1917-09-12

HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIALS.


[Stage Direction]
The Speaker informed the House that he had directed the Clerk of the House to lay upon the Table his recommendation to-

gether with his report on the subject of the abolition oh the office of Secretary the Hansard Section of the Reporting Branch of the House and the appointment of an additional shorthand reporter in the place of such secretary.

Rt. Hon. Sir ROBERT BORDEN (Prime Minister):: I move seconded by Sir George Foster, that the Orders of the Day be now read.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: The only matters to be taken up before the Orders of the Day are a few questions and motions for papers. I suggest to my right hon. friend that the business of the House will not be delayed if we take these up first.


Robert Laird Borden: If no other matter is to be introduced, I agree to that. I withdraw the motion.
Motion withdrawn.



QUESTIONS.

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

Mr. J. J. HUGHES:: 1.	What position does Mr. Fred. T. DeWolf occupy in the military service at Halifax?
2.	What is the date of the present appointment?
3.	What is the rate of pay and allowance paid him?
4.	Was Mr. DeWolf brought from Vancouver to Halifax to perform his duties?
5.	If so, were his transportation expenses paid and for what reason?
6.	Was the transportation expenses of Mr. DeWolf's family paid by the Militia Department, from Vancouver to Halifax?


Sir EDWARD KEMP:: 1.	Temporary acting chief recruiting officer for Nova Scotia, with the same rank as he held before the retirement of Major G. B. Cutten, who retired to resume his duties as president of Acadia College. Captain DeWolf had previously been assistant to Major Cutten.
2.	17th August, 1917.
3.	Pay and allowance of his rank.
4.	No. He came to the recruiting staff from the 1st Canadian Garrison Artillery at Halifax. Captain DeWolf was born in Halifax, January 1869, and, Lor the most of his life, conducted an extensive business there.
5.	Answered by No. 4.
6.	Yes.


FORESTRY RECRUITING OFFICERS.
Mr. LANCTOT:: 1.	Is the Government aware as to whether or not Captain J. F. Belford and Lieutenant-Colonel E. S. Bernard, of Richmond, and Lieutenant R. I. Dean, of Sherbrooke, are recruiting Foresters in the Province of Quebec?
2.	If so, is the Government aware as to whether or not posters to the following effect are being circulated in the Province of Quebec:
Foresters wanted.
Men wanted for forestry work in England, Scotland and France.
Pay, separation allowance and bonus is the same as in other branches of the army.
This is the last chance for voluntary enlistment.
Join now. Don't wait for conscription.
This is what you have been waiting for.
Do your bit.
Apply to Captain J. F. Belford, O.C., Richmond, Lieutenant-Colonel E. S. Bernard, Richmond, Lieutenant R. I. Dean, Sherbrooke.
3.	Do the said Captain J. F. Belford, Lieutenant-Colonel E. S. Bernard and Lieutenant R. I. Dean speak French?
4.	What salary is being paid per day to each of them?
5.	What amount, if any, has been paid to them up to date?


Sir EDWARD KEMP:: 1.	4 and 5. Yes. Lieut.-Colonel E. S. Bernard, Richmond, is acting in a purely honorary capacity, and receives neither pay nor allowance. In addition, he furnishes his own motor car and pays his own expenses.
Lieut. R. I. Dean, of Sherbrooke, is now attached to Forestry Depot, Military District No. 5, and will receive pay and allowances.
Major J. F. Belford, now officer commanding, Forestry Depot, Military District No. 5, will receive major's pay and allowances.
The amount paid to Major Belford to date is his salary for the month of July, $155; separation allowance at captain's rate, $40.
To Lieut. Dean nothing, and Colonel Bernard nothing.
The total recruiting expenses to this unit, so far, have been less than $500, and over 200 men have been raised, 127 of whom and four officers have gone overseas.
2.	The posters referred to have been issued.
3.	These officers speak French sufficiently for ordinary purposes.


HOUSE OF COMMONS-ACCOUNTANT'S OFFICE.
Mr. J. E. MARCILE:: 1.	On what date did the accountant of the House of Commons first occupy the office at the corner of Wellington and Metcalfe Streets?
2.	Were these offices under lease to any other party at the time the Government first entered into possession?
3.	If so, to whom and at what rental?



4.	Was the lease of the former lessee transferred to the Government? If so, on what terms?
5.	On what date was the lease signed that expires on the 5th of February, 1918?
6.	Did the Government occupy these premises prior to the date of the existing lease? If so, for how long and on what terms?


Mr. REID:: 1.	5th February, 1916; owing to destruction of Parliament buildings by fire on 3rd February, it was necessary to have offices at once.
2 and 3. Arrangements for taking these premises was made by Clerk of House of Commons with the Rideau Club at time of fire. The department has no information as to who had lease prior to Government renting said premises from Rideau Club,
4.	No.
5.	There is no lease. Department of Public Works pays rental at rate of $2,000 per annum.
6.	No. The fire was cause of renting, and premises were rented only temporarily, during construction of Parliament buildings.


COLONEL THE REV. A. E. BURKE.
*Mr. FORTIER:: Referring to an item in the Ottawa Citizen of Monday, September 3, 1917, as follows:
"Colonel the Rev. Father Burke has returned from Washington, accompanied by Lieutenant Charles Alverez.''
1.	Was Rev. Colonel Burke at Washington on official business?
2.	If so, has he made a report and will such report be brought down to the House?
3.	Has Lieutenant Charles Alverez a commission to, or from, the Canadian Government?
4.	If not, what is his business in Canada?
5.	What Governments did he and Rev. Colonel Burke represent at Washington?
6.	Is the Government to pay the expenses of either, or both, gentlemen going to and returning from Washington?
7.	If so, what is the amount of the bills that have been paid or are to be paid?


Mr. MEIGHEN:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered ' by No. 1.
3.	Is a lieutenant in, the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
4.	Answered by No. 3.
5.	6 and 7. Answered by No. 1.


Edmond Fortier: Has the following item in the New York Tribune of August 31, 1917, been brought to the attention of the Government:
"Lieutenant-Colonel the Right Rev. Monseigneur A. E. Burke, of the Canadian army, returning to the Dominion from a special mission in Cuba, expressed the admiration of the other Allies at the appearance of the parading Guardsmen. He said he had witnessed American troops in training in France and was sure

' that the men he saw yesterday would be a valuable addition to their number."
2.	On what special mission, if any, was Rev. Colonel Burke despatched to Cuba?
3.	Has he made a report to the Government?
4.	If not, will he make a report and when?
5.	If Rev. Colonel Burke has made a report, will it be brought down in the House?
6.	Is the Government to defray the travelling expenses of Rev. Colonel Burke to and from Cuba?
7.	If so, what would they amount to?
8.	Is Rev. Colonel Burke still on the pay list? If so, at what rate is he paid?


Mr. MEIGHEN:: 1.	No.
2.	None.
3.	4, 5, 6 and 7. Answered by No. 2.
8. Colonel Burke is drawing the pay of his rank. He is at present on leave.


Mr. FORTIER:: 1.	Has the attention of the Government been directed to the following paragraph in an editorial of the Ottawa Evening Journal of August 29, 1917:
"If the Government is faced with difficulties in the selection of returning officers or presiding officers to take the soldiers' vote, and the Opposition remains suspicious of any appointments made, why not utilize the brigade of chaplains overseas to work out the election machinery?"
2.	If so, is it the intention of the Government to act on the suggestion of the Evening Journal?
3.	Will Rev. Colonel Dr. A. E. Burke be appointed to take charge of the said returning officers or presiding officers?
4.	If not placed in charge, will Rev. Dr. Burke be appointed as one of the said returning officers or presiding officers?


Mr. MEIGHFN:: 1.	No information.
2,	3 and 4. Answered by No. 1.


*Mr. FORTIER:: 1.	Is the Government aware that Rev. A. E. Burke has returned to Canada?
2.	Has the said Rev. A. E. Burke been provided with an office in the Parliament buildings?
3.	If so, has he been entrusted by the Government with any special work, and what is the nature of such work?
4.	Does such work, if any, require his consultation with senators and members of Parliament?


Mr. MEIGHEN:: 1.	Yes.
2.	No.
3.	No.
4.	Answered by No. 3.


MOUNTED POLICE-PENSIONS.
Mr. BUCHANAN:: 1.	How many retired officers of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police are drawing pensions?
2.	What is the pension allowance for officers?
3.	In case of the death of a retired officer, does the pension go to his wife and family?

4.	What la the amount of pension to noncommissioned officers and men of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police?
5.	Does this pension go to the widow and family?
6.	Is it the intention of the Government to revise the Royal Northwest Mounted Police Pension Act, in order to provide a better allowance for the men who have served long periods in that force?


Mr. HUGH CLARK:: 1.	There are 21 retired officers of the Royal Northwest Mounted- Police drawing pensions.
2.	The pensions to officers and men of the K.N.W.M. Police are governed by the provisions of the Mounted Police Act-Chapter 91 of the Revised Statutes of 1906-Parts II and III, respectively.
Section 43 of the above mentioned Act provides that an officer who is retired compulsorily for any cause other than misconduct, or inefficiency, after twenty years' service, shall be entitled to a pension for life, not exceeding one-fiftieth of the pay and allowances of his rank or permanent appointment at the time of his retirement for each completed year of service.
Section 44 provides that an officer who retires voluntarily after twenty-five years' service shall be entitled to a pension for life, twenty per centum lees than he would be entitled to if he were retired compulsorily.
Section 45 provides that an officer who retires voluntarily after thirty-five years' service shall he entitled to the same pension as if he were retired compulsorily.
*Section 46 enacts that no addition shall be made to- such pension for any service beyond thirty-five years.
3.	In the case of the death of a retired officer his pension is not continued to his wife and children, but .sections 51 to 54 of the Mounted Police Act provides that the Governor in Council may grant a pension to the widow and a compassionate allowance to each of the children of any officer, who, having completed 20 years' service, was at the time of his death either on full pay or in receipt of a pension.
The amounts of pensions to the widows of officers are as follows:
(a)	In the case of the commissioner, $500 per annum.
(h) In the case of an assistant commissioner, $450 per annum.
(c) In the case of a superintendent or surgeon, $350 per annum. , ,
* fd) In the case of an inspector, assistant surgeon or veterinary surgeon, $250 per annum.
361i
The compassionate allowances to children are as follows:
(a)	In the case of the commissioner or an assistant commissioner, $80 per annum.
(b)	In the case of a superintendent or surgeon, $70 per annum.
(c)	In the case of an inspector, assistant surgeon or veterinary surgeon, $65 per annum.
(2) If the child is motherless and in great need, the allowance may he doubled.
4.	The pensions to non-commissioned officers and constables of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police are governed by Part III of the Mounted Police Act.
Section 66 of the Mounted Police Act provides that the pension to a constable (or non-commissioned officer) on retirement shall be according to the following scale:
(a)	If he has completed 15 but less than 21 years service, an annual sum equal to one-fiftieth of his annual pay (not including allowances, as in the case of officers) for each completed year of service.
Note.-Unless a constable or non-commissioned officer is incapacitated by infirmity of mind or body, he is required to serve for 20 years before becoming entitled to a pension.
(b)	If he has completed 21 but less than 25 years service, an annual sum equal to twenty-fiftieths of his annual pay (not including allowances), with an addition of two-fiftieths of bis annual pay for every completed year of service above twenty years.
(c)	If he has completed twenty-five years service, an annual sum equal to thirty-fiftieths of his annual pay (not including allowances) with an addition of one-fiftieth of his annual pay for every completed year of service above twenty-five years; provided that the pension shall not exceed two-thirds of his annual pay at his retirement.
Note.-"Annual pay" as referred to above is deemed, for the purposes of pension for a non-commissioned officer or constable, to be the average amount of pay received by him for the three years preceding retirement, exclusive of extra pay or allowances.
5.	In the case of the death of a retired non-commissioned officer or constable, the pension is not continued to his wife and family. No provision is made in the above-mentioned Act for the widow and family of a deceased non-commissioned officer or constable who, at the time of his death, was in receipt of a pension.
6.	As .already explained above, the pension of an officer of the force is calculated
5706 .

on his pay and allowances, the latter for the purposes of pension, being fixed by Order in Council, whereas the pension of a constable is calculated on his pay only. The matter of amending the Act to permit of constables' pensions being based on their pay and allowances, as in the case of officers, has received the attention of the department, and it is hoped to deal with this and other amendments at the first suitable opportunity.


LATCHFORD, ONT., PLANT AND BUILDINGS.
*Mr. MURPHY:: 1.	Did the Public Works Department call for tenders for plant and buildings at Latch-ford, Ont. ?
2.	If so, were such tenders received on or about May 15, 1917?
3.	How many tenders were received, from whom, and what were the respective amounts thereof?
4.	Was the highest tender accepted? If so, what was the amount thereof?
5.	If the highest tender was not accepted, to whom were the plant and buildings sold, and at what price?


Mr. REID:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.
3.	7 for plant: The Wabi Iron Works, Limited, $1,454 for all items except Nos. 18-24-28 and 29. Tenderers also quote a bulk price of $1,500 for the whole plant. Fleming Machinery Co., $1,000 for the whole plant. P. M. Fleming, $964 for items 1 to 7 inclusive, 9-12-13-24 and 26. Hendon Lumber Co., Limited, $250 for item No. 1. Con-key and Murphy, $110 for items 3-5-6 and 25. D. McLellan, $25, for items 26 and 32. Thos. Sullivan, $5 for item No. 29. 5 for buildings: The Auld Lumber Company, $200 for items 1 and 5. Conkey and Murphy, $50 for item No. 1. Morrissey and Davies, $45 for item No. 4. Archibald King, $25 for item No. 3. Alex. Mitchell, $25 for item No. 8.
4.	Yes, as follows: Plant-The Wabi Iron Works, Limited, for items 7-8-10-11-14-15-16 17-19-20-21-22-23-25-27-28-31 and 32, listed prices total $809. P. M. Fleming, for items 1-2-3-4-5-6-9-12-13-24 and 26, listed prices total $924. Thos. Sullivan, for item 29, $5.
Buildings-The Auld Lumber Co., for item No. 1, $150; The Auld Lumber Co., for item No. 5, $50; Archibald King, for item No. 3, $25; Morrissey and Davies, for item No. 4, $45; Alex. Mitchell, for item No. 8, $25.
5.	Highest tenders were accepted.


DR. A. MORTAN.
Mr. McKENZIE:: 1.	Is Dr. A. Mortan, of Halifax, in the service of the Government?
2.	If so, in what capacity or capacities, and when was he appointed?
3.	What pay does he receive from each office or position?
4.	What is his total salary or allowance?
5.	Does he give his whole time to the Government work or is he still attending to private practice?


Mr. ROCHE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Acting medical superintendent and Immigration Medical Inspector at Halifax during absence overseas of Dr. Rankine. Appointed January 3, 1916.
3.	$1,200 per annum.
4.	Answered by No. 3.
5.	Gives such portion of time as is necessary to attend to departmental duties but is free to attend to private practice.


THE WAR-TIME ELECTIONS ACT.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Robert Laird Borden: I understand that the right hon. leader of the Opposition has some announcement to make as to when the third reading of Bill No. 133, the WarTime Elections Act, may be had. We had some discussion here last evening on that point.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not know what it was.


Robert Laird Borden: I understand from a note received from the chief whip that my right hon. friend would say something to me about it.


Wilfrid Laurier: I am sorry
that the Government should see fit to move the closure. I have no objection that they should move the closure if they want to do so, but whether they want to do it or not, all we desire is a proper discussion of this Bill. Yesterday, while there was a considerable amount of discussion on section 1, there was practically no discussion upon sections 2 and 3. What we had yesterday, so far as they were concerned, was simply an announcement from the Government of the changes made by this Bill. Whether the closure is moved or not moved, I intend simply to ask for information.


Robert Laird Borden: What I suggested yesterday to my hon. friends opposite was that we are perfectly ready to give to-day, to-morrow and Friday for discussion of this Bill in committee provided that we could have an assurance that the

third reading would be taken not later than Saturday. There has been one day in committee already. We purpose giving three more, which would seem to me to be ample for all the discussion that would be required in committee. That would bring the third reading on Saturday. It is perfectly true that Saturday is a very inconvenient day, but I thought, under the circumstances, as we have been here for about eight months, including the vacation, that hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House, who live near Ottawa and who usually go home on Saturdays and Sundays, might be willing to stay on this one occasion in order that we might expedite the business of the House. It seems to me that the proposal I made for three more days' discussion of this Bill was a reasonable one, and that we might have the vote on Saturday. Further than that, I said last night, and I Tepeat again, that we are willing to sit as late in the evening as may be desired, and I ana also willing to commence mornings sessions to-morrow in ordter to give further time for discussion.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon. friend must realize that it is not conducive to the making of agreements to have them offered under threat. We are told that we aTe to do this or we are to have the closure. So far as I am concerned, I do not intend to prolong the discussion one minute more than is necessary for a thorough understanding of the Bill. Under such circumstances I will not make any agreement whatever, and if my right hon. friend will not be satisfied with that, I cannot say more. I have no intention at all to prolong the discussion.


Robert Laird Borden: I am sorry that, under the circumstances, my right hon. friend leaves me no 'alternative except to make the motion. I did not .make the proposal to him in the sense of any threat. I discussed it last night, not in that sense at *alll, as hon. gentlemen opposite, I think will hear me out. I was endeavouring to place before imy right hon, friend what I thought was an exceedingly reasonable proposal iso far as the further discussion of the *Bill in committee is concerned. I beg to *move:
That the consideration of sections 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and of the schedule and title of Bill No. 133, The War-Time Elections Act, shall he the first business of the committee and shall not further be postponed.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the Chair, I beg to say that this motion 'should he given it1, committee.


Robert Laird Borden: 1 will .move it in committee. I think .my hon. friend is right.


THE HOUSE IN COMMITTEE ON THE WARTIME ELECTIONS ACT-RULE 17B APPLIED.
[Stage Direction]
House 'again in committee on Bill No. 133, The War-time Elections Act.-Sir Robert Borden-Mr. Rainville in the Chair.
Robert Laird Borden: I beg to move:
That the consideration of sections 1, 2, 3 4 and 5, and of the schedule and title of Bill No. 133, The War-Time Elections Act, shall be the first business of the committee and shall not further be postponed.
Motion declared carried: Yeas, 43; nays, 25.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: I desire to iask a question before we proceed with the Bill. Is the asking of a question equivalent to a 20-minute speech? If one asks a question, may he afterwards speak?


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: You have to take 20 minutes to ask it.


Robert Laird Borden: A member of the House has always the right to ask a question.


William Pugsley: If a member is on his feet once that is all the right he has.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I would like to inquire of the Government if they have any statement to make regarding the exclusion of the relatives of those engaged in the naval forces in Canada. An answer was promised yesterday.
M.r. HAZEN: Perhaps I had better give a short statement of fact in committee in regard to what constitutes the naval forces of Canada. The Naval Service Act of 1910 defines naval forces:
"Naval forces'' means those naval forces organized for the defence and protection of the Canadian coasts and trade, or engaged, as the Governor in Council may from time to time direct.
There are employed under that definition in the naval forces of Canada about 3,882 men altogether: on the east coast 2,028, on the west coast 652, and in the overseas division, that is Canadians, men enlisted in the Canadian navy serving overseas with the British navy chiefly,. 1,202.
Speaking briefly,the term would include all men on vessels that fly the white ensign and are at present engaged in the Naval Service. That would not include vessels that are engaged in the fisheries protection fleet, as the men on those vessels do not come within the definition of Naval Service given in this Act, nor would it include the cadets at the Royal

Naval College at Halifax. But it would include those who have enlisted as boys in the Navy under the provisions of the Act, and whose nominal ages are from fourteen to eighteen, but in fact and practice from sixteen to eighteen years. In addition to that, there are some men who have been sworn, and enlisted as members of the Naval Service who are doing work on shore at the dockyards, and certain civil work. I understand that the suggestion has been made that it might be desirable to draw some distinction between the men who are actually serving in what is commonly understood as the Navy and .those who are doing shore work. It might be possible to make that distinction if desired, just as a distinction is drawn in the military forces between men serving in Canada and those serving overseas.
The qualification which is provided in the Order in Council of September 1st, 1917, regarding the .three months' pay given to officers and men on retiring from the Naval Service, has as one of its conditions that the men shall have served continuously for not less than six months during the present war in a sea-going ship, or have served overseas during the present war in the Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve, Overseas Division. The definition of service in a sea-going ship is " Service in a ship of war, not being a depot ship for wharf or harbour service only."
In regard to the boys to whom I have referred I might say that there are less than two hundred of them who have regularly enrolled and enlisted. Their ages, though nominally from fourteen to eighteen, are as a matter of fact from sixteen to eighteen, because we find that very few beys under sixteen enlist for overseas service. The total number enrolled in the Naval Service is about 3882, of whom 1202 are serving overseas on ships of His Britannic Majesty.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Am I correct in assuming that men engaged in mine sweeping and harbour work are not included?


Mr. HAZEN:: The pien engaged in mine sweeping 'and patrol are members of the Naval Service. The service they are engaged in is in some cases of a very dangerous character, and is essential to our part in the war. These men are enrolled and form part of the Naval Service.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Does the Government intend enfranchising these? The iSec-

retary of State promised last evening to advise us about this.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: I have made inquiries as to the nature of their occupation. In the first place, we are not enfranchising these men at all by this Bill. They are enfranchised under the Military Voters' Act. All that this Bill does is to divide those of female sex into voters and non-voters, and there is of course no reason at all why the female relatives should be debarred simply on account of the age of these boys, for the female relatives are just as old, no matter how old the boys are. These boys are engaged in war work of a character analogous to that of the men overseas. I understand there is considerable peril attached to it, although it is true that so far they have been successful in avoiding it.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Where is the
peril?


Arthur Meighen: My information is that they use dynamite. Mine sweeping is always a more or less dangerous occupation. We cannot distinguish between different classes of war work for the sake of this Bill. It would appear to me to be utterly illogical to do so as long as the men are not engaged around our own shores, where, of course, conditions are quite different. These men are engaged in active service in connection with the war, and there is a measure of peril attached to their occupation.
Mr. A. Ki MACLEAN: What about those who are working on shore in the Naval Service?


Arthur Meighen: That is where we make a distinction. It may be that there is some degree of danger even there, but we have to draw the line somewhere.
Mr -A. K. MACLEAN: Why not exclude all those in the Naval Service who ordinarily *are engaged in Canadian waters? Why should the female relatives of a man who happens to be employed on a little tug boat or gasoline launch in Halifax harbour be entitled to vote? I hope the minister will drop this altogether.


Arthur Meighen: We are not entitling these men to vote by this Bill. Whatever rights these men now have as regards voting, they have by reason of the Military Voters' Bill. It may be that so far there has been no loss in this particular service, but it would be very bold indeed for Parliament to assume that those men were engaged in a peaceful occupation akin to work on

land. We do not know at what hour it may become the most perilous of'occupations. My information from the department is that the service has certainly not been free from peril.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The mine sweepers in Halifax harbour work only two hours a day, and their occupation cannot be described as dangerous.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know much
about it myself, but I made inquiries in the department, and I have given the information I got.
There were several oither inquiries I promised to answer to-day. First of all, I will take the meaning of the word " demobilization." I have had the following memorandum prepared:
The meaning of the word "demobilization" is not given or referred to in any of the legal authorities which I have been able to consult, with the exception of a definition given in 13 Cyc, where it is said that it means "in military law, the dismissal of an army or body of troops from active service." He refers to Rapalje and L. L. Diet, as his authority for this definition.
In the Century Dictionary the meaning given to it somewhat accords with this definition. The meaning there given is "the act of disbanding troops; the reduction of military armaments to a peace footing; the condition of being demobilized, and not liable to be moved on service."
It seems to me that this all taken together is just what every one has understood by demobilization-the release from military obligations-and the moment our overseas soldiers are released from the obligation they assumed as such in our expeditionary forces, at that moment demobilization has taken place.


Wilfrid Laurier: The Bill says "complete demobilization," that is, the cessation of operations, or the withdrawal of the troops from practical operations. Of course you might withdraw one corps after another.


Arthur Meighen: My own opinion is it would be just the same. I do not know how we could word it to meet that difficulty. I presume it would be possible to keep ten men mobilized.


Wilfrid Laurier: But, it is a
feature of all legislation that even an ordinary expression is defined. I had hoped my hon. friend would have given the definition of the words "complete demobilization."


Arthur Meighen: Without an interpretation at all, the meaning would be just the meaning we would give by an interpretation, namely, the release of the members of the overseas forces from their obligations as such. That is just the effect of it as it is.


Mr. MAROIL:: Is it not a fact that these men are all engaged for the period of the war, or until six months after the war?


Arthur Meighen: My information is, that that is the condition of the voluntary enlistment.


Charles Marcil: Will you keep those men six months after the war?


Arthur Meighen: Personally, I do not see how they can get home within six months. Steps may have to be taken to keep them on the force until we can bring them home.


Wilfrid Laurier: We may understand then that complete demobilization means the release of all the troops from active service, whether they are in Europe or whether they have returned.


Arthur Meighen: Yes. Release from their obligations as members of the expeditionary force. Of course we would not release them overseas.
The next question was as to whether this Act would be applicable to by-elections. I have looked into the matter very carefully, and in my opinion if a by-election should become necessary while this Act is in operation, that is, before demobilization, this Act is applicable, and should be applicable. It is true the Military Voters' Act is not applicable. They would not have a vote in any by-election, but it is much better that this Act- should be in effect rather than that the old Act should be in effect. As a matter of fact, the old Franchise Act would scarcely apply at all in some provinces. Reference to sections 52, 214 and 218 of the Act as it will be when this Act is passed, will show this Act is clearly applicable. Section 52 of the Act as it stands reads:
52. Except as provided in this part, it shall not he necessary to prepare new voters' lists for the purpose of any election to he held under this Act, when there has heen in the said electoral district a previous election, the voters* lists prepared for which are of record in the office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, and there is an interval of less than twelve months between the dates of the writs for the two elections.
So that, for any election held within one year the voters' lists prepared under this Act and in the possession of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery would be the lists. Section 214 says:

214. The returning officer shall also transmit to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, the writ, with his return, the stamp furnished him for stamping the ballot papers, and all the ballot papers including those unused, the original statements of the several deputy returning officers, together with the lists of voters and the poll hooks used in the several polling divisions, and all other lists and documents used or furnished for the election, or which have been transmitted to him by the deputy returning officers.
That section provides that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery shall keep those lists.	-


Mr. NESBITT:: That is in the present Act?


Arthur Meighen: In the Act as it stands now, and as it will stand. Section 218 provides:
218. The Clerk of the Crown in Chancery shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, retain in his possession the papers transmitted to him by any returning officer, with the return, for at least one year, if the election is not contested during that time, and, if the election is contested, then for one year after the termination of such contestation.
So this Act will be applicable in the event of an election within one year.


Charles Marcil: Will the soldiers on the other side vote in that by-election?


Arthur Meighen: No, the Military Voters' Act is not applicable.
The next subject is with regard to relate ives of members of the Allied armies. I cannot add to whaJt I said yesterday on this point. I think it would open the door to the gravest abuses. While I freely admit there are some whom it would be in the public interest to admit to the franchise, [DOT]still we cannot distinguish between Allies in the war. We are very anxious to avoid [DOT]distinguishing, and the difficulty in drawing the line is so great that I think it is better to leave the Bill as it is in that regard.


Mr. GRAHAM:: What about the ten days?


Arthur Meighen: I will deal with that in a minute. The hon. member for Saskatoon urged very strongly that we should extend the time backwards, that is, make the dates earlier upon which the voters' lists ishould be posted by the enumerators in the polling division, also the time within which the enumerator would add to or strike from the voters' list after that. Under the Bill a? introduced, the first time was ten days, and the last three days before the election. In the former Acts it was eight days and -'Two days. After a thorough review of the
IMr. Meig-hen.]
Act I prepared amendments which will have the effect of making the dates twelve and five, instead of ten and three. The enumerator will have to post his lists twelye days before the election, and the lists must be complete, so far as the enumerator makes them, five days before the election.


Mr. C. A. WILSON:: 'Why not make it fifteen?


Arthur Meighen: We cannot.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Does that refer to Ontario as well?


Arthur Meighen: It refers to Ontario as well, in so far as the enumerator makes the lists in Ontario.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Twelve days before the elections?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: And, five days to 'appeal?


Arthur Meighen: He posts the lists twelve days before the election. He is supposed to have ithem as complete as he can get them. Until five days before the election he sits for two hours each day, and he is obliged, if any one convinces him that the list so posted is wrong, to add, to it or to take off a name that he deems should be taken off, but after five days before the election he cannot do that. All he can do is to give a man a certificate on election day which enables him to cast his vote, or to give him a refusal which enables him to tender his vote, which vote is placed in an envelope and' deposited in the ballot box.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: If the minister looks at paragraph 65 (a) of the Act, clause 3, line 34, ihe will see what I mean:
If the enumerator refuses or omits to enter upon the list the name of any person the applicant may, in person or in the case of a qualified person who may be absent from the polling division at the time of the enumeration, an elector in the polling division acting on such absent person's behalf, may within three days after the posting up by the enumerator of such list, appeal to such Board.
That is what I asked my hon. friend about last night. I want that extended to five days.


Arthur Meighen: I will try and look into that during the afternoon. That is in the province of Ontario?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: In the cities.


Arthur Meighen: That applies to the cities only?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Well that is another subject.'


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The Act just gives three days to correct the voters' lists, and I want my hon. friend to give us five days.


Arthur Meighen: I will try to see if it can be done. I find that since we met a calculation has been made, and I am informed that we can make the twelve days fifteen days. That meets the request which was made by the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham). The dates will be twelve, fifteen and five, whereas previously they were eight and two.


Mr. TURRIFF:: This, in so far as it applies to Saskatchewan, is practically the same law as we have been working under since 1896 in so far as Dominion elections are concerned. Instead of making the provisions that my hon. friend is making-and I realise that they are made for the protection of the Opposition-it would be better to make another change and follow the old system. My suggestion would be that in all cities of 5,000 and over in the West there should be a judicial revision of the lists during the fifteen days prior to the election. In so far as the rural polls are concerned, we would prefer that the law which we have had since 1896 should remain in force. There is practically no effort made in the rural districts to 'bring in doubtful voters who will take an oath and secure a ballot 'and vote when they are not entitled to. In the rural parts we never have had .any difficulty along those lines. But in the cities it is quite possible that there will be trouble. I would suggest that in cities the judicial revision be .made before the election instead of after and thus avoid the necessity of putting so many ballots in the envelope. We have never had that .system in Saskatchewan in connection with Dominion .elections. But I can see where an unscrupulous scrutineer or enumerator .might easily tie up such a large number of votes as to make it very difficult for the candidate to bring the men concerned forward .and have their ballots counted in .a recount. In rural districts I do not think any revision is necessary at all. The Act worked well in the past, and the fact that no man can be denied his right to vote has always been a safeguard. It is proposed in this Bill that a man whose name is not on the list can re up, take the oath, get his ballot and vote. I do not think any one need he .afraid that
in so far as the rural polls are concerned any wrong-doing will take .place under that system. If my hon. friend could see his way clear to making the change I suggest it will prevent a great deal of work .and bother after the election in the event of a recount, and it will certainly make it easier for the enumerators and the officials carrying out the election.


Arthur Meighen: I have finished the answers to the notes I made yesterday. Included in them was a reference to the subject introduced .again, by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff). The principle of this distinction is quite .sound. There is / undoubtedly .more difficulty in cities than in the rural parts. There is no possibility of either plugging or disfranchisement in the rural parts of the country. In the cities it is different. But we were faced with this difficulty, that in the three western provinces there is no .machinery for this revision. In Ontario, where we adopt it, there is the .provincial machinery already established and in operation, .and it is a very complicated matter to establish new machinery .and to fit it to the needs of individual provinces. We set .about, then, to .avoid the necessity of doing that because we thought* it could be avoided without taking any very great risks. The posting up of the lists so long a time before election day .and the virtual .closing of the lists five days 'before election 'day will be a veTy great protection in itself. Secondly, the judicial revision afterwards is an enormous protection and the one that I chiefly rely on. In that connection, there is a great deal in what the hon. member says, namely, that an unscrupulous scrutineer acting for a candidate might make the opposing candidate's position difficult if he were ready to challenge a great number of voters who should not be challenged. But, we have put this cheek upon that:	Hereafter voters
cannot be challenged in the ordinary way, as they are in the provincial elections in Alberta, merely .by a challenge. We do not allow that. The scrutineer must take his oath that he believes that a man has no right to vote, that he believes the cause and the cause must be sufficient to disfranchise. I think scrutineers will hesitate before they expose themselves to the risk of going before a judge under cross-examination with affidavits in their faces that were manifestly false. They will have to go and show that they have ground for the affidavit and I think that scrutineers will hesitate a long time, and will be advised to hesitate by

the candidate, before they take any step of that kind. In the first place, they must go to the extent of perjuring themselves, and in the next place they must perjure themselves with the certain knowledge that they will very shortly be brought before the judge to answer for their perjury. If we were to -apply the suggestion of the hon. gentleman to the cities of the West, it would delay the election campaign for a very considerable -timej AfteT ,a very thorough review of the circumstances, it was decided that we would adopt the safeguards that we have adopted -and put the whole of the West on the same footing.


Charles Marcil: We are to have the enumerators in the rural parts of Quebec. Will the -minister kindly explain how the system will work out there in a rur-al constituency?


Arthur Meighen: Judicial revision in the rural parts would he out of the question because it could not be done within the time. The only work in Quebec that has not yet been reviewed judicially is the work of the enumerators, and that will be very easily tested as it applies only to the question whether a woman has -a brother or son overseas, or whether a German or Austrian immigrant has been naturalized since 1902.


Charles Marcil: If five women were placed on the list in my county it would be difficult to trace them within the fifteen days provided. They might not reside in the constituency at all.


Arthur Meighen: But under the Bill they must.


Mr. KYTE:: Does the provision as to the completion of the enumerators work fifteen days before election day apply all over Canada?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


George William Kyte: And also the requirement that the objection of a scrutineer to a vote on -election day must be supported by affidavit?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Mr. BUREAU:: Must enumerators reside in the district for which they are appointed? '


Arthur Meighen: I do not think there is any restriction on residence, hut in practice only a resident of the district could do the work.


Jacques Bureau: The word " municipality " has a different meaning in other provinces from its meaning in Quebec.. With us the boundaries of a municipality are coextensive with those of the parish and of the school district. Would it not he well to say in section 42 "may appoint enumerators residing within the municipality in the province of Quebec or in the neighbouring municipality?"


Arthur Meighen: I do not think there would he objection to that, although I would rather not amend it as I think it will work out in that way.


Mr. McCRANEY:: Under the law as it now stands, lists of voters must be posted one day before nomination day, so that when the candidates are placed in the field there is a list of voters upon which to go. Under this Bill the lists will be posted up [DOT]only during the last fifteen days
4 p.m., of the twenty-eight days in which the candidates are in nomination, so that there will be thirteen days in which there will be no lists and during which candidates will be in the field. I suggest a further extension of that time. When candidates are in the field the lists ought to he available. Then who are the persons qualified to nominate a candidate for Parliament? They are persons who are on the enumeration list. Are you not going to change the whole basis of your nomination? To-day the candidate is nominated one week before election day, and he is nominated by so many qualified electors, that is those whose names have been posted up the day before in a public place.


Arthur Meighen: Not necessarily; he
simply needs to he qualified. Bejng entitled to go on the list would be a qualification.


George Ewan McCraney: The existing provision is that each enumerator, the day before nomination day, posts up two copies of the list in conspicuous places, one I think in the post office and another in a conspicuous place. There is no provision for the case of lists being torn down. That sometimes happens in rural districts. Lists disappear. They are posted on the outside of buildings. Has that point been covered so that the public will have before them continuously the lists? Under the new provision giving fifteen days for the posting up of the lists, there will he candidates definitely in the field before -any lists are available. There is no provision under the old law for the delivery of copies of the enumerators'

lists to candidates, because the candidates are nominated the day after the lists go up. The Secretary of State is providing that candidates shall be in the field 13 days before the lists go up. I ask him to provide that the enumerator in each polling division give a copy of the enumeration list to each of the candidates. Most of these lists are typewritten and a number of copies can easily be made.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman
suggests that if the lists are not completed a man cannot qualify as nominator or candidate. The Act says that a certain number of electors may nominate a candidate. An elector is defined as one entitled to vote.


George Ewan McCraney: In this case he would not be entitled to vote, because his name would not be on the enumerator's list.


Arthur Meighen: He would be entitled to vote if he was a qualified voter. A man may be entitled to vote, even though he is not on the list.


Mr. CARVELL:: Suppose two candidates are nominated and objection is taken against one on the ground that he has not been nominated by 25 duly qualified electors of his riding. The returning officer is called upon to decide whether or not the man has been properly nominated. If he decides that the candidate was not properly nominated, that is the end of the election, If he decides that the candidate was properly nominated, the election shall proceed. In the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, and Ontario there are lists from which the names of 25 qualified voters could be selected. But where there are no lists, how is the returning officer to decide whether he is justified in coming to the conclusion that the candidate has been properly nominated?


Arthur Meighen: The Election Act sets forth the qualifications and disqualifications of voters; he would have to judge from that.


George Ewan McCraney: In that case he would have to examine into the qualification of every man whose name appeared on the nomination paper. Formerly there was no occasion for that because the enumeration list was posted up, and that was prima facie evidence-


Arthur Meighen: The returning officer always has to do thait. Possibly he obtains [DOT]the necessary information by simply examining the list. Now, howeveT, he may have to decide whether on that nomination

paper there are 25 men duly entitled to vote-subject, of course, to whatever judicial review there may be afterwards. That task may be slightly more difficult than it was before, but I do not think that any candidate would have difficulty in seeing to it that there were on his nomination paper at least 25 who were qualified to vote. As to the second point raised by my hon. friend regarding the necessity for provision against the tearing down of the lists, section 258 of the Act as it now stands, and as it will stand, provides severe penalties for such an offence. As to the furnishing of copies, I think that the hon. gentleman's suggestion is a reasonable one. There is no difficulty now about getting the lists to the candidates. I have asked that an amendment be prepared to provide that the enumerators shall furnish each candidate with a list.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have read this Bill through with a great deal of care; I spent an hour this morning in my room trying to digest it. I do not understand how in the world the thing is going to be worked out. In the first place you appoint as enumerator some political friend.


Arthur Meighen: The Bill does not say that.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is what it means; the man appointed as enumerator will be the most offensive partisan in the district.
1 know what I am talking about so far as New Brunswick is concerned. Part 2 of the Act was put in our hands only at half-past three this afternoon, and after trying to digest it the best way I can I find that this partisan goes round and makes up his list privately. We have nothing to say about it; we are not entitled to be represented. Ten days before the election-I believe the minister is going to make it fifteen;-the lists are put up. The enumerator gives notice that he is going to silt somewhere two hours eacn day-it may be in his kitchen-and he is to say whether this person shall be added to or that person removed from the list. Why not provide that an affidavit or declaration shall be necessary upon which the enumerator .must act? I can pick out the men in my county who will be enumerators men who for ten years deliberately kept on the list persons who never resided in New Brunswick. They brought these men across the boundary line in automobiles, rushed them to the polls, perjured them and then sent them back to the United States. These men have been the revisers of our lists in

New Brunswick in many cases. Thank God a change has been made and these men no longer have the right to make the lists. Now .my hon. friend is putting into the hands of these same people the right to make up the lists-and the Lord help any Liberal candidate who is trying to run in some portions of New Brunswick df these people have that right. If you provided that the municipal authorities should make the list, then you would have a board of three men and you would get justice. Or if you provided that the enumerator should take the affidavit of the applicant or of some other person that the party is or is not entitled to he added to the list, the condition would not be so bad. But it is wrong to leave it to the ipse dixit of this person whether a man shall or shall not go on the list. Worse than that: this man gives notice that he is going to sit some place on election day-and that place is just as liable to be five miles away as it is to be at the polling booth. He sits there .and he has the right to make voters all day long. A woman comes in, tells her story, and if he wants to do so he gives her a certificate that she has the right to vote. If he does not want to give her such a certificate he gives a certificate, of refusal and when she votes her ballot is placed in .an envelope. The matter is absolutely in the hands of this partisan who sits as judge on election day.


Arthur Meighen: Subject to appeal.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What is the good of an appeal? If the enumerator has a suspicion the woman will vote as he wants her to, be gives her the necessary certificate; in that case her ballot goes into the box and is counted. But if he does not want her to get the vote, he gives her a certificate of refusal, form W-2 in the Bill. On that certificate she has the right to vote, but her vote does not go into the ballot box; it goes into an envelope. Later on, if a candidate is willing to put up $2,000 or $3,000 to thresh the matter out before a judge, she will probably have her vote counted. Otherwise she cannot get it. This system may work out in the West where 'the people know something about it, but this is the most horrible piece of legislation, so far a.s elections in eastern Canada are concerned, that has ever been proposed in my day. I am not drawing up any fanciful objections. During the last nine years there has never been in my constituency an election in which men., who do not reside in New Brunswick, and w.ho have no right to vote, have not been kept on the list.

They have 'been brought over from the United States in automobiles, or in trains in the winter time, and voted, then they have been immediately whisked away. As there was not a Liberal magistrate in the county, you could noit arrest those men. Dozens and dozens of votes have been stolen in that way in every election during the last nine years.


Mr. W. H. BENNETT:: Who has made
up this list that, according to the hon. gentleman, is such an infamous one?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Tory politicians.


William Humphrey Bennett: What particular Tory politician makes up the list in each county in Now Brunswick?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: One of them who
is appointed by the Government, is the	chairman of the board. What
that man cannot do	about voters'
lists is in many cases, not worth , knowing. I am giving actual facts. In the local election of 1912 in New Brunswick we deliberately challenged, at one polling division, either eight or nine men who did not reside in New Brunswick and had not resided in that province for years, hut whose names had been kept on the lists. They took the oath and voted, and then took an automobile and got ouj; of the country inside of two hours, and there was no way of getting at them.


William Humphrey Bennett: Who are the officials other than the sheriff?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I did not say the sheriff.
Mr. W, H. BENNETT: I thought the sheriff was one.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I would trust the sheriff, no matter whether he was a Liberal or a Conservative. We have Liberal sheriffs and Conservative sheriffs. We have had them under both regimes. So far as sheriffs are concerned, we have not been treated very badly. I would trust any sheriff in New Brunswick to make up a list. If my hon. friend could devise some means of appointing sheriffs in New Brunswick, I would be perfectly satisfied.


William Humphrey Bennett: I was asking the hon.. gentleman for information, because I do not know who makes up those lists. Who are the three officials?
, Mr. CARVELL:	The lists are made up
by the two municipal councillors of the parish. I suppose that would correspond with what you call a municipality in Ontario. The word "municipality" in my

province means a county. There are a number of parishes corresponding to townships, and there are two men elected usually biannually, who aTe called county councillors and those two men, together with a third man appointed by the Government, make up the voters' lists for that parish. Those two men are usually pretty fair men, because they represent the people, but the trouble i6 with the third man appointed by the Government. He is the chairman of the board, and no list is of any value unless it is signed by him. The other two men might make up a perfect list, but if the chairman does not want to sign it, it is of no value. That practically means that the list is made up by the chairman appointed by the Government.


William Humphrey Bennett: What time of the year was that list made up last?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: October, 1916.


William Humphrey Bennett: Will that be the list to be used in New Brunswick in the coming election if it is held before December?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That will be the list
on which the coming election will be held if the election is held at any time before the second or third day of March.


William Humphrey Bennett: Will that list be generally acceptable so far as fairness is 'concerned?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes it is the law of the land, and we shall take it.


William Humphrey Bennett: What is the complaint then?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not know what my hon. friend is speaking about. I am not finding fault with the list. It is there. It is made up by Tory officials, and we have to take it. If the election were held after the third day of March, we would have a much more honest list, but we have to take it as it is. What I am speaking about is that you are going to appoint those Torv partisans as enumerators, and they are the ones who are going to make up the female suffrage list. Those enumerators will play a very small part in the Maritime Provinces so far as disqualifying people is concerned, because, in my constituency at all events, I do not think there is a solitary voter who could be disqualified by any enumerator no matter how badly he might want to act. There may possibly be some of those Danish voters to whom I referred last evening. I do not know how many of them or if any of them came from Schleswig-Holstein. If
any of them came from there after it was ceded to Germany, then I am afraid some of those men might be disfranchised. I think there are very few of them in the Maritime Provinces. What I am afraid of in regard to these enumerators is the making up of the list of the female voters. I would like to see some safeguard thrown around the matter. I do not like to see a partisan appointed who has the power to make this list in camera. No man has any right to go near him in order to find out what he is doing, until fifteen days before the election when he posts up his list and says: That is my handiwork. I can go to him and produce the most solemn affidavit in the world and prove to him that he has added to that list names which he should not have added or that he has refrained from adding names which he should have added, but I have no redress, and I cannot make him remedy the matter at all. There should be some appeal or some person to whom one could go in order to get justice. My only object in referring to some of the conditions which prevailed in the past is to show the Solicitor General the conditions of affairs we have fought against, and having fought against them, and having won out and having reached a point at which we can get an honest list, we in New Brunswick feel very sore that we have to go back to the old system, and that the supplementary list has to be handed over to a partisan from whosedecision there is no appeal. There is no way of compelling an enumerator to add to the list that which he should add or to strike out from the list that which he should strike out. That is what I am finding fault with. If the Secretary of State does not want to take the revising board- and the chairman of the revising board will now be a Liberal-let him cut them out. Let him take somebody. Let him take the sheriff. If he would have an appeal to the sheriff of the county-and in my county there are two, one a Liberal and the other a Conservative-I would be perfectly satisfied to take either one. Let him make them the arbitrators or court of appeal, and they would make up an honest list.


Mr. DAVIDSON:: Under the New Brunswick system is there any appeal?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, there is not. At the next session of the legislature, the whole law will be changed. The legislature was not able to meet on account of the old Government not resigning until the month of May. The legislature passed only the smallest quantity of legislation absolutely

(
necessary to carry on the affairs of the province. It is the intention of the Government to change entirely the method of making up the lists in New Brunswick. They will either change it over entirely, or they will provide an appeal from the board of revisers to some official, probably the county court judge, or something of that kind. As it is to-day, there is no doubt in the world that in New Brunswick there is no appeal whatever, and it means that practically what that chairman of the board of revisers says, goes, and that is the end of the matter. If we are going to enfranchise the women-and that has my hearty consent, except that they should all be enfranchised-there should be some appeal from the ipse dixit of this enumerator in order ito get justice. As I said before, I would be willing to leave the matter to the sheriff.


An hon. MEMBER:: Time


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If my hon. friends
want to call time, all right. I understand that the rule is being adhered to. .


Robert Laird Borden: Go ahead.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is the big objection I have to this Bill. I also object very strongly to the enfranchisement of the female relatives of a man who happens to own a little motor boat on the Atlantic coast, and has enough political pull to get the Government to hire it from him. Nineteen-twentieths of all the little motor boats that the Minister of Marine and Fisheries talks of as being engaged in this dangerous service are being paid an exorbitant rate per day as a matter of political pull; that is what it amounts to, and nothing else. I have here a letter written by the Department of Naval Service to a Mr. Calder, of Wilson's Beach, New Brunswick. This man had a motor boat thoroughly equipped in every respect. He was crazy to get the Government to take it off his hands, and put it up to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, but he was a Liberal, and therefore his boat was no good and could not be used. His neighbour, who hapened to be a Conservative, rented his boat to the Government. All the little gasolene launches along the Atlantic coast are taken by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries if they belong to men of the proper political stripe, and their owners are paid an enormous rate per day, and become members of the Canadian Navy. It simply means that the Government are enfranchising the female relatives of every Tory along the Atlantic coast who owns a motor boat, and they are

refusing the franchise to everybody else because they are not able to get in on the inside and lease their boats to the Government. I have another letter which I am willing to let the minister have if he wants it-I have a whole lot of correspondence from this gentleman, in fact-pointing out how this Canadian Naval Service is working out, that all it means is that no man can possibly rent his boat to the Government unless he belongs to the proper political stripe. That is why I raised this question yesterday. Why should the female relatives of the man who happens to rent a motor boat to the Government have a vote in Canada, while the female relatives of the soldier who has enlisted, but has not yet gone across the water, have not a vote. It is simply a method of giving the vote to the female relatives of the leading Conservatives in the Maritime Provinces, and that is all there is to it. I protest most strongly against it.
When this Bill was introduced the Secretary of State stated that he would be glad to receive suggestions. We have been offering suggestions right along, not during a long period, I admit, because we only started yesterday afternoon, but we have been trying to point out the iniquities of this Bill and endeavouring to show how it can be improved, but our suggestions have not met with very much success. It looks "to me as if the Government have made up. their minds to let this thing go through as it is, and let the axe fall at two o'clock. I admit they have the power, but what is the use of offering suggestions under those circumstances? However, we must do our duty, and offer such suggestions as we think will improve the Bill.
Mr, MEIGHEN: Several suggestions have been accepted.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I fail to see any of any importance.


Arthur Meighen: Ask the hon. member for Saskatoon and the hon. member for Oxford.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am not going into the details because I have not time, and I am not discussing the principle of the measure now, as I may have something to say about that on the third reading of the Bill. I am now simply pointing out the objections I have to the working out of the Bill. Unless some change is made in this provision for enumerators, I can tell my hon. friend that, so far as the Maritime Provinces are concerned, there will be more trouble in eastern Canada than he has ever heard in his lifetime. They have had their troubles

in western Canada. I am not saying that one party is any better or any worse than the other. But whenever you give to a political partisan the right to draw up a voters' list and make him the sole arbiter, there is bound to be injustice, and there is sure to be trouble in the end.
I do not see why the minister could not adopt some method, so far as eastern Canada is concerned at all events, of appealing from the decision of the enumerators. Let some man set the enumerator right if he is wrong. If that i3 done, then, so far as the working out of the Act is concerned, we will be satisfied. But if it is left entirely to the enumerator, an injustice is bound to be done in certain portions of eastern Canada.


Charles Marcil: I cannot understand why the Government are providing for these enumerators. I question very much if it will be an improvement on. the system we have at the present time in the province of Quebec. As I pointed out the other day, the secretary treasurer of the municipality prepares the lists. He knows eveTy man, woman and child in the municipality, knows all their circumstances and everything about them. He submits the lists to the municipal council, which represents the people, both Liberals and Tories, and is therefore a non-political body. Why should not the secretary-treasurer of the municipalities in the province of Quebec be empowered to prepare the lists? He has a list already and all he would have to do would be to strike off the aliens who are disqualified under this Bill and add the names of the women whom this Bill enfranchises. He is the most competent man in the municipality for the work and his list could be submitted to the municipal council for ratification. If it was found that he bad made a mistake, the municipal council could have it rectified at once. The *municipal council, in case objection was taken to the secretary-treasurer's list, could act as an appeal tribunal, to sustain or overrule the decision of the secretary-treasurer. But if the lists are to be prepared by enumerators, one of them could come into a municipality and ask for the existing list and keep that list in his possession until ten days before polling day, when he could issue a new list. I am sure that no member from the province of Quebec would declare this to be an improvement on the system we now have. The people are not used to that way of preparing the lists, and if the minister insists on this method, he is simply heaping up a lot of trouble for himself and the candidates at the next election. There will be general dissatisfaction because conditions are being changed entirely. Suppose we have an enumerator for each polling district. The enumerators for the municipalities would vary in number because some municipalities have only one polling district, and others have two or three. I repeat that the secretary-treasurer is the best man for this work. He is a permanent official, and generally a man of education and standing in the community. He would simply have to make the necessary changes under this Bill in the existing 'list, and everybody in the municipality would be satisfied.
If you take the other course suggested, which may be a good and proper course in the West, but with which we are not familiar in the province of Quebec, you reverse the whole position of affairs.


John Douglas Hazen: I did not hear the first part of the remarks made by my hon. friend from Carleton, but from what I heard I judged that he was claiming that the revision in New Brunswick at the present time was not satisfactory, and that as a result the lists were not satisfactory.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I was complaining of the provision in this Bill for enumerating the women voters in New Brunswick, and I was giving as an illustration the conditions which have existed there in the past and pointing out that they are very unsatisfactory and should be changed.


John Douglas Hazen: I think I correctly caught the tenor of what my hon. friend said. The counties of New Brunswick are divided into parishes, which, with the exception of two, each elect two representatives to the county council. There are two parishes in the county of St. John, where the representation is three instead of two, but practically the representation of every parish on the county councils is two. The lists are revised every year, and the revisers are the two county councillors who are elected every second year, I think, the third member of the board being a reviser who is appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. As a result you have for your revisers in the parish at least two men who must be very familiar with the parish, because as county councillors it is their duty to know the people, and having to run elections every second year, they naturally have a thorough knowledge of their people. In my experience there has been little fault found with the lists as we
57,18

have t'hem in New Brunswick. The list in, force to-day is the list that came into force on, I think, January 2 of the present year.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: On January 1.


John Douglas Hazen: The next list will come
into force on the first or second day of January, 1918. The list which is now in force and which, will be used as the basis if an election is held now under this Act, is the list whidh came into, force on January 2, 1917, and the same list on which the provincial elections w'ere held in February last. I have been trirough every election in New Brunswick for a great many years past, and since the present Act came into force I have heard very little fault found with it. True it is there is no appeal when the list is once made and published. The list is, in a sense, a permanent list, and the duty of the revisors is to strike off names of those who during the year have left, or died, or otherwise become ineligible to be on the list, and to add to the list those who have become eligible, or acquired the necessary qualifications. They post up in public places throughout the parishes and the cities the names of those whom they propose to strike off, and the names of those whom they propose to add. An opportunity is thus afforded to political parties or to individuals to bring to the attention of the revisors before the list is finally made up and filed, the names of those whom they think should be added, the names of those whom they think should be struck off, or the names of those who are improperly struck off and should be retained. In the cities, which are divided into wards, the system is practically the same, with the exception that the city council appoint two of its number to act as revisors, the third being appointed by the provincial government. After the lists are made up and filed, there is no appeal, and they become effective in January, and are the lists used for any election that may take place during the year. To some people this may appear at first blush to be a very serious defect. I was a member of the legislature when this Act was revised, and when the present Act was passed, and my hon. friends will probably recall the fact that the doing away with appeal was by the common consent of both parties in the legislature ,at the time. It was found there was a great deal of trouble and difficulty in taking appeals to the sheriff, who was an official appointed by the Government of the day, and therefore scarcely a man who would exercise the very best judgment. A great deal of trouble,

expense, and difficulty arose in connection with those appeals, and both parties in the legislature agreed on the revision such as is now in effect. It was felt that while the-e might be occasional individual cases in which possibly injustice or hardship would be done, it would be far better to dispense with those appeals altogether. If I recollect rightly, my hon. friend from Northumberland (Mr. Loggie) was a member of the legislature at the time. It was under that system that the Dominion elections of 1908 and of 1911, as well as all the local elections which have intervened in the meantime, were held. So far as I am aware, there never has been any agitation for a change of the system. I note my hon. friend says it is the intention of the present government of New Brunswick to introduce a new Act some time in the future. That cannot be done, of course, until there is another session of the legislature, and in the ordinary course of events there will not be another session of the New Brunswick legislature before the month of February or March next. Inasmuch as it is fully expected that the federal elections will be over before the New Brunswick legislature meets, it would be impossible for us to frame a Bill anticipating any changes which might be made by the legislature of that province.
There has been very little trouble with our lists, and I think every man who has been interested in politics in New Brunswick will agree with me in that statement. Some years ago, there were quite extensive frauds attempted which were spoken of as the "Swamp Vote." Names of people who did not live in the county, and had no property in the county, were put on the lists. As a result of that, and as a result of the frauds attempted in connection with what is known as the Rothesay list, the legislature enacted that no one should have the right to vote for the provincial or federal House who is not at the time of tendering his vote a resident of, and domiciled in, the division in which he votes. There prevails the policy of one man, one vote. The voter has to poll his vote in the place where he lives and is domiciled. There is no such thing as a non-resident vote, and the ownership of real estate in a district does not give the right to vote to a man who does not live there. The present list, which came into force in January, and on which the recent local election were held, will be the list used in the next Dominion elections with these changes: from it will be struck all the names of those

aliens who are disqualified, and lo it will be added the names of the women who have the right to vote under the provisions of the present Bill. It seems to me there will be very little difficulty in making up a list which will be thoroughly satisfactory to both political parties under that system.
My hon. friend referred to another subject in regard to the votes that are given to the female relatives of members of the Naval Service and to some correspondence from Mr. Calder, a member of a well known family in 'Charlotte county, New Brunswick who, it seems, wanted to sell or charter a patrol boat to the Naval Department and whose offer was not accepted. I know nothing about the case myself; I have never heard of it. If my hon. friend will go over the list of boats that have been purchased or chartered by the department since the war broke out, I venture to say that it will be found that as many of these boats have been purchased or chartered from gentlemen who are members of the political party to which my hon. friend belongs, as from members of the political party to which I belong.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend is smiling when he makes that statement.


John Douglas Hazen: I make that statement in
all good faith though I smile because my hon. friend would never believe it possible that a Liberal should receive anything approaching fair play >at the hands of this Administration. All these boats that we have chartered or purchased for the Naval Service were secured after careful examination by the permanent and responsible officials of the department and our only desire and anxiety have been to get boats suitable for the purpose for which they were secured. My hon. friend puts it before the House as if every man from whom we purchased or chartered a motor boat would become a member of the Naval Service and that his female relatives would be entitled to vote. Such will not be the case. His female relatives will not get any votes under the provisions of this Bill. They only get votes who are relatives of the men who are enlisted in the naval forces of Canada. As I said earlier this afternoon, there are about 2,800 such men of whom 1,500 are serving overseas. The others are serving in vessels such as the Rainbow, submarines, and other vessels working in connection with the Naval Service and in addition the men who are serving in the patrol vessels which are doing work of a distinctively naval character and recognized as such all over the world, particularly in Great Britain. This work consists in patrolling the coast to see that no base is established by the submarines of the enemy and such other work as the department finds necessary after consultation with the authorities of the Admiralty and after getting the best advice it can in regard to the matter.


Charles Marcil: Does the patrol service extend inland on the St. Lawrence any distance, or is it confined to the Atlantic seaboard?


John Douglas Hazen: A certain number of patrol vessels patrol the coasts of Canada. I regard the coast of Newfoundland, the straits of Belle Isle and the waters of the gulf of St. Lawrence as the coast of Canada in that connection. The men on these vessels are doing work of a dangerous character. We have had losses of life, not from the enemy, but from the perils of the sea, because these men have to go out in severe storms at any time they are called upon. They enlisted for naval service, they are naval men, they are doing naval work and are doing work of a hazardous character. The female relatives of these men will get votes.


Mr. McKENZIE:: Would it not be well, as they are comparatively few in number, to put in the Bill the names of the ships service on which qualifies the female relatives of these men to vote?


John Douglas Hazen: These vessels change and are added to from time to time, and I do not think the suggestion of the hon. member for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) would he very practicable or easy to work out. I told the committee before-perhaps I had better do so again-that the female relatives of cadets of the Naval College, who were referred to in the House yesterday, are not entitled to vote under this Bill. A certain number of boys in the Naval Service are employed on ships. Every one knows that in His Majesty's Navy, in addition to men oE mature years, boys are employed on tho vessels; they are enrolled, and are as distinctly members of the Naval Service as are the men of more mature years. In the Canadian navy most of these boys are from 16 to 18 years of age. Under the regulation they should be from 14 to 18, but in actual practice very few are found under 16 years of age, as they do not go into the service at as early an age as they do in Great Britain. It is proposed that the female relatives of those who are doing active service in con-



nection with the defence of the country-should have votes, hut it is not proposed that female relatives of the owner of a patrol or motor boat, or a boat of any sort that has been chartered by the department, shall have votes, because he does not come under the definition in the Naval Service Act of a member of the naval forces of the country.	.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am not so innocent as to think that this Bill permits the female relatives of every man who happens to lease a boat to the 'Government to get a vote, but in nearly every case the man who leases the boat goes with the boat.


John Douglas Hazen: No.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: This is what happened
in the Calder case-


John Douglas Hazen: I know the Calder family of Charlotte very well. Will my hon. friend state for what purpose this boat was chartered?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It was not chartered.


John Douglas Hazen: Or purchased?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It was not purchased; the man was a Grit and they would not have anything to do with him.


John Douglas Hazen: For what purpose was it that the Naval Department was seeking to acquire a boat of the character of Mr. Cal-der's and why was it that the department did. not take it over from him?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Here is the letter of the department to Mr. Calder:
I am directed by the Deputy Minister of the Naval Service to inform you that he is unable to accept your valued tender of April 12, 1916, for motor boat for patrol service.
The man who was lucky enough to have his boat accepted as a motor boat for patrol service in the Canadian navy enlists in tlhe Naval Service and in nine cases out of ten he simply draws pay and does nothing. I want to test my hon. friend's sincerity in this. It was all very nice for the hon. gentleman to try and make the country believe that the Government are not putting through this Act because they see in it a chance to steal the election. It is coming on winter time, there are no German boats around the coast and no mines except the mines that we may have laid ourselves and no minesweeping except going out for practice. Is my hon. friend willing to restrict this Canadian naval vote to the people who have enlisted up to the present time, or is he going to-rent all the .boats on the coast of Canada which are owned by
[Mr. Hazen.l
Tories and swear the owners in as members of the naval force and give their wives votes?


John Douglas Hazen: There is no idea in the mind of any official in the Naval Department that we are going to charter a whole lot of boats for the sake of giving votes to the female relatives of the men who own them. They would not get votes anyway unless the men enlisted in the Naval Service and prepared to serve in the defence of the country until after the war.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: 
John Douglas Hazen: The statement that we have hundreds of these boats is about as exaggerated .as many others made by the hon. *member. We have engaged only such boats as were absolutely necessary for defence purposes.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Tell the committee how many.


John Douglas Hazen: The hon. member asks that the female relations of men who have been enrolled and enlisted in the navy up to the present time only shall have votes. I do not know what view the Secretary of State or the other members of the Government would take of that suggestion, but I do say it would be doing great injustice, as we are still enlisting men and sending them everywhere-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, hiring boats.


John Douglas Hazen: -we are still enlisting men and sending them overseas. When they go overseas they go on vessels of the British navy which are engaged in work of the most important and dangerous description.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I was not finding fault with the men who go overseas but with the men who stay in Canada.


John Douglas Hazen: A provision restricting this right to the relatives of men who have already enlisted would have no appreciable effect; it would not vary conditions to the extent of ten votes. Between now and next spring few if any boate will be chartered or purchased by the Government of Canada, and I do not think that my hon. friend's suggestion would make a particle of difference to the vote which will take place in a few months.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then show your good
faith by making the change.


John Douglas Hazen: I would have no objection to doing so, only there might be cases where grave injustice would be caused.


Charles Marcil: Does not the patrol service extend up the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes ?


John Douglas Hazen: The hon. gentleman will
understand how undesirable it would be to discuss the patrol service in the House; but we shall be glad to give him, as a member of Parliament, all information at any time.


George William Kyte: 
Robert Laird Borden: 'What is the
name of the boat referred to and what department is she employed?


George William Kyte: I think it is the Helena. She is employed .by the Customs Department.
With regard to men who have enlisted for service, I know that in Halifax there are
some forty men, masters and mates, who were engaged by the Department of Naval Affairs as far back as June to take charge of patrol boats. These boats have not yet been supplied, and .still these men are drawing pay and living .at the Acadian hotel which has been taken over by the department as a boarding house for them. They have done nothing except to go out for an hour or two each day in Halifax harbour for instruction in mine-sweeping. Will their female relatives be entitled to vote?


John Douglas Hazen: Those men are enrolled and enlisted and belong to the naval forces of Canada. They are going on boats that will be ready in a very short time, the construction of which has been delayed. As soon as the boats are ready these men will be engaged in a very important and arduous work. Their time is not being wasted at Halifax as they are receiving instruction which will be of great value when they take up their work. It was found that we could not safely put off their employment to a later date. They must he ready for duty the moment the boats are ready. Their female relatives would undoubtedly have the right to vote.


George William Kyte: I understand that there is quite a large waiting list of masters and mates who have applied for similar positions, so that I do not think there would have been much danger to the department if they had delayed making these appointments. Will the instructors on the Niobe at Halifax, who are giving instruction to the cadets and students at the naval college, be included in the naval forces, so that their female relatives will have the right to vote?


John Douglas Hazen: If they are enrolled and enlisted as members of t'he naval service and are bound to serve during the period of the war, they will belong to the naval forces of Canada. I cannot tell my hon. friend, offhand, however, whether they are in that position or not. With regard to the masters and mates, their training has taken a somewhat longer time than we had anticipated, but that is something that could not possibly have been prevented. In Great Britain the highest value is attached to the services rendered by men of the mercantile marine, by fishermen, and others, who are engaged in mine-sweeping and other work of an important and dangerous character.


Jacques Bureau: The minister said that it would not be advisable to make public the information, asked for by the member for Bonaventure. Could the information be given privately?


John Douglas Hazen: If the hon. gentleman applies to the department the information will be given to him privately.


Mr. L. A. LAPOINTE:: Answers have been made to question put by hon. gentlemen in respect to matters affecting provinces other than Quebec. That province is referred to,in only one place, page 16.of the reprinted Bill. I quote from section 65A as amended:
1. In the provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the enumerators shall adopt as the basis of the lists of voters which they respectively shall compile the lists prepared for the several polling divisions established, and which on the sixtieth day next preceding the day fixed for the nomination of candidates for the election were in force, or were last in force, under the laws of the province, for the purposes of provincial elections, and they shall not add to such basis list any other names than those of female voters qualified to vote by this part of this Act nor strike off nor erase therefrom any other names than those of persons disqualified from voting, by this part of this Act, and section 62 of this Act shall apply only to qualified female voters whose names do not appear on any list compiled by any enumerator and to persons whose names he has erased or struck from such basis list.
The Secretary of State has done some nice drafting in this Bill in providing for mushroom enumerators. Section 42 of the Dominion Elections Act, as amended by this Bill, is where the mushroom enumerator comes in. It reads:
Subject to the provisions of section 65a of this Act the Governor in Council may appoint enumerators in each province to make lists of the electors in each electoral district, and the returning officer of each electoral district shall assign one of such enumerators to each polling district therein.
Under one provision of the Bill it is provided that the enumerator shall adopt the old list as the basis for the making up of the new one, but this last provision seems to require him to make out new lists. Although it is provided that in the province of Quebec he shall take the old lists as a basis, it is further provided that he shall compile an entirely new list. I should like to have an explanation of that. I wrote to Hon. E. L. Patenaude, then Secretary of State, on June 6, asking 'him to send me a list of the electors of St. James Division, Montreal. On June 7 he wrote me a letter -I think it was 'his last communication as minister; he resigned on that day-enclosing the list I asked for. I find that St. James Division, Montreal, has 88 polling booths and 7,343 voters. That list includes outsiders, people who were bom in Ontario. It includes Jews who may be regarded by

the enumerator as persons of German birth, and who .may be, therefore, struck off the list. How is the enumerator to find out w.bat female electors should go on the list? How is he to find out how many soldiers iiave gone to the front from St. James Division? How is he to obtain information as to the wives, sisters and female relatives of these soldiers? I suppose he will take as a basis the list already existing, compile a new list, and send it to the returning officer. Who will revise this list that the enumerator has compiled? The basis of the list of electors in Quebec is by virtue of article 180 o,f the Election Act of Quebec, amended in 1912 and in 1915, so as to have the system of "one man one vote." Article 180 says:
The following persons, and no others, being males, and who at the time of the deposit of the list under articles 196 and 197, or 222 or
223,	as the case may be, are domiciled within the limits of the municipality for which the list is made, and who are of the full age of 2/1 years, subjects of His Majesty by birth or naturalization and not otherwise legally disqualified, shall be entered upon the list of electors.
The suffrage in Quebec is very wide. The franchise is given to sons of owners, occupiers or tenants, every man over 21 years of age who. has an average revenue of $10 per month. 11am not going to say anything about the rural districts. In the municipalities the list is made up by the secretary-treasurer of every village and deposited on the 15th of this month. The list is posted up, and if there is any objection, or if any one claims that his name should be put on, the municipal council deals with the matter. In the city of Montreal we are under article
224.	We make up the list every two years. Notice is given that those who have the necessary franchise shall appear and swear that they are entitled to vote. The list is made up in December. In January, notice is given that the Board of Revisors will go over the list and receive complaints as to errors. This board is created by virtue of article 224 of the Election Act, which says:
There shall be, for each of the cities of Montreal, Quebec and Three Rivers, a board of revision called the "Board of Revisors of the city of (name of the city)." The said hoard shall be composed of three persons selected and appointed as follows: The city council of each of the said cities shall appoint one of the said revisors. .	.	. The Lieutenant Governor in Council shall appoint the other two revisors.
In Montreal these three gentlemen compose this hoard: the Hon. Justice F. X. Choquette, who is the president; Mr. George A. Morrison, K.C., and Mr. Harvey, K.C. In

January, they went over the list and found it correct, and the city council of Montreal is hound hy the law to send a copy of that list to Ottawa. This is the copy I have in my hand. The point I want to make is this: Is it necessary, when we have the guarantee of the reputation of Mr. Justice Choquette and of those other two gentlemen, that they will make up a proper list, that we should hand over the work to one enumerator who may be appointed to the dissatisfaction of the whole community? You are proposing to take the old list as a basil. Why could not Mr. Justice Choquette and the other two gentlemen add on the names of the women voters and strike out the names of foreigners whose names they think should be stricken out? Why put in this mushroom enumerator? The enumerator might be a kind of a dog mushroom, because there are different kinds of mushrooms. We shall have to watch the enumerator. I shall have to sit next to him in order to see that he does not strike out or add on names which should not be stricken out or added. By leaving the list to the Board of Revisors in Quebec and Montreal, there is every guarantee that it will be made up properly and to the satisfaction of all concerned. In that way also, the Government would save a great deal of money. In Quebec we have 65 counties, and there would' have to be at least 65 enumerators with the right of the returning officer of the county to name more; that is to say, one to every polling subdivision. I fail to understand why the Government is introducing this system of enumerators. We never had such a thing before in Quebec. Under subsection 62, a person may go to an enumerator and say: I have the right to vote. The enumerator may refuse, but he will generally give the right to vote to anybody so that it may be that in every booth there will be five or six or seven of those people coming to vote. What control have you in that case? The deputy returning officer or the representative of a candidate can challenge, but at the same time, if this person offers to swear, he must receive the vote. There will, therefore, be an electoral campaign in every polling booth. There will be discussion there as to whether such a person shall be allowed to vote or not. You will have one agent fighting against the other agent, and you will find that there is really no basis for the list. The list will apparently be made up, but at the same time it will be so disrupted by the enumerators that nobody will recognize it. There will be a fight in the booth. To save all this I would ask that
the Board of Revisors be permitted to revise the list in the city of Montreal, to receive all complaints, to strike out the names of foreigners whose names should be struck off and to add the names of the women whose names should, according to this measure, be added. You may take all the precautions you like to name a good enumerator, but he will be a partisan. Two years ago every one expected an election. The people of Montreal thought there would be an election.
Partisanship came in. I was asked to look after the revision of the electoral list of St. James, but I had no money to spend for that purpose. My opponent, however, had an office controlled by a great politician whom we sometimes see in this House. He appointed two men for each polling subdivision, and these two men made every one who applied to be put on the voters' list establish his qualifications. A man called Peter, we will say, would come along, and these two men would say, "We don't know Peter," and Peter would be struck off the list. About fifteen hundred names were struck off in that way. Last year 700 or 800 applied to be put on the voters' list in St James, and no organization was formed to strike off names. I thought the Government had possibly decided to prepare a new list. Pull opportunity was given to applicants to be put on the list. Does any cine expect that we will get justice if these enumerators are appointed? There is not the slightest doubt that the enumerators who will be appointed will be the best string-pullers in the municipality. They will be near to the Government in isome' way or other, and we shall have to look after our own interests. I think it would be far better to leave it to the judge.


Arthur Meighen: It is true that the enumerator makes a complete list and hands that list to the returning officer, but in making that list he is [DOT]compelled by law to put on every man who is on the list that exists for that poll, except aliens naturalized since March 31, 1902, and conscientious [DOT] objectors. He is also compelled to add the women who aTe enfranchised under this Bill, and those only. Those are his duties as defined by law. That work of his is subject to appeal to the judges. If Judge Choquette is the judge who would sit on a recount, he will sit and have just the same authority as before, and I hope he will exercise it well, as no doubt he will. Nothing else is subject to appeal. Why? Because it has all been judicially revised before.

We do not propose to appoint string-pullers or mushrooms as enumerators.


Louis Audet Lapointe: These things might occur after the election.


Arthur Meighen: The election will not be decided until the judge is through with his work. As long as the result of the election depends upon his work, it makes no difference 'whether his work is done before or after polling day. It is the result that counts, and that result depends just as much upon the judicial work of the judge as if he did it before polling day. That is -the intent of the Act, and I am sure if my hon. friend will consult with his friends around him he will be advised that that is exactly what is embodied in the Bill.
My hon. friend from Carleton made a suggestion to us with regard to the boys who might from the date of the passing of this Act be enlisted for patrol work on the Canadian coast, and he asked that any so enlisted should not be counted among those whose female relatives would be permitted to vote. As soon as he made the proposal it struck me as reasonable, and he put it as a test of our sincerity.	I accept my
hon. friend's suggestion, and am prepared to embody it in the Bill. I do so for the reason that it is in line with the spirit of the Bill as it now stands. We declined to give the vote to the women relatives of the soldiers in Canada, and to my mind the chief reason was that it would admit of abuse. There would undoubtedly be the possibility of taking enlistments, and if there .is any possibility of that in connection with the naval forces around the shores of Canada I do not think it is unreasonable that the suggestion of my hon. friend should be accepted, and that 33A should be amended accordingly. Between six and eight o'clock I will prepare an amendment embodying the suggestion of my hon. friend.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: 
Arthur Meighen: That i6 another reason.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is the principal
reason. Now the men in the patrol service around Canada are here and can exercise their influence to a much greater degree than the soldier who is in Canada, because the soldier is confined to. barracks and is not liable to get around among his neighbours, whereas the man in the patrol service is living at home, carrying on bis ordinary business, and just as much able to exercise his influence during an election as ever he was. in his lifetime. I do not think my hon. friend understands the conditions in the patrol service. These men are simply living at home and carrying on their ordinary occupations, and the Government is paying them for the boats. If there be any reason for excluding the women relatives of the soldier who is in Canada, there is a double reason for excluding the woman relatives of members of the patrol service. However I am very thankful for the small concession my hon. friend has made, and I hope he will take this further suggestion into consideration between now and eight o'clock.


Mr. NEELY:: In connection with this
cloven-footed provision which disfranchises all British subjects who have been naturalized since March 31, 1902, I would like to ask the Secretary of State what evidence or proof, or what safeguard is there in this Bill as to the nature of the evidence that will be considered sufficient by the enumerator, or by the deputy returning officer, when a voter is voting and is challenged as to whether he was born in an alien enemy country.
Mr. MEIGHEN. The judge decides that.


David Bradley Neely: But here is a man who is making application vo the enumerator to go on the list, and he speaks the German language-


Arthur Meighen: He is refused.


David Bradley Neely: But he was bom in the United States. The enumerator says: "Well, I don't know whether you were born in the United States or not." Is he refused by the enumerator?	.


Arthur Meighen: If he is bom dn the United States he should not be refused by the enumerator, and if he is refused he can vote and his vote will be counted.


David Bradley Neely: It will be tied up.


Arthur Meighen: But the enumerator
would not gain anything by that.


David Bradley Neely: How is the enumerator to decide whether this man should be put on the list? Ts he to take the man's word when he says that 'he was born in the United States, or that he was born in Germany? What proof must a man furnish? Surely, the Secretary of State does not expect a man to produce his birth certificate? It does not seem to me there is any safeguard here whatever.


Arthur Meighen: I think it would be unreasonable to demand a birth certificate if the man did not have if. If he had his birth certificate, of course he might be asked to produce it. I do not think there will be very much doubt as to the origin of the men who are under the jurisdiction of the enumerator, because he has only one poll and he knows the people. He has for years known what the public has generally considered was the place of birth of John Schmitz. He has understood it all along, and in the majority of cases it is clear there would be no dispute about it. If there was a dispute he could make inquiries from the neighbours, and so on, and if by any chance he was wrong, then dt comes before the judge, who takes such evidence us he would take in any civil proceedings. ,


Wilfrid Laurier: When does it come before the judge?


Arthur Meighen: On the recount.


Wilfrid Laurier: It is tied up until then.


Arthur Meighen: But what is the difference? When this safeguard was put in, it was done in the belief that it secured absolute judicial revision, and for the life of me I cannot see why a judicial revision, which takes place before the result of the poll is determined, is not as effective as if there was no necessity at all for such revision.


David Bradley Neely: The safeguard spoken of by the Secretary of State does not seem to me to meet the point at all. The actual working-out of this feature will be this: if you get an active partisan as enumerator, and send him into a German-speaking polling division-a number of which I have in my own constituency-he can doubt any man's word, he can refuse to put the name of any German-speaking man on the list, and when that man comes to vote, his name
not being on the enumerator's list, if he votes at all he must swear in his vote. These votes will be put in envelopes, and will be considered before the judge on a recount. I can imagine in a constituency where there would be perhaps forty or fifty polling divisions, largely constituted of men of German birth or extraction, if the candidate wished to protect his interests and to protect the interests of every voter in those forty or fifty polling divisions, he might have to bring all these men before a judge on a recount to verify their right to vote.


Arthur Meighen: They have to swear to their exact qualification in order to vote.


David Bradley Neely: Exactly. It seems to me the scrutineer of that polling division might challenge every one of these votes, and compel the deputy returning officer to put them into envelopes to be brought before the judge in a recount.


Arthur Meighen: If the enumerator refuses to put a man's name on, and the man is prepared to' swear he has the right to vote, nobody can challenge that. It goes in the envelope anyway.


David Bradley Neely: So much the worse. If the man has to swear in order to vote, then automatically his vote goes into the envelope.


Arthur Meighen: If the enumerator makes him swear.


David Bradley Neely: Giving the enumerator
credit for being conscientious and trying to do the right thing, although a partisan, should we put upon him the responsibility of deciding as to whether or not a man who was born in the United States or in an alien enemy country, should or should not have the right to vote? I think that is an entirely unfair proposition.


Arthur Meighen: It is subject to judicial review.


David Bradley Neely: Supposing the man does swear in his vote, and he has to appear before the judge on recount. What evidence is the judge to accept?


Arthur Meighen: That position arises in every case. The judge will be governed by the laws of evidence. I do not know how you are going to determine anything ultimately except by the laws of evidence of this country. The rule of evidence is that the judge will demand the best evidence that can be secured. This would be-the certificate of birth, but if this certifi-

cate is not securable, then he gets the next best evidence that can be secured. That is plainly put in the rule of evidence, and that is the rale the judge will follow.


David Bradley Neely: I think it would be very much fairer to candidates and to voters if this Act were to state the class of evidence which would necessarily be accepted by the enumerator as to the place of a man's birth, so that if he were born in the United States, or in some friendly country, his name could be put on the list and he would not necessarily be sworn, and his vote tied up, nor would he be under the necessity of appearing before a judge on a recount.


Arthur Meighen: If that were done there would be the same difficulty.. If the enumerator is honest, he will take the best evidence he can get. If he is dishonest he will not. Supposing he is dishonest, and is told by the law to take such and such evidence, but does not do it, all the man can do is vote, and have his ballot tied. It would be tied anyway. As long as the man has his recourse to go before a judge of the land, no injustice can be done to him.


David Bradley Neely: The point I make is, that the enumerator has nothing in this Act to guide him as to what kind of proof or evidence is proof or evidence to him that the man is not entitled to be on the list?


Arthur Meighen: Nor has the judge anything to guide him under the ordinary law of the land. The judge has to take the best evidence available, and the enumerator has to do the same thing, and if you put up hard and fast rules I think hon. gentlemen will find the matter would be a .good deal worse than it is now.


David Bradley Neely: I see in the present arrangement the possibility of the entire vote of a polling division being tied up.


Arthur Meighen: 
David Bradley Neely: The enumerator is not a
lawyer or a judge and he wants to know. I am assuming that he wants to be fair but there is the case of the man who does not want to be fair and who may say: If he tells, me that he is from the United States I am supposed to take his word. I would suggest that it would be a great injustice to ask a man in the short time of an election campaign to back up his claim to citizenship. The other man who is affected by this1 Act is a naturalized British subject and he has taken the oath of allegiance. He has a naturalization certificate. In taking his oath he gives his place of birth under circumstances that do not in any way tend to fraud. When he was taking out naturalization there was no reason why he should say that he was born in the United States when he was actually born in Germany. The naturalization certificate should be prima facie evidence as far as putting the man om the list is concerned. '


Arthur Meighen: I too think it would be prima facie evidence but it would not be conclusive.


Mr. KNOWLES:: That would miake it
conclusive.


Arthur Meighen: Suppose a man could
not find his affidavit and suppose also that his certificate was missing-we have provided that a judge can weigh the evidence of the man's right to vote without giving the absolute right to everybody who cannot locate his affidavit. He might have difficulty in getting his affidavit although he had his certificate.


Jacques Bureau: I want to call the minister's 'attention to clause 33(a). I take it that the female relatives, enumerated, of the man who has served overseas, whether he is back in this country or not, have the right to vote?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Jacques Bureau: In that case I would ask the Secretary of State to strike out the word " person " as it appears in line thirty of this clause:
Every female person shall be capable of voting and qualified to vote at a Dominion election in any province or in the Yukon Territory, who, being a British subject, and qualified as to age, race and residence as required in the case of a male person in such province or in the Yukon Territory, as the case may be, is the wife, widow, mother, sister or daughter of any person.
I would propose to insert "military elector" in place of "person."


Arthur Meighen: And leave in "living or dead"?


Jacques Bureau: Leave in the rest but substitute for "person" "military elector."


Arthur Meighen: Then we would have to define "military elector."


Jacques Bureau: That is defined in the Military Voters Act. I suggest that out of respect for the soldier himself. I was reading in the papers the other day about a man who was being chased around this country, an outlaw, who is a returned soldieT, a dynamiter named Monette or Girard. It is not right that the mother, wife, daughter or sister of a man who has been at the front and has served his country well should go to the poll with the wife or sister of this man Monette, an outlaw and a deserter, for whom the police have been looking. The term "military elector," although not contained in this Act, is defined in the .Military Voters Act, and I think that, for the honour and dignity of those men who are at the front and doing their duty, it is proper that it should be used in this Act Tather than the word "person." The definition of "military elector" in the Military Voters Act is:
"Military elector" means and includes every person, male or female, who, being a British subject, whether or not ordinarily resident in Canada and whether or not a minor or an Indian, has been, while within or without Canada, appointed, enlisted, enrolled or called out for active service as one of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Militia on active service, or the Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve, or has been, while within Canada, appointed, enlisted or enrolled as one of the British Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Aviation Service, or Auxiliary Motor Boat Patrol.
I have been looking over that clause, and f find that it covers every man whom the Minister of Naval Service would like to have included. It may extend the franchise a little farther than the Secretary of State intends.. We might restrict it, if the minister desires to do so, with reference to the men who have not yet left Canada. On the other hand, I would like the persons whose relatives are entitled to vote under clause 33 (a) to be designated as a "military elector" who is serving or who has been honourably discharged, instead of by the word "person."


Arthur Meighen: The suggestion is a very valuable one. It did not occur to me that the relatives of a deserter would be included here, hut I rather think they would be. It would be quite wro-ng that the relatives of
those who had joined and deserted should be on a par with the relatives of the man who was serving or who had been honourably discharged.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Section 63 of the Act
as it new stands provides that any person, practically, who is on the voters' list can be challenged and if he refuses to take the oath in form Z he cannot vote. Then section 65 provides that every voter shall be entitled to vote whose name is on the voters' list and has not been erased therefrom in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this Bill. I assume that the enumerator takes the list as it comes from the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery or the custodian of the list in New Brunswick, erases from it the names of any former alien enemies, and adds the names of the female voters, and that becomes the list for the election. Therefore it- seems that every voter is entitled to vote whose name is on. the list unless he refuses to take the oath in form Z. But form Z merely refers to people in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Yukon Territory and not in the rest of Canada. At section 153 it will he found that in the rest of Canada we have a distinct cause of challenge on the ground that a man does not comply with the qualification provided by the provincial statute. In New Brunswick, he must take an oath that he is a resident of the constituency in which he attempts to vote; but if you leave the Bill as it is now, you lender nugatory that provision of our law which prevents him from voting in a constituency in which he does not reside. In other words, it comes back to what I said earlier in the afternoon; in my. constituency, I have no doubt there are from 100 to 200 names on the voters' lists who do not live in the constituency and have not for years, but who, for political reasons, have been deliberately kept on those lists in order that they may be brought from the United States to vote.


John Douglas Hazen: How can they vote? 'hey have to take the oath, and that would be perjury.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: They do. But there has been a change in the East and the man who attempts to perjure himself now will be in the worst scrape he ever was in. It will be no longer safe for a man to come from Boston or the state of Maine and perjure himself because his name is on the voters' list. But if the law stands as it is now I am afraid that man will be safe and we cannot put the oath to him because,

once his name is on the list, he oan come from Boston or anywhere and we cannot prevent him because, being on the list made out by an enumerator, he has a right to vote. That means a serious thing to me, perhaps 100 or 150 votes. I would ask the minister to look into this carefully before eight o'clock.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Before the Secretary of State replies to the question that I put to him before six o'clock, I should like to call his attention to the provisions of section
63 of the Act as it now stands. The section reads:
Every person whose name is on the voters' list, unless sworn as in the next preceding section provided, shall before being permitted to vote, if required by any candidate, agent or elector, take the oath number one in Form Z.
If he refuses to take the oath, his name shall be erased from the voters' list. But the swearing " in the next preceding section provided " is that in the case of persons who have been addled to the list by the certificate of the enumerator on election day. Section 62 provides challenge only for a limited number of people; section 63 is the general 'Challenge provision, hut my hon. friend will find that form Z could not be used at all except in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Yukon territory.


Arthur Meighen: Form Z is omitted. Section 62, page 8 of the Bill, says:
(q) by striking out Form Z No. 1 and inserting instead the following:
"Form Z No. 1. You swear that you are legally qualified to vote at this election, that you are of the ('male' or 'female') sex, a British subject, and of the full age of 21 years.''
I had this matter looked into during the recess, and those who looked into it are thoroughly' satisfied-from their report to me I think that they are right-that that fully meets the point raised by the hon. gentleman before six o'clock. The amendment to form Z makes form Z the proper oath to be taken by all persons other than those who are sworn because the enumerator will not let them go on the list.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Legally the minister is right, but that is not sufficient for my purpose. Section 153 of the Dominion Elections Act, which was added in 1909, before the last general election, at the request of members from New Brunswick, was de-

signed to meet the very condition I have pointed out1 to the minister. We have had a terrible condition of affairs in New Brunswick because of the fact that the names of men who live in the United States have been kept on the lists. They are brought into the province for a consideration amounting anywhere from $5 to $25, and in some cases $50. My hon. friend (Mr. Graham) says, "pretty high." I can tell him that they have paid as high as $100- as a matter of fact, $100 was a kind of upset price against me in 1911. These men were brought - over and swore that they were qualified. In order to meet that condition section 153 was inserted, providing that, in addition to complying with the general law, a man must take any oath provided for by provincial legislation. There is an oath in the law of New Brunswick in which a man must specifically swear that lie is a resident of the electoral district in which he is tendering his vote.
I do object, therefore, to seeing this provision cut out when it might as well be " left in.


Arthur Meighen: It is still there, and can be used. Section 153 will lose none of its force in the coming election by virtue of this Act. It says:
Except in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta and the Yukon Territory, an elector, if required by the deputy returning officer, the poll clerk, one of the candidates, or an agent of a candidate, or by any elector present, shall, before receiving his ballot paper, take' such oath of qualification as by the laws of the province he may in the like case at a provincial election be required to take, such changes having been made in the form of oath as are necessary to make it applicable to the election being held.
Make it applicable to this election, and the man is bound to be qualified by residence in order that he may be enabled to vote. The hon. gentleman can make up an affidavit in accordance with that, and if the man refuses to take it he cannot vote.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I cannot make up an affidavit. All any person can do is to ask the man to take the oath provided by law.


Arthur Meighen: By the provincial law.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Is section 153 allowed to stand?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend does
not specifically repeal it, but he does so in effect by the provisions of section 65 of this Act. Section 65 says:	.

Every voter shall be entitled to vote whose name is on the voters' list and has not been erased therefrom in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this part.
We could demand that a man take the vote according to the new form Z, but that is not sufficient. A person who, for a consideration, comes to the poll with the avowed purpose of voting when he knows he has no right to do so, asserts that he is qualified to vote. If you make him swear that he is a resident of the electoral district in which he tenders his vote, then you can get after him with a warrant five minutes afterwards. That is what we want him to swear, and that is why section 153 was put in. That provision has been useful to us. I suggest that section 153 should read this way:
Every voter shall be entitled to vote whose name is on the voters' list and has not been erased therefrom in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this Part, and subject to the provisions of section 153.
Just add those words. Then you will retain the rights given us by section 153.


Arthur Meighen: The rights are still retained even if you do not do that. The hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) is not in agreement with my hon. friend.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I think the hon. member for South Renfrew and I are entirely in agreement in regard to the matter.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member say that, if at the end of section 65, you make section 153 the dominating section, then in Ontario a man who is on the list, say in the county of Renfrew, and who has moved into the county of Leeds, a sufficiently long time to disqualify him in the county of Renfrew, could, under the provincial law, still vote in the county of Renfrew? I am afraid he could not.


George Perry Graham: I do not think he could. The hon. member for Carleton and I had a little conversation. The point I had in mind was this. I was anxious to have some oath that the man who is on the list confirmed by this measure could be asked to take as to his right to vote. He may have got on the voters' list without having any right to get on.


Arthur Meighen: When he got on?


George Perry Graham: Yes. He may have got on wrongly. I see the difficulty the Secretary of State is'in. By accepting this provision, as he says, a man who had moved out of the county would be prevented from
coming back and voting, and consequently he would have no vote. Would it meet the purposes of my hon. friend from Carleton if the man had to swear that he was a resident of the province?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No.	.


Arthur Meighen: That is the difficulty.


George Perry Graham: It would hardly be fair to say, so far as Ontario is concerned, that a man should have to swear he was a resident of that riding, because provision is made in this Bill that a man having removed from the riding and, I suppose, being still in Canada-*


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


George Perry Graham: -should have a right to' return. If not, he would not have a right to vote in this election.


Arthur Meighen: That is it exactly.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have another suggestion to make, which will not interfere with the condition of affairs in Ontario. We have, in a dozen places in this measure, made certain provision respecting one, two or three provinces. Therefore, we are not violating any principle if we make a special provision for a special province. I would suggest that section 65 read:
Every voter shall be entitled to vote whose name is on the voters' list and has not been erased therefrom in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this Part and in the province of New Brunswick subject to the provisions of section 153.


Arthur Meighen: I find it very hard to agree with that, for the reason that the cases of the two provinces are identical.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I may be in error in that. This is the law in our province: If a man's name is upon the list, say, in the county of Carleton, and he moves to the city of St. John just before an election, he must vote in the constituency in which he resides. All he has to do is to apply to the secretary-treasurer who is the custodian of the list in the county of Carleton and obtain from him a certificate which he takes to the secretary-treasurer of the city of St. John, and this entitles him to vote in the city of St. John. That is the way in which we work it out.


Mr. EDWARDS:: Is there no time limit
fixed?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No.


William Cameron Edwards: Would that be the case even if the man went the day before an election?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If he became a bona fide resident of the city of St. John the day .before the election and became a qualified voter under the authority of that certificate, he would ,be entitled to vote.


William Cameron Edwards: The case is not the same in Ontario.


George Perry Graham: That is the difference.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: A good many people
have moved into New Brunswick just a few days before election. What I have stated is the law, so that you do not deprive the man of his vote by .applying .section 153 to him. He has the right to take his vote with him.


Arthur Meighen: Not under this law.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, under our law he
ihas the right to take his vote with him. I feel, therefore, that some provision should be made .by which we can retain the provisions of section 153.


Arthur Meighen: 
Frank Broadstreet Carvell: By enumerators? The
Lord forbid!


Arthur Meighen: You could call them
registrars. If the hon. gentleman wants seventy-five per cent of the list completed now and final, I think it has to stay that way. I do not see how we can invade the list and, at the same time, preserve the principle at .all.


Mr. GLASS:: That is exactly the point
we were discussing last night. I think the principle ought to be accepted that a citizen of Canada who is qualified to vote should not, be disqualified because he has moved from one part of the country to an-

other. We have adopted the principle that there should be one vote for each man. The provisions in New Brunswick, .as the hon. member for Carleton has stated, cover that point to a certain extent-but I do not think as fairly as they should-to allow that man to return and vote in the constituency in which he was. on the list provided that he was not on the list in any other part of the country. It does not seem to be right that any citizen of this country who has voting qualifications, if by reason of business necessity or otherwise he has moved into another part and has not been in that.district a sufficient length of time to be on the list, should be in the position of an 'alien and entirely disfranchised. Provided that a man is on the list only in one constituency and has been continuously resident in this country and is qualified in one cons tituency, he cannot have been away very long, and I do not see why he should be deprived of bis vote. So far as justice to the voter is concerned, it would give precisely the same conditions as exist in New Brunswick except that the voter would return to' the place in which he was on the list instead of voting in the place in which he resides.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not think he would have a vote there at all under Form Z.


Arthur Meighen: 
Jacques Bureau: That would not apply, I suppose, in the province of Quebec, because no man can be added to the list according to 65 A.


Arthur Meighen: No, it only applies to women.


George Perry Graham: The objection of the hon. member for Carleton, as I understand it. is that men not resident in Canada at all may come in and vote. I think we could shut out the vote that might be brought in from across the line by adding to Form 7, No. 1, after the word "British subject" the words "a resident of Canada."


Arthur Meighen: I am inclined to think that that could be done, if it will suit the needs of the hon. member for Carleton.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It will get rid of most of the difficulty. Let me give an illustration. In our country we have many cases where a man may be revised in two counties. Perhaps he has land in both counties, and he goes on the assessment list. Of course, he should be removed from the county in which he does not reside. He might attempt to vote twice, but that is a local affair, and it is watched pretty closely. If my hon. friend would insert the words "a resident of Canada" I think it would about meet the case.


Arthur Meighen: I beg to move that Form 7 No. 1 be amended by adding after the word "subject" in the third line thereof the words "a resident of Canada."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Arthur Meighen: I move:
That section 1 of the Bill be amended by striking out of the fourth line of the amended section 48, paragraph (i) of the Bill, the word "ten" and substituting therefor the word "fifteen."
This is to make the period between {'he posting up and the election day fifteen days instead of ten.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Arthur Meighen: I move:
That section 1 of the Bill be amended by striking out of the sixth line of paragraph (k) of the amended section 48 the word "three" and substituting therefor the word "five."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Arthur Meighen: I move:
That section 1 of the Bill be amended by striking out of the seventh line of paragraph
(1) of the amended section 48, the word "three" and substituting therefor the word "five."


Jacques Bureau: What is the substance of the amendment?


Arthur Meighen: Prior to this Bill, in the provinces where enumeration applied, the enumerator had to post up his lists as complete as he could get them eight days before election day, in the post office, on the polling booth, and so on; and he had to sit as a Court of Revision until two days before election day, when the list was complete as far as there was a list at all. Now instead of making it eight days and two days, we are making it fifteen and five days.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Samuel Francis Glass: Referring to Form Z No. 1. sometimes difficulty arises in connection with the interpretation of what is meant by " a resident of Canada". We occasionally have cases where men are temporarily outside the bounds of Canada, but their families are still resident in Canada. I think it should be understood that a man is held to be domiciled 'where his family resides.


Arthur Meighen: The courts have interpreted it. Under the court rulings the man described by my hon. friend would be a resident of Canada.


Samuel Francis Glass: But it is a question of how it may be interpreted for the time being by the returning officer.


Arthur Meighen: No.


Samuel Francis Glass: If that matter could be explained to a voter who was conscientious, so that he would know the fact that his family residing here would justify him in taking the oath-


Arthur Meighen: I think it would be better to have it explained to him.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The Solicitor General is quite right in his interpretation of the law. A man resides where his family is.


Arthur Meighen: I move:
That section 1 be amended by inserting at the end of paragraph (n) of section 1 the words "and by striking out from the second line of section 57 the words 'nine o'clock in the forenoon' and Inserting instead the words 'the opening of the polls.' "
This is necessary because the opening of the poll in certain cities is at six o'clock instead of at nine o'clock.


Jacques Bureau: That is not in the Bill; dt is only in the reprint.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: You may not be able to amend in that way. You are amending a section which is not in the Bill before the House. You are referring only to the amending Bill.


Arthur Meighen: The effect of the amendment I have just read is to change "nine o'clock in the forenoon" to "the opening of the poll," so as to make it applicable to all polls, no (matter when they opened.


Mr. MORPHY:: Will the Secretary of State permit me a word in connection with the opening of the poll? Section 136 of some Bill I have in hand-and it is very difficult to tell what we axe working on-deals with certain cities, the cities of Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Regina, St. John, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg wherein the polls shall be open at the hour of six o'clock in the morning. As I may not be present when this section comes up for discussion, I would like to say that the city of Stratford, in the constituency of North Perth, which I have the honour to represent, is a large railway centre, and the early trains leave that city eviery morning except Sunday long before the usual hour for'the opening of the polls. These trains leave for Buffalo, Port Dover, Toronto Montreal, Owen Sound, London, Detroit, Sarnia, main line to Chicago, and Goderich division and on only one of these divisions is it possible for the train crews to poll their votes. I (think the city of Stratford should be included in this list, as it is one of the largest railway centres in the province of Ontario.


Arthur Meighen: This is a question on which I think the committee should be guided largely by the views of the members who know most about the cities. If it is in the public interest in any city that the polls should open at six o'clock instead of at nine o'clock, we want the Bill to read that they shall open at six o'clock. I may say I have also been requested to add the city of St. Thomas to the list. I think it would be a great advantage to the committee if horn, members would carefully review the ground, and let the committee have the benefit of their ideas as to how the section should be amended, if it needs amendment at all. There is ho reason why the city of Stratford should not be added to the list if it is going to be a public convenience.

At the same time we do not want to impose on cities that do not need it the necessity of opening the poll at six o'clock in the morning.


Samuel Francis Glass: I think nearly all divisional points on the railways would be in the same position.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: I would like to have an expression from the Secretary of State to the effect that no matter what other members of the House will say or do, he will put Stratford in the Bill.


Arthur Meighen: I am quite ready to do so.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: At the opening of the session this afternoon, I asked the Secretary of State if since last evening he had taken into consideration the enfranchisement of relatives of persons serving in the Canadian navy within Canada. He informed me it was not the intention to limit the enfranchisement to those without Canada. At the time I was not sure whether I should be in order in pressing my point, and I abandoned it for the time being. Now, however the discussion is quite free and open, and I wish again to direct attention to this matter. I do not think it is wise or necessary to enfranchise the female relatives of those serving in the Canadian navy within Canada. I understand this Bill is based upon the principle that we have a great number of men serving abroad in France and elsewhere in Europe; many of them on account of death of course will not be able to vote. In introducing this Bill, the Secretary of State expressed the view that it would be but proper if some of the relatives of those deceased soldiers should have the right to vote.
He urged as another justification for the Bill the fact that the influence of the soldiers was lost. They had an opportunity of voting but they had not an opportunity of exercising any influence during the campaign in Canada. That is another of the two grounds upon which he justified this Bill when introducing it. That ground does not apply to the naval forces. Surely within Canada the relatives of this class ought not to be given the franchise. They have an opportunity of exercising their influence in Canada, and I cannot understand upon what principle my hon. friend desires to enfranchise the female relatives of these men. I submit that it should not be done. According to the statement read to the committee this afternoon by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, it includes some

classes of people who, in the strict sense of the term, are not engaged in the naval service. In that statement the minister says:
It would also include the relatives of men employed in clerical positions in Ottawa, Halifax or elsewhere who never sailed in a ship and are employed continually ashore.
I submit that it is not fair to extend the franchise to the female relatives of men employed in the dock yards at Halifax or in tlte naval service department here at Ottawa. Proceeding further the statement says:
It would also include the relatives of officers serving in Canada on Imperial duty such as the officers of the Naval Patrol in Halifax, the staff in charge of the dispatch of convoys at Sydney,
And so on. There is no particular reason why the relatives of this class should he enfranchised. I find, according to the statement, that on the east coast of Canada there are 149 boys and on the west coast 53. Their female relatives will be enfranchised. If the minister would apply the principles upon which he justified the Bill itself, to this part of the Bill referring to the naval service, he would strike out the words "within or" at the bottom of the first page. The female relatives of men serving in the military forces of Canada, and within Canada, are not enfranchised; why should the relatives of those engaged in the naval service in Canada be enfranchised? Why not apply the same principle to both the military and naval forces? I understood last evening that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State were rather disposed to, view this application of mine favourably. No reason was given this afternoon in justification of this particular section. I hope the minister will see his way clear to restrict the application of this clause.


Avard Longley Davidson: I regret that I am not able to agree with the hon. the junior member for Halifax and I am a little surprised that an hon. gentleman who favours the extension of the franchise to all women should wish to restrict it in this way. I should think that if he were in favour of universal suffrage he would be glad to have it extended as far as possible and that if he could not get the whole loaf he would want the half loaf to be as large as possible.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I cannot follow
that line of reasoning.


Avard Longley Davidson: I am sorry if the hon. gentleman cannot follow my argument. There is a great distinction as far as the
peril and danger is concerned between the soldiers doing garrison duty, or training in Canada, and the sailors on a ship along our coast. I think there could be no more dangerous avocation than that followed by those brave men who to-day are protecting the shores and coasts of eastern Canada. They are watching out for mines, they are continually menaced by the danger of striking an unknown mine, of being torpedoed, of running into a hostile ship, and the dangers of the sea. There is no more hazardous occupation than that which is followed by the brave men to whom I desire to tender this well-deserved tribute. I believe the anguish that is suffered by the relatives of those brave men is almost as great as that which is endured by the women relatives of those who are at the front.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Where does this anguish come in? What is the cause of all this anguish on the part of the relatives of men employed on. some ships in Halifax who only do about two hours' work a day?


Avard Longley Davidson: I am afraid that my
hon. friend is hard of heart.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: No, he is not at all. Tell me where this anguish comes from.


Avard Longley Davidson: Any good woman,
when her .husband is exposed to danger on the sea, naturally suffers anguish, and these men who go out even for two hours on the Atlantic coast brave the danger of submarines, hostile craft and inclement weather. They are in a most dangerous position. The suffering and anguish of their female relatives is akin to that suffered by the female relatives of men at the front.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: My hon. friend
must be thinking of phantom ships of the enemy or " ships that pass in the night." Surely he is not talking about real ships of the enemy that are a menace to these Canadian ships of ours?


Avard Longley Davidson: I am surprised that
my hon. friend would' refer to the Canadian navy as a phantom. I am astounded at the hon. gentleman contending that there are no dangers on the ocean these days. It is full of dangers and there could be no more hazardous occupation than that which is followed by these men. From the standpoint of suffering for the cause and for the flag, we are abundantly justified in giving the brave women relatives of these sailors the privilege of the franchise and
57.3t

I sincerely trust that it *will not be denied them by this statute.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: This Bill will enfranchise the female relatives of 57 wireless operators on the Atlantic coast and So on the West coast. Does my hon. friend mean to tell me that the wives and sisters and mothers of these men employed as wireless operators have to undergo anguish? Are these wireless operators exposed to great dangers and menaces of any kind?


Avard Longley Davidson: I say emphatically that wireless operators are exposed to danger. And I would ask my hon. friend if there are no mines along the Atlantic coast, if there is no danger from that source, what in the world are these men doing cruising and searching for them?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They are not doing much of it.


Avard Longley Davidson: But every day they are out.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Once in a while.


Avard Longley Davidson: I happen to know thiat they are out.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I should like to hear from the Secretary of State as to my suggestion to amend this Bill. The hon. member for Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) is subject to some hallucination about this matter. The protection of our coast is really performed by the ships of the British Navy which are stationed upon the coast. There are a great number of small steamers in the harbour of Halifax whose officers and crews, I believe, come within this Bill-three or four times more than are necessary; half of them might be dispensed with entirely. They are exposed to no such dangers as my hon. friend would have this committee believe.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: It might rain on them.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: When this Bill was presented to the House by the Solicitor General, he laid stress on the fact that it gave the franchise to the female relatives of overseas soldiers who, by reason of their absence, were unable to exercise any influence in the coming election in this country. I can understand this ground, although I do not believe 'in it; but why should it apply to men to the navy?


Arthur Meighen: I believe in both
grounds and therefore support the Bill; but I cannot understand the hon. member who says he does not believe in these grounds
[Mr. Davidson. J
at all and still does not want the line pressed one inch beyond them. I am willing to concede that the ground of absence and consequent loss of influence among the electorate is eliminated in the case of those who spend a considerable part of their time on shore with their fellows; but the other ground of sacrifice, the exposure of husbands or sons to the perils of war, applies to those whose husbands and sons are serving in the navy for the protection of our coast. If that is not so, let us say that the whole coast defence is a fake, and that the whole idea of a Canadian navy for coast defence is a fraud. I do not think the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) would want to take that ground. I never contended that there was not need for coast defence even in peace, and I believe that to-day there is need 9 p.m. for every kind of coast defence.
I also believe that those engaged in it are exposed to the same perils in mine-sweeping and so on as in any other form of service.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Where is the
mine-sweeping being done in Canada?


Arthur Meighen: The Minister of Marine told us this afternoon where it was done.
Mr. A. K. MACLEAN- I do not believe there is any mine sweeping outside of the harbours of Sydney and Halifax, and possibly in the river St. Lawrence.


Arthur Meighen: I have to take my information from the Department of Marine. The minister said that extensive minesweeping operations were going on in connection with the coast patrol.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: There may be some patrolling, but no such thing as minesweeping on the coast.


Arthur Meighen: That is dangerous.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: No, it is not.


Jacques Bureau: Before six o'clock I was suggesting an amendment to the Solicitor General in the definition of persons who could give a right to vote to their female relatives. The Solicitor General raised an objection that would disappear if he yielded to the demand of the hon. member for Halifax. I suggested the use of the words "military elector" in place of the word "person." He objected that the word military elector might includ& people in camp in Canada who had never been overseas. The clause already provides for that in respect to1 the military forces. The soldier who has not gone across the seas cannot

give the vote to his female relations. If a similar clause were inserted in relation to the naval force, everything would be all right. I do not see why a difference should be made between the man who serves in the navy and the man who serves in the land forces.


Arthur Meighen: I think my hon. friend's suggestion had far more value than he attributes to it. His suggestion was to substitute for "person" in 33a "military elector" on the first page of the amending Act, limiting "military elector to those who had not left the Canadian shores. The great value of the suggestion was that as the Act stands, a man who enlisted and deserted perhaps a week afterwards is placed in the same position as a man who is still fighting in Flanders; his relatives [DOT]have the right to vote just as do the relatives of the bona fide soldier. My hon. friend suggests that that class of relatives should not be enfranchised; certainly they should not be. I propose to meet my hon. friend fully on that point. Indeed, I am obliged to him for the 'suggestion, because it is wrong that the relatives of a deserter should be given the vote under any principle embodied in this Bill.


Jacques Bureau: How does my hon. friend differentiate between the man serving in the military and land forces and the man serving in the naval forces? As I understand it, the moment a man in the naval forces goes outside the three-mile limit he has gone overseas for the purpose of service.


Arthur Meighen: You could never tell whether a man was just outside the three-mile limit or not.


Jacques Bureau: "Without 'Canada" are the words used in the Act.


Arthur Meighen: "Without Canada"
legally means beyond the thTee-mile limit. Actual war service is frequently performed by members of the naval forces within the three-mile limit along the Canadian coast. T'he war service of a man in the military forces is not so performed; his active service is performed overseas. That is the difference. The men who are guarding the Canadian coasts are engaged in war service. It is conceivable that that service may become even more perilous than service overseas.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Does the Secretary of State justify the enfranchisement of female relatives of those engaged in the
naval service upon the ground that the latter are subjected to peril?


Arthur Meighen: That they are engaged in actual war service involving peril.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I suppose some of them are engaged in war service, but in many instances it is almost a commercial transaction. For instance, there are 92 wireless operators in the naval service of Canada. Does the work of a wireless operator constitute war service in the strictest sense of the term? Is that not a purely commercial occupation?


Arthur Meighen: I do not think they are in the naval service.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They are in the naval service, according to the statement made this' afternoon by the Minister of the Naval Service. In Halifax harbour probably a dozen motor boats and steamers are operated by the Government, whereas three or four, or at least half the number, would be sufficient.


Arthur Meighen: What are they doing?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Some of them do nothing. A good many of them hardly ever go outside the mouth of the harbour. Some of them are engaged in the mine-sweeping in the harbour which is not a hazardous occupation.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: They are practising minesweeping.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They are under instructions from the British Admiralty to sweep Halifax harbour for mines every day. They may be practising, but I suppose that work has to be done in any case. In many instances, these 'steamers have been chartered from individuals. In taking over the steamers, the Government took over the crew; automatically, I suppose, the men entered the naval service. Surely my hon. friend cannot justify the extension of the franchise to the female relatives of these men on the ground that they are subjected to peril or that they are actually engaged in war service.	.


Arthur Meighen: I suppose the hon. gentleman would take the same position in regard to the men engaged in forestry work in France. There is a minimum of peril there, I should think. You cannot distinguish between one war service and another.


Mr. CURRIE:: Is it not a fact that about a year ago a number of men were lost off



the patrol boat Grilse? These are the men whom he speaks of as not being engaged in perilous service.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: It is true that the Grilse on her way from Halifax to Bermuda met with disaster and some lives were lost. That steamer should not have been sent to sea at the time.


John Allister Currie: The same thing is liable to occur to any one of the boats in this patrol service.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: She was the largest boat on the east coast engaged in patrol service. The case of the Grilse is evidence of the fact that the greater part of the patrol service down there is unnecessary. The Grilse never performed any large amount of service while there; she never should have been sent there. She is capable of real service, not on the Canadian coast but on the coast of the United Kingdom, on account of her great speed.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman
knows that this patrol service extends far beyond Newfoundland. Several Newfoundland harbours are patrolled in the same way.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not know it, and I doubt very much whether my hon. friend does.


John Allister Currie: We are informing the
hon. gentleman now of the facts.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Who is informing me?


John Allister Currie: You cannot tell what
moment a submarine will arrive off the coast of Nova Scotia and blow up one of the fishing towns.	,


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not accept my hon. friend as an authority on this matter. Men much more familiar with matters'of this kind than the Secretary of State, the member for North Simeoe (Mr. Currie) or myself, say that the patrol service on the Atlantic coast is largely unnecessary-and I believe that is a fact. I should like the minister to give the commute some reason for retaining in the Bill as it now stands the clause to which I refer. Is it not peculiar that the female relatives of wireless operators should be enfranchised? A great number of men in this service in the city of Halifax never go to sea. Possibly there may be grounds of extending the -franchise to some female relatives in some cases, but it is unnecessary and unfair to leave the provision so-

broad and so unrestricted as it is in its present form.
Mr. MEIGHEN. It is putting me at an unfair advantage to ask me to defend the Naval Department and to proceed on the assumption that the Naval' Department is making a fraud of its work. I am not the Minister of Naval Service, but I am satisfied that the hon. gentleman's allegations in that regard are not founded upon fact. Wireless operators surely go out to sea. I assume that the mine-sweepers have wireless operators on board

men who are enlisted in the naval forces. What is the difference between a man who is a wireless operator on a mine-sweeper and a man who is a paymaster of a -battalion? There are degrees of peril, degrees of service, degrees of hard work, endurance, suffering. You cannot draw an exact line in that respect.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Quite a number of wireless operators perform service on land.


Arthur Meighen: I assume they are sometimes on land and sometimes on ship. Take the men engaged in construction and forestry work; some of them are working in England; some of them may at no time be in France. The only bold line you can draw-the fairest line, without going into details in individual cases-is the lihe between active war service and something there is not war service of any kind. If we did everything with absolute fairness, if that were possible at all, we would give to the poor fellow in the front line who goes ever the parapet about twenty-five votes, and to the fellow in England one. We cannot do those things.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Let me remind the Secretary of State that at Halifax two regiments, which were called out at the commencement of the war by compulsion, are still performing' service. Many of them are very much inconvenienced thereby. Many have been taken from their business, and would like to-day to -avoid iservi-ce and to return to their ordinary occupations. Are not the female relatives of those men just as much entitled to the franchise as many of those engaged in the naval service? They are performing war service.


Mr. ARTHURS:: Have any of those men been refused the right to go overseas?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not see what that has to do with the matter.


James Arthurs: It certainly has a great deal to do with it. Those men perhaps have no desire to go overseas.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: A great many of them have gone. The regiment is changing all the time.
Mr. DAVIDSON': My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr.*A. K. Maclean) takes altogether too complacent a view of the marine situation in this country. It is riather a habit with hon. gentlemen opposite not really to appreciate danger until it actually comes. We remember only a few months ago that there was, according to my hon. friends opposite, no emergency in this country, notwithstanding the fact that Germany was preparing up to the hilt for war. They could see no danger. They cried "wolf," and laughed at the Prime Minister when he spoke about the rumblings and lightnings on the national horizon. I am surprised that my hon. friend, who has so long represented a marine constituency, does not appreciate the very great danger that besets the men that go down to the sea in ships, particularly warships, even in time of peace. If he will allow his memory to go back only a few years, he will remember that the Canadian warship, the Niobe, when the sky was clear, when there was no war, went down to attend a social function at Yarmouth during Home Week. There were no submarines, no mines, nothing of that kind. Yet that gallant ship came to grief even in time of peace. How very different those times are from now. We know that submarines have visited this side of the Atlantic-and not phantom submarines, by any means. Was it a phantom submarine that arrived off Nantucket a few months ago and sank a number of British ships? I think not. It is an open secret to all who live along the Nova Scotia coast that there is a great menace arising in that way. My hon, friend makes light of these dangers because the Government is not, for many reasons, able to give all the information it might give under other circumstances in reference to this matter. But if there was no peril there, hon. gentlemen opposite would probably not have made the clamour for protection that they have made in this House on more than one occasion. We all remember how eloquently the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) criticised and denounced the Oovernment for not taking any precautions. Those craft sweep not only Halifax harbour, but the coast of Nova Scotia, and it is an open secret, with at least every longshoreman in Halifax, that they go as far as Newfoundland, and I have a notion that my hon. friend has a suspicion of that fact
also. He says that because some of these people at certain times merely go out in Halifax harbour to look for mines, they confront no danger. Since this war began, one or two dreadnoughts have blown up in harbours.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What harbours in Canada?


Avard Longley Davidson: I am not speaking about Canada.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: We are.


Avard Longley Davidson: Warships have been blown up a very short distance from our harbours. My hon. friends from Quebec cannot see any danger to this country because they do not hear the peal of the guns.


Jacques Bureau: The members from Quebec see better than you do.


Avard Longley Davidson: My hon. friend cannot see that a menace that would visit English harbours might, also, in the space of a few hours, visit a harbour on this side of the Atlantic.


Jacques Bureau: What is an English harbour?


Avard Longley Davidson: I would almost think an English harbour would be a harbour in England.


Charles Avila Wilson: A harbour speaking English?


Avard Longley Davidson: Would the hon. gentleman repeat his question? I did not catch what he said.


Mr. GAUVREAU:: Go on, or shut up.


Avard Longley Davidson: I may be digressing, but I do not think I -am taking suoh liberties of speech as toy hon. friends are doing when they go down to address anti-conscription meetings in Quebec. My hon, friend, who indulges in discourse himself, might permit me the privilege of addressing a few words to the committee on behalf of those very deserving people who, while my hon. friends, in many instances, are safely and -snugly in bed, -are facing all kinds of danger to protect our coast. 1 think it is very unkind and unjust to assert that the services of those noble men is absolutely free from danger and is unnecessary.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: We are not doing anything to those -men.


Arthur Meighen: I think the amendment I moved some -time ago -has not been carried. The only effect of it is to make one o.f the

sections applicable to a class of polls open at six o'clock instead of at nine. It is unnecessary if certain .polls are to open at six o'clock. It would be well to have that amendment carried.


Louis Audet Lapointe: What section is that?


Arthur Meighen: It is .an amendment to paragraph (n) of the amending Act. These words are added at the end of the paragraph :	[DOT]
And by striking out from the second line of section 57 the words "nine o'clock In the forenoon" and inserting instead the words, ''the opening of the poll."


Louis Audet Lapointe: What would he the time the poll opened?


Arthur Meighen: In the larger cities, at eix o'clock in the morning and everywhere else at nine.


Louis Audet Lapointe: What time at night would they close?


Arthur Meighen: The same hour as always-five o'clock.


Louis Audet Lapointe: I think the desire of the labouring classes would be that the polls should remain open later at night instead of opening at this hour in the morning. They generally go to work at seven in the morning. In the cities, instead of closing at five, the polls should close at nine. In Montreal we -struck an .average and made it eight o'clock for closing. If you were making it about eight o'clock you would deserve some credit.


Arthur Meighen: The point is this. There is a clause in the Act which enables any labourer to vote. Hie employer has to allow him to go, and consequently he does not need to vote at six o'clock in the morning but he has the privilege if he so desires. [DOT]If the extra hour were put on 'at the end instead of at the beginning of the day, it would not be of any value to the railroad men at all. They would be away, and they do not come back in time. It would, also, not be of any value to the traveller, especially if the election day were on a Monday, which is the best day for him. The opening is fixed at six o'clock in the morning " to enable those classes to vote before they leave and also to enable the labourer to vote before -seven o'clock if he so desires.
"Mr. L. A. LAPOINTE: Most of the engineers and train crews have left the station by seven or seven-thirty, and does my

hon. friend believe that all these men will have had time to vote between six and seven o'clock?


Arthur Meighen: I think in this election every engineer and conductor in Canada will see to it that he gets a chance to vote between six and seven o'clock.


Louis Audet Lapointe: I am not complaining about the polls opening at six, but I think we should give these men and the labouring class an' opportunity to vote by keeping the polls open later at night.


Charles Avila Wilson: They are going to
" railroad " this election.


George Perry Graham: I think I have discovered a solution for all these difficulties. There are two- classes in Canada who are away from home a great deal. The men of one class never know when they are going to be home, and the other class may know that they are going to be home for week-end; I refer to railroad [DOT]men and commercial travellers. In this Bill there is a clause providing for the opening of the polls in certain cities within municipalities at 6 a.m. This is ostensibly for the purpose of allowing railroad men and commercial travellers, and any others who may so desire, to vote early in the morning, it being presumed that commercial travellers and railroad men will be leaving home early in the .morning. This provision will .be of some benefit, no doubt, but as regards railway men it does not begin to meet their case. Every person who has lived in a railway centre, large or small, knows that railway men are liable to be called out at any hour of the day or night. It has very frequently occurred in my experience that crews have been called out at 'ten or eleven, or early in the morning, and they would be away from home long before six o'clock, and their runs would not alow them to return in time to cast their vote. The same thing might be said with regard to commercial travellers, though perhaps not to the same extent, because some commercial travellers at least can get home for polling day, but those who have a large territory to cover cannot do it. In the province of Saskatchewan special provision has been made for taking the vote of railway men and commercial travellers. In some of the states of the Union it is provided that an elector can vote wherever he is. He is not deprived of his vote by travelling, no matter how far away he may be from his own constituency. I would not suggest that we go as far as that, but would urge the Secretary

of State, now that we are dealing with this matter, to avoid the necessity of naming city after city, and town after town-as will have to be the case, and as is the case-by providing a clause similar to that in the Saskatchewan Act which would be applicable to every terminal point of a railway. That would cover the railway men's vote at any rate. The Saskatchewan Act strikes me as being very simple, and I think it is surrounded with all the necessary safeguards. If the committee will permit me, I will read one or two sections from their Act. Section 286 reads as follows:
Section 287 to 295 inclusive of this Act shall apply only to railway employees, commercial travellers and other persons whose employment or calling is such as to necessitate from time to time their absence from their places of residence, who are qualified electors under this Act in the electoral divisions or portions of electoral divisions mentioned in form 57 in the schedule to this Act, and who have reason to believe that they will be absent from their places of residence on the day fixed by the writ for the election.
2S7. For the purpose of enabling every such person to vote at any election held in the said electoral divisions the returning officer shall establish a special polling place in the city or town mentioned in form 57 in the schedule hereto as forming the whole or part of such division, which polling place shall be centrally located so as to suit the convenience of the voters.
The next -section gives the method by which the vote is to be taken. Then section 289 reads:
The poll at each such polling place so established shall be open between the hours of seven and ten o'clock in the afternoon on the three days exclusive of Sunday immediately preceding the day of election.
That is, the poll is open from seven to ten in the evening for three days previous to polling day, so that all the railway men and commercial travellers may register their votes on one of those three preceding days. Every night the ballot boxes are sealed, just as is done in an ordinary election. The ballots are perfectly safe, and are not counted until the end of the proper polling day. That seems to me to be a pretty simple provision, which I think could well be worked into this Act. Any one who has had anything to do with elections in a railway centre has felt the necessity for some better provision than we have ever jhad for allowing the railway men to vote. It is not the fault of the railway men if they are ordered out and must go. "First in, first out"; if it is their turn to go, they cannot remain. A provision such as is in the Saskatchewan Act would remove all possibility of manipulation. For instance,
the superintendent, or the man at the head of a railway company, who is friendly to one candidate has it in his power to order out the crews who do not agree with his views, and keep the men in who do agree with his views. There has been a good deal of complaint about that, and it is not fair to the men themselves. The railway men, who take a very deep interest in public affairs are very often unable to cast their votes, and I think it would only be doing justice to these men to have a provision in this Act such as I have -mentioned.
The same thing might be said with regard to commercial travellers. When a member of the Government I was waited' on by both these bodies on several occasions, and urged to devise means whereby they could vote. I suggested several-methods, but the men handling the justice end of the Government did not see it my way. I have observed that the Saskatchewan Act meets in a large measure what F have in mind, and if the minister could adopt something of that kind it would cover, the case and meet the wishes of the railway men, commercial travellers, and others of. that class, and also the wishes of tnose for whofn the hon. member for North Perth (Mr. Morphy) has spoken.


Louis Audet Lapointe: In the city of Montreal the municipal elections are always held on a Monday, to enable commercial travellers to vote. The Association of Commercial Travellers had represented for a long time that Monday would be the most convenient day for them. Why should not the Government decide that the election shall be on a Monday? They might even go so far as to fix the date in the-Bill, but perhaps that would be asking too much. I think it is my duty to move that the polls be kept open until eight o'clock at night, and I beg to move accordingly, seconded by the hon. member for Wright (Mr. Devlin).


Jacques Bureau: Does the Solicitor General intend to close the poll at six o'clock in the evening?


Louis Audet Lapointe: No, five o'clock.


Jacques Bureau: The hon. gentleman said just now that the law provided that the employer of labour should give the man an hour for voting. Take the city of Three Rivers, for instance, which is a city of about 20,000 or 22,000 inhabitants. They give the men an hour extra at noon to vote, and the result is there is such a congestion at the polling booths that the men cannot vote,
S740	COMMONS
_________________________________(_
because it is not only the workingmen who are trying to vote, but business men who are going up to lunch will stop at the polling tooths also. I have seen cases where a good many men could not vote within the hour allowed them by the employers because there was too much congestion. It is well to open the poll early in the morning in order to give the railway men and the commercial travellers a chance to vote, but if we are to choose between the two classes, the workingmen and the railway men or travellers, I would take the workingmen, because they are more numerous. I do not suppose there would be more than one commercial traveller in 100 or 200 votes. More will suffer proportionately if you close the poll at five o'clock in the evening than if you open it late in the morning. If you open the poll early and close it late, it may be said that it would be too hard on the deputy returning officers, or on the clerks; but I do not think that is a very serious matter. If you open the poll at six o'clock in the morning and close it at seven or eight o'clock in the evening, you would give the. labouring man the advantage of being able to vote if he could not do it during the hour granted him by his employer for that purpose.


Mr. DEVLIN:: I support what has been said by the hon. member foT Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau). The third largest city in the province of Quebec, the city of ,Hull, is in the riding I have the honour to represent.


Jacques Bureau: Hull is fourth; Three Rivers is third.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I am sorry I must disagree with my hon. friend. He has told us that the population of Three Rivers is about 22,000. Statistics show that Hull has a population oi 25,000. I simply make this statement to set my hon. friend right. The population of the city of Hull is practically entirely of the labouring class.
' Mr. NESBITT: What about the saloons?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: We have some of the greatest industries in Canada located there.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I am surprised to see so many hon. gentlemen on the other side have become quite familiar with Hull only recently. They will bear me out in saying that we have the E. B. Eddy Company, the Matthews-Laing Company, the Gilmour-Hughson Company, and several other manufacturing companies of considerable importance. The voters in the city of Hull

would have really little time to vote between twelve and one o'clock. The difficulty suggested by my hon. friend from Three Rivers applies with great force to the city of Hull, and I would like to see the Secretary of State insert a clause in the Bill that manufacturers in cities of over 18,000 population shall give their employees two hours instead of one for lunch on polling day.


Samuel Francis Glass: The question brought to the attention of the House by my hon. friend from South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) in connection with the Franchise Act of Saskatchewan, is one which seems to me to be worthy of consideration, and I speak with some understanding of the wants of the commercial traveller, because I had the honour of being a director of the Western Ontario Commercial Travellers for some years. The inconveniences and difficulties surrounding the polling of the commercial travellers' vote are generally known in the commercial districts. The principle of having Monday as a polling day for the commercial traveller has not met with the requirements of the commercial travellers. In the city of London, and I think in the city of Toronto and some other cities, in municipal elections, they have the polling on Monday invariably, but this has not resulted in polling a large commercial travellers' vote. A great many of these commercial travellers are out for two or three weeks at a time. I agree with the idea suggested by the hon. member for South Renfrew, that it might be practicable to get this class of men if arrangements could be made for taking the commercial travellers' vote on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday preceding the day of election. Because, if an election comes on Thursday and you arrange to open the poll on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the advantage to the commercial traveller is practically nil, for the reason that he goes out on Monday and will be out for the whole week, and cannot, without great expense to his firm and inconvenience to himself and his business, arrange to get in and poll his vote. This question is not a new one. It has been before the House in connection with the different Election Acts which have been passed.


Jacques Bureau: Do I understand my hon. friend to say that Friday is a better day than Monday for the commercial travellers-to poll their votes?


Samuel Francis Glass: No, my hon. -friend did not understand me correctly. I tsay at certain

hours on Thursday, Friday 'and Saturday previous to |the election. In the great majority of cases commercial men are at home from Friday night to Monday morning. Some of them are at home on Thursday. I do not mean to keep the poll open the whole time, hut if it were open for, eay, three hours at the end of the week it would meet the requirements, whereas if it were open on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the week and the election was held on Thursday, it would not meet the requirements because the men would be out on the road. My hon. friend has also said that if special consideration is to be given to any vote it ought to be given to the labour vote because that is the larger vote.


Jacques Bureau: I said that if something
had to be sacrificed it should be sacrificed to .the more numerous element.


Samuel Francis Glass: I agree with my hon friend that the labour vote is a larger vote and that it ought to have facilities extended to it by giving workingmen a certain time to vote during the day. We had this question up in 1914 and it was discussed fully then. I brought to the attention of the House at that time the fact that there were employers whose political prejudices were so strong that they put obstacles in the way of their men going out to vote. They -would say:	Of course, you have the right
to go and vote; if you want to exercise the right that is given to you by the law, do it, but you will understand what the consequences will be. I believe that there 'should be hours -arranged for the workingmen to go *and vote. The Bill should specifically provide that there should be two or two and a half hours in the day when every employee of. a factory should have the right to vote or, if necessary, there should be alternative hours during which some of the employees, if all could not go at one time, should be allowed to go and vote. The Act should not make it permissive, but it should be m^de obligatory on the part of the employer to permit his employees to poll their votes without reference to the political prejudices of the employer.


Louis Audet Lapointe: 
Mr. VERVILLE:: I do not object to having the polls open at -six in the morning for the accommodation of the railway men, but I think this matter can be dealt with in another way. The labour men have been asking that election day shall be declared to be a legal holiday. If we had a legal holiday on the day that the general election is held it would obviate the necessity of

making provision to meet a great many of the suggestions which have been brought before the committee to-night. While the polls will have to be opened at six in the morning for the railway men, it would not . be necessary with reference tO' any other business, because the men would be in a position to oast their votes at any time , in the day and they would not need to have the polls kept open any later than five o'clock. My hon. friend says there are two hours which the men could utilize to cast their votes. I know by experience that many employers will say to their employees!: You may go and vote if you like, but we are very busy to-day. They allow them to go and vote between twelve and two o'clock, which does not really give them two 'hours, but one hour. It is impossible to provide for the case of every person, but there are the stationary and electrical engineers, who would find it impossible to cast their votes unless the polls were opened early in the morning. They could not take two hours because they are running the machinery that keeps all industry in motion. The labour men have time and again asked that election day be made a legal holiday. I am sure the country would not suffer if it were declared in the Bill that the day on which a general election-not a bye-election-is held shall be a legal holiday.
Even the business men would find it an advantage to- have a legal holiday, and they would be free to look after the election. My hon. friend may say that we are going to compel the labour men to lose a day. I believe the^ labour men are willing to lose a day provided we have a legal holiday on election day. We may find some employers generous enough to pay the men for th.fr day. I should like to see those employers after the election ; and if we find any we will erect a statue to them.. I believe this will be the best system for everybody.
Mr/ EDWARDS: I cannot e-ee the necessity for the change advocated, 10 p.m. nor do I see the wisdom of it.
Railway men and commercial travellers arei provided for by opening the poll earlier in certain places. The labouring men are provided for because, instead of the poll opening as formerly at nine o'clock and closing at five, it now opens at six o'clock. There is three straight hours. Then they have another hour given them by statute in, addition to their lunch hour at noon. From 200 to 300 men vote at each polling subdivision in cities, and with the poll opening three hours earlier and with 
the hour given by statute in addition to the lunch hour, there should be no congestion in the polling places at any time. It will be found in practice that a considerable portion of the labouring men will vote between six and seven in the morning. We have had no such extension of time as my hon. friend now wants, at previous elections, and the necessity for it has not been shown by any demand from, members on either s-ide of this House.


Mr.  L. A@: LAPOINTE: The hon. member points out that we have not had these extensions of time in the past. But to-day we have an opportunity of amending the statute. Ten years' experience has shown that it is necessary to extend the hours of polling during the day. Quebec as a province has done that, and the cities of Qubee have amended their charters extending the hours of polling until eight o'clock, and in some places nine o'clock.
It is not every day that the Dominion Government has ian opportunity of amending the Elections Act. I think that the time for the closing of the poll should be extended to 8 o'clock.


Arthur Meighen: It would not be in the general interest to extend past 5 o'clock the time during which the poll should remain open. The hours fixed in the Election Act are not of our fixing; they have hitherto been from 9 to 5, a period, of only eight hours. We add three hours in those places where there is need of the additional time; that is a very substantial extension indeed. If the .additional time is added at the end of the day, it does not meet the case of any who are not accommodated by adding the time at the beginning of the day, because the labourer can vote at the beginning just as well as at the end. Moreover, it does away entirely with the opportunity of the traveller and of various classes of railroad labourers to vote. The additional time at the beginning of the day makes more valuable to the labourer the hour that be is entitled to receive from his employer under section 136A, because the poll will not he so crowded during that hour. In the first place, a number of labourers will (have voted between six o'clock and seven or between six o'clock and nine, and, in the next place, a large number of those who would otherwise crowd the poll with him at the noon hour will also have voted. The great rush to get the vote out is immediately upon the opening of the poll. Each party struggles with the other to get the bulk of the vote to the poll early so that as much time

as possible may be allowed for the straggling vote. #


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That is the doubtful
vote.


Arthur Meighen: I hope that even the
doubtful vote will be a minimum in this election. However, a large proportion of the vote will be polled in cities between six o'clock and nine; consequently, the statutory hour to which the labourer is entitled will be of far more value to him because he is going to be able to vote at that time.


Louis Audet Lapointe: What about those who commence work at seven o'clock in the morning?


Arthur Meighen: Of such persons, those who are able to do so will vote between 6 o'clock and 7. It is true that some may live a long distance away and may not bs able to do that. But they have an extra hour at noon, and that hour will not be so crowded as it was on previous occasions, because large numbers of those who formerly came at that hour will have voted early in the morning. This election will be held, perhaps not in the dead of winter, but at all events when the days are short; and if the time for the closing of the poll is extended from 5 o'clock to 8 there will be a good deal of polling after dark. I do not think that hon. gentlemen on either side of the House want the polls to be open between 6 o'clock and 8 in the winter or in any month that is not near the middle of summer.
As to the suggestion of the member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Verville); I remember its being discussed in the House at length some years ago. There is a good deal to-be said in favour of it. In fact, there is more to be said in favour of a holiday on election day than on some other days when holidays are now given. It would seem to me, however, that there are objections to that course. The excitement that prevails on election day would be intensified a good deal if the whole day were made a holiday. At any rate, the subject is one that is worthy of consideration; so is the suggestion of the member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham). I do not think, however, that either suggestion can be adopted in a Bill that we are going to get though this session. As to the proposal of the member for South Renfrew, the Saskatchewan enactments were sent to me and I have gone thoroughly into them. He is quite right in saying that it has heretofore been impossible for a large number of
travellers and railway men to vote and that hardship has resulted. It is true that the difficulty has been met in Saskatchewan, but in that province there are only two divisional points, whereas in the whole of the Dominion there are 45. To deal with the question in respect of the whole Dominion would necessitate the opening of booths in these 45 divisional points, at which this class oE the population could vote for some five hundred candidates, in 234 Dominion constituencies. The hon. gentlemen will see that tremendous complications would creep in; no matter how perfectly the plan might be worked out, tremendous difficulties in its execution would be involved and great expense incurred. Perhaps the day will come when the difficulty will be met. I think that in the meantime we have met the greater difficulties-iand they will be still more substantially met if the election is held on Monday. I am not in a position to say definitely that it will be held on Monday, but if the election is held in the middle of the week we lose a good deal of the advantage of this new section. So far as I can see now, there is no insuperable objection to holding the election on Monday, and that will be done if possible.


Samuel Francis Glass: In what section is permission given to employees to have an hour off for the purpose of voting?


Arthur Meighen: 136A. I will read the section:
Every employer shall on polling day give to every voter In his employ at least one additional hour for voting other than the noon hour and shall make no deduction in the pay of such employees nor impose or exact any penalty from any employee by reason of absence during such hour.
2. This section shall apply to railway companies and to the government railways and their employees, with the exception of employees engaged in the running of trains and to whom such time cannot be given without interfering with the manning of the trains.


Samuel Francis Glass: Would it be possible to arrange that a portion of the day be set apart as a holiday for that purpose? I have observed cases where the authority of employers has been exercised viciously - and m a partisan spirit as against their employees who dared to vote. In large cities a man has to vote where he lives, and sometimes his place of occupation is several miles from the place where he must go to vote. Two hours does not give him enough time to get his dinner and go to the place of polling to register his vote.

As to the suggestion that election day be a whole day's holiday, I do not think that ' is desirable because we have found, in certain cities of Ontario in which New Year's day has been .set aside for a municipal election, it has been to tne disadvantage of getting out the vote. The shrinkage has been all the way from twenty-.five to forty per cent of the total vote polled. Might it not be arranged to give the last quarter of the day in addition to the hours which the voter might be allowed to avail himself of at the opening of the polls? If it is a ten-hour day, we might give him the last two and a half hours, and make the last quarter of polling day a legal holiday and let every man off for that time.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know that I can add anything to what I said with regard to that subject just a few moments ago. For this reason, I think it would be obvious to the hon. gentleman that the question of establishing a new statutory holiday could not be disposed of with that consideration that should be given to it, if we are going to get through this evening.


Jacques Bureau: This is a War-time Elections Act, and we can do things in wartime that we cannot do at other times.


Arthur Meighen: This question does not pertain to a war-time election any more [DOT]than it does to any other election. It h$d just the same application to the election of six years ago as it has to this one. I wish to refer to an amendment which I moved some time ago, which is purely a formal amendment. I am not sure whether it has been carried or not. I .am sure it is the desire of hon. gentlemen that it be carried because it is of the most technical character. It is to substitute the words "the opening of the poll," for the words, "nine o'clock in the morning."


The CHAIRMAN:: It is carried.


Arthur Meighen: I beg to move this amendment, which is of exactly the same character:
That paragraph (g) of section l of the Bill be amended by striking out the word "and" from the sixth line of subsection 4, of section 37, which is provided thereby.
It is on page 3, line 25, the second word.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: "And such."


Arthur Meighen: The word "and" .should go out. It is a clerical error.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Edward Walter Nesbitt: Did the Solicitor General consider the question I asked him about before recess?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, we are doing that. I move:
That section 1 be amended by striking out the bracket which appears after the word "Council" on line thirty-three of page nine of the Bill, the comma which appears after the word "behalf" on line thirty-nine of the same page, and the comma which appears after the word "advertisement" on the first line of page ten.
Amendment .agreed to.


Arthur Meighen: I move:
That paragraph (i) of section 1 of the Bill be amended by striking out the letter "F" at the end thereof, and inserting instead the letter "W."
The section says that wherever .a woman's name appears on the list the letter "F" shall be placed after it. We substitute the letter "W" for the letter "F" for this reason, that the letter "F" in Ontario has hitherto been used to denote the word "freeholder."


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Under the new list it does not, but you are using the old list.


Jacques Bureau: In Quebec the letter "F" would be all right, .meaning femme. The letter "W" in French means nothing.


Arthur Meighen: The letter "F" would be ..all right, but the letter "W" cannot be confused with any other significance, and there would be confusion in Ontario if we were to use the letter "F."
Amendment .agreed to.


Arthur Meighen: I move:
That section 1, paragraph (r) of the Bill be amended by striking out of the twenty-sixth line of paragraph (3) of section 65A the word "three" and inserting instead the word "four."
That is in response to the request of the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt). He asked that it be five days, but after considering the matter we have decided the utmost we can allow is four.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Arthur Meighen: I move to amend paragraph (d) of section 1 of the Bill by adding at the end thereof the following:
But excluding persons who have deserted from or have been otherwise than honourably discharged from any of such forces, or in the case of an officer excluding persons other than those who have been permitted to resign, or who without fault on their part have had their services dispensed with.


Jacques Bureau: Why not use the words
"military elector?"


Arthur Meighen: It goes too far.


Jacques Bureau: It goes too far in only
one instance. The only objection to using the word would be that a military elector is an elector in camp or barracks or somewhere else in Canada. But the Act nt>w before the House qualifies that, and deals with "persons serving without Canada." I think the word "military elector" would cover the whole ground and make for uniformity.


Arthur Meighen: I first of all asked that the words "military elector" be used, but it is too wide as it is. Even if it were not, if you used the words you would have to put in the whole definition.


Jacques Bureau: You could refer to the
definition in the Military Voters' Act, subject to modification by the present law.


Arthur Meighen: One could do that if
this were an ordinary Act, but this is an Act which is going to be sent round to returning and deputy returning officers and enumerators, who will not have a Military Yoters' Act with them. Consequently, it would be of no use for us to say "as defined by the Military Voters' Act." I think the amendment meets the case entirely, and will be better understood by those using the ' Act.


Jacques Bureau: I think it would be in the interests of uniformity -if we used the words in the Military Voters' Act of 1917 after deleting the words that would conflict with this Bill. Not many words besides the word "Indian" would have to come out. I do not know whether the wife of an Indian serving at the front would have a vote.


Arthur Meighen: We will let the amendment stand for the moment. I beg to move:
That section 1 be amended by inserting at the end of paragraph (p), section 1 of the Bill, the words "and by further amending said Form P by inserting between the words 'being' and 'an* in the second line of the second paragraph thereof-
This is the form which gives information for electors, and which reads as follows:
Every male person shall be qualified to vote at the election of a member under this Act, who, not being an Indian, is a British subject and of the full age of twenty-one years-
And so on. To conform with the present Act it will have to read this way:
Who, not being a person affected by thei provisions of section 67 of the Dominion Elections Act, nor being an Indian, is a British subject.
That is to say, every man who, not being an Indian, is a British subject of the full age of twenty-one years, and is not disqualified by the provisions of section 67, which gives the disqualification of voters.
1 will read the whole'amendment:
That section 1 of the Bill be amended by inserting at the end of paragraph (p) of section 1 of the Bill the words "and by further amending said Form P by inserting between the words fijeing* and 'an' in the second line of the second paragraph thereof the words 'a person affected by the provisions of section 67 of the Dominion Elections Act nor,' " and by striking out the word "two" from the third line of the third paragraph of said Form P and substituting therefor the word "five."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Arthur Meighen: I move that section 1 of the Bill be amended by adding thereto, as paragraph (s)-this is at the end of section 1 of the Bill-


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: That refers to
form X 1 of the Act?


Arthur Meighen: Yes. Form X 1 is obviously inapplicable to the present law, so it is struck out-by inserting within the form EE between the lines respectively reading "rejected" and "not used and returned " the words " polled in envelopes." And also in form FF, between the words " were " and " rejected " in the third line from the end, the words " polled in envelopes."
This is simply to make the form correspond with the Bill. There are now ballots polled ini 'envelopes, tand they must be treated as other election papers, consequently they are included in these forms.


[Stage Direction]
Amendments agreed to.
Arthur Meighen: I move to amend section 1 of the Bill by adding thereto, as paragraph (t), the following:
(t) By inserting between the words "make" and "three" in the fifth line of section 46, the words "at least."
Previously, the enumerator had to make three copies of this list. Now he will have to make at least three copies in order to provide one for each of the candidates. I also move to amend section 1 of the Bill by striking out the words " the other " from the second last line of section 48 as provided by paragraph (j) of said section, and. inserting instead the words " another," and by adding at the end of subsection 1 of the said new section 48 the words " be shall on the same day deliver or send by registered mail to each of the candidates a

copy of such list." That is to say, fifteen days before election day, he must send a copy of the list by registered mail to each of the candidates. The other words have to be changed accordingly; so that he will have to make a sufficient number of lists to do that.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Does that apply -also to page 9 for the cities and towns?


Arthur Meighen: It applies everywhere.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: What he has to do is
separated for 'the cities and towns.


Arthur Meighen: It is a clause that applied everywhere before, consequently when we are amending it it applies everywhere still.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I will read the part with reference to the cities and towns:
-nine thousand or over according to the last Dominion census shall complete, date at his plaoe of residence, and sign the copies of the voters' lists fifteen days before the polling day; two of the said copies he shall forthwith post up as required by section 48 of this Act, and the third he shall personally deliver or mail by registered letter to the chairman of the voters' registration board constituted by the Ontario Franchise Act, 1917, for the city or town.
According to that, he is supposed to strike off three copies, two to be posted up, and one sent to the chairman of the registration board.


Arthur Meighen: I see the point now. The enumerator is done with it once he makes the list; then they go to the voters' registration board. There is no use of the enumerator sending one of these lists to the candidate at all because they are not complete. They are revised by the voters' registration board.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: We have no way of getting a copy except by going to where they are posted up and making a copy of them.


Arthur Meighen: That applies to both sides, of course.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: It would he no trouble to the enumerator to send a copy to the candidate when he strikes off three; just as they do in the country.	-


Arthur Meighen: My opinion is we have amended the clause to the extent that it would mean he would send his list, so far as completed, to each of the caciidates.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: They are supposed to he completed by the enumerator, and the reason why we have four days for checking them is to correct any error there may be. 
It would be a very awkward thing to send somebody up to the hoard where they are posted, to take a copy of them.


Arthur Meighen: If there is any doubt about it, I will have lan amendment prepared so that the enumerator will send a copy to each of the candidates.


Jacques Bureau: Will the Secretary of State now take paragraph 33A? I have no objection to his amendment if he will add four words to it. As it is now, it says:
Every female person shall be capable of voting and qualified to vote at a Dominion election in any province or in the Yukon Territory who, being a British subject, and qualified as to age, race, and residence, as required in the case of a male person in such province, or in the Yukon Territory, as the case may be, is the wife, widow, mother, sister or daughter of any person, male or female, living or dead, who is serving or who has served without Canada-
The amendment comes on the word "person," that is, on the person on whose account this right to vote is given, but it does not say so. If the Secretary of State will add the words "hut excluding the wife, widow, mother, sister or daughter of unpersons who have deserted from, or who have been otherwise than honourably discharged from any of such forces." That would cover the ground.


Mr. NICKLE:: If the committee will direct their attention to line 30 it will be observed that the word "person," to which reference is made, is used there for the last time and therefore the language following must refer to that word "person" and no other.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend from
Kingston (Mr. Nickle) cannot have been in the House this afternoon when I suggested that the word "person" qualifying the right of female relatives to vote might refer to any man who, under this Act, would not have the right to vote. It was brought to my mind by the fact that this dynamiter, who is being chased around, is a returned soldier, and yet under this Act his wife, mother or sister could have the right to vote. If you put another subsection in, yon start something new and you exclude the man who has not been honourably discharged. These things are provided for by the Military Voters' Act. The section which we are considering has reference only to the female relatives of these men. There will be ambiguity unless you do what I suggest.


William Folger Nickle: My hon. friend desires that the wife, widow, mother, sister or

daughter of a deserter be not entitled to vote?


Jacques Bureau: Not a deserter, but a man who has not been honourably discharged.


William Folger Nickle: Not honourably discharged. Let us read the section:
Every female person shall be capable of voting and qualified to vote at a Dominion election in any province or in the Yukon Territory, who, being a British subject and qualified as to age, race and residence as required in the case of a male person in such province or in the Yukon Territory, as the case may be, is' the wife, widow, mother, sister or daughter of any person,
* but excluding the
wife, widow, mother, sister or daughter of any persons who have deserted from or have been otherwise than honourably discharged from any of such forces.
That can only refer to a member of the forces because the wife, mother, sister, or daughter cannot be discharged from the forces. The only person that can be discharged is a member of the forces, and therefore the reference excluding the relatives of a person means relatives of a soldier who has not been honourably discharged from the forces. I do not see any other meaning that can be taken out of the amendment.


Jacques Bureau: It may be that my
knowledge of the English language is defective, but when I translated this provision into French I found that it led to ambiguity. If you adopt my amendment there is no possibility of ambiguity.- We will use the French version of the statute in our province. I do not see any harm in making this change. If it makes it more lucid I do not .see why you should refuse to adopt it.


Arthur Meighen: We will return to that in a few minutes.


William Pugsley: I think the view which my hon. friend has in mind would be achieved if we put at the end of the clause "excluding the relatives of persons who have deserted."


Arthur Meighen: The difficulty would be that the relatives of .persons who had deserted might have other persons at the front who had not deserted. What we are doing is to exclude deserters from the operation of the section .altogether.


Jacques Bureau: A woman might have one relative who bad deserted and another who had not. That would he a hard case, but you cannot make a law that would meet every case.


Arthur Meighen: You can meet that case.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend wants to exclude a deserter and in that I am with him, but I say that the place to exclude .a deserter is in the Military Voters' Act.


Arthur Meighen: We are not on that Act.


Jacques Bureau: You are giving the franchise to women in a clause that relates to women only. Under that clause the widow, wife, sister, or mother of the Canadian who has gone overseas to fight will have the right to vote. I am not opposed to disfranchising the deserter, but let that stand aside for the time being, because you will have to amend the rest of the law if you are going to do that. This particular suggestion I made came to my mind because the case of this man Monette. rl happen to know something about the relatives of this man, and I asked myself: Why should these women, who, I am sorry to say, are not deserving of having the vote, even if Monette did go to the front, be given the right of the ballot while the wife of my neighbour, who has been working night and day knitting socks and collecting subscriptions for the Red Cross and the Patriotic Fund should be denied that right? If the theory of the Solicitor General is right, that we should emphasize the right of the .man who has gone to the front to express himself at the polls, and I think it is, it must be remembered that this Bill does not deal with the right of any soldier to vote. It says that the female relatives of any person who has gone to- the front shall have the right to vote. My hon. -friend says that a deserter, or an officer who had not been properly discharged, would be excluded. But they should be dealt with in the Military Voters' Act. Let us put- another section into this Act so that there will be absolutely no ambiguity as to the right of women who are the relatives of soldiers to vote.


Arthur Meighen: We can return to the section in .a moment. In the meantime 1 wish to move the amendment that J promised the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) and the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell). I move that paragraph (d) of section 1 be amended by adding thereto the following as subsection 2 of 38A:
Such naval forces of Canada shall be deemed not to include members thereof engaged within Canada who may, become members after the passing of this Act.
Amendment agree to.
v


Arthur Meighen: I move also that section 1 be amended by striking out of the second line of section 131 the word " seven " and inserting instead the word "twenty-eight That is merely to have that section conform to the change in the law mak-ihg twenty-eight days between election day and nomination day.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Arthur Meighen: I beg also to move an amendment to paragraph (d) by adding at the end thereof:
But excluding persons Who have deserted from or have been otherwise than honourably discharged from such forces.


William Pugsley: What I suggested, and what I think my hon. friend from Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau) would approve of was: " this section shall not be deemed to include such relatives of men who, have deserted or not been honourably discharged."


Arthur Meighen: But they might he relatives of more than one soldier.


William Pugsley: If a woman was the
relative of two soldiers, one of whom had deserted and the other was at the front, she would still be entitled to vote by virtue of the man who was serving.


Arthur Meighen: No, because she gets no right except by this section.


William Cameron Edwards: Why not put in the
words " sole right "?


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Subsection 2 of
section 1 of the first Bill begins with the following wdrds:
Subject to the provisions of section 5A of this Act, in the compilation of such lists,-
And so on. This Act will be in the hands of many men not accustomed to reading or construing statutes and this section may be confusing. I find that many of my friends on this side have understood this to apply to all the provinces, whereas it is intended to apply only to British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island. Enumerators reading this may take it as applying to all the provinces.
I would suggest the insertion of the words "in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island." This would remove any chance of confusion.'	-


Arthur Meighen: It applies all over with respect to women. While an enumerator ot deputy returning officer getting only this Act or the old Act might have great diffi-
culty in understanding all of it, as it applies to different provinces in
11 p.m. various ways, the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery is compelled by the law to issue definite and clear instructions to enumerators and returning officers in every province telling them just what does apply to his province. This will all be made clear by instructions from the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not quite agree, and I see no objection to my suggestion by reason of the fact that women must be placed on the list. The same words are used in several sections, section 48 and section 62. The marginal reference to section 62 is "application for certificate as a qualified voter by person whose name is not on list." The sense of that section is that outside of the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, a person claiming the right to vote and not finding his name on the list may apply to the enumerator to have his name entered.
Clearly that could not be done so far as Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are concerned. It would be made quite clear, I think, by striking out the first and second lines and inserting the words "in the province of British Columbia"-then mentioning all The other provinces.


Arthur Meighen: It would be clearer if it would be right. In my opinion it would not be right, because the section operates not merely in those provinces, but all over the Dominion; in certain provinces it operates subject to certain limitations. The briefest way of putting it, therefore, is as it is here. I am sure that it will be clearly explained in the instructions issued by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery.


William Pugsley: I did not come in early in the evening because I knew that it was utterly impossible to discuss this Bill under closure. The rule is that no member shall speak more than once while closure is in force. Has that rule been rescinded?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: The committee agreed by consent not to follow the letter of the rule. If an hon. gentleman calls my attention to the fact that the rule is not being observed and raises objection, the rule will have to be followed.


William Pugsley: Do you intend to apply the rule at two o'clock in the morning5 Shall all these important amendments be adopted without further discussion?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: If the hon. member for St. John asks me to apply the rule,
I certainly will do so.


William Pugsley: I do insist upon the rule being either rescinded or strictly applied.


Arthur Meighen: The rule was rescinded , by general consent. Certain hon. gentlemen opposite asked if they might put questions and receive answers the same as before, and that was agreed to. If the hon. gentleman desires that the rule shall be observed it will have to be observed.


William Pugsley: The minister comes here to-night with amendment after amendment which he recognizes as being absolutely necessary to perfect the Bill. It is utterly impossible to discuss this Bill under closure. Amendments have been submitted which alter the Bill, in some cases materially, in other cases not so materially. I understand that at 2 o'clock in the morning closure will be applied, Surely the Bill should not be reported from the committee with these important amendments before it is reprinted for the information of hon. gentlemen. I call the attention of the Secretary of State to the unfairness of dealing with the matter in this way. Does he think that this is an occasion upon which closure should be enforced? Every disposition ihas been shown to facilitate the passage of the Bill; there has not been the slightest attempt to delay it.


Arthur Meighen: It is quite true that we have been getting on excellently; I hope that we shall so continue. The amendments that have been made, while necessary, do not, in the main, involve discussion. One or two-we have discussed them -simply make the Bill comply with the fundamental principles of the proposed legislation. There is no reason why they should not come in on the last day of the discussion; I have never heard that no amendments should be offered on the last day in committee. There is no question about discussing them. We can discuss them, I freely admit, much better under the ordinary rule in committee, and we have unanimously agreed to do that. But we cannot do it except by unanimous agreement, and I am willing that we should apply the rule rigidly if the Committee so desires.


William Pugsley: Does the minister intend that the closure shall apply at two o'clock in the morning without the Bill being reprinted with the amendments?


Arthur Meighen: Hon. gentlemen who
have been here know that the amendments are all right. They will be reprinted as soon .as they are decided upon by the committee.


William Pugsley: Before the Bill leaves
the committee stage?


Arthur Meighen: No, the Bill has to go out of committee at this sitting. There is not the least question about printing these amendments. If there were, that would mean that on the last day of the committee no amendments could be submitted.


William Pugsley: A great many of these
amendments have been made upon the suggestion of the minister himself, and it is grossly unfair to ask the committee to consider tlhem with the closure resolution passed this afternoon staring us in the face. The minister says we cannot consider these amendments after two o'clock. But the minister himself since I came in has occupied three-quarters of the time of the committee in making the necessary explanations-explanations which fie has made with great clearness and with much satisfaction to the committee. What I protest against is that this important Bill should be considered and amended in many different respects under closure procedure.


Jacques Bureau: Are you going to apply the closure rules, Mr. Chairman?


Arthur Meighen: No.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Let us go on as we are.


Jacques Bureau: I asked the Solicitor
General before six o'clock if it would be possible to provide in the law that-the enumerator should have a residence qualification. Of course, I would prefer that the qualification in Quebec should remain as it is. Every time the lists are made up names can be added by either candidate. The secretary-treasurer does this in our provincial elections. But the Solicitor General does not want to amend the law along that line; it is not such an amendment as he would desire to insert at this time. As I remember the wording of the Bill it says "the Governor in Council may appoint.'' That means that he will appoint.


Arthur Meighen: This has always been the form. But the Governor in Council has never appointed them.


Jacques Bureau: That may be, but, as I said this afternoon, this is a thing that is absolutely new to us. We have never had enumerators, and we have never dealt with

them. I would suggest that the enumerators should live in the municipality and, if it were possible, that 'the secretary-treasurer of the municipality should be the enumerator. I think that would be the fairer way because the secretary-treasurer is a man that has some responsibility. He holds his position through the good-will of every inhabitant of the municipality. Perhaps the word "municipality" may seem strange to or scare some of my hon. friends opposite. I understand that in some provinces municipality means the whole county. .


John Douglas Hazen: That is the case in New Brunswick.


Jacques Bureau: In Quebec a municipality that has three polling divisions is a very large one. By the word "parish" we mean all the worshippers that belong to a church, and, for administrative purposes, the municipal boundaries are all the same, so that there is in our, province a closer kind of affinity between the people in a municipality on account of our institutions than there is in the other provinces, out West, for instance. The secretary-treasurer, as I said this afternoon,' is thoroughly acquainted with, not only every man and woman in his municipality, but every child. He is at the same time the secretary-treasurer of the school board for the district. I would ask the Solicitor General-this would not take much of an amendment-to insert in the Bill that in Quebec the secretary-treasurer of the municipality shall be the enumerator. The absolute and complete knowledge that he has of his muicipality will make it easier for him to take care of three polls than if you take a man who is not accustomed to going through the assessment rolls and the rolls of the children at school. With men who are accustomed to the work, you would need three men, if each one has to attend to only one poll. The secretary-treasurer is usually ia man of education. He is generally a notary. Sometimes, of course, his duties do not involve much work, because the valuation is only revised. As has been stated 'by some hon. gentleman opposite, the changes in a municipality, especially in an old one, are just the deaths and births, land when the electoral list is revised those who have gone are stricken out and the young men who have reached the age of twenty-one years are added. I make a last appeal to the Solicitor General, not in the way of embarrassing him, nor of delaying the Bill, but in the way of help-

ing along the execution of this law, and of helping along the enfranchisement of the people whom the Bill de-sires to reach and the disfranchisement of those whom the Bill wishes to disfranchise. The secretary-treasurer knows better than any one else when a man of .alien enemy nationality came to the municipality and whether he is naturalized or not. The municipalities are so small, the people are -so close together, .and their relations, I might say, -so intimate, that the secretary-treasurers know the family history of iany one perfectly well. Should the Solicitor General decide that he cannot grant that, I would ask him to add after the words "the Governor in Council" the words "may, in the province of Quebec, appoint an assessor residing within the municipality for which he has to act, or in the neighbouring municipality." We do not want to impose upon other provinces what- we think fight in Quebec.


Arthur Meighen: That is just the difficulty that has -arisen several times. You cannot make any rule on that point that would be applicable everywhere, and still every .province is just in the .same position, so far as the real substance of the case is concerned, as Quebec. I do not see any formidable objection really to appointing an enumerator from the municipality, nor even -fro-m -the neighbouring municipality, and I venture to -predict that every one will be appointed out from municipality and not even the neighbouring one. One might get a case in- which the right man was just across the road, in which the man everybody would want was the town clerk, perhaps, and could not reside in the municipality. He might reside outside. There would be no gain by my hon. friend's amendment. The great chance is that every one who will be selected wall reside in the municipality because he must reside in the polling division to know his work, to be qualified to do it. I do not like the idea of selecting an individual man and! saying to him: You must d*' this work. That is not the spirit of this Bill. The man, as soon as he is sworn to act, is then bound to act, but it would hardly be right to put the hand of the law on every secretary-treasurer in Quebec, who may, in some oases, be engaged preitty steadily in his own work and may (have other engagements and occupations besides, and say to -him: No matter how busy you are; no matter whether your present time is occupied from morning until night, no matter what sacrifice it may be for you, -for the sake of $30

or (f40 you have to travel through your municipality and enumerate the women in it.


Jacques Bureau: The secretary treasurers under the provincial law do the work that would correspond to your enumeration. They are making up the lists now. On the 15th those lists have to be posted. I am not afraid of the enumerators, but the people in the municipality are not accustomed to that line of conduct to be followed in order to be registered as electors, and they would be at a loss to know where to' go. They would not understand this new method of procedure, and I am satisfied' that it would not work so easily for the women you want to reach, or the men you want to exclude, as the system I suggest. As far as the work is concerned, I can assure the Solicitor General that none of the secretary-treasurers in any of the rural municipalities will refuse on account of being overworked. I am satisfied they will accept the position.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The Solicitor General
could comply with my hon. friend's request so far as having the enumerators appointed in the polling division is concerned, because it is a custom in Ontario to appoint the deputy returning officer out of the division, and it would be a matter of common practice to appoint enumerators from the division because there would be no difficulty about getting them. I have no doubt that practice would be followed, and there would be in the division plenty of people perfectly willing to act. If in compiling these lists, say in Ontario, we have to add only certain names and strike off certain names, would the enumerators be likely to go around from house to house to get those names, or would he be subject to the candidates supplying him with names that ought to be added on or taken off?


Arthur Meighen: It would be his duty to employ both methods, namely, to go from house to house and to accept names from the candidate after investigating each one.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Or from others?


Arthur Meighen: Yes. While I am on my feet, I will move the amendment which meets the former request from the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt). I move to amend paragraph (r) of section 1 by striking out from the eighth line of sub-section 3 of section 65 A, provided by said paragraph, the words, "and the," and inserting instead the word "(a)," and by further amending said sub-section by adding after the word "town" in the twelfth
line thereof, the words "and he shall deliver or mail by registered letter a copy of such list to each of the candidates."
While I am on my feet permit me to correct a slight error that I think I made yesterday in referring to the province of Ontario. It is not all the cities and towns over nine thousand that are in the special list of those for whom made-up lists are not now being used, but only county or district towns over nine thousand.


Mr. OLIVER:: Is the amendment my hon. friend has just read confined to Ontario?


Arthur Meighen: That one is, but a previous one did the very same thing for the lest of Canada.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The greatest objection I have in connection with these enumerators is the great uncertainty as to when and where they shall meet. Section 45 of the old law says:
In the Yukon Territory each enumerator forthwith after taking the said oath, shall post up in six of the most public places within each polling division for which he has been appointed enumerator, a notice that he has been appointed enumerator for the polling division, and that he will proceed forthwith to compile, and within thirty days will complete the voters' list for the polling division, and designating the office or place within one of such polling divisions where he may in the meantime be found, and the hours during which he will attend at suoh office or place for the purpose of compiling such list on each lawful day, which shall begin not later than ten o'clock in the forenoon and end not earlier than four o'clock in the afternoon each day.
2. In such notice the time and place during and at which the final revision of the lists for which provision is hereinafter made will take place, shall be designated.
That is the law for the Yukon. If something along this line were done for the province of Nova Scotia, so that we would know when and where these men were to begin work, I should be satisfied.


Arthur Meighen: There has always been a corresponding section to this for Alberta and Saskatchewan, and that section is now applicable to all the provinces of Canada.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Which section is it?


Arthur Meighen: I cannot give it just now, but it is further amended by providing for the posting up of the lists for a longer period during which the enumerator sits to revise the lists, and for a longer period between the time of revision and election day.


William Pugsley: The posting is required to be done in only two places. That is a very limited notice.


Arthur Meighen: That is the way the posting is always done in those provinces. In addition to that we are compelling the ennmerator to send a separate list by registered mail to each candidate in each constituency on the very day he posts up the lists. The candidates get a list, and they can make copies if they want to.


William Pugsley: I think two is a very small number.


Arthur Meighen: It must be remembered that in the rural parts they have no way of typewriting the list, but there is nothing to hinder the candidates from making a copy.


Mr. MURPHY:: A copy will be sent to the candidates fifteen days before polling?


Arthur Meighen: Yes. I wish to move in amendment to section 2:
That section 136 of the present Bill, subsection (b) of section 2, be amended by adding the names of the following cities:	Stratford,
St. Thomas, Saskatoon, Moosejaw, Kingston, Brockville and Hull.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Would my hon. friend object to adding Woodstock also?


Arthur Meighen: I do not think there is any objection to adding any place so long as the member for the constituency is sure that the convenience is going to be greater than the inconvenience.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: It does not make a great deal of difference.


William Pugsley: My hon. friend from
Westmorland (Mr. Copp) is not in his seat at the moment, but I imagine he would like to have Moncton added to the list. It is a great railway centre and, I think it would be desirable to have the polls open an hour earlier there.


Arthur Meighen: We will add Moncton.


George Perry Graham: I think Brockville is a city for the purposes of the provincial Act.


Robert Laird Borden: Naming it as a city makes it a city for the purposes of this Act.


Mr. ROSS:: In the case of a tied ballot, on a recount the judge decides whether the voter who has been refused a certificate by the enumerator had the right to vote in a certain polling division. It might happen that the tied voter might'not have the right to vote in a certain polling division on ao count of not being a resident there, hut he might have the right to vote in the electoral district.
[Mr. Pugsleyl


Arthur Meighen: If that were permitted and if a man wanted to vote in some more convenient place than where he had the right to vote, all he would have to do would be to force his vote through and the judge would have to count it. We do not want to enable a man to vote out of his division.


Frank Oliver: I want to ask one or two questions which are not actually iq line with the subjects which have been under discussion this evening, but perhaps I might get attention. What is the position of Douk-hobors who have left the community and have taken up residence as ordinary citizens? Are they free from the prohibition of the Act, or are they still under the terms of the Act?


Arthur Meighen: In my opinion, they are free from the prohibition of the Act.


Frank Oliver: Could that ruling or that view be expressed in any way for the information and guidance of the enumerators?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, it could be, by the instructions which, the Act provides, shall be sent out by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. The disfranchisement provisions of this Act are intended to cover only Douk-hobors and Mennonitee who are included in the exemptions under the Military Service Act, and not other Doukhobors and Mennonites or other classes who* are not conscientious objectors, so that the Doukhobors and Mennonites who are not members of the community, if they do not come in as conscientious objectors, would not be subject to this Act. There is no difllculty in making that clear by instructions issued by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. Of course, I realize I should be very careful about giving my opinion to . the House on matters of law. I simply give this as my opinion as a lawyer. Personally, I have not the least doubt about it.


Frank Oliver: I am not as familiar with the situation in regard to the Mennonites, but I rather fancy it is somewhat similar. There are Mennonites who, although they call themselves Mennonites, do not hold to the original non-combatant principles of "Cue sect. I should think similar action would be desirable in their case.


Arthur Meighen: I think so, too.


Frank Oliver: I understand that ia man of alien enemy descent is debarred from voting, no matter in what country he was born.


Arthur Meighen: Not unless his natural language is an alien enemy language.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend is aware that there are large numbers of people of German descent, born in the United States, who are now residents of Canada.


Arthur Meighen: They are not affected by this Act at all. Any born in the United States, no matter what language they speak, are not affected by the Act.


Frank Oliver: The word "European" is used?


Arthur Meighen: Yes. I wish to move that the cities of Charlottetown and Belleville be added to- the list I moved in my last amendment.


Louis Audet Lapointe: Has the question of the secrecy of the vote been very carefully considered, according to article 62?
Mr, MEIGHEN: Yes.


Louis Audet Lapointe: Suppose the enumerator gave a certifidate to a woman, entitling her to vote at a certain polling station. The deputy returning officer takes the vote, and he is obliged, according to the law, to record the name of that woman in a book. Now, suppose only one woman votes and that vote has to be put in an envelope, where is the secrecy?


George Perry Graham: She will tell anyway.


Arthur Meighen: I am afraid in that case my hon. friend is right. If there was only one woman in the poll, and her vote had to be enveloped, and it came before a recount judge, I am afraid the public would know for whom she voted, if the judge decided she had the right to vote. If he did not so decide, the public would not know.


William Folger Nickle: If the committee will turn to section 32 of the Bill distributed to-day, they will see it reads as follows:
32. The qualifications necessary to enable any male person to vote at a Dominion election in any province shall, except as by this Act otherwise provided, be those established by the laws of that province as necessary to entitle such male person to vote in the same part of the province at a provincial election.
Section 33A says that the qualification of a woman shall be the same as to age, race, and residence as that of a man. In the ordinary lists prepared in past elections, the provincial qualification and the provincial machinery were available, and the lists were prepared pursuant to provincial legislation. In all the provinces, I think, to be
364J
a voter a person must be a British subject and twenty-one years of age. As this Act is altogether independent of the electoral' machinery of the provinces, the electoral, machinery of the provinces will never begin to work, therefore there is no data oh wlfich one can determine how long* a person must have residence in the province or in the municipality to be entitled to vote. For the sake of illustration, take the province of Ontario.
At the last session of the Ontario legislature a change -was made in the conditions under which a man might ,be placed upon [DOT] the voters' lists. Prior to that if he was-entitled to vote at a 'municipal, and not at a legislative election, he would be put on the list provided that he had been in the province for nine months prior to the assessor beginning his duties or twelve months prior to the revision of the list by the jndge. If, on the other hand, he was a manhood suffrage voter, he would be put on the legis

Lative list if he had been one year in Canada and three months in the municipality. These provisions will, however, under this Act, never come into effect as the provincial' legislative machinery in Ontario intended to apply' to the province will not be effective, and therefore in order to make provision for residence and domicile qualfi- ' cation it is necessary that there should be an amendment to, this Act. I, therefore, beg to move:
That section 1, paragraph (c), be amended by adding as subsection 2 and 3 of section 32 the following:
"2. Except in the province of Quebec and notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, in preparing or adding to the voters' lists pro-' vided for by this Act, the qualifications as to residence, and domicile of electors shall In any [DOT] province where there is no relevant or applicable provision to the contrary be residence for one year in Canada and residence and domi- ' cile in the electoral district for thirty days, both of said periods to be fixed by reference to the date of the writ of eleotion. '
The purpose of the amendment is that in any province outside of Quebec the elector must have resided, in Canada for one year and in the electoral district for thirty-days prior to the date of the writ of election being issued.


George Perry Graham: That would be applicable: to women voting in Ontario?


William Folger Nickle: To a very great extent.'
It would apply also to cities and county towns where the population is over 9,000.' In Quebec there has to be a variation for the reason that their law has no qualifi

cation as to residence in Canada or residence-within the electoral district. All that is'

[DOT]necessary is that the elector shall at the time of the preparation of the -lists be domiciled in the electoral district. Therefore the second amendment reads as follows:
3. In the province of Quebec notwithstanding anything in this Act contained the qualification as to domicile shall be domicile at the date of the saift writ of election.
A person must be domiciled in Quebec [DOT]at the time the enumerator makes his rounds.
Mr. MeCREA:	I notice that there are
certain towns and cities to be put on the list where the voting will commence at six o'clock in the morning. These are manufacturing and railway points. Sherbrooke is a manufacturing and railroad centre, and I think it would be well to put it on the list of places where the poll will be open at six o'clock.	[DOT]


Arthur Meighen: I will have it added to the clause.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Is it
the pleasure of the committee that Sherbrooke shall be added?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


William Pugsley: It strikes me that the
*amendments proposed by the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. NiCkle) are so very important in their character that they should not be pressed to-night. Take that affecting the province of Quebec for instance; there are very few members from Quebec here to-night. The leader of the Opposition is absent. It is intended to depart in some way from the provincial lists. If it is not intended this amendment Would not be *moved by my hon. friend. He >is moving it because he is taking some position different from that which is in the Quebec law. Section 32 provides that:
32. The qualifications necessary to enable any male person to vote at a Dominion election in any province shall, except* as by this Act otherwise provided, be those established by the laws of that province as necessary to entitle such male person to vote in the same part of the province at a provincial election.
Why is it necessary , at this late hour for the hon. member to propose an amendment to alter the principle laid down by the Solicitor General that the provincial law as to the voters' lists should apply? If this makes any change it is of a most important character. If it does not make a change, if it simply carries out the provincial law, there is no necessity for it. I would ask my hon. friend whether he thinks an amendment of that character should be pressed without giving an opportunity to members from the

province of Quebec to discuss it. ' I do not quite understand what the other amendment with reference to the rest of the Dominion means.


Robert Laird Borden: The object of these provisions is merely to cover possible cases of omission. As has been explained by my hon. friend from Kingston (Mr. Nickle), on account of certain legislation passed by the legislature of Ontario at the last session, the provisions fixing the period of residence would not be applicable in the case of lists which are to be made up in cities and towns. Therefore, this provision seems necessary. As far as Quebec is concerned, it is not intended to affect the provincial law but is simply to carry it out. In Quebec, the qualification is domicile at the time the list is being made, but as the provincial law may not apply to the lists made under this Act the same principle is established here; that is domicile at the time the list is made up.


William Pugsley: No, this is changed apparently. The domicile in Quebec is of the date of the writ of the election.


Robert Laird Borden: That is when the list is made up.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: As I understand the
amendment, this would apply to women who are to be added in the townships and towns in Ontario, and also in the towns of over 9,000 where registration takes place.


William Folger Nickle: Yes.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: So far as Ontario is cor cerned, I agree that it is a necessary amendment.


William Pugsley: Why not limit it to Ontario? There is no difficulty in the other provinces because there is the qualification. In New Brunswick one qualification is as to residence or ownership of property. If the provincial lists are to be followed, there is no necessity to make any change. Why not make the amendment apply simply to the province of Ontario?


Robert Laird Borden: I do not think that would be wise. The necessity of the amendment arose by reason of attention being called to the peculiar condition of the legislation of Ontario. Argument might be made that there was no relevant provision in Ontario. We cannot be sure that some similar condition does not prevail in other provinces. This section has no application except in the case where there is im relative and applic-

able legislation in the province. If there is relevant legislation, in any province, that prevails. If for any reason it appears that legislation in the province is not in force for this particular purpose, then this Act has application, but not otherwise.


Mr. MAROILE:: I do not think there is necessity for this amendment in our province, as a man has no right to be put on the list unless he is domiciled in the district.	[DOT]


Robert Laird Borden: This amendment has been prepared by the Minister of Justice, whom we consulted, and who said, as my hon. friend has said, that the legislation of Quebec requires that there shall be domicile at the time when the list is in preparation; but that provision of the provincial law may not have application to a list which would be made up under this Act, and therefore, in order to carry out the absolute and necessary intent of the provincial law, this amendment is proposed which declares that, domicile at the time the list is made up, that is at the date of the writ of election, shall be the controlling qualification.


Joseph Edmond Marcile: But if a man from the province of Quebec leaves the province and is away for a year he has no more right to vote, by the law.


Robert Laird Borden: This does not
change that.


Joseph Edmond Marcile: We are at present making our lists in Quebec. They will be deposited by the 15th. Complaints may then be made until the 30th of September, after which time the council of every municipality has fifteen days to re-12 m. vise the list. A man to be on our list must be domiciled in a polling district.


Robert Laird Borden: The Act does not touch lists as already established in Quebec except as they are to be changed by the addition of women voters and by the disqualification of voters of enemy nationality. In fixing domicile for the women voters it is necessary to have this provision which is established upon the same basis as that which ordinarily prevails in the province of Quebec in the preparation of the provincial lists.


Mr. GERMAN:: Section 48 says that the enumerators shall post up copies. There is no appeal, so far as counties are concerned, from the enumerators. There is an appeal in cities an towns of 9,000 or over.
These appeals must be in within three days, which is too short a period.


Arthur Meighen: That has been changed to four days.


William Manley German: And the ten days has
been changed to fifteen days. The times are all too short. When there are enumerators appointed absolutely of one political opinion, who can make up a list just to suit themselves, it is an absolutely wrong thing to tie any party down to the decision of enumerators. I should like those in charge of this measure to look at section 48. Where is the appeal? There is none, excepting to the enumerator [DOT]on election day.


Arthur Meighen: The enumerator's work is revised in every respect judicially. Everything he does in any province, if it is wrong, can be corrected by the opposing party before a judge.


William Manley German: After the election.


Arthur Meighen: Before the election is decided. I will be quite happy in my constituency if I can be declared-


William Manley German: Yes, because the enumerator will he of your political faith and will fix the lists to suit you. That is the object of the Bill.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman believes what he says-


William Manley German: I believe absolutely what I say; and that is why the Bill is being passed.


Arthur Meighen: You should have sympathy with us during all these twelve years in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is strange the hon. member did not look so fierce and talk so wildly in those days.


William Manley German: Because the Act was being administered honestly.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, I see.


William Manley German: I would like an answer showing what provision there is for an appeal from the enumerator in counties.


Arthur Meighen: First of all, the Act will be administered honestly. Next, if any enumerator makes an error intentionally or otherwise, if he puts a man off who should not be off, the other side can challenge that vote and demand that, before it be counted, a judge shall say it is right. If he refuses to put a man on who should be on, that man can defy him, demand a certificate, go to the

poll, take the oath and vote, and his vote is counted unless the judge decides it is not a proper vote. The residue that will come before the judge, it is believed, will be the smallest residue that could in justice go.
It is the only way you can get review; it is the only way you can get your lists in country districts ready in time for an election. If you have judicial review in every country district you cannot have the election within a reasonable time. We provide for having the election within a reasonable time and at the same time provide such Safeguards that no enumerator can make an error without the other side having 'ample opportunity to correct it. I do not think it makes any difference whether the judge gives his decision before or after the election, so long as his decision is a proper one. It has the same result so far as the contest is concerned.


William Manley German: Why should you not
have appeals in rural districts as well as in cities and towns?


Arthur Meighen: There are not judges enough; you could, not get the work done. Does the hon. gentleman, know how long ' the work takes now in rural districts?


William Manley German: I do know very well.


Arthur Meighen: In the northern parts of Ontario, for example, it takes three months.


William Manley German: You propose to leave all these questions to a recount after the election, is held. It seems to me that is an absurd proposal. Why should there not be an appeal before the election. You have thirty days between nomination day and polling day. Why should not the lists be made up at least by nomination day? Surely the judge in any constituency can decide in twenty days whether or not the lists are properly made up.


Arthur Meighen: In many instances he could not get around.


William Manley German: Well, give him an opportunity to get around.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. gentleman know that in some constituencies-


William Manley German: I know as much about the constituencies as the hon. gentleman does; perhaps I know more. The proposal with regard to appeal is absurd and absolutely wrong.


Frank Oliver: Section 33A, page 1, provides that a woman who is the wife, widow,

mother, sister or daughter of any person, male or female, living or dead, who is serving or has served without Canada in any of the military forces, shall be entitled to vote. Is it not desirable that there should be a direction to the enumerator that he should take knowledge of the name and identity of the soldier in regard to whom a woman claims the right to vote? If the name of the soldier in whose name a woman claims the right to vote is placed on the enumeration list along with her name, there would be no question, in case of challenge, about her right to vote.


Arthur Meighen: That would encumber the list quite a little, but if it produced any substantial results, there would be a compensation. I do not think, however, that it would produce any substantial results. If the vote is challenged, all these details must come before the judge in any case. It is a question whether the judge's duty would be in any way lightened or anything would be made any more definite before the judge by the presence of the name of the soldier after her name on the list.


Frank Oliver: If there is no direction to the enumerator all he is required to do is to ask the women: Are you entitled to vote? Have you a brother, son or other relative at the front? She says: yes, and he puts her name down, he is not required to pursue the question of identity. If there was a direction that he must pursue the question of identity, it might save troublesome proceedings later on and tend to the securing of a better and more definite list.


Arthur Meighen: I am inclined to think that the hon. member is right. It would be better to have the instructions to the enumerator include the duty on his part of keeping a record of the name of the soldier.


Charles Murphy: Could not my hon. friend go further than that and devise some method of establishing the identity of the person claiming relationship?


Arthur Meighen: Every person's identity is put beyond doubt on the list, The directions would be to get the name of the soldier.


Charles Murphy: As this discussion goes on I recall from time to time the evidence given before the Returned Soldiers Committee. I have in mind a statement made by the Chairman, who was also Chairman of the Patriotic Fund, that in any number of cases two or three women claimed to be the wife of one man.


Arthur Meighen: The identity of the women is to be established by every possible means. Her name goes on the list; she has a number; her occupation and address are given. I do not think there is any way of more clearly fixing her identity.


Charles Murphy: Surely some proof ought to be required.


William Pugsley: The Prime Minister
says that the amendment which has been moved by the member for Kingston (Mr. Rickie) was prepared by the Minister of Justice. To whom should its authorship be attributed? /


William Folger Nickle: This amendment arose
merely out of my .desire to do a kindly thing to the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Car-veil), who was intensely bitter before recess because there was no provision preventing men who had been out of New Brunswick for nine years, and1 who had gone to the United States, from voting. This was done in order to try to prevent the evil of which he complained.


William Pugsley: That may be correct as to other provinces, but I am speaking now of Quebec. I cannot understand this provision ;
In the province of Quebec, notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, the qualification as to domicile shall he domicile on the date of the said writ of election.
The Prime Minister, in answer to the hon. member for Bagot (Mr. Marcile), said that this would apply only to the new voters, but it does not only apply to them; it is general; it would apply to all. The result of this would be, it seems to me, that a voter whose name was on the list and who changed his domicile, perhaps a month before the date of the said writ of election, would be disqualified, and as he would not be on any other list, he would lose his vote altogether. I dislike intruding myself in any matter relating to another province, but the matter has to be dealt with as this is an important amendment and it is so late in the discussion. If the minister would change this to read-	*
In the province of Quebec, notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, the qualification of the female voters to be added under this Act as to domicile shall be domicile on the date of the said writ of election.
I would see no objection, hut in the form proposed by the minister it might disqualify <a large number of people who would find themselves challenged at the polls because they had changed their domicile, and as
they would not be on any other list would thereby lose their vote altogether.


Arthur Meighen: If I understood the Prime Minister correctly, the proposed form would not be objectionable, but I would like to consult either the Prime Minister or the Minister of Justice before definitely accepting that amendment.


Mr. E. LAPOINTE:: I was not in the House when the amendment was moved, and I did not hear the explanation of the Prime Minister, but it seems to me that it really applies to all the voters, because section 32 applies to any male person qualified to vote at a Dominion election. This amendment would, therefore, apply to all voters already on the ist of Quebec. There is certainly no reason whatever for this amendment.


William Folger Nickle: If hon. gentlemen will refer to section 65 A on page 8 of the original Bill, they will see that there is nothing in their contention. The Minister of Justice, who drew this sub-section-of course, I do not understand the law in Quebec- explained it to me. He said that in Quebec, the qualification of the elector is determined by his domicile as of the date on which the lists are deposited with a certain official who has charge of the lists- I do not know just what his title is.


Jacques Bureau: The clerk of the municipality and the town clerk of the city.


William Folger Nickle: That applies to the male voters in Quebec, those who are entitled to vote at a parliamentary election. But the lists on which the female voters in Quebec will vote will never be deposited with any official because the provisions of the Quebec law do not make that possible, and therefore, there must be some date determining domicile. As the list in reference to the male voter would be prepared so that the provisions of sub-section of 65 A would not apply, it was not necessary to say anything further on that point of the argument, and this sub-section 3, as I understand it, will apply only to the female voters. Whether or not there is any objection to putting in the word "female," I do not know what the Minister of Justice will say. This subsection 3 was put in with a view to only affecting women voters added under this measure.


Joseph Edmond Marcile: If it applies only to female voters, let us say that, and then there will be no objection. [DOT]


William Pugsley: This section says that in the preparation of and the adding to the

lists, the qualification shall be domicile on the day of election. I can understand why, in respect to new voters you should make that provision, but the difficulty is in the interpretation of it. A man who had changed his domicile prior to the date of the writ could be challenged and his name would be struck off, and as he would not be on any other list, he would lose his vote. That is what I am afraid would be the result of this amendment.


Jacques Bureau: Section 65A begins with the words, "Notwithstanding anything in this part of this Act." This amendment says again: "Notwithstanding anything in this Act." That bars section G5A, and the question of domicile will be settled as from the date of the issue of the writ. I did not read the section very closely, but it would be better if you struck out the words, "Notwithstanding anything in this Act contained," and just say, "In the province of Quebec, the qualification as to domicile shall be domicile on the date of the said writ of election." Do the words, "Notwithstanding anything in this Act contained" refer to the whole Act or to subsection 65AP


Robert Laird Borden: They have
general application. The object of the section prepared by the Minister of Justice is to preserve, in relation to additions which are to be made to this list, the same principle which is enacted by the law of Quebec with regard to the preparation of the ordinary lists of that province. In the ordinary lists, qualification as to residence is settled by the domicile at the time the lists are made up. This amendment is designed to maintain that principle in respect to additions made of women voters to this list. That is the sole purpose of it. It was thought necessary by the Minister of Justice, who can explain it much more fully that I can as he is more familiar with the laws of the province of Quebec than I can claim to be.


William Pugsley: When my right hon.
friend was out I raised this point. The amendment says:
In the province of Quebec, notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, the qualification as to domicile shall be domicile on the date of the said writ of election.	*
You see, it is general in its application; it does not apply simply to the female voters who are added.


Robert Laird Borden: Some amendment is proposed as to that.


William Pugsley: Probably that will cover it,
[Mr Pugsley.]


Ernest Lapointe: Section 30 applies
only to male voters; it -says:
The - qualifications necessary to enable any male person to vote at a Dominion election in any province shall, except as by this Act otherwise provided, be those established by the laws of that province as necessary to entitle suoh male person to vote in the same part of the province at a provincial election.
And to that section 32, which applies only to male voters, it is proposed to add a subsection 3, reading:
In the province of Quebec, notwithstanding anything in this Act contained the qualifications as to domicile shall be domioile on the date of the said writ of election.
This -subsection is -added to a section which deals with male voters only. This is certainly likely to create confusion.


Arthur Meighen: This is a section that I thought could be delegated while I was attending to others, and I have not followed it from the beginning. I have listened to the argument pretty carefully, and I hope it will be found that the words can be inserted. My idea is that they can be.


William Pugsley: The -amendment should be to section- 33 instead of section 32.


Mr. DOHERTY:: As to the purpose of the amendment itself, before we discuss where it ought to be put, as the Prime Minister has explained with regard to these female voters to be added to the lists, the date of domicile must correspond with the ordinary law of the province. By section 180 of the Quebec Election Act it is provided that,
The following persons, and no others, being males, and who, at the time of the deposit of the list under articles 196 and 197, or 22-2 and 223-
I may say that this provision is for Montreal and the divisions outside of Montreal.
-as the case may be, are domiciled within the limits of the municipality in the electoral district for which the list is made.
With regard to the ordinary lists there is. no requirement as to period of residence in the constituency. You are entitled to be on the list, so far as domicile is concerned, if you were domiciled in the constituency at the time the list was deposited with the secretary treasurer, or with the City Clerk. With regard to these women who are to be put on the lists, they only get put on the lists when this enumeration takes place, and absolutely the same principle is applied. If you are domiciled in the constituency at the time

the list- is being made, that is the constituency you belong to, and on the list for that constituency you are entitled to be put. We have fixed on the date of the issue of the writ of election, because that is the time when these additions to the original list are taking place.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Why not specify "female voters"?	-


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have not the slightest objection to adding these words. The amendment will then read:
In the province of Quebec notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, the qualification as to domicile of female voters shall be domioile on the date of the said writ of election.
The advantage of putting the amendment where it is proposed is that you are dealing at the same time with the question of qualification depending upon residence or domicile.


Louis Audet Lapointe: I should like the Solicitor General to consider Form Y on page 97 of this little yellow book, where the voter is required to swear that he has not been disfranchised under the provisions of the Disfranchising Act, or for corrupt practices under the Dominion Elections Act. This oath is very often put to the elector by the candidate's agents. Will the same formula be adopted under the new law? In a big city like Montreal, electors are constantly moving in and out and the lists have to -be revised every two years-. My hon. friend the Minister of Justice knows how difficult it is to locate one's electors. One man, one vote, is the formula we apply, but suppose a man has moved from one constituency to another and his name has not yet been crossed off the old list at the time of the election-and here are hundreds of cases of this kind

would this man be disqualified?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Th-ere is nothing said
in the form as to th-e place where the voter resides who is asked to swear that lie is not disqualified? Is my hon. friend's suggestion that because of a man's change of residence he might not f-eel justified in swearing that he was not disqualified?


Louis Audet Lapointe: Yes.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Of course this is the
form that has been in use for years. As regards all masculine voters -in the province of Quebec, the existing lists will stand just as they -are to-day. There is no requirement made of residence anywhere in the present Bill that will -alter in any
way the qualification of a male voter in so far as residence is concerned. The male voter who comes under the category of persons born in alien enemy country may be struck off the list, but save in that regard, and save that female voters may be added, the list we have undeT the existing law is the list upon which this election shall be held, -and any man who -is on the list in a -particular -constituency is still perfectly qualified notwithstanding -his having moved. I do not see why any difficulty should arise when he -swears he is not disqualified. He is qualified because he is on the list for that electoral constituency, whether he has moved out or not.


Louis Audet Lapointe: If we swear him he might object to the wording of it. If the-question be put to him "have you been disfranchised under the Franchise Act "? he may say " I do not know what that means."


Arthur Meighen: We have not changed
that in the slightest. Th-at is the form which has been always there.
Mr. L. A. LAPOINTE. But to-day it is one man one vote, and the elector votes where he resides.


Arthur Meighen: The disfranchising law is just the same as it was before; the Corrupt Practices Act is just the -same; so the oath means just the same.
I wish to move, that the words " so help you God " in paragraph (q) of section 1, form Z, be added at the end of the form. T.hiis should have been in the Act, but w-as omitted.
Amendment -agreed to.
Mr. -MEIGHEN: I move the adoption of one amendment which was not carried as we went along, that is in regard to paragraph 33A.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is -that the female
voters, Quebec?


Arthur Meighen: There are certain restrictions suggested by the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) and the hon. member for -Carleton (Mr. Carvell).
I think my hon. friend does well to wait until we are pretty weary before asking that thi-s section be adopted, because every man who is at -all awake and alert must see there is the -strongest possible objection to the section in its present form. I find it provides that the relatives of any person who is serving within Canada in- any of the naval forces shall be entitled to vote.


Arthur Meighen: We have amended that.


Mr. PUGS LEY:: My hon. friend recognizes tire ntter absurdity of the provision, and amends it so that it will not apply to any man who enlists after the passage of this Act. After the Act passes, I suppose there will be four weeks before the election, and of course you can see the absurdity of allowing it to apply to relatives of persons who may join the naval forces after the election.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for
Carleton assured us if we accepted the amendment he would accept us as sincere. I.hope you will not repudiate that.


William Pugsley: I am sure the Secretary of State misunderstood the hon. member for Carleton.


Arthur Meighen: That'is what he said.


William Pugsley: I do not believe anything the minister could do in the way of slight amendments of this character would convince the hon. member for Carleton of the sincerity of this Government in submitting this Bill to Parliament. I would ask my hon. friends on this side of the House if they heard the hon. member for Carleton say he would be satisfied as to the sincerity of the Government. There is no corroboration of that statement. The amendment is a slight concession to the demand for not violating all the rules that ought to govern in connection with the giving of votes to the relatives of the soldiers. The Secretary of State has spoken of the Bill as based upon a principle, which appeals very strongly to every man-that those who have gone to the front occupy a unique position. He says they have either made or are ready, to make the supreme sacrifice for the country; that many have died upon the battlefield; and that it is only right that their relatives might be supposed in a certain measure to be able to speak for them, and it is but proper their relatives should be given the right to vote. He based it upon the grounds of service and of sacrifice.
Yet he allows the relatives of, I presume, hundreds of men who have joined vessels engaged in the fishery service to vote-vessels which now are part of the naval forces of Canada, and also men on cruisers, cooks, engineers, and others who had been employed on these vessels for years before the war broke out, who never thought of going abroad, who are engaged upon vessels that could not sail or steam' across the Atlantic, and who, when they joined, knew that their services would be entirely in Canada. These men are simply doing the work that they were employed to do years ago and their

engagement involves no liability to cross the ocean, to go to the front or to incur the risk or make the sacrifices which men who have gone to the front are called upon to make. The relatives of these officers and men, seamen, midshipmen, cooks, engineers and deck hands, are, by this Act, to have the right to vote. I do not know what argument has been presented in favour of doing this, but it cannot be justified upon any of those grounds which the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have so eloquently put forward as the reason for giving the votes .to relatives of those who have gone overseas. In the case of the soldier, of the man who enlists, hut who has not left Canada, who has volunteered for the service of his country and is ready to cross the ocean and risk his life on the battlefield, this privilege is not extended to his relatives. It is only when he goes overseas that his relatives shali be entitled to vote. Yet, that principle is departed from in regard to men who are engaged upon these vessels which constitute a part of the Canadian naval service. Why should that be so? Why should the relatives of a man who has enlisted in the expeditionary forces of Canada as an infantryman, an artilleryman, or as the member of a forestry battalion, and who has signified his willingness to go to the front and risk his life, be debarred from the right to vote because he is still in Canada, while you give the right to the relatives of the men who are engaged upon these vessels, who have not gone out of Canada, who never intend to go and who know that they will not have to go?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is quite wrong. A man who joins the naval service has to go wherever he is sent, whether overseas or elsewhere. When the hon. gentleman says that these men never volunteered to go overseas he is wrong.


William Pugsley: They never expect to go.


Arthur Meighen: The figures given to-day show that some 3,000 have gone. With regard to the rest of the hon. gentleman's address, I have answered it so often that I think he would consider me a bore if 1 answered it again.


William Pugsley: The minister has not
answered. The minister says that they have volunteered to go overseas. So did the infantrymen and the artillerymen volunteer to go overseas.


Arthur Meighen: That is quite true.


William Pugsley: They have all volunteered to go overseas. But there are a great many small vessels forming the naval forces in Canada-is that not so? Are not the fishery cruisers a paTt of the naval forces of Canada?


Arthur Meighen: The naval forces were defined clearly this afternoon Dy the Minister of Marine and Fisheries.


William Pugsley: They would include the men I spoke of. It cannot he that because they have volunteered and are liable to be sent overseas the right is given to their relatives and refused to men who have volunteered in the military forces of Canada to go overseas. They are compelled by the oath which they take to go beyond the seas, and they volunteered for that purpose. Why should their relatives be refused the vote while the relatives of the men who are serving on board these vessels, who are still in Canada and many of whom have never been outside of Canada except perhaps for a few miles along the coast, be given the vote?
I am not able to see the reason.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman desires the relatives of the soldiers in Canada to be included it can very easily be done by simply striking out the words "without Canada." If the hon. gentleman cares to move that amendment we will give it immediate consideration.


William Pugsley: That is not what I am at. The Government limit the right of the female relatives of soldiers- to the relatives of those men beyond the seas. That is the principle of the Bill. I take it that, for good and sufficient reasons as they appear to the Government, they do that as a matter of principle because their view is that if men are still in Canada they will be able to vote and there will not be the same diffi

culty about it as there may be in the case of the soldiers at the front. I hope that difficulty will not occur in very many cases.
I trust that all the soldiers will have an opportunity of casting their ballots and determining how the affairs of this country will be administered during the next five years, and whether the mismanagement, corruption, partisanship and waste of public money shall be continued during the next five years or not. Now the Government refuse the privilege to female relatives of the members of the expeditionary forces who have not left Canada.
But with respect to those in the naval forces, the relatives of those who have
served either within or without Canada are given the vote. My hon. friend may have explained the reasons for this distinction very fully and satisfactorily. He certainly did not do so when I had the good fortune to be present; and I should be delighted, and I am sure the country would be, if the minister could give any satisfactory explanation for this distinction. I cannot conceive of any. We have still an hour before the guillotine will fall, and I invite the minister to explain this discrimination. He invites me to suggest amendments. We have been -considering this Bill hour after hour, a Bill which, when it was presented to this committee, gave evidence of as careless drafting-perhaps not careless but of as hasty drafting-as any Bill ever presented to this House. When the Bill was introduced at was incomplete, it was interlined, it was not completely printed, and it was in such form that it could not be printed in French until the very day of the second reading. This Bill, drafted and introduced in imperfect foTm, was not distributed in French and English until after the calling of the second reading, owing to the haste of its preparation. To-day the minister has presented amendment after amendment, a'l under the rules of closure which, if they had been applied, would have absolutely prevented any discussion of these amendments or of the Bill. I would ask the minister during the remaining hour to explain the discrimination in 33 A between the female relatives of those who have joined the expeditionary force and are still in Canada training to go overseas to fight for their country, and the relatives of those who are members of the naval force who are still in Canada and will be at the time of the election.


Arthur Meighen: It is quite true that there is an hour yet before the closure comes into effect, and I know that the hon. member is troubled as to keeping up the discussion for that time. We are all good-natured on this side, and do not at all mind his occupying-


William Pugsley: I can assure you that we feel very ill-natured on this side. This is one of the greatest outrages ever perpetrated.


Arthur Meighen: I would rather the hon. member would not ask me to repeat myself to help him out in occupying this hour. I have explained every point that he has brought up. We have no particular objection to enfranchising the relatives ot soldiers in Canada if hon. gentlemen opposite desire them to have the franchise. Bui

there-is a difference between them and those who are overseas. There would be an opportunity for fraudulent enlistment for male fide or not bona fide enlistment. There has been some of that in Canada, not a great deal.


William Pugsley: That is the way you would get recruits.


Arthur Meighen: Recruits that are not bona fide are not much good if they afterwards leave. I accepted the suggestion of the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Car-vell) with reference to the patrol service in Canada. Those in Canada as
1 a.m. yet are not subject in any degree to the perils of war. Those enlisted in the naval forces are, although some of them are not in as great danger as others; many of the overseas forces, construction and forestry battalions, are in the same position, although the peril there is very substantial indeed. It is very substantia] in the naval force too.
Mr. A. K- MACLEAN: Are the vessels engaged originally in the fishery service now within the naval service?


Arthur Meighen: I shall ask the minister.


John Allister Currie: What is the sense of asking that? Every man who enlists for service in this war takes the oath for the war and becomes a soldier or sailor for the war.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What has that to do with it?


John Allister Currie: Just to create trouble the hon. member desires to send for the minister to give that information.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: My hon. friend does not understand my statement. I want to know if the ships that are actually engaged in the fishery service, by the statute become part of the Canadian navy. There are on the Great Lakes a number of vessels engaged in the fisheries service; does my hon. friend say they are performing war service?
Mr. 'CURRIE:	The man who enlists in
the naval service, is sworn in and put on the regular patrol is performing war service. By no 6tretch of the imagination could the hon. gentleman look upon these men as not belonging to the navy.
Mr. A. K. MA'OLEAN: Suppose they do; is it right that their relatives should have the vote?


John Allister Currie: The question resolves
itself into whether these men will vote for hon. gentlemen oippo-site. If they would

not vote for hon. gentlemen opposite, it would be very wrong to give them the vote; that is what is disturbing the member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean). Many of those men are doing mine-sweeping service on the coast, where submarines have been active. A gentleman whom I met in the hotel last evening told me that the ship upon which he had been bound to Quebec was sent to Halifax when it reached the Banks because of the report that there might be submarines in the mouth of the St. Lawrence. The most dangerous service rendered in connection with the war is mime-sweeping,-looking after mines dropped by submarines. Thousands of young men in 'Scotland and England have been blown up in these trawlers. I received a letter the other day in which it was stated that a young man 22 years of age had been drowned when a trawler that he was on was blown up. Many of these ships go out, strike a mine, and are never seen again. The Germans have submarines in the Atlantic that are capable of coming to this side and of carrying large quantities of mines for distribution around the mouths of harbours. Submarines have attacked vessels off the Atlantic coast of the United States. Men engaged in the very service of which my hon. friend complains have been lost at sea. Why, then, does he desire to discriminate against them? The wives, daughters, sisters amd mothers of those men are as much entitled to the right to vote as to the right to receive separation allowance. The member for 'St. John has talked so much this session; he has asked so many ' questions, that he really exhausts the frontbenchers on this side. I am sure that he must have asked millions of questions since the session commenced. The member for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) also has distinguished himself by his attacks on members on this side, particularly by his venomous attacks on the Government. When I see a man in action in this House I always visualize something that he resembles. There is a modern instrument which is employed in the building art and which is operated by means of compressed air and mud-. This instrument is known as a mud-gun, and if there is one thing that the member for North -Cape Breton reminds me of, it is a mud-gun. The trouble is that when he starts in he does not confine himself to operations above the belt. He indulges in all kinds of insults and insinuations, and he gets away with them because we do not want to -waste the time-

of the House in answering 'him. The volumes of Hansard he has filled this session will go down to posterity, but at the conclusion of this session I have no 'doubt that we shall have seen the last of him for ten years.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: If the member for
North iSimcoe (Mt. Currie) thinks that it is a soft snap to put me out of action in my county, I invite him down to North Cape Breton and Victoria. The honourable gentleman is the last man in this country, in view of the record that the ex-Minister of Militia gives him, who should talk about action.


John Allister Currie: Now, he is starting the
mud business.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: If my honourable
friend wants to know his record as a man in action, I may tell him that he was found up to his neck in a dugout when he should have been at the front leading his men. When he came to this country looking for promotion the then Minister of Militia refused to give him promotion, because he was not entitled to it. Afterwards the honourable gentleman stood up in this House and complained about it. For a number of months the honourable gentleman was too much ashamed of himself to mention soldiers or soldiering. Now he is getting Dutch courage; he thinks that people are forgetting his record. What right has he to turn on me at this hour of the night? I have been perfectly quiet during the last twenty-four hours. My honourable friend puts himself forward as a man whose intellect towers over that of other honourable gentlemen in this House, but be is the only person who thinks he occupies that position. So far as wasting powder on dead monkeys is concerned, I think I have put in almost enough time on my honourable friend. If he thinks that he can fling mud at me whenever he wants to, he is mistaken; he bad better, take to his dugout. He says that I have insulted the 'Government and the members of the House. I am not aware, Sir, that I have insulted any member of this House since I came into it. I do not take kindly to insults from anybody. I do not expect them; I do not take them, because I am not built along those lines, either mentally or physically. What I do not take from other people, I am not disposed to pass over to them. I am disposed to get along amicably and respec-fully with every member of this House, and
I shall be sorry, indeed, to have it go abroad amongst hon. members that I am insulting the Government or insulting any member of this House. If I believe the Government is wrong, or ifs I have any criticism, I make it in clear cut, bad Anglo-Saxon very often, because I must say to hon. gentlemen that, when I stand up here speaking English, I am not speaking my native tongue. When an hon. member from Quebec addresses the House, if he makes mistakes in his English, it is all excused because English is not his native tongue, but if a man who is a Gaelic man as I am, makes any mistake, it is attributed to stupidity on his part. I am serious when I say that English is not my native tongue. I am not, therefore, as flowery as some hon. gentlemen might be in the use of that language, but I can make myself understood, particularly when I am saying some things about hon. gentlemen who occupy the treasury benches. What I wish to say about the Bill now before the House-


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Say it in Gaelic.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The hon. member for
Calgary, (Mr. R. B. Bennett), who is not in the House now, broke forth the other night into some of St. Paul's injunctions and directions-


Some Hon. MEMBERS :: Oh, oh.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Say it in Gaelic.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: He was dealing with
spiritual wickedness in high places. I am asked to speak Gaelic. I am also going to follow some of St. Paul's directions, namely, not to cast pearls before swine. To be serious for a moment-


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Say it in Gaelic.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The hon. member for
North Simcoe, (Mr. Currie) understands me in Gaelic well enough. I have spoken Gaelic to him before, and perhaps he thought that was a weakness in me, and that was why he turned his mud-gun on me, the only gun he can handle.
There is in our constitution a provision which recognizes civil rights as property. The right to vote is, in a sense, property. The minister is giving the enumerators power to strike men off the lists without giving them notice or an opportunity of defence. That is not right. If some day, when the minister is not very busy, he will open the first volume of the reports of the Supreme Court of Canada and read the first case reported there, he will find this doctrine of notice dealt with at length,

and the doctrine laid down that a British subject cannot legally be deprived of anything that is in the nature of property or civil rights without giving him notice that he is to be so deprived and affording him an opportunity of defending his right. I think it will be accepted by every hon. member in this House, and particularly, by the lawyers, that the right to vote is property, and that no citizen of this country, whether he was born in- this country or elsewhere, once he has become a British subject, should be deprived of property or civil rights without being given notice, and an opportunity of saying to the court before whom he is called, the reason why he should not be so deprived. This enumerator does not sit publicly. The man who is deprived of his vote does not know where the enumerator is sitting. The only thing he knows is, when he goes to the poll to cast his ballot, that his name is not on the list, and he will then discover that at some place and at some time this enumerator struck his name off the list. There should, therefore, be something in this Bill a little more explicit than we have now by which it would be known to men who are likely to be struck off the list, where this official will be sitting, and that when that official goes over the list and comes across names he intends to strike off, he should serve notice on such men that on a certain day he intends to deal with the question whether or not they shall remain on the list.
They can then appear before him and give such answer as they may have. Eyen if their reasons would not change the mind of the enumerator these men, would feel more satisfied, and it would be more along the lines of British practice if they were given notice. There is nothing in the Bill to enable the enumerator to do that. There is no provision as to where the enumerator is to come from. I have no great objection to any man in my county beingx appointed an enumerator, but I think it would be better that enumerators be appointed within the county. I would not care that enumerators from the westfern part of the province should be brought down to my county, and I am sure the people of the western portion of Nova Scotia would object to meh being brought down from Cape Breton to be enumerators in the western part of the province. Provision should also be made that enumerators should be residents of good standing in the county in which they are to operate. They are ap-

pointed in a lump number by the Governor in Council. Then the returning officer distributes them to the different parts of the county. The town of Sydney Mines is divided into six or seven polling divisions. Will there be an enumerator for each of those polling divisions?


Arthur Meighen: Yes. No one is deprived of the right of the franchise although he may be deprived of the right to be on the list.	-


Hugh Boulton Morphy: As there is still half an hour going begging' in this debate, T hope I shall not appear to be trespassing on the time of the House if I say a few things in connection with some statements that have been made during the debate to-night, particularly by the hon. member for North Cape Breton, who has made an unwarrantable attack upon an esteemed and worthy member of this House.
Mr. MoKENZIE: Who started the bali?


Hugh Boulton Morphy: An unwarrantable attack, I say, upon a gallant soldier, Colonel Currie of the 48th Highlanders. One would have thought that a man who boasted of his Gaelic descent, and of his Scottish birthright, would have been the last to stand up in a public assembly and attack a member of the gallant 48th. There seems to be the bitterness of gall there. My immediate object in referring to the matter is to say to hon. gentlemen of this House that the attack is absolutely without foundation and entirely unworthy any hon. gentleman to make in this House against a soldier who has been under fire at the front with his men, day in and day out, at the risk of his life. A man who has shown the intrepidity that Colonel Currie has shown should not be attacked in such an unwarrantable manner on the floor of this House from personal or any other motives.
I have seen not only one, but two letters from the front from men who have served under Colonel Currie. I wish I had them here, because it was with great pleasure that I read them. One was from a private in the ranks who had seen some of the attacks made against Colonel Currie in the press of this country and throughout, the world, and he said that the attacks were without foundation, and that the men who have served under Colonel Currie loved him so much "they would follow him to hell." To hear a gallant officer defamed in this House in that way makes my blood boil, and I think it is only right that I should tell the House what I have learned from letters from the front.

. With regard to the general attitude of hon. gentlemen apposite, as I have listend to this debate I have -been struck by one thing above all others, and that is that some lion, members opposite have shown no love for the soldier's wife, and mother, and sister and daughter. Others with a higher patriotic spirit have maintained a -splendid respectful silence. This House -has witnessed -an -attack on a soldier -and his near relatives. We have witnessed a deliberate attempt in the face of public opinion in -Canada to give to the wife of the slacker and the wife of the a'ien enemy -a -status equal to that of the wife of the -so-ldier who -is fighting for the Empire. I do not know why that should *be. Have we descended so far in the realm of party politics that the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) will -stand up in this House and say, -as he did the other night, that a party in this House will hear from the -alien enemy wife and widow -and sister in -thunder tones? He mistakes the patriotic women of Canada. There i-s no more loyal woman in the world than the patriotic women of C-anada, who are glad to -see the soldier's wife, and daughter, -and mother, and sister, who have m-ade the greater -sacrifice getting the vote. The women of Canada who have knitted -socks -and made comforts for the soldier have displayed -a patriotic spirit right through that would have been an inspiration for the hon. member for St. John if he had felt like coming u-p -to the high standard these women have set. These wo-men -are proud that the sold-ier'-s women relatives are being given a preference in the matter -of voting.
I was very -much amused at my -hon. friend fro-m North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) taking the attitude he did after he had bo-asted -so much of being Gaelic. Why, the record of Scotchmen the world over is one o-f chivalry -and br-av-ery; there never wa-s a Scotchman in the days of old who would have voted against supporting the men -at the front as -my ho-n. friend did; no, not one. They -have alway-s been over the top first, the Black Watch -and the Irish Ennisk-illens. And to hear a Scotchman who has votdd against conscription, against sending -succour to the boys who -are fighting in France and Flanders for his liberty in this country-to hear him boasting of his Gaelic ancestry and indulging in -a tirade of abuse -against an officer who has seen service at the front, is a very -painful thing for me to have to listen to. I do not wonder that as the clock goes on some hon. gentlemen opposite have grown tired.
I do not wonder that, though they complain of closure being applied, their heart is so little in this fight that the Chamber is almos-t empty. They cannot occupy the time allote-d to them, and we on this side of the House who have sat -silent have to get up and help them fill up the time. Their hearts have failed them in this fight; it is palpable, you can almost feel it. Some hon. gentlemen over there are good, some of them are fine; but the atmosphere is charged to-night with the weakness of the cause for which they are fighting, w-ith the abject futility of fighting against what they know to be right.
Let me say a word or two about my own constituency. The hon. memiberfo-r Humboldt (MY Neely) last night spoke of the German in the West who could not be -allowed to enlist. Have there been two policies in the Militia Department of this country? No. The German in the West was entitled to enlist just as freely as the German in the East. In my own county-T say it with pride -forty-five boys of German descent enlisted in the 110th Battalion -and went to the front and fought; -some of them died-, others have been wounded, and a few have returned. In- the 71st Battalion there were 58 men of German -descent. In the 34th Battalion 52, in the 11th Battery-


William Pugsley: There are some members of this committee who are desirous o-f discussing this Bill, and I would call the hon. gentleman to order.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: I am' discussing the Bill, and if the hon. gentleman's stock of patience i-s as large as the vocabulary he has displayed during th-is debate he will see that my remarks were' strictly in order. I propose to discuss this Bill, and I do- not think that my hon. friend has any right to interrupt me, as he has already given- up the fight.


William Pugsley: He has not given -up the fight by any means. He is going to carry the fight to the country and hon. gentlemen will hear from -him. The point of order is this. The hon. gentleman has been speaking of everything but the Bill which is under consideration. He has also spoken his twenty minutes.	-


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: I took note of the time at which the hon. member started speaking, -and I find that he has almost ten minutes to run yet.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: In the 14th Battery there were twenty-four of German descent; in the 64th, six; and in No. 1 Can-adi-an Army Medical Corps, nine. Altogether 203 Ger-

mans have enlisted and gone to the front from the county of Perth. One of them has won the Military Cross, and a second bar. His father happens to be a German born, and I am sorry to say that that man will be disfranchised. It is a pity, but it is , true.


George Perry Graham: Will not the father be
enfranchised under this Act, his boy having gone to the front?	[DOT]


Arthur Meighen: He will not be disfranchised. He was never naturalized.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: The record those boys
have made has been splendid and they have carried back a lot of French wounded soldiers. They are doing great work in every possible way. I think the hon. member for Rouviille (Mr. Lemieux) will bear me out that it is paradoxical in this country, in this war, in this great crisis, that German boys of German descent, to the extent of 203 by actual count of mine over the service rolls have left to fight against the principles of the Hun, against the principles laid down by the Kaiser. We will not say very much about the county of the hon. member for Laprairie-Napierville (Mr. Lanctot); there have'been only 36 altogether who have left there, and I do not know whether any of them were French or not. I think it is so paradoxical that it is worth while mentioning it on the floor of this House.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Only the day before yesterday I read in the press a very fine report about the French-Canadians at the front. Twenty-four of them, were decorated on the field of battle.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: I am glad my hon. friend speaks of it, because there is no man in Canada who takes a greater pride than I do in the brave fellows who have left the province of Quebec to help in the great fight. But why are they not supported to the fullest limit? Their bravery in leaving for France ought to compel every man who proclaims his French ancestry to come along and give those boys all the help they desire. It should not be left to the German boys of Ontario to bring back French wounded.


Rodolphe Lemieux: On the eighteenth of
this month I am taking my boy down to Halifax.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Splendid. Every man who does that is entitled to all credit, and I give my hon. friend credit for sending his boy-not for sending his boy but because 
he has a boy who will go without being sent. But if the hon. gentleman and his leader had done what should have been done, instead of standing back and playing the game of politics, we would have had a splendid army of 100,000 men, instead of 6,000, from the province of Quebec. Let me come to the point, so that my hon. friend from St. John will not think wrong about it. There are grandfathers in my county of the boys who are gone to the front, old men who came into the county in the pioneer days, who pioneered the farms, and built up their homes, but have never been naturalized because in the early days no one thought of it. Some of them took an oath of allegiance. Now because these men happen to have been bom in Germany, although their sons and grandsons are fighting for you, Mr. Chairman, and for the country at large, you are going to disfranchise them under this Bill. A finer and more loyal body of citizens never lived in any country in the world. Their sons are as British, and even much more British, than some men in this House. They are absolutely intrepid and fearless. They iiave gone forward and have done their duty like soldiers, and have died like men. They have won honours which have reflected glory upon the Dominion of Canada. Why could not the grandfathers of those boys be naturalized in some way? Why should they not be recognized? Why should not this Bill be so amended so that the old men, past military age, should, through the grace of this House if nothing else, be given that light of citizenship which they have earned through their pioneer days by the fulfillment of >all their duties and by voting consistently from year to year? Why should they not be given the right to vote in this Bill?


William Pugsley: The hon. member is very late in suggesting this. It is a quarter to iwo now.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: There is an excuse for lieing late. The time has been frittered away by hon. gentlemen opposite. I was only forced to speak when I saw I had a real opening because hon. gentlemen were complaining they were gagged, yet the gag was not so tight that they failed to fill in the time, and they let me in. I ask the Solicitor General to consider, even at this late hour, whether something cannot be done along the lines I have suggested. Say something that -will satisfy what I look upon as the fair claim of these men whose sons and grandsons have gone to the front to fight the battle of freedom, to fight for hon. gentle-

men on the other 'side of the House as well as on this side.


Arthur Meighen: It is true there are numbers in the province of Ontario, and there are some in other provinces, who have sons and grandsons enlisted, and who are not able to vote. The hon. member for North Perth (Mr. Morphy) is not speaking strictly correctly when he states they are disfranchised by this Bill. No man who has a son or grandson at the front is disfranchised no matter what race he belongs to. No man	who has
a brother in the overseas forces is disfranchised by this Bill, no matter what race or country he comes from. The trouble is there are men who, although they may have exercised the ballot, have not been naturalized, consequently they are not able to vote. They have never been legally qualified, and they are not now. Their statue is not changed in the least. The law as to them is precisely as it was before. To meet the suggestion as the hon. member for North Perth stated it would involve the giving of the franchise to other than British subjects in the country. In the case of military voters, those who have gone overseas and are fighting in France, though we went, as far as we believe any Government in the world has gone, and as far as we believe we could, we did not go so far ae to enfranchise even the soldieT himself if he were not a British subject. Consequently, I think it would be going too far, if we were now to entertain the idea of enfranchising the relatives of the soldiers who may not be British subjects. They labour under a disability at the present time which I freely admit is in certain cases a hardship. In many instances, through no fault of their own they have not been naturalized; in many cases they believed they were naturalized, and they lived for years having taken some oath of allegiance, and in the sincere belief that they were naturalized, and they exercised all the functions of citizenship. Many of them made the very best citizens in this country. However, when the war broke out, the subject of naturalization became a live one, and men began to inquire. It was ascertained that very many who thought they were naturalized as a matter of fact were never naturalized at all, and very many more who had paid no attention whatever to the subject became alive to the conviction that they were not really British citizens at 'all. After the outbreak of the war the British Government sent a despatch to this Government to the effect that they
in Great Britain were not naturalizing any alien enemy subjects, and suggesting that we follow the same practice in Canada. We were in this position: We had a Naturalization Act which had been on our statute-book for years, which prescribed the conditions of naturalization as three years' residence, and certain oaths, etc., and which placed the power to naturalize in the hands of the judges. That Act was still in force. Men had come to this country on the faith of that Act .and had assumed duties of citizenship relying upon it being carried out. Consequently, we did not feel we should interfere with the exercise of the right of our judges to enfranchise under the Act, and we so notified the British Government. But aside from that restriction, aside from that limitation, we have abided by the practice followed by the British Government and the request they made of us. The result is this; that some judges under the old Act have granted naturalization; others have refused it. The practice in the province of Ontario, following the decision of Chief Justice Meredith, 'has been to refuse naturalization. Consequently, in the province of Ontario, there has.been no naturalization by the judges under the old Act, and there has been no naturalization under the new Act by the Secretary of State, on account of the understanding with the British Government.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Does the hon. gentleman not realise that there is a great distinction between the German who is living in England and the rural, frugal German who comes to till the land in Canada?


Arthur Meighen: I think the hon. gentleman is right.


William Pugsley: As he does in the three prairie provinces.
Mr. MEIiGHEN: In the three prairie provinces the case is not the same, because in Ontario many efthem have been there since Confederation.
Mr. MORPH! . For sixty years.


Arthur Meighen: I think it might well be that consideration could be given to the request of my hon. friend from North Perth (Mr. Morphy) that there should be some relaxation in this country of the practice applied in Great Britain and impliedly though not specifically acceded to by the Government of Canada in dispatches. Some consideration might well be given to the question of admitting to naturalization in proper cases those who though of alien



origin have resided in this country such length of time and under such conditions that it is a hardship upon them to deny them naturalization. I can say to my hon. friend from North Perth that the most careful possible consideration will be given in this regard.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I would like to ask the Minister why he would grant naturalization and the vote to the German in Ontario-
Mr. ME1GHEN: Not the vote.
Mr.-CARVELL:-and refuse it to the German in western Canada.


Arthur Meighen: I did not say the vote.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What on earth is the use of naturalization unless you give the vote?


Hugh Boulton Morphy: A- good deal.


Mr MEIGHEN:: What I say applies everywhere and to every province.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that he will grant a German in Ontario naturalization and he will not grant him a vote?


Arthur Meighen: He will not get a vote because he will not have been naturalized for fifteen years. Of course he would if he had a son at the front.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then you are doing that in order to get votes.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman, has quite misunderstood me. The matter of votes has nothing to do with the suggestion of the hon. member for North Perth. It was .merely a question of whether the Naturalization Act would be administered in such cases as these.


William Pugsley: Before the time expires I desire


John Allister Currie: I desire to make a personal explanation.


William Pugsley: The honourable gentleman can make his explanation after I have finished.


Louis Audet Lapointe: Mr. Chairman, I desire to ask a question.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: The honourable member for North Simcoe desires to make a personal explanation.


William Pugsley: He may do so when I get through.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: The honourable member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) caught my eye first.	,	)
	.


William Pugsley: I hold in my hand-


John Allister Currie: I wish to make .a personal explanation.


William Pugsley: I hold in my hand-


Some Hon. MEMBER:: Order, order.


Louis Audet Lapointe: I was up before the honourable member for St. John and I have a question to ask.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: The honourable member for St. John caught my eye first.


Louis Audet Lapointe: May I be allowed
to ask a question on the Bill?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: It cannot be asked unless the honourable member for St. John consents to it. Similarly, the honourable member for North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) cannot make a personal explanation unless the honourable member for St. John consents.


Louis Audet Lapointe: It will only take half a minute.


John Allister Currie: I will only occupy a minute.


William Pugsley: I will give way to the honourable member for Montreal, St. James (Mr. Lapointe).


Louis Audet Lapointe: I want to ask the Secretary of State how many enumerators he will have to name by Order in Council for the province of Quebec? There are 65 counties.


Arthur Meighen: How many polling subdivisions to the country on the average?


Louis Audet Lapointe: Subject to the provisions of section 65a of this Act the Governor in Council may appoint enumerators in each province to make lists ot the electors In each electoral district, and the returning officer of each electoral district shall assign one of such enumerators to each polling district therein.


William Pugsley: I only gave way to allow my honourable friend to ask a question. I must ask my honourable friend to allow me to proceed.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Order.


Louis Audet Lapointe: I have the floor.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Order, let the honourable gentleman (Mr. L. A. Lapointe) take his seat. The honourable member for St. John just gave way to allow the honourable member for Montreal, St. James, to ask a question.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: The honourable member for St. John just gave way for one question and I thijik the honourable member for Montreal, St. James, got a little farther than one question.


William Pugsley: The honourable gentleman will have a chance a little later.


Louis Audet Lapointe: I cannot ask a question?


John Allister Currie: It is my right to make a personal explanation. Under the rules I am entitled to do so. What I wish to explain to the committee-


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Order.


William Pugsley: I decline to give way to the honourable gentleman.


John Allister Currie: I do not want to be charged-


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Order. I have been allowing hon. members every possible latitude in the discussion of this Bill and if they will look at Hansard to-morrow I think they will find that a great deal of work has been done. Now, the hon. member for St. John has the floor and if he objects to subject he has a right to do so.


William Pugsley: Mr. Chairman-


John Allister Currie: I rise to a point of order-


William Pugsley: I hold in my hand the memorandum which was submitted by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries to the Solicitor General a portion of which I propose to put on Hansard because it has special reference to the point I made this evening, that no reasonable excuse can be given for discriminating between the soldiers who have joined the expeditionary force and are still in Canada and those who are members of the naval forces. No reason can be given for giving votes to the relatives of those who are in the naval service and not giving them to those who have joined the expeditionary forces and who still remain in Canada. The memorandum, which has been prepared by Mr. Des-barats, the deputy minister, is as follows: The War-Time Elections Act.
The first section of this Act would give the right to vote to certain female relatives of "any person, male or female, living or dead, who is serving or has served without Canada in any of the military forces, or within or without Canada in any of the naval forces, of
365^	i i i j
Canada, or of Great Britain in the present war."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Time, time.


William Pugsley: I have still fifteen minutes. When a member rises before two o'clock, he has twenty minutes. That is the view of the Speaker and I think the Solicitor General will agree to it., I would not violate the rule but the words are that you shall not rise to speak after two o'clock.


William Cameron Edwards: I rise to a point of order.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


William Cameron Edwards: No, I have a right to rise to a point of orde'r. The hon. member for St. John, having spoken before, has exhausted his right to the twenty minutes.


William Pugsley: I did not speak after the rule was invoked. Hon. gentlemen were speaking with the unanimous consent of the House, and I bad not spoken.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman was on his feet immediately before I spoke, and addressed the House.


William Pugsley: That was not a speech.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: I think the point of order is well taken. We are proceeding under clause 17B of the rules of the House. Practically every member has spoken on the question many times. It was simply by tolerance that they were permitted to discuss this matter without the enforcement of the twenty-minute limit. As the debate was conducted in that way, I think the hon. member for St. John will not insist in speaking after two o'clock, as the time limit is being enforced.


William Pugsley: Allow me to call attention-


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Pugsley: Let us keep order for a few' minutes; it is the desire of all the members that we shall close this debate with reasonable dignity and in a good spirit. The words of the rule are that "no member shall rise to speak after that hour," that is, after two o'clock. I have had an opportunity of speaking of this with the Speaker and I am sure from what he said to me that in His Honour's view, if a member rises before two o'clock he has his twenty minutes. He gave a similar ruling in favour of my hon. friend from Rouville (Mr. Le-mieux).


William Cameron Edwards: I rise to another point of order. That, is, that you, having ruled

that my first point is well taken, the only thing the hon. member for St. John can do, if he does not agree with that ruling, is to appeal against it. He has no right to speak again, as it is after two o'clock, and, under the rule, we should take the vote.


William Pugsley: The Chairman did not rule, he just expressed a wish.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: As we have been
proceeding by tolerance all day, if the hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) would be kind enough not to press his point of order, then the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) will finish his remarks may be in ten minutes.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


William Cameron Edwards: If it was the case of a member who had not used up the time of the House ad libitum I would not say anything about it, but I must insist upon my point.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Joseph Edmond Marcile: While it is two o'clock-


William Pugsley: This memorandum-


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Pugsley: This memorandum gives every woman the right to vote who-


Mr.   CHAIRMAN@: As the hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) has insisted on his point of order, I rule that, it being after two o'clock, no one can speak as the time limit to speak was used up by every member who took part in the discussion during the day. Each member spoke more than twenty minutes.


Joseph Edmond Marcile: I wish to ask the Secretary of State one question.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.
Sit down.


Joseph Edmond Marcile: It is absolutely unfair.
Am I not to be allowed to ask a question?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Shall section 1 of the Bill as amended be adopted?
Carried on division.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Shall section 2 be
adopted?


Louis Audet Lapointe: I had the honour
to place in your hands an amendment.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Shall clause 2 as
amended be adopted?


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Carried. Lost.


Arthur Meighen: If I may be permitted, the point taken by the hon. member for St.

James (Mr. Lapointe) is well taken. He submitted an amendment to this clause, which I think should be put first. The amendment was to effect that the hour for closing the polls be eight o'clock instead of five.


Charles Murphy: Generally?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.
Amendment, Mr. Lapointe, negatived on division, yeas 26, nays 50.
Section 2 as amended agreed to on division.
Section 3 as amended agreed to on division.
Schedule agreed to on division.
Title agreed to on division.
Bill reported, and amendments read the first time.


William Pugsley: Before this report is
acted upon I desire to make some remarks in regard to it. I do so under rule 56, which provides that after report the Bill is open to debate and amendment before it is ordered for a third reading.


Arthur Meighen: I submit that this rule was overruled by the rule which was adopted in 1913. The new rule supersedes the old, because it specifically de-2 a.m. dares what motions are debatable. Of course, all that is before the House now is the motion for the receiving of the report. .


William Pugsley: No, the report is received.


Arthur Meighen: If the report is received, the motion for concurrence is not debatable.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The honourable gentleman could not properly speak on the motion that the amendments be read the second time and concurred in. According to the decision which I gave in the House not long ago, under rule 17A that motion is not debatable.


William Pugsley: I did not know that
Your Honour had so ruled.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Does the honourable
member rise to a point of order?


William Pugsley: Yes. The question is
one of great importance, affecting the rights of the minority; therefore, I bring it specially to Your Honour's notice. Rule 56 specifically deals with-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Pugsley: I think your honour
will say that I am in order.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am permitting the
member for St. John to make some Remarks on the point of order.


William Pugsley: It is true, as the Solicitor General suggests, that we have rule 17A, but we have also a special rule, rule 56, bearing upon a particular point. Rule 56, which has not been repealed, says :
All amendments made In committee are reported by the chairman to the House, which shall receive the same forthwith. After report the Bill is open to debate and amendment, before it is ordered for a third reading. But when a Bill is reported without amendment it is forthwith ordered to be read a third time at such time as may be appointed by the House.
It is argued by the Solicitor General that that rule is inconsistent with rule 17 A. When we have a rule dealing with general matters and also a special rule stating what shall take place in a particular instance, that special rule would not be overruled by the general rule. If the House had intended when it adopted rule 17 A to repeal rule 56 it would have done so. But it did not do so; therefore, rule 56 is still in force. I think that if there is any doubt in the matter Your Honour should decide in favour of rule 56, because the rights of the minority in this House are very much restricted. It should be borne in mind also that this Government, by virtue of its majority, can declare anything to be carried. I await Your Honour's interpretation of the rule in full confidence that the House will support your decision. It seems to me to be clear that under rule 56 the Bill is now open to debate and amendment.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The point of order raised by the member for St. John is, indeed, a most important one; I have had occasion to give the matter consideration within the past few days. As a matter of fact, the point has already been settled by decision of the House, to be found on page 5374 of Hansard of August 29, 1917. Rule 56 is in conflict with rule 17 A, but rule 56 was in the rule book and was prior in point of time to rule 17 A, which, overriding ail other rules, was designed specifically for the purpose of restricting debate. If the interpretation placed upon the rule by the member for St. John were sustained, the express object which the House had in mind when it enacted rule 17 A would be defeated. Notwithstanding that, I am cognizant of the import of the point raised by my hon.
friend. It is very clear in my mind that rule 17 A must prevail; that it must override rule 56 and that, therefore, it is not open to the hon. gentleman to enter into a discussion at this stage of the proceedings. In any case the discussion could take place only on the motion which I now propose to put: that the amendments be now read the second time and concurred in; and under rule 17 A that motion is not debatable.
It is moved by Mr. Meighen, seconded by Mr. Hazen, that the said amendments be now read the second time and concurred in. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.
Seme hon. MEMBERS: Lost.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and amendments read the second time and concurred in.
On the motion of Hon. Mr. Meighen, the House adjourned at 2.20 a.m. Thursday.
Thursday, September 13, 1917.