1918-03-26

REPORTS.

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Report of the Department of Public Works for the year ended March 31, 1917.- Hon. Mr. Carvell.
Report of the Department of Customs for the year ended March 31, 1917.-Hon. Mr. Sifton.
Report of the Department of Labour for the year ended March 31, 1917.-Hon. Mr. Crothers.

Rt. Hon. Sir ROBERT BORDEN (Prime Minister):: I have the permission of His
Excellency the Governor General to communicate to the House the letter of the hon. the Minister of Inland Revenue (Mr. Sev-igny) conveying his resignation and the reply I made to that letter:
Ottawa, Ont., March 7, 1918. Dear Sir Robert,-
In view of the result of the election in the Province of Quebec, I deem it advisable to render my resignation as a member of the Government.
Since I entered the Cabinet, I did my utmost, together with you and1 my colleagues, to fulfil my duty in the interest of the country. The

hard exigencies of the war imposed upon us tasks difficult but necessary, and the conduct of our soldiers and of the Canadian people since the month of August, 1914, gave us to understand that we could not ignore our responsibilities. The immense majority of the people have declared by their vote that their patriotism and courage have not been lessened by the terrible trials of these last years. That vote of confidence in our policy is certainly a great consolation to me, notwithstanding the defeat I have suffered in my Province. Another consolation I experience is to have remained true to those who fell on the field of honour, to those who made the glory of our country, at the price of the most noble sacrifices, and also to have remained faithful to their families who have suffered for the holy cause our country espoused freely and unanimously in August, 1914.
I hope, dear Sir Robert, that the French Canadian minority will soon consent to have representation in the Government. I know you have done everything possible to urge Sir Wilfrid Laurier and other French Canadians to enter Union Government. I have witnessed your efforts to obtain the union of all races and, as a French Canadian I do not hesitate to hold responsible for the present isolation of Quebec those who failed to carry out their sacred duty of giving to my Province a proper and patriotic direction in this terrible crisis which our country has to face with the rest of humanity.
Rest assured that the great majority of the French Canadians want representation in the Government and that you will soon learn that the Province of Quebec does not wish its isolation. I am convinced that you will always be disposed to treat with justice the French Canadian minority, as your responsibilities show you clearly that the future and welfare of Canada rest upon union and harmony between the races inhabiting our country.
I was pleased to ascertain, in my ' conversations with my colleagues, that they wish the present division to cease.
I shall always retain very pleasant recollections of my relations with you, particularly since I entered the Cabinet. Often, in the trials I had to endure, I found consolation in your kind words and in your noble conduct.
Despite the difficulties caused' us by the exigencies of the war, I have confidence in the future of my country, because you and your colleagues have decided to devote to Canada all your ability and patriotism.
Believe me, dear Sir Robert,
Tours very truly,



ALBERT SEVIGNY.

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To which I replied as follows, on the 9th of March:
Ottawa, Ont., March 9, 1918. Dear Mr. Sevigny,-
I have your letter of the 7th instant, and X have received with great regret the announcement that you consider it your duty to tender your resignation as a member of the Government. Under conditions of great difficulty and trial you have exhibited remarkable courage and devotion in adhering steadfastly to your ideal of duty. Although for the present you have failed to secure from your Province the support to which you were entitled, I am confident that the not-distant future will bring to

you well deserved vindication and a thorough justification of your attitude upon the great questions which have been debated and determined during the past year. As you well know, it has been my constant desire that the historic Province of Quebec should at all times be adequately represented1 in the government of the country. If my efforts have been unavailing, I am not responsible for that result. I should esteem it my duty as well as my pleasure to use my best endeavours for the consummation of such arrangements as would enable you to remain in the Government. On the other hand I realize the force of the considerations which you expressed to me in conversation and which in your opinion make it desirable that you should retire for the present. I have no doubt, however, that you have still before you a great future in the public life of the country. Be assured that I have the happiest memories of my association with you in public affairs; and I send my best wishes for every success in the years to come.
Believe me, dear Mr. Sevigny,
Yours faithfully,

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Hon. Albert Sevigny,
Ottawa.
The resignation has not yet been formally accepted but it will be accepted at the end of this week. It is the intention to consolidate the Department of Inland Revenue with the Department of Customs under the Act which has just passed its third reading in this House.

Robert Laird Borden: That, on Wednesday, the 3rd April next, and on all subsequent Wednesdays to the end of the Session, the House shall meet at three o'clock p.m., and that the sittings on such days shall in every respect be under the same rules provided for other days.


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Motion agreed to.

Robert Laird Borden: That, on and after Wednesday, the 3rd day of April, Government Notices of Motion and Government Orders shall have precedence on Wednesdays and Thursdays, until the end of the Session, over all business except questions by Members and Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Mr Speaker, I am sure that it is the intention of every one to have as short a session as possible. -I would suggest to my right hon. friend that he leave Wednesday, the 3rd of April, for private members, amending his motion to read " after Wednesday, the 3rd day of April."


Robert Laird Borden: That will bo agreeable.

Mr, SPEAKER: The motion passes with the omission of the words " on and."


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Motion agreed to.

Robert Laird Borden: That when this House adjourns on Wednesday, the 27th instant, it stand adjourned until Tuesday, the 2nd day of April next.


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Motion agreed to.


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On the Orders of the Day:
Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Speaker, I have received a telegram with regard to the great offensive now being carried on on the Western front by the enemy, but it contains nothing, I think, of importance beyond what has already been communicated to hon. members and to the public generally through the press. I have, however, a telegram from Sir Edward Kemp, which I should like to read. It is prefaced by a statement that it embodies a message which was received from Mr. Rowland Hill. It has been submitted to the Censor, and is, therefore, proper for publication. It is dated March 25th:
Premier,
Ottawa.
London, March 25 th, 1918.
War Correspondents' headquarters, France, March 21st.
"Deliberate violation of Red Cross rules marked the opening of the Huns' much advertised great western offensive. Long range guns of the Germans have searched out hospitals which have been established over two years. Two Canadian casualty clearing stations, which have worked unceasingly through battle storm and lull of more peaceful times, were among the sufferers. The railway siding on which they were situated was considered out of the zone of ordinary shell fire. It was known to the Huns as a hospital centre, for, in one of his communications, he mentioned the fact that he had bombarded it "as reprisal" for alleged dropping of bombs on one of his hospitals.
"Day by day wounded have been gathered into these four hospitals-two British units adjoined Canadians-there to be patched up and rested until fit for comparatively comfortable trip south in well-fitted ambulance trains which regularly loaded at siding. When terrors [DOT]of attack and counter attack at Passchaendaele were raging seven or eight miles away it was these hospitals that bore the brunt. One of the Canadian units has a record of over three thousand cases "cleared" in one day.
"Work went on without cessation-Australians, Imperials, Canadians, Germans, too, salved from the human wreckage on the ridge. It is hard to make an operating hut light-proof. It is impossible to operate on a wounded man 3n the dark, so the Hun bombers night after
night in those busy days forgot immunity of Red Cross and dropped their bombs around hospitals. Plucky Canadian and British nurses stuck it through the great battle which ended with our troops taking Passchaendaele, although some of these brave, devoted women, finally had to be sent south to where there was rest haven for nurses. They left their bright home in Flanders, in which they took so much pride, in as short a time as possible. It had become an oasis in this almost deserted part of Belgium. Friends in the Canadian Railway troops who worked in the sector had built them fireplaces in their huts and fitted other little touches of home, and they themselves had put the care and labour of months into making them comfortable. The luxury of arm chairs, damask curtains, polished brass, even cut glass and original oil paintings, helped these nurses from overseas to remember there were such things back in that world they had left across the Atlantic when they volunteered for duty. Their environment kept them gentle, womanly, Canadian, among all the flotsam of war, and it was reflected to the thousands of shrapnel-torn, mangled patients they helped on the first stage of the road to recovery. Then came the eruption. In the middle of the night two big high explosive shells (their bases showed they were from a German twelve-^inch naval gun) landed twenty yards from the Nursing Sisters' quarters. Steel splinters tore through the sides of their huts as though they were paper. Fortunately not a sister was wounded and, as the Canadian girls assembled at emergency call, two more shells hit almost in the centre of the hospital camp. Officers and sisters and staff worked heroically to clear out patients during the dismal rainy night. There were many delicate cases to be handled where [DOT]sudden jars ^perhaps meant death, but all through the night, punctuated by the devilishly regular explosion of other shells, wounded were loaded on hospital train and sent to safety. Only then did nurses seek shelter in another Canadian hospital out of line of fire.
"With daylight, news arrived that the storm had broken on another part of the line. ' Have surgical teams ready proceed on duty immediately '-the message from headquarters. That meant Canadian surgeons ready to go anywhere, and those steel-nerved girls from the Dominion who deftly act as surgeons' extra right hand here in these operating theatres along the front, where a second lost means the difference between life and death, to go with them. There they are to-day, working bravely and stoically, though in the spare moments they occasionally have their thoughts must go back to that home they so suddenly left-that little home in the west up in Flanders they had become so attached to. It is not always in the fighting line you feel the hardships of war."
Kemp.



DAYLIGHT SAVING.

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Rt. Hon. Sir GEORGE FOSTER (Minister of Trade and Commerce), moved the second reading of Bill No. 4, to provide for the time in Canada being in advance of the solar mean time during the summer months.
He said: Mr. Speaker, last year, in introducing this Bill on the 23rd of July, I gave a short resume of the history of daylightsaving legislation. I do not intend to repeat
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that history to-day, hut as there are a large number of new members in this House, hon. gentlemen will probably bear with me while I make a very short summary of what I stated last year, following it up with a statement of what has occurred since 'that time along this same line. Daylight saving legislation has not been many years in force in any country. It is an example, probably, of one of the most rapid changes from a merely academic question to great practical use and benefit, through enactments in the law and practice of the countries in which it has been adopted. Without going into' the history of the agitation before the early enactments, it is sufficient to isay that the . first daylight saving legislation was passed in iGermany about the year 1914, the year of the beginning of the war. In 1916 it was adopted as an experiment in Great Britain, and put into operation for a period of between four and five months. After that experiment, a committee was formed to make a thorough examination of the effects. In France, in Austria, in Holland, and in about ten other European countries bordering on those communities, daylight saving legislation was put into force in 1915 and 1916. The British Parliamentary Committee formed to make an investigation, not only took cognizance of the effects in Great Britain, but continued and extended their investigations to these other European countries as well. Therefore their report covered the whole area of practical daylight service in 'legislation and in practice. That report was handed in during the late fall of 1916 or winter of 1917. It is now to be found in the records of this Parliament and can be referred to by any person. The report was an exhaustive one; questionnaires were sent out to all possible sources of authoritative information, embracing all classes of business and of general activities. The investigation was not confined to the economic effects of the measure, but also went into the effects of daylight saving upon the public health and public morals, its effects upon the schools, and generally almost every activity of life. After saying that the report of that committee -was entirely favourable to the reenactment of daylight saving legislation in Great Britain, I think it would be well to give two or three quotations from their report with reference to special phases of it, and I will trouble the House to that extent.
In respect to public health the delivery of the committee was in one section as follows:

We have devoted particular attention to the question of the effect of "summer time" on the health of children, and we have been glad to find that, in spite of certain statements which have been made to the contrary, the bulk of the evidence favours the conclusion that in the case of children also "summer time" has proved a success.
The committee made investigation with reference to public health and morals, and their conclusion is favourable along that line as well. As to the general workers interested, this is their statement:
The general view of employers, as expressed in the replies to the questiondires, was that their employees had taken full advantage of the extra hour's daylight; and while the majority were not in a position, with so short a period of observation, to state positively whether or not an improvement in health had resulted, a number had noticed increased vitality in their workers, and in some cases an improvement in the standard of the work. Only one or two employers recorded the appearance of any ill effects in the shape of tiredness and irregular time keeping. We have had evidence from all sources of the value of the extra daylight to the very large number of workers who cultivate gardens and allotments.
They conclude:	*
Taking the whole of the evidence, we are satisfied that the great bulk of the working classes are favourable to summer time, and we are convinced that they stand to profit by it as much as, and in many cases more than, any other section of the community. Such real inconveniences as have been experienced will, we believe, be remedied with a little more experience of summer time conditions.
With regard to children's sleep, this is their utterance:
We are glad to be able to report, as a result of all the evidence which we have received, that while in a certain number of districts a tendency to shortened sleeping hours has been noticed, the fears which were entertained in the matter have not in the main been justified.
As to trade, industry and commerce, they conclude:
The comprehensive inquiries which we have described in paragraph 9 above, show beyond ail question that the opinion of employers in every trade, industry, and business throughout the country, is overwhelmingly in favour of summer time.
Economies in artificial light and fuel are thoroughly satisfactory.
Coming to agriculture, in regard to which more objections have been raised than with reference to any other branch of activity, they say:	-
In spite of such difficulties as have been recorded, a very large majority of farmers and war agriculture committees are in favour of the renewal of the Act, and the majority even of those who are of opinion that it was not advantageous to agriculture consider that it should be renewed, as they recognize its great benefits to the community at large.

As to foreign countries, the committee reports upon France, Germany and Austria, and in the main, come to about the same conclusions as they arrived at from their investigation of conditions and effects in Great Britain. Summing up I will read the paragraph in which they conclude their report.
Taking the evidence we have received as a whole, we can unhesitatingly say that the vast preponderance of opinion throughout Great Britain is enthusiastically in favour of summer time and of its renewal, not only as a war measure, but as a permanent institution. As we have already pointed out, some difficulties have undoubtedly been experienced, but not to anything like the extent predicted by the critics of the scheme, and we have not heard of any that could not be overcome with good-will and organization. Indeed, the experience of summer time !in 1916 has converted many of its former opponents into hearty supporters. Moreover, as we have pointed out elsewhere, many of those who still hold the view that summer time may he prejudicial to their own interests admit that the general public advantages arising from it more than outweigh any inconveniences that may be caused in particular cases.
In a few years we believe that what opposition still remains to summer time will have completely disappeared, and that the whole nation will regard it as a wholly beneficent measure. We recommend, therefore, that summer time should be reintroduced in 1917 and in subsequent years.
It was reintroduced in 1917 in Great Britain, and Great Britain had an additional summer experience of its workings. It worked so well last year in Great Britain that this year they have put it into operation again, hut with an extension of the period, thus bearing testimony to their view of its advantages. On 24th March the clock was set forward one hour in Great Britain, and will remain set forward until 29th September, when it will revert again to the old position. That shows? then, the progress as resulting from experiment, then examination and report, and then another year of . experiment, insofar as Great Britain is concerned.
Coming to the United States, last year the Senate made a very thorough investigation into the whole question, taking in all activities, all associations, all societies, all forms of work in the United States. The Senate carried on that investigation for a number of weeks, and it was participated in by those who might be counted as speaking for the intelligent, forward-looking and enterprising people of the country generally. As a result of that investigation, the Senate not only recommended, but passed a Daylight Saving Bill. But it was in late June, 1917, when they passed it, and they came to the conclusion that at that late period of
the year it would .be better not to put it into force, and so they transmitted their Bill to the House of Representatives. In the House of Representatives the Bill came up early in the year. It is worthy of special note that whilst the measure was under discussion in the House of Representatives two gentlemen appeared there in support of the measure, and even in favour of an extension of the time set in the Senate Bill toy adding a month at each end of the period. Mr. Garfield, Chairman of the Fuel Committee of the United States, and Mr. Hoover, Chairman and Director of food production and regulation in the United States, -were the gentlemen who appeared and made those pleas, one representing fuel conservation, the other food production generally. As a result, the Bill passed in the House of Representatives toy a large' majority; I think the vote was 252 to 40- you might almost say it passed unanimously. This was the decision after thorough examination of the subject and after hearing representative delegations from every industry and activity in all parts of the United States. If there is one thing more than another pressed forward in Great Britain to-day, it is production, and especially food production. The Daylight Saving law has been in force during two summer seasons and has now been placed a third time in operation. In the United States the two great questions are fuel conservation and food production. After full examination and after the results of that examination had been allowed to be canvassed for more than six months the House of Representatives, as I have said, made its own investigation and then gave the measure practically unanimous approval. The inference from these instances is plain, and I know it will commend itself to this House and to the Canadian people as well.
Probably it would be a good thing to read briefly from the report of the Interstate Commerce Committee which took the matter up first in the routine order in. the House of Representatives, examined it, and passed on their report to the House. First, I would refer to the general industries of the country. The United States chamber of commerce has a membership of about 450,000, has its affiliations all over the United States, and is probably the foremost and most representative business body or association of business men in the world. The chamber of commerce took this up before the agitation reached the Senate, and, through their organizations, obtained expressions of opinion from all the wide area
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that they represented. Their chairman, in making his report, says:
We have acted' favourably on this question. Our committee have presented a report. Some of the members of the committee are here. It was passed unanimously by that body, meaning that the manufacturers, mercantile houses, and business establishments throughout the country, real estate interests, banking interests, and others that you might call general business interests, are in favour of the proposition.
That expresses broadly the sentiment of the business interests of the United States, as represented through these chambers of commerce. With reference to the federation of labour, it is well to put on Hansard, I think, the resolution of the American federation of labour. It reads:
That we urge the inauguration of the daylight saving project for the conservation of time and opportunity for greater leisure and open-air exercise for the masses of the people, and we insist that in order that the change may be beneficial it must have its general application throughout the whole United States. We will gratefully receive from and actively give to any groups the fullest support in the attainment of the daylight saving project, so long as it shall be utilized for -the purposes herein declared.
I may say, incidentally, that President Gompers is entirely in favour of the daylight saving measure, and used his very great and widely extended influence towards its passage, through the Senate and House of Representatives. The latter part of the report of the interstate commerce committee of the House of Representatives, has this to say:
The hearings contain information as to the result of similar legislation in foreign countries. It is believed by the committee that the possible benefits to be derived from such a measure are more than sufficient to offset the objections which have been presented. It is recognized that these objections are not without some foundation and force. In view, however, of the increased food production which will be brought about under the Bill, the comfort and convenience which it will bring to labourers and the public generally, and the saving of expenses, especially relating to light and fuel, it is believed by our committee that the measure should be enacted.
It was upon that representation, with others, that the Bill was passed by the majority which I have already stated.
So far as Canada is concerned, hon. gentlemen probably know as much about the question as I do. There have been attempts for restricted operation of daylight saving in municipalities, towns and cities in various parts of our country. It has always, however, been felt that the localizing of daylight saving is a handicap, because you get out of touch with

general time and with all the activities and operations that are carried out under general time. In some cities which tried daylight saving, they had one, two, or three different kinds of time, and that, of course, caused confusion. Notwithstanding all that, the testimony from the towns that have tried it is, in the main, very favourable to its operation and results, and quite a number of cities in Canada retain it until this day.
It has, however, always been felt in Canada that there were two objections to daylight saving: first, that to be effective it should he nation-wide, and secondly, that in our peculiar apposition to the United States of America along such a long border line, it would conduce to the smooth and efficient working out of the system if the two countries acted on a parity in this matter. The present Bill tends to meet both those objections. If it is adopted, we shall have nation-wide daylight saving operating in the Dominion of Canada, and we shall have also coterminous with us the operation of the daylight system in the whole of the United States of America. The Act which was passed and which received the President's signature a few weeks ago is of a double nature. In the first place, it establishes a standard time with zone6 over which this time is operative. In the second place, it fixes the daylight saving period from the 31st day of March to the 31st day of October, making it a seven months' period, or two months longer than that provided for in the Bill first passed by the United States Senate. Therefore, at two o'clock in the morning on the 1st day of April, United States' clocks will be set one hour ahead, and from that date until the 31st of October time will be operated on that basis.
It was probably'possible for the Dominion Government to have put daylight saving into operation under the War Measures Act, but some of our critics have incidentally mentioned the fact that the War Measures Act appears to have been pretty hard-worked during the last year or so, and as Parliament was on the point of being assembled, it was thought better that we should bring this measure before Parliament, even at the risk, if it were favourably received, that we should, not be able to begin its operation eotermiuously with the United States. The Bill provides that it shall come into operation on proclamation by the Governor in Council, so that it may be brought into operation at any time it is considered most advantageous. Bearing in mind, then, the fact that

these two objections which have hitherto had a good deal of weight will, by this measure and by the legislative action of the United States of America, be done away with, the problem is a plain and easy one for us to make up our minds upon. I think I can state, without going beyond what is actually the fact, that all interests, certainly all the important interests, in the Dominion of Canada are, under the circumstances, strongly in favour of following the lead of the United States and the other great and progressive countries of the world by establishing a daylight saving system in Canada. I think that is true of all the business interests, without any exception. I have here a large number of recommendations which I do not intend to read to the House. They will toe placed upon the Table so that those who wish to consult them may do so.
Almost the only objections that come are *from rural communities, on behalf of the productive interests as carried out by general farming operations. Insofar as small-lot production, adjacent to towns, cities and villages, is concerned, there is no doubt at all that the daylight saving, giving the extra hour at the end of the day, will very greatly tend to increase that kind of production, but the farmer in a larger way is a little bit suspicious as to how it will work in reference to his operations. I want to put before that class, and the gentlemen who represent that class, the consideration to which I adverted a moment ago. Surely the result of examination and actual experiment on the part of ten ox twelve great countries of the world for three or four years, and particularly of countries in which agricultural development is a great activity, should hold jgood also for the farming communities of Canada. In Great Britain, the United States of America, Denmark, Holland, Sweden1-all very largeV agricultural countries-we find the consensus of opinion overwhelmingly in favour of the continuation of the system after an experiment of >a year or two years, or after thorough inquiry, as in the United States. Granted all the uncertainty as to how a new measure may work out, and still the weight of argument seems to toe favourable to the belief that our fears or suspicions in this case are not very well grounded. Anyway, co-operation and goodwill, as the committee report, will go a long way towards remedying those difficulties which at first will occur. In Great Britain even though agriculturists in certain sections felt that the scheme had been productive
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of difficulties in their case, yet the large majority felt otherwise, and even the minority felt that if it was for the general interest then the general interest should rule. I think analysis and a little thought will convince one that the measure would not be a menace or danger to the general farming interests. This legislation does not make any man get up an hour earlier or eat his dinner at a different time unless he chooses to do as other® do. Sometimes it is almost borne in on one that the backbone of the opposition to this scheme with some persons is that it is interfering with Providence; that .as Providence placed the sun in the heavens as the basis for our time, we should therefore not interfere with Providence; it is almost an act of impiety, they think, to put on the dock for an hour. Now I do not think we need push our theology that far, as a moment's consideration will show. We do not go by the sun now; we go by the clock; and the clock is a convention, which is kept up in order to avoid the innumerable difficulties which would be_encountered if every man on every meridian went by solar time. But the clock is not our only convention. After we have had that for a great many years, the general business interests of the country, particularly the transport interests, come along and say that we must have another convention in addition to the clock, and so they arrange zones within which the time will be the same; that is simply an artificial contrivance the purpose of which is to enable communities to act together, where keeping to the solar time, or even to the Clock, would cause great inconvenience.
You will excuse me, Mr. Speaker, for turning my back on you, but I had to do that, relying on old friendship, or else be "hollered" at toy the gentlemen at the back who cannot hear me speak when I address the Chair; so I acted on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number. I think I have said all that is necessary in putting this matter before the House, and I wifi leave it to the sense of the House to take the measure up and push it through. Some one told me to-day that I was trying to knock daylight out of people, that is not quite correct. I am on neutral ground; if I knock one hour of daylight out of people at one end of the day, I knock another hour into them at the other end of the day.
Mr. R. L. RICHARDSON (Springfield):: If this legislation is put through I presume



the railways will be compelled to conform to it.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: Oh, yes.


Robert Lorne Richardson: That was the rock on which we split in Winnipeg. We adopted daylight saving there two years ago, but were obliged to discontiue it because the railways had a different time.


George Green Foster: When my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) asked a similar question last year, I think I mentioned the view of the railways and read a communication from Sir George Bury, in which he set all fears on that score at rest. Only to-day I received communications from the railways wanting to know whether it could not be arranged to have the measure go into operation simultaneously with the American measure.


Mr. A. B. McCOIG (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, this being the first opportunity I have had of speaking since the new Parliament assembled, let me join with your former colleagues and other hon. gentlemen in extending to you my hearty congratulations on again being elected as the Presiding Officer of this House.. With regard to this Bill, I was elected as an independent Liberal, with dull authority to support any measure the Government brought forward which I thought would be in the best interests of the prosecution of the war. I regret that on tire first occasion I rise in this House, it is to oppose the legislation just brought down by tihe Minister of Trade andl Commerce and which he has so ably explained in his address. I regret that in bringing forward this Bill he has not given to the labouring people and the producers of this country the attention they deserve. I represent a rural constituency and urban, perhaps the largest constituency in this house, and since this Bill has been on the Order Paper I have taken every opportunity of ascertaining the views of the labouring people in my home city and in other large towns, and I say without hesitation that in interviewing these people I have received no demand or request of any sort for such a change as is now proposed. The measure has no support whatever in the rural sections. Every agriculturist whom I have come in contact with is absolutely opposed to changing the time. One gentleman said to me:	" It will mean a great decrease in production if the measure is put into force." 'It means that the farmers will 
have to wait one hour more in the morning before going on their land.


George Green Foster: 
Mr. THOMAS HAY (Selkirk):: I have listened with interest to the remarks of my hon. friend from Kent (Mr. MeCodg), and I am. very much in accord with his views. I think production in Canada will be lessened by the passing of this measure. My hon. friend has stated the facts .correctly with reference to the hay crop and the harvesting of grain. Very often we have to wait for an hour in the morning., and sometimes two. hours, until the sun is sufficiently strong to dry the grain. From, the standpoint of the working people also, I am opposed to this legislation. I aim .satisfied that in western Canada, at all events, with our long period of daylight, this measure would mean, the taking off of one hour from the working classes in the morning, which could not foe made up to them at night. By this legislation they will be compelled to get up and go. to work an. hour earlier, but certainly they will not go to bed an hour

earlier, for people will not go- to toed as long as daylight is over the land; so these people will not get the extra hour's rest in the evening. Daylight saving is largely an experiment.
While it seems to have worked all right in European countries, and while we have certain reports to that effect from those countries, I am satisfied that it is still in the experimental stage. Brandon and Winnipeg tried it m 1916 and they have discontinued it since. That does not say much for the Bill. The only real, good argument that could be advanced for the adoption of this Bill at this time would he the fact that the United States are adopting the same system. With reference to the school chil dron, if the schools were all opened and closed according to the time proposed by *this Bill, it would not be in the interest of the health of the children. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) *says that according to reports the health of the children has not been impaired in the older countries, but I do not see how it can work out in this country if the working men and the school children are compelled to get up an hour earlier and lose an hour's rest in the evening. That certainly would not be in the interest of the children. I cannot see how production would be increased by the adoption of the Bill. Personally, I feel satisfied that production would not he increased. If the farmers and the farmers' wives were compelled to observe the time prescribed by this Bill, it would mean that they would have to rise an hour earlier. The hired help would quit an hour earlier in the evening. That, in my opinion would not increase production. My right hon. friend said that the most important industries of the country were unanimous in asking that this Bill be adopted. I have not heard any request from any of the organized bodies of farmers for a change of this kind. I do not think they have made such a request and I do not think it is their intention to do so. The great problem before Canada to-day is that of the production of more food and I am satisfied that food would not be produced as largely if this Bill were adopted as it would under the old time.


Mr. F. H. KEEFER (Port Arthur and Kenora):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know
whether I shall he able to throw any' light, whether daylight or otherwise, on this Bill, but I would like to say as one of the members from the western part of Canada, where they have long daylight, or rather twilight-and I do not know whether they have it any longer than any other place of

the same latitude-that we have tried this daylight system municipally for years past and we have found it a thorough success. We would not under any circumstances go back to the old system. The reason for adopting this system was to give artisans one more hour of daylight in the summer months. I have seen, prior to the war, men from stores, shops and factories down in the Current River park playing their full game of baseball after their evening meal. Surely that is beneficial to them. I know of no objection to this Bill. Certainly there is none with regard to the school children. We have tried that out also and it has been successful. At first the mothers had some difficulty in the summer months, in getting the children to go to bed a little earlier than they were accustomed to before, but the experience in that part of Canada has proved that daylight saving is practical and beneficial.
I do admit that in so far as the agricultural labouring classes are concerned there may be something to be said on the other side, but I would point out, as the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce has said, that there is nothing in this Bill to tell the man to go to work before the dew is off the grass or compel him to stop work whilst there is time for him to work. If it is necessary in the interest of production, he will continue to work especially if the farmer sees fit to give him extra pay for overtime as he ought to. I am one of those who believe that the farm labourer should receive his overtime just the same as the worker in the manufacturing industries. If there be any hardship caused by the adoption of this system, it can he compensated for by extra pay.
As to increased production, I think a little consideration will show that it will be decidedly helped by the adoption of this measure. Take, for example, what occurred in the cities at the head of the lakes. Last year, by the cultivation of gardens and vacant lots, they produced about $100,000 of increased value; Fort William about $50,000, and Port Arthur about the same amount. That was done by men after hours, chiefly. I have had communications from there already asking that the shops and stores be ordered closed at five o'clock to allow them to get on the land and to do their work. The people of these cities are greatly interested in the increased production of food in order to help our allies across the seas. I have been connected with the food control work since last October and I know something of what this garden work means and the extent to which it has been carried on all

ever Canada. My firm conviction is that, while we may lose the work of five agricultural labourers, we will gain that of more than a hundred industrial labourers within the cities and towns. I urge the adoption of this Bill strongly in behalf of increased production.


Mr. R. J. MANION (Port William and Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of diffidence that I, as a new meimlber, rise in tlhis House to voice imy opinions, but I have risen for the same reason that my hon. friend from Port Arthur (Mr. Keefer) has addressed the House. I did not know that my hon. friend from Port Arthur was going to speak on the Bill, or probably I would have advised >hitm to handle it entirely from the standpoint of a city where this method of advancing the time has been in force for a number of years. Just as my hon. friend from Port Arthur has stated, at the head of the lakes, at Fort William and Port Arthur, this method of saving daylight has been in force for many years, and there has never been any complaint from any group of people or any class with regard to the conditions caused by it. On the contrary, the great consensus of opinion is that it is conducive to health and advantageous in all manner of works. Besides representing the city, both the member for Port Arthur and myself represent rural constituencies. My constituents knew that 'this Bill was coming before the House, and although I have had a great many letters from them on different matters pertaining to my work here, no one has mentioned any opposition to the Daylight Saving Bill.
There are many reasons why this Bill should toe adopted. First, let us consider it from the medical standpoint. I have been practising for fourteen or fifteen years, and I think I can speak with some authority on the medical sido of the question. In what I say from this standpoint I toelieve that I am voicing the opinion of a number of medical men in this House. And just here, in passing, let me say that I am very much pleased that there are so many medica' men in the House. A good deal of opposition is manifested in the press at times to so many lawyers being in the House, but I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the medical men who have come here in such large numbers will endeavour to counteract any evil influence of the lawyers.
Coming to medical reasons, I believe, as every one who looks into hygienic questions believes, that sunlight is necessary for health. Every little boy who has ever gone
fishing knows that if he picks up a hoard to look for worms he will find the grass underneath the board white and anaemic, because the sunlight has been excluded. The same thing applies to human life. I know of quite a little experiment which, no doubt, all of the medical men in this House have read of, in regard to an infection of tuberculosis, which was experimented with on rats .some years ago, and the same thing applies to human life just as it does to any other form of life. A dozen rats were infected with tubercle bacilli. Six of them were put in the cellar of a house *where the surroundings were unsanitary, and where the sunlight was excluded. The other six rats were allowed to run about in the fresh air and sunlight. I remember distinctly that the six rats which were kept in the cellar of the house and prevented from taking in the proper amount of fresh air and sunlight died as a result of the small degree of inoculation which they had received. The other six lived because of the counteracting effect of the fresh air and sunlight. That is a little point, in passing, from the medical standpoint, but I toelieve it an important one.
Then, there is the economic standpoint, which is of great importance at the present time. The Minister of Trade and Commerce has very ably dealt with that side, and probably I should not presume to mention it. But there is the point of the saving in coal which will result from the lack of necessity of generating so much electricity for the house to ' use. There would also he a saving of oil, where oil lamps are used in the country where electricity is not available. This will result in a saving of fuel, and we all know that the fuel situation is a difficult one to handle. As a consequence there will be a saving of transportation. Honourable gentlemen from the West know that the transportation question is also a very difficult one to handle, particularly at the time of the year when the great crops of the West are coming East. They know that a saving in transportation at that time will be an advantage to the country. So that these two questions, coal and electricity, fuel (and transportation, will be helped.
I have heard a number of hon. members object on the ground of loss of production. I was going to mention the same fact that the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Keefer) referred to in' connection with the head of the lakes. We have had this daylight saving rule in operation for some years, and whatever action may be taken here, we have no intention of going back.

At the head of the lakes, production has been marvellously increased, particularly in the yacant lot gardens, to the extent, as the hon. member said, of $100,000, at the cost of a few hundred dollars for minor clerical work. I believe that all over this country you will find that a greater production will result, particularly of the garden variety. I do not doubt that hon. members from more rural constituencies than mine know whereof they speak, and that there will be some disadvantages. The greatest objection is due to the fact of the misconception that we will be getting up earlier in the morning. Except for the one night, when the hands of the clock are shoved one hour ahead, and you do miss one hour's sleep, there is absolutely no difference. I venture to say when one travels to Port Arthur or to Fort William-which use eastern time, hut which should use western time-if he did not change his watch he would notice no difference.
Then, there is one point that has not been mentioned, and in these days of moral uplift it may be worth mentioning, that is the effect of daylight saving on the morals of the people. It has been claimed that morals have been greatly elevated ag a result of this measure. I know very little of the actions, or of the methods of acting, of the Devil, but some of my friends who claim they do, tell me that he prefers to act in the dark. I believe we may even raise the morals of this country slightly in this matter.	%
Then, there is another little point, affecting the returned soldier. Hundreds and thousands of soldiers are coming back here, maimed and broken. If they are given longer hours of daylight it will make it easier for these men to get around. Some will think this suggestion far fetched, but it is a fact that it will foe much more difficult for a man using crutches-and we shall have many of them in this country-to get around in the dark than in the day. I wish to support very strongly the passing of this Bill. I think it will be a good thing in peace times, and 1 consider it is a much better thing in war times.


Mr. GEORGE BOYCE (Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to the arguments in this debate, and while I am unprepared, owing to not knowing that this Bill would come up to-day, I must give you the views of a farmer. I have .been a farmer all my life, and if this Bill passes I think it (will do a very great deal of harm to the farming industry of this country. There is no question that, if it went to a

vote, ninety per cent of the farmers would vote against the proposal. I was rather amused to hear an hon. member say, in effect: Make it a law, and you farmers can break that law. Now, farmers are not lawbreakers; we want a law made that will give us justice. It has been advocated by medical men who do not know very much about it, but I, who, have practised farming all imy life, say it will be a very great 'handicap, in the time of harvest especially. For one, I would not say to the business men of the cities, towns and villages that this law should not be passed. But do not at the same time bind the farmers hand and foot to lose the best part of the day for us, which is in the evening. In the morning we have to wait until the dew dries. We cannot handle our hay, or our grain in the early morning, because if you bind it up wet it will rot; you have to wait until about eight o'clock.
Then the hired help has heen mentioned. The hired help will work according to the whistle of the city. This is war time, and the farmers are interested in the welfare of the country and are trying to produce all they possibly can. If you handicap ns so that we cannot work there is going to be a very serious loss. I trust that hon. gentlemen will eliminate that part of the measure which has anything to do with the farming community, and let farmers use their judgment as they see fit. We are told that daylight saving has been adopted in the United States, and in other countries, but (I want to ask hon. gentlemen what has been done by the board of trade of the city of Hamilton? They are up right straight against this plan being adopted. I have many letters from my constituents, which I did not bring to-day, stating that a petition could be circulated and that they could bring down one thousand farmers from the county of Carleton to protest against this measure in the interest of the agriculturist.


Mr. H. C. HOOKEN (Toronto West):: Mr. Speaker, from the standpoint of a real city, I would like to express my approval of the Bill. As a matter of increased production, allow me to point out that it has been, estimated -that in the cultivation of the back yards in the city of Toronto a million dollars worth of produce can be grown annually. During the past two or three years -a large quantity of produce has been secured from back-yard gardens. It has had a most important and elevating effect upon the whole population'. There is no doubt at all that engaging in gardening

operations has an uplifting moral effect, and if there is one thing that is necessary-in a large city like Toronto or Montreal it is that -anything that conduces to that uplift should be adapted.
Now, -under the present hours, if we can produce a million dollars worth of garden truck in the city of Toronto* with an extra hour of daylight in the evening that production could be very greatly increased in Toronto and elsewhere. As you know, Sir, in our city nearly every house is a self-contained home. Our people all have pieces of garden land, and if we could get them to undertake this production, and we are succeeding in doing to a very satisfactory degree, it would mean a great deal for the city of Toronto.
I submit for the consideration of the farmer members of the House that it is the duty of Parliament to consider with some care the situation in a big city. The people who reside in the rural districts live under the very best conditions that human nature can enjoy. Those who live in the cities, in surroundings more or less congested, merit some special consideration from the law-making power; and anything that will conduce to their welfare is well worthy of the careful and thoughtful attention of the House and of the farming community as well. I think it will be found that the urban population in Ontario is-about as large as the rural population if not larger, and bearing in mind the possibilities of increased production in all the towns .and cities of the country; that means a very great deal in the way of increased production. Take cities like Woodstock, Guelph, St. Thomas and Galt, where the workmen employed in the factories live in houses with an acre or so of land attached, the extra hour possible under this Bill will enable those men to cultivate their lands, with very much better results than can possibly he achieved under existing conditions. The farmer's business is to cultivate the land. If the dew did not rise until twelve o'clock he would have to gather in his grain or his hay after that time, and it would be just as easy for him to engage in some other occupation in the meantime, and to garner bis crops later in the day. I quite concede that those who have to employ labour to work their farms might have some difficulties with individuals, but it -seems to me that is a matter which can be easily arranged between the employer and the employee. No hardship would be involved in asking the employee to work the statutory hours fixed under this Bill, instead of those which prevail at the present time. I think
those who speak for the farmer Eire .anticipating a difficulty which is not likely to arise to any great degree. In my opinion .a little suavity and kindness, as well as consideration in the dealings of the farmers .with those who work for them, would overcome any difficulties that are likely to exist. I feel satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that .a year's experiment with daylight saving would result in the conviction in. the farming as well as the urban communities that this legislation is something that should be permanently adopted.


Mr. W. D. COWAN (Regina):: matter of vacant-lot- gardening. In this *we have really set the pace, and-our city in the summer time, by reason of the fact, is well worth seeing. If such is the case it is because we have had daylight saving in operation for the past four years. Under all the circumstances, I most heartily support the Minister of Trade and Commerce in the Bill which he has submitted to the House.


Mr. A. B. COPP (Westmorland):: As
usual, we have the city representatives telling the farming communities how they should operate their farms, and what treatment they should accord to their help in order to get them to work an extra hour, after the city people have gone to their different recreations. I represent a constituency in the Maritime Provinces where' there are not only farmers, but towns and cities in which manufacturing and other industries are carried on. Last year, when this Bill was introduced by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, I received a very large number of letters and telegrams in opposition to the measure from agriculturists in my constituency. Since Parliament opened I have received other communications to the same effect. It seems to me there are only one or two practical considerations arising	in	regard	to thismeasure: one is the advantage-and an advantage it is-to those who are employed in shops, factories, and work of	that character,	to	have the extrahour in the evening for recreation. No doubt there is something in favour of the Bill to be said on that account. The argument advanced by my hon. friend from Port Arthur and Kenora (Mr. Keefer) that he had seen clerks employed in dry goods, establishments enjoying a game of	baseball after	their day's	work isall very well for those men; but it	seems to me	that	at the	present
time the vital interests of the people of this country are concerned in the question of greater production. To secure that result appeals have been made to the farmers of the country, not only by this Parliament, and by the ministers of agriculture of the Dominion and the several provinces, but men have been specially sent out from the cities to impress upon the agricultural population in the different localities that it was their bounden duty to their country to produce more. Now to achieve that result the farmers must have all the facilities that can possibly be provided. So far as the great majority of the people of Canada are concerned, I do not think it matters at all whether we have daylight saving or whether we do not.

When we get down to the question of greater production-and I am speaking from a local point of view only because I am not familiar with the farming operations in the province of Ontario and in the greater provinces of the West-we must bear in mind practical conditions. In the Maritime Provinces the 'heavy dews remain two or three hours in the morning, and it is impossible for farmers to do1 work during that time.
You cannot work with the hay, nor with the grain, you cannot cultivate root crops because of the dampness. It is against the growth of the crop if you work while the dew*and dampness are on the ground While- I am not what you would call a farmer absolutely, I do some farming in the way of cutting and curing hay, and I know that during haying operations in my county, and the Maritime Provinces generally, for hay-making and harvesting the hour between five and six o'clock in the afternoon is worth any two or three hours in the morning, and it is important to the people who have this work to do that they should have this hour. The answer might be made that there is nothing to prevent the farmer going into the field and working the extra hour. That is very true, and they do it; they not on'ly work that extra hour provided by the Daylight Savings Bill, but they have in the past worked an extra two hours to save their crop. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that a large number of the farmers in my section of the country are compelled to hire a great deal of labour to assist in harvesting their crops, and the faTm labourers will stop work at six o'clock, the same as the working men in the cities and towns adjoining. For that reason I say it is a very great inconvenience to the farmer, it would be a great hdndran.ce to him in producing and harvesting his crop, and would prove a very great disadvantage. Personally, it makes no difference to me, and I have no feeling one way or the other, but on behalf of the fanning population, a large number of whom I represent, I protest against the passage of this Bill.
Mr. EVAN E. FRASER (Welland): I did not intend to speak on this measure because I thought it would be argued out along slightly different lines, but I may say that the first money I earned in my life was working for a farmer during haying and harvesting, and every morning at half past two he would get up and say:	" Hurry
up, boys, get up, day is breaking, time to go to work." If I were working for that farmer at the present time I would hate

to see this Bill come into force, but representing, as I do, eight large townships, and knowing that that custom is not in vogue now, and having had occasion during last September, October and November to go around and call at their houses on my own private business, I found, on looking at their clocks, that in nearly every house the clock was pushed on anywhere from a quarter of an hour to an hour, and when I would make a remark as to the time they would say: "It's all right, Fraser, we know that clock is three-quarters of an hour fast." I have not had any protest from the farmers of the county of Welland against this Bill, and I am heartily in accord with it because I spent last summer over in England and France, where dalight saving was in force, and outside of the first week, when we had to get up an hour earlier than usual, everything moved along like clockwork.


Mr. F. L. DAVIS (Neepawa):: I would remind the House of a practice that was initiated by the city of Portage la Prairie which is of importance in this time of greater production. The business men of that place began closing their business places at four or four thirty, and motof parties were formed, who took the employees and the businessmen themselves to the fields where they stooked the grain. Thousands of acres of grain were put up in that way, which would not have been put up but for that assistance. They worked from the time they arrived in the fields until dark. The passage of this Bill will add one hour to that labour, because it is a class of labour that is right at the doors of the farmer, and in this time of shortage of labour which apparently threatens us for the coming year, it will add millions of hours to the assistance the farmer gets in the fields and will offset, at least in the West, any loss that the speakers who have put up a contention in favour of the farmer have referred .to.


Mr. JOSEPH READ (Prince):: As representing one of the purely agricultural districts in the Dominion of Canada, in Prince Edward Island, I want to say that the objections of hon. gentlemen to this Bill are not well taken. In our province the farmers get up any time after five o'clock in the morning, and, as a matter of fact, as far as labour is concerned, we have no labour. The people have to do the work themselves. The women and children have to turn out and work, and there is nothing in the Bill to stop people from working as late as they like. The hon. promoter of the Bill (Sir George Foster) pointed out the fact that the
United States had adopted this measure, and because they had adbpted it we should adopt it. In other words, I am glad to see my hon. friend is beginning to view the question oif reciprocity in its proper light. But I want to tell the hon. gentleman, and I want to tell the House that what is true in regard to this Bill, so far as reciprocity with the United States is concerned, was also true of the old Bill that was voted down in 1911. The advantages are all on the side of Canada. Hon. gentlemen who live in the far north of this country will, perhaps, know that the days are very much longer in that district than in the parallel of latitude to the south of it. The further north we go the longer the day becomes in the summer time, and, consequently, whatever advantage there is in the United States is of twofold advantage to the Dominion of Canada, so far as the question of solar light is concerned, .because our days, after the 21st and 22nd of March up to the 22nd of September, are always longer than the days in the United States, which are all south of the 49th parallel of latitude. Consequently, if the Americans have adopted a good system, and it is an advantage to them, it will be of very much more advantage to the people of Canada.


Mr. W. G. McQUARRIE ( New Westminster) :: As representing one of the constituencies of the Pacific coast, I support the Bill. Although we have not had daylight saving in British Columbia, the matter has been discussed a great deal. The late Col. Hart McHarg-whom, no doubt, a number of the members of this House knew-who went over with the first contingent, and gave up his life to the cause of the Empire, was largely instrumental in bringing the matter before the different organizations, such as boards of trade, and so forth. I think I can safely say that all those organizations passed resolutions in favour of the Bill, and I know that in my constituency, which is a farming community to a certain extent-perhaps the best farming district in the whole of British Columbia- there is absolutely no objection to the Bill. Other organizations are also favourable to it. The Minister of Trade and Commerce stated the case in favour of the Bill so well that I do not care to add anything further, except to say that in our constituency we are very much in favour of it, and were very much disappointed last year when it was dropped.


Mr. PETER McGIBBON (Muskoka):: I should like to say one word in approval of this measure. I do so at the request of a

large number of my rural constituents. I think we are wandering away from the subject. We are discussing theories which, after all, will probably prove to be without any foundation in fact. We are forgetting that daylight saving has been tried out in Germany, France, England, and that it has proved an entire success. I myself was serving with the forces in France when daylight saving was first introduced there, and I never heard one objection to it from any person, although I talked with people in the farming communities, with people in the cities and with my comrades in the army. I did the same thing in England, and daylight saving is voted by one and all as being a great advantage to a country. I do not think that the objections which have been raised here have any foundation at all in the face of the fact that we have the actual experience of the countries that have tried it out.


Mr. W. F. NICKLE (Kingston):: 
Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: Mr. Speaker, I was brought up with the idea that early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy and wise. I still believe that. It may make him. wealthy, too. But if it makes him healthy instead of wealthy, or *both, SO' much the better. There is a principle underlying all legislation. Those who have discussed legislation have laid down certain principles concerning it and they have laid down the principle that legislation must work itself out, it must justify itself. The only thing to do is to make the experiment. All progress in the way of legislation is largely experimental. I would like to see the. experiment toied. I am disposed to support the Bill and to have the experiment made. If it Is wrong, and if it does injure the farmer, then the law may toe repealed. I agree with what has been said toy farmers in the House to-day that in the early hours of the morning you cannot go on -the land. I have noticed the ploughs held- up in the morning, when they were doing fall ploughing, by frost in the ground. But there is a way of overcoming " that, and then there is other -work on. the farm that can toe done. What has toeen said about the hay crop and other crops is also true; you cannot go to work early in the morning. I agree with what the hon. member for Kent, N.B. (Mr. Leger), has said in regard to his locality, that you cannot do work so. well in the morning as later on. But these things must adjust themselves. A -w>ay .must be found of adjusting the farm labour question, of paying the farm labourers, for their work and applying that work at such times as wili best conduce to production on .the farm. All this has to toe worked, out. Another reason in favour of this, change is that the United States of America believes that it will be to the general advantage to have the clock put forward an. hour, and therefore, my idea is that the experiment ought to be made

here. We ought to try it out and if it is as advantageous as it has (been in many other countries, we ought to make the experiment. If it is not successful, we can repeal the law.
We have now come to a point in the world's history where we are confronted with the question of the reconstruction of the world, by reason of this war. There are a lot of progressive measures that must be adopted. Perhaps this is one of them. The reconstruction of the calendar is another, and the standardizing of weights and measures is another. All these things- are going to he tried out and experimented with. I think that most -of them will be dealt with on the lines of progress. Our railway and transportation questions is a most important one, and the transportation question in Canada is the same as it is in the United States. They are going to take up in the United States this daylight saving proposal. We will have to do it here. We have the same system of running our railways in Canada that they have in the United States. The signals and the rules governing the men who operate the railways are absolutely'the same; they have been continentalized; and if we are going to keep up with the march of progress we must continentalize a lot of things. There are other interests as well as the farming interests in this country, and I believe the farmers will have to put up for a time with the operation of this Bill while we see how it works out. The great economic re-organization in America is at hand, it is here now; it is up to us and we must move on progressive, continental lines. We have got to continentalize the law; we must make changes in the general law. We have to define what the maker of a note is and what the endorser of a note is, and we have to do it on ' broad, general lines. We have been giving too much time in the past to defending local interpretations of these things. If America is to be what it ought to be, and if we realize the meaning of this war of democracy, of progress and of reconstruction, we have to start out on broad lines and on many questions we have to do as our neighbours to the south of us have done.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


William Findlay Maclean: My hon. friend says "hear, hear," and I know what he is coming back to. I am prepared to argue that question again if it has to be argued. But in view of that reconstruction, in view of the fact that we have the same labour laws and that labour unions work practically on the same lines, we have to get in line

with the rest of the continent and at least go the length of making experiments. I say to the farmers: Try this system, and if it cannot be worked out you will have a grievance and we can then repeal it. I believe that, to farm well, you must farm in the afternoon. Perhaps the best way to increase production, if I may suggest it, is to have a double shift on the farm. It might mean time and a half or pay and a half, but that is the way you get increased production.


An hon. MEMBER:: Where are you going to get the labour?


William Findlay Maclean: There is a capital way of raising labour, and that is for every man to raise a family. I know Quebec and I commend Quebec in regard to that. They have not perhaps that scarcity of labour that we have in the West. Well, then, follow Quebec's example; go any place where you get a good example. I agree with what the doctors and others have said, that a good reason, in the line of uplift, for adopting this Daylight Saving Bill would be that it would enable people to do their work in daylight. That principle ought to he applied to lots of things. I would like to see the public offices all over the country opened at seven or eight in the morning. I would like to see the public offices here in Ottawa opened early in the morning. They do start at nine o'clock now, and a great improvement has been made in that respect. Business in the cities and work on the farm could be better done earlier in the morning than later in the afternoon. Perhaps a fair compromise would be to make the noon hour longer. But there is a way out of all these things and the proposition now before the House is that we make the experiment. For that reason- I am going to support the Bill. I am going to be governed by the experience of the countries where the experiment has been tried, and wherever that experiment has been made the consensus of opinion is that the law ought to be continued. Our farmers from the West have a good reason for their objection, that you cannot harvest in the morning, that there are certain crops you cannot touch in the morning with tools, and that the best time in the day to take in the crop is late in the afternoon when everything is dry. But if daylight saving becomes the general law we shall have to adapt our farming to it. How far it can be worked out I cannot say, but I believe it will work out perfectly. However, let us make the experiment and keep ourselves in line with American progress and American democracy. And, speaking of American democracy, it is making its fight to-day

against the tyranny of the dynasties of Europe, and we have got to march in line, and we are marching in line, and the Americans are with us now and we are with them, and we have these great progressive reform movements coming, and they are coming with a rapid march. We are starting now, I think, the reconstitution of the world. My whole advice is: Let us see if we cannot work out a new set of conditions in America, suited to ourselves and suited to America; and by -that we will do much more for the benefit of our whole people. Now, this measure is on that line; it is simply an experiment, and it has proved to be a successful experiment wherever it has been made, and I think the House and the country will endorse this proposal.
Mr. -S. W. JACOBS (George Etienne -Cartier): Mr. Speaker, I support this Bill. My only object in rising this afternoon is to correct a slight inaccuracy of the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce. In his remarks this afternoon, he stated that this measure, or a measure similar to this, originated in Germany a few years ago. He evidently overlooked the fact-because I know that he is a great Biblical scholar, having given a great deal of attention to the Bible before becoming immersed in Tory politics-that my great ancestor, Joshua, three thousand years ago, commanded the sun to stand still. You remember that it was at a time when my people were at war with their enemies. The British army to-day is in occupation of that very country which Joshua at that time occupied, and we can very well say, therefore, in passing this Bill, that it is purely a war measure and nothing else, and I am sure that fact will satisfy very many of the hon. members on the opposite side of the House, who do not seem to be following the lead of the Minister of Trade and Commerce on this important question.
We had the Franchise Act passed last year, which we were assured was introduced purely as a war measure, -and which was passed with the approval of hon. members opposite, with, the result that subsequently at the general elections the present Government were returned to power. Then we have the Women's Franchise Bill, which is being introduced this year, during war times, five years ahead of another -election, but, of course, that is also a war measure; and this Daylight Saving Bill can also be considered to be a war measure for the reason that I have already mentioned.
With regard to our friends, the farmers, 1 have no sympathy at all with those gentlemen.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, c-h.


Mr. JACOBS:: We who live in the city, who ar.e obliged to dwell in the city, when forced to pay extortionate prices for commodities produced by the farmers, how can they -expect us to have -any sympathy with them? I firmly believe that the reason they are opposing this daylight saving is because they imagine that "A hen we in the cities utilize our little back yards we will come into competition with them and help to reduce the cost of living. Therefore, from whatever point of view you look at this question, I am sure that this House will not concur at all in the views of our friends the farmers, and will adopt the attitude of those of us who are obliged to live in the cities. They may say: "As we are not disturbing your red light, why disturb our daylight?" Perhaps -some of the red lights in our district are patronized by a good many of the "daylight" gentlemen who come in from the country.
-Some hon. MEMBERS: Order, order.


Samuel William Jacobs: I wish to say that I
am heartily in support of the Bill, and I trust t-he hon. members- on this side of the House will give their undivided support to it, because it is a Bill which ought to meet with the approval of all rightthinking and progressive men.


Mr. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, the hon member for South York (Mr. Maclean) began his address this afternoon-in the -course of which he discussed daylight saving, the railway situation, the war in Europe and several other minor matters-with a quotation, that those who go to bed early and rise early become wealthy and wise-
Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise-.
I do not think, -Mr. Speaker, that there ever was a saying which was -a bigger lie than that one, at least, in its application to those who live in country districts, and who follow at least two o-f the suggestions contained in- that proverb: they go to bed early and they rise early. Those whom we are pleased to designate as the backbone of the this country, at least once in every four years, -immediately before the election, certainly as long as I have known or read of that old saw, have been in- the habit of going to bed early and of rising early, and of working long hour-s, and while that custom may have added to their -sum of wisdom, and though I .am doubtful as- to whether it has improved their health, I am very certain it did not add to their wealth.

I am also quite certain that hon. gentlemen in this House at various times, like the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Jacobs), who was complaining or whining, if I may use tihe word, about the high cost of living, never expressed any particular concern about the agriculturist or farmer wiho went to bed early and rose early and worked long hours, when he was only obtaining seven or eight cents a dozen for his eggs and, perhaps, fourteen or fifteen cents a pound for his butter. It has come to the time now when the farmer is getting a price for ihis eggs, for the Minister of Trade and 'Commerce to sit up late at night and to introduce a Bill to regulate the weight in a dozen of eggs, a measure which will have the result of forcing the farmer to breed a type of hens whose output will weigh a pound and a half to the dozen, because under the Bill, the farmer will not be able to sell any eggs that weigh less than a pound and a half to the dozen.
Noiw, Sir, the hon. memiber for Kingston (Mr. Nickle) informed the House, with due modesty, that he spent a part of each year in the country. I do not think daylight saving will affect the movements of the hon. imemlber for Kingston in his farming operations during the time he spends in the country. You do not need to think the is supporting the Bill on that ground.
I want to ask this House seriously to consider one question. We have had a good deal said and written about greater production. The Government, acting in co-operation with the provincial governments, inaugurated last fall a greater production movement. They sent men through the country districts, asking the farmers to increase the amount of their acreage, to get ready a larger acreage for seeding in 1918, and to increase the amount of their livestock, and, especially, to raise more hogs. The situation at present in the province of Ontario, at 'least in the part I come from, is this: that because our farmers cannot obtain to-day bran and shorts for the feeding of their hogs they are being compelled at the present time to feed some of the grain which they require for seeding this year. I have heard of no specific action on the part of the Government seeking to control those who handle these commodities, to prevent them from forcing the farmer, when he applies for two or three hundred of bran or shorts, to take at the same time an equal amount of flour, otherwise they will not give him the feed required for his stock. Therefore, while we have theoretical en-oouragemeut to the farmers and a great

many lectures on greater production and all that sort of thing, when it comes down to actual practice it seems to me they get very 'little to encourage them.
Now, am I right or not in stating that during the season 'of 1917 the farmers of this country, to use a common expression, were up against it for getting labour; they found it exceedingly difficult to 'get 'help?. It was harder for the farmer to1 get the necessary help to carry on his operations in 1917 than it was in 1916, and I venture to say it will Ibe much harder for him to get the necessary help to carry on his operations in 1918 than it was last year. That is, I (believe, a fact. Is not this also a fact?-that you increase the difficulty of the farmer to get the necessary help on his farm if you make conditions in the cities and towns so much more attractive than those conditions can possibly be made in the country districts.
The man in the country is up against the seven, eight or nine-hour movement which the labouring man demands in the cities and towns. The hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) speaks of two shifts on a farm. If the hon. gentleman does not know any more about farming than about other matters which he asks the House to experiment on we had better not follow his advice. I venture to say, if you were to put in small print what the hon. gentleman does hot know about f arming it would make a larger book than any now existing in this country between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. The hon. member talks glibly and theoretically of <two shifts on a farm, when it is impossible to get sufficient men for one shift on a farm at the present time, and if he knows anything about the conditions in this country he ought to be aware of that fact.
I am free to admit that daylight saving is an attractive thing for people residing in cities and towns, and I do not blame those members who represent urban constituencies for supporting the Bill. If the enactment of the measure were for the general benefit of the whole country, I would say: Very good, let those who will not he benefited submit. But will it be in the general interest of the country? Do not the farming class compose the majority of the population of this country? When the Minister of Trade and Commerce refers to legislation similar to this having been adopted in England, France, Germany or Holland, I tell him that in my judgment the conditions here are not the same as in the countries enumerated, and therefore, that argument loses weight. The farming population form

the majority in Canada, and I would ask *whether any real attempt has been made to ascertain their opinion with regard to this measure which affects them so vitally, as everybody must admit. It is quite easy in cities and towns to judge the trend of popular sentiment and submit it to the Government through the medium of boards of trade, municipal councils and other organizations. It is not so easy to ascertain the views of the people living in the rural districts, and I am not so certain that we are at all times as anxious to ascertain their opinion as we should be. I honestly believe that if this Bill passes at the present time it will increase the difficulty which the farmer already has in getting that labour which is absolutely necessary to him if he is to carry on his production. Arguments that might be put forth under normal conditions fall to the ground at the present time, when a great war is raging. Whereas this Bill might be right and proper in normal times, I believe that at present, when the farmer is being urged to put forth every possible effort to produce all he can, it is not wise to do anything which will lessen his opportunity of getting the help he must secure if he is to produce what we are expecting and asking him to produce.
Reference has been made to what has been done in cities and towns in the way of cultivating back gardens. So much has been done in Port Arthur and: Fort William, so much in the city o,f Toropto, and so much in the city of Kingston. Why, it reminds me, Mr. Speaker, of certain gentlemen who undertoook to give advice to the farmers in the matter of production, but who knew very little about the subject. They knew that potatoes were cut up and planted in order to secure a crop, and' they thought the same thing applied to raising turnips; they thought you should slice up turnips and plant them and then you might exipect a crop.
The farmers, Mr. Speaker, I need not say work early and late; and yet some people complain that they receive too much for what they produce at the present time. How many of those who complain about the price they have to pay for a hag of potatoes or a pound of butter have gone to the trouble of ascertaining how much their production cost the farmer? The consumer estimates the farmer's profits by the amount charged him for produce but ignores the fact that not only the farmer but his wife and every one of his children with unremitting toil have participated in the work of production. Ini the ease of an article /produced
in a city factory you are told what the overhead charges were; so much capital was invested in the building and plant, and so much in the machinery, and all that sort of thing. It is figured out exactly thoiw many people are required to produce that particular article and the amount the manufacturer should receive by way of profit. But in estimating what it costs the farmer to produce his crops the factors of expense to him are not taken into, consideration at all. No regard is paidl to the capital he invested or the money he has spent on machinery, or what earnings should he credited to himself and to his wife and family for their work. In my judgment, no matter what argument may be advanced in favour of adopting daylight saving, its enactment at this particular time will greatly increase the farmer's difficulty in obtaining help in order to carry on his operations. Believing that, and also believing that no real effort has foeem made to ascertain the opinions of the farming class, who form the majority of our population, I desire to express my opposition to this measure.
'Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer): The fact that the Minister of Trade and Commerce has again brought forward this year a Bill which he introduced last year is a great tribute to his tenacity, but I do not know that it is quite as strong a tribute to his political sagacity. I do not think that the Bill had a friend in the House last year except himself. The thing that strikes one most about the debate which has just taken place is the acute division of opinion between those dwelling in the country and those dwelling in towns. I myself have very grave doubts, under the circumstances in which the Bill received so little .approval last year, followed by the circumstances in which the Bill produces such an acute division as that to which I have just referred this year, about the wisdom of the Government in having introduced the measure.
I was not impressed with the speech of my hon. friend the minister .(Sir George Foster). It is not the first time that he has failed to impress me, but when he has a good case he can generally produce more convincing arguments. His main arguments were three in number. He produced an argument from precedent. His first precedent was that of Germany. That argument naturally did not commend itself to me. I think we should examine all precedents coming from that portion of the world with the utmost care- He joined with that argument, however, the precedent of

the Old Country, and the same objection to following the precedent of Germany exists to following the precedent of the Old Country in this respect-which has just been pointed out by my hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards)-that the conditions in Canada, because of the magnitude of the country, and because of other reasons which have been mentioned, are totally different from those of Great Britain. You have in the countries of Europe one time. Greenwich time prevails all over the United Kingdom. As to the precedent of the United States, it does not apply, because it does not exist. As far as I know the history of the question, this matter is only now being introduced into the United States, and, therefore, it has not been experimented with there, so that they can give no precedent, either for or against. Consequently, the argument which the minister presented from precedent falls absolutely to the ground.
His second argument was that this Bill in some way or another would tend to greater production. I did not gather that he meant greater production on the farm. If he meant that, I think he was wrong. If he referred to the backyard production in the cities, I do not know really that it is a wise thing to depart from the customs coming to us from time immemorial in the arrangement of our time for the sake of temporary production of a few onions and cabbages in the backyard. But why should this Bill be needed to promote backyard production in itself? If I 'lived in the city, I should find gardening most pleasant, as I find it in the country, in the earliest hours of daylight, and there is nothing in the present condition of our practice or law that would prevent these energetic agriculturists in the city from cultivating their backyards as early as they like. In that connection, may I say, with regard to this very question of home production, I am one of those whom the minister sfiems inclined to talk at a little, who are inclined to get guidance from Providence in this matter, and I think that if we want to learn to produce wisely, well and abundantly we cannot beat the sun. After all, the alteration of our clocks and the practices of our agriculturists are very small affairs in production, compared to the magnificent efforts of the sun. Mr. Speaker, I stand with the sun. May I say al this point that I stand with the sun to this extent: that I am as dispassionate a man as there is in this House on this question, and my experience is that where farming has been carried on with some

success everyone rose with the sun and went to bed with the sun, and worked during the hours of the day when the sun was shining. To these gentlemen who are interested in production within cities, let me repeat the remark I made a little while ago, that if they will repeat my experiment their efforts will be attended with, success. I recommended to my hon. friend from South York (Mr. W. F. Maclean) who is a large landowner, if he is not a farmer, that if he would get up as early as the sun, and go to bed as late as the sun, he would find all the time he needed for production, if he had any time to spare from his journalistic and political work. With regard to some kinds of production on the farm, this innovation will produce very serious disadvantages. There is a great deal in the argument we have heard from farmers about making hay with the dew lying on the hay. There is a great deal of strength in that argument, and a great deal of strength in the argument we heard from the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Boyce) and hon. gentlemen from other constituencies.
The third argument of the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce, I think, was that this Bill afforded greater opportunity for leisure and open-air exercise. That is surely a very far-fetched argument. Every man in this House, whether he lives in the town or in the country, has twenty-four hours every day he lives. He has all the sunshine that is coming to him in the part of the world in which he lives. He has the whole of the forty miles of atmosphere that rises above us all, and all that he needs to do is to get up early enough, and stay up late enough, to take advantage of it. That is the speech of the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce.


George Green Foster: I may say that that argument has not been upset. It has been well said, if any hon. gentleman did say it, but I am not aware that I made such an argument.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: I took down the words in regard to open-air exercise, and so on, as the hon. Minister spoke, but my hearing may be bad and my writing may also be bad.


George Green Foster: I did not refute it.


Michael Clark: Then I am satisfied that my statement needs no further confirmation, because it is accepted by the hon. minister. I took down his words as he uttered them, and I was very close to him.


George Green Foster: It does not matter.


Michael Clark: Having produced the condition in the mind of the Minister that at least some of his arguments are wrong, I think I will leave what has been said in support of the Bill, and offer a little more briefly my objections. My first objection has been hinted at on the other side of the House, although I do not understand why the objection should have come from my hon. friend who used it, because 1 understand he is supporting the Bill. I do not think it is wise unduly to increase the numlber of war measures. In other words, I do not think it is wise, I think it is unwise, to increase, without a very definite benefit in vierw, the number of laws that have to be enforced, even in war time, because if we pass a Bill we are going to enforce it. That, I think, will appeal to any citizen of a democratic country, and I am bound to repeat that the arguments by which this measure has /been supported in this House this afternoon certainly did not seem to me to make the change so assuredly beneficial as that we should add it to the list of these war-time measures or measures partaking almost of the nature of autocracy. One can understand the ease with which such a measure can be introduced in Germany, but I do not think we should unwisely increase the number of such measures in this country.
My second objection is a moral objection. I believe that early rising is a virtue. There are differences of opinion about that. The most distinguished opponent of that view is the famous British literary essayist, the beautiful writer, Charles Lamb, who demonstrated, of course, with all his particular wit and ability, the follies of rising in the morning; but I believe early rising is a virtue, and if gentlemen differ on the subject, that is another argument against the passage of the Bill. Clearly, if there be acute difference of opinion in regard to early rising, then we should let people lie in bed if they want to do so-governments should, in any event. But if it is a virtue to get up early or to go to bed late, that is a question that on the whole men and women would do well to settle for themselves. My hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) does not nave much use for the old proverb: " Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." I am pretty certain about the health; I am pretty certain about the wisdom, for many of the men who have got very wise have read much, and read early in the morning. And about the wealth, if early rising does
not lead to a quantity of wealth, in the case of the farmer-and here I am sure may hon. friend from Frontenac will not disagree with me-it is welbgotten wealth anyway, and I would rather have one well-gotten dollar than ten ibadly-gotten dollars. Therefore, there is very much to he said for the statement that a dollar made in the early hours of the day is worth ten dollars made at a later hour. But my point is this: that unless there is some good and solid reason for this change, it is a matter that ought to be left to be settled by 'the individual, whether it be a moral practice to rise early in the morning or not.
My third objection is one that has not been taken any notice of, so far as I know, during the debate, and I have listened to the discussion with extreme care. In Great Britain and Ireland there is one time, Greenwich time, that applies to the whole country. You have the same thing in France and in Germany. In this country we have a great deal of difficulty, owing to the size of the country, to adapt ourselves to the operations of the sun. As every hon. gentleman in this House knows, we have to change our Clocks to a certain extent now so as to get on reasonable terms with the sun. We have to divide our country into sections. The practical difficulties of that are great enough, but this Bill, so far as I can understand it, proposes to make the difficulty greater by altering the time still further an hour as between the clock and the sun. What will be the effect of that? I do not know whether this question has been argued in the House of Representatives where they seemed to carry the Bill so easily. At the eastern edge of each section, people are rising one hour before the sun's time now.


An hon. MEMBER:: About half an hour.


Michael Clark: Nearly an hour. I never like to err on the side of extreme statements, but if you alter the time an hour in each section, at the eastern edge the people are rising an hour before the sun's time. If this measure becomes law, you will increase by another hour those difficulties which have beer spoken of. You will increase a difficulty which is already a real, practical difficulty in the life of the people in this country. That is why I said to begin with that the precedent of Great Britain carries me no distance whatever. Our conditions are different from those in Great Britain, and this partic-rar condition introduces a very great practical difficulty into this question. As a matter of personal experience I may say that the making of



hay on my own farm, which happens to be near the western end of the section, has to be postponed every day, and in the case of the people who live in the eastern part of the section in which I .live, they will have to postpone the commencement of their real' day's work still further, and. a very great difficulty will be placed in the way of hay-making and other matters. Mr. Speaker, I have practically nothing more to say, and I do not need to ask yon to suppose it is six o'clock to make an expeditious change in the time, as this Bill is proposing to do. I hope the Government is not staking its fate on this measure. I am anxious, at least, to give the new Government a trial, and I should not like them to fall upon a question upon which they had a good deal of guidance as to public opinion last year. If they do stake their fate upon the measure, then I shall have to do what one vote will do to put them out of power.
At six o'clock, the House took recess
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILL.


[Stage Direction]
Mr. F. B. STACEY (Westminister District) moved the second reading of Bill No. 10, to enable the Western Power Company of Canada, Limited, to own and operate the railway of the Western Canada Power Company, Limited. He said:	In moving
the second reading of this Bill I have only a very few words to offer. I understand that by previous legislation the Western Canada Power Company, Limited1, reorganized under the name of the Western Power Company of Canada, Limited. The original company had poweT to operate a certain short railway, and in the reorganization, by some omission, 'this railway was not included. The object of this Bill is to grant the new company power to operate the railway that was operated by the previous company.
Mr. LEMIEUX:: Who are the directors of the company?


Mr. STACEY:: I cannot say offhand, but the manager's name is Mr. William McNeil.


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

[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Sir George Foster for the second, reading of Bill No. 4, to provide for the time in Canada being in advance of the solar mean time during the summer months, resumed.
Mr. A. R. MeMASTER (Brorne):	In listening to the debate on this interesting Bill this afternoon, I was struck with one important fact. I had thought that when the Government brought down a Bill, that Bill crystallized the united wisdom of the party which the Government represented on that subject, and I was somewhat surprised, Mr. Speaker, to see that the heaviest attacks upon the Bill came from gentlemen sitting on your right hand. There were .some remark® made about the Bill which I think require some consideration. There was that argument iin favour of the Bill that by advancing the clocks of this country one hour, we should succeed in raising the moral tone of this, country-" the moral uplift," I believe were the words employed by one of the speakers this afternoon. I am as anxious as any one to see the moral tone of this country raised, but II should imagine that if that could be obtained by any form of procedure such as this, moral reformers long ago would have set forward the clock many hours. I have the honour, although I practice law in Montreal, to represent an agricultural community. I wish to see production increased, and if this Bill in my opinion would increase production, I would lend whatever force my voice had in its support. But, not being a practical farmeT, like a good lawyer I am governed by the opinions of those who know better than myself; I have reference to authority, which is what lawyers do when they have a difficult question to consider. Now I should take it that the informed agricultural authority of this House is expressed by the agriculturists who have spoken from the different provinces of this Dominion against the Bill this afternoon, and therefore 1 think it would be unwise at this time to pass it. If a vote is taken on this Bill, although I am as anxious ae any one to have production increased, as the information which lies, .before me is that it will not increase but decrease production, T shall he obliged to vote against it.
Mr. P. R. Du TREMBLAY (Laurier-Outre-mont):	I do not intend to make any
lengthy remarks on this Bill, as I think the ground has been pretty well covered by hon. gentlemen this afternoon. I do not see how this Bill would .affect the farmers.

The fact is, farmers rise early in the morning anyway; they begin work at five or six o'clock, so I do not see how this Bill would help or harm them. It would rather affect the people in the cities.
It would be a good improvement, especially for the labourers living in the cities, if this measure became law. It would give them an hour in the afternoon to get a rest, especially in the summer time. I understand that this principle has been accepted by the union men of the city of Quebec. I would have liked very much to have had some more information from the right hon. the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Poster) this afternoon as to whether the labour unions in Canada have been asked what itihey think about this question and what they say as to the wisdom of passing this Bill. For the reasons which I have stated, I shall support the Bill. It is an advanced movement on. the part of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and not merely an advance of an hour in the time. It is certainly not in accordance with the ordinary policy of the right hon. gentleman. Probably this will be one of the few opportunities given to me to support one of his measures. However, on this question, I think I would well represent the interests of my people by giving my vote for this Bill.
Mr. J. ALFRED LEDUC (Westmount-St. Henry):: individually rising earlier in the morning if we so desire. But I contend that the advantage and usefulness of this Bill will be almost entirely negatived unless the change is brought forward in such a way that the principle is adopted by every one. The man who rises an hour earlier in the morning in the abseftce of the enactment of this Bill will find that he can do very little unless his neighbour is also up at the same time so that. he may be enabled to do business with him; otherwise, he might as well remain in bed himself.
The hon. member for Bed Deer (Mr. Clark) raised the point that it would be quite possible for us to use the hours of daylight without the enactment of a Bill. I may say, Mir. Speaker, that I do not care to put my opinion against that of some of the experienced members of this House, but I believe that the chief reason why this Bill should pass is based upon the fact that we are all creatures of habit. To-day, practically all our activities are confined to certain definite hours. We rise, retire, go to business, go to church and to the theatre at a certain fixed hour. Children go to school at a certain fixed hour. In fact, all our waking activities are based on a certain definite system based on the clock, and it has become a fixed habit with us to do that. Now, the waking activities or all of us are so inter-related that, in order to secure the greatest amount of efficiency, it is necessary that we also co-ordinate those activities, which is absolutely impossible, I contend, except by some such definite system as is fixed by the clock. Now, here is the point to my mind: this habit of working, or playing if you like, according to the hours of the clock is a constant one. The hours which we have for rising, retiring, playing, going to meals, or going to church, or for any other activity in which we may engage, are the same in winter as in summer, in fall as in spring. During the winter no object could be gained by changing the hands of the clock, because the hours of daylight in winter are so short that we already use in our daily activities all of the daylight which we have during the winter hours. But as the spring advances our habits remain the same; we still do everything according to the hours of the clock; but the balance otherwise is disturbed. The sun does not rise at the same hour; the balance is gradually disturbed; and as the sun advances we find that we are wasting in bed hours of daylight, and using at the conclusion of the day, for the purpose of pleasure or business, as the case may be,

for at least our waking activities, the hours of darkness at the other end of the day.
Now, the practical effect of moving the hands of the clock forward one hour in the spring is, as my hon. friend from George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) said of Joshua, that we actually make the sun, not to stand still, but to rise one hour later and to set one hour later, so that we find in the morning, instead of attempting to sleep during the hour of daylight, that we have the darkness during which to take our rest, which is the proper time, and at the conclusion of the day, we have until nine or nine-thirty for our daylight .activities. The man who has formerly had to lay down his work, his spade or rake if engaged at production, will find that he can work until nine-thirty, and so on. It is unnecessary to dwell at any length on the advantages that will arise from this practice; they will occur to almost every man.
But I do believe this, that hon. members have, perhaps, allowed themselves to /be influenced rather too much by the objections that have been raised to the Bill than by the many manifest advantages to 'be gained by its enactment. Practically the only olbjection that I think carries any weight is the one advanced first by the hon. member from the city o.f Chatham (Mr. McCoig), and that is. on. account of the farming interests. I have, of course, heard the objection that has been raised, that it was undignified to interfere with the clock. Well, to paraphrase a biblical saying, the clock was made .for man and not man for the clock. About a year ago I read a report on the subject taken from an English publication, and practically the only objection that was made there, and 'which I think you will all fully appreciate, was made by a gentleman who stated that he could not see why anybody shoulld want to do away with the beautiful electric light, and it turned out that he was a director of the electric light company. The one valid olbjection-I think it is not a very strong one-is on the part of the farming community. The statement is made that, if the hours of work conclude one hour earlier under this Bill the men who are hired for farm work will quit that much earlier, and the interests of production will suffer. Well, I am quite ready to take the word of the men who state that this is apt to occur; but so far as my experience of the farm goes-and I still think 'that it obtains-or, at least, I think it still obtains in the part of the /province from which I come-the farmers do not govern them-

18 X
selves by the clock at all. They get up with the sun and they do not go to bed with the sun. They work in the fields until the sun sets and then they do the chores afterwards. So I do not think it will affect the farmer to the degree that, perhaps, we have .been led to believe. In any case, Mr. Speaker, it is well worth while trying the experiment. I believe there is no doubt whatever that the advantages that will follow the enactment of this Bill will outweigh any of its disadvantages. And if we do find that, during the course of the year, the disadvantages are very serious, the House can repeal the Bill next year.


Mr. WILLIAM SMITH (South Ontario):: I do not desire to waste a great deal of time over this Bill, but it appears to me, as .an old member of this House, and representing the interests that I do in the county of Ontario, that I should say a few words. And in my remarks to-night I may make some statements that may not have the sympathy .altogether of the members of this Government. And allow me to say this, at the outset; when I say that I am not asking from this Government or from anybody in this country any particular favours^


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Smith: I stand by myself and by
myself alone.


Some hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


William Smith: When I say that it does
appear to me that this Government, or the hon. minister who is introducing this, question, has not consulted one of the great interests of this country, .and that is the farmers of Canada. And. when I say that, looking back over the past-not 'including the years when the Conservative party have been in power, but back of that-and. trying to look into the future, I cannot see for the life of me where the farmers are going to get a great many favours from this Government. Now, looking back I cannot find where the farmers have been for a moment considered, .and looking into the future I do not expect that they are going to be considered. And when I say that, I do it for two reasons. In the first place, I do not expect any consideration from this Government; and, in the next place, I d:o not want it. This Bill, as I understand it, affects in .a general way the people of Canada. It has been considered outside of our country, in the country to the south of us, and in the Mother Country. In the United States they have taken it into their serious consideration and have adopted it. The
Mother Country has done likewise. But there are conditions in both of these countries very different from what we find in Canada. Now, we have just ae much daylight to-day as we had when I was a boy, and that is a good many years ago-. We have just as much daylight to-day as we had a hundred years ago, and we are going to change our - course out of consideration for this Government. I will repeat that we are enjoying as much daylight to-day as we ever did. I happen to be one of the few members of this House directly interested in agriculture. My life has been spent upon the farm, and if adequate reasons could be given why we should change our method of living I should be quite prepared to do .so. But, in view of the experience of the past, I can see no reason why we should adopt the procedure recommended here. We are being told that we should be able to produce more. Take my own. farm for example. In whose time are my men going to make this production? They will get this extra time, and the next morning they will return to duty after having done their best work for themselves. During the last ten years I have been a fairly close observer of agricultural matters. A comparison has been made to-day between the work done in the morning and that done in. the evening.. There can be no question but that there is a great difference. We have in the spring a certain amount of frost and a certain amount o-f r-ain. We cannot go on in the early morning with certain farm work, and yet we are being told that there must be greater production. How is it going to be done? The best hour in the whole 24 is that between five and six o'clock in the evening, which is going to be cut off. Do you mean to tell me that my farm employees living near towns of considerable size, are going to do as I tell them? Will you tell tbem, " You must- continue your work," and expect them to obey implicitly? No, they are .going to spend the hour at their disposal in the town, and yet this precious Government of ours is asking us for greater efforts towards increased production. I do not think the Minister of Trade .and Commerce (Sir George Foster) has taken the advice of the farmers of the country in respect to the introduction of this legislation. I know what their opinion is, and I say unhesitatingly and advisedly, that you cannot find a farmer in the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, who desires this change to he made. You often hear the statement, " The greatest good for the greatest number." Is this legislation likely to

result in the realization of that idea? There have been times in the last ten years when it was quite impossible to turn a wheel upon the land in the morning. Rain had soaked the ground so thoroughly that machinery would not turn upon it, but later in the day, between, five and six o'clock, that difficulty disappeared. With such a restriction as is proposed here, how will it he at all possible to carry out the enhanced production so strongly urged? I am just as strong an advocate that the farmers of Canada shall take their proper position and pay their fair proportion of taxation as anybody, but I say to the hon. gentleman who has introduced this Bill, "For heaven's sake leave the farmers alone." I admit the farmers do not know everything, hut they are thoroughly conversant with their own business, and no outsider can tell them what is best to do. If the hon- gentleman is determined to force this measure upon the House and upon the country, he may find out in the course of time that whilst the farmers of Canada have been hewers of wood and drawers of water, they are not going to Continue in that humiliating position forever. I tell the Minister, of Trade and Commerce that, great as he may deem this Bill to be and much as it may he in the interest of some people in this country, he may find later on that all those people who have been doing things for the Union Government may pull back the stake.


Mr. D. SUTHERLAND (South Oxford):: I have followed with a good deal of interest the debate which has so far taken place on this Bill, and more especially the arguments which the Minister of Trade and Commerce advanced in his usual masterly manner in its support. I had not intended to say anything on the question, although I have my own opinion with regard to it. I come from a constituency which is very evenly divided as to rural and urban population, and I have not received a request from anyone in that constituency, either last year or during the present year, to support or oppose such a measure. I have been very much impressed by the arguments made by those who favour the Bill. I cannot help but feel that there has been some deception practised, if I may use the term, in favour of the adoption of this Bill. Reference has been made to the statement of Mr. Gompers in the United States when he gave the true version as to why there was such a strong desire for a Bill of this nature, which was that the people would have greater opportunities for leisure and outdoor exercise. Any one who has closely ob-
[Mr, Smith. 1	.
served the people who are agitating for the enactment of this measure realizes that their anxiety is not so much to increase the production of the country at the present time as it is for greater opportunity to enjoy themselves. The agitation is being waged by those who are anxious to have greater opportunities for bowling, tennis, motoring and things of that nature. These people speak about the desirability of daylight saving and the advantages of summer time. If you could increase the length of summer time I would heartily favour such a measure; that is to say, if a month could be taken off the winter and added to the summer, but I cannot see that the argument has any foundation whatever. I do not *see that such an arrangement is going to effect the saving of daylight in any particular. But what I am alarmed about is: At this particular time when we ought to look at questions soberly and realize the seriousness of the conditions which confront us, when we hear about people in the Old Land having to draw in their belts,- and they are prepared to do it,-we must realize that production in this country is the most important problem that is facing our people to-day. Those who are not physically fit to take up arms and beat the enemy should devote their entire energies towards increasing production in this country, because, judging from what is taking place on the Western front, we must not be at all surprised if this conflict rages for years and years to come. Is it a time for leisure and sport? No. It is a time to look on the question soberly and consider what the effect will be. Why is it we have been agitating our minds for years past as to why there was a movement from the country to the city? People say that those in the country labour too long, and that advantages are lost, and, therefore, the people will not remain there. The hon. member for South Ontario (Mr. Smith) points out what will happen with regard to employees when they'find the people of the neighbouring towns out playing tennis, bowling, and so forth. Can you expect these men to stay on the farms and increase the production of the country under these conditions? People say: "Look what we will grow in towns and cities if we have more time to ourselves after the day is over." That is all very well. The hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Hocken) says it is estimated they can raise a million dollars worth of food products there. I have lived in Toronto for several years, and my

observation was that the man who grew vegetables Rid. most of the work early in the morning, .and not in the evening. In the evening he was prepared to rest. You wil1 find that is the ease in the towns and cilties throughout the country. The man who raises vegetables, to meet the requirements of the people, does it in the morning when it is cool. I do not believe there is any force in that argument at all. I believe the effect will not be good. I do not think that this is a time to introduce freakish legislation. It will be time enough, if it is demonstrated in other countries that this is a good measure, to introduce it at some future time; the Lord knows we have enough to do at the present time.


Mr. S. F. CLASS (East Middlesex):: When this question was before the House last year I felt it my duty, in the interest of those I represent, to oppose it. If I were asked the reason why I opposed it then, and the reason why I now oppose it, I would admit that, aside from the interest of the constituents whom I represent, 1 would find some difficulty in answering. But, Sir, I want to say that the hon. members of this House who have discussed the attitude of the farmers of this country have spoken in entire accord with the experience of the people of my own district. Every township council, every county organization, all the organizations of the district which are in session for the purpose of considering the interests of agriculturists, have expressed their opposition to this Bill. I listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. member from Kitchener (Mr. Euler), and I was led to conclude, after hearing his remarks, and the remarks of other members who represent what might he called industrial constituencies, that there is a line of demarcation or division on this question, and that those who represent the interests of agriculture are opposed to the scheme, and those who represent sections of the country which have industrial concerns are in favour oif it. But I also find that, so far as labour is concerned, there is by no means unanimity with reference .to it, because only last week, in the city of London, one of the labour organizations placed on record its opposition to this Bill. The county council of Middlesex met last Saturday afternoon, the time fixed by the province of Ontario for all county councils throughout the province to meet, to take seriously into consideration the need of unusual effort to stimulate greater production this year, and advocated the very principles enunciated by my hon. friend the member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland)
and the hon. member for South Ontario (Mr. Smith), that it'simply meant, so far as they were concerned, that they could not possibly achieve the best results in production if the time were changed.. I asked a farmer in my district, when ! was last at home, " What is the objection of the farmers to this Bill," because I wanted to be enlightened, and he said, as the hon. gentleman from South Ontario also said, that the very best hours of the day for the farmer are those between five and seven at night, the very hours the .measure proposes to cut out and for which they will substitute the hours in the morning. By cutting out those two. hours you are taking away more than would he represented by three or four hours of the morning, because in the early morning hours, as has been stated, the ground is not fit fo.r operation, the heavy dew preventing any work in harvesting at that early hour. He also said that farmers, have to look, to an extent, to assistance from industrial labour in order to. give greater production, and the organized labour men who come out to the country to a&sist the .farmers have certain regulated hours, and notwithstanding the fact that they are assisting in the production of the country, they make their hours of labour conform largely to the regulations that govern labour unions in cities and towns. I think we are taking away from the farmer a valuable space o,f time for which we give him no equivalent. The hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) has pointed out the absurdity of " daylight saving." There is no saving o.f daylight whatever. This was tried in London two years ago. It was brought forth as a very desirable measure and had the support of the board of .trade and the city council, and the citizens, were unanimously behind the proposition and wished to try it out. They experimented with it for about two months, and they were so tired of it that every labour union and every organization which had asked to have this proposition introduced, with equal force opposed, it and asked for its repeal, and it was repealed in midsummer. That is the condition that prevailed two years ago. 1 am ready to admit that in the United States, in industrial centres, there is a strong sentiment amongst labour unions and a class of labour men that this change is desirable. It only shows that there is a difference of opinion amongst that class as well as amongst the members' of this House, but 1 think I am right in saying that there is absolutely no doubt about

the opposition to this Bill in all parts of the Dominion of Canada so far as the farming interests are concerned. I cannot support this measure in justice and in deference to the opinion of the people whom I represent here. Every organization in the district which I represent which is interested in agriculture has placed itself on record as opposed to this Bill, and I have more letters from all parts of my district expressing opposition to this measure than I have had in respect to any other measure presented in this House.
It is natural that we should have differences of opinion in this House. Personally, I cannot see how it is going to make a great deal of difference to the labouring man or to the agriculturist if this measure is passed. The farmer works from sunrise to sunset in any event. But there is this point which was made by the person to whom I referred. This farmer opposed this measure for the reason that under the changed conditions that exist at the present ' time a great deal of industrial labour is being forced out on to the farms and a great deal of industrial labour is also going voluntarily on to the farms, and an endeavour is being made to organize industrial labour so as to let as-much as possible get out on the farms to help production. The farmer makes a strong point there, namely, that this labour, which has certain regulations governing the hours of toil in industrial centres, will want to be governed by the -same regulations when it goes to the country. From that point of view the farmer naturally sees a very strong reason to oppose the Bill.
I regret very much that I was not in the House to listen to the remarks made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce in favour of the Bill, but last year he introduced a similar Bill which was thoroughly discussed, on that occasion, and I find that the nature of the opposition to it to-day is the same as it was a year ago. So far as the farm interests are concerned, there is a prejudice and an opposition to the Bill that cannot be overcome.


Mr. S. F. TOLMIE (Victoria City):: I have listened with a great deal of interest to the discussion that has taken place this afternoon and evening. I feel that, representing a city constituency, I must support the measure. It will be of tremendous advantage to all workers in cities to have an extra hour of sunshine and fresh air in the evening. In the city of Ottawa alone it will affect thousands of people who have to put in the greater part of the day inside build-

ings where they do not get any sunshine. Under those conditions I think, it will be very beneficial, particularly so when we find that such diseases as tuberculosis and others are prevalent in the country. As a farmer and stock man I can see no real objection to this measure from the farmer's standpoint. I am ispeaking now particularly of the Pacific Coast section. If the farmer will use a little judgment in handling his help, he will easily overcome any little arguments that to-day have been presented against this measure. I was very much interested in what was said by the hon. member who wished to have his summer extended. I can advise him if he will go to the city of Victoria he will have no difficulty in having it extended several months.


Mr. F. N. McORKA (Sherbrooke):: Having been bom and brought up on a farm, and still having some knowledge of farming, because whilst not a farmer, I am connected with a concern that does a great deal of farming, stock raising and so on, being the representative of a city constituency and also being quite a large employer of help, I think I speak on this subject with some knowledge. After listening to the speeches this afternoon and evening, I am puzzled to know what special advantage is to be derived from this measure or what great good it is going to do to anybody. It is said that if the clock is moved forward an hour, a great benefit will accrue to the labouring classes, the people of the cities in particular. Listening to the addresses which have been delivered on this subject to-day, I have noticed that practically every man who represents a city district is in favour of the Bill, whilst those representing the rural districts and farming communities are opposed to it. Evidently, the city people are in favour of the Bill. It would be well for the residents of the cities to utilise the time they have now as the clock stands, and instead of getting to their business at nine or ten o'clock in the morning, to get up a little earlier and make use of the time between seven and nine o'clock. In many of the large cities you cannot find a man to do business with practically before ten o'clock in the morning. If the saving of daylight is going to be of so much benefit to the residents of the cities, let them show their
9 p.m. good faith by using the daylight as it now exists and the clock as it now_ stands. Whether the clock is moved forward an hour or backward an hour, I do not think it will make any material difference to the farmer, his wife, sons or daughters, because the farmer gen-

18i
erally gets up as soon as the sun rises and his family get up with him, and they are busy from that time until the sun sets. It. will, however, make a very material difference to the help employed by the farmer. This matter has been very thoroughly explained, and I think every man who has any .knowledge of farming understands that in the early morning you cannot do to advantage the greater part of the work on the farm- The dew is then on the ground, so that the ground is wet, and weeding or anything of that kind cannot be done to such great advantage as in the heat of the day when, if you cut weeds, they will be immediately killed off by the heat of the sun's rays instead of sprouting again. The farmer's help, if the clock is moved forward one hour and six o'clock is called seven, will in the majority of cases not be found on the job at what is supposed to be seven o'clock. When five o'clock comes, or six o'clock according to the new time, that will be quitting time with him, and the farmer will find it very difficult to have him continue his Work, especially if he sees his comrades and friends, who are labouring in the cities or on other jobs outside of farming, leaving their work, putting on their ball clothes and going to the ball field or bowling alley or some other place of amusement. Thus, the men on the farms and the farmers' sons will begin to be restless. At this particular time when the farmer and every other man who produces is being admonished, advised, coaxed, persuaded to produce more, if we want the farmer to produce, we must give him the best part of the day for the work of production, and in harvesting or haying or practically any other work on the farm, the hour from five to six o'clock in the evening is worth more than the two hours from six to eight o'clock in the morning. Under any circumstances, the legislation passed by this Parliament should, at all times, have a tendency to attract men to the farms. We have heard the admonition given to the young men to go back to the land. If we are to get them back to the land, the best way to get them there is to make the land attractive, and if by legislation you make the hours of labour from six o'clock in the. morning to five o'clock in the evening, you will find it will be very difficult to keep help on the farm. It is said that by his method of putting the clock forward one hour, there is going to be a great deal of cultivation in the backyard; that the citizens are going to flood this country with- their production. I did a little of that myself last year, and I did not have great success.


George Green Foster: You are a poor farmer.


Francis N. McCrea: 
Mr. H. H. STEVENS:: I had not intended to say anything on this Bill, but the observations of my ,hon. friend who has just sat down (Mr. McCrea) lead me to say a few words. He states that one of the main reasons why he is opposing this Bill is that if it is passed the labouring men of this country may be guilty of the crime of going home and enjoying themselves working in their garden, and perhaps coming back the next day less .able to carry out the arduous day's- work which their employer is demanding. If a good reason were wanted in support of the Bill, that one of my hon. friend is an excellent one, namely, that it would give the labouring men of the industrial centres a little -more daylight

which they could spend with their families or enjoying themselves in. their gardens.
There are just three phases of this 'question which appeal to me. First, in considering the arguments put forward against the Bill I find that they are restricted almost entirely to the farming community, and I find that the opinion of the farmers' representatives in this House is divided about equally, about as many supporting the Bill as are opposed to it. On the other hand, you will find supporting the Bill representatives of the following classes: first, the artisan class, and while I fully appreciate that the farming community deserve every consideration, I do not think they deserve any more consideration than the artisans, who also have a perfect right to be represented here, and thqir representatives say that this Bill will benefit the artisan class. Then there is the clerical class, which class, I think, has less representation than any other in the public bodies of this country; I mean the claims of the great army of persons working in offices, in large departmental and smaller stores in the cities, who are confined very often in air that is not too good. This class is certainly entitled to as much of God's sunlight as any other class, and this Bill will benefit that class to a very large extent. Then there is the business man, who will go out and play his game of golf or bowls-a comparatively small class, but deserving of representation/. Then there is the domestic class-the women wiho have to stay at home and do the cooking for the artisans and the clerks and the business men. Surely they are entitled to consideration. We have, therefore, the representatives of these various classes supporting the Bill, and opposed to it a divided class, namely, the farmers. Another argument, advanced by my hon. friend from South Oxford, I think, was that this was freakish legislation; it was quite time for Parliament to consider such legislation, he said, when it had proved a success elsewhere. Accepting that challenge, 1 would direct his attention to France, Great Britain, and the United States, our leading Allies, in all of which countries daylight saving has been adopted, not to mention other countries.-That is a reason in itself why we should adopt this measure. It will undoubtedly benefit a very large section of the community; it may, granting that the arguments are correct, work some disadvantage to another class, but it seems to me that the advantages of the Bill outweigh the disadvantages, and I therefore intend to support it.	-


Mr. ALPHONSE VERVILLE (St. Denis):: I have heard the arguments pro and con given in this House this afternoon, and I have seen that the two big factors in the country are really divided in their opinion. We have heard a good deal about farmers and production, but we must also bear in mind that the large industries of the country must also produce. The farmers are doing their utmost to increase production. Whenever there 'has been a change in the hours of labour for the artisans in the city or the workers on the farm, the same old question .always came up. It .arose when farm labourers were working from sunrise to sundown, and it came up again when the hours on the farm and in industries were changed from twelve to eleven and then, again when the hours were changed to ten. But in Spite of this reduction of working hours, production did not diminish. This is largely due to the labour-saving devices that have been introduced; it now takes less labour to produce a given .amount on the farm, or in the factory, and also less time to produce that amount. Daylight saving means much more to a large section of the community than simply saving daylight. Economy has been preached in this House by the right hon. the Minister of Trade and Commerce as well as the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers). This Daylight Saving Bill will be the means, perhaps, of effecting a great saving. In the matter of lighting alone this would mean a saving, taking the number of families we have in Canada, of over $5,000,000. Figure it up in any other way you like and you will find that it is going to save a large amount of money not only to the artisans in the cities but also to the farming community. I do not want to look at this question from the artisan's standpoint alone. My hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) this afternoon defended the farmer and showed to the House that farmers were placed at a disadvantage because of the manner in which they have to sell their goods. He forgot, perhaps, that it is not the farmer, and that it is not the consumer in the city, who is responsible. The farmer, I know, is not getting enough for the goods he is producing, and I know also that the consumer in the city is paying very much more than he should for the goods he consumes. Stop, if you can, the middlemen, the men who are living on the work of the producers, the parasites who are using other people's labour and thriving on other people's industry. Stop them if you can. Let us deal

as directly as possible with the farmer, and if we do he will get higher prices. Then he can afford to accept this daylight saving proposal. You can only extract a certain amount of work from any man whether he works on the farm or anywhere else. There is a certain amount of productive power in each man, and you can extract so much of that productive power and no more. Be it from six in the morning until five at night, or from seven in the morning until six at night, you are going to extract from him the same productive power exactly.
It has been stated this afternoon that there are times of the day when you cannot take the crop in. That may only last four or five weeks in the Fall, and if that is so it is not an objection to this change. You may call this proposal radical if you like. We will perhaps, before the end of the present session, have introduced some measures that will be considered radical by hon. members on the other side of the House; and some of these hon. gentlemen shrink from anything that appears radical. I hope we shall. As far as I am concerned, these measures will never be too radical for me. I am here to support any measure that may come before this House to alleviate, to as large an extent as possible, many of the sorrows which oppress people in the cities and in the country, and which many hon. members in this House may know of, but which, unfortunately, some of them ignore. Perhaps hon. members from the larger cities do not ignore them, although no doubt some of them do. I am satisfied that this Daylight *Saving Bill -will be of advantage to the labouring classes. I want to make it possible for a workman, when he goes home, to at least know what colour his children are as a result of being able to see them by daylight, and I want him to have an opportunity of taking a little stroll around the streets with his family. There are some industries to-day operated in such a way, even in the summertime, that the fathers of families, being obliged to travel long *distances in order to reach their work and to return to their homes, are only able to see their children on holidays and Sundays. I believe this Bill is a good measure and that it should be approved by this House. 'Let us try it.


Mr. T. M. M. TWEEDIE (West Calgary):: Mr. Speaker, in the city of Calgary they experimented with daylight saving for a certain time and, judging from the results, it was not a success. The failure of the
plan in the city of Calgary was due to various causes rather than to any inherent disadvantage in connection with the principle of daylight saving. There is a large surrounding country doing business with the city, and there was no similar Act in these outlying districts. Therefore, daylight saving cannot lbe said to have had a fair trial in that city.


An hon, MEMBER:: Louder.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Hon. members are constantly calling " louder " in the House, but I would point out that half of the noise in the House is due to the cumulative effect of conversations of various groups throughout the House and adjoining portions of the chamber. If hon. members will show a little more consideration we would have far better order in the House and we could hear much better.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: I believe that on the
whole this would be a popular measure in the city of Calgary and throughout the towns and rural parts of the province of Alberta. It seems to me that this discussion has taken a turn as if we were dealing with legislation which was placing a restriction on a certain class of the people. I cannot observe in the Bill anything which will place any restriction upon agricultural industry. But I can observe something which has been referred to in many of the speeches that have been, delivered tonight, that it will work out very greatly to the benefit of the industrial parts of Canada. I believe, as .many hon. members have said, that we should encourage the industrial classes in the cities and do everything in our power to promote their , happiness, their health and their welfare. I believe that by the enactment of this Bill we will be contributing to those (measures. It has been argued by some who have been speaking on behalf of the agricultural interests of this country that if men who are employed in city stores, offices and factories are allowed to leave their work one hour earlier than they do at the present it will set a very bad example to the men who are employed upon the farms and production will be reduced to that extent. I wish to call the attention of the hon. gentlemen who advance this view to the fact that there have been enacted in many provinces in Canada regulations relating to the employment of labour, regulations which have for their object the reduction of the hours of labour, regulations which have for their object the giving of a half holiday-


An hon. MEMBER:: Where?


Mr. JOHN BEST (Dufferin):: Mr. Speaker, representing an agricultural county as I do, I cannot see where this Bill is going to do any good. If the hon. minister who introduced the Bill had lengthened the time out one hour, then I could see where we might get a little benefit out of it. If the hon. members who spoke this afternoon are sincere in the statement that they want to have greater production, I cannot see why they cannot work an hour longer in the morning as well as at night.
Now, the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Tweedie) said that in Alberta they have legislation whereby they take a halfholiday once a week. I presume he means that that applies to the cities and towns. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that with all the talk that there is about greater production and the scarcity of food at the present time, I believe the Government is misled in the cause. It is not in the last two or three years that it has occurred, but it is just such legislation as the hon. member for Calgary said has been in force for from five to fifteen years that is taking the young men away from the farms. They want to go to the cities where the hours of labour are short, and where they can have pleasure in the evening. This has been going on until, at the present time, the farms are almost depleted. The county I have the honour to represent at one time had a population of 24,000, and I think the population now is about 17,500.
I 'believe that this Bill will affect production and affect it seriously, because there is not the slightest doubt in the world that if men in the towns and cities quit work at five o'clock and the hired men on the farms are compelled to work until six o'clock the latter will 'become dissatisfied. I want to say that during the last two years a farmer dare hardly 'tell his hired man how he wished anything done; if he dad that .man would tell him to go where there was no winter and do it himself. I have seen the statement in the papers, I think
it was by an employee of the Government, that it was expected there would be about a million acres more under cultivation in the province of Ontario. Now, if you ask the farmers of Dufferin and Simcoe counties and the adjoining constituencies as to that, they will tell you that that man ought to be in the asylum. I agree veTy largely with the remarks of my hon. friend from South Ontario (Mr. Smith) as to the Bill, except that I do not concur in what he said of the Government. I believe the Government is trying to do what is best for the interests of Canada as a whole, hut I do say that in this matter their information 'as to the sentiment behind this Bill mu6t have been obtained from towns and cities, and not from the farmers. I do not know of one farmers' organization in Canada today that is asking for this measure. I remember quite well the feeling that was expressed about it last year when county and township councils, as well as many farmers' organizations, passed resolutions in opposition to it. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the farmers of this country are just as loyal to the Empire as any other class, and they are just as willing to do what they can to advance production. I think production is the greatest issue there is today in Canada, but the fanners do not want legislation put on the statute book that will affect their labour, and there is no doubt at all that this legislation will do so. Having farmed all my life, I know that if some of my neighbours allowed their men to quit work at five o'clock the rest of the hired men would clamour to be allowed off at that hour also. There is not a farmer within my hearing who will not agree with me that from the time when haying starts until the harvest is all in the bams no man can take a binder in the field before seven or eight o'clock. If he does so, his grain is wet with the dew, and must be kept out until it is dry. He cannot put his hay in the barn or it will spoil. Therefore, he must wait until about eight o'clock to commence operations. Now if on the average he cannot get to work before eight o'clock and his men quit work at five o'clock, how is he going to get his work done? Some hon. gentlemen from cities have been urging shorter hours for the working men. All I want to say is that if the farmers in the province of Ontario with whom I am acquainted had not worked longer hours than the men in cities their farms would not be half cleared to-day and they would not be producing such crops as they are producing. As a matter

of fact they generally work from twelve to sixteen hours, and if this legislation is enacted it will surely restrict the labour for which they are willing to pay, and pay good wages at that. I think it is time the farmers of the country were consulted before legislation such as this, in which they are so greatly interested, is introduced.


Mr. A. B. HUNT (Compton):: After listening to the remarks of ihon. gentlemen from both sides of the House, I deem it my duty to enter my protest against this legislation. This is beyond question a time when greater production is needed on the farm. But the Bill will have a tendency to lessen production rather than increase it. I do not wish to take up time unnecessarily. The measure has been pretty well discussed by hon. gentlemen on both sides, and therefore I merely enter my protest against the Bill and state that I shall register my vote against it.


Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Shelburne and Queens):: A fellow-member has called my attention to- what he regards as an important fact; that in this flood of interesting debate no representative from the best province of the Dominion has yet uttered a word. If the debate were to conclude without a single word being uttered from Nova Scotia there might be some doubt as to the legality of the Bill after it had gone into operation.
However that may be I find that there is a conflict here between representatives from the cities and towns and those members coming from the country districts. It is very useful in such a case to be able to get the dispassionate opinion of some absolutely unbiased person. I do not happen to have any large city within my own constituency. I am sorry for that, I should be very glad if there were. We have a couple of pretty 'little towns, but no very large farming population. I do not believe my people are going to be affected by this Bill one way or the other to any considerable extent. I know that our people go to bed earlier down there. Just at this hour when we are discussing this Bill, in my constituency all respectable people are going to bed. Whatever you may do with this measure-and I may say that I am in favour of it-I do not think it is going to be a matter . of serious consequence to my constituency. In any event the fishermen, the lumbermen and the shipbuilders there are going to start in and work just the same no matter whether this Bill passes or not; but I do feel that, strong as the argument is from the point of view of the farmers on this

question, and there is much force in it, there is . a very strong argument in the appeal made on behalf of the workmen in the cities. I do not for a moment say that their claims are equal to those of the farmers, but the conditions of the workmen in our cities and towns surely entitle them to much consideration. It is admitted, I think, on all hands, that so far as the workmen in the cities and towns are concerned this will be a useful measure, and to that extent it is certainly deserving of our most serious consideration. If I believed that the Bill was going to prove an injury to the farmers of the country I would not for a moment support it. Although there is no very great farming vote in my constituency I realize that, looking at this question broadly, the farming interest is the great and paramount interest at all times, and never more so than at this moment. But the farmers, most of us know, are conservative-with a small "c" remember. They are not ready as a rule to make changes, they look with suspicion upon everything of the kind. I am not surprised that in this case they have been in doubt, and that that doubt has crystallized in some cases into strong opposition to this Bill. The history of this legislation everywhere shows that in its early stages it was received with doubt. Over in England that very strong workingmen's advocate, Mr. Willett, drew the attention of Parliament to this matter some years ago. He was laughed at and jeered at, but, nevertheless, although poor Willett did not live to see it, his proposition now forms a very important part of the legislation of the Mother Country. After it has been adopted there, and also adopted in the United States, surely our farming friends will admit that this legislation must have some considerable merit. I think the farming interest is needlessly alarmed. The condition of the farmer is such that he is not going to be governed by the clock but by his own convenience.
There is something in the argument that the farm labourer, the hired man, will be unwilling to work after the hour when he thinks that his fellow workman in the city has ceased to work; but I think, taking it all in all, the farmer is in a better position to act independently. In the cities and towns the various classes of labour are more or less inter-dependent, one branch of business, cannot go on unless the business across the street is going on at the same time. It is not so with the farmer; he can arrange his own business, and he need not care what his neighbour is doing.

I appreciate the force of the argument about the farm labourers, but I think that the arguments in favour of the Bill are so strong, and the experience of other countries so greatly in favour of it, that it is reasonable to ask our farming friends to allow the Bill to be passed and give it a trial. If the measure does not prove to he as good as we hope it to be, as good as it seems to be in other countries where it has been tried, we shall have time to repeal it before much harm is done.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question, question.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I must direct the attention of the House to the fact that if the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce exercises his right to reply, he will close the debate.
Mr. D. D. McKENZdE (Cape Breton and Victoria):	Before the minister speaks, I
wish to state I have no decided views on this Bill, and for that reason I would like to have more information in regard to it than we have so far received. It would appear to the outsider that this Bill did not receive the consideration in the Cabinet, or in the Government, that it should have received before being introduced in this House. There are certain gentlemen with certain portfolios in the Cabinet who should enlighten us to some extent, or give us their views upon this subject, which is one of very great importance. We have in this Cabinet a Minister of Labour who is supposed to be in close touch with the views of labour all over this country. Labour in all its phases has the right to look for guidance and help to the Minister of Labour, and I am sure that hon. gentleman is disposed to be as useful to the great body of people he represents as he can be, and if the Minister of Trade and Commerce applied to him for the views of labour on this subject, I presume he would be in position to put himself in touch with the proper avenues of information in connection with the various associations which represent labour and give the Minister of Trade and Commerce the consensus of opinion among that very important class. We have not heard from the Minister of Labour, (Mr. Crothers) and I am afraid that, if he were asked for the views of the bodies he is supposed to represent in this House, he would have no very live or fresh information from them. In this I may be mistaken, but the hour is not too late, and if the Minister of Labour has any well defined views upon this subject, and if he has
gathered proper information from the different bodies that he is supposed to represent, we would like ta hear from him on this very important question. We have another gentleman representing another department in this House, the Minister of Agriculture. He is a farmer, I understand, and in the widest possible way and in the most concrete manner represents the farming interest and communities, and is in touch with the farmers of this country. As an outsider who has been brought up on a farm, and in close sympathy with the farmer, although a lawyer hy profession, I would- expect the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Crerar) to tell those of us who are not so well versed in the requirements of the farm as we ought to be, what his views are. We would not be going too far if we expected the Minister of Agriculture to be in his seat, closely watching what was being said by hon. members who are here. He is here to represent the vieiws of the farmers and to impress them upon this House, and the Cabinet, and he should give this House the conclusions which he has reached and the advice which he gave hie brother minisr-ters in the Cabinet before this Bill was introduced. We have no such information and no such light from men whose business it is to be well informed upon questions of this kind. For that reason it is somewhat puzzling to a person like myself to know whether I am serving well my constituency by voting for or against this Bill. I represent a large body of labouring men, perhaps about as large as in any other rural constituency, as I may call my constituency. I represent also a large 'body of farmers, a mixed community. I am honest in stating that I cannot say now, with all the study this Bill has received, which way I could really vote on it in the best interests of'my constituents, and if I had any advice to give the Government it would be to withhold this Bill for a while, and get in touch with the different interests of the country and ascertain positively hy the best means what is the real sentiment of the country upon this question. I can assure the hon. minister that there is mo. well-matured or well-defined public opinion upon the question., and that, so far as the province from, which I come is concerned, the question hae never been carefully considered.. I venture to say that Nova Scotia is in. much the same position as the other provinces of Canada as far as diue deliberation, onthis.question is concerned. I desire to say to the Government, and to the hon, gentlemen in chaTge of this Bill, that there is at least danger, hy fore-

ing this Bill upon, farming communities, that he is going to create dissatisfaction and dissension in the country, and this is a time when no friction of any kind should be created which can possibly (be avoided. We want to have the farmers, labourers and everybody in this country with their minds on the one thing, and one thing only, namely, that every ounce of strength and everything we have, without any disruption or disturbance, should be guided and directed to the one object of winning the war. In the community from which I come, where there is a great deal of steel and co^l producing, they are in fixed grooves about the divisions of the day. I never in my life spoke to the .hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce with more sincerity than I do at present. Everybody knows me in this House to be a hard-shell partisan, and there is no mistaking what I am, hut I talk earnestly and deliberately to the minister, because this is not a party question. Nobody is taking a party view of it, and I am not. In the coal mines and steel works the day is fixed in certain divisions. Certain classes of men have to get up at four o'clock in the morning, and some at three o'clock in the morning, .go down in the mines and operate, and prepare the way for workmen to come on later in the day. I am afraid that, with the tension that is upon our people now in the production of steel and coal, with every man at his post at certain divisions of the day, and at certain hours, if this Bill is passed it will be throwing them largely out of joint, and creating a condition of things that might cause friction and dissatisfaction. Things are going along in a first-class way, and I would, in all sincerity say to the minister and to the Government that it is only a year ago since we had this Bill before us, and there was nobody in the House who would stand as godfather for the Bill. It had to go unbaptized without receiving any ceremony or sacrificial blessing at all. I am surprised that a man of the hon. minister's experience and caution, unless there was a great cry or demand for it, should force it upon this Parliament again within such a short time, without having satisfied himself that he was on a much safer ground than he was on before. I was in this House when the Bill was introduced last year and said something about it. I remember the complexion of the House, and I see very little difference. There are more people in favour of it now than there were then, but I see that the men who were against it then are against it now, 
and there are no converts to the cause of this Bill of those who were in the House when it was introduced before. The minister is going to force this Bill to a division; he is going to make a serious division in this House, and he is forcing upon the farmers and other classes of the community legislation for which they are not asking and which many of them are opposing. If this is an experiment, as the minister himself and the best friends of the Bill say, I venture to tell the Prime Minister and the Government and our friends in this House that this is no time for experiments; it is a time for the best use of such machinery as we have and for the putting forth of every power we have along the old lines looking to the best possible results.


Mr. J. P. MOLLOY (Provenoher):: As a farmer and as an employer of labour, I desire to say a word in opposition to this Bill. In Western Canada to-day employers of labour are paying a higher rate of wages for farm labour than they ever did before. They are paying from fifty, sixty, seventy to eighty dollars a month and more, depending upon the locality. The board, figure it as cheaply as you can, runs from seventy-five cents to a dollar a day. In Manitoba, in the rush of seeding and more particularly in harvesting time, if you apply to a labour bureau for men, they may say: We can get you a certain number of men. If you are not there with an automobile, if you have one or, if not, if you do not hire one to take the men out to the farm, they will not go with you but will go with the man who is willing to furnish that convenience. The labour people in the West have the farmer pretty nearly by the * throat at the present time. If yon are going to legislate and put it on the statute book of this country and publish it broadcast that a farm labourer will start work at a certain hour in the morning and will finish his day's work at a certain time in the evening, according to law, you are putting impediments in the way of the greater production which is needed in this country more than anything else at this time.
So far as gardening in the cities is concerned, many intimate friends of mine had gardens and they did not raise enough in their back yards to pay for the hoeing. Gardening is not a profitable business except when it is carried on by very experienced men.
As a farmer and as an employer of labour I am opposed to this Bill. It is not in the interest of the farmer. I have no complaint so far as labour is concerned itself.

The -men on the farm that I operate, from the day seeding commences until the day fall ploughing closes, have never been in bed after half past four in the morning, and have never left work until half past six at night- If you set the clock forward an hour, those same men, following the law, and the custom, as custom it will become, will get up at half past three o'clock. That will not benefit the farmer because, in the early days of spring and in the late days of fall, it is black darkness at that hour in the morning. Men cannot work at half past three in the morning, in the latter part of August, September and October, nor can they do it in the month of April. They can do it in the months of June, July and the first part of August.
Another point of view of the western farmer is this: In eastern and southern Manitoba we have to summerfallow largely to produce the crops we are producing, and the work of destroying the weeds must be done in the months of July and August in the very hot weather. If you quit work at five o'clock in the evening, your summer-fallow will not receive the same benefit because you do not spend the same time on it as if you worked until six o'clock in the evening. No farmer from Manitoba will contradict my statement that the sow thistle must be destroyed in the heat of the day an July and August. If you are going to start a sort of Sunday school farming operation, letting the hired man 10 p.m. quit when he chooses, that is not going to be in the interest of the people at all. Who have asked for this legislation? The people in the cities. Then let the people in the cities have all the daylight saving they wish. We say: Do not interfere with us. This is not the day of baseball, as an hon. member said. We are not looking for ball players according to the Act which was passed here at the last session, and which I opposed. I refer to the Conscription Act. We are not looking for baseball players by any means.
Another hon. gentleman stated to-day that the passing of this Bill would aid transportation. Daylight saving will not aid transportation, so far as the output of the western farmers is concerned, one-hundred thousandth part as much as the lowering of the freight rate. On that ground I am opposed to the passing of this Bill. Personally, I do not think it will make any difference to me, but, as the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) has said, it has come before the public; but it is doubtful if it has the sanction of the Government; the Minister lb
of Agriculture, who is a western member and citizen, and the Minister of Labour, have neither said a word in regard to it. Why then, should we accept this Bill simply because the Minister of Trade and Commerce or any other member of this House has brought it forward on the weak grounds on which he has introduced it?


George Green Foster: 

countries, we have to the south of us the great United States, which spreads over zones and takes in conditions as nearly parallel with our own as it is possible to find between two countries. It is a country which has democratic institutions probably as well based as any country in the world; it is a country where there is a complete facility of representation of every interest in the legislative bodies before a Bill becpmes law. That country has given two years of examination to the question of daylight saving, and has come to the conclusions which I have, stated here this afternoon. They were not seeking to enthrone fad or freakish legislation. What impelled the United States and Great Britain and France to put this legislation upon their statute books was not to appeal to fads or freaks or anything of that kind; it was to aid in production and to strengthen the hands of the country for the war which it was carrying on. Taking the United States as an example, let me speak again of what I mentioned a little earlier in the day. Who were the two men who stood for this legislation in the House of Representatives, who urged its speedy enactment, and who appealed for two months more of it rather than the five months provided by the legislation which had passed the Senate? They are two men who are not airing fads, men at the head of the two great agencies for the conservation of fuel and 'the production of food in the United States of America, agencies not merely for the purpose of conserving fuel and producing food for commercial purposes, but conserving fuel and producing food in order to strengthen the hands of those who are carrying on the war. There was no question of thoughtless legislation. This is too serious a time in every country engaged in the war to ftave their legislatures spend a single, moment passing faddish or freakish legislation.
The great purpose underlying this legislation is to strengthen the hands of those who are carrying on the fight for freedom and for liberty. Now I think that ought to appeal to us, and I think it does appeal to us. Take the farming population of the United States, take all the active interests of the United States with their complete representation in both their legislative Houses, and with two years in which to make their opinions known-a country which, like our own, is very largely made up of farmers, and extends over zones quite as liberal as our own, over latitudes and longitudes which are quite as extensive as ours-it hardly needs more than the 
presentation of the fact to lead one to conclude that there must be something important, something strong and powerful in the thing itself to appeal in that way to such a people, and to bring About the Tesult shown in the two legislative bodies at Washington. I think that should remove from us the fear that this legislation is an unknown thing which may have involved in it the perils or difficulties and inconveniences which some men fear. Similar fears were expressed in England. If you will read the report of the Commission that enquired into this matter, and which I mentioned this afternoon, you will find that the same fears were voiced, and honestly voiced, as have been expressed around these benches to-day. Those fears were expressed Iby agriculturists in Great Britain, and it was almost solely from them that opposition came at the inception of the scheme. What does the report of that Commission say which was appointed to make that investigation? It says that these fears have been proved to he largely unfounded; that many of those who voiced those fears against this legislation in 1916 were in favour of it being renewed in 1917. Then came a period of actual and practical working out of the legislation, and in a country which is more interested in the extended production of food than any other country engaged in the war, the working out of that legislation in its second year proved so satisfactory that this year not only was it again put into operation without a dissenting voice, but the period during which it remains in force has been extended. Surely, that must tend to allay our fears. Surely, it is not an unknown step we are taking, not an unknown sea into which we are steering our bark. This legislation is proposed in the light of one of the most signal examples of the stepping up of an idea into practical legislation that the world has ever seen, and in a period of the world's history which has been the most strenuous and the most serious that the world has ever known. I think that ought to weigh with us; it weighed with this Government.
Something has been said with reference to all the members of the Government not having spoken on this Bill. I was surprised at the modesty of my hon. friend who sits opposite me (Mr. McKenzie). He, who has been a farmer, who has lived in the very centre of an industrial district, who has been a lawyer and is yet, who has heen a judge and who has had the greatest of all opportunities for knowing everything-a member of Parliament- comes here and says that he does not quite

know how he should vote because he has not heard from the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Agriculture. What modesty my hon. friend has cultivated in this last year since we met him before! Before that I could not have credited him with such intense modesty as that. I did not believe that my hon. friend was bending forward in intense anxiety, to know what my hon. friend the Minister of Labour should tell him to do or what my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture should advise him to do, before he could vote intelligently on this question.
Let us look at another phase of the question. As my hon, friend from Queens-Shel-burne (Mr. Fielding) and others have said, there is just one point in the argument against this Bill that appeals to me, and it is the position of the farmer who is contiguous to the city or town and who has to hire help upon his farm. He says that there is a possibility in that case of his farm labourer knocking off work at the hour, getting away and having a good time. He fears it. He is suspicious that that will be what will happen.


William Smith: Is not that true?


George Green Foster: How can we tell whether it is true or not unless it is tried? Yet, it has been tried and that is the way we tell whether it is true or not. It has been tried exactly in the same way in Great Britain. Where we have one town in close proximity to the acres that the farmers are tilling, they'have half a dozen. They are in the midst of towns and cities. The very same fear that my good old friend has voiced here to-night was in the hearts of the farmers, and was expressed. It has been put to the test of three years of actual, practical working and it has not proved to be the trouble that it was supposed it would be. My hon. friend, I think, will find that it will work out in the same way here. But let us give it a little analysis.	Here, are all the farmers in
Canada. Amongst all the farmers of Canada there are a large number who do not hire any help at all. How many are there of those in this country? Are they one-half? Are they two-thirds? Whether they are one-half or two-thirds, you must eliminate those entirely; this Bill cannot affect them on the labour question one bit. The father, the sons, the daughters, the mother-all can keep pegging away at the farming business from the time they get up in the morning until they leave it at night, and no labour difficulty comes to them, because this Bill does not make it obligatory upon
them to rise at any hour, to eat at any hcur or to go to bed at any hour. They go to work as they please and there is no prohibition or penalty in that respect. Therefore, you have the larger part of the producing people of the country outside of any deleterious influence from a bill of this kind.
Coming down to the others, there are those who do employ labour. But they are not all next-door neighbours to the city or the town; consequently, it will not have " that direct influence upon them which is feared if it were shown that the labourers upon the farms would be drawn away from their work and would work like hours to those in the cities. , Making a division of those then who do employ hired labour, you find that a large proportion is outside of the direct influence of the city, town or village. Then you come to those who are closer to those places and may be somewhat affected by that fact. But you have to take the average in this sort of thing. It would not do for a man who happens to live on a farm close by a city to make opposition to a thing That does not affect three-quarters of the farming and producing community because it might possibly affect him. I just wanted to make that simple analysis to help us to think as broadly as possible in coming to a conclusion in reference to this question.
Without this legislation, we should be, within a few days, in regard to the United States of America, through our commercial transactions with that country in the way of transport, in a position in which we never have been before. On the first day of April their time changes, their clocks go ahead. All their operations in the way of exchanges, commission houses, banks-all the different associations of business and enterprise works along an hour in advance of ours. That might make an important difference in reference to ourselves, and it has to be taken into account. All our prejudices, or all our arguments, will not affect that in the least. It is going to come into operation on the first day of April and it will remain in operation until the 31st day of October. We must have some regard, when we give our votes upon this measure, to the relations which must take place between them and us during this very long period of the year.


William Smith: What about 1911?


George Green Foster: What about 1911?
It is a characteristic of political warfare that wherever one can get the blade of the

sabre in the flesh of an opponent, there is a great temptation to give it a little turn. But what under heaven has a thing that took place in. 1911, or did not take place in 1911, to do with the matter of our making a decision upon a Daylight Saving Bill? Surely, -whilst we may take the fun of a joke and of a jab in good fashion, we must as sensible people and I appeal to my hon. friend directly opposite me cut that out from our consideration when we come to the analysis of the Bill which is in hand.
My hon. friend from Montreal, St. Denis (Mr. Verville), stated the position of labour.
I think he stated it fairly well, but I want to add one thing. I am not -at all of the opinion that -under these circumstances, and in -these days, if you give to the great labouring classes of this country, to the clerical classes and to the people who are engaged in sedentary employment-, an extra hour, they will all throw u.p their hats, shout at -the top of their voices and go on spending that hour in a scene of jollification or in a lazy pleasure-seeking way. I think there is a spirit abroad in this country which leads every thinking man and every thinking woman to feel that this is the day and this is the year during which they should employ every -hour that they have in the production of the food that is so necessary to this country and to the world. You talk about putting people back on the land. Here is one of the most excellent opportunities of giving .people a taste for going back on the land. High prices are prevalent and the pressure of living is- strong. Every labouring man who has a bit of a plot of land has the incentive in him to get to work on that land and do something to ease the- iburden which is upon him and to aid in acquiring what is necessary for his existence at least. To my mind; if you give an hour a day six days in the week to the labouring .men of this country from ocean to ocean, you will put an exceedingly large number of hours into -productive work which in the end will total an immense addition to the foo-d products raised in Canada.
You will instil into the hearts and implant in the tastes of these people a desire for repeating next year what they do this year. That is, you will instil a taste for the soil, and that will instil itself into their children, and there is no better school, to my mind, in which to bring back the people to some participation in the cultivation of the land than lies in the facilities which a Bill of this kind will give in Canada, which

it has given in Great Britain, and which it will give this year in the United States.
Now, I have kept the House too long, but I want to state this one thing further. An hon. member asked me when I came into the House to-night if this Bill could not be made just for one year, and not permanently. He had the impression that it was a permanency. In no country has daylight saving been made a permanency although in every country in which it has been tried temporarily for a year, it has gone on into the next year, and into the following year again; and the general impression to-day is that it has come to stay in those countries where it first came as a temporary expedient. This Bill is for this season only. My hon. friend from Queens and Shelburne (Mr. Fielding) will not need to come back next year, if the Bill does not work well, to have it repealed. Its effect ceases at the end of the season, and the duration that is given to it is in the choice of the Governor in Council; it will be proclaimed in and for the length of time that is necessary.
One word more, -and it is with reference to the railroad traffic. Some hon. gentleman enquired as to whether or not railroad traffic would .be helped by it. The universal testimony in Great Britain, and the sentiment in the United States, is that railroad accidents and casualties will he lessened, and that the transport of freight will be greatly extended.
I do not want to conclude my remarks without saying one word as to the saving, economical qualities in the Bill. In the United States the careful estimate is that the lighting bill alone of American families will be eased by the -sum of $40,000,000. ^ In war time that is a wonderfully economical saving to make. In Canada it will effect a somewhat equal saving in proportion to our population.


An hon. MEMBER:: How can it?


George Green Foster: Just in this way: that from April until the end of September or October there are certain- hours of darkness or semi-darkness in which people use light. Now, it has been said in this House that you -may make all the daylight saving legislation you like, and you may set the clock ahead, but the people wlill not go to bed by the clock. That was said in- Great Britain, in France and in every country in which this legislation has been introduced; but the working out of it was exactly the reverse. People do go to bed by .the clock. And if they save an hour of lighting in -all those months, that is where the -saving

comes in in their light bill. Mr, Garfield makes the calculation that in the United States at least 1,000,000 tons of coal in the manufacture of light will be saved, and one million tons of coal is a large item in these days when coal needs so greatly to be conserved. The calculation made out of the actual year's experiment in Great Britain was that a large saving was made in coal, in gas, in oil for lighting, and in the electrical and other lighting in the homes of the people. What has taken place there will take place with us. I am sorry to have imposed so long on the House in my second series of remarks, and facing you at this time, Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to move the second reading of the Bill.


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

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
Civil Government-Department of Labour-Salaries $58,287.50-Contingencies $15,000.
Mr. BUREAU:: Is there any increase in this amount?


Robert Laird Borden: There is a decrease.


Mr. MURPHY:: How does that happen?


Mr. CROTHERS:: There are fewer civil servants employed in the department than there were last year.


Charles Murphy: I draw the minister's attention to the fact that the estimates give the same number this year as last, although the total shows a decrease in the amount. Has somebody's status been reduced?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Nine of the items represent vacancies that have not been filled. My hon. friend knows the practice. For example, where a clerk dies, or is promoted, the position that was previously held by him still appears in the estimates year after year until the vacancy is filled.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Has Mr. Gerald Brown, who was assistant deputy minister but was relieved of his duties, been given employment in another department of the Government?


Mr. McMASTER:: I do not want to make a nuisance of myself about the matter of speaking louder, but really if it is desired that the private members, or back benchers, should take an intelligent interest in what is going on, we must ask the gentlemen who are leading on both sides of the House
to speak in an audible voice- They should follow the example of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, who enunciate clearly and distinctly.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I understand the gentleman to whom the member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) referred is employed in another branch, but I have no personal knowledge of it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Perhaps the Prime Minister can inform the House as to what Mr. Brown is now doing.


Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Gerald
Brown is now acting as secretary of the Reconstruction and Development Committee.
Mr. LEMIEUX. What is his salary there?


Robert Laird Borden: I do not recollect at this moment; I will ascertain and let the hon. gentleman know.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Would the minister state if the report is true that a strike is in progress in one of the large coal mines in Nova Scotia, and if so, what means he is taking to prevent that strike?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: My latest information is that at a meeting next month the miners will take a vote as to whether they shall strike or not. In the meantime they are at work.


Jacques Bureau: Do these items cover the salaries of those officers in the department who have charge of collecting the statistics upon which are based, or ascertained, the current prices of different commodities?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: They include the officers of that description, headed by Mr. Bryce Stewart.


Jacques Bureau: Will the minister give a short statement as to how many of these officers he has now, and what information they are gathering? Is the information obtained by inquiry of the retail or wholesale dealers as to what prices they are asking for the various commodities?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: This information is obtained in different ways. We have, as my hon. friend probably knows, an officer in every town and city in Canada having a population of ten thousand or over. This officer also acts as a correspondent of the Labour Gazette and reports as to prices generally once a month, although -he has been required to report twice a month. We

get reports from these officers, also reports from the markets, and from wholesale and retail dealers.


Mr. DEVLIN:: I understand that part of the staff is to be transferred to the new Food Control Board. Is that correct?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: No part of the staff has been transferred.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Will there be a transfer of a portion of the staff in future?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: That is not correct, as far as I am aware.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Then do I understand that Mr. O'Connor will carry on his operations under the Department of Labour in the future, as he has in the past?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I am not able to inform my hon. friend as to what may occur in the future.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Well, in the immediate future?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Mr. O'Connor is still occupying the place he has occupied since a year ago last November, and there is no * intention of removing him at the present time as far as I am aware.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: With the creation of the new Food Control Board, will operations as respects the prices of commodities in Canada ibe continued under the Department of Labour, or will they be tranferred to the new Board?


Robert Laird Borden: Regulations in regard to the control of food prices are embodied in the Orders in Council recently placed on the Table. One, I think, has been passed recently which has been published in the press.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend (Mr. Crothers) stated that the statistics taken in the department have reference only to the current prices. Reading the report of his department issued in 1917, but covering the year 1916, I read on the first page that we have made progress in that line. I forget the name of the gentleman who signs the report; I think it is Mr. Acland, if I am not mistaken, but what struck me is this: He says ,in effect, that for some years, and as far back as 1907, they have been trying to follow the changes in the prices, but that for 1915 and 1916-the period covered by the report issued last year-they have also statistics as to production in the various parts of the country. Now, I want to ascertain from the minister if those statistics are

Obtained from the same source on which are based the retail and wholesale prices of commodities, or from another source altogether? In the city of Three Rivers the gentleman who reports to the Labour Department-and I have occasion to meet him sometimes-.makes inquiries more as ' to labour conditions than he does with respect to prices of commodities which are considered the necessaries of life. I should think that this man, living in the city of Three Rivers, and inquiring mostly from mills, manufacturing establishments and shipyards, would not be the proper authority to afford information to the minister as to the production of foodstuffs in and around Three Rivers as far as the necessaries of life are concerned.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I have not before me the report to which my hon .friend refers, and which is prepared by the Deputy Minister of Labour, but in addition to the sources that I mentioned to him a moment ago, we issue questionnaires monthly, I think to wholesale dealers and leading retail dealers, concerning food, clothing and fuel. We get monthly reports from these people, in fact they set forth a great many items as to the' quantities they purchase and the prices that were paid for them, the quantities they have sold and the prices at which they were sold. That is a very important source of information that we have in addition to the one I mentioned to my hon. friend a moment ago.


Jacques Bureau: With reference to production, I might tell my hon. friend that if I had sold 100 tons of coal, or 100 bushels of potatoes, that would not give him any idea or any information as to the production of coal or potatoes in that particular district. I understood from the report that the figures as to production were being ascertained in the department now. I want to know on what information they were obtained.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I rather think the hon. member for Three Rivers is wrong in his interpretation of the words used by the deputy minister in that report. We do not get any report froim. the farmers as to the quantity produced, so that if he used the word "production," he did not use it in the sense of 'the quantity produced by the farmers.


Alphonse Verville: Who is the Fair Wage officer in the eastern part of Canada? Ha6 he an office in Montreal? How much salary is he receiving? By whom, was he recommended for the position, and what is his territory?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: The gentleman; who
represents the Labour Department in the province of -Quebec is Theoifile Bertrand. He was appointed about a year ago, at a salary of $1,500. I cannot recall who recommended him, but he was appointed on my own judgment. Several gentlemen spoke favourably of him. I sent for him, talked the matter over with him, and satisfied myself that he was a suitable man for the position., before making the appointment.


Alphonse Verville: He must have been
recommended by some one, whether by an organized, labour body or an individual. Can the hon. minister tell me whether he was recommended by any labour body in Montreal?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I rather think not. My impression is he was not recommended by any labour organization, but was recommended by several leading labour men.


Alphonse Verville: Was anybody recommended by an organized labour body for the position?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I think not. There were other names mentioned, but I think they were not recommended by organized labour.


Samuel William Jacobs: I should like to have some information in regard to the item of " Packer and Sorter, $762.50 ". What are the duties of that officer?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Various duties. I do not know that the words " packer and sorter " clearly define what those duties are.


Samuel William Jacobs: Not a pork packer?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: No. You will see these officers are mentioned in each one of the departments. They perform different kinds of labour-messenger work principally.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I may say that I hold no brief for Mr. O'Connor; I have met him occasionally, but there have been rumours of late that he might be transferred to another department, or that his services might be dispensed with. I have seen this assertion in some of the newspapers. I hope this is not true, because I can assure my hon. friend that Mr. O'Connor enjoys the fullest confidence of the Canadian public, and especially of the Canadian consumer. The revelations ho made in the investigations which he held during the last year have brought his name very prominently before the public. I refer particularly to the revelations which be made concerning the bacon inquiry
and the egg inquiry. Generally speaking, the cold storage conditions in the country have aroused public opinion to such a pitch that I am inclined to believe that Mr. O'Connor is very much needed in the position he now occupies. I hope my hon. friend will disprove those rumours, and state to the House and to the country that Mr. O'Connor is going to remain where he is. During the war, when we are facing a very serious condition in regard to the high price of commodities, this gentleman has shown so much ability and so much regard for the public and for the consumer that I hope he will continue in his good work. I would not mention the matter but for the fact that I have read statements in the press that Mr. O'Connor might perhaps be shifted elsewhere. I know there are many interests that would be anxious to see Mr. O'Connor out of the way, but it so happens that Mr. O'Connor has struck a note iWhdch brought from the public the response that he was needed. He is possibly to-day the most fearless official in the general public service, on account of his honesty of purpose, ability and keenness. I have read his various reports, as my hon. friend has read them; they cannot be discounted. Mr. O'Connor has aroused public opinion, and it would be a sorry day indeed if his services were dispensed with, particularly at the present moment, under the pressure of some of the firms which were investigated by him during the course of last year. I do not think it is the intention of my hon. friend to dispense with Mr. O'Connor's services, but I would like him to assure us that Mr. O'Connor is there to stay, where he is without fear or favor doing such splendid work for the consumer.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I quite agree with my hon. friend. Mr. O'Connor is a very capable and exceedingly industrious man. He works all night very often, and he is a fearless gentleman.


Rodolphe Lemieux: And honest.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: He has made a number of very valuable reports. Any one who has read the reports he made on sugar, will observe that he followed the sugar from the field where it is grown in Cuba to your table, and the report was so thorough and satisfactory that there have been no complaints concerning sugar since.


Rodolphe Lemieux: But the bacon report was the best.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: He made a very valuable report in regard to the coal. He has

the means of ascertaining monthly by sworn statement the quantity of coal that comes, for instance, into the city of Ottawa. He is in communication with all the leading coal dealers in Canada and he gets a sworn statement from each one monthly of the quantities of coal they receive, the prices they pay for it, the quantities they sell, and the prices they sell it for. He keeps track of the cost of the manufacture of bread. He can tell you what it costs to make bread in Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal or any other town in Canada. His report on the question of bacon, as my hon. friend said, was confirmed by a very capable commission that was afterwards appointed, and in substance everything that Mr. O'Connor had said in his report was confirmed by that commission. The report is a very valuable one, .and the people of Canada, in more ways than one, are receiving and will receive benefits by Teason of the report Mr. O'Connor has made on bacon.


Mr. CANNON:: Has the Government taken any action on the bacon report?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: A very important action was taken by Order in Council fixing the taxation of the profits of packers. That was probably the result of the work done by Mr. O'Connor and his very able assistant. He has had assisting him a young lady, Miss McKenna, who took a special course in , economics at Toronto University, who had a fellowship in the University for several years, and who did a great deal of practical work. She has rendered Mr. O'Connor very great assistance. I am sorry to say that we shall probably lose her services very soon because she got married a short tame ago. It will be a misfortune if Mr. O'Connor ceases to work as he has been working for some time, and I think I can assure my hon. friend that he will continue in the position in which he now is.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I do not want to delay the minister in passing his estimates, but we are now at a very important item. The minister has already spoken of the action which Mr. O'Connor has taken in inquiring into the prices which prevail for different commodities. I have not the Order in Council before me, but I think I am right in saying that iri the Order in Council creating the Food Commission power was given to take action to remedy any excessive price that was charged by dealers in commodities. The minister	says	that	theonly	action which	was taken was
to tax the profits of packers such as Sir Joseph Flavelle, who was referred to by an hon. gentleman on this side of the
[Mr. Crothers.l
(House. This is a matter which concerns the whole people of Canada and the Allies. This evening I find that an organ in this city, which supported former Government and which offers very strong support to the present Government, has an editorial to /which I wish to call the minister's attention. It runs as follows:
At the inquiry being conducted .by Commissioner Tustin in Winnipeg into the destruction of several thousand pounds of chicken taken from the storage of the William Davies Company-
I presume that is Sir Joseph Flavelle's company.
-after it had spoiled1, it has been stated in evidence that during the time the chicken was in storage the company refused to sell chicken to the Winnipeg General Hospital ait the market price.
I do not always rely upon what I read in the newspapers. I am sorry to say I place extremely little faith at times in what I read in this paper, the Ottawa Evening Journal, but I will give Mr. Ross credit for this fact: that when he publishes in his editorial column an instance such as that, he must have ascertained the veracity of it. I call the minister's attention to this particular fact. There has been too much of this going on, and certain of the people of Canada are suffering from it. If the minister will allow me to remind him, without unduly speaking of myself, before the war .started I called his attention by way of question in this House to the increasing cost of living, and I asked him to take some action to remedy, or at least to meet, the situation confronting Canada. From that day to this no action has apparently been taken. I may not .be right in stating, but I think I am, that by the original Order in Council the minister has the power to take some action other than taxing the companies by way of a tax on profits. Sir Joseph Flavelle will pay his war tax the same as every other individual in this country. Everybody at the present moment is trying to do his utmost to help the Allies. Wo have had examples in this city quite recently in the collection for the Patriotic Fund. I know of an incident of one poor woman a widow with ten children giving ten cents, wishing to give her mite towards the Patriotic Fund and thus help the soldiers who are battling for the cause of liberty. Whilst the people are making these sacrifices, should not the /Minister of Labour, if he has the power-and if he has not he should get it-take some action to keep down undue profits? I represent a rural constituency, and I thoroughly

understand from the discussion to-day the difficulty of getting farm labour. I understand that what is produced on the farm to-day must, of necessity, cost more than it did a feiw years ago. I take all that into account. Farm labour is high. That has been stated upon the floor
11 p.m. of the House to-day. Everything the farmer buys to-day he has to pay dearer for. Therefore, he must sell his goods dearer. I do not think any ' exception is taken by the people of this country as to what they have to pay the farmer by way of legitimate profit. Exception is taken by the people to what they have to pay by way of excessive profit to the speculator. If any action on the part of the Government becomes imperative at the present moment, it is some action to save the country from the speculator in commodities. I would like to ask the minister, if he has the power under that Order in Council, if he is going to do anything to remedy the conditions in this country with reference' to excessive profits, and if he has mot that power, whether he proposes to get it.
Mr. CROTHEiRS: My hon. friend refers to the original order of November, 1916?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Yes.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: That order provided,
amongst other thinge, that no prosecution can be instituted without the consent of the Attorney General of the province.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: But it gives power tp
the Government?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Not to the Government in particular, but to my hon. friend in his riding, just as he has the power to institute a prosecution in any other case.	* i
Mr. DuTREMBLAY:	Has he the power
to fix the price?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: No, to prosecute.
Mr. DuTREMBLAY:	I understand that
the price of paper has been fixed.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I do not quite see what relevancy that has to this Order in Council which deals with food.


Lucien Cannon: Why not fix the price
of food if you fix the price of paper? Paper is less important than food.
Mr- CROTHERS: This Order in Council does not empower this Government to make any prosecutions. Speaking generally, when we pass a criminal law or quasicriminal law, it is not part of the duty of the Dominion Government to enforce that law, except perhaps as concerns the Customs and Inland Revenue Departments.
If, for instance, a horse is stolen, the man who has lost that horse does not come to the Minister of Justice at Ottawa, hut to the County Crown Attorney, or to the Attorney-General of the province. This Order in Council provides that no prosecution shall be instituted without the consent of the Attorney-General of the province in which the offence is alleged to have been committed, and it is up to any individual to secure the consent of the Attorney-General and proceed with the prosecution.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I understand that thor- . oughly well, but when the Dominion Government enacts particular legislation carrying with it a penalty, as in the instance just cited by my hon. friend, who is an exceptionally good lawyer, the Dominion Government initiates proceedings. I thoroughly understand that the Dominion Government did not wish to take proceedings without the consent of the Attorney-General of the respective provinces. I am not so particular as to the form by which the Dominion Government proceeds, or as to the technicalities of the law. What I want to get at is prosecution in the case of excessive profits. I do not think there will be entire satisfaction among the people of Canada at the present moment, when the minister says the member for Wright has the power to prosecute. I will tell the minister this, right away, that whatever case of excessive profits comes into my hands for prosecution, will be prosecuted to the utmost limit. What the people expect is for the Government to initiate proceedings against those making excessive profits. We have a Solicitor-General for that purpose. He could very well undertake that work, but to think that absolutely no action is taken during war time, at a moment when we require to conserve all our resources, and when all our money is required to carry on the war and the affairs of this country-why, it is really tantamount to criminal, and I think the Minister of Labour, if charged with this work, ought at once to proceed to get power to prosecute.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: There would not be many complaints, because my hon. friend says he has not received one in eighteen months.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I am not going to let the minister run away with these little niceties.

I said that if a case -comes into my hands to prosecute 1 will prosecute it. I do happen to be a crown prosecutor, and I try to exercise all possible leniency consistent with doing my duty towards the public, but if the minister comes before a court where I act and gives into my hand or to the local authorities a case of excessive profits, I do not care who the man is, whether it is Sir Joseph Flavelle, his agent, or any one else, he will be prosecuted.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Do I infer that no such complaint has been made to my hon. friend as crown attorny during the last eighteen months? Because he has said he would prosecute if a case did come into his hands.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: The minister may not be as familiar with the system of law in the province where I practise as in his own province. But if he is as familiar with the system, then his duty is to see the officers charged with the administration of the law in that province and to place in their hands cases such as the one which I have read to-night. The minister knows as well as any one that such cases are happening every day. In this case at Winnipeg, where the General Hospital was deprived not only of a commodity, but of what is a necessity in the case of sick people, the minister immediately on receiving his report should take steps to place the case in the hands of the provincial authorities for prosecution, and not wait until an individual or until a member here or there takes action. He should see that action is taken himself.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: : My hon. friend must know that we have no jurisdiction over the officers of the province of Manitoba. It is the duty of the attorney general of that province to give direction, if any one is to give direction, to the several county crown attorneys, if they have them there. I have no jurisdiction over them.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: You have a right to lay a complaint.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: So has my hon.
friend.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: It ie your duty, but it is not mine.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: It is not my duty any more than my hon. -friend's, and I think I am busier than he. He might take a little time to lay some of these complaints, and not -trouble us with them,. As soon as I heard of the chicken that had spoiled in cold storage in Winnipeg. I wired the manager of that concern, and he referred my
[Mr. Devlin. 1
wire to the head office in Toronto, who wrote me at once concerning the matter. A few days later I got an explanation from the manager of the concern in Winnipeg, which satisfied -me there was no intention of wrong-doing, and I think the explanation would he perfectly satisfactory to my hon. friend; I .shall he very glad to show him the letter. I am satisfied -that the chickens were not kept in storage for a very long time for any improper purpose, because they were bought very much cheaper than they are now, and there was no sense in , keeping them- and buying others at a higher rate. Upon the information I. got from Toronto and Winnipeg I am. satisfied there was no intention of wrong-doing.


Samuel William Jacobs: 
Thomas Wilson Crothers: I would ask my hon. friend to bring that matter up when my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) is present, as he is more familiar with it.


Mr. McKENZIE:: Perhaps it would be well to know from the minister if the abolition of patronage applies to his department as well as to other departments. Here is a paper which has been sent to me from the town of Elgin which my hon. friend knows. The Westport Mirror was sent to me with a marked announcement in it and which I read with surprise in view of the fact that there was to be no patronage in this country in the future. This is the notice: NOTICE.
A meeting- of the executive of the Liberal-Conservative Association of the village of Westport will he held at the office of W. M. Ewart on Wednesday evening, March 27 next at eight o'clock p.m. All persons who wish to apply for work on the Government Stone

Quarry will kindly notify the Secretary before that date.
W. tV. Russell,
Secretary.


Mr. J. D. REID:: That is the stone quarry for the local Government, not for this Government.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I am told it is for the canal out here.


John Dowsley Reid: No.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The Minister of Railways is always on hand with excuses, hut I am told by the person who sent me this paper that the stone is for the Welland canal.	-


John Dowsley Reid: The Welland canal has been shut down.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I mean for the Rideau canal. I would like the minister to make inquiry and to ascertain if there is any truth in the statement that the secretary of the Liberal-Conservative Association is so blaspheming the holy doctrine of no patronage as to be calling people together so that he may exercise the patronage that is in his hands.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I do not know whether my hon. friend refers to the provincial Government or the Dominion Government. If it is the Dominion Government, my hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals will know something about it, I do not employ these labourers. But he asked me about patronage. Let me just tell the committee what I have done during the last six years. I am not going to tell the whole thing. During these years I have never recommended a man for a position who asked for it. I think that, prima facie, the man who asks for a position in the Government is not qualified to fill it. It is a public declaration of his inability to make his way in the open field of competition. I have never in six years recommended for a position any man who asked for it because I have assumed that he was not fit for it.
An hon. MEMBER. But some of his friends asked foT it.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: No, his friends did not. I can give case after case. Such men were not recommended by me nor were they appointed. While I have been a member of this Government for six years, I have never recommended a relative to a position; neither has a relative ever been appointed to a position either in my department or in any other department of the Government.


Alphonse Verville: The minister says that he has never recommended or appointed anybody who asked for a position. Coming back to the fair wage officer I mentioned, he said that he did not know about him, but I hope he will know next time.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: At the opening of this discussion some person asked about a labour difficulty down in Nova Scotia. I understand that there has been difficulty in the steel works at Sydney Mines. I think the minister is using his influence in mediation between these two bodies as much as possible. His influence, or the influence of some capable officer in his department might bring these two bodies together when they would not come together themselves. It has been found that when an entirely disinterested person, a person of influence, or an officer from the department, goes to the place he is able to do work in the way of conciliation that these men will listen to, when they would not pay much attention to the efforts of others. I hope the minister will use his best endeavours to bring these men together because it would be a very -serious matter to have a strike in the steel or coal works in that place or anywhere else in Canada. If it can be avoided, I hope the minister will try to do so.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Efforts have been made for several weeks, and a gentleman was sent from here to Sydney Mines, with that object in view? We thought we had the matter thoroughly settled but it seems that the employers did not carry out the understanding that we thought had been definitely reached. Efforts are still being made and we hope a strike may be averted.


Jacques Bureau: When I made the remark to the minister that I found by the report that the inquiry as to prices had been extended to production, I was not sure as to what the report actually contained and the minister thought I was mistaken. I would like to read to him from the seventh annual report on wholesale prices in 1916-17, published by the Department of Labour. This is a letter from Mr. Ackland to the minister and it says:
The earlier reports dealt exclusively with the course of wholesale prices, hut the later volumes include statements of the situation as to retail prices a ml prices in other countries with information as to production and market bearing directly on current prices.
"As to production and market." My inquiry was: What is the source of the information or from what statistician does he get this information as to production?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I thought when the hon. gentleman, in referring to the matter a few moments ago, was speaking of the report I put on the Table to-day.


Jacques Bureau: No, I have not seen that.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: That is not the one. It is the other one that was issued a year or two before. Mr. Stewart is the man who provides the statistics of both wholesale and retail prices.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend again states that Mr. Stewart compiles the statistics in reference to prices. That is all right; I am satisfied as to that, but what I want to-know is: Who is gathering the statistics and from what source is that statement as to "production and market" conditions obtained?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I do not think that refers to the production of the land.


Jacques Bureau: "Bearing directly on current prices"-what production would that be? '


Thomas Wilson Crothers: We have factories producing. I do not think he refers to farm products.


Jacques Bureau: The prices that are current are wholesale prices in Canada. That covers every commodity required in ordinary life, all the necessaries of life, everything that is consumed by the ordinary man. So far as potatoes are concerned,. I do not know what factory has been producing, or how he can get his information as to the production of potatoes.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: He gives the prices
of potatoes, not the prices the farmer gets. However, I will be glad to make special inquiry from Mr. Stewart, and let the hon. gentleman know to-morrow.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Last year the hon. minister laid on the Table, and there was distributed amongst the members, a summary of some amendments proposed to the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, which were not proceeded with. Does the minister intend to proceed with these amendments this session?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I have already prepared a Bill, I may tell my hon. friend to make certain amendments to that Act.


Lucien Cannon: The minister has mentioned Mr. O'Comnor. Mr. O'Connor has had several investigations, the reports of which I have read in the papers. I would like to know from the minister if Mr. O'Connor is only going to make reports, or if the Government intends to take any action

as to the fixing of prices of food stuffs. That is what the people of our province, and not only of Quebec, but of all Canada, cannot understand, how this Government, which is supposed to take all kinds of measures to promote our share in this war-and we are all in favour of the war; we are all in favour of helping the Empire-does not fix prices on foodstuffs. How can people help when they are starving, and people are commencing to starve in our cities. Has the hon. gentleman taken any steps towards definitely fixing prices of foodstuffs, as is being done in other countries?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: My hon. friend is probably aware that there is no provision in this Order in Council that we have been administering for the last eighteen months authorizing us to fix prices. There is what is known as a Food Board in Canada today, and anything that is done by way of fixing prices is done by that board.


Lucien Cannon: Could not another Order in Council be passed giving power to this new board to fix prices? I understand that Orders in Council can easily be passed in these days.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I think they have
power already.


An hon. MEMBER:: Does Mr. O'Connor
suggest iminimum prices on foods when he makes his reports?
Civil Government-Department of Immigration and Colonization-Salaries $129,292.50-Contingencies $25,000.


Jacques Bureau: There should ibe some
understanding arrived at if we are to take up further estimates to-night.


John Dowsley Reid: I understood from the Prime Minister that whenever the request was made to adjourn we would do so. The only object in passing some of the Civil Government estimates is that when we go into Committee on certain days we would have some of the estimates already introduced to go ahead with.


Jacques Bureau: The item now before us is for a new department, which we know very little about, and I think this is not a proper hour to take it up.


John Dowsley Reid: Then there is another department here.


Jacques Bureau: I would suggest that we had better adjourn now.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The hour has arrived
at which the Prime Minister mentioned we should adjourn.

iMr. CALDER:	I would like to say, before we adjourn, that in the printing of the estimates foT this department, a. mistake was made. The original estimates as prepared by the department were afterwards oorrected, and these corrections were sent to the Finance Department, but for some reason or other they were not included in the printed estimates; so that before the committee rises, I would like to send'some typewritten copies across to hon. gentlemen opposite so that they and other hon. gentlemen will have the correct estimates before them. I might explain that the error occurred in this way; that certain promotions have been made in the department and as a result of those promotions there -were certain vacancies created. Instead of there being 85 officers in the department, there are only some 83, the two increases being the deputy minister and my own private secretary.


Jacques Bureau: As tlhe corrections are in typewritten form, there will be time to have them printed and distributed through the post office.
Progress reported.
On motion of Hon. Mr. Reid, the House adjourned at 11.36 p.m.
Wednesday, March 27, 1918.