acquaint the trade with the contents of this Bill. I have no objection to the Bill, but I think it would he perhaps easier to deal with it if the House were moved into committee, and we were allowed to discuss the

question, in order to obtain the information we require.
Motion agreed to and amendments made by the Senate concurred in.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Rain-ville in the Chair.
Department of Railways and Canals-To provide for Increase in salary of Departmental Solicitor to ,$4,500, $500; to provide for increase in salary of Assistant Chief Engineer in First Division, Subdivision A, to $4,000, $500; to provide for promotion of O. W. Tates to First Division, Subdivision A, at $3,000, $200 ; to provide for promotion of E. R. Williams to Second Division, Subdivision A, $550 ; to provide for promotions from Subdivi-siorjuA of the Third Division to Subdivision B of the Second Division to the following:	B.
C. Waddell $200, W. T. O'Regan $200, C. P. Buckley $100, J. W. Weir $100, F. W. Addy $100, C. E. Bleakney $100, $800-$2,550.
["Will the minister go on and spend more money under this resolution as was spent last year before the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassels and before there was an agreement made with the owners of the road? It seems to me the Government wants to provide money to go on now and spend it on the construction of the road previous to and during the election. Of course, that will help Sir Rodolphe Forget and some of the' friends of the Government in the election. If a new statute is required to be passed by a new Parliament in order to expend the money, I do not see why we should vote the money now. I agree with my hon. friend from Kingston that the owners of the road -should not have been too greedy. They should have accepted the amount fixed by the Exchequer Court, and if they were not satisfied with that they should \nhave appealed to the Supreme Court, rather than come back to Parliament. They should have taken advantage of the statute passed last year. I do not feel disposed to go beyond what was done last year.\nMotion (Mr. Nesbitt), to strike out, lost on division. Yeas, 14; nays, 29.\nResolution agreed to!\nProgress reported.\nOn emotion of Hon. Mr. Reid, the House *adjourned at 12.25 a.m. (Friday).\nFriday, September 7, 1917."]
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Who is the departmental solicitor?


Mr. COCHRANE:: Mr. Fairweather.


John Howard Sinclair: What salary is he getting now?


Francis Cochrane: $4,000. He is an extra good man, and I am afraid I would not be able to keep'him unless I raised his salary. Of course the Railway Department is under a different system from most of the other departments. It did not come under the Civil Service Act originally.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: 'So far as this particular item is concerned I have no objection. I quite agree that this officer is more than an ordinarily good man, and I doubt if the minister would be able to obtain the services of an equally efficient man for any less money. I know nothing about the other items, except that the salaries which civil servants in Ottawa are receiving are so tremendously large, compared with the amount ordinary people outside of Ottawa are receiving in the way of salaries, that when we commence to make a comparison we are rather surprised. However I realize, so far as the position of chief solicitor of a department is concerned, that you require a big enough man to command a salary anywhere, and I believe you have that man in Mr. Fairweather.	.


Francis Cochrane: I may say the same
with reference to Mr. Sherwood, Assistant Chief Engineer. He is an exceptionally bright man, who, I am satisfied, could command more than the salary he -is receiving, u he went outside. Then I am increasing the salary of my secretary to an amount

equal to the salaries of most of the secretaries in the service.
I would not trade him for any of them. Mr. Williams entered the service in 1912, but he is on a very low salary now, and he has proved an- exceptionally fine man. In my private business I acted on the principle of not being afraid to pay a good man what he was worth, and I believe in the same system in the department, because it is the only way to secure efficiency and good work. Most of these employees were in the department -when I took charge, so that it is not a matter of politics in any shape or form that I am asking for these increases.


John Howard Sinclair: Was Mr. Williams appointed under the Civil Service Act?


Francis Cochrane: Yes.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: So far as Mr. Sherwood is concerned, I fully concur in what the minister states. I am inclined to agree with the minister that, if he has in his employment a good man, he should pay him as he would do in the ordinary business affairs of life. As I said before, the salaries at Ottawa are so much greater than they are in the rest of Canada that people are compelled to scrutinize them with perhaps a little more care'than they would otherwise do.


Francis Cochrane: The salaries are not properly equalized.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If the minister wrould, as he says, equalize them, and would give proper salaries to the men who are doing the real work, that would be much better. We all know that in every department the Teal work is done by a very small number of expert officials.


Francis Cochrane: That is true.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Such men should receive salaries commensurate with their work and the importance of it. I recognize, of course, that with such an institution as the Civil Service, you have to take men at an average and put them in a class.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Are these items providing for the promotion of different officials in accordance with the Civil Service Act or contrary to it? When you promote a man from one division to a higher division, should he not first pass an examination under the Civil Service Act?


Francis Cochrane: Mr. Williams, who was appointed in 1912, is now over age. He is capable of passing the examination; in fact, he coaches others for it. He is an exceptionally fine man, a man with a family, and, I think, very deserving.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Probably I have met the official, but I do not know him by sight. What is his occupation?


Francis Cochrane: He is Mr. Bell's secretary, .and works in the comptroller's office.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I know now who he is.


John Howard Sinclair: How are these appointments made when the parties are over age?


Francis Cochrane: Mr. Williams was not over age when he was first appointed, but he is over age now. He was appointed under the Civil Service Act after passing the examination, but he is too old now to take the examination for promotion.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I feel that the Civil Service Act should be adhered to, especially in regard to appointments, but I agree with the view held by the minister, 5 p.m. that when you have a man who is rendering valuable services, I would not hesitate very much over the Civil Service Act in order to pay him the salary to which he is entitled. Of course, once you open the door to those promotions, it is pretty hard to know when to stop.


John Howard Sinclair: A good many appointments have been made under section 21 of the Civil Service Act. During the present session -a return was brought down showing that no less than 74 appointments had been made by this Administration under section 21. I do not think, however, the Railway Department had any of them.
Mr. 'COCHRANE:'Promotions cannot be made under that section.


John Howard Sinclair: A large number of appointments were made under that section which permits the appointment of men as experts. It appeared from the return that many of those who were called experts were, as a matter of fact, not experts at all.
Railways and canals-chargeable to capital
Canadian Government railways-to provide for building of two wooden ships, $600,000.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Where are those ships to be built?


Francis Cochrane: A contract was let in Vancouver, and the parties were to put up a bond of $50,000, but they could not do it. In fact, they would not go on with the work at any price on account of the increase in the cost of materials, wages, etc. The hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) asked me to lay the contracts on the Table, and I did so on Monday.


William Pugsley: The minister will remember that some days ago when this matter was up, he assured me he would call for tenders so as to give builders in eastern Canada as well as builders in western Canada an opportunity of tendering.


Francis Cochrane: Yes.


William Pugsley: When were those contracts entered into?


Francis Cochrane: One in March and one in June of this year. The copies of the contracts have been laid on the Table.


William Pugsley: When were the contractors released from their obligations?


Francis Cochrane: In August.


William Pugsley: Just a few weeks ago?


Francis Cochrane: Yes.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What are these boats to be used for? Are they to be employed in connection with the Intercolonial railway or on what service are they to be used?


Francis Cochrane: They were to be employed on a route from Vancouver and Victoria through the Panama canal to St. John and Halifax and also to the West Indies.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Are they to be used in connection with the government railways?


Francis Cochrane: Yes.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is a pretty far off connection. The minister's jurisdiction in regard to the government railways extends only from Winnipeg to the Maritime Provinces. I do not see what purpose there could be in the Railway Department operating ships.


Francis Cochrane: They will not only
take freight that the Intercolonial brings to Halifax and St. John, but -bring freight from the West and deliver it to those ports. I hope the day will soon come when we shall have ships to run in connection with the government railways across the Atlantic to Liverpool and London.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is a pious wish that hon. gentlemen opposite declared a few years ago was impossible of fulfillment because of the alleged impossibility of constructing ships in Canada. We were told that was a dream that could toe realized only after fifty years. I am glad the minister is coming to the view that it is possible a few years hence for ships to be constructed in Canada which will be able to carry on our transportation business.


Francis Cochrane: I do not think I made a statement like that.
Mr. -MACDONALD: No, the minister did not, but a good -many other hon. gentlemen opposite did, including the minister who sits next to him (Sir George Foster) and the Prime Minister.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: My hon. friend is quite hazy in his ideas.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The -committee ought to consider the question of the construction of ships for the purpose of supplying the wastage that is going on due to the destruction of vessels by submarines. This is one of the most important problems that can engage the attention of the House and the Government. Hon. members from tlie Maritime Provinces may probably understand better than hon. gentlemen who come from the central parts of Canada the unfortunate position in which Canada is as regards the transportation of our products across the ocean as a result of the lack of ships.
Day after day, week after week, during the last few months, ever since the submarine campaign commenced, ships of a tonnage of 1,600 and upwards have been sunk at the rate of from 18 to 40 a week. Millions of tons of shipping have been destroyed. Notwithstanding these facts, we in Canada are doing practically nothing with a view to making up that wastage. It is true that the Minister of Finance advanced to the Imperial Munitions Board $10,000,000 as part payment on account of -money that is owing toy Canada to the British Governnment. That $10,000,000 is being appropriated by the Imperial Munitions Board for the construction of ships of a certain type. Here and there steel ships are toeing constructed; the industry is being successfully carried on in British Columbia. But when we bring up the matter of the construction of steel ships in eastern Canada, we are told that it is very difficult to get steel plates. The very fact that we cannot get steel plates for the construction of these vessels is eyidence of that lack of organization that has characterized all the operations of the Government in connection with the war. Why is it that steel plates can be obtained for the construction of steel ships at Vancouver by the Imperial Munitions Board, but cannot be obtained for the construction of ships in eastern Canada? As to the building of wooden ships, with all due justice to the Imperial Munitions Board, the plans which they submitted to the people engaged in the wooden ship-

building industry in eastern Canada involved the introduction into the ships of certain non-essential tilings which were purely British in their character. These things are very difficult for our shipbuilders to obtain; consequently it is most difficult to live up to the specifications. In the old days more wooden ships were constructed in this country than were constructed in Great Britain, and I do not see why there should not be a reasonable departure from these specifications, which are peculiar in their character. Again, people engaged in the construction of mercantile ships in Canada get contracts from the Imperial Munitions Board for the construction of ships, according to their specifications, upon force account. In the county of Lunenburg wooden ships have been constructed for a great many years. Not long ago a complaint came from that district to the effect that under the Imperial Munitions Board contract for the construction of a ship in the town of Liverpool, all kinds of inducements were being offered in the way of wages and otherwise to attract men from the other shipbuilding industry into the works which were being carried on for the Imperial Munitions Board under force account. That ought not to be. There should be some organization on the part of this Government with a view to improving and extending the shipbuilding industry. When lion, gentlemen on this side suggest that the Government take some action in the matter, we are told that the Imperial Munitions Board are the people that we have to deal with. That may be technically correct, but why should the whole question of the construction of ships in Canada be co n-mitted into the hands of a body responsible entirely to the Imperial authorities? My hon. friend now proposes to build two .ships. Why should not the Government devise some general policy of aid to the construction of ships at this time? When Mr. Balfour went to the United States, he was accompanied by a group of experts who held consultation with the proper official in the United States. These experts did not come to Canada. They had conferences with the United States Government; they laid down the lines upon which the United States could assist the Allies. They settled upon the number of men to be sent by the United States, the number of shells to be provided, the quantity of food to be sent forward, the number of ships to be constructed by the United States in order to make up in some degree the wastage on the sea. The same thing may be said about the delegations 344
from France and Italy to the United States. But none of these gentlemen came to Canada, except Mr. Balfour and Mr. Viviaui, who spent a pleasant hour or so with us before their return to their respective countries. Time after time the member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) and I have, in this House, urged upon the Government the necessity for action in this matter. We were told that some very mysterious arrangements had been made by which the Imperial Government was to act through the Munitions Board. All that has been done, however, has been the advance by the Minister of Finance of $10,000,000 in part payment of the debt that Canada owes Great Britain. Nothing has been done to assist the construction of ships in this country, with the exception of this small item in the estimates. There should be: development of private enterprise under Government supervision; Government aid should be given along proper lines. The shell industry of Canada has been cut off; thousands of men are being dismissed from their employment. The men who invested their money in the making of shells are losing their investments; the men who have been employed in that work are being deprived of any means of earning their living.
There comes from every part of this country a demand that assistance should be given in the matter of shipbuilding. The transportation of food supplies to the other side is a matter of very serious importance. Then there is the problem of transporting across the ocean the unlimited quantities of fish that are to be found on the maritime coasts, and around Newfoundland. The apple crop of the Maritime Provinces, which is one of the best in years, cannot be sent across because of the lack of ships. The lumber trade of Canada is paralyzed because nothing has been done in the way of providing the necessary transportation. If you leave out of consideration the ships engaged in the transportation of men and of a small quantity of shells, you realize that there is an entire disappearance from the seas of Canadian merchant r shipping. Is the Government going to do nothing to remedy this condition? Is the building of ships to be left entirely to Great Britain? Are the ships to be built by the Munitions Board in Canada to be the property of Great Britain? Are we to own no merchant marine in Canada? Why have we not done as the United States has done? Why has there not been an organization for the pur-



pose of supplying the defects in our merchant shipping? These are problems of which the Government has not offered any solution. The Minister of Trade and Commerce, whose attention was directed to these matters some months ago, failed to appreciate the importance of the subject. Does he seriously think that the people will accept as the performance of the whole duty of the Government the payment of a certain amount of money to the Imperial Munitions Board?
What about the wage earners of this country, particularly those engaged in the steel industry? Where are they to get employment? Where are the ships to be found? Are we to sit here supinely watching the hundreds and thousands of tons of shipping go down day by day and, while every other nation interested in the war and in the maintenance of transportation is doing its duty, are we to be told that our Government is incapable of dealing with this problem in any way, and that the only solution that can be found is the suggestion that we are going to have those two ships costing $600,000? If this Government is doing anything else, I am sure the House and the country would like to know what it is. I submit this beggarly proposition of $600,000 to help towards the establishment of a merchant marine in Canada, with thousands of tons of shipping going down day by day, and our trade being paralyzed, and our shell manufacturing being absolutely stopped, is all the Government proposes to do in the way of meeting the existing conditions.


William Pugsley: I agree fully with the remarks just made by my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Macdonald). I have had it brought home to me perhaps as strongly as to any member of this House how lamentably the Government has failed in the proper discharge of its duty towards Canada and towards the Empire in the matter of shipbuilding. As my hon. friend has said the subject has been brought before the House on a great many occasions. We have urged it upon the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) who seems to have been entrusted more particularly with this matter, and who from the experience we have had with that hon. gentleman, so far as shipbuilding is concerned, must have been entrusted with it because to the knowledge of his colleagues he would not take any action along practical lines. The minister has told us that he had in view an elaborate scheme for

the building of ships after the war. He did not seem to appreciate the fact that it is during the war and under the extraordinary conditions caused by the war that the Government should take action in the direction of shipbuilding. After the war, these questions will solve themselves very well. Since the outbreak of the war, the condition so far as transportation is concerned, not only across the Atlantic but along the coasts of Canada, has become more acute from year to year and from month to month. At the present time, we in the Maritime Provinces are in the deplorable condition that we-with thousands of miles of coast-line 'and great forests capable of supplying all the timber necessary for the building of ships, and with splendid sites for shipyards, and with our men having the instinct for shipbuilding- see our shipping practically disappeared from the seas, and even the coasting trade of Canada not being supplied with ships. There are no vessels capable of carrying on that trade, and the people of the Maritime Provinces are in the position that they are obliged to pay three times as much for coal as they did a few years ago. This is a deplorable condition of affairs, but it does not seem to appeal to the Government. After the third year of the war, they appointed a fuel controller. What is this *fuel controller doing? He is simply telling the people that the price of coal is high because there are no ships to carry the coal from the points of production to the Maritime Provinces. Yet the Minister of Trade and Commerce, who has been charged with this work, sits back supinely and says: Those are dreadful conditions, but they must go on, there seems to :be no remedy for' them. I think the Government ought to giv.e some answer to the charge which has been laid by my hon. friend from Pictou.


Francis Cochrane: The election is not on yet. This is not the time to make campaign speeches.


William Pugsley: I am not making a campaign speech. I am speaking for my constituency and my provinces, and I am speaking for the Maritime Provinces. I am endeavouring to depict as well as I can the unbearable conditions existing there 'because of the supineness, the indifference, the apathy, and the inaction of the Government in connection with shipbuilding. My hon. friend has pointed to the fact that the Imperial Munitions Board is building ships in Canada. It is quite true they are doing a little in that direction, but it is only

very little. There are hundreds of shipyards in Canada where formerly wooden vessels were built, which are idle at the present time, and which this Government could easily utilize for the purpose of building ships. Surely this subject is of sufficient importance to excite the Government to action, once it is brought to their attention. However, the Government does not seem to pay any attention to it. My hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane) says it is too early to speak of these things because the election is not on. If he wilP pardon ma for saying it, we have had a very strong bit of evidence to-day that the election [DOT] is to be on soon, because we have seen in the legislation brought down that the Government is in a state of desperation to win the election by any means, fair or foul. When we see this, we must see that the election is to come on soon. The words I have uttered have not been influenced at all by any feeling I have in regard to the election, because I can assure my hon. friend that I am quite prepared to meet my electors at any time the Government chooses to bring on the election.


Mr. W. H. BENNETT:: Did I understand my hon. friend to say that the price of coal in Canada to-day is three times what it was before the war?


William Pugsley: About three times.


William Humphrey Bennett: In the province of Ontario?


William Pugsley: I am speaking of the Maritime Provinces.


William Humphrey Bennett: You are entirely wrong as to Ontario.


William Pugsley: The price of hard coal in Ontario is only two-thirds of what it is in the Maritime Provinces, although we have water connection between the Maritime Provinces and the points of production. The enormous price anthracite coal is bringing in the Maritime Provinces is caused by the lack of transportation facilities. That is what we complain of. When this war broke out, the Government should have known that the British authorities would commandeer all the shipping it could, because the British Government would need all the ships it could obtain. The Government of Canada should have known that the demand for transportation would therefore increase, whereas the ships would necessarily decrease. It is because of the high cost of transportation by watsr that
344J
coal costs 334 per cent more in the Maritime Provinces than it does in Ontario, strange as it may seem to my hon. friend from Simcoe (Mr. W. H. Bennett). Coal costs less than $10 per ton in Ottawa, whereas, in the city of St. John, it costs $15 and upwards per ton. We have been three years in the war, and I make the assertion that this Government has done absolutely nothing with a view to assisting the transportation by water. It has done nothing to assist in maintaining the coasting trade of the country, and it has done nothing to assist in the transportation of our produce across the Atlantic. The fact that the Munitions Board has done something is no excuse for this Government for their entire want of action in reference to this most important question.
With regard to these two vessels which were to be built for the purpose of assisting trade by the two oceans between eastern and western Canada, why has no action been taken? I remember that the Minister of Customs (Mr. Reid), a year or more ago, made the statement publicly-I am not quite sure but that he made it in Vancouver-that this great forward step was to be taken so as to cheapen, if possible, transportation between eastern and western Canada. What has the Minister of Railways and Canals done? Without getting any vote from Parliament, he went through the farce of letting a contract, without public tender, to firms in British Columbia for the building of two wooden vessels. He took no security, he required no deposit, but without parliamentary authority he bound this Government to pay these contractors for the building of two ships. They, apparently, were not bound at all. ' They put up no security, but they signed a contract-


Francis Cochrane: -which calls for
security.


William Pugsley: Yes, if they did not give security the contract would be of nq force or effect. These gentlemen waited for a ' considerable time and they found they could do better by getting contracts for building ships for the Imperial Munitions Board. They asked the minister to release them from the contract and their yards were taken over for the purpose of building vessels for the Imperial Munitions Board at actual cost, plus 10 or 15 per cent. That is all the minister has done towards build ing ships. He comes to-day asking for an appropriation of 20 or 30 per cent more than was the contract price of the vessels

under the arrangement which he had entered into with these builders in Vancouver. This is the sorry result of the boastful words of the Minister of Customs, uttered publicly, for the encouragement of the people of Vancouver upwards of a year ago. However, I am glad that the minister is going to call for tenders from builders in eastern Canada as well as in western Canada. I know there are plenty of people in eastern Canada who would be delighted if they were afforded an opportunity of engaging in the building of wooden ships. But the fact t/hat the minister proposes to take this step now is no excuse for the inaction of this Government during three whole years of war.


John Howard Sinclair: What are the dimensions and tonnage of these ships?


Francis Cochrane: 2,500 tons.


William Pugsley: I notice they are to be 250 feet in length.


Mr. KYTE:: I would like to say a word to my hon. friend the Minister of Railways about the desirability of encouraging shipbuilding in Nova Scotia. At the last session of the provincial legislature a commission was appointed for the purpose of looking into this whole question, and it will be in a position in a short time to report upon the most desirable location for a shipbuilding plant in that province. We have a very large and important iron and steel industry in Sydney with unlimited quantities of coal in the immediate vicinity. I am quite sure-that if 'the Government would give the assistance to shipbuilding enterprise in Nova Scotia that it has given in British Columbia, something very substantial would result in the way of establishing that important industry in the province. It transpired a few evenings ago, when the estimates for dredging in British Columbia were under consideration by the Committee of Supply, that they are building ships in British Columbia some four miles up the Fraser river, and a grant of 1100,000 was asked to dredge- the -channel, as I understand it, to enable them to get their ships floated to the ocean when they are constructed. No such handicap would obtain with respect to the location of a shipbuilding -plant in Nova Scotia. At Sydney we have one of the very best harbours in the world and a-11 the material necessary at hand to enter upon the construction of ships.


Francis Cochrane: Do you mean to say that you manufacture the steel to build ships?


George William Kyte: I have no doubt that those who are interested in the manufacture of steel would very readily undertake the construction of steel ships if the minister would give the same encouragement to the industry in Nova Scotia as is given in British Columbia. I understand the Munitions Board is furnishing the full amount of the cost of building these ships in British Columbia plus 15 per cent profit. I do not know that there would be very much difficulty in inducing the Dominion Iron and Steel Company to undertake the -construction of ships in Sydney uncfer the same conditions?
\


John Howard Sinclair: I do not think this is any solution of the shipbuilding problem. I am sorry to see the minister embarking upon the policy of the building and ownership of wooden ships. The Government should go into the building of steel ships and not wooden ships. If private individuals wish to undertake the building of wooden ships, there should be every encouragement given to them, but it is a very backward step for the Dominion Government to undertake the building, ownership and sailing of wooden -ships. The Government, a few months -ago, with a great flourish, passed an Order in Council in which they made provision to give certain -aid towards the construction of ships. But they provided that this aid would not apply to any ship of less than 500 tons. There is a class of wooden vessels built in Nov-a Scotia that is found very useful in the local trade, especially with the West Indies. These vessels are nearly all less than 500 tons. Most of them are between 200 and 400 tons. The provision which allo-ws a rebate to vessels of over 500 tons does not apply to the class of ships that are being built in the Maritime Provinces. The provision is that the builders will receive back ninety-nine per cent of the duty paid on imported material going into construction of these vessels. It would be a very good step in the way of encouraging shipbuilding in the Maritime Provinces if it applied to the class of ships to which I refer.


Francis Cochrane: Do they build these
ships of steel?


John Howard Sinclair: No, most of them are
wooden vessels and they are used chiefly in the West Indian trade and trade to the River Plate and to South American ports. They are a very useful class of vessels and most of the coal that is used in the Maritime Provinces is carried from ports in the

United States to the Maritime Provinces in these ships. Lumber exported to the United States is carried in this class of vessel. It is important we should promote the building of these vessels. It was a disappointment, especially to the people of the Maritime Provinces, when the Government fixed the tonnage limit at 500 tone because the vessels that I speak of are nearly all under that tonnage.
A score of articles that go into the construction of these wooden ships, sails, gear, rope, wire and so on, are imported under a very heavy duty. If the Government would refund 99 per cent of the duty paid *in regard to ships from 200 tons up, they would be doing a great thing for the trade. I hope this matter will not be overlooked. I do not expect that very much will come from the construction of two wooden vessels. The minister has been very meagre in the information he has given us. We have learned that the ships are to be about 2,500 tons, and that, so far as I know, is the only fact he has told us in regard to them. It would be interesting to the committee and to the public to know what kind of ships the minister intends to build.


Francis Cochrane: The contracts were
laid on the Table; you could find out yourself.


John Howard Sinclair: Yes, but laying the contract on the Table and not placing the information on Hansard or giving it to the press does not give much information to the public. This is a new departure, it is the first time that the Government of Canada has'entered upon commercial shipbuilding and the public should be informed of the minister's plana. Does he intend to build a fleet of ships, and where will they ply? We got one item of information, that they are expected to run between some port in British Columbia and eastern Canadian ports, via the Panama canal. In that case they will come in competition with his own railway. Aie the people of Canada going to embark on the construction, ownership and operation of cargo steamers?
Mr.'^COCHRANE: I have said that it is intended to build two ships of so many tons, and where they are to run.


John Howard Sinclair: What is the length of the ships?


Francis Cochrane: 250 feet.


John Howard Sinclair: What is the beam to be?


Francis Cochrane: 45 feet.


John Howard Sinclair: What will the speed be?


Francis Cochrane: Ten knots.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Sailing or steam?


Francis Cochrane: Both.


William Pugsley: Is my hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) waiting for more information? If so I am sure lie will wait a considerable time, because the Minister of Railways has such confidence in his own judgment that he thinks all the rest of us ought to act upon that judgment without getting any information. The minister may be wise in that course when he cannot give any very satisfactory explanation. The minister said something about not being able to get steel in Canada. I had an interesting piece of information last night which I shall pass on to him. I met the President of the Port Arthur Dry Dock and Shipbuilding company who told me that his company is actively engaged in building ships at Port Arthur and employs about 1200 men. Those are steel ships. They have built the largest freighter which plys upon the Great Lakes, the Morden, a magnificent ship. This-shows what can be done. It was a great pleasure to me to hear that, because it was my good fortune when I was minister to enter into a contract for the establishment of a dry dock and ship repairing plant at Port Arthur which resulted in the creation of a ship building plant as well, and it is very gratifying that the company has been able to do such splendid work since. So also with another company which the Liberal Government was the means of inducing to establish a ship building plant in Canada, the Vickers-Maxim Company of Montreal. They have been doing very satisfactory work in ship building during the last three or four years. I have no doubt that, had proper encouragement been given, quite a large number of steel ships would have been turned out in Canada before this. I am sorry that the Minister of Marine (Mr. Hazen) is not in his place, because I should like to take this opportunity of reminding him-and in his absence I shall remind the Government -of the splendid opportunity which was missed by Canada when this Government reversed the policy of the late Government and determined not to engage in the building of a Canadian navy in Canada.
I would remind the Minister of Marine that when he came into power he found in his office a tender from a firm, who were the lowest tenders for the work, engaging to build some ten war vessels, cruisers and destroyers, for the Government of Can-

ada. They had plans for the building and equipping of a great ship yard with all the requisite plant, and if the contract had been let to them, there is no doubt that they could have followed the example, perhaps upon a larger scale, of the Vickers-Maxim people and also the Port Arthur Dry Dock and Ship Building Company. But, unfortunately, the Government determined that they would not build ships in Canada. The Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) read in this House, as a reason why they should not engage in shipbuilding in Canada, a report from that distinguished gentleman who was for a time First Lord of the Admiralty in Great Britain, in which it was stated that large ships could not be built in Canada because they required a very firm foundation on which to rest, and also because it would be necessary to have cranes which could lift 150 tons. Those were apparently two insuperable obstacles to the building of ships in Canada. It seems to me too bad that the Government became impressed with the idea that for those reasons, and I suppose there must have been some others, it was impracticable to engage in the building of ships on a large scale in Canada. What a splendid thing it would have been if we had had these shipyards established for the building of war vessels! It would have proved of enormous advantage in the present war, and it would have led necessarily to the building of a large number of commercial vessels as well..
We have lost five or six years in our national life along most important lines, but let me again express the hope that the Government will have the courage, in the face of their refusal in the past to do anything, to enter upon a vigorous policy, even at this late date. A great many of us are afraid the war will continue a considerable time longer, and the critical conditions which are existing to-day, so far as ocean tonnage and the tonnage requisite for our coasting trade are concerned, are becoming more acute, and will become more acute as the months go by. I hope the words which have been uttered to-day will not fall upon absolutely deaf ears, but that some really practical steps will be taken in order to relieve the present situation.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: May I ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce what is the policy of the Government with regard to assistance to shipbuilding in Canada?


William Pugsley: The Government is hard q-f hearing.
[Mr. Pugsisy.l


George Green Foster: I am glad that at the long last we have had the old story- whether this is the swan song or not I am not quite prepared to say-which has been retailed, I suppose, more than a score of times by the hon. gentleman from St. John, ably assisted by the hon. gentleman from Pictou, and which ended to-day with a little different note-a note of modified optimism. Based upon those two vessels, for which the vote is being asked by the Minister of Railways, at last the hon. gentleman thinks he sees signs of the commencement of a more vigorous policy, provided the Government does not again go to sleep on their oars, as he affirms they have done so often, and does not proceed with the construction of the vessels for which this vote has been asked. If either of my hon friends had said anything that they had not repeated a score of times in this House, they would have good grounds for expecting a reply from some member of the Government, but their statements have been answered time and again. We have discussed this matter on lines of policy, and on lines of practical economy, over and over again. All that can be said with reference to this matter at the present time has been said.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What has been done?


George Green Foster: 
Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What about the Canadian Northern expenditure?


George Green Foster: The hon. member for St. John said that all that had been done was to advance to Great Britain some ten million dollars to finaneeJthe construction of ships that were being built by the Imperial Munitions Board for the British Admiralty. We are advancing that money, and we are advancing money for very many other things.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: You are paying the British Government.


George Green Foster: That is true; we are paying the British Government; we are paying off a debt. We should pay it all off, but it does not make it any the less burdensome for us whether we pay it in that way, or whether we pay it by a draft, and Great Britain sends back the same money to this country to pay for the ships.
The burden is there, and the burden is tremendous. Whilst my hon. friend from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) on one occasion in this House, advocated putting $80,000,000 or $100,000,000 or $150,000,000 at work to build ships in this country, that is an easy thing to speak of and to broach, but it is a difficult thing to get the money. But, you say:	You find the money for other
things.


William Pugsley: For the Canadian Northern.


John Howard Sinclair: The minister is mistaken; I do not think I advocated anything of the kind.


George Green Foster: I did the calculating for my hon. friend, if he will recollect the matter. He set the figures and I made the multiplication. He wanted so many vessels built, and I made a calculation as to what it would cost to build those vessels. The cost of the number of vessels he thought we ought to build would have run up between $100,000,000 and $150,000,000. My hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Pugsley) was delighted with his conversation with the Port Arthur shipbuilder. Some vessels were being built at Port Arthur. If he had gone a little deeper into that conversation, he would probably have found difficulties that beset the path of that or any other shipbuilder in this country building steel vessels, and depending, as he must depend, for every steel plate that he put into his vessel, upon United States sources. There is not a plate which has been put into a steel vessel built in Canada which has been rolled in this country. Those plates, if they come into Canada at all, must come from the United States. We cannot, for various reasons, get them from Great Britain.


William Pugsley: Does the minister deny what I say, namely, that they are employing 1,200 men at Port Arthur?


George Green Foster: They may be; I am not saying that they are not. But if they are employing 1,200 men and are building vessels and are using steel from the

United States for that purpose, they are working on contracts which were placed for steel a year or two years ago.


Mr. REID:: That work is nearly all.in
repairing vessels.


George Green Foster: It is impossible to-day and it has been impossible within the last year to make contracts for the delivery of plates for the building of steel vessels in this country, and to get those contracts filled for months and months and even years. I go further than that and state that, at the present time under the conditions as they exist to-day, it is impossible for men who undertake to build or who contemplate building steel vessels in this country to place a contract in the United States for steel plates for those vessels and get that contract filled.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: We are engaging in the manufacture of shells in this country and nine-tenths of all the machinery that is used in the manufacture of shells is bought in the United States.


George Green Foster: There is not the slightest doubt about that. The United States is allowing steel to come into Canada so far as she is under contract, for materials of war for the Allies and for Canada, but she is not allowing steel to come into this country for purposes other than for war purposes, that is, for munitions and for the subsidiary processes of making munitions and other war material. That is ^he condition that exists to-day.


John Howard Sinclair: Does the minister say that the United States would not allow steel to come into this country for the construction of ships?


George Green Foster: The United
States to-day, under the steel shipbuilding programme which it is carrying out for itself in connection with the war, and under its obligations towards the Allies and the makers of munitions for the Allies here in Canada as well as elsewhere, is not allowing any steel plates, any steel of certain qualities and grades, to come into this country unless it receives a license upon a requisition certificated by the Department of Trade and Commerce that that steel is for war purposes.


John Howard Sinclair: Could not ships be described as being for war purposes?


George Green Foster: Ships could be described as being for war purposes if they were war ships, but they do not come under

the term of " war material " which is allowed to come into Canada under the present embargo placed upon steel by the United States.


John Howard Sinclair: Does the minister mean that an ordinary freight vessel to carry goods and munitions across the Atlantic would not be a vessel for war purposes?


George Green Foster: My hon. friend, by a process of reasoning, can connect almost any industry or enterprise in this country more or less remotely with war industries, but steel for the construction of such vessels is not allowed to come into this country at present. Permits are not being given for steel of that description to come into this country unless it is for war purposes. What steel may come into this country for our basic industries depends entirely upon the demand and supply in the United States for those purposes which I have mentioned. If after those are properly cared for, there is a surplus over and above for processes of manufacture which are not directly connected with the war, then those United States'* industries engaged, in those processes will be cared for, and, after that, as much as there may be of a surplus may be allowed to be distributed to other countries.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Will the minister
tell us after eight o'clock what he has done and what he is going to do in regard to shipbuilding?
At six o'clock the Committee took recess.
After Recess.
The Committee resumed at eight o'clock.


John Howard Sinclair: The Minister of Trade and Commerce was giving us some information at six o'clock in regard to this item for the building of two wooden ships. I did not understand that he had finished his speech.


John Dowsley Reid: He finished at six.


John Howard Sinclair: He stopped at six o'clock without giving us the information for which we were asking. I hope that some of the other ministers will be able to give us that information; otherwise we shall not be able properly to understand this item. I wish to correct the statement made by the minister in reference to certain remarks that I made in this House some weeks ago-I am sorry that he is not in his seat. He said that I made a proposal involving the expen-

diture of the enormous sum of $150,000,000 jn the building of ships.


Francis Cochrane: He said from $100,000,000 to $150,000,000.


John Howard Sinclair: Then I misunderstood him. I never made any such proposal as that. The discussion referred to was with regard to what could be done to overcome the submarine menace. The Germans had embarked upon the sinking of all shipping, and active measures had been taken in the United States to meet the situation. It was proposed in that country-at least this was the statement made in the press

to build
2,000	ships for the purpose of counteracting the destructive work of the Germans. If the Government had taken some steps along the line of what was proposed in the United States, they might have adopted a standard ship and either proceeded to build a number of such vessels or to induce private parties to do so. I think I did mention that it would be possible for Canada to build about one hundred such ships. I did not say whether they should be of wood or of steel-I thought that that was a matter for the Government to decide. The Minister of Railways proposes to build two wooden ships for $600,000- I assume that he is providing for a cost of $300,000 each. According to these figures, if the Minister of Trade and Commerce had accepted my proposal, the cost would have been only $30,000,000, which is a very different figure from $150,000,000. I do not know where the minister got the idea that I made such a proposal as he mentioned. *


John Dowsley Reid: When the hon. member was discussing the matter, did he mention the size and tonnage of the vessels proposed to be built?


John Howard Sinclair: They were to be vessels of 2,500 tons, of a standard type. If we can build a wooden ship of the class proposed by the minister 'for $300,000, we could build a steel ship for $450,000. Taking the minister's figures as a basis, therefore, the cost of the vessels proposed in the former discussion, if built of steel, would be only $45,000,000. So that the Minister of Trade and Commerce was away off in his figuies when he said that I had suggested the expenditure of such a large sum of money as he mentioned. Since that discussion took place the Government has embarked on some very large ventures. They propose to incur a liability of at least $450,000,000 in connection with the Canadian Northern railway-ten times the liability that would
be incurred by the construction of 100 steel vessels. A proposal for the building of ships under such a plan as I have suggested would be much more to the point of winning the war than the proposal to take over the Canadian Northern railway at such enormous cost. In asking for the money to build these two wooden ships, the minister enunciates no policy; the Government simply intends to build two wooden vessels. What they -are going to do with them after they build them no one knows. What difference will the building of two wooden ships make in the trade of the Empire or of the	world? If the
Government do not manage this matter better than they have managed others, this expenditure will be of little benefit to the people of Canada or, indeed, to any one. The minister spoke of running these vessels between ports on the Pacific and ports on the Atlantic, through the Panama canal. What trade does he expect to get on that line, and what return cargoes would he carry from the eastern part of Canada to the Pacific through the Panama canal?
I suppose there would be some lumber to carry from British Columbia to Eastern Canada. But I really think that the j>ro-posal is not a practicable one. There would be more sense in a proposal to build ships for the purpose of carrying our products to Great Britain. I repeat that this is not a shipbuilding policy, the minister does not say that he is going to build more ships. Then why should we embark on the building of these two wooden ships?
In 1879 the manufacturers of Canada came to Sir John Macdonald and asked for the inauguration of a policy to encourage manufacturing in Canada. Sir John, whether right or wrong, decided that a protective policy was the policy best adapted to build up a manufacturing industry in this country. We all know the history of that development. If, instead of introducing a protective policy on that occasion to enable the manufacturers to build mowing machines, reapers, and other manufactured articles, Sir John A. Macdonald had set up business for himself and decided to build two mowing machines, the Canadian people would have laughed at him. Yet, that is exactly what the Minister of Railways is doing. The people asked the Minister of Railways ,for a shipping policy, which would enable them to go on with the construction of w ooden or steel vessels, and the minister rereplies by calling upon the people to contribute $600,000, saying he is going to build two wooden vessels himself. Yet he calls that a policy.


Francis Cochrane: You call it a policy, nobody else did.


John Howard Sinclair: What is it?


Francis Cochrane: Two ships.


John Howard Sinclair: That is some explanation.


Francis Cochrane: And no one will benefit more by them than will Nova Scotia.


John Howard Sinclair: I doubt it. We'require ships in Nova Scotia, but we d-o not expect the Government to build them for us. If we did, we would be dis-[DOT]appointed. Two wooden ships cannot be of very much use in the carrying on of the business of Nova Scotia. If that is all the minister is able to do>
in the way of assisting the shipbuilding industry, it is a very trifling way of dealing with a big question. The minister, of course, knows that it is possible "for the Government to do something in the way of helping the shipbuilding industry. Two proposals have been mentioned in this House. One is that a bounty of so much per ton should be paid by the Government to overcome the excess cost resulting from the high tariff. No country with a high tariff has been successful in establishing a shipbuilding industry. You cannot become a great ship-owning country if you have a high protective tariff. Great Britain is the only country in the world which has made a complete success in shipbuilding. Nearly all the countries in Europe which have protective tariffs have failed to develop this industry. They have .assisted shipbuilding, some of them to a yery great extent. The United States also offered great help to the industry. They built a protective wall around the country and would not allow one of their citizens to buy a ship outside; every ship sailing under the American flag had to be built in the United States. That was the law up to three years ago. They now have a more intelligent system, and they permit the buying of ships abroad and the registration of those ships under the American flag, without the payment of duty. The second proposal is to reduce the tariff. That is the real cure, and the only way we can ever become a great shipbuilding country. Introduce free trade, and our maritime industry will do the rest. That has been the experience in Great Britain, and for thirty-five years Great Britain has outstripped the world in shipbuilding. Just before the 
war they had registered tonnage of about
20,000,000 tons, both sail and steam-more than one-half of the total tonnage of the world. It was only possible for England to achieve this result under a free trade policy. Not only was she able to build all the ships required for her own trade, but she built ships for the rest of the world as well. Nearly every foreign nation had its ships built in British yards, because it could be done there cheaper'than anywhere else, for the reason that she bad free raw material and freedom in every way. The Canadian people should follow the example of the Mother Country. I submit that the people of Canada will not approve of the venture the minister is now making. I see no purpose in going into the building of two wooden ships to be used for the carrying of freight from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast via the Panama canal.


John Dowsley Reid: I hardly think it fair that the consideration of an item of this kind should develop into a discussion as to the policy of the Government in regard to building ships. I think that question is large enough to be discussed by itself. To1 say that the purchase of those two vessels is in any way connected with that policy is, of course, unfair. As I understand the situation it is that the people of British Columbia had been urging for some years that they should have water transportation between eastern Canada and western Canada. They claimed that eastern Canada had the advantage of water transportation. If the provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were depending solely upon the railways, they would very soon make strong demands for water transportation, because there are many products that will not stand a high freight rate. Those three provinces have water transportation, and they have it at the expense of the Dominion, and British Columbia is paying a part of it. The very constituency my hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) represents has water transportation at the expense of British Columbia.


Mr. CARROLL:: Will the minister kindly point out how the province of Nova Scotia has more water communication than has British Columbia, through the intervention of this Government?


John Dowsley Reid: Does my hon. friend'say that the province of Nova Scotia, or any of the lower provinces, have no water communication at the expense of this Government?


William F. Carroll: They have. So has British Columbia.


John Dowsley Reid: My hon. friend admits that so far as water transportation is concerned, they have assistance from this Government?
'Mr. CARROLL: Yes.


John Dowsley Reid: We agreed on that.


William F. Carroll: Were they subsidies?


John Dowsley Reid: They were subsidies.


John Howard Sinclair: That means that they
were exactly equal. Both of these subsidies were given to ships plying on the coast.


John Dowsley Reid: They get assistance and the people of British Columbia are paying for getting freight from one province to another through expenditures or assistance from the Dominion Government. In British Columbia as I understand it, they have ' subsidies from one part of the province to another. From Montreal and away down to the lower provinces, they are assisted by subsidies. The people in British Columbia said: We have products that will not stand a heavy freight.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What?


John Dowsley Reid: Lumber and timber, of which they ship in large quantities to eastern Canada. I investigated, and I know that that is so. Millions and millions of feet of timber were shipped to the Toronto harbour works, and * they ship large quantities of shingles and lumber. They said:	If we
could get proper transportation facilities we would have a market that we do not have now in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec, for many of these products.


John Howard Sinclair: What products does the minister expect to be shipped from eastern Canada to British *Columbia?


John Dowsley Reid: The people of British Columbia say that there are manufactured and agricultural products in eastern Canada that they want in British Columbia but which are of such a character that they will not bear heavy freight rates. Then they said: We want to go into shipbuilding, and we want plates and metal products.


William Pugsley: The Minister of Trade
and Commerce (Sir George Foster) says that we have not got any plates.


John Dowsley Reid: They say in British Columbia : If you will let us get these plates from
Nova Scotia, where the iron is made, and nails and bolts from Montreal and other places where they are manufactured in the eastern provinces, at a cheap and reasonable rate, which	can	only be	done	bywater transportation,	we believe	thatthe interchange	of	products	will	beadvantageous . to	those parts	of	thecountry which	are	*situated	so	far
apart. They also say that the people from Port Arthur to the extreme eastern er.u of the Dominion have the advantage of water transportation while from Port Arthur west they have no possible -way out unless they get water transportaiton through the Panama canal. They wanted a line of steamers between British Columbia and the Atlantic coast. It would also help them they claimed in other ways. There would be, in their opinion, no trouble at all about loading two vessels, one starting at an Atlantic and the other at a Pacific port. They had it in their minds that much more traffic would be offered than these vessels would be able to carry.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They wanted a customs officer at New York, did they not?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes, and the hon. gentleman was in favour of that. The only trouble about that was that we were all anxious to keep the trade within our own territory, while the hon. gentleman wanted it to go through American territory. But I did not agree to that.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I think the shipbuilding programme was favoured by the hon. gentleman as a way by which he could get over the request of the board of trade.


John Dowsley Reid: All right; I will admit that.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Tell us all about it.


John Dowsley Reid: Yes, I will tell you all about it. The British Columbia people, having had no line of steamers, wanted the Government to allow them to ship their freight to New York on American vessels and not to go through Canadian territory at all. They wanted to take back goods manufactured in the United States .in order to load the vessels on the return voyage and not get them from the Canadian side. I am free to admit that I was of the opinion, then, as I am now, that we should keep the traffic within ourselves and that if we could get Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to use British Columbia products. I considered it very good business, and I believe the people

will be satisfied with such an arrangement. The people of British Columbia were satisfied, as far as my observations went, with such a proposal. The people of British Columbia also claimed that there were products that they required at times from the West Indies. We are working up a trade between Canada and the West Indies. These vessels, at some particular time, might pos- * sibly not have a full cargo for Halifax or St. John, and they could bring sugar and other products to eastern Canada. -On the other hand, they could take a cargo to the West Indies and on to British Columbia and thus help at both ends in building up a trade between western and eastern Canada. That was my idea and my snggestion to my colleagues after I had discussed the matter fully with the British Columbia people.
Now, what was done about these vessels? For the last three or four years it has been almost impossible to .get vessels built. To start in and build vessels now would cost three times as much as it would under normal conditions. What I recommended to he Minister of Railways and my colleagues was this: There is a transportation company called the Canada West Transportation Company, in which many of the heads of that large corporation, the Canada Steamship Company are interested. The Canada West Transportation Company gave an order for twelve vessels of exactly the same dimensions as these two vessels that were ordered in British Cnlu-moia.
I recommended to the Minister of Railways and Canals and my other colleagues that a contract should be awarded for the construction of two vessels on exactly the same lines -and on the same terms as those of the Canada West Company. In other words, we said: There is a contract that has been awarded by this company for a dozen .vessels, and we will give you a contract on the same terms and at the -same price. In that contract the terms were stated, a bond was to be given as to completion, and so on. The British Columbia people were complaining of the freight rates charged by the three great railway companies. They claimed that the freight rates between British Columbia and eastern Canada were almost prohibitive on products of a cheaper kind.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: How long were you in British Columbia this time?


John Dowsley Reid: I think I was there eight days.
I gave them one answer which I am glad to say is, I believe, coming true. I said to

those to whom I was speaking: If you will just have a little patience this Government will do two things; they will gij* you transportation by vessel between the Atlantic and the Pacific, -and they will give you a government-owned and government-operated railway on which they will control the rates, and then you will get justice if you have not received it heretofore.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They will call you a false prophet in a short while.


John Dowsley Reid: Then you cannot have confidence in the Canadian Northern Railway Bill going through. I say it is going through, and when it does my prophecy that we would have a Government-owned and government-operated railway will come true.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: By this Government?


John Dowsley Reid: By this Government. It was not with the consent of the hon. member; it was by this Government and by the members sitting on this side, and they are entitled to the credit of the Canadian Northern Railway Bill going through and of the people of Canada having a railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific owned by them.


William F. Carroll: But will not the Canadian Northern railway be subject to the jurisdiction of the Railway Commission just the same?


John Dowsley Reid: Certainly.


William F. Carroll: They will make th}
laws regarding the freight rates.


John Dowsley Reid: But the Railway Commission is under the jurisdiction of this Government.


William Pugsley: You have always said
not.


John Dowsley Reid: The Railway Commission
is under this Government, and they will do justice; if they do not we will remedy it.


William Pugsley: I thought they were
appointed for ten years.


John Dowsley Reid: The people of Canada will
m a few days have a railway owned and operated by them-


William Pugsley: For which they will pay mighty dearly.


John Dowsley Reid: -in spite of the opposition of the hon. member for St. John, although he was throwing up both hands for it a

few years ago when he believed we would not take it over.


William Pugsley: Not at all; you cannot prove that.	%


John Dowsley Reid: I would not want anything
better on which to meet the hon. gentleman on the platform than this very Canadian Northern Railway measure to show the people that we have now a railway that we operate ourselves. However, that is getting away from the item.


William Pugsley: That is quite in order.


John Dowsley Reid: No, I am going to ask the
Chairman to rule me out of order when I get away from the question.


The CHAIRMAN:: Order.


John Dowsley Reid: I believe that in starting with a line of vessels between British Columbia and the Atlantic coast the Government will greatly benefit both the East and the West, and that the people on both coasts will appreciate the start which ha.i been made.


William Pugsley: Why were not tenders
called for, as this involves an amount over $5,000?


John Dowsley Reid: We asked every shipbuilding yard in British Columbia.


William Pugsley: Why not in eastern
Canada as well?


John Dowsley Reid: Because there were contracts for a dozen vessels exactly the same awarded by a private company in British Columbia, after every effort had been made to have them built in eastern Canada. I do not believe that these vessels could be got for anything like the same price in the East, because in British Columbia they have the timber while they have not it in the East.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The Minister of
Customs chastised .the hon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) for raising the issue of a shipbuilding policy for Canada, and said that this was not an appropriate time to raise such a question. Perhaps that criticism was fair. On this side of the House we think very highly of the Minister of Railways, and after the criticism by the Minister of Customs of the member for Guysborough I did feel, and I do now feel, that perhaps hon. members on this side were a little unfair to him this afternoon in discussing what is a matter of public policy upon an item to vote moneys for the purchasing of two boats which are not really to be operated ae a part of the
Intercolonial railway. Perhaps that was why the Minister of Railways was silent.
I can understand his silence now. If this vote does not involve the question of the proper national policy for this country in respect of shipbuilding, then the question is, is it a proper thing for the Intercolonial railway to acquire two ships in the operation of the railway? Perhaps it is not that question either, as I think it really has nothing to do with the matter of the operation of the Intercolonial. This policy was inaugurated by the Minister of Customs and was the result of a visit by him .to British Columbia. Now he has described his programme at great length-almost three-quarters of an hour-and has informed us very fully as to its origin and its purpose. We are asked to vote $600,000, not for the purpose of determining what our national policy shall be in respect to shipbuilding, not in respect to the Intercolonial, but upon another question altogether, the development of interprovincial trade between the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast.
Has this vote anything to do with the Intercolonial? If not, it should not be here, and the Minister of; Railways should not be asking for this money. If it is for the purpose of the development of interprovincial trade, as the Minister of Customs says, it is a matter of trade and commerce, and must be discussed upon different lines altogether. If this belongs to the Intercolonial, let us inquire whether this is sound policy or not. Why attach this venture to the Intercolonial? The Minister of Customs informs us that it is not to be a part of that railway system. It is not possible to operate these two steamships as a part of that railroad; it is not thinkable that it could be done.	[DOT]


Francis Cochrane: Why?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: How can you interchange traffic between the Intercolonial railway and these ships, with any degree of certainty?


John Dowsley Reid: How are you going to get the traffic between Ontario and Halifax and St. John in the winter?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: By rail.


John Dowsley Reid: Over the Intercolonial.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: But the Minister of Customs, had these two ships cavorting down to West India waters.
5444'


John Dowsley Reid: No, I staid Halifax and St. Jolin.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: And then going to the West Indies, to load up with sugar.


John Dowsley Reid: That is on the route.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Let me adhere to the question whether these ships should or should not be a part of the Intercolonial railway. I say they should not. The question whether we should or should not encourage interprovincial trade between eastern and western Canada by means of subsidies, or buildipg of boats for that special purpose is' another question. I protest against the Intercolonial making an investment of $600,000, with grand opportunities for adding to that investment every month thereafter, to develop trade between eastern Canada and the Pacific coast, where the Intercolonial has no connections whatever. - I know the Minister of Railways is too good a business man to believe in his heart that this expenditure is justified upon that ground. I can understand the Intercolonial engaging in the building and operation of ships between Maritime Province ports and British ports. I think the time i" near at hand when the Intercolonial must do that, and if they were in the position to purchase fifteen or twenty steamships to-day, of from 5,000 to 10,000 tons capacity, I believe it would be a good policy, and a logical enterprise for the Intercolonial to embark on. The route followed by these steamships would be but a continuation of the Intercolonial system. But, I submit, the operation of two steamboats between the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast cannot in any sense be construed as a part of the operation of the Intercolonial.
The Minister of Railways justifies this vote on the ground that it is desirable to develop trade between the east and west coasts of Canada. That is a very interesting question. The proposal has merits, there is something to say in favour of it.-But do not put it upon the Intercolonial; let it be a matter of national policy. Even if we were attempting to encourage trade between the east and west coasts of Canada, is this the right way to do it? Again I protest against Canada entering into the construction of wooden vessels for this purpose. In the first place, these vessels seem to be very expensive. You are asking us to vote $600,000 for two ships of 2,500 tons each, which would mean a cost of $125 per ton.


William Pugsley: The machinery would
cost $110,000.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The total cost completed would be $125 per ton. I know of instances, within twelve months, where ships of a greater tonnage than this, more suitable for this trade, could have been purchased at about $125 per ton. It is true, they were boats engaged in the lake trade in the United States, and some changes would have to be made in them. A great deal of tonnage was available for purchase in the United States within the last eighteen months. During the last three or four years there was, perhaps, not the same amount of tonnage offered. I know that the Dominion Coal Company bought ton-* nage within fifteen months for about $80 per ton. The vessels were not very large but suited the companj. You can enter into contracts to-day, I think, for steel boats for about $125 a ton.


John Dowsley Reid: No.


Mr. CURRIE:: Come off.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not admit that my hon. friend from North Siincoe (Mr. Currie) is an authority on these matters.


John Allister Currie: How many tons of plate and steel is there in a vessel of this size?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I could not tell you.


John Allister Currie: About 3,000 tons.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I could not tell ycu that, but within the last two months contracts have been entered into for the construction of steel ships in the United States 'for $15& to $160 per ton.


John Allister Currie: When were they to be completed?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: To be completed as soon as possible-within a year.


John Dowsley Reid: The hon. gentleman said $160?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Yes.


John Dowsley Reid: I may say that, within the last year, the lowest price of any contract 1 have heard of was $160 a ton. I have not heard of any within the last two years, either in the United States or in Canada, at $125.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: You can enter into contracts to-day for the construction of steel ships somewhere between $155 and $160 a ton.


Mr. STEVENS:: Within the last week the Japanese Government has offered $225 a ton for steel ships.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: That is quite true, and I know of the British Government paying nearly $200 a ton for shipping, at a time when tonnage could be purchased in the United States for $140 or $150. Those are exceptions which do not prove the rule. At the present moment the Government has not entered into any contract for the construction of wooden ships, as I understand. A contract was entered into, but the contractors failed to carry out the contract.


John Dowsley Reid: And the contracts that were entered into were for less than $100 a ton.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The contractors could not carry out their contract, claiming that the price was too low, and now they want $125 a ton for wooden ships, and are unwilling to give a guarantee positively for construction within any reasonable period. Wooden shipping is not the kind of tonnage which this Government should- purchase If they are going to operate a line of steamships between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, it would be far better to pay an additional initial cost of $50 or $60 a ton, than to buy wooden ships at $125 a ton, because the ships must pass through tropical waters, where their bottoms are subjected to attacks of all sorts of worms and insects which infest those waters, and which are more or less destructive to wooden shipping.
If a government owns wooden shipping, there is no end to the capital expenditures which commence the first year after construction. It would be infinitely cheaper, if we are going into this business at all, to enter into contracts for the construction of steel ships. I would not do even that; if we wish to encourage interprovincial trade via the Panama canal, it would be far better for us to pay a reasonable subsidy to some steamship company that was willing to make an investment and go into this work.
t Mr. REID: That cannot be done because no one will undertake it.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They may not do it at the present time, but it will be a long time before the Government receives delivery of these wooden ships, and there is no trade now between the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast.


John Dowsley Reid: There is.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I doubt if there is at this time. I would like to see a steamship line operating between the Pacific coast and the eastern coast of Canada, but it would be better to have such a line owned and operated by a private company, because a private company could go where they liked for traffic. There is, however, no business for a line of steamships to-day between British Columbia and the Maritime Provinces. The Minister of Customs spent eight days in British Columbia amongst his political friends, and I have no doubt he was pressed quite strongly by them to do something of this nature. He confessed to us that what he was pressed to do was to appoint a customs officer ah New York. The people of British Columbia have been wanting that for a long time. Personally, I have not been able to see any substantial objection to that.


John Dowsley Reid: That is what I say.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: To get out of it, the minister says he developed this theory about the building of wooden ships. It was a shame that he should have allowed the Minister of Railways, for two or three hours this afternoon, to battle with hon. members on this side in defence of his scheme. The Minister of Customs should have spoken before recess. He speaks about the traffic these two ships would get between the East and the West. It is true that some traffic might be developed between the eastern and the western ports of Canada by means of a steamship line of this nature- I would hardly be an authority on that point. The hon. gentleman speaks about wood. Very little wood would go to the Maritime Provinces from British Columbia, because in the Maritime Provinces we produce more than enough for ourselves; we are exporters. New Brunswick, for instance, is a very heavy exporter of lumber to the European markets. We frequently require heavy timber from British Columbia, but the total purchases during a year would not amount to very much and the shipments are usually brought to the Atlantic coast by rail. That would be much cheaper than bringing it by water, because one would never want to bring a whole shipload of timber from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Shipload after shipload of timber has come from British Columbia to the Atlantic coast of Canada-35,000,000 feet was brought to Toronto on one order


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What was the dimension of that timber?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Large dimensions. The same is true of Quebec, St. John and Halifax. During the last two years every port on the Atlantic coast has been buying millions and millions of feet of timber from British Columbia.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am referring to long timber, which I know comes to the eastern provinces by rail.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am referring to shiploads of timber, whether you call it long, short, or any other kind.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: An occasional shipload may come from British Columbia to the Maritime Provinces, but not enough to justify the construction and
9 p.m. operation of two steamships.
This vote, which contemplates the construction and operation O'f two steamships, is not really a vote of the Intercolonial railway system, and we ought not to be asked to pass it upon that basis. If the Intercolonial railway are going into the steamship business they should not purchase wooden shipping at $125 per ton; they should wait until steel tonnage is available, because for the present and for possibly a year or two there will be very little traffic between the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast. If this vote is for developing trade between the Atlantic and the Pacific coast, and as it is the judgment of hon. members that that should be done in one form or another, it should be done by a subvention granted to a company experienced in the operation and management of steamships.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend and other hon. gentlemen opposite have referred very slightingly to the trade between the eastern part and the western part of Canada. I will enumerate, as far as I can, some of the things we want to buy from the East and some of the things we sell to the East. For instance, through my efforts, a large nail factory on the Coast changed its purchases of steel rods from Great Britain to Nova Scotia, and it is now buying from the Nova Scotia Steel Company about two or three carloads of steel rods per month.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: When did that
happen?


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is going on now.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: When did it start?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Within the last two
years.
Mr. A. Ii. MACLEAN: The Pacific coast, of course, would be glad to buy steel rods from any place to-day.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This firm desired to buy them in Canada and it was through an arrangement made with the Intercolonial railway and the Nova Scotia Steel Company that the transaction was effected.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They could not
get them in Great Britain.


Mr. NESBITT:: Or in the United States.


Henry Herbert Stevens: We buy from Ontario
large quantities of wire fencing and all manner of agricultural and milling machinery. Practically all our saw mill machinery comes from Ontario and Quebec. We have to transport that by vessel, or we have to pay a very high rate of freight for the long haul by rail. We buy a great deal of our hams, bacon and other produce of that kind from Ontario or from packers in Seattle and Portland. British Columbia buys large quantities of canned goods for use in the mining camps in the northern parts of British Columbia and in the Yukon. Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of canned goods a year now brought from California, could be brought from eastern Canada-a considerable quantity is bought from eastern Canada now. When there was an occasional ship sailing from New York to the Pacific coast British Columbia dealers would buy the goods in eastern Canada, ship them to New York and from there to Seattle, pay the duty, and still manage to carry on the business. If we can buy in eastern Canada and bring these goods via the Panama^canal direct to Vancouver of Victoria, that will eliminate the duty and will enable us to do business on what we consider a reasonable and fair basis. My hon. friend speaks slightingly of the timber business. We do not deprecate the timber business of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; we know there^ is a certain amount of it in those provinces. But for heavy construction, you have tc^ get timber that is not produced in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. For years and-years you have been importing southern pine from Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia. We can supply the finest of timber just as cheaply or more cheaply than you can get it from the southern states. Why then, in the name of Heaven, should not the western part of Canada serve the East wiith timber and the East supply the

West with other goods? A British Columbia broker about a year ago last Mareh went to Kingston, Jamaica, and in nine months he developed a trade between eastern Canada and Jamaica amounting to $180,000 for last year. He is trying to do business with the West. I had a letter from him only yesterday. We can export from the western coast oats, hay, lumber, shingles, fish, potatoes, and other such products and we can import the products of the West Indies. This line of ships is designed to do this trade between the ports of eastern Canada and of British Columbia via Jamaica and the Panama canal.
There you have a perfect trade route: part of your cargo from eastern Canada will be for the West Indies and part of it for British Columbia, and vice versa. I cannot see why hon. gentlemen opposite object to the construction of these two ships for the purpose of initiating that trade route. The member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) said this afternoon that we wanted all the tonnage we could get on the Atlantic in order that the products of the Maritime Provinces might be taken to Europe. I would point out that scores of ships have been taken from the Pacific 'coast to carry on that trade between the Atlantic seaboard and Europe. I do not dispute the importance of that trade, but there should be no objection to the building of a couple of small and comparatively cheap wooden ships to keep up the trade between the two coasts of Canada.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The hon. gentleman tries to make it appear that I opposed any effort in the direction of developing the interprovincial trade to which he refers. I thought I made it clear that I was not against that, but I did say I would take other means to that end. I object to the purchase and operation by the Government of these wooden ships.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend may be perfectly sincere in what he says, but he ridiculed the idea' of trade between eastern Canada and the West


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Just at present.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The hon. gentleman is wrong; a very extensive trade is being carried on now, in spite of prevailing handicaps, between eastern and western Canada. Even to-day we purchase from the manufacturing concerns of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and other western cities very large quantities of manufactured goods which we could buy in Ontario, Quebec and
the Maritime Provinces. We feel that we would rather purchase those goods within Canadian territory, and we can do that if we get the transportation facilities.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Would Ontario goods go over that route?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Would it be cheaper to ship via Halifax and the Panama canal from western Ontario than to send the goods overland?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes. The freight rate from Toronto in the winter time via Halifax around by the Panama canal to Vancouver is very much cheaper than the rate from Toronto overland. We Secured reams of detail in this matter; the Board of Trade looked into it; a delegation came here and demonstrated beyond question the fact that transport by this proposed route would be infinitely cheaper than by rail. Even now we buy goods from the eastern States, take them to New York, ship them by an American line to Seattle, tranship to Vancouver,' pay the duty, and beat out Canadian overland freight rate.


William Pugsley: I have here a copy of the contract which the minister was good enough to lay on the Table, and I want to give a few particulars as to the specifications, The length of keel is set out as 226 feet; breadth of vessel, 44 feet; depth of hold, 19 feet. On the basis of $230,000, the cost of the machinery, and plans, etc., was to be $115,000; the rest would go for the hull. One half, therefore, would be for the hull and the other half for machinery and plans. It is proposed to pay $300,000 for each of these ships.


Francis Cochrane: Oh, no, it is not.


William Pugsley: That is what the minister is asking.


Francis Cochrane: That does not mean that he is going to pay it.


William Pugsley: That would be at the rate of $120 a ton. As the member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) pointed out, that is nearly the cost of a steel vessel. At all events, the owners of shipyards in the eastern provinces ought to have an opportunity of tendering for these ships. The Minister of Customs says that the reason why tenders were not invited from eastern Canada was because it would cost more to build the ships there; that they had not the timber in eastern Canada.



At present the construction of two ships is being proceeded with in St. John for the Imperial Munitions Board; I think each vessel is 2,500 tons, the same tonnage as that of the ships here contracted for by the minister.


John Dowsley Reid: Captain Norcross, the head of the Canada West Coast Navigation Company, told me that there were some little extras that would probably have to be added to the amount of that contract. He told me also that the vessels could not be built as quickly for the .price in eastern. Canada; that is why the contract went to British Columbia.


William Pugsley: I would assume that the contract of the Canada West Coast Navigation Company was at a somewhat lower rate. These specifications say that some additions are made in the schedule; I assume that they would be included in the $230,000.


John Dowsley Reid: There were some others in addition to that.


William Pugsley: The Minister of Customs says that he advised the Minister of Railways to undertake this work. But the Minister of Customs himself, not the Minister of Railways, signed this contract. The signatures are as follows:
Wallace (Shipyards, Limited,
(Signed) A. Wallace, Managing Director. (Signed) J. D. Reid, Acting Minister of Railways and Canals.


John Dowsley Reid: The Minister of Railways knew all about it; if I remember rightly, he signed the Order in Council. He happened to be away at the time, but it was all submitted to and confirmed by him.


William Pugsley: The reason why the
Intercolonial railway is charged with the burden of these two ships is that the Minister of Customs was at Vancouver about a year ago. He got in touch with the enterprising gentlemen of Vancouver, and he promised this steamboat connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific. He had to carry out his promise when he came back, and that is why this burden is laid upon the Department of Railways rather than upon the Trade and Commerce Department, where the burden would be chargeable to the general revenue of Canada. I protest against this additional burden being laid upon the Intercolonial railway, with which this steamship line will not be in any way connected.
Of course I can understand why the Minister of Customs should take hold of it in

the Railway Department, because he knew perfectly well if he left it to the Department of Trade and Commerce he would never get it. My hon. friend, heard the Minister of Trade and Commerce reproached for not doing anything for the encouragement of shipbuilding in Canada, and saw that the minister simply told us in that dreamy style of his of the great ideas he had for the development of shipbuilding after the war. The Minister of Customs could not wait so long, because he had pro^ mised the people of Vancouver to deal with the matter more quickly. The Minister of Trade and Commerce spoke this afternoon with reference to the charge that the Government had done nothing for,the encouragement of shipbuilding. He admitted it, but he showed the difficulties in the way and said " You cannot get steel plates to-day." Well, if that is the case to-day it has not been the case during the three years since the war began, when if proper encouragement had been given the building of ships could have been undertaken most successfully in Canada. I want to read a newspaper extract showing what the United States Government is doing in the way of shipbuilding, and I woufd ask the committee and the people of this country to contrast it with- the do-nothing policy of this Government during the last three years:
A Washington despatch says that contracts for the construction of three immense government-owned shipyards for building fabricated steel merchant vessels have been awarded to the Submarine Boat Corporation at Newark, N.J., the American International Corporation at Hog Island, Pa., and the Merchants Shipbuilding Company at Chester, Pa. Each yard will cost $35,000,000 and contracts have been let for 200 ships to be built in each.
Within comparatively few weeks of the United States becoming engaged in the war, they have provided for the creation of three great shipyards, and let contracts for the building of 600 steel ships. Such an example of the vigorous way in which the United States is engaged in shipbuilding ought to put this Government to shame.


John Allister Currie: How many ships have
they built?


William Pugsley: The contract is for 600.


John Allister Currie: They have not built one
ship. It is only a week since they gave the contracts.


William Pugsley: They have only beeu
in the war a few weeks. Although they have only been engaged in the war a short time, they, have already made arrangements for these three shipbuilding plants,

and have given contracts for 600 vessels. That is a record which puts this Government, which has done nothing in the direction of shipbuilding, in a position they ought to feel. In the past this Government has neglected their duty to the country, but even at this late day they ought to he encouraged to make a different course and engage without delay in the building of a reasonable number of ships in order to meet so far as possible the requirements of our country and of the Empire.


John Allister Currie: as the other work of the Intercolonial. Those ships would he classed A-l by Lloyds, and would have a life of about seven years. The freight charges from three voyages of one of those ships would, more than pay for the ship. It is the freights that can be earned by ships that make ships valuable to-day. They are paying as high as $60 a ton across the Atlantic.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: My hon. friend is wrong because he would be competing against Canadian railways, and rates would have to be as low or lower than Canadian rail rates. My hon. friend is talking about transatlantic freights.


John Allister Currie: I am going to deal with the question of rates between East and West by and by. I am speaking of what it costs to ship goods abroad.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The hon. gentleman wa3 in error when he was talking about the excessive freight rates which these wooden ships would earn. He is referring to the case of transatlantic rates.


John Allister Currie: I am going to deal with that if the hon. gentleman will keep quiet for a few minutes. 1 am talking about transatlantic freight. The rate is as high as $60 a don for transatlantic freight, this is because tonnage is not to be had. That is why there is such a demand for ships and material. For that reason the Government are absolutely justified in going into the building of ships, because there is going to be a great shortage of ships for the next six or seven years. Any kind of ships that will carry tonnage to any part of the world are sure to receive ample freight and high rates for that work.


William Pugsley: But the trouble is that they have not built any ships yet.


John Allister Currie: I am going to come back to the United States to point out to the hon. member for St. John that in the United States for the past six or seven years


William Pugsley: Six or seven years?


John Allister Currie: Six or seven months, a
cTimp has occurred in tonnage on account of the tremendous losses caused by the .submarines. That condition did not exist in the first half of the war. During the first half of the war the submarine damage did not amount to anything. But tonnage on the ocean has new become short. If we cannot get iron and steel plates-'and everybody knows we cannot-it is absurd to talk

about building steel ships. Ships now can only be built of wood.
Now, I come to the question of trade between East and West. The Panama canal was built for the purpose of carrying freight between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the United States. It is extremely fortunate for this country that we are able to utilize that carnal for the carrying trade between the East and the West. Unlike the United States, we have a stopping place at Jamaica and other others of the the British West Indian islands which are British territory and many of which give a preference to Canadian trade. They are a great advantage to us, and the trade with them is going to be much more extensive when matters become settled again. Then, there are Mexico, Venezuela and other Central American countries which Canada has only recently been able to touch. 1 know from personal experience that trade is now going on between Canada and Colombia and other Central American countries, whereas we never got a dollar of it before. That trade can be built up into a vast business. We bear gentlemen from Nova Scotia always kicking about the trade of this country. They have been up in arms against the National Policy and they have set the eastern provinces back twenty-five years by the course which they have pursued. Iron is taken from Sydney to Toronto, made into stoves and sent back to Sydney and to other places in the East and sold or exported. In many other things a similar process takes place. Why should that be? The development of manufacturers in the Maritime Provinces has been discouraged by this free trade talk. Instead of encouraging the people to build up industries in their own towns and villages as Ontario has done, they became discouraged and have gone over to the New England States and carried on the industries there with their brains and ability. As a matter of fact if you enter any of the great shops in the New England States and are sent to the manager, to the man whose brains and energy are building up these large plants which are employing thousands of workmen, you will find that he is a Canadian, a native of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick who has left this country. Why? Because the public men, the men who rule the destinies of these provinces, are opposed to building up the industries of those provinces, and they are just as much opposed to any increase in the manufacturing industry to-day as they have been in the past.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: We are making stoves, in Nova Scotia and selling them in British Columbia.


John Allister Currie: That is very lately.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: No, long years ago.


John Allister Currie: Only a few years. Most of the hardware has been made outside of Nova Scotia. It is only within a few years that there was such a thing as a slide rule in Nom Scotia. The educational system was along the line of the classics-Greek and Latin-and it was only when the industries were started at Amherst and Sydney that they began manufacturing hardware products. Then, to-day, we have the hon. member for Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) talking free trade in ships; and it is argued that the cost of ships is cheaper in England than in any other place in the world. That has been due to the fact that skilled mechanics in England and Scotland got such low wages. But that condition has changed and shipbuilding will never be carried on in any part of the world as cheaply as it has been in the past. There is no merit in low wages, and there is no merit in producing goods at a loss. The only thing that there is merit in is making a profit. What benefit is it to a man if he does not get a profit out of his employment?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Do I understand my hon. friend to say that each country should manufacture within itself everything that it consumes?


John Allister Currie: That is a very primary question in political economy and every one in the lower grade-	.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Answer.


John Allister Currie: A student in the lower grade of political economy would know that.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What is my hon. friend's answer?


John Allister Currie: There is a certain country to-day that is carrying on a great war and that is Germany-


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Answer the question.


John Allister Currie: It is manufacturing and doing all its own business within its own borders at the present time, and it still seems* to be getting along famously with it. If we were to purchase less from abroad and if we did not purchase unnecessary
things in the United States our credit might be better than it is to-day.


John Howard Sinclair: Does the hon. gentleman think the Germans are getting on better than Great Britain is?


John Allister Currie: Being a loyal British subject the hon. gentleman would not expect-any answer from me to that question, but what I do say is that that country is not getting along better.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Would the hon. gentleman allow me to interrupt him?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: I
would request the hon. gentleman (Mr. Currie) to come back to the question of ship-building.


John Allister Currie: This is just a little digression. Hon. gentleman have been making political speeches all afternoon.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am correct then, am I not, in the understanding that it is the hon. gentleman's view that Canada and all the countries of the world should manufacture for themselves everything they require and that being the case there would be no need of shipping.	.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman is endeavouring to put an answer into my mouth which, he knows very well, I did not give, because it is our business and should be our business as a country which is undertaking great expenditures in this war to sell and export as much as possible and to buy as little as possible from other countries if we are going to pay our debts. That is an answer which my hon. friend might sleep over and figure out the meaning of in the morning.
Now, to come back to the question of ships; the time of the House was spent idly this afternoon in discussing the question of expanding the shipbuilding industry. The Government has done wonders. My hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Hazen) has assisted in placing contracts in every shipbuilding yard that is available in this country. To-day you cannot find ten feet of yard space that is not employed. Every machine shop, every engine-buiding concern, is filled with contracts for marine engines. So far as the policy of this Government in purchasing and having built wooden ships is concerned, l think it is a most excellent policy, and that the people of this country would justify the Government in building not only two ships but twenty, because they will be needed. Twenty wooden ships would

not be too many, 'because you cannot get the steel plate to build steel vessels unless you wait for three or four years, and that would be too long to wait if we want to increase the export of the goods of this country. One thing that is militating against the increase of the munitions industry in this country and causing the closing down of munitions work, is that tonnage is not available to export shells. I have in mind one yard where I saw piled up from eight to ten thousand tons of steel shells and ingots for use in Great Britain, piled up and rusting for the reason that there is no tonnage. The hon. member says private capital should build the ships. But every dollar of private capital that can be got to go into ships is in shipbuilding at the present time, and the only thing to do is for the Government to get what tonnage they can for Canada, and to carry on in tie way they are doing. It seems absurd for this House or any member to claim that the Government is not doing its duty so far as shipbuilding is concerned. The shipbuilding industry in this country i-s more flourishing than the shell-making or any other industry, even farming, and for that reason the claim that the Government is not doing its duty -towards that industry is absurd. I repeat that it is absolutely necessary for this country to see that in trade the East and West are joined together. The United States Government, when it built the Panama canal only two years ago, passed a law that no railroad company would be allowed to carry on the business of steamship transportation through the Panama canal. The American people claimed that a line of steamers through the canal should be controlled by the United States Government. Thus we are going along the lines suggested by the Americans. Many of those ships that are new being built-the thousand ships that the hon. member has mentioned-are for this very trade. Are we going to be behind the Americans? Is it not necessary for us to carry on our business in the same way as they are doing? I repeat that the Government are amply justified in this course, and if we are to have a great railway system such as we have, we must have its complement in the ships, and I think the time of this House has perhaps been well spent in showing up the absolute ignorance of hon. gentlemen opposite of the business of shipbuilding in this country.


John Howard Sinclair: Will the hon. member tell us what kind of boats the Minister of

Marine is building? It is news to us that the minister has a large number of ships under construction, and I feel interested. Are they steel or wooden ships? [DOT]


John Allister Currie: I understand that the
Minister of Marine will have his own estimates under consideration and then the House can get full information.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not see why the hon. member should not give us all the information we want on any subject whatever.


John Allister Currie: He is building both wood and iron ships, so far as I can ascertain.


John Howard Sinclair: But the hon. member told us a minute ago that we could not build any steel ships.


John Allister Currie: The contracts were let before the rush period. You cannot have your cake and eat it.
To provide amount required to be paid for the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway, the Quebec and Saguenay railway and the LotbiniSre and Megantic railway, and for the equipment, appurtenances and properties used in connection with such railways, to be acquired under the authority of a statute passed at the last session; and to provide for the cost of completing, equipping and operating tiie said railways

the operating expenses to be chargeable to revenue-revote, $3,667,745.07.


William Pugsley: Would the minister explain how this amount of $3,667,745.07 is arrived at? It puzzles me to know how the minister could get it down right to the 7 cents. The amount is to be determined by the judge of the Exchequer Court.


Francis Cochrane: Four million dollars was put in last year ,and the difference between this amount and $4,000,000 was spent last year on construction.


William Pugsley: I should like to know how the minister came to arrive at $4,000,000. Under the statute, the amount to be paid was left to be settled by the Exchequer Court, and it w,as provided that the judge must be guided by the actual value based on the cost, deducting the amount of subsidies. In reading over the judgment of the judge of the Exchequer Court, I find that he leaves the amount very indefinite. In respect to one road, the Quebec and Montmorency, the claim being made that the value was some $2,000,000, I find it stated that the representative of my hon. friend, who would be the counsel for the Crown, stated that he was perfectly willing that this two million odd dollars should

be taken as the cost of the road. The judge, however, says that he cannot accept that view. He says that it strikes him as utterly absurd that a road like that could have cost in the vicinity of $90,000 per mile, which this $2,000,000 would represent. He declines to accept that view, and concludes that a large portion of the alleged $2,000,000 never went into the road, that the road never cost anything like that money, and that hundred's and thousands of dollars which it was claimed had gone into the road in the opinion of the judge, had not gone into it. The judge leaves that and a number of other questions entirely unsettled and suggests that there should be an appeal, if anybody thinks he is wronged, to the Supreme Court of Canada in order to set him right if he is wrong. How did the minister come to put in the $4,000,000 last year?


John Dowsley Reid: That was all explained last year at the time the Bill went through.


William Pugsley: The difficulty is that in these times the people are apt to forget the explanation. I notice a determined effort on the part of the Government now in its legislation to try to induce the people to forget all these things-to forget the Quebec and Saguenay, to forget the Canadian Northern railway, to forget a great many of the evil matters which this Government has perpetrated upon the people of this country; and it is well that their memory should be refreshed in reference to this Quebec and Saguenay deal. I do not think it out of place to ask how the minister arrived at $4,000,000. The Minister of Customs has such an imagination that I am rather afraid to let [DOT] him explain.


Francis Cochrane: He put it through
last year and explained it then.


William Pugsley: If he will really keep
down to facts and not draw too much on his imagination-


John Dowsley Reid: I put this matter through the House last year, as the minister was ill and I was acting for him. At that time L gave a statement showing the estimated cost of the three different railways, first the Quebec and Montmorency, on which it was stated there were two and one-half million bonds, then the Megantic and Lotbiniere, which I think it was stated, cost $332,000-1 am trusting to my memory, in regard to these figures. I have not the figures of the Quebec and Saguenay, but there was a very large amount spent on that road, and bonds were issued to a large
amount; I cannot recall the figures. But this company stated that they were willing to take, I think fifty cents on the dollar for the amount invested. At all events the whole three amounts were added together, and it was estimated the .amount would be about $4,000,000, and in, addition there were the $2,500,000 of bonds. It was provided that if it found that the Quebec and Montmorency did not cost the amount stated, the difference was to be taken out of the purchase price; and if the Megantic and Lotbiniere road, or the Quebec and Saguenay, did not cost the amount stated, the amounts to be allowed would be reduced accordingly. The whole matter was left entirely to the judge of the Exchequer Court. It has been before the judge, and on his judgment the Government must settle this matter. The judge, as I understand it has not come to a final decision; that is, the parties do not agree that his judgment is sufficient.


William Pugsley: Has there been an
appeal by either side?


John Dowsley Reid: No, but the matter is stilt
before the judge. In the meantime, after this Bill had been passed, the Government started to finish the construction, and it was necessary to do so, because the work already done was fast deteriorating. The valuation, of course, as explained last year, was on the basis of what it was before the work was stopped, and any deterioration and any subsidies were to be deducted. Tbe work was started. Contractors were put to work to complete the road, and three hundred and some odd thousand dollars have already been expended in building bridges and making grades and getting the road ready for the laying of rails. I understand that if the rails could be procured they would have that road in operation to Murray Bay this fall, but the difficulty has been to get new rails. That is the position, and all we are asking now is to have the matter in the Exchequer Court, where it now is, and leave the vote as it is, so that after the judge of the Exchequer Court gives his decision we may be ini a position, with the amount voted last year and now revoted, to settle the transaction. If they do not come to any conclusion, the matter remains as it wae, with this exception, that the road will be completed and in operation. Until the judge gives that decision, and the owners give the title, of course no payments can be made on the capital of the road. But the Government can use the small portion of this road, and put it in operation and let

the public have the advantage of it, pending the final decision.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I am very glad of the explanation given just now by my hon. friend the Minister of Customs. It shows that if the Government were to abandon part of this scheme and confine its efforts to completing the latter portion, it would be the best thing for Canada and the taxpayers. Last year the Department of Railways and Canals decided to purchase three different railways. First the Lotbiniere and Megantic on the south shore, the Quebec and Montmorency, running from Quebec to St. Joachim, and the Quebec and Saguenay, running from the terminus of the Quebec and Montmorency to Nairn's Falls. Out of this third section about nine miles have been constructed at the tail-end of the line, from Murray Bay to Nairn's Falls. Parliament last year decided, at the same time, that the value of the three railways should be fixed by the Exchequer Court. The section of the statute, chapter 22 of 67 George V, reads:
The consideration to be paid for each of the said railways and for any equipment appurtenances and properties that may be acquired as aforesaid, shall be the value thereof as determined by the Exchequer Court of Canada ; said value to be the actual cost of said railways less subsidies and less depreciation, but not to exceed $4,349,000, exclusive of outstanding bonded indebtedness, which is to be assumed by the Government, but not to exceed in all $2,500,000.
'Subsequently the Government put in the supplementary estimates of last year the sum of $4,000,000. The item reads:
To provide amount required to be paid for the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix Railway, the Quebec and Saguenay Railway and the LotbiniSre and Megantic Railway, and for the equipment, appurtenances and properties used in connection with such railways, to be acquired under the authority of a statute passed at the present session; and to provide for the cost of completing, equipping and operating the said railway-the operating expenses to be chargeable to revenue-revote, $4,000,000.
This year the item reads as it did last year. But I must remind my hon. friend and the Minister of Railways and Canals that this item cannot 'be spent unless it is spent by virtue of the statute passed last year. I do not see how the Department of Railways and Canals could spend any sum out of that vote without the Exchequer Court having passed on and fixed the value. However, after Parliament was prorogued, the matter was referred to the Exchequer Court. The railway companies and the de-

partment were represented. The department meanwhile made an agreement which was signed by the parties, embodying the statute-the will of Parliament.
The question came up before the Exchequer Court. As I stated a moment ago, the companies were represented, by veiy able counsel, and so was the Department of Railways and Canals. The railway companies filed a claim on which they did their best to make a case which would give them the right to obtain these amounts:
For the Quebec, Montmorency and
Charlevoix	$2,942,397.58
For the LotbiniSre and Megantic..	349,208.85
For the Quebec and Saguenay... 5,543,867.32
But they were limited by the statute which had been passed a few months before by this Parliament. The maximum price agreed by Parliament to be paid was $4.-
349,000	plus the assuming by the Government of debentures of the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway amounting to 82,500,000, making a total of 86,849,000 as against $8,834,867.32 as claimed by the railway companies. I am pleased to say that the ease came before Sir Walter Cassels who gave his attention to it, and throughout the many sittings of the Ex-
10 p.m. chequer Court, as evidenced by the bulky documents which I have perused, Sir Walter Cassels protected the interests of the department and of the Dominion to a remarkable degree. Nobody need be surprised at that; he did his plain duty, but I am glad to pay him this compliment that he was the faithful protector of Canada in that case. What happened? It would take too long to go through the voluminous evidence which was unravelled before Sir Walter Cassels, but in the case of the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway, he deducted first $500,000 for one item and then $794,869.58 for another, making a total of $1,294,869.58.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: What were those items
for?


Rodolphe Lemieux: I will give that information in a moment. Those two items had been admitted by the counsel of the Government, but notwithstanding that admission, Sir Walter Cassels said:	No, I will
not accept them; the company is not entitled to those two items; and I will put them aside. The $500,000 was supposed to have gone into the construction of the railway, but according to the evidence, the judge found that amount had not gone into construction. The other item of $794,869.58 was floating liabilities. Let me read the

reference by Sir Walter d'assels to the admission of the counsel. He says:
Now It Is admitted that these two items of $500,000 referred to in schedule "A" and also the item of $794,869.58 floating liabilities, comprise part of this item of $2,038,149.40. Crown counsel in their statement were of opinion that these two items of $500,000 and $794,869.58 should be taken as the cost up to that date, namely, July 1, 1898. I do not agree with that contention. I fail to see how it can be assumed without further proof that the proceeds of these interim bonds, namely $500,000, went into the construction of the railway. They may or they may not. That is a question of proof.
But the judge said there had been no proof of that amount having entered into the construction of the road. That is as regards the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway.	_ _
We come now to the Lotbinifere, Me-gantic railway which w-as the subject of a claim on the part of the railway company for $349,208.85. The evidence which I read did not satisfy Sir Walter Cassels, who said: Only one witness, -a Mr. Robbins, was heard. He claims that that road cost $11,000 per mile; this is only a surmise; there is no positive evidence, and his evidence in any case is too airy; I cannot accept it until further evidence is given, and therefore, I put aside the amount claimed for the Lotbinifere and Megantic.
Then he comes to the Quebec and Saguenay. The company claimed $5,543,867.32. Sir Walter Cassels puts aside, first, the discount on two flotations of bonds, amount-* ing to $863,000; second, the fees for the listing of bonds, amounting to $63,465.09; third, interest on the bond issue, $1,012,950. So that for that third railway Sir Walter Cassels deducted from the claim made by the company $1,939,415.09. Sir Walter Cassels, after giving his reasons for his judgment, says that he anticipates an appeal from his judgment by the railway companies. The other day 1 stated to the committee that an appeal had been lodged, but I have since ascertained that I was mistaken; an appeal had been lodged by the same people in another case. Unless the company appeal from that judgment it will hold good, and the Minister of Railways cannot come to any settlement with the company unless he accepts the reductions made by Sir Walter Cassels, amounting, for the three railways, to $2,751,985. The counsel for the department recommended the payment of that large amount, but were met by the deductions of Judge Cassels. Last year the member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle), when this question came l.p before the House, used very strong language.


John Dowsley Reid: With reference to the two items that the hon. gentleman says counsel agreed to accept; what were they for?


Rodolphe Lemieux: They were the item for $500,000, which was supposed to have been used towards the construction of the Quebec and Montmorency, and the other big item in connection with the floating liabilities. The judge rejected these.


John Dowsley Reid: Was there any detail in respect of the floating liabilities?


Rodolphe Lemieux: Let me read again this paragraph from the judgment:
Now it is admitted that these two items of $500,000 referred to in schedule "A" and also che item of $794,869.58, floating liabilities, comprise part of this item of $2,038,149.40. Crown counsel in their statement were of opinion that these two items of $500,000 and $794,869.58 should be taken as the cost up to that date, namely, July 1, 1898. I do not agree with that contention. I fail to see how it can be assumed without further proof that the proceeds of these interim bonds, namely, $500,000, went into the construction of the railway. They may or may not. That is a question of proof. The bonds were held by the' various parties shown on page 15 of schedule "A"; they were held as collateral security by the various parties. What the nature of the debts due to these various par-; ties is I would have thought susceptible of proof-at all events, before such an item can be allowed further inquiry will be necessary, and so with regard to the liabilities. Unquestionably a considerable portion of them never went into the railway. Colonel Wurtele states as follows:
Colonel Wurtele was one of the witnesses as to cost of construction.
"Q. A lot of these items on their face do not appear to be items that went into the construction of the road, how is that? A. They may have gone into the operation of the road, we were operating the railway."
It would be impossible to accept Colonel Wurtele's evidence as proving the fact that these two particular items went into the construction of the railway. Other evidence would be required before I would be willing to accept those two sums of $500,000 and $794,869.50 as having been expended in the construction of this 21 miles of railway.
Further, he draws attention to the evidence given by Colonel Wurtele as to the cost of the railway. Colonel Wurtele said that it cost $92,000 a mile. It is proved by documents filed in the case that the cost of construction of a little extension of that railway a few years later, built with about the same material, when the cost of construction was higher, did not amount to more than $14,000 or $15,000 a mile.


John Dowsley Reid: The hon. member is talking about the Quebec and Montmorency railway now?


Rodolphe Lemieux: Yes. The judge makes these remarks about the striking evidence of Colonel Wurtele as to the cost of construction:
I may call the attention of counsel to the fact that in the trust deed, schedule "D," at page 19, there is the estimate of cost of constructing certain extensions. The total is 11 miles-and the total estimate is $149,947, which would be under $14,00Q_ a mile-and while of course the main railway previously built may not have been built at that low figure, the contrast between the two figures, namely, $92,500 a mile and the $14,000 a mile, is striking.
And it is striking, indeed. Proceeding with the Quebec and Saguenay, the judge says:
To my mind to allow these charges for obtaining moneybecause they charged a large amount of money for the issue of bonds and for the borrowing of money-
-and the interest for a period of years' might make the matter almost farcical. The railway might have laid dormant for a period of another twenty years. Meanwhile the interest on the bonds would have to be paid amounting to two or three million dollars, all of which, assuming the company paid the interest, would be charged up in their books to the shareholders, and if the argument put forward is correct in that case, the Crown when paying what is defined by the statute to be the actual cost of the railways, would be paying some three million dollars odd for interest, for which no value is given in return.
and the judge very naturally says, in concluding his reasons for the judgment:
It will be easy when the case is concluded, to arrive at the amount which, in my judgment, ought to be allowed. There will have to be deducted the allowance for depreciation, which has been settled. There will also have to be deducted the amounts received from the Dominion and provincial subsidies. These sums are not in dispute. There will also have to be deducted these items that I have just been referring to in connection with the Saguenay railway, and any amounts that should be deducted from the Montmorency and Charlevoix railway and the Megantic railway on a proper valuation being proved.


Mr. TAYLOR:: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question with reference to the sum for interest of which he has just been speaking? Was that sum based upon money borrowed during the construction period of the railway?


Rodolphe Lemieux: No. In the first place, the railway has not been constructed.


George Taylor: There is some construction.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I spend the summer at Murray Bay, and I know whereof I speak. 
The railway has not been constructed. There are no rails, there are no ties- nothing except the roadbed partly finished. Some years ago the company was exploiting another company, known as the Nairn Falls Pulp Company, at Naim Falls. In order to exploit the pulp proposition to advantage, it built the terminus of the railway, starting from Murray Bay wharf to Nairn Falls, about seven miles. No passengers are carried. The road was only built to transport pulp from the mills of the Nairn Falls Pulp Company to Murray Bay wharf.


Mr. SEVIGNY:: The Eastern Canada Pulp Company.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The Eastern Canada
Pulp Company. It is an outside enterprise altogether, and has nothing to do with the railway. Nothing has been constructed.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What about the road from Nairn Falls westward? How much of the link has not been constructed?


Rodolphe Lemieux: There are no rails, and no ties.


John Dowsley Reid: If my hon. friend would put it fairly, I think he would say the roadbed has been constructed, and is practically ready for laying the rails. In other words, if they had the rails ready to lay it would probably only take a month or two until they could be running trains right through to Murray Bay.


Rodolphe Lemieux: In all sincerity, I must 5ay my hon. friend is entirely at sea. The Minister of Railways and Canals will tell him that this year, in order to maintain what little work had been done on the roadbed, he has been obliged to take, illegally in my judgment, $400,000 from the amount voted last year. He will remember that that amount was voted with a qualification.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Three hundred and
thirty-five thousand dollars.


Rodolphe Lemieux: My hon. friend stated _
the other day that it was a revote from last year. The vote last year was for $4,000,000, and the difference between the two votes was spent on construction last year. They were trying to protect the road and putting in stone to prevent the current from washing out the ballast. Formerly a quantity of timber and other material was put in the sides for that purpose. The Minister of Inland Revenue and the Secretary of State visited the district last year and went over the road. They can tell

us that there is practically no work done. True, there is a little roadbed, but it has been partially destroyed. The Minister of Railways took this amount of money out of the vote of $4,000,000 last year to do some cement work to protect what little had been done. In my judgment, he took this amount illegally. I was just going to say to my hon. friend that the Government has decided to buy that property, whatever there is to be purchased, and to construct the road


Albert Sévigny: I think the roadbed is
practically complete between St. Joachim and Murray Bay, and if my information is correct over two million dollars was spent by the Quebec and Saguenay between those two points.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I may tell my hon.
friend that the so-called roadbed was built at a small cost. The company had no money, and in order to get money they issued bonds, and they had to pay twice the amount in order to satisfy Mr. O Brien, the contractor. It never cost $2,000,0000. Whatever was done had to be protected this year by the Minister of Railways and Canals, and I call his attention to the fact that he took that money out of the vote of last year, and in any judgment he could not spend one red cent out of that vote because it was conditional. The item in the appropriation made last year read as follows :
To provide amount required to be paid for the Quebec, Montmorency, and Charlevoix Railway, the Quebec and Saguenay Railway, and the Lotbiniere and Megantic Railway, and for the equipment, appurtenances and property used in connection with such railways, to be acquired under the authority of a statute passed at the present session, and to provide for the cost of completing, equipping, and operating the said railways, the operating expenses to be chargeable to revenue.
The statute enacts that the Exchequer Court shall fix the value, and the railways, of course could not be acquired until the Exchequer Court had passed on the actual cost. Therefore, any money spent by my hon. friend was illegally spent. I suppose he meant well when he did it, but nevertheless it was illegal. When this question came up last year, my hon. friend from Kingston (Mr. Nickle) used the following language, which applies this year as it applied last year.
But this I do want to say: in a time when the Empire is at war, when every dollar that Canada can raise is required for the legitimate purposes of the war-and as to this I have been deeply impressed by the speeches that the Minister of Finance has delivered in this House and elsewhere-I cannot bring myself
to add anything to the burdens of the people of this country. If these were ordinary times I might not feel so strongly on the question, but being influenced by the judgment of the Minister of Finance-and I have great respect for his judgment-and realizing that a commission is about to be appointed to consider the whole railway problem in Canada. I cannot see my way clear to voting for the continuance of this amount in the Estimates.
The conditions to-day are the same as they were last year. We are at war spending large amounts to maintain our status *at the front. We are taxed right and left. We are piling up a public debt which is simply appalling. We are borrowing at usurious rates of interest in the foreign markets, and this is no time to spend lavishly on a scheme which is simply nauseating. Every one who knows the origin of this scheme knows that it is nauseating. But, we discussed this matter last year when it came before the House.
I want to make a proposition to the Minister of Railways, and 1 think it is a fair one. The Lotbiniere and Megantic is a little bit of a road on the south shore of the river St. Lawrence in the counties of Megantic and Lotbiniere. It is a lumbering road. It has no relation whatsoever with the Quebec and Montmorency. It is several miles on the other side of the river and making towards Sherbrooke. It was intended to reach the United States boundaTy originally.


Mr. McKENZIE:: Who owned the road when the Government bought it?


Rodolphe Lemieux: It belonged to the same group of gentlemen. They launched an immense scheme on the European market. They advertised that scheme as being a semi-transcontinental railway. The road was to start at the United States boundary, cross the river St. Lawrence by the Quebec bridge, link up with the Quebec and Montmorency, which was a tramway originally designed to carry pilgrims to and from St. Anne's, and the Quebec and Saguenay railway, which, first of all, was to run to Nairn Falls, and which, it was afterwards announced, was to go as far as Cape Charles on the Labrador coast. That is how it was advertised in the very alluring prospectuses which were issued, and which captured the money of the innocent French investors on the other side of the Atlantic. But the Lotbiniere and Megantic had nothing to do with the Quebec and Montmorency and the Quebec and Saguenay. Let my hon. friend do away with that bit of railway. It is merely a lumbering road.

The people have never petitioned the Government to make it a government-owned railway. Then the Quebec and Montmorency is a paying proposition. It gives a good net income to the Quebec and Montmorency people. It is a system by itself The object of that road is to carry people from Quebec, and from different points in the province, to the famous shrine of Ste. Anne de Beauprd. There is no reason why, at the present moment, the Government should acquire that road. Leave it to the Quebec and Montmorency Company. I admit that the people of Charlevoix are in need of transportation and that they are entitled, as are other parts of the country, to a railway, although the Government spend a large amount of money every year for the maintenance of a ferry across the St. Lawrence from Raver Ouelle to St. Irenee, Murray Bay, and Cap a l'Aigle, on the north shore, the ferry being operated in connection with the Intercolonial railway. This ferry is a credit to the department, and the train service, in the summer time especially when there are so many tourists, is excellent. I pay my compliments to the minister for that. If the Government will limit their acquisitive powers to the Quebec and Saguenay I have no objection, provided they follow the line of the judgment of Sir Walter Cassels and provided they press the sponge and squeeze out all the water that there is in that enterprise. The judgment is there. The policy is laid down by Sir Walter Cassels. He has heard the evidence and at one fell swoop he has discarded a very large amount from the claim which was made by the railway promoters. I believe I have explained to the committee exactly what the situation is. My hon. friend has spent $400,000 out of that vote of last yeaT, hut I contend he has done it illegally, because the amount voted last year was voted with a qualification, namely, that before acquiring the railway the department should get from the Exchequer Court its actual value. The judgment is not final, but we have from the judge an expression of opinion which reduces very materially the amount wl.ich is claimed by the company. The company has not appealed. The words used by Sir Walter Cassels are as follows:
Since the conclusion of the hearing- of these cases, I have carefully perused the evidence and exhibits produced before me, and I have also considered the questions to he determined.
I think as the questions to he determined depend to such an extent upon the construction to be placed upon the statute as to the method by which the amounts payable are to be as-

certained, and as the differences are so large between the method of valuation claimed by the railway companies, and the views I entertain, it may be better before any further evidence is taken, that an appeal, if such is proposed, (assuming the right of appeal exists) should be taken to the Supreme Court, in order that I may be set right, if I have taken an erroneous view.
No appeal has been lodged and I claim that not a cent can be spent until we have a final judgment in this matter.


John Dowsley Reid: The Quebec and Montmorency road has been constructed for many years. The hon. member has stated that it is a paying road. It is a paying road, the railway returns show that. Were this transaction to go through, by the statements of the hon. member himself the Government would be acquiring a road that was a paying road, the Quebec and Montmorency. The Quebec and Saguenay road is practically completed except for the laying of the rails, and that road the hon. member has also said should be built as the people along the north shore are entitled to it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Do not stretch it too far.


John Dowsley Reid: I am speaking of what the hon. member has said.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Has the department any report by any of its engineers as to tlie condition of the road? We would prefer a report from an engineer.


John Dowsley Reid: I will come to that in a moment. The hon. member says that the amount spent last year on this road was spent illegally by the Minister of Railways. Let me say that on any payment by any department there is a double check. The Department of Justice must give a ruling that the moneys can be paid and the Auditor General must consent to their payment. Both the department and the Auditor General have passed this, so it has been done legally in the opinion of those two departments.
The policy of purchasing these roads was settled last year, and need not be discussed now. It was explained by the Secretary of State (Mr. Meighen) that the Government had protected itself in every way in respect to the purchase money being in accordance with the understanding, and it was left to the judge of the Exchequer court to fix the amount. The hon. member has laid great stress on the fact that the solicitor for the Government agreed to two amounts, one of $500,000 and the other of $789,000, and one would conclude from his remarks that in his opinion the solicitor who is acting for the Government either

was doing that on account of his not having sufficient ability to give the necessary attention to the matter, or else that he had some motive in agreeing to those two amounts. The solicitor was Mr. Meredith, of Montreal.


Rodolphe Lemieux: And Mr. Bernier, of
Quebec.


John Dowsley Reid: The admission was made by Mr. Meredith, the eminent counsel of Montreal, and he made it on his own responsibility and without any interference or suggestion from the Government. Mr. Meredith is one of the leading counsel in Montreal, and I do not think that the slightest reflection should be cast on him in connection with this or any other case. The Quebec and Montmorency is the road that has been built for many years and that is a good paying road.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Then why do the
owners not keep it if it is a paying concern?


John Dowsley Reid: I will answer that point in a moment. This was protected by the judge of the Exchequer Court being directed to determine the value.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Why do you help him to determine the value?


Rodolphe Lemieux: I wish to say that whatever I said about counsel for the Government should not be taken as a reflection on Mr. Meredith or Mr. Alphonse Bernier.
I simply quoted Mr. Justice Cassels. But the fact remains that the judge rejected two big items that they were ready to accept.


John Dowsley Reid: There seems to be an insinuation that Mr. Meredith had some kind of hint or reason for deducting that amount.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I hope my hon. friend did not think I would be guilty of casting a reflection on Mr. Meredith.


John Dowsley Reid: There were reasons for differences of opinion. I have not read any thing since the debate of last session. But, if I remember correctly, in that agreement or Bill of last year we inserted the provision that in purchasing each of these roads we would do so at the actual cost.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Yes.


John Dowsley Reid: The word " actual " was put in, and there is a possibility that the judge of the Exchequer Court, in determining the value of the Quebec and Montmorency
road, took into consideration the actual cost of the road when it was originally built. These items-I am only saying that this may be a possibility-may have been for construction since that time, and the judge could not allow them on account of the word "actual" having been put in the agreement.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The hon. gentleman has not read the judgment.


John Dowsley Reid: I admit I have not read it. The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) has said: " Why do not the owners want to keep this road?" So far as these gentlemen are concerned, they want to keep it. The hon. gentleman made the suggestion that if the Government would let the parties keep the Quebec and Montmorency, and the Megantic and Lotbiniere roads, he would not object to the Government taking over the Quebec and Saguenay.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I never said anything of the kind.	.


John Dowsley Reid: I am speaking of the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux). The Minister of Railways and Canals made an arrangement with these owners to take over the Quebec and Saguenay roads, and if the Bill had been brought in as was intended this session, it would have provided only for the taking over of the Quebec and Saguenay, with running rights over the other roads. These owners were going to keep those two pieces of road, and they were only too willing to keep the Quebec and Montmorency. I have the feeling that the hon. gentleman knew exactly what these parties intended to ask for, and what had been arranged when he made that suggestion a few minutes ago. He knew that was going to be done, and he is willing to-night to agree that the part that he knew paid very well, which made $100,000 last year, and has paid every year, should be abandoned. If the Bill had been introduced as intended it would have eliminated from the agreement of last year these two roads, just as the hon. gentleman suggested, and running rights would have been obtained over these roads that he knew paid so well. That would have been carrying, out exactly the h$n. gentleman's suggestion. So far as the judgment of the judge of the Exchequer Court goes, the Minister of Railways has stated that the Government will stand by that judgment, and nothing else; in fact, it cannot do otherwise. The hon. gentleman from Rouville is a lawyer of suffi-

cient ability and standing to know that we cannot under the Act of last year take over the Quebec and Saguenay alone. This item is a revote for the purposes of that Act. So far as the condition of the road is concerned, the hon. gentleman had the report last year on that subject. If I remember rightly, about 80 per cent of the roadbed had been completed. The work of this year to put the road into proper shape and in running order was carried on under the supervision of Mr. Gordon. Grant, Chief Engineer of the Transcontinental Railway. Every dollar of this three hundred arid some odd thousand has been spent under the supervision of Mr. Grant, and he told me, I should think some two or three months ago, that the road bed was practically completed clear through to Murray Bay. There were a few bridges which had to be completed; they were under contract, and if we could get the rails we would have the trains running through to Murray Bay during the present season. But, being unable to get the rails, they could not possibly complete it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Are you doing that to win the war?


John Dowsley Reid: We are doing that right now. And I say to the hon. gentleman that if we had brought in a Bill to change the present condition, it would have been to eliminate the other two roads and to take the Quebec and Saguenay alone. And that I understand, would have been satisfactory to the hon. gentleman. No conditions can be changed until an Act of Parliament has been passed. Referring to the point raised as to the money being spent illegally, I say that the Minister of Railways and Canals did it on the advice of the Minister of Justice, and with the consent of the Auditor General; and it was done with the object of getting the road completed at the earliest possible moment, so that the people would have the benefit of it. The Government were protected in the matter, because they would not pay one dollar of the purchase money until the judge of the Exchequer Court had given his judgment, which, of course, would be final and to the satisfaction of the Justice Department and of this House.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If I wanted to get an apologist for a rotten, miserable, weak case, that nobody could be found to defend,
I would go to my hon. friend the Minister of Customs. It is true he has not been admitted to the bar, but I have seen him perform so often in this House, and in the committees of the House, within the last 
ten or fifteen years, that I really take off my jjat to him as a member of the bar for ability in dodging, twisting, turning and scheming in the endeavour to put up a case when there was no case. He is an artist along those lines. I really do not think he has his proper place in the Administration. He would make a far better Minister of Justice than the gentleman who now occupies that position, because there are so many things that are laid to the door of this Government, things of which the country knows them to be guilty, and which none can defend with the same ease and grace as the hon. Minister of Customs. He would do far better than the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty), with his laboured, prolonged and strained utterances that nobody ever cares to follow and that nobody ever understands when they do follow them. My hon. friend has told us, with his tortuous windings, that it is. a good thing for this country to-day that the Government should take $3,667,745.07 out of the moneys that have 'been wrung from the people by direct taxation upon incomes and by various other methods that the Government have devised under the guise of winning the war and paying for war expenses, and hand it over to Rodolphe Forget for the purpose of enabling him to speculate in the stock of the Quebec and Saguenay. That is the true situation, no matter how the minister may sidestep or talk all around it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Sir Rodolphe Forget.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon. Titles are so numerous these days that one forgets to give these gentlemen who have acquired them the full name to which they are entitled.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The Government ought to tax them $10,000 apiece.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend from Carleton makes a good suggestion. We have found out that hon. gentlemen can get titles just the same as gentlemen can get titles in England, merely by buying them. That is one of the flatulent, silly, ridiculous things that hon. gentlemen opposite are perpetuating in this country for the purpose of patriotic performances under their Administration.


Francis Cochrane: Did Lord Shaughnessy buy his title?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I do not know anything about Lord Shaughnessy. He is a good friend of the minister's. It was my

hon. friend and his friends that interested themselves in making him a peer.


Francis Cochrane: I juet wanted to know if you accused him of buying his title.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The minister knows whether he paid for it or not, and if he paid for it, the minister should tell us. There are some other gentlemen who have got titles under thie Administration, and if the minister will give us the story of how they acquired them, I will sit down and let him tell us.


Francis Cochrane: I asked you a civil question. You made a statement, and I want you to back it up.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The minister is one of the gentlemen who advise His Majesty as to the giving of titles, and he knows whether the gentleman paid for it or not. I do not know. If the minister knows whether he paid for it or not, he should tell us.


Francis Cochrane: You made an accusation, and I want you to back it up.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The minister knows whether I am right or not. The minister is not denying my statement; he is asking me a question about somebody about whom I know nothing.


Francis Cochrane: You made a -broad
statement; you -said that they buy titles. I ask you if Lord Sh-aughnessy bought his.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What about the
other people?


Francis Cochrane: I am only asking about one. You made a broad statement.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Are titles for sale?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend
suggests that they are for sale. How much are they worth?


Francis Cochrane: I do not know. You
made the statement. Be either a man or a mouse. Back up your statements.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The Minister of
Railways does not belong to the committee of council which has to do with the sale of titles. If he did, he would know all about the matter. Consequently he i-s -asking me a question concerning which some of his colleagues, if he asked them, could tell him much more than I could.


Francis Cochrane: Do not make the
statement if you cannot back it up.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I was not referring
to Lord Shaughneesy, who is well worthy
of distinction. The -minister kn-owis to whom I refer.	[DOT]


Mr. DAVIDSON:: What about honorarycolonelcies?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend
speaks about honorary colonelcies. So far as I am concerned, I was appointed an honorary colonel by the late administration on the recommendation of all the officers of the 78th Regiment of my county who passed a resolution requesting that I should be made one. I never asked for it, and I am not particular whether the hon. gentleman's Government who promoted me to be an honorary colonel take -the whole thing away from me to-morrow. My hon. friend can ask the Minister of Militia to cancel my appointment. I shall have no regret.
The -CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dugald Stewart): Will the hon. member come back to the question under discussion?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will do -so if my
hon. friend from Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) will refrain from asking me questions.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: He has already been
answered.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Will you, Sir, restrain the minister and the hon. member from Annapolis?


Avard Longley Davidson: Does the hon. member think that regiment would make such a recommendation now?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Order.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If you, Sir, will keep the Minister of Railways and the hon. member from Annapolis in order, I will come back to the question under discussion. I have been diverted by these hon. gentlemen who have been asking me questions which I have been endeavouring to answer. Nobody knows better than the Minister of Customs that the reason- for Canada acquiring those three railways in war time is so grotesque that you cannot state a more grotesque proposition at any time, let -alone in war time. I can fancy that certain hon. gentlemen who support the minister, for instance the Minister of Inland Revenue (Mr. Sevigny), would be willing to get the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix made a Government railway so that his confreres could go down to Ste. Anne de Beaupre and visit the shrine there and get cured.


Albert Sévigny: It would be a very good thing for the hon. member to go down to Ste. Anne de Beaupre.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I happen to worship at a Presbyterian shrine and not at the shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupre.
< Mr. REID: Does the hon. member belong to my church?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I do not know how some of my hon. friend's confreres from Quebec who are so terribly anti-French these days-


Albert Sévigny: I do not think they are worse than the hon. member for Pictou.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The minister does not know my mentality.


Albert Sévigny: I know it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The minister knows that my ancestors and all my people and myself have been associates of the French race for three or four generations and we have no antipathy against them. He has associates behind him and men who support him, men who, I am surprised, would support a proposition that the Government of Canada should own and operate a railway for the purpose of carrying people to the shrine of Ste. Anne de^Beaupre. That is the only part of the railway which the Minister of Customs undertook to defend as being a commercial proposition. He said that part of the railway paid.


John Dowsley Reid: It was the hon. member for Rouville who said that.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend defended that proposition. He did not say anything about the Lotbiniere and Megantic or the Quebec and Saguenay. What I say is this: This whole proposition is a disgraceful perversion of * public
11 p.m. money in war time for the purpose of satisfying a political supporter from the province of Quebec. When you are taxing the people by the various methods adopted by this Government, when the Minister of Finance is speaking about economy, to divert this money for this purpose is absolutely defenceless.


Mr. NICKLE:: Last year when this question was before the House, I differed from my confreres on this side of the House as to the wisdom of the vote. The few remarks that I am now about to offer, let me assure the committee, shall not deal with my ancestors, nor the antagonism of any hon. member from Ontario to the province of Quebec. This is purely a business propositicn, and surely it is possible to approach it as such without endeavouring to stir up either political or religious animosi-

ties. I think I know those parts of the country in which those railways are situated fairly well, and I know something about their history. I can appreciate the desire that the people have that they should have railway communication like people in the other parts of the country more favourably situated I am not altogether blind to the fact that since the French settled on the northern bank of the St. Lawrence the winters have always been found tiresomely long, and the people have been more or less driven into isolation. If we were not at war, although the expenditure might be extravagant, I think I would be prepared to vote for the purchasing of those railways in the hope that they might give those people more adequate railway facilities. But, unfortunately, the country is at war, and our national resources are being taxed to their utmost, and, in my judgment ,the financial resources of this country are going to be taxed more in the future than they have been in the past. .
Only a year or two ago Lloyd George said that this war would be won as much by the "silver bullet" as by any other means. If that was true two years ago, it is obvious to us and to the world at large that it is equally true to-day. Putting that idea into commonplace expression, it simply means that that nation is likely to win the war which can stand the financial strain the longest and make the best resistance to the inroads on its financial standing. What is the standing of this country to-day? We started out borrowing $100,000,000 and $150,000,000. as the case might be, at a rate in the neighbourhood of 51 per cent. The next loan did no't sell quite so well. Lately we borrowed a few millions in New York at a cost of 6 or 7 per cent. If we are to believe what we see in the papers to-day- I speak only from that information-the next loan of $100,000,000 will likely cost us 6 per cent. In other words, money is getting dearer; it is getting harder to get the money that is necessary to carry on the war. No one who has watched the situation can be blind to the fact that England's financial resources are being strained, and that we in Canada are being called upon to bear part of the burden that England would otherwise bear. Under these circumstances we are asked to spend $4,000,000 in the purchase of what I consider to be unnecessary railways at this time. When last year I saw the confusion that arose in the arbitration before Mr. Justice Cassels, I rather hoped that we had heard the last

of this railway problem. The arbitration terms, as set out in chapter 22 of 6 and 7 George V, lay this down:
Said value to be the actual cost of said railways, less subsidies and less depreciation.
When that Act was introduced into the House last year I thought that the dice were pretty well loaded against the country. The cost was to be the amount that it had cost the railway companies to construct, regardless of whether or not consideration had been given to economy. This country was to pay for these three railroads the amount of money that 'had been put into their construction, less depreciation and less subsidies. I certainly thought that the owners of the railroad would grasp with avidity what was offered to them, but I was amazed, when I read the proceedings before the arbitrator, to learn that the solicitors for the owners set up that they were entitled to interest on the moneys invested, not only during the time of construction, but also during all the time that the railway had lain idle-because it had never been carried to completion. That seems to me to be an extraordinary contention, but I thought, as they had set it up, that probably wre had heard the last of the question. However, here we are to-night confronted with another vote. We are asked to vote $4,000,000 of the people's money to buy what I consider at the present time to be three unnecessary railroads. If some hon. gentleman opposite moves that this item be struck out, I shall, as I did a year ago, support the motion for the elimination of the item. I quite realize, after six years of parliamentary experience, that when an item of this kind is inserted in the estimates it is not very likely to be deleted. The Government put it there, and a majority of their followers will keep it there. But I direct the attention of the committee to this fact: I believe the time is coming- it may not be as far off as some of us think -when this nation may become war-weary. The people may become a bit weary of making sacrifices for this war, and if they do, it is purchases of this kind that will have helped to make them war-weary. If I judge aright the spirit of the Canadian people to-day, it is this: we are willing to sacrifice to the limit, but we want our Government to practice the same thrift, the same economy, that they ask us to practice. If the Government will give the example, I believe the people will follow; but it is the duty of the Government to give the example if they want the people ' to follow.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Last year when this vote of $4,000,000 was up, I took the liberty of moving that it be struck out. I thought it a great pity to use the people's money during the war to buy these three little railways, the purchases of which, to my mind, could not possibly be of any benefit to the people. The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) says that the vote is being taken in order to purchase these railways for the relief of Sir Rodolphe Forget. I do nolt know whether or not that is true; I am not going to say that it is. But I do say just what the member for Kingston said: the nation that can stand out the longest will probably win this war. We have to do our share, and so far as I know, every man and woman in the country is willing to do his or her share towards the payment of the legitimate expenses of the country. But the Government should set the example. They lecture us-quite properly on the saving of food, and on the exercise of economy; but they do not set the example them-selves. Last night we passed some votes that should not have been passed. To-night the Government ask us to pass this ridiculous vote of nearly $4,000,000. I agree with the member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) that the money that was spent this year on this road should not have been spent. The Minister of Customs may be right in saying that legally the Government was within its rights in spending the money, but morally they had no right to do so until the Exchequer Court's judgment had been received and the road had been taken over. They had no right to spend -any money on the roan until they owned it, and certainly they do not own it yet, because the judgment of the Exchequer Court has not been accepted by the present owners. From a business standpoint, therefore, the Government should not have spent one dollar on that road, whether they were legally entitled to do so or not. However, they have spent the money. I have the greatest possible regard for the Minister of Railways, and 1 am surprised -because I have faith in his business judgment-that he should have been induced to spend money on this road before it was properly taken over. The fact that the company have not accepted the judgment of the Exchequer Court gives the Government a goon excuse for not going any further and I think we should make that a reason for not voting money to-night for the purchase of this railway. We cannot afford to make any unnecessary expenditures.



5 <64
As representatives of the people we should set example to them of economy, but we are not doing that by any means in the votes that we are putting through. I hope the minister will apply his business sense and his good judgment to this matter and that he will agree not to press this vote.
I move that the item be struck out.


Mr. PROULX:: How much more does the Government intend to pay than the amount fixed by the Exchequer Court?


John Dowsley Reid: The intention of the Government is to take only the Quebec and Saguenay road. There is no intention of taking the other two.	.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: How can the minister say that, with the statute of last year confronting him?


John Dowsley Reid: The intention of the Bid
passed last year was to take over the three roads. The judge of Exchequer Court, however, has refused to accept two items of $500,000 and $700,000 odd, claimed in respect of the Quebec and Montmorency. That is the road which is completed. But the owners of the road do not want to accept the judgment.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: This will go through, or it will all fall through.


John Dowsley Reid: We would not go on only on the understanding that we would take the Quebec and Saguenay alone. The reason why ithe amount has been fixed, as I understand it, as to the value of the Quebec and Saguenay-I think the hon.' member stated the judgment of the Exchequer Court was that the Quebec and Saguenay was valued at a certain amount.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: It did not fix anything.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The judgment deducted large amounts, but did not fix any value.


John Dowsley Reid: As I understand it, if we wanted to take the Quebec and Saguenay alone, we could not do it under that Act, because the Bill provided for the taking of the three, and the Government will not take the three, but only the Quebec and Saguenay.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: What authority have they for that?


John Dowsley Reid: We are leaving it in the same position; we are leaving it to the new Parliament to decide. We cannot take any action under this Act because it provides for acquiring the three roads.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Then, this item should not be before the Committee.


John Dowsley Reid: Yes, it should, and I will tell you why. When this Act was passed, there was an agreement made to take it over in accordance with the Act. Then the Government went on to complete the road and get it ready for operation, and $332,000 has been expended on it. I do not think there is any other way that it can be done except to leave the amount as it is.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I think the statement of the minister brings this matter up in such a way that I could not allow it to go by unchallenged, although up to the present time I had not intended speaking upon it. I was not in the House to any extent last year when this matter went through, as I was engaged elsewhere, and I have never given the matter any personal consideration. I have always made it a point not to discuss questions of this kind unless I have had an opportunity of studying them pretty carefully. During the last half hour I have gone oveT the statute, and over the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassels, and I do not see how in the world the minister can pretend to take over one portion of the railway, and not take them all.


John Dowsley Reid: That is what I said, I think.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then, surely the item should be dropped. Let me point out the statute under which the minister is acting. I will not go into the reasons which actuated the Government. I do not believe sufficient reasons were given for the passing of the statute. Although I was not here, I have a general knowledge of what was going on, and it certainly is something that does not reflect credit upon the business judgment of the Government, and I know it does not appeal to the business judgment of the Minister of Railways. I am like my friend beside me (Mr. Lemieux)-and I am not saying this to throw bouquets at the Minister of Railways-but I do consider he is a good, straight business man.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Hear, heaT.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: And I know he must abhor any such conduct as has been carried on. However, we have to take the matter as it is. The statute provides:
1. The Governor in Council may authorize and empower the Minister of Railways and Canals to acquire, under the provisions of an Act to amend the Government Railways Act, and to authorize the purchase of certain railways, chapter 16 of the Statutes of 1915, and upon such terms and conditions as the Governor in Council may approve, the railways described in the schedule hereto, together with such equipment, appurtenances, and properties us.ed in connection with such railways as

the Governor in Council may deem necessary for the operation thereof.	,
Not to buy one railway, but to buy all the railways mentioned in the schedule, which provides for the purchase of the three lines. Section 2 says:
2. The consideration to he paid for each of the said railways, and for any equipment, appurtenances and properties that ' may be acquired as aforesaid, shall be the value thereof as determined by the Exchequer Court of Canada; said value to be the actual cost of said railways, less subsidies and less depreciation, but not to exceed four million three hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars, exclusive of outstanding bonded indebtedness, which is to be assumed by the Government, but not to exceed in all two million five hundred thousand dollars.
They were treated there as one entity, and I see from the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassele that there was an agreement prior to that by which these three railways were brought under one railway company, and we know that to be true. I think that company was called the Quebec Railway Company. The stock was listed upon the market.


John Dowsley Reid: It is the Quebec Light, Heat and Power Company.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It is referred to in the newspapers and on the stock market as the Quebec railway. We know the stock was selling as low as 10, or 11, or 12, or 13, and the moment this legislation was passed it commenced to soar, and went up to 40 or 45, I think.


John Dowsley Reid: I do not think it ever went as high as that.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It went up somewhere in the thirties, in any event. After the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassels, it started to come down again. Considering the financial condition as pointed out so forcibly by my hon, friend from Kingston (Mr. Nickle), it seems to me, before we pass this item we ought to have a pretty thorough discussion of the facts as they are. Notwithstanding the very late hour, I am going to take the responsibility of placing on Hansard a portion of the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassels. I admit that I did not read it myself until this evening, and I doubt very much if many of the members of the House have read it. It does not require a lawyer to appreciate this judgment. A perusal of it must lead an ordinary man to the conclusion that the Government is not justified in forcing this thing through unless they are going to start out on an entirely new proposition-disregard the legislation of 1916; disregard the investigation which has been made into the cost of the road; disregard the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassels; disregard everything they have done, and say: In the face of all these things we are going to come to the rescue of our political friend, Sir Rodolphe Forget, and are going to give him three or four million dollars simply as a present. I appreciate the necessity of railway communication on the north shore of the St. Lawrence just as well as any member in this House does, and I agree with my hon. friend from Kingston that were it under conditions other than those existing at the present time it might be considered. We must remember that after this Act was passed by which the railway was to be paid for according to the actual cost as found by the Exchequer Court, a long and expensive investigation was held, at which a large amount of evidence was taken. I have not read the evidence, but it is referred to in the judgment. Upon that evidence, Mr. Justice Cassels delivered a judgment on January 24 last. If the committee will pardon me I will read a portion of this judgment, in order that it may appear in Hansard, because I think the people of Canada should have an opportunity of reading it for themselves and forming their own conclusions as to whether or not this Government is justified in the course they are attempting to pursue. The judgment says:
Since the conclusion of the hearing of these cases, I have carefully perused the evidence and exhibits produced before me, and have also considered the questions to be determined. I think as the questions to be determined depend to such an ext< nt upon the construction -to be placed upon the statute as to the method by which the amounts payable are to be ascertained, and as the differences are so large between the method of valuation cla med by the railway companies and the views I entertain, it may be better before any further evidence is taken, that an appeal, if such is proposed (assuming the right of appeal exists), should be taken to the Supreme Court, in order that I may be set right, if I have taken an erroneous view.
I may say that I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and I must express my thanks to the counsel for all parties for the great assistance they have afforded me. The statute pursuant to which the matters come before the Exchequer Court of Canada, is Cap. 22, 6-7 Geo. V, assented to on the 18th May, 1916. This statute provides that the Governor in Council may authorize and empower the Minister of Railways and Canals to acquire upon such terms and conditions as the Governor in Council may approve, the railways described



[Stage Direction]
in [DOT] the schedule hereto, together with such equipment, appurtenances and properties used in connection with such railways, as the Governor in Council may deem necessary for the operation thereof.
There are three railways mentioned in the schedule:
(a)	The line of railway commonly known as the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway, extending from St. Paul street in the city of Quebec to St. Joachim a distance of about 43£ miles;
(b)	The Quebec and Saguenay railway, extending from its junction with the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway at St. Joachim in the county of Montmorency to Nairn Palls, in the county of Charlevoix a distance of about 62 8/10 miles; and
(c)	The Lotbiniere and Megantic railway, extending from Lyster in the county of Megantic to St. Jean des Chaillons in the county of Lotbiniere, a distance of about thirty miles.
The second section provides as follows:
"The consideration to be paid for each of the said railways and for any equipment, appurtenances and properties that may be acquired as aforesaid shall be the value thereof as determined by the Exchequer Court of Canada; said value to be the actual cost of said railways, less subsidies and less depreciation, but not to exceed four million, three hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars, exclusive of outstanding bonded indebtedness which is to be assumed by the Government, but not to exceed in all two million, five hundred thousand dollars."
It is agreed by counsel for the railways and for the Crown, that the maximum consideration of $4,349,000 and $2,500,000 is the maximum price to be paid for the three railways. Pursuant to the statute, an agreement was entered into between the Crown and the Saguenay company, the Quebec Railway, Light and Power company, the Lotbiniere and Megantic railway company, and the Quebec Railway, Light, Heat and Power Company. The different railways are referred to throughout the agreement, one as the "Saguenay Company"-two, "the Quebec Railway Company"-three, the "Megantic Railway Company" and, four, "The Quebec Power Company."
The railway referred to as (a) in the schedule to the statute, and commonly known as the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway, is what is referred to as "The Quebec Railway Company" in the agreement in question. The name was changed by statute.
You will see that these three separate railways were brought together by the agreement entered into between the respective companies. The agreement brought them all under one control and management and they were treated as one entity in the legislation passed a year ago. When the Government started out to purchase these railways they bought them as one whole and not as three portions. When the minister talks about separating them, saying that they are going to abandon two and purchase the third, I contend that they have no jurisdiction to do that. They may have jurisdiction under some other statute, under. the statute of 1915, but they have no jurisdiction under the statute of 1916 to do

that, because they only have the right to buy the three railways at a valuation to be fixed by a judge of the Exchequer Court.
Mr. MORPHY:: I think the words of the statute were that the Government " may " buy the three. If that is so it covers them all and they may buy one.	.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The word " may " is the
term which is practically.always used in the statute and it means " shall


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Not always.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: In the codification of the Railway Act, which we put through the House during the present session, we adhered to the word " may " in all,cases and H was intended that the word " may " should mean " shall ", I am going to go on a little further, for while this may be uninteresting I think it is of very great importance to the public:
The agreement requires a separate valuation for each of these three lines of railway. By the agreement the Crown assumes bonds of $2,500,000 secured by a trust mortgage. These bonds and the trust mortgage securing the same, in addition to being a charge on the Quebec railway, are also on other railways and properties not taken over by the Crown. By the terms of the agreement this bonded charge of $2,500,000, while it is assumed by the Crown, forms part of the purchase money payable by the Crown under the statute. If the value placed by the court on the Quebec Railway Company, known as the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway, exceeds the $2,500,000 only the excess over the $2,500,000 and the value so found is to be paid by the Crown, the $2,500,000 being treated practically as a payment on account. If on the other hand the value placed upon the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix railway is less than the $2,500,000 then the difference between the value as ascertained and the $2,500,000 is to be deducted from any sums that may be found due in respect of the other two railways.
The agreement refers to it in the following language:
'"It is understood and agreed by and between all the parties hereto jointly and severally that in case the Exchequer Court of Canada fixes the value of the line of railway and other property set out in schedule C hereto at a sum less than $2,500,000, the difference between the sums so fixed and the sum of $2,500,000 shall be deducted from the aggregate amount of the purchase price to be paid for the lines of railway and other properties set out in schedule B and D hereto.
" The intention of this agreement being that in no event shall His Majesty be liable to pay for the said three lines of railway and other properties a greater amount than the value thereof as fixed by the Exchequer Court less the sum of $2,500,000 the amount of the bonds to be assumed by His Majesty as aforesaid."
That makes it very clear that the judge of the Exchequer Court was to fix the total value of the railways and in doing that he

was to take from it the amount of $2,500,000 as represented by these bonds. There were other deductions to which I shall refer later on.
There are other provisions in the agreement in question which it is unnecessary for me to refer to at the present time. There are provisions protecting and guarding the Crown against any charges or encumbrances on the properties or any defect in regard to the titles to the right of way, etc.,-the intention of the agreement clearly being that His Majesty shall receive an absolute and clear title to all the properties in question.
On the opening of the case, I suggested that the duties of the Exchequer Court did not extend to an ascertainment of whether the various railways had good titles to the properties being transferred. These questions of title are questions provided for by the agreement, and it is a matter for the crown attorneys and counsel to be satisfied upon. This view was assented to by the counsel for the railway companies and for the Crown. The court assumes that the railways are deeding the various properties with good title thereto, and the valuation is based on that assumption.
The method of procedure was one of considerable moment. I came to the conclusion that the only practical way of arriving at a result would be to adopt the method adopted in the arbitration in which I acted as counsel for the C.P.R. company in regard to what was known as the Onderdonk sections of the railway in British Columbia. The same course of procedure used to be adopted in the administration of estates in Ontario. The counsel, both for the railways and for the Crown, asquiesced in my view as to the course of procedure to be adopted. I therefore directed the railway companies to file and furnish to the Crown accounts showing in detail what they claimed to be the amount to which they were entitled under the agreement in question. I also directed that upon counsel for the Crown being furnished with these accounts they should investigate them and such items as they were prepared to admit should be admitted and such items as they were not prepared to admit would then become the subject of inquiry, and evidence could be adduced in respect thereof. I also directed that the Crown counsel should furnish to the counsel for the railways a statement of the amount which the Crown claimed should be set off for depreciation in respect of each of the three railways. Pursuant to these directions the railway companies by their counsel filed and served a complete and detailed account of their claim.
Competent experts were employed by the Crown to make a minute examination of the three lines of railway, and to furnish in detail what they considered the proper amount to be deducted for depreciation. A large amount of time was occupied by these gentlemen in making this inquiry. Subsequently, the railway companies, by their counsel, accepted as correct the amounts as found by the experts for the Crown. The amounts of the depreciation to be offset against the value of the railways has therefore been settled. The figures I will deal with later.
From a cursory reading of 41113 I do not think the actual figures of the deductions are referred to in the judgment. Of course,
they may be found in the evidence, because it was admitted by all parties:
Another question of considerable importance is in regard to the offset referred to in the statute as subsidies. Before me it was conceded by Counsel for the Crown that the only subsidies in contemplation at the time of the Statute, were subsidies granted by the Dominion Government. This view is, in my judgment, untenable. I have to follow the Statute. The Statute say "less subsidies." There is nothing in the Statute which would limit the meaning of the word "subsidies" to subsidies granted by the Dominion Government only. The word "subsidy" as defined in Webster's International dictionary, page 2070, is as follows :
"A grant of funds or property from a Government as of the state or municipal corporation to a private person or company to assist in the establishment or support of an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public, a suovention."
The manifest object of the statute is that any grants furnished by the public towards the construction of the railways should be deducted. If in point of fact the Statute and the agreement based upon the statute does not carry out what the parties intended, the only course in my judgment open to the parties is to have the statute amended. I must take ther statute as I find it, and according to my view* subsidies include not merely Dominion but Provincial as well. This construction is of importance as the Quebec subsidies amount to something in the neighbourhood of $440,000, which according to the view I entertain must be deducted from the value as ascertained.
Inglis v. Buttery (1). In the Dominion Coal Co. v. Dominion Iron & Steel Co. (2). Judge Longley rejected evidence tendered as to the communings preceding the agreement, and this view was upheld in the appellate court in Nova Scotia, and also in the Privy Council (3). And in a late case the city of Toronto v. Consumers Gas Co. (4) decided by the Privy Council, Lord Shaw in delivering the judgment of the board uses the following language.
I shall not read that because it is the judgment of Lord Shaw and simply buttresses the opinion of the learned judge of of the Exehequer Court. Judge Cassels continues :
I come now to the consideration of the accounts as filed by the railways. I will deal first with that relating to the Montmorency division. The first item is dated July 1, 1898 : road and equipment, real estate, buildings, etc., Montmorency division, $2,038,149.49. This starting point is assumed by the railways to have been the cost of construction up to that date. At the date in question, namely, the 1st July, 1898, according to Colonel Wurtele, the road had been constructed as far as Ste. Anne's. The mileage of this road was about 21 miles, and it may be that they were running a mile or two beyond. Even if it were granted that 2'2 miles instead of 21 mi^es of the railway had been constructed at that date, the cost would be in the neighbourhood of $92,500 a mile. Colonel Wurtele puts it about $100,000. It seems a high figure. It is stated by counsel for the railway company that a certain por-

should be deducted from the Montmorency & Charlevoix railway, and the Megantic railway on a proper valuation being proved.
I have taken up some time, but I think it is well. worth the time to have it on record. Just shortly, I want to give my deductions from this judgment-and I desire to state that I have gone over it very hurriedly since the discussion started, but I think I have correctly summarized the judgment as to the figures.


Francis Cochrane: Is it a judgment or statement?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have read the judgment.


Francis Cochrane: Is it a judgment?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, it is not a final judgment.


Francis Cochrane: It is a statement. -Mr. CARVELL: It is quite a statement. Mr. COCHRANE: I agree with you.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If I started out to reargue the case with that statement before me I would have a very hard job. I am going to give the deductions which I drew from that statement so far as possible. I admit there are some things which are obscure.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: It is his judgment.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It is his judgment.


Francis Cochrane: No, it is not his judgment.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: You can have your views, and I will have mine. It is his judgment, and is headed "Judgment delivered 24th day of January, 1914," and it will go down to all time as the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassels, and will be reported in the Exchequer Court Reports of Canada, and it provides that if they want to appeal from it they have the right to do so, and we are told they have not appealed. If they do appeal we will have another judgment in the Supreme Court of Canada Reports either confirming or disagreeing with this judgment. I have taken these three railways in the order in which Judge Cassels discusses them. I take the claim of the Quebec -and Montmorency railway at $2,038,149, and I take the total of the two amounts of $500,000 and $749,869, which is $1,294,809, and subtract it from the $2,038,149, which leaves the value of the Quebec and Montmorency road at $743,280, less of course deductions. In the judgment there 
are no figures as to amounts expended upon construction since let July, 1898. I take it they are very inconsiderable and would play no important part whatever in the final statement of the case.


John Dowsley Reid: Do I understand that the hon. member figures up the cost of the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix as $743,280?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes.


John Dowsley Reid: You are making those deductions from what amount?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: From $2,038,149. There may have been some amounts expended on construction after 1st July, 1898, but if there are any, Sir Walter Cassels makes no reference to them in his judgment.
I come next to the Lotbiniere and Me-gantie, and we have so little evidence on this that I. take the statement as I find it. Thirty miles at $11,000 a mile amounts to $330,000. I take next the Quebec and Saguenay. The total amount claimed- by the company would be $5,543,260. Sir Walter Cassels says that from that should be deducted the three items:
Commissions, including commissions
on bonds	$ 863,000
Commissions of other kinds	 63,465
Interest	1,012,950
Total ..		$1,93 9,415
T subtract that from the total claim, and I have a balance left of $3,503,845. Add to that the other two amounts, namely, $743,280 and $330,000, and I have a total of $4,577,125 as the cost, of the three lines of railway. I first take from that the $2,500,000 bond issue, because Sir Walter Cassels says that the bond indebtedness is a first charge and first payment. That brings the total down to $2,077,125. Then there must be deducted from (that the amount of subsidies. I have no positive evidence, but I am assuming that there would be double subsidies. The Dominion subsidies would amount to $672,000 only on the Quebec and Saguenay and the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix. That'is, the subsidies on the total line from Quebec to Murray Bay would be 105 miles at a double subsidy of $6,400 per mile, or $672,000. Adding that to the amount of $440,000 contributed by the province of Quebec, I have a total of $1,112,000 of subsidies. I have no knowledge of whether any subsidies were paid on the Lotbiniere and Megantic, therefore, I have not taken that into the calculation, but it may be possible that I have charged too much for the -subsidies on the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix, so that I

think we shall find that the two items counteract each other, and that my figures are approximately correct. I have, then, subtracted the amount of the subsidies, namely, $1,112,000, from the total of $2,077,125, and I find that the actual value of the three lines, less depreciation, is only $965,125. I leave it to the minister and every member of the House who lias listened to me-and I am obliged to hon. members for the great courtesy with which they have listened to my somewhat lengthy remarks -whether I am right in my figures and have made the proper deductions from Sir Walter Cassel's judgment. If so, the total value of the three lines of railway, less depreciation, is less than $1,000,000. Why on earth does the Minister of Railways, with his sense of justice, want to pay this company nearly $4,000,000 for three lines of railway which are worth, according to the findings of a judge of the Exchequer Court of Canada, less than $1,000,000?


John Dowsley Reid: I stated a few moments ago that the Government intended dropping the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix and the Lotbiniere and Megantic out of the item. Do I understand the hon. member to say that the judge had valued the Quebec and Saguenay at $3,503,845?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes.


John Dowsley Reid: From that would be deducted any subsidies that had been paid. The only subsidy that has been paid is $248,000 so that the amount would be in the neighbourhood of $3,255,845. Am I right in that?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I think so.


John Dowsley Reid: The bond issue of $2,500,-
000 would not come into the matter at all, because those bonds are on the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix. As we are abandoning the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix and the Lotbiniere and Megaa-tie railways, we have had to deal with only the Quebec and Saguenay. The Government therefore, would have to pay only $3,255,845. Am I right in that?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes. Is the Minister of Customs willing to justify in this House the payment of $3,255,845, in this time of stress, for a railway that has not had a rail on it, that has not even all the grading done, when he can secure for a much smaller amount a line of railway which he admits paid over $100,000 last year? What earthly influence has Sir Rodolphe Forget over the Government?


Francis Cochrane: We have not paid anything yet.	.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am afraid-


Francis Cochrane: Why did we not pay last year?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Because you were waiting for the judgment of the judge of the Exchequer Court.


Francis Cochrane: And we will wait for it.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am glad to hear that.


John Dowsley Reid: And we will'not pay anything until the next session of Parliament when the matter is decided.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: We are getting along.


John Dowsley Reid: I stated that a few minutes ago.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: We are gradually getting the amount reduced. If we stay here till morning, we may get the whole of it. It would be worth sitting here all night to save $3,000,000 to the country in this ti ne of stress. The minister has dropped the Lotbiniere and Megantic out of the item. That is gone. I am glad the Government railways are not going into the portion of Quebec and repeating their
12 m. telephone experience in the county of Dorchester. We come next to the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix, the road which, we all know', does pay. The minister, I think, claims that it was $100,000 to the good last year. By what reasoning does he justify refusing to take that portion of the road which would be of some value and taking that portion which has not been constructed yet, which is of no value and which is paying no money?


Francis Cochrane: In the first place it
is a very expensive piece of road to build, and a great deal of expense has been put upon it.
9 *	'


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What does the minister want it for in war time? The justification for going into this expenditure a year ago was this: Well, we are buying branch lines for the Intercolonial; we believe we should extend the Intercolonial, make it as big a concern as we can and reach out and accomodate the people. The Government argued that the Intercolonial, by means of a ferry and by a good deal of mythology was in the city of Quebec, and, therefore, when they bought this line from -Quebec down to Alurray Bay, it was simply an extension of the Intercolonial. Now they propose to drop the first thirty or forty

miles of it running from Quebec eastward, which part is a paying proposition, and then they drop in behind that again and go from there to Murray Bay where the road will not pay and is not even constructed,- and they want to pay $3,255,845 for it.


Mr COCHRANE:: We will pay what the judge says. I have made that statement several times in the House. My hon. friend from Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) will bear me out in that.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I would oppose that with greater vehemende than I would any other scheme that has been proposed here for years, because that is the one thing for which there is no justification as a matter of principle. When they take that attitude they get away to some extent from the absolute position in which the judge places them. With that judgment staring them in the face, I do not see how they can possibly take over the whole system. Finding themselves up against that stone wall, they must stand by Sir Rodolphe Forget and get him out of the difficulty in which he is placed. They abandon the other part of the road because they cannot help themselves on account of the Cassels judgment, but they 6ay: Notwithstanding the statute of 1916, notwithstanding the finding of Mr. Justice Cassels, we are going to pay Sir Rodolphe Forget for a road which has not yet been constructed.


Albert Sévigny: Does my hon. friend not know that besides Sir Rodolphe Forget there are 60,000 people in that district who lor two hundred years have been without railway accommodation?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I should not be surprised to know that. Along the river St. John in my province, the people were without railway facilities for 125 or 130 years.


Albert Sévigny: Have they railway accommodation now?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: We built a railway ourselves. We made a mess of it, but we built it just the same-we did not get it from this Government. I do not argue that a railway along the north shore of the St. Lawrence is not a necessity; a railway is a necessity wherever people live. I should be glad indeed to see the people on the north shore of the St. Lawrence have a railway. But I am pointing out the facts, the Government propose to buy this railway and to leave it to the Exchequer Court to assess the value. His decision makes it impossible for them to carry

out their original intention. The minister now proposes to put through a vote to buy a roadbed, a right of way, which has not upon it even the proverbial two streaks of rust; he is going to spend perhaps $2,500,000 or $3,000,000 on it at a time, as set forth by the member for Kingston, when no unnecessary expenditure should be made. There is no doubt that the railway would be a convenience, but I carnot conceive upon what ground the Minister of Railways proposes to go on with an expenditure of this kind under present conditions. I have pleasure in seconding the motion of the member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) that this item be struck out.


Francis Cochrane: There is no question in the minds of members of the Committee who know anything about this railway that the line is absolutely necessary. I admit that this is a very inopportune time to take notion in the matter, but I point out that the railway was pretty well constructed before the commencement of the war and the action of the waves along the shore has been gradually destroying the roadbed. Last year the Government, in its wisdom, made an agreement with Sir Rodolphe Forget and his company for the taking over of these three roads, leaving to the Exchequer Court the determination of the value. The member fox Carleton has made a great deal of capital out of the findings of the Exchequer Court. I find no fault with the decisions that have been arrived at. I have several times made the statement that we do not propose to pay anything except what the Exchequer Court awards. If I had my way I would buy the Saguenay road only, and complete it. We did do some riprap work this year along where the contractors had built before; they had rip-rapped with earth and it was being washed away. The only fault I have to find with the Exchequer Court's decision is this: the judge might have allowed arreasonable amount of interest for construction time. The member for Carleton will admit, I think, that that is railway practice.	If he
reads the evidence taken before the judge, he will agree that this interest should have been allowed. More than three years' interest, however, could not be allowed, because three years is a reasonable time within which the company could complete the road. We do not propose to pay Sir Rodolphe Forget one dollar of this money until the new Parliament meets and a Bill is submitted for the taking over of the Quebec and Saguenay road, the value to be left to the decision of the Exchequer

*Court. I would not allow any discounts on bonds, or things like that, but I think it is bnly fair and reasonable that some reasonable amount, say 5 per cent for three years, should be paid by way of interest during construction.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Will the minister state
why he would recommend taking over the Quebec and Saguenay road, and not the other two?


Francis Cochrane: Simply because I do
not think we can buy the other road at what it is worth. The Quebec and Saguenay road is absolutely necessary; the people who will be served by it are closed out from communication.with the outside world during seven months of the year. If so much money had not been spent on the road, I would not consider it so necessary to finish it now, but it is deteriorating fast and it is necessary that the work should be undertaken. I ask the committee to pass this vote, and I give my word of honour that no money will be paid for the road, except that in connection with construction, until a Bill is submitted giving authority to take over the Saguenay line, leaving to the Exchequer Court the determination of what it is worth.


Edmond Proulx: If the holders of the road were satisfied to take what the judgment of the Exchequer Court direct, would the minister pay the amount?


Francis Cochrane: I do not know whether they were satisfied to do that; I have never asked them. I will say that if they will not take what the finding of the Exchequer Court sets forth, we will expropriate and take it over that way.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: We understand, then, that nothing will be done at all until after another Parliament has met and legislation has been enacted?


John Dowsley Reid: Quite so, because you could not even expropriate it. Nothing will be done, even in the way of expropriation, until after a new Bill is introduced.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: How does the minister know that Parliament will make the new bargain that he proposes? He came to this Parliament a year ago last May with a proposal to buy a group of four railways. An Act was put through enabling the Governor in Council to take it over. Money was expended in connection with the transaction; an Order in Council must have been passed; the road must have been taken over. I assume that the
minister would not spend a dollar on the road until he had taken it over. We, as a committee, must take it for granted that the road is taken over. The whole Committee being anxious to help the situation, are we not entitled to see the Order in Council in virtue of which the minister acted upon the Statute of 1916? If that Order in Council took over those four roads, all that remains is to ascertain how much they are worth. The Order in Council tested the title of the road in the Crown, and it belongs to the Crown, and nothing remains but to find out how much ve are to pay for it. Surely hon. gentlemen supporting the Government will admit that the Order in Council should be before us.


John Dowsley Reid: AH these documents have
been laid on the table.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I do not want to be impolite to the minister, but this eternal telling us that something was laid on the table is not satisfactory. What information does it convey to me or to anyone else who has no notice Qf the fact? If the practice were followed by the Government that copies of those Orders in Council would be put in Members' post office boxes, it would be different, but to lay them on the Table and tell us months afterwards they were laid on the table, is no information to me at all events. Before I am asked to vote three or four million dollars of the people's money, I would like to see the deed to the property we are buying. If I understand this statute at all, it gives the Government power to pass an order vesting this property m the Government. I take it for granted that that Order in Council would duly vest the property in the Government. After that Order in Council was passed they started in with an array of counsel on both sides to ascertain the amount they were to pay for the railway. Now we are told the whole thing is off and that they are to begin over a^ain on a new statute. If the minister will tell us we are going to clean the slate absolutely, and to start over again and see what Parliament will do, then, as a lawyer and trying to be of some use in this House, I would be prepared to say, all right. But I am not prepared to vote this money when we are told we are not getting the property at all. And I appeal to any sensible business man here to say if he is willing to provide money to pay for a property we did not get.


Francis Cochrane: I have stated we will not pay any money.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The very fact that the minister has stated he will not pay any money or do anything until there is a final finding of the judge of the Exchequer Court-


Francis Cochrane: Noting, except operating the road.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: -and that the Government will not take it over until a new Parliament passes legislation, is the very strongest reason I have for voting against this item. I take the minister's word absolutely when he tells the House that he will not do certain things. I take it without any reservation whatever. But if he is not going to do these things until the new Parliament assembles and new legislation is passed, then that new Parliament can provide the money to carry out this legislation.


Francis Cochrane: But we want to he paid for the moneys we have spent on it.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If the minister was
foolish enough to spend money upon it before the finding of Judge Cassels, or if after the finding he has been foolish enough to spend money, then, much as I resipect him.
I cannot stand up in my place in Parliament and vote to reimburse him. J may not be here in the new Parliament. None of us know what is going to happen, but as I am here, and as I have the right,, I want to try to leave the record as clear as I can, and I propose to vote .against the item.


Edmond Proulx: Will the minister go on and spend more money under this resolution as was spent last year before the judgment of Mr. Justice Cassels and before there was an agreement made with the owners of the road? It seems to me the Government wants to provide money to go on now and spend it on the construction of the road previous to and during the election. Of course, that will help Sir Rodolphe Forget and some of the' friends of the Government in the election. If a new statute is required to be passed by a new Parliament in order to expend the money, I do not see why we should vote the money now. I agree with my hon. friend from Kingston that the owners of the road -should not have been too greedy. They should have accepted the amount fixed by the Exchequer Court, and if they were not satisfied with that they should 
have appealed to the Supreme Court, rather than come back to Parliament. They should have taken advantage of the statute passed last year. I do not feel disposed to go beyond what was done last year.
Motion (Mr. Nesbitt), to strike out, lost on division. Yeas, 14; nays, 29.
Resolution agreed to!
Progress reported.
On emotion of Hon. Mr. Reid, the House *adjourned at 12.25 a.m. (Friday).
Friday, September 7, 1917.