1919-05-06

OF THE DEBATES OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA SECOND SESSION-THIRTEENTH PARLIAMENT 9-10 GEORGE V, 1919 IN FIVE VOLUMES

Volume I:: Pages 1-1028 " III:	"	2097-3192


Volume V:: 


Volume II:: Pages 1029-2096 " IV:	"	3193-3996



VOLUME CXXXVI


[Stage Direction]
House of Commons Iletmtes
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, May 6, 1919.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. HUME CRONYN presented the first report of the special committee appointed to consider the matter of the development in Canada of scientific research.

[Stage Direction]
Report of Director of the Military Service Branch on the operation of the Military Service Act, 1917.-Hon. Mr. Meighen.
Copy of Order in Council of the 1st of May, 1919, approving of the General Housing Scheme of the province of British Columbia.-Hon. Mr. Rowell.
Radio-telegraph Regulations.-Hon. Mr. Ballantyne.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 88, to amend The Migratory Birds Convention Act.-Hon. Mr. Meighen.
Bill No. 89, for the relief of Martha Campbell.-Mr. Douglas (Strathcona).
Bill No. 90, for the relief of Rosa Hirst. -Mr. Fripp.


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Acting Minister of Justice):: I wish to make a statement with regard to Order No. 26, Second Reading of Bill No. 71, to extend the operation of the Orders and Regulations passed by the Governor in Council under the War Measures Act, 1914.
This Bill was to have been gone on with earlier, but for the fact that intimation has come from the Prime Minister that the arrangements now in effect as to the Treaty
134	[DOT]
of Peace are such that it is unlikely any treaty of peace will be formally ratified in such a way that a declaration ending the war might be made by His Majesty before approximately the first of August. Consequently, no object would be served by going on with the measure at the present time.



MEAT AND CANNED FOODS ACT AMENDMENT-LOBSTERS.

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries), Bill No. 31, to amend the Meat and Canned Foods Act, was read the second time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Marine and Fisheries.
FISHERIES AC!T, 1914, AMENDMENT- BRITISH COLUMBIA LICENSES.
Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries), moved that Bill No. 39, to amend the Fisheries Act, 1914, be read the second time.
Mr. McKENZIE:: Explain.


Mr. BALLANTYNE:: This is a Bill regarding cannery licenses in British Columbia. The object of the Bill is to make the annual fee for such license $500, and in addition, four cents for each case of 48 one-pound cans, or the equivalent thereto, of sockeye salmon, and three cents for each case of 48 one-pound cans, or the equivalent thereto, of any other species of salmon, including Steel Head packed in such cannery during the continuance in force of the license. The said $500 shall be paid before the license is issued, and the remainder of the license fee shall be paid as the minister may from time to time by regulation prescribe.
Heretofore, the fee charged to canners in British Columbia was $50 a year, and it was felt by my department that that was altogether too low a fee in view of the privileges they receive. Therefore, the object of this Bill is to raise the fee from



$50 to $500 per annum, with the additional charge of the amounts that I have just cited on the catch of fish. This matter was ' taken up fully with the canners who, along with the members of Parliament from British Columbia, agreed to it unanimously.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: A moment ago, the
minister moved that Bill No. 31, to amend the Meat and Canned Foods Act, be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Marine and Fisheries. Does he intend to refer this Bill also?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: That was my intention.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: It has been reported to me from British Columbia that this high license fee will have the effect of driving the ordinary canner out of business altogether, and that the purpose of raising it from $50 to $500 is to create a monopoly in the fishery canning business in that province. It has been represented to me that the ordinary man doing a small business in canning salmon and possibly other fish in British Columbia cannot afford to pay this high fee, and consequently will be driven out of the trade.
Another matter which I wish to bring to the notice of the minister, so that it can be dealt w-ith before the committee is this: It is stated that those who practically control the fisheries of British Columbia do not pay the ordinary white man in that province a white man's wage, and that in consequence practically every white man in British Columbia has left that business, and to-day the fisheries there are entirely in the.hands of Japanese and Chinamen- in the hands of the Japanese, at all events; I cannot say how far that applies to Chinamen. This situation has been brought about by the fisheries of British Columbia being practically in the hands of a monopoly. If these are the conditions, I am sure the minister would like to see them remedied, and if the purpose of raising the license fee is to give further powers to those who have too much power already, it will be advisable for the committee to consider the matter very carefully, in order that everybody in British Columbia may have the privilege of going into the fishery business if he so desires.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN:: How many licenses are issued under the existing law?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I cannot say offhand, but I will in committee give the information to my hon. friend.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the second time.
On motion of Mr. Ballantyne, the Bill was referred to the Select Standing Committee on Marine and Fisheries.

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. Mr. Ballantyne (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) Bill No. 41, to amend the Fish Inspection Act, was read the second time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Marine and Fisheries.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. D. REID (Minister'of Railways and Canals) moved the third reading of Bill No. 70, to incorporate Canadian National Railway Company and respecting Canadian National Railways.
Hon. W. 8. FIELDING (Shelburne and Queen's): I had hoped that before we reached this the final stage of the Bill the Government would have seen their way clear to make such an amendment as would 'bring it into conformity with what to my mind are the very first principles of our parliamentary system of government. I regret that they have not been able to do so. I think their departure from what I regard as the sound principles of parliamentary finance is too grave a matter to be passed over lightly. I think we should have a further consideration of the subject; at all events, that we should have a deliberate and recorded vote of the House upon it.
This Bill proposes to apply to one of the largest portions of the public business certain rules and principles which are at variance, I think, with the established principles of our parliamentary system, and entirely at variance with the rules and principles which are applied to all- other branches of our public service. A cardinal principle of our parliamentary system is that Parliament, and especially the House of Commons, shall retain full and unrestricted control over the appropriation of public money. That is a principle which applies under all British legislative systems; it is a principle which applies in Canada to-day; it is a principle which will apply after this Bill shall pass, if it is to pass, to all the other departments of public business in Canada. But for some strange reason, it is not to apply to the operation of this railway company.

I shall regret if the motion which I am about to make will be regarded by my hon. friends on the treasury benches as one of non-confidence. I do not think it should be so regarded, for neither in the motion itself nor in anything that I may say in connection with it will there be any justification for such an attitude. I think the question is one on which we may reasonably ask to have a free and open vote. If the motion which I shall make and the reasons accompanying it commend themselves to the judgment of hon. members of the House, I think they should feel free to vote on the merits of the question, and that the Government should be willing to accept the conclusion that they may reach.
It was suggested at an early stage of the discussion of this subject that some exceptional method was necessary in dealing with the finances of this railway company in order to avoid the evils, real or imaginary, in connection with political patronage. Now I do not think any argument can be founded on that. While, under this Bill, we shall transfer a large portion of the public business of the country to one group of gentlemen, separate and apart from the usual principles of parliamentary government, we are not going to turn everything over to them. A very considerable portion of the public business of this country will still be subject to the rules and principles to which I have referred. Each of the ministers of the Crowm will still have to do some public business, and some of them much public business, and if the principle of patronage will not enter into the public business in their hands under the old order of things, why must it necessarily enter into the management of the railways if the old rules remain? Therefore, if it be contended for one moment that this departure from what I believe to be the sound principle must be taken in order to avoid the evil of political patronage, my answer is that we shall still have a large volume of public business to be conducted under the old principles; and if that business can be conducted in the old way without bringing in any question of party patronage, why cannot the business of this railway company be conducted in the same manner? So I feel that no well-founded argument can be made along that line.
When this Bill first came before the Committee it was in the form of a resolution in which, as hon. gentlemen will remember, all the clauses of the Bill had been thrown
together into one single sentence, so that there was difficulty in understanding it. In consequence of that the minister in charge of the Bill expressed a desire that the discussion should not be protracted at that stage but that the matter might be more properly considered when the Bill had been brought before the Committee of the House. The point I am now making was first raised by the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) who called attention to the exceptional circumstances under which the finances of this Kailway Board were to be handled. The hon. Minister of Railways and Canals then said:
But this is a matter for the consideration of the Committee, and if there is .any objection to the plan proposed, or if the Committee thinks the other way is better, we can change it.
So, at that time, it did not seem that the Government were finally committed to the principle to which I am now taking exception. The minister rather intimated that it was a fair matter for consideration and could be dealt with later on. When the Bill did come before .the Committee of the Whole House, the question was again raised and strong reasons, I think, were urged why this Bill should be brought into conformity with the general practice. However, the Government have not seen their way to do so and we are obliged now to consider the Bill in its present form.
On the principle of public ownership, I do not think it is necessary to say much. I think we have now advanced too far to make that an open question for debate. We have, whether we like it or not, a considerable measure of public ownership. It is unavoidable and I have no desire to quarrel with it at all. I accept it as it is. We have to accept it whether we like it or not. I am not as enthusiastic as some hon. gentlemen are in praise of the principle as applied to our railways. On the contrary^ I frankly admit that this is a great experiment and I have grave doubts as to its ultimate success. But nevertheless I have no desire to oppose or to obstruct it. On the contrary, if we are to have the principle of public ownership, I should like to see the thing get a fair chance. But, it is not going to get a fair chance under this Bill.
The principle of public ownership, in so far as it is represented in this Bill, commenced with two handicaps. The first was the handicap of the closure. I cannot help thinking that it was unwise on the part of the Government to attempt to force this measure through the House by this exeep-
[Stage Direction]
tional method of procedure. I know there are circumstances under which closure may be justified, but they are very rare in our parliamentary history. The very fact that we have in our rules a system of closure tends to prevent obstruction, and it is a rare occasion when the Government is justified in using the machinery that it provides. It is a good thing to have the strength of a lion; it is not a good thing to use that strength frequently. I do not think that the circumstances justified the application of closure to this Bill. This Bill had been before the House in the form of a resolution for a very brief discussion, and when it took the shape of a Bill and came before the Committee of the Whole, it was taken up on a Wednesday; it was debated on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) gave notice of closure, which took effect at the next sitting of the House. It was a short time to allow for the discussion of one of the most important Bills of the session. We have not been in a hurry about other legislation. We spent a month, less two days, in the discussion of the Address, a matter of importance, I grant you, but after all, a matter of form. There are Bills on the Order Paper that have been there for five or six weeks. There is no rush about them. We have been leisurely discussing the Immigration Act, a very serious matter, I acknowledge, but we are still slowly getting along with it. We have been, in an equally leisurely manner, discussing the Bankruptcy Act and there is no rush about it. Why then at a time when, although we seem to be busily occupied, when it is common rumour in many quarters not unfriendly to the Government, that the business is not being hurried but that the Government are really marking time and waiting for the Prime Minister to come home, should it have been necessary to apply *closure in the case of this Bill? I do not think any good reason was given. That is .the first handicap.
The second handicap is the effort to associate with public ownership the disregard of all the safeguards which have been established by the wisdom of parliamentarians in the years gone by. We are asked to associate with public ownership this disregard of a principle, which is not calculated to commend the system to the minds of thoughtful men. I have said that this Bill proposes to disregard the essential principle of the parliamentary control of public finance. There is no question but that the control of the public purse is the first and greatest duty of the House of Com-[Mr. Fielding. 1
mons, and when 'we depart from that we are certainly taking a very grave step. When we are doing it in this case, and conveying to the public the idea that we must disregard all those safeguards in order to apply public ownership, we are not giving public ownership a fair chance. Instead of advancing public ownership by those methods, I am inclined to think that the members of the Government are rather giving the principle of public ownership a black eye.
This principle of parliamentary control of public moneys is, as I have said, a very vital principle in our system of government. It ought not to be necessary to argue that question at all. But, Sir, since hon. gentlemen have introduced this Bill and since they have, as I say, disregarded all those principles, I think I would be justified in calling the attention of the House to one or two authorities in point, a thing which ought not to be necessary, but the presence of this Bill makes it so. Sir Erskine May, page 56, says:-
The most important power vested in any branch of the legislature is the right of voting money for the exigencies of the public service. The exercise of this right by the Commons is practically a law for the annual meeting of Parliament for redress of grievances; and it may also he said to give to the Commons the . chief authority in the state. In all countries the public purse is one of the main instruments of political power; but with the complicated relations of finance and public credit in England, the power of giving or withholding the supplies at pleasure is one of absolute supremacy.
That power of the House of Commons of absolute supremacy over public money is to be disregarded and\ set aside by the Bill which is now before us. Section 16 to which I take exception reads:-
Notwithstanding anything in the Government Railways Act or the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act, all expenses incurred in connection with the operation or management of the Canadian Government Railways, under the provisions of this Act, shall be paid out of the receipts and revenues of the Canadian Government Railways. In the event of a deficit occurring at any time during any fiscal year the amount of such deficit shall from time to time be payable by the Minister of Finance out of any unappropriated moneys in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada, the amounts paid by the said minister under this section to be included in the Estimates submitted to Parliament at its first session following the close of such fiscal year; and in the event of a surplus existing at the close of any fiscal year such surplus shall be paid into the said fund.
Now. Sir, that presents this situation to us: That while as respects every other branch of the public service of Canada the

revenue must' be paid into the public treasury, and be subject to the vote of this House for its payment out of the Treasury, we are to give to a body of gentlemen in Toronto-estimable and honourable gentlemen; I do not for a moment suggest anything to the contrary-we are going to place in their hands the enormous power of handling I do not know how many millions of the public funds of this country without asking for any parliamentary appropriation. I am amazed that the Government could bring forward such a measure. The members of the Government, in their several departments, have large responsibilities. My hon. friend the Minister of Customs collects a large amount of money. He is not allowed to have at his own disposal one dollar of that money; it must go into the public treasury, and once there it cannot be got out again unless this House has made an appropriation which will cover the proposed expenditure. My hon. friend the Minister of Public Works has large enterprises; he has to be subject, and will continue to be subject, to this rule of parliamentary appropriation. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance is the custodian of large sums of money which come into his hands officially from the various sources of our Tevenue, and these sums are larger than usual now because we are floating large loans. At one time during the present year, the hon. gentleman was the custodian of an amount which represented six hundred and more millions of dollars. Not one penny of these moneys is placed at the disposal of the Minister of Finance; these moneys are paid into the Dominion Treasury, into the consolidated revenue account, and once paid in, the Minister of Finance cannot draw out enough to pay even for cab hire until there has been an appropriation' for it by this House. Now if that has to be dope in the case of the Minister of Finance, and in the case of the other ministers of the Crown, why in the world do we make an exception in this case, and say that these gentlemen in Toronto who are managing these railroads are to have an entirely different rule applied to them?
While, as I say. the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, or any minister of the Crown, could not pay for the hire of a cab on public account unless he had an appropriation for the purpose, we are proposing to give to this body of gentlemen in Toronto an unrestricted right to handle enormous sums of money. The revenues of these railways will be very large, indeed. We appropriated last year for the expenditure on the
Intercolonial, or the Government Eailways, $37,000,000. With the enlargements proposed by the present Bill I shall not be surprised-I am only making a guess-if the revenues which are to be received by these gentlemen at Toronto amount to seventy, eighty, perhaps one hundred millions of dollars; and if the larger scheme of public ownership which is often suggested in this House be included-as is also provided for in the Bill,-then the revenues which will be placed in the hands of these gentlemen at Toronto may run into enormous figures-I do not think it would be too much to say $150,000,000 a year. Why in the world these gentlemen should be allowed these privileges, why we should remove all checks and guards with regard to parliamentary appropriations in the case of these and not in the case of the other departments, of the Government, I am quite unable to understand. These gentlemen are to collect these vast revenues, they are to use them, presumably for railway purposes, at their own sweet will. They do not have to come here and ask for any appropriation; and if at the end of the year this thirty, forty, fifty, sixty or one hundred millions of dollars of money, whatever it may be, proves insufficient, they can walk over to the office of the Minister of Finance and say: "Hand us out the balance." And without any further ado, or any further appropriation of money by Parliament, the Minister of Finance is bound to comply with their request. Surely, Mr. Speaker, tl^at is a departure from all the sound principles of finance. Later on, after they have done that-after they have collected this money and have spent it without authority other than the general power conferred by this Bill-after they have collected these moneys and have spent them, and any additional sum that they get from the Finance Minister, then they are to come down and tell us what they have done; after it is all over they will come to us, we will take their statement and an estimate will be submitted to this House. I do not think, Sir, that is a sufficient recognition of the principle of parliamentary government to which I have referred.
I have given you the opinion of Sir Erskine May, a recognized English writer on the subject. Let me now quote from one of our Canadian writers who is generally regarded as an authority. Sir John Bourinot at page 404 of his work says:
[Stage Direction]
The rules of the House with respect to the expenditure of public money and the imposition of burthens upon the people are in conformity with the .practice of its English prototype. All the checks and guards which the wisdom of English parliamentarians has imposed in the course of centuries upon public expenditure now exist in their full force in the Parliament of the Dominion. The cardinal principle which underlies all parliamentary rules and constitutional provisions with respect to money grants and public taxes is this- when burthens are to be imposed on the people every opportunity must be given for free and frequent discussion, so that Parliament may not by sudden and hasty votes incur any expenses, or be induced to approve of measures which entail heavy and lasting burthens on the country.
In the citations which I have given we have the authority of Sir Erskine May, and we have the authority of Sir John Bourinot which we also respect in this House; so I do not think there is any room to debate the fact that I have stated the principle correctly. If I were to say that there is absolutely no precedent for what hon. gentlemen are doing, I might not be exactly correct; I think they might have a precedent. Probably they would find it by going back some seventy years, or thereabouts, and they would then discover, Sir, that the precedent in question was one under which a system had grown up such as they now approve; but that system was condemned by the British House of Commons, and ever since the- year 1854 there has been no return to it. Sir Erskine May, at page 546, says:
Until 1854 estimates were not presented in respect of the revenue departments. Prior to that year the charges of collecting the revenue were deducted by each department from the gross sum collected.
That is exactly what is proposed to be done in this case,
This practice, which withdrew the full produce of the taxes and the cost of collection from the immediate control of Parliament, was condemned by a resolution of the House 30th May, 1848 ; and pursuant to an Act passed in the year 1854 the whole of the net revenue derived from taxation is paid into the exchequer, and the oost of the revenue departments is included in the annual estimates.
Taxation does not differ, so far as revenue is concerned, from the earning power of our public works. The money received from sale of a postage stamp is as much part of the revenue of the Government as a bill of duties collected by the Minister of Customs.
I have said, Sir, that I would like to see public ownership get a chance, and that it is not getting a fair chance by this Bill. There has been some experience in public

ownership elsewhere: Public ownership is in operation in Australia and in New Zealand. I have under my hand the New Zealand Year Book. From it I learn that the receipts of the Railway Department of New Zealand are paid into the consolidated revenue fund, and the appropriations for that department are made in the same way as in the case of any other department. That is the system which we have in Canada to-day, and that is the system which I would like continued as respects these railways with which we are now dealing. Then public ownership exists in Australia also. I have here the Australian Railway Acts, or some of them, and I find that there it is distinctly provided that the receipts from passenger fares and traffic on the Australian railways must be paid into the treasury. They will be found in the consolidated revenue fund-the receipts on one side and the expenditures on the other. Indeed, in Australia the position is still stronger, for so firmly is this principle held -this principle which my hon. friends of the Government have too lightly esteemed -that it forms a part of the Australian Constitutional Act. In that Act it is distinctly declared that all receipts and revenues of the Commonwealth must be paid into the public treasury-the consolidated fund. So by the experience of other countries where public ownership obtains, and by our own experience in relation to our public affairs generally, it seems to me that we ought to have no difficulty in reaching a conclusion that it is not necessary to give to this board of directors in respect of the management of these railways any powers that we do not give to our own departments of the Government.
I think, Sir, that if the Government sincerely wish to give public ownership a fair trial they will not handicap it bjr disregarding the rules, the laws, and the customs which have been handed down to us by the wisdom of parliaments in the Mother Country and in all the colonies to which we can look for example. It seems to me, therefore, that it is in every way desirable that the Government should not press this Bill in its present form, and to give them an opportunity to reconsider it, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMas-ter):-
That all the words after the word " he " to the end of the question be left out and that the following words:-
"-re-committed to a committee of the Whole House with power to amend the Bill by striking out section 16 and inserting the following section:

16. The receipts and expenditures of the company shall be subject to the provisions of the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act."
be inserted instead thereof. *
Sir THOMAS WHITE (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the Government
cannot accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member. He has made an argument which I miay described as .specious, and, unintentionally no doubt, somewhat unfair. He has asked: Shall Parliament hand over to a few gentlemen in Toronto- and he emphasized Toronto, I thought.


Mr. FIELDING:: Are they not in Toronto?


William Thomas White: Some of. them, not all.


William Stevens Fielding: I understood the office was in Toronto. If that is a mistake I withdraw my remarks.


William Thomas White: The office is in Toronto, but the board of directors of the Canadian National Railway system is constituted of gentlemen from all parts of Canada. Therefore it is incorrect to say that the Government is handing over to "a few gentlemen in Toronto" the control and administration of the hundred or more million dollars which my hon. friend has mentioned.
Let me put this to him-the Canadian Pacific Railway Company conducts much larger operations than the Canadian National Railway system as today constituted, and yet we find the shareholders of that company, comprising men of the highest business experience and standing,-many of them residing in Great Britain, and in the United States, as well as in Canada,-do not hesitate to entrust to a few gentlemen in Montreal the administration and control of the funds of that great system. I submit that the two cases are absolutely on all fours if we are to adopt the corporate principle of administration, as we are proposing to do in this Bill. I do not believe that any hon. gentleman would rise in this House-certainly not the hon. member who has spoken (Mr. Fielding)-and charge any misfeasance on the part of the board of directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. So far as I know they administer that great system most capably _ and most honestly. And what the Government is seeking to do as a matter of administration, with a view of promoting the highest efficiency and economy, is to constitute a board of directors, responsible to the Dominion Government, who will administer the affairs of the
Canadian National Railway system and receive its revenue and cause to be properly paid out its expenditures in accordance with the practice which is adopted in efficient' railway administration in all parts of the world.
I pointed out to the hon. member (Mr. Fielding) when he raised this question in Committee, that there were two modes of administration, either of which might be adopted by the Government, in connection with these railways which have come into our possession. We might directly administer them through the Department of Railways, which is under the direct control of the Minister of Railways, a member of the Government, as the Intercolonial Railway has been administered in the past. Those railways wo.uld then be administered precisely as the Department of Railways is administered, as the Department of Customs is administered, as the Post Office Department is administered; as all other departments of the Government are to-day administered. The other way, and the one that we have chosen-and which I shall submit is the one which we should choose in the circumstances-is by administering through the agency of a joint stock company, a holding company, which will either hold the physical property of these railway companies, or control it through the holding of the capital stock.
In the first place, it has been necessary for the Government to adopt the corporation system in connection with the administration of railway companies which have outstanding bond issues, by reason of their having been financed and administered on the corporation principle in the past. It was pointed out when we took over the 'Canadian Northern Railway system that if we divested it of its corporate character and took over its physical properties by expropriation, we should at once cause to become due and payable many of the trust mortgages securing issues amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. We should thus lose the benefit of all past financing, and we should have to provide in cash an amount representing the value of the physical properties of the Canadian Northern Railway system. The same argument would apply to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway system and to the Grand Trunk Railway system of Canada should we take them over. In the case of the Intercolonial Railway Company, the Dominion Government has owned the physical properties, and if the Canadian National Railway

Company should in the future take over the Intercolonial they would take over the physical properties of the road. No difficulty arises in that case as to outstanding bond issues, for there are none; the road has been owned directly by the Government of Canada and not through the intermediary or agency of a joint stock company.
There is a further reason why it is necessary that we should adopt a joint stock system in administering these great railway properties. In the public mind the idea is firmly embedded that direct Government administration and control of government-owned railways results in abuse through the exercise of political patronage. A great deal may he said for that view. Personally I have been impressed with what has been put forth by the hon. member (Mr. Fielding): That if the Government owns a railway system, whether in fee simple or by the ownership of stock, it is the proprietor and must be responsible for the administration of that system. I agree with that. If the Canadian National Railway Company, as administered by the nominees of the Government, is not a success, undoubtedly there will be a reflection upon the Government of the day. The Government of the day will be criticised for lack of success or for inefficiency of the administration of that system. That follows from the fact that the Government is the owner of the system-although the form is that of a corporation-an4 from the fact that its administration is in the hands of those appointed by the Government and whom the Government may, for cause, remove. But in order to prevent the exercise of patronage in connection with a system of such great importance kf Canada, it has been provided that instead of direct administration by the Government, the administration shall be through a board of directors consisting of representative and capable men in whom the Government, Parliament and the country have confidence. I said the other day, and I say now, that the success of public ownership in Canada will largely depend upon the standing, ability and character of the men selected to administer. Public ownership in Canada will have public support in direct proportion to the favourable impression which is made upon the people by the nominees of the Government, who will administer for the people.
Having laid down the principle that for a system such as this it is necessary-unavoidable, if the best results are to be obtained that the mode of administration

shall be through a corporation rather than direct, I come to the gist of the amendment proposed and of the argument put forward by the hon. member (Mr. Fielding). When this Bill was in Committee the hon. member directed attention to section 16. I said at the time, and I say now, thaj I always give great weight to any argument put forward in this House by the hon. member; and I did give his suggestion, at that time and subsequently, my best and most attentive consideration. More than that, I took it up with the responsible officers of my own department, the Auditor General's Department, and the Railway Department, with a view to seeing, so far as I could ascertain; what weight should be attached to the argument put forward and how far, if to any extent, it would be possible to meet the views of the hon. member. When the hon. member was speaking in Committee I was of the opinion that the proposal was impracticable-I do not say, impossible, but impracticable-from the standpoint of efficient, and especially of economical, administration. Adopting, as we do, the policy of administering through a corporation, to carry out my hon. friend's suggestion would mean complete duplication of the entire accounting, clerical and audit staff of the Canadian National Railway system. My hon. friend has said that we are giving public ownership a bad start. Well, we should indeed give it a bad start if we provided that, in competition, as it will be with the Canadian Pacific Railway system, it should incur a double set of costs of so important a character as those which I have indicated.
My hon. friend says it is an essential principle of Government administration that revenues shall be received into the Consolidated Revenue Fund and paid out under the safeguards afforded by the Civil Service and the Audit Office. I agree with my hon. friend with regard to the general principle; I agree that when the administration is directly that of the Government, that principle does and should apply. But where, for convenience and for efficiency of administration and in order to remove all possibility of political patronage, we deliberately adopt a commission system or a system of a board of directors whom we appoint, who engage their staffs and who are responsible for administration, then we are justified in-I shall not say a departure from the principle, but the adoption of another principle which experience has shown is safe, namely, administration with the safeguards afforded by corporate management. Take the Intercolonial Railway.

In the past the revenues of the Intercolonial railway have been received, as any hon. friend says, into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and from the Consolidated Revenue Fund there have been checked out the salaries, wages and other expenses of the railway. From inquiries which I have made, I. am able to say that the audit which the Dominion Government has made with respect to the Intercolonial has been of the most imperfect and perfunctory character-and necessarily so. Officials of the Intercolonial Railway Company have received the money into Consolidated Fund and have paid it out under letters of credit.
In other words, the officials of 4 p.m. the Intercolonial Railway Company-that is, of the Dominion Government-have done precisely what the officials of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company do; they have received the money and paid it out under the safeguards of audit and of the other checks established by efficient administration. So that in the Intercolonial, which the Dominion Government directly owns and in respect of which the principles that my hon. friend has referred to have been in effect, we find precisely what we find in connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, namely, that the officers of the road receive the money and pay it out. iHow could we adopt, in connection with the mode of administration that we have selected, the method put forward by my hon. friend?
In the first place, in order to carry on corporation administration with regard to the receipt and payment out of moneys, there must be a large clerical staff, an accounting staff and an audit staff. 'Where are they? There are spread over this immense system practically from the Atlantic to the Pacific, accountants, clerks, agents for the receipt of money,, travelling and other auditors. If all the money received from the Canadian National Railway system is to be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund and checked out by the officers of the Finance Department or under letters of credit issued to the officers of other departments and subject to the control of the Auditor 'General, that means a complete duplication of the services to which I have referred. Therefore, as I have said, the suggestion put forward by the hon. member is impracticable and uneconomical, impracticable because the administrative machinery, of the Dominion Government to-day is not adequate, although it might be said it could be made adequate to do the work efficiently-and
there is no use in doing the work in any other way than efficently-to check tup all the receipts and expenditures of the Canadian National Railway system-uneconomical, because it duplicates for the Canadian National Railway system all the services that I have mentioned.
My hon. friend referred to the British system, and without knowledge of the facts, I wish to ask him this question, because he may know. The British Government administers through its various departments, as we do here, and the hon. member was quite correct, so far as I am aware, in stating that all moneys are received into the Consolidated Revenue Fund and paid out subject to the cheques of the Civil Service. Does my hon. friend know whether the accounts of the Suez Canal Company, the shares of which are owned by the British Government, are submitted in detail to the British House of Commons, whether the appropriation is voted in full, or whether that is dealt with as a separate corporation? I do not know.


William Stevens Fielding: I really could not answer the. hon. gentleman. I have not had occasion to look into the matter.


William Thomas White: My'hon. friend has referred to Australia, but Australia, is administering not through a corporation, but directly, as the Dominion Government administers the Intercolonial. The Australian jGovernment own the railways, the physical property; they built them, I am told, in the first place, and consequently the Australian railway situation is on all fours with the situation which exists here respecting the administration of the several departments of the Government.
My hon. friend has spoken about turning over the administration to certain men. All administration must be turned over to certain men; indeed, we are entrusting officers of the Government here with administration of a most important character, and while the administration of the Canadian National Railway system is through a corporation every member of the staff, every clerk or every agent is, in substance and in fact, a Government employee. Further, the administration of that system can, as it will, be subjected every year in this House to the most minute scrutiny and searching investigation, because, as I stated when this Bill was in Committee, if the Dominion Government pays the deficits each year, then the Dominion Government is interested in

every cent that comes in and every cent that goes out. The Government would not only expect but welcome the criticism which must be made in Parliament of the operations as disclosed by the balance sheet at the end of the fiscal year and would expect that Parliament would obtain such information in such detail as is desired with regard to the whole administration of that system. If that be not so, then suspicion will inevitably be thrown upon the administration of that railway administration.
My hon. friend made the rather startling statement that if there is a deficit, these gentlemen at Toronto will come down to the Minister of Finance and say: You pay out the amount of the deficit without regard to Parliament at all. That is true in one sense and not in another. Under section 16, if there is a deficit at the end of a fiscal year, the Dominion Government makes good that deficit; otherwise, the railway system would have to borrow money for the purpose of making it good, or if they could not borrow the money, they would have to suspend. The reason for that is that the Government is the owner of this system. If there is a deficit at the end of the fiscal year, the Minister of Finance is authorized to make good that deficit, subject to this provision that the amount paid by the Minister of Finance under this section shall be included in the Estimates submitted to Parliament at its first session following the close of such fiscal year; and in the event of a surplus existing at the close of any fiscal year such surplus shall be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
It is open to Parliament at each session to review the operations and the entire administration of the Canadian National Railway system as to deficit or as to surplus. The gist of the matter is that, although the form is a corporation, the Dominion Government owns the system, and that every one connected with it from the board of directors down to the humblest man in their employ is in reality a Government official in the sense that he must be held to strict account, first to the board of directors, and through them to the Government of Canada for his action in connection with the work entrusted to him.
My hon. friend said that we are starting this off with two handicaps, one being closure. I agree generally with the observations of the hon. gentleman as regards the inexpediency of bringing in closure unless it is clear there is obstruction, and this does not refer to my hon. friend, because the criticism which he made of the Bill

was such as might not only fairly, but very properly be put forward. His argument was listened to with the greatest attention, and as I said. I took the trouble to consider it, not only at the time, but the next day, and to discuss it with the officials of my own department, of the Auditor General's Department and of the Railway Department, because I desired that it should be very fully considered. And it was my intention, if the Bill had continued in Committee, to speak further to the argument of the hon.' member, because I had stated that the matter would have further consideration. But we all know what happened. There was obstruction-I will not say on the part of all hon. members opposite, because that would not be correct-but there was undoubtedly obstruction.


Mr. BUREAU:: Not a bit.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Where?


William Thomas White: I do not desire to specify, but there was undoubtedly obstruction. I have too high a regard for the intelligence of certain hon. gentlemen opposite to believe for one moment that some of their arguments with respect to certain minor sections of the Bill were merely for the purpose of obtaining information, or of legitimate criticism.


Jacques Bureau: What sections?


William Thomas White: I will not go into detail. The hon. member knows as well as any one else.


Jacques Bureau: The longest speech in the discussion was made by the Acting Prime Minister.


William Thomas White: But he was not the most frequent speaker. I think the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mt. Bureau) was the most frequent speaker.


Jacques Bureau: Will my hon. friend point out one of the minor sections of the Bill on which I spoke too often?


William Thomas White: When rny hon.
friend sins he sins against the light. No man in this House has a better knowledge than he of corporation law, and when I find him putting forth trivial objections to sections I ask myself why? I do not say that my hon. friend obstructed from any improper motive, but he did obstruct, with other hon. members, and so closure was applied.


Jacques Bureau: I may be allowed to differ.


William Thomas White: The closure is not an unusual thing in British Parliaments, although in this House, I grant, that it may be somewhat unusual.


Jacques Bureau: It is not unusual in connection with Canadian Northern Railway legislation.


William Thomas White: In the British House it is the usual mode of carrying on the business of Parliament. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) has stated that a month was taken up by the debate on the Address. Now, so far as the Government is [DOT] concerned, we do not regard that as a waste of time. For the last four years, the business of administration has had the right of way in this Parliament, and the members from the different sections of the country have had comparatively little to say; not because they did not have much to say with regard to the needs of their various sections, but owing to the demands of the war and the exigencies of 'the situation, Government business naturally had practically a monop. oly of the time of the House. That was true of the British Parliament as well. But when the war was over, it was highly desirable that hon. members should to the extent they desired have opportunity to express their views and those of the people of the different sections from which they come with regard to the public questions of the day. And one of the most useful debates we have in this House, one of the most useful in its effects upon public opinion in this country, was the debate upon the Address, which lasted some three or four weeks. There is a function of Parliament apart from the function of despatching legislation before it, and that is the function of expressing what the people throughout the country are thinking about. If you have debates in Parliament and free expression of opinion here, you are not likely to have turbulent expression of opinion outside, because the people read what their representatives are saying in Parliament and are content with the expression of their views there. Many evils in the state are avoided by free discussion by members in the House of Commons of the questions in which their various sections of the country are interested.
Before leaving the question of closure, let me say that my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition showed-I shall not say an eleventh-hour repentance, but a two-o'clock-in-the-morning repentance on the
question of public ownership. At two minutes after two in the morning he said: After all, we on this side are not opposed to public ownership. That is one of the good results that followed from the application of the closure. My hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) has said that public ownership starts handicapped by the fact that closure was applied. Now it is very important that public ownership should start with the sanction of the leader of the Opposition, and one of the good effects of closure was that at two minutes after two in the morning the hon. leader of the Opposition informed the House that after all said and done the Opposition had not been opposing the principle of public ownership. So the application of closure was not altogether an evil as suggested by the hon. member, because when closure was applied the leader of the Opposition and most hon. members opposite were most anxious to impress the House and the country that in reality, notwithstanding what they had said, they were really public ownership men.
And as to statements which had been made previously by hon. gentlemen opposite on the question of public ownership when it was not an issue, in order that there may be no doubt where hon. gentlemen opposite stood on this question, I am going to read a few extracts from Hansard. I find that my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Mr. McKenzie) said in 1916 (Hansard, p. 3989):
As to the nationalization of railways I am opposed to it. I believe that we should encourage individual energy, enterprise and initiative instead Of putting everything into a common pool, which tends to kill individual enterprise. We should take a leaf out of the book of the United States where there has been little nationalization.
That was his attitude in 1916. In 1917 he said (Hansard, p. 4039-40):
I have been watching this proposition since he (iSir Thomas) introduced legislation last year for the purpose of appointing the Commission whose report we heard read in part to-day. When that resolution was proposed I said to the minister that if he wanted my opinion it was against the public ownership of railways. I did not expect my opinion to have any (weight with the minister at that time. But, I am still of the same opinion that the public ownership of railways, generally speaking, is not a good thing for this country. 1 say that more particularly with respect to the developing of a country such os the Northwest is. If the people of the West will trust themselves as far as spreading out of the (branches of any Government owned railway is concerned to Government ownership, they will find it will be a failure.

And he concluded:
I am opposed to Government ownership under these conditions.
I submit that that gives a clu? to the attitude of hon. gentlemen opposite on section 20 oi the Bill, which was so much discussed in this House. That section provided for the revival of charters owned by the Canadian Northern Railway system, many ot which authorized tire construction of railways m the West, and my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition said in 1917:
If the people of the West will trust themselves as far as spreading out of the branches of any Government owned railway is concerned to Government ownership, they will find it will be a failure.
Again in 1917 he said (Hansard p. 4529):
I am not in favour of public ownership. I am against it. But if we are down to the position when we have to take over the ownership of this road, let us take it clean out, let us take everything in connection with it that will he of (benefit and service to the people.
Later in the same year he interjected into the speech of the hon. member for South York ('Mr. Maclean) this remark (Hansard p. 4533):
Sir John Macdonald was opposed to public ownership.
To which the hon. member for South York replied:
No, he was not.
In 1917 the leader of the Opposition also said (Hansard p. 5035):
While the Government ownership of railways may be all' right in itself, I am not at all in
favour of it	We have the example
of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It is not a Government owned railway.
And he argued that if default was made we should take everything embodied in the agreement of 1914. In 1918 my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie) endorsed the policy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier so far as railway building was concerned. He added (Hansard p. 1379):
There was a good deal of criticism then (1911) by newspapers supporting the Government of the railways the Government had on their hands at that time.
He went on to say that in my first Budget I had made no complaint of the financial situation, and had said, while making some criticism of the Grand Trunk Pacific, that it "was a valuable asset to the Canadian people." Coming down to the last debate, my hon. friend said:
I was never in favour of Government ownership. I am not in favour of it now, as I think private enterprise will do better in these

matters. Particularly in colonization and development will private enterprise do much better than Government ownership.
I am not putting this forward by way of criticism of the hon. leader of the Opposition. He is perfectly entitled to hold the views he does, but what is essential is that it should be known where he and those whom he leads stand on this question, and I submit that the extracts I have read indicate clearly the profound distrust of the leader of the Opposition of the principle of public ownership of railways.


Mr. McCREA:: Does the minister mean to say that because persons hold different views from Tiis own they should be gagged?


William Thomas White: In the first place I do not admit that hon. members were gagged at all. It was the fault of hon. gentlemen opposite that closure was applied.


Francis N. McCrea: The fact that a man is opposed to public ownership is no reason why he should not be allowed to speak.


William Thomas White: I entirely agree, but it was not because hon. members were opposed to public ownership, but because the opposition to various sections of the Bill seemed to be carried beyond the proper limits of debate, that closure was applied. What has been the attitude of the first lieutenant of the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lemieux) on the question of public ownership? During the present session (the hon. member for Maisonneuve said (unrevised Hansard p. 1815):
Sneaking again on this question of public ownership, it iis a popular fancy at the present; but really those who favour that new fancy should take the time to read some of the best authorities on the question.
He said further, during the present session (Hansard p. 1901):
It is all very well for my hon. friend from South York to say, as he did a moment ago, and as my hon. friend from Bast Algoma said in the fair statement he made this evening, that Ontario and the West want Government ownership. But give to Ontario and the West a few figures as I have done this evening, and you will find that the business sense of the people of those provinces will pause and they will ponder before launching Canada upon such a venture.
The hon. member for Miaisonneuve quoted from the report of a speech by Lord Shaugh-nessy at the Canadian National Exhibition an<l referring to that he said that Lord Shaughnessy is a man " who knows whereof he speaks," and added that " the words of Lord Shaughnessy were full of wisdom." Lord Shaughnessy is a very able man, but nobody could accuse him in his present posi-

tion of being partial to the principles of public ownership.


Mr. LEMIETJX:: As my hon. friend is giving us what he calls extracts, I would like him to quote what Lord Shaughnessy said. The statement of Lord Shaughnessy 'at the Canadian National Exhibition at Toronto contained the following words-I am quoting from memory:-
I would not pretend to oppose the Government ownership of railways. What I am asking is that before embarking on this new venture we should be sure of our footing.
That is what Lord Shaughnessy said.


William Thomas White: I do not contradict my hon. friend. This is what is said of Lord Shaughnessy by the Toronto Globe on April 23, 1919:- "
The other antagonist of railway nationalization is Lord Shaughnessy who challenges the politicians and the officials of the Government railway service. The officials he says will ultimately become politicians and he adds ironically that Cabinet ministers soon become efficient railway men.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I have here the exact words spoken by Lord Shaughnessy, and I will read them so as to do no injustice to him.


William Thomas White: What was the occasion of that speech?


Rodolphe Lemieux: He was speaking at the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition on August 26, 1918.


William Thomas White: The reference I cited was apparently to a different occasion.


Rodolphe Lemieux: He said this:-
We shall, within the next short period, have an opportunity to learn the result of our neighbor's management of the railways of the country and probably have a little experience of our own. I do not wish to have it understood that I am taking an attitude opposed to nationalization of railways. When the Government is satisfied that the people of this country want nationalization, we are a democratic people and we shall have it. But whatever our policy, we should be very sure of our footing or it may become a very serious problem.
That is what I quoted to the House.


William Thomas White: I was quoting the reference to a different occasion, viz., April 23, 1919, as reported by the Toronto Globe. My hon. friend further quoted Mr. Mitchell, president of the National City Company of New York. Mr. Mitchell stated that the cost was too great and that therefore in the United States the "popular fashion for Government ownership and operation has materially cooled during the
past year." The hon. member for Maison-neuve also gave the views of the greatest authority on economics in Europe, according to his opinion, who was "absolutely opposed	to	public	ownership."	Havingdone this, he asks the members to pause before committing	themselves	to "thisfancy" adding that "the best friends of the Government" in the city of Toronto were opposed to "this very policy." I submit that the hon. member for Maisonneuve came out as a strong opponent of public ownership. Then, we come to the hon. member	for	Three	Rivers (Mr.	Bureau).One thing I always like about the hon. member	for	Three	Rivers is that he is
downright outspoken; there is nothing equivocal about him. He comes out on one side or the other.


Francis N. McCrea: He is always intelligent.


William Thomas White: His words are always intelligible and nobody will accuse the hon. member of lack of intelligence.
He says:
I am against public ownership; I have stated so.
Hansard, page 1820, of the present session. At page 1822 he says again:
I happen to be against public ownership. 1 stated on the second reading that X was against it; that I was in favour of private ownership and public control.
Then at page 1825 he says:
I want my good friends to see that in spite of my opposition to public ownership I want to help the system as much as I can.
The hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe), who is a tower of strength in his party, said at page 1818:
Those who believe that nationalization means necessarily liberty and freedom are mistaken. In many respects it is the very opposite of liberty. Its purpose is to kill competition and erect a bureaucratic state.
I put forward these citations as representing the views of hon. gentlemen opposite because it was stated that hon. members opposite were not opposed to the principles of public ownership.
As I stated I have no objection whatever to a public man being in favour of private as opposed to public ownership. But it is essential to know what a public man's views are; and in the case of a party in this House, to know what their views are upon the subject. I submit that, from the quotations which I have read, it is perfectly clear that the leaders of hon. gentlemen opposite are opposed to the principle of public ownership.

The hon. member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding) said that the other handicap was that we had failed to associate with public ownership all the proper safeguards. I submit that I have answered that fully. I would call the attention of the hon. member to what I believe to be the fact: that the greatest example of public ownership in Canada is the Hydro-Electric Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Adam Beck. I cannot say positively because I have not made the explicit inquiry, but I believe that the commission is administered in the same manner that we propose to administer the Canadian National railway. . I do not believe that there is submitted to the Legislature of Ontario an estimate of the full amount required by the Hydro-Electric Commission with every detail of expenditure as is the case with the departments of the Government.
I submit that my hon. friend is mistaken in his view that there is any departure in this Bill from the principles of sound public administration. There is a change in mode but the change is that which is imposed upon us by the necessities of corporation management and for the same reason that it is imposed upon the Canadian Pacific shareholders who entrust to a board nominated by them the administration of the company's system of which they are the owners.


Jacques Bureau: Is the Acting Prime Minister a believer in the state ownership of railways?


William Thomas White: Yes, I am.


Jacques Bureau: That is all I want to
know.


William Thomas White: I will tell my
hon. friend why. Take the situation in Canada at the present time. We have found that private ownership of railways,
. with the exception of the Canadian Pacific, has failed. I stated the other day in the House, and I state now, that private ownership plus politics have brought about the situation with which we are confronted in this country. The Government of Canada in order to save its own investments- represented by its guarantees and the guarantees of the provinces of this Dominion- and to safeguard the transportation interests, has been obliged to take over the railways that we are administering to-day, and will be obliged to take over practically all the other railways except the Canadian Pacific.


William Stevens Fielding: If my hon. friend believes as fully as he would wish us to think 
he does in the principle of State ownership why except the Canadian Pacific?


William Thomas White: I am a believer in a national policy of taking one sound step at a time and to the extent that it is necessary. There is another reason:	The
Canadian Pacific Railway Company is an admirably managed institution'serving this country efficiently and well, and I think it desirable at the present time that there should be two railway systems in this country, one of which will be, so to speak, a check, in the sense of efficiency in the administration, upon the other.


An hon. MEMBER:: Which one?


William Thomas White: Well, I say to
my hon. friend that looking to the farther future-I shall not refer to Canada because I do not want to be specific with regard to it-it may not be in our time, but in Great Britain and in the Overseas Dominions and in Europe, it will be found that instead of the waste of duplication and of competition which is connected with private ownership of separate railway systems, there will inevitably come public control of railway systems. I believe that is the opinion of the ablest men connected with private railway enterprises in the world to-day. In order to bring about efficient administration you must have a board, or a commission, in whom prima facie the public have the utmost confidence-more confidence even than they would have in the Government.


Mr. ERNEST LAPOINTE:: This Government, for example.


William Thomas White: Take the HydroElectric Commission in Ontario. The public have confidence that it is being properly administered-


Rodolphe Lemieux: Is that the view of the Minister of Railways?


William Thomas White: and looking
to the farther future, for the purpose of preventing duplication and waste there will undoubtedly be public control. I was speaking to a gentleman of high distinction from England no later than yesterday, and he told me they were reconsidering the whole railway situation in England. There was duplication of terminals, expensive duplication of tracks, all these things in this period following the war, and for the elimination of waste they are considering, and they are going to bring about, the efficient and economical use of all the railway systems of the country.


An hon. MEMBER:: And the shipping.


William Thomas White: Possibly the shipping, too, after a time, but that question does not immediately arise. Here the Government of Canada has taken over an immense railway system, and we will add to it. But let us take a pride in it, and try to make a success of it.
Mr. ANDREWBOSS MhMASTER (Brome): I will not, I hope, be improperly conducting myself if I propose to bring back the minds and thoughts of the members of this House to the question under discussion, which is not one of public or private ownership, but that of Parliamentary control as distinguished from corporate control. The Acting Prime Minister has so vociferously protested his belief in public ownership that we might think he was a recent convert to the principle, because we have heard of the zeal of the apostate, and perhaps it is possible that the minister is an apostate to the principle of private ownership which he held before.
Now I would submit, in order that we may regard this matter in a calm way, that the question of public or private ownership is not one on which almost religious fervour need be displayed. Is it not rather a question of business? I think it is, and I propose to deal with it on that plane. I am always, Mr. Speaker, most interested in anything the Acting Prime Minister says. I always listen to him with the gravest and most careful attention; and I could not help discerning a strong contrast in what he said to-day as compared to what he said some time ago in connection with the proposal advanced by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding). That hon. gentleman, the other night when this Bill was under consideration in Committee, made precisely the same suggestion as he made this afternoon. And what was the attitude of the Acting Prime Minister on that occasion? Rising in his seat and turning with all that courteous graciousness with which he is endowed, he said to the hon, gentleman (Mr. Fielding): "What you say, Sir, is worthy of the deepest consideration. I myself am afraid it is impracticable, but I will consult with the officers of the Government and see whether it would not be in the public interest to meet your views." To-day the same proposal is laid before the House, -and what does the Acting Prime Minister say? He declares: This is an unfair suggestion, or an unfair speech, or an unfair argument-this is a specious argument. Why the reason for the change? The change from courtesy, the change from the
most kindly consideration to somewhat abrupt negation, is due to the few words dropped by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding). He, alas! said, perhaps not altogether with enthusiasm, that the conduct of these railways was going to be handed over to a group of gentlemen who live in and about Toronto. Is it an aspersion on the Acting Prime Minister that the gentlemen who form the board of management of these railways come from Toronto? I think not. But what caused the heat on the part of my hon. friend (Sir Thomas White)? I will tell the 'House. It is because the Acting Prime Minister saw in the words of the member for Shelburne and Queens what might be construed into a statement that what the Canadian people did not like about this Bill was that they felt afraid that it was the turning back of the Canadian Northern into the hands of the Mackenzie and Mann group. That was what caused the sudden change in the demeanour of the Acting Prime Minister. That hon. gentleman has declared, and I s^y, Amen to his statement, that if we are to have a successful experiment in public ownership, the control of the railways must be placed in the hands of those in whom the Canadian people have confidence. The member for Shelburne and Queens has stated that the public ownership proposal contained in this Bill suffers from two handicaps. I say that it suffers from a third handicap-the handicap that the people of Canada believe the Mackenzie and Mann interests are far too closely in touch with the present proposal.


Mr. J. H. BURNHAM (Peterborough West):: What alternative to the Bill does the hon. gentleman propose?


Mr. McMASTER:: I am not going to answer that question because "it does not bear on the issue which is before us at present. The people of Canada have viewed with a feeling of distrust and dislike the fact that when the Acting Minister of Justice-for whom as a lawyer I have great respect-was conducting this Bill through the House he had seated beside him one of the lesser luminaries of that constellation of legal lights which clustered for years around Mackenzie and Mann. Not only that, but he told us that the Bill had been drafted by what I might call the sun of that syStem of legal lights, Mr. Zebulon A. Lash. These gentlemen are lawyers for whom all Canadian lawyers have great re spect. But we would prefer that Government ownership of this great system started without such apparent close connection be-

tween Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann and the Government. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that the people of Canada are not grateful to Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann for their railroad operations in this country? We find them feeling, rightly or wxongly, that the level of public life has not been raised, but rather debased by the operations of those gentlemen.
The Acting Prime Minister took considerable time in defending the corporate form of this company which is to run our railways. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queens never attacked the corporate form- so all that argument was absolutely beside the point; the hon. member asked that the control of Parliament over the moneys ol the people should be retained. The Acting Prime Minister made a comparison between the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway. He said that shareholders, widely distributed, gave the conduct of the Canadian Pacific Railway into the bands of the directors; and his argument was: Why. cannot the people of Canada give the conduct of the Canadian Northern Railway just as completely into the hands of those nominated by the shareholders of this company? There is only one answer to that argument, but it is a very complete answer-that the private owners of the shares of the Canadian Pacific Railway are dealing with their own property and have the right to name whom they will as their directors; while this Government is dealing, not with its own property, but with the property of the people of Canada. And we, sitting on this side of the House, at least, say that in dealing with the property of the people of Canada there shall be thrown around that dealing all the safeguards and protection that British traditions and British experience have shown to be wise and necessary.
Another argument advanced by the Acting Prime Minister was that it would save the duplication of auditing. I really think that that is not a serious argument. No one pretends that if the audit of this railroad is carried on by the officers of the Auditor General that another audit will have to be made by the railway company's officials. One audit should be sufficient.
My hon. friend the Acting Prime Minister also brought forward the fact that after a deficit occurs Parliament will have the right to appropriate moneys to meet it. That is quite right, that is left to us. It reminds me of what a Radical member once said in the British House of Commons. "The King generally talks about

'my army' and 'my navy'; but he always talks about 'the national debt'." And our friends, the directors of this railway company, may possibly talk about "our engines and our rolling stock"; but when the deficit comes it will be "the deficit of the people of Canada."
I now come to the least enthusiastic argument of the Acting Prime Minister. He said, "I believe,-I am not sure,-that the Hydro-Electric Commission of Ontario carries on its business as regards the Parlia-[DOT] ment of the province in the same way as we propose that this commission or company should carry on its business as regards the Parliament of Canada." I know how busy the Acting Prime Minister is. I spoke in the House the other night of the inhumanity	Jiyernment of twentythree members allowing him rto>
do-nt.vo men's work. But really when he conies to tell us what we should do in regard to perhaps the greatest national undertaking that this country has ever assumed, he should be able to give us better arguments than his beliefs; I think we should have accurate information.
Public ownership is a matter on which honest men equally informed may hold different opinions. We have before us the great public ownership scheme in which the Government has embarked, and it is necessary that every man whatsoever his preconceived notions on public ownership may be, give that scheme all his support. But let not the Government endeavour to make political capital out of the fact that there are some men on this side of the House who are not in favour of Government ownership. I believe if we counted heads we would find among the supporters of the Government just as many who are not enthusiastic for government ownership. Government ownership is a principle that I wish I could enthusiastically support, for it seems to me in theory to be right. The idea that a railway is in essence a monopoly, that it can only be successful if it is a monopoly, and that all monopolies should be owned or at least be controlled by the people, appeals to me. But I cannot overlook the facts before me. What are they? Government ownership was tried in the United States, and it ran up tremendous deficits; government ownership was also tried in Great Britain and it ran up tremendous deficits. I know that government ownership was a great success in regard to marine insurance in Great Britain. When the war broke out ships stood in harbour, they did not dare go out because there

were no insurance companies strong enough to insure their cargoes and hulls. The Government stepped in and insured them, and thus did a great service for the nation and the Allies, and it made a handsome profit out of the business. I asked the Government the other night whether they could tell me if the Government of Great Britain paid the premiums into the Consolidated Fund, but I have had no answer.
Now, we on this side of the House are prepared to give this government ownership plan, as outlined by this Bill, a fair field. We wish to see it succeed. We would have no patriotic feelings in our bosoms if we did not entertain that wish, because I do not know what will be the financial future of this country if this plan does not succeed. But what I do say is-tl	' he Government,
wim all [lie difficulties inherent in the situation, and in the light of recent experiments in public ownership, not only on this side of the Atlantic, 'but on the other, would be well advised to follow the sage and experienced counsel given to them by the bon. member for Shelburne and Queens.


Mr. F. S. SCOTT (Waterloo South):: 1
come from a part of the province of Ontario, Mr. Speaker, where a great majority of the people believe in the principle of public ownership, and believing as I do also in the principle, I am particularly concerned that at this time we should in discussing this measure come to a proper conclusion regarding it.
It is of the greatest possible importance that public ownership should be started on a proper basis. I have been a member of this House for some years, and I confess that from the first time that I came into the House, as I listened to the discussion of the Estimates of the Intercolonial Railway, my thought was that never could the Intercolonial Railway be carried along successfully by the method then followed. It seems to me that the first thing Parliament has to learn in connection with the public ownership of railways is that Parliament knows nothing at all about railway operation; that the running of railways should be delegated to some other body. If we were to go to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and say that they should submit their budget for each financial year to a body such as this, they would say that the idea was the height of the ridiculous. They would say that they could not hope to make a success of the Canadian Pacific railway by the
adoption of such methods as have been employed by the Dominion in past years.
The amendment introduced this afternoon suggests that in the Bill which has been brought down, Parliament is taking a most radical step; that Parliament is making a departure from anything before attempted in this country, and that it is a move in the wrong direction. With that contention I most emphatically disagree. I believe that the only way in which this great undertaking can be successfully carried on is by the method adopted under this Bill. The principle may be a new one to this Parliament. We have had a very clear description of what has governed in these matters in the Motherland. However, the principle adopted by this Bill has been carried out in connection with provincial and municipal finances. While in the past it has been the governing principle that all revenue received by a municipal council shall be under the control of and shall be spent by that municipal council, nevertheless, in Ontario and throughout the Canadian West, where we -have had considerable experience with public ownership, it has been found that public undertakings cannot be carried along on the old-fashioned lines. The municipal councils of Ontario and the West have adopted the very principle embodied in this Bill. They have appointed commissions in connection with their waterworks plants, their electric plants, and so on; and these public works are being administered just as it is proposed to administer this great public railway system.
If the member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding) had stood up in the Legislature of Ontario fifteen or eighteen years ago and made the speech that he made in this House this afternoon, no doubt he would have received applause from both sides of the House. But conditions have changed in this country. The Ontario Legislature found that they could not carry along that great public undertaking, the hydro-electric movement, by the old methods. What did they do? They did just what -the Government propose to do in this case; they placed the thing under the control of a commission. What does that commission do? Does it come to the Legislature? Do members on both sides of the legislature discuss, pro and con, all the different works and activities proposed to be -entered upon by the HydroElectric Commission? No; this commission goes on with its work of administration, just as the directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company do in connection with



their own undertaking. Each year t<he commission prepares a report and submits it to the legislature, and the legislature may see whether the operations of the commission show a deficit or a surplus. The matter is open to the fullest investigation on the part of the legislature; any kind of audit that is deemed necessary may be made. I submit that if public ownership is to be a success in Canada, it will only be by the adoption of such methods as have been found necessary in municipalities all through the country, and as have been found necessary in Ontario in connection with that most successful public undertaking which Ontario is carrying on.
1 said a moment ago that in connection with public ownership Parliament had some things to learn. I believe that the only way in which we can make a success of this undertaking is by getting the right class of men. The essence of the whole thing is the selection of an efficient board of directors, and the building up of a proper executive. In this connection one thing has always occurred to me as I have followed the deliberations of this House. Perhaps I should not criticise; yet I feel that if we are to obtain the class of men necessary to make public ownership a success, this House of Commons has to learn to use such men decently, not to treat them as if they were pickpockets. What I have in mind is this: if Parliament, for instance, were to get men who have brought distinction to themselves and have made such a success of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company-men like Sir William Van Horne or Lord Shaughnessy-to take charge of the Government railways, and if these men were criticised and abused, as I have heard public servants criticised and abused in this House, you could not hope to induce men of that calibre to continue in the public service. We are all concerned about the success of this great undertaking. We may have differences of opinion as to how its operation can be made successful; as to the best way of administering it. But as Canadians we are all interested in its success, and I believe most sincerely that we can -make it a success only by carrying it on according to sound business principles and by treating fairly and well the men in public employ.
There has been a good deal of criticism in this House-to-day as well as the last day that this matter came up in Committee -of the application of closure. It was not my privilege to be in the House during the first three days that the Bill was discussed
[Mr. Seolt.l
in Committee. I had opportunity of studying it and hearing it explained only on one day in the committee stage, when it was considered under the closure rule. But I had not sat in the House very many hours before I had made up my mind with regard to the Bill. As to the talk about closure, it seems to me that the business of the country would be greatly facilitated and carried out in much better form if we had a little more of the application qf closure.
I have seen the same thing happen on several occasions. Some of the best speeches that I have ever heard in this House were twenty minute speeches under the closure rule, and with this Bill in the Committee stage for four days, with its introduction some time before that, and with the opportunity of discussing it on this occasion, this Parliament has surely had ample time to digest and consider everything in connection with it.
Reference has been made to the Canadian Pacific, and it does not seem to be the opinion of this Parliament that this is the proper time to acquire the Canadian Pacific. The financial considerations are indeed, great, but I am convinced that this country cannot go on with one-half of its railways publicly owned and the other half privately owned. In the years to come there is bound to be conflict between the two, and consciously or unconsciously, Parliament, in the end, is not going to give a square deal to the privately owned company. Therefore, if the Canadian Pacific Railway Company were wise in their day and generation, they would say that the present is the proper time to get together with the Dominion Government and make these two great systems into one large State-owned system. That may not come at the present time, but I am satisfied it will come some time, and it will he one of the best" things that could happen to the Dominion of Canada. The railway business
is,	like every other business, a good one. In any line of business, you wilL see some persons succeeding while others are doing the reverse, and the success of this undertaking will depend entirely, as I said before, on the class of men secured to handle
it.	If the Canadian Pacific could he taken over by the Dominion of Canada and combined with the roads acquired or about to be acquired by the Government, we would have, not only control of the railroads of Canada, but the finest organization of railroad administrators in the entire world, because, is there any reason why these men who have so successfully administered

the Canadian Pacific-and we as Canadians are all proud of the way in which they have administered it-could not take over all the railroads of Canada in the public interest and administer them for the public good?
Mr. D. D. 'McKENZIE (Cape Breton North): Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Government ('Sir Thomas White) for a while played fair with this Bill and followed it up in its real purpose. At a certain stage, however, of the proceedings in connection with it he commenced to play politics and to draw a distinction- between the two sides of the House by saying that we were opposed to Government ownership of railways and that he was in favour of it, hoping thereby to get some applause from bis followers and some kudos in some parts of the country where, for the present, Government ownership happens to be popular. Every hon. member who expects to enjoy public confidence should endeavour to serve the public honestly and squarely whin his opinions and not trim his sails to every wind that blows over the country.' No man can expect to enjoy the full confidence oi the people-and whether he enjoys their confidence or not, to do what is best for the people-unless- he has sound principles of his own, and is not capable of being carried away for the moment by a current of public opinion. I venture to tell the Acting Prime Minister that his history is not that of a man who favours public ownership. His history, within a few years, aye, within a few weeks, was that he was a strong supporter and advocate of private ownership. But in playing politics a few days ago he found it advisable to trim his sails to suit the breeze and he became favourable to public ownership.
That question is not before the House at all; it is not under discussion, and it was not discussed -at any stage, whether public ownership was popular or not, or whether it was a proper policy or not. We have public ownership of railways, and the purport of this Bill is how best to handle the property which we have as public owners. I challenge the Acting Prime Minister to say that if the -Canadian Northern 'Company was making a success of its business as the Canadian Pacific is he would step in and take it from them and handle it as a publicly owned enterprise. He would do nothing of the kind, and he is simply making a virtue of a necessity. We were forced into taking over the Canadian Northern and because of that we have to make the best of it. The Acting Prime Minister would, I am
135i
sure, be the last man, whether intentionally or not, to misquote any hon. member, and I wish to be generous to him and say that, inadvertently, he misquoted me to-day. He quoted me as saying, in connection with this Bill, that I was opposed to public ownership, whereas, he was reading from a statement I made over a year ago, on the first occasion that the Minister of Railways brought in his Estimates, and his report on the Government ownership of a railway which we then had, which we had been running for nearly a year, and for which he was looking for more money. In connection with the business that was before the House then, over a year ago, I made the statement which the Acting Prime Minister quoted as if I had made it the other day.


William Thomas White: Did the hon. member or did he not quote the statement in his speech the other day?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I did. I wanted to put myself absolutely right before the House and the country when the Acting Prime Minister said that I declared myself against public ownership the year before, and I quoted what I said a year ago, which is this:
It is important for the people that we should have some conception of what we are doing. If this were a meeting of directors-
And I was talking of the Minister of Railways coming before the 'House- with his *Estimates.
-it would not be a very cheerful one. The directors and shareholders would have discovered that we were spending away up in the millions in the development and working of the road, but that we have made no money. We are in debt. If we were ordinary directors and shareholders of a road we would have to put our hands down in our pockets to find money in order to make betterments and to run the road, and that would not be a cheerful prospect. However, we are new beginners in this enterprise. I was never in favour of Government ownership

I said that over a year ago. I am honest about it. Life is too dear, peace too sweet, approval of my own conscience is too dear to me to bother with 'anything but what I believe.
I am in favour of it now-
That is what I said a year ago.
-as I think private enterprise will be better in these matters. Particularly in colonization and development will private enterprise and private energy do much better than Government ownership, but by the force of circumstances, we are in this net, and we must stay

in it and make the most of it-that is the way I view it.
I went on to say that I hoped the minister would come back to us the next year with a statement that -would compare favourably with the position of the Canadian Pacific. T said that I knew of no reason why the minister could not get just as good men to run the road as the Canadian Pacific had. Now, I have not changed my position one wit from what it was a year ago. In discussing this Bill I had no occasion to say anything about private ownership. It was merely a question of how best to handle the property, that we already had, and it was not fair for the Acting Prime Minister to switch off into a discussion of private ownership, because ' that was not involved in the question at alb When I was addressing myself to the people of the West, not only last year but some time before, I said that if the people of the West wanted the development of railways, wanted enterprise in building lines in different parts of the West, they would be disappointed in Government ownership. Why did I say that? I said it because the province from which I come and parts of the province of Quebec had had fifty years of Government ownership of the Intercolonial, and during that time not one inch of branch line had been built in the province of Nova Scotia. I had a right therefore to say to the people of the West that it was better for them to have the energy and enterprise of private ownership. I knew what the Canadian Pacific had done in the West, and I knew what Mackenzie and Mann would do if they had the money. I knew the country would develop more rapidly under private ownership of railways.


John Hampden Burnham: What is the hon.
gentleman's alternative to this Bill?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: That seems to be a sort of chronic attack of my hon. friend. He is a brainy business man, and I think I will leave it to him to find the alternative. I say that we are discussing this business, and we have a right to discuss it; we have a right to stick to the real business before us, and not switch off into a discussion of public versus private ownership. We already have the road, and all we have to do is to determine what principles shall be applied in the management of it. That is the real question before us, and I cannot understand how the minister could get away from it. Why, what do we see in the very preamble of the Bill, which is the 
context of the Act, explaining what the Act is about? The preamble says:
Whereas His Majesty on behalf of the Dominion of Canada has acquired control of the Canadian Northern Railway Company and of the various constituent and subsidiary companies comprising the Canadian Northern System.
The preamble says we have acquired the road. We are now simply dealing with the management of it. I have stated as clearly as I can my own position on government ownership. If the people of the West are to have government owmership, I trust that they will have a more cheerful experience than the people of the province of Nova Scotia have had, because our experience has not been good. I sincerely hope that theirs will be better, and that government ownership of railways will give them a better development than it has given to the Maritime Provinces. I was quoted by the Acting Prime Minister this afternoon as having said some years ago that that was one of the reasons why I did not think the good people of the West would be improving their position by substituting for the enterprise and energy of private ownership government ownership as we had experienced it in the East. Perhaps what was a failure with us will be a success in the West. I hope so; I hope that as years go by matters will improve in connection not only with government-owned railways, but everything else.
We were held up to contempt and obloquy the other night, and spoken of as traitors more or less to our own interests, because we were supposed to have said something in favour of the Canadian Pacific. Personally, I did not hear anybody say anything in favour of the Canadian Pacific. I did hear the' Acting Prime Minister say to-day that the Canadian Pacific had served the country faithfully and well. Now, if the Canadian Pacific has served the country faithfully and well and given us a splendid service, should a public man in this House be found fault with for saying a good word on behalf of that institution, of which the Acting Prime Minister speaks se well? Obviously, no stigma can attach to any hon. member in this House who may have said something favourable to the Canadian Pacific.
The amendment before us cannot possibly have taken the Government by surprise. This Bill was founded upon a resolution, which was discussed very fully. When the resolution was before the House I told the minister that I could not agree to the principle of taking away from Parliament control of the revenue of Canada, and that

I would continue to oppose that principle. I still adhere to that position. I believe that Parliament should know-whether it takes a few more clerks or not, matters nothing-how the money is coming in and w'here it is coming from, and at the last accounting we should have an opportunity of saying how the account shall be settled. That has been the principle that has been upheld and practised in the old land for hundreds of years, and is the principle that prevails there to-day. It has been explained to us by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding) that although the principle was departed from for a short time prior to 1854, since that year the practice has been followed in the old country oi not spending a single farthing of the public money until the expenditure' has been approved by Parliament. I think that is a safe principle to follow. If we are going to relegate the management of our railways to an independent concern over w'hich we have no control, what is the use of Parliament at all? It is proposed that we should put thousands of miles of railway and millions and, in time, billions of money beyond the control of Parliament. If we are to do that, why should we meet here at all? Why not let ns meet one year and grant a charter to some private corporation to run the Whole business of the country and then slam the door and go home, leaving that corporation to run the business? If the principle is good in one thing, -it is good in another. If this proposal is the proposal par excellence that it is painted to be in connection with the handling of railways, surely the same principle holds good in other things and can be applied to every department of Government business. I submit that the Canadian people or the British people or any other well-governed people would not for a moment listen to such a proposition. It is better to stand by the old principle. Let us have absolute control over our own revenue, and let us spend it as the wisdom of Parliament may decide. If section 16 of the Act had said that the deficit would be made good after the money had been voted by Parliament, it would not be so bad; but it does not say that. It says that when a deficit occurs the manager of the company may simply walk into the office of the Finance Minister and say: "I am $10,000,000 or $20,000,000 short this year; kindly give me your cheque for that amount, under the provisions of section 16 of the Act."
If the minister should question him about it he says: "You have nothing to say about
it; by virtue of this Act of Parliament I am entitled to the money, you have no further control over it; give me your cheque so that I may get the money." It is the privilege of the minister, six months afterwards when he is bringing down his Esti- * mates to say: "We have been obliged to pay out $20,000,000." What are we going to do about it? The money is spent. It is a most ridiculous thing to say that we have any control over it at all. We have given it away in advance. We have expropriated this money out of the pockets of the people and we have passed it over to this company. Afterwards we are told that we have the opportunity of sitting down wisely together and reading that so much money was spent last year, and we have simply to pass this ex post facto legislation that will confirm the action of the minister in handing over the cheque. We believe that there should be the most minute inquiry into the proceedings of this company. Where is the machinery under this Act to furnish any such inquiry? There is not a line or a word in this Act to say that the Auditor General has anything to do about it, that the Auditor General can report upon or make any inquiry, and there is not a vestige of authority to .submit these accounts to the Public Accounts Committee and let them come under the control of Parliament.
As a last word let me say that the Acting Prime Minister seemed to justify the action of the Government in putting on closure to prevent further discussion of this Bill. The very last man who made a speech of any length was himself just within three or four hours of the application of closure. The hon. gentleman spoke for about an hour and a half before closure was applied.
Is it to be supposed by the Canadian people that it was necessary for the Acting Prime Minister to speak for that length of time explaining and defending the Bill before closure was applied? If a proper and useful discussion was being carried on by the Acting Prime Minister then surely there could not have been very much obstruction, because obstruction aims at keeping the House from doing things that should be done. But, within a few hours of the closure being applied it was thought necessary in order that the Bill might be properly understood by the House, that the minister should make a speech for an hour and a half. And yet, he told us to-day that closure was necessary. He told us the night before he made that speech, when the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding) was speaking, that

clause 16 was to stand. He said that it was a most serious objection that was taken to it and that it would receive consideration. What did the Acting Prime Minister do? He left the House after he had made his long speech and he never gave a second's consideration to this clause of the Bill. He never gave the Committee or the House an opportunity of dealing with it any more, but he applied the closure, and the section to which he had promised serious consideration was never considered, and the closure was applied without considering it. Is he going to tell the people that it was necessary to apply the closure without carrying out what he had promised?
I submit that the revenue derived from the operation of public railways should be absolutely under the control of Parliament and that the motion moved by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens embodies the only method by which this Bill should be dealt with and which brings the operation of these railways and public ownership absolutely and properly under the control of this House.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to delay the House for a moment if it is waiting to divide, but I can assure you that I shall endeavour to confine what I have to say to the limits of such a speech as I have always thought should be made on the third reading of a measure. The hon. the leader of the Opposition (Mr. McKenzie) has struggled manfully with a situation, which he, himself, feels to be difficult. He had every appearance of a man who was struggling with difficulties that he reared himself, started off and he said that he believed in a man who was not carried away with every breath of doctrine. I quite believe in the honesty of my hon. friend; I quite believe that he wants to think that he is such a man and I quite agree that he is nearly always such a man, but he has given evidence of having fallen a little short upon this occasion.
In regard to Government ownership, 1 must say that I think the whole matter does not arise on the discussion at all. But I watched the proceedings very carefully on a certain Friday night and a certain Monday night; I saw my hon. friend rise and read what he stated was his attitude in regard to Government ownership in the previous session, and my recollection is that he led the House to believe that he read it to show that he had not changed and that he was in that position still. If

that be his position it is a perfectly honourable one, although I did think that on the Monday evening he showed just a little sign of wavering. I may have been wrong in my impression; I should have been glad to have believed that he had stuck to his position of Friday night. 1 do think at the present moment that that was still his position on Friday night, but I know his attitude did not convey the same impression to the House on Friday night that it did on Monday night. I am not impressed, nor edified, when he stands up and wants us to think of him as a man who is not carried away by new breaths of doctrine.
In regard to what my hon. friend said about the closure, and whether there was obstruction or not, I should apologise for referring to this matter in view of the debate we had on Friday night and on Monday night. But I think I can give an illustration that even my hon. friend would have difficulty in getting over as to the existence of obstruction. My hon. friend from Pontiac (Mr. Cahill) rose, with a broad smile which indicated a good deal of internal amusement at the role he was playing, and I am perfectly sure that he said ten times in not fewer than as many minutes, that he was seeking information. Well, that is a perfectly harmless remark, and the most of us might have agreed with the need for information. But when he repeated that statement ten times within ten minutes I submit to my hon. friend the . leader of the Opposition that that was coining pretty near obstruction. I do not want to press the point. We all know what obstruction is. Needless repetition has been the definition which has been given to obstruction in the Parliament of Great Britain. I do not think the hon. member for Pontiac would not say that he was needlessly repeating himself when he said again and again in my hearing that he rose for information, that he had not the information and that he wanted it.
Now, with regard to the matter before the House, Mr. Speaker, I should always wish to give the utmost attention to anything that was advanced here by my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queens (Mt. Fielding). It may be conceded that this is a new departure or partakes of the nature of a new departure, but I cannot help thinking that that is more apparent than real. As to its being a new departure, Sir, I would just say this: That not only this country, but the world is in the midst of new departures, and we cannot help ourselves. We are in the midst of new

departures, and any man who thinks that we have not to try and be prepared to deal with new departures in the present condition of this country and of the world, is in danger of rapidly finding himself a back number in any guidance he gives to the affairs of the nation.
'I think that my hon. friend the Acting Prime Minister gave a most lucid, most cogent, and most forcible argument to the House, and II am bound to say, in all honesty, that it carried to me complete conviction. There were the two methods of dealing with this question after we decide upon public ownership; and even my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition is constrained to admit that such is the condition in wh'ich these roads are, we are bound to decide upon it. Then I take it, either we were to administer the Canadian National Railroad as the Intercolonial has been administered, or we were to adopt the corporation method. Now, with regard to the Intercolonial railway, I must ask hon. gentlemen opposite (who are better acquainted with it than I am, who have lived in that part of the country and watched its operations) is it not a fact that under all Governments that road has reeked and smelt with political patronage? Is not that the case? If it be the case can this Government and Parliament lightly think of adopting a method for the Canadian National railroad whidh has led to the wholesale use of patronage in the limited experiment that we have been making on the Intercolonial in regard to this great question of Government ownership? The Acting Prime (Minister says the Government has deliberately chosen the other method. For what purpose? To get rid, if possible, of political patronage; and if the Government does not get directors who will co-operate with it in this matter, it will be brought to very strict account by the people of this ,country. I believe that here is the crux of the whole thing. Let the Government say to its directors: We want this railroad run upon business lines, and we want the best men put in for doing any specific work in connection with it, and we do not want politics to interfere. If the Government does less than that it will very rapidly be brought to task by the people of this country. If the Government does that, I have 'Stated my previous faith in Canada's ability to sustain this railroad, and to build it up to a degree of wealth and efficiency equal to that of the Canadian Pacific, and the two railroads will be part of the wonder which the Canada of the future is going to be in the world. The whole thing depends
upon getting the right men to carry the undertaking out-getting men in whose trustworthiness and ability you can have confidence, and Canada being behind the road it is 'bound to be a success. If we do not produce, and cannot produce, such-men in Canada import them. Get honest, trustworthy and able men. Tell them they have got to run this, as a railway proposition, to success, and that they are not to consider political questions at all. Then I have such confidence in my country that I have faith in the future of this road.
As to the control of Parliament, I have said that this is a new departure. I think that in the case of Britain's handling of the Indian Accounts there may be a precedent for this line of action. But we do not forfeit, that I can see, any of our rights as a -Parliament to look into the way the roads are being run. Something has to be done on trust in connection with such a large concern. Do the Canadian Pacific shareholders do nothing on trust in regard to their railroad, one of the biggest concerns in the world? Have the shareholders to do nothing on trust in connection with that road? Surely we can find men in Canada- or our politics and our public life are corrupt beyond description-surely we can find men to do for the nation what the directors of the Canadian Pacific are doing for the shareholders of that railway. I hope we can. I hope so from the bottom of my heart, for the sake of the future of the enterprise, for the sake of the future of the public life of Canada, for the sake of the prosperity, progress, and real welfare of this great Dominion. But I would appeal to my hon. friends opposite to taxe this attitude and force home from time to time -and I will help them in doing it if it is necessary-the points that I have made in my brief utterances. Force home these points, and criticise and observe all you can, but let us give Canada and her railroad a fair trial.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Is the House ready for the question?
Mr. FRANK S. CAHILL (Pontiac): I was somewhat pleased with the remarks of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Michael Clark) when he said that he had heard me repeat some ten times in as many minutes the remark that I was unable to get any information from the Government regarding the various clauses of this somewhat complicated Bill.
I am glad to know, Mr. 'Speaker, that after having repeated ten or twelve times a plain, simple statement, it may have penetr ted

the brilliant brain of the bon. gentleman. He did not tell the House that after we on this side had asked questions repeatedly the Government were not able to, or at any rate did not, answer those questions. I undoubtedly stated a dozen times that we had been asking for information that we had not got, or could not get; and when this Bill was subjected to the closure there were at least ten of the clauses in it that had not been debated in this House, many of the most-important clauses in the most important piece of legislation that has perhaps been before Parliament for some years. The clause to which my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) has moved an amendment was under discussion on a Monday, the first evening of the debate. I was not present on that occasion. I must confess, Mr. Speaker, that when I heard that the Government and Mr. Lash were co-operating with the Mackenzie and Mann group it gave me such a headache I was unable to be here that evening. Had I been here I would have spoken about that clause as I did when the resolution came before the House, because there is nothing about the amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) which renders it impossible to adopt.
The Acting Prime Minister makes the statement that you will have to duplicate the staff. Nothing of the kind. Every big corporation-for instance, the Canadian Pacific Bailway-employ auditors and then have an outside audit as well. The auditing staff of the Canadian National Railways could be under the jurisdiction of the Auditor General, and one audit would suffice for the company and for the country.
The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) said that I was obstructing. I heard other hon. members say the same thing. Perhaps I did not make myself clear in some instances. When we were dealing in Committee with section 17, relating to the date of the annual meeting, which is to be held in April, some hon. members thought that that was a matter of very little importance. It simply means this, Mr. Speaker, that if you have the annual meeting of this company on the second Thursday in April, instead of on the 31st of December, you will be getting a report-if you get one at all-presented to Parliament a year later; whereas if you made the statistical year end on the 31st of December you would get the report of the previous year's operations presented to Parliament during the session. As the section passed the Committee it is not likely the annual report will be presented to Parliament until the following

year, and it will be so far gone then that the minister in charge will simply say: "This is last year's accounts. We have had this deficit, we have paid the money; that was a year ago, and we are doing better now." I think that the amendment I proposed was important, Mr. Speaker. The statistical year of the Dominion ends on the 31st of December. Why not'make this National Railway system conform to it? No information was given me on that subject. There must be some reason why the Government want to have the annual meeting in April. Is it because it will not be convenient to bring the report of the company's operations before Parliament that session? I do not see how the amendment can bring about any hardship on the Government or on the management of the railway. If you have the Auditor General's Report, members of Parliament would be in a position to intelligently discuss the management of the people's railways; but there would be no such chance a year after payments have been made out of the treasury without the sanction of Parliament.
The adoption of my suggestion would entail practically no added expense. It is just as necessary to have an audit of the expenditures of a company, the directors of whom are appointed by the Government, as it is to have the expenditures of the people's representatives audited. The people are not satisfied to trust the Government or Parliament with the expenditure of money without any independent audit; so provision has been made for an Auditor General, who is independent of the Government. That being the case, surely it is just as essential that we should have an audit when the Government hand over the spending of money to a third party. There will be in the neighbourhood of one hundred million dollars spent on this enterprise, and so far as the Bill at present provides there is absolutely no provision made for an audit. I asked the Government when the Bill was under discussion if a report would be presented to Parliament, and that is one of the numerous questions to whioh I received no answer.
Now, there is not an hon. member who listened to the whole discussion on this Bill from start to finish who can tell me that the Government ever said they would bring before Parliament at any particular date a full report of the receipts and expenditures of this undertaking. I do not know whether the Government are withholding the information intentionally or not. But there are a number of things in

this Bill that do not look good to me, and they do not look good to the people. When I criticised the Bill a few days ago I was not only expressing my own opinion, in a large measure I was expressing the opinion of a great many people of the country. There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that there is a feeling abroad that if this enterprise is to succeed we must get clear of the Mackenzie and Mann influence, lock, stock and barrel. The gentlemen selected as directors were directors of the Canadian Northern railway, and, according to the statement of the Government, they made a failure of its management. Have the Government looked around to find competent railway men, or even public ownership enthusiasts, who would assume control of this road. It seems to me it would be the simplest thing in the world to get a body of the best railway men in Canada, pay them good salaries, and relieve them as far as possible from political control. Hon. members now say that the directors are relieved from political control. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Railways has a string on every one of the directors; he can pull them back at will, and he does not have to come to Parliament to give any explanation of his action. I made a suggestion when the Bill was in Committee that the directors should be appointed in the same way as the members of the Railway Commission. Some hon. members asked me if I wanted to have them appointed for ten years. I replied that I did not suggest that, because possibly ten years might be too long a period to keep in office some older men in an undertaking of this kind; but I suggested they could be appointed for four or five years in much the same way as are the members of the Railway Commission. The Government would not lose control; they could always add to or withdraw from* the directorate. But those directors would feel that as long as they were giving good service their positions would be assured.
I also made the proposal that there should be a profit sharing arrangement. At present we have a commission sitting on a proposal for co-operation between capital and labour. If there is to be any cooperation it must be based on profit sharing of some kind or another. Here is the biggest undertaking that we will ever have directly under our own control vhere we can adopt a profit sharing system.
We are dealing with a road that is losing some millions of dollars. It would be a simple matter to work out a plan under which, when the road earned a certain amount, all employees of the system, the
directors included, would share in the profits.


An hon. MEMBER:: How about the deficits?


Mr. CAHILL:: The deficits would not be affected adversely by such a plan; they might even be reduced. You could start with the deficits-with the deficit of this year, if you wanted to, or with the average deficits over a period of years-and begin to share profits even before dividends were earned on the investment. There would be nothing wrong about that. You would be getting the hearty co-operation of every man working on the road; every man fnterested in the enterprise would have an opportunity of sharing in its profits, and if the commission was appointed for a term of years would feel that he was free from all political control. It would be in his interest and in the interest of all the men on the road, individually and collectively, to make the road pay as far as possible. The deficit, Mr. Speaker, we must get rid of. We cannot go on multiplying these deficits indefinitely. If we do, we shall kill not only public ownership, but the reputation1 of Canada as well. We must get people into this country. We must get immigration.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Frank S. Cahill: (Continuing) Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock, we were discussing the Canadian National Railway system and public ownership generally, but the latter subject is not one that should be discussed on the third reading of this Bill as we own the Canadian National Railways and public ownership of railways is a matter of fact. The only question at "present before the House is the best means of obtaining for the people of Canada efficient management of the Canadian National railways. The Opposition was somewhat criticised for seeking for information from the Government in regard to this Bill, although, a number of clauses looked as if they could be amended with advantage to the people of this country and in the interest-of public ownership. When the Bill was in Committee and before closure was brought in, the acting Prime Minister asked that clause 3, pertaining to the capital stock of the company, should stand, the question being whether capital stock should be held by the Minister of Finance without power to dispose of it. When I asked the Minister



'2122 COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
of the Interior, who was handling the Bill, what WEis the purpose of leaving this clause so that the Government might dispose of the stock, he said that there was an arrangement with some of the holders of Canadian Northern debenture stock who might wish to exchange it for stock of the company. In the first place I do not believe that the people of Canada want to divide the control of the Canadian National railways with any person. We have this railway system now; we have an opportunity of testing out public ownership of railways, .and until the people of Canada decide that they cannot manage this system, the stock of the Canadian National railway company should be vested absolutely in the hands of the Government, and no part of it should be disposed of until the matter is brought before this Parliament. The acting Prime Minister the other day, in making a speech in which he intimated that there was obstruction, stated, in reply to a question, that the press of Canada was with him. He said:
We practically have all the press now. The press of the country is above all things an intelligent press, and It is inconceivable that it should not strongly support this Union Government.
I do not know whether he meant in its every action or not, but presumably he meant in connection with the railways. I have here a clipping from the Toronto Globe and also one from the Montreal Star, two reasonably respectable journals of this country, two journals that are supporting Union Government in most of its legislation, but they are not altogether convinced that the action of the Government in connection with the National railway is the best for the country. The Toronto Globe, of April 30, says in an editorial:
The people are restive and apprehensive when they learn that Mr. Z. A. Lash, K.C., was engaged by the Government of Canada to draft legislation for the 'National railways, and that although the original Mackenzie and Mann are no longer doing contracting work for the Canadian Northern railway, there are still gentlemen of the same name operating as the North ern Construction company. There would be more confidence in the Intention of the Government to make a real fight for the creation of an efficient National Kailway System were one or two outstanding advocates of public ownership given seats on the National Board and a conspicuously efficient member of the Grand Trunk operating staff chosen as principal assistant to Mr. Hanna. There is no reason why the officials of the defunct Canadian Northern should crowd ail others off the public ownership bench. If they continue to do so, there will inevitably he bred in the public mind the suspicion that public ownership is merely camouflage for the same old crowd of promoters and contractors operating in the same old way.

The Toronto Globe is, by the way, an ardent advocate of public ownership. The Montreal Star, which is, I believe, opposed to public ownership and in favour of private ownership, says under date of April 28:
Why the rush? Sir Thomas White, the Acting Premier of Canada (by the way, when is Sir Robert coming home?), declares that the Government is pledged unalterably to public ownership of railways and that public ownership has come to stay.
It says further on:
Sir Thomas White and Mr. Rowell broadly insinuate that the Canadian Pacific railway's fear of public ownership is the main-spring behind all movements in opposition to their socialistic policy.
Per contra, many men are beginning to wonder what is the pressure behind this anxious haste to involve the country in new railway obligations, at this time of financial and industrial crisis. Once it was " Cox can't wait." Who is it who is in such a hurry now?
That, I think, expresses pretty generally the sentiment of the people of this country. The Canadian people are, I believe, in favour of the nationalization of this railway; they are in favour of efficient management of this railway. Many people believe that if this railway is efficiently managed, it will be in a position in the near future, when we get more immigration into Canada to develop the land, to decrease western freight rates and freight rates generally throughout Canada.
Since this road has come into the hands of the Government the rates have been increased, and we have been spending large sums of money without any detailed information as to the purposes of the expenditure. There is no doubt that the people will get tired of this kind of tiling and there is absolutely no doubt that they will hold the Government accountable- afcountable to the extent that they will vote them out, perhaps at the next election. But that is not soon enough to save the railway situation for the people of Canada, and unless the Government are willing to lay all their, cards on the table and give this House all the information that has been asked for there will be a suspicion in the minds of a great many people in this country that they are not treating this question fairly and honestly; and once there is that suspicion there will be inefficiency in the management and lack of oo-operation among the people of this country. This undertaking has every possibility of success; it is already owned by the people and if the people are satisfied that the money they are paying in passenger and freight

rates on this railroad is all going into the treasury of Canada and is being honestly expended, naturally they will want to patronize the railway in preference to the Canadian Pacific or any other road, and then it will only be a matter of time before their patronage of the National railway will make it a profitable undertaking. I think possibly my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) and myself are about the only two men in the House who hold the view that this undertaking will be profitable. I can see a great future for it in developing the western country; that is, if lines are laid down for the honest purp&se of developing the country, and not for political purposes. There is no reason why this railway should have the preference over another road running into the same territory. For instance, if the Canadian Pacific can build a road into a certain territory cheaper than the National road, and can give a cheaper and better service, there should be no hesitation on the part of the Railway Committee of this House in granting the Canadian Pacific a charter to construct in that territory; let us have the competition. If, on the other hand, the Canadian National railway can develop the territory more cheaply and give a better service than the Canadian Pacific, there should be no hesitation on the part of the Railway Committee in saying that the Canadian Pacific shall not go into that territory. But we must be honest with ourselves, honest with the undertaking, and honest with the Canadian Pacific. Give both roads a chance to develop along their natural lines; let them both develop their natural territory, so that we may have cheaper Tates, efficiency in management, and a development of the territory to the best advantage. When we develop the territory the traffic will be created that will make the road 'pay.
One of the objections I had to the renewal of these blank Charters was that there are any amount of corporations in Western Canada holding large blocks of vacant land for speculative purposes, and who will use all possible pressure to get the Canadian National Railway to build in their territory and develoip their lands. If the road builds in that territory the land's will be advanced in value by the people's money, and at the expense of the producer, who will go in there after the railway is built and have to pay an increased price for this land. To my mind, the main essential in our railway problem is to free the land from the speculators; get immigration into the country; get people to produce on the land,
and you will- make the railway profitable. Some hon. members opposite have criticised the late Administration for the cost of the National Transcontinental. It would seem, when they speak of railways, they cannot help criticising the Laurier Administration for assisting in the development of the railway policy of 'this country. They say that the National Transcontinental cost upwards of $200,000,000. Let me tell hon. members that if the National Transcontinental did cost $200,000,000, or in that neighbourhood, it was paid for out of revenue, and that when this Government came into power the national debt, including the Transcontinental, amounted to less than $400,000,000. I might also tell them that when the 'Canadian Northern wanted to build from Edmonton to the coast, through British Columbia down to Vancouver, and parallel to the 'Canadian Pacific, the Liberal Government at Ottawa refused to grant them a charter for that road. What did the Canadian Northern do? They got a charter from the Government of the province of British Columbia.
The Government of British Columbia-I do not wish to mix politics with railways, and no hon. member can say that I ever said that any one person was responsible for the railway situation, except perhaps when some one asked me a question-the Government of British Columbia guaranteed the bonds of that road, which duplicated the Canadian Pacific practically for 200 miles from west of Edmonton to the coast. It was the most expensive construction the Canadian Northern ever had. I do not think it is good business for the people of Canada to try to cover up our responsibility by saying that it was a Liberal or a Conservative Government that was responsible for the national railway situation to-day. We have to face the situation, and I think the solution is feasible and quite workable. But we must get the railways out of the hands of the politicians, out of the hands of the men who made a failure of them, and into the hands of railway operators.
When the question was raised here a few days ago of having representatives of labour on the board, it was objected that that would be unconstitutional and could not work. Now we are doing something that is far more unconstitutional. We are taking out of the hands of the Auditor General the supervision of the expenditure of Canada's money, and as we are going to that length, I cannot see any reason why we cannot have on the board representatives of labour. It would be the simplest thing in the world to have labour represented on the National
[Stage Direction]
Railway Board, and then we would get the co-operation of all the labour organizations of the country. If you get the best men possible to manage the railway, and pay them good salaries-pay them anything in reason, because they can save their salaries in a day on this undertaking-and give them a free hand, make the undertaking as free as possible from politics, and get the co-operation not only of the labour organizations and the railway employees but of everybody in the country, the undertaking will be a success instead of showing a deficit. But an audit of the expenditures should be submitted to Parliament, so that the people's representatives can see what is being done with the people's money; because if you do not show that you are honest, if you are unwilling to lay your cards on the table, you cannot expect the people of this country to have confidence in the undertaking. They would not go out of their way to patronize the road or do anything they could to further its interests because they would have the feeling that it was not the interests of the road, their own interests, they were advancing, but the interests of some private individual. Let the Government give us freely and frankly the information they have in their possession, so as to secure the co-operation of everybody.
Some hon. members have suggested that I have been obstructing more or less. Well, at the time to which the hon. member for Red Deer refers, I brought to the attention of the Committee a question which I have since seen repeated in the press, and it is this: The Minister of Railways told us that the'deficit would be about $7,000,000, and that the earnings of the road above operating cost would be about $3,000,000. As I pointed out then, our liabilities in connection with this road amount to something like $470,000,000, the interest on which would be in the neighbourhood of $18,800,000. Deducting $3,000,000, the surplus earnings over operating cost, leaves a deficit of about $15,000,000.' I maintain that it is unreasonable for the Government to accuse the Opposition of obstructing when they refuse to give such information as I am asking for now. The minister made that statement; when I asked him to explain, he did not refute it at all, but simply refused to answer. I might say that when I put the question, we were then under closure, and as soon as any hon. member on. this side of the House asked a question the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) would say: "I move that the further consideration of

this question be postponed." A number of the clauses of this Bill have never been debated in the House, and I think the Government are giving the National Railway Company a very bad start. In the first place, the Bill is being forced through under closure; the vital clauses are not being debated, and the Government will not agree to have an annual report of the undertaking submitted to Parliament.
Mr. J. H. SINCLAIR (Antigonish and Guysborough):: I should like to draw attention to what I think was an unintentional mistake on the part of the leader of the Government, when he said that the Bill we are now disqussing contains provisions similar to those contained in the HydroElectric Act of the province of Ontario.
I took the trouble to look up the HydroElectric Act and, although I have not had time to read it carefully, I find that such is not the case but that it is the exact opposite. It appears to contain every possible safeguard for the expenditure of money. In the first place, it provides for a controller who is not an officer of the Hydro-Electric..Commission but of the Government and who appears to occupy a position somewhat similar to that of the Auditor General here. It is his function to countersign every cheque that is issued by the Hydro-Electric Commission and no expenditure can be made except it is countersigned by the comptroller. The comptroller is responsible to the Government and it is his duty to see that every expenditure is authorized. Provision is made in the Act for an annual statement of expenditures, similar to the provision which is made here, but it does not stop there. The Act also provides for an estimate for the coming year, something that is not contained in this Bill. In order that I-may make no mistake about this, I will read one or two sections to the House. The section providing for the controller is as follows:
The Lieutenarft-Governor in Council may appoint an officer to be know as the Comptroller of the Commission who shall hold office during the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council anid shall .countersign every cheque issued toy the Commission, tout before countersigning shall satisfy himself that the issue of the cheque is authorized1.
The Commission, through the Comptroller, shall before the 15th day of February .in each year, make to the Treasurer of Ontario an annual report for the information of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, and for the information of the Assembly, and such report shall contain, among other things, clear and comprehensive statements disclosing and exhibiting-

(a)	The actual condition as to the amount and character of the assets and liabilities (direct and indirect) of the undertakings conducted by it as on 31st December last preceding ;
(b)	The cash transactions, including receipts and disbursements for the year ending on 31st December last preceding;
(c)	The revenues, income and interest earned and the amount of the costs, expenses and other items chargeable there aigainst in connection with the operation, maintenance, administration and conduct of the undertakings controlled by it for the year ending 31st December last preceding;
Now, we come to the provision relating to the ensuing year:
(d)	The amounts, with the expected sources of the same, which it is estimated will be received in cash or its equivalent and the payments, loans and advances with the purpose of the same, which iit is contemplated shall be made in 'cash or otherwise, in the next succeeding year;
(e)	The amounts and particulars of the obligations and liabilities which it is contemplated shall be incurred in the next succeeding year;
(f)	The securities or evidence of indebtedness which it is contemplated shall be created, issued, sold or otherwise disposed of, together with the method of dealing with the same in the next succeeding year
You see, Mr. Speaker, that it is the duty of the Hydro-Electric Commission to provide the Legislature of Ontario with an estimate of the money that they expect to expend during the coming year. This Bill fails to do that. This Bill gives the board of directors power to expend money without any reference to Parliament at all. It provides that an accounting shall be given after the money is spent. That is what we object to. That is locking the stable door after the horse is stolen. The Hydro-Electric Commission has to give an estimate of every dollar it expects to spend in the ensuing year and it is authorized by the Legislature. Then, there is this other section :
Where the Legislature has appropriated money for the purposes of the Commission, such money shall be payable out of such appropriation to the Commission from time to time, upon the requisition of the Chairman of the Commission and the direction of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, in such amounts and at such times as shall be stated in the requisition and direction, and this section shall have effect notwithstanding that there may be sums due from the Commission to the province and notwithstanding anything in The Audit Act contained.
This shows that the system that is in force with regard to the Hydro-Electric Commission in Ontario is exactly the system that is advocated by my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding). There is a provision for the accumulation
of a reserve fund but that reserve fund has to be underithe supervision of the comptroller and the cheque^ have to be signed by him. If the cheques and guards that are furnished under this Hydro-Electric Act had been contained in the Act which is now before the House, there would be no cause of complaint in regard to this matter on this side of the House and the amendment of my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queens, would not be necessary. The hon. the Leader of the Government (Sir Thomas White) cannot get any comfort at all from the system adopted by the Hydro-Electric Commission in the province of Ontario.
My hon. friend stated to the House that it is impracticable to adopt the proposition of the hon. member for iShelbume and Queens. But he does not tell us why it is impracticable. He has given no good reason. It has not been found impracticable in the case of the Intercolonial railway for the last forty years; in the case of the New Zealand railways, and in the case of the railways of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia is a very large country. The transactions in connection with the railways are scattered over that vast continent; yet the system we advocate here -has not been found impracticable there.
, My hon. friend has said that it is impracticable, but he has not given us .good ground for that statement. The difference is that in the one case we have parliamentary control, and in the other case we have not. I also object to the provision of section 26 of this Act because it enables the company, with the approval of the Governor in Council, to bond the whole line up to $75,000 a mile. There are no bonds on the Intercolonial railway at the present time, but as I understand this Bill it gives the power to the directors of this company, with the consent of the Governor in Council, to bond some eighteen hundred miles of the Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island railways, up to the amount of $75,000 a mile. That would secure some $1-12,000,000 which they could use in building railways and railway extensions in Western Canada, or elsewhere in this country, without any consent on the part of this Parliament. The whole question is amply provided for under the existing law; we have the Audit Act which makes very careful provision in regard to the expenditure of money. The moneys paid in to the Minister of Customs, the Minister of Railways, and the Postmaster General, all become part of the consolidated revenue of Canada,

and not one dollar can be paid out without Parliamentary authority. I believe in Parliamentary control of the people's money and for that reason intend to vote for the amendment.
Mr. II. E. PEDLtOW (Renfrew South): There still seems to be a misunderstanding, even in the minds of several members of the Government including the Acting Prime Minister, in regard to the subject under discussion. As I read the measure I find that the Government already owns the railways for whose management we are endeavouring to draft rules and regulations. For instance, the preamble states:
Whereas His Majesty on behalf of the Dominion of Canada has acquired control of the Canadian Northern Railway Company-
Not that the Government is about to acquire the railway, but that it has acquired it.
-and of the various constituent and subsidiary companies comprising the Canadian Northern System, as specified in the First Schedule to this Act, and it is expedient to provide for the incorporation of a company under which the railways, works and undertakings of the companies comprised in the Canadian Northern System may be consolidated, and together with the Canadian Government Railways operated as a national railway system.
I think that very much of the discussion that has taken place is entirely beside the question. We are not discussing, and have [DOT] not been-unless forced to assume the defensive on this side-the question of the public or private ownership of the railways under consideration. We are here to devise ways and means of managing the railways that we already own, or are supposed to own-there seems to be grave doubts in the minds of hon. gentlemen opposite as to whether we really own these railways or not; in the one breath we are told that we do own them, and in the very next breath we are given to understand by members on the Government side that we are not the owners. But we are supposed, according to this Bill, to own these railways, and therefore public ownership, J submit, is not the question under discussion in this debate. I am surprised at the Acting Prime Minister insisting that we should put ourselves on record on this subject, when the question of public ownership, or otherwise, is not the issue. That hon. gentleman has accused members on this side, including the leader of the Opposition, of obstruction. I would like to call attention to some of the methods of so-called obstruction that have been adopted by gentlemen on this side. For instance, on Thurs-

day, April 24th, when this Bill was up for consideration in Committee for the first time, the members on this side endeavoured to obtain some information from the Minister of Railways, and spent two full hours in the effort to do so. Can hon. gentlemen opposite accuse us of obstruction under such circumstances? The Minister of Railways absolutely refused to give us the information we demanded from him, and which we had a right to receive. And after two long hours of debate, the information was vouchsafed; and what did it amount to? The Minister of Railways was trying to withhold from us, at least he pretended that he did not know, what salary was being paid to the man who was managing the Canadian Northern railway-the trifling sum of $25,000 was not worth noticing in the estimation of the Minister of Railways -and yet this is the man to whom we intend to trust the management of the railroad system of this country under the present Bill. Then, Sir, coming to the following day, Friday, April 25th, we spent nine weary hours endeavouring to extract further information from the Government in regard to this Bill. The Acting Minister of Justice (Mr. Meighen) was leading the House on that occasion, and we endeavoured to elicit from him details respecting the right of way of the forty-four railway lines that, according to him, the Government intended to commence operations on immediately. The minister refused to give us that information, or any information whatever, as to the location of these roads, and finally, when he rose to reply to gentlemen on this side, he sneered at the idea of the House wanting information of such a character. Now, if the Government is going to start the construction of these railroads in a few weeks, it should at least have the location of the railroads in question fixed. Yet the hon. gentleman sneered at the request for information in that regard-it was a trifling thing in his opinion for the people of this country to know where these forty-four railroads were to be located. These are examples of the kind of obstruction that the House has been subjected to, and because of which the Government, forsooth, considered it absolutely necessary to introduce the closure and shut off further discussion of the terms of this Bill. I repeat that we are not opposing the Bill on its public ownership provision, but purely and simply because we wish to see proper arrangements made for the management of this gigantic proposition. The member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) this afternoon made a

very sane and sensible remark, in which 1 heartily concur, viz.: that if we are going to frame the Bill along proper lines we should see that provision is made for having the right men placed on the management of this great public undertaking. I agree most heartily with the hon. gentleman. But, Sir, do you consider that the man who has been a failure already in connection with the operations of the Canadian Northern, and who has been losing money already in the management of our railroads-do you consider men of that type capable of managing the affairs of this great railroad system successfully? For my part, I object to it, and decline to support any proposition of the kind. A man who has already proved himself beyond doubt a failure, a man who has already lost money in railroad operations, a man who has run the Canadian Northern Railroad system to the ground, as shown by the figures quoted in this House, has no right or title to be entrusted with the management of a great system such as this.
Now, it is contended that the criticism of the Opposition has not been of any advantage. I beg to call the attention of the House to one matter wherein we succeeded in inducing the Minister of Railways to amend this Bill, and that amendment, in the years to come if not now, will be of inestimable value to this country. I refer to the amendment of Section 23. In this section as originally drawn there was no reference to authorization by Parliament of the necessary expenditure for the construction and operation of railway lines and extensions by the directorate. As a result of our criticism the Minister of Railways found it convenient to amend the section by the insertion of the following words:
in respect to the construction whereof respectively, Parliament may hereafter authorize the necessary expenditure, or the guarantee of an issue of the Company's securities.
That is an important addition to the Bill and is quite a safeguard of the country's interests. Yet we are told that the criticism by hon. members on this side of the House has been of an obstructive nature.
I insist that it has been entirely in the opposite direction; it has been of a constructive nature and has greatly improved the Bill. We are told that we should fall down and worship this measure because it has been proposed by the Government and should instantly accept all its provisions without demur. But, as I have already stated, there is room for an honest difference of opinion on the question of public or
private ownership, and I submit that the evidence on the subject of public management is not of the rosiest nature. Take for instance, the Intercolonial railway, which from its inception has been under Government control; has it been an unqualified success? Take the Canadian Northern railway under its present management; has- it been an unqualified success? Take the telegraph and telephone systems under public management; have they been an unqualified success? I was privileged to look into a statement on that subject recently, and I find that the operating cost of our government telephones and telegraphs is in the neighbourhood of $800,000 per year, while the entire revenue is only $200,000 per year, an annual loss of $600,000. I understand, too, that the minister in charge of that department has received a report from an expert appointed to investigate the possibilities of the telephone system to the effect that he can abandon and give away enough of those lines to make a saving of- between $300,000 and $400,000 a year, and still give as good a service to the public.	-
We have heard a good deal in this House of the success of the Australian National Railway system. In to-day's issue of the Montreal Gazette I find a statement which, with your permission, Sir, I would like to place upon Hansard, because it is of particular value at the present time:
Australian Railways.
Direct Losses More Than $11,400,000 Yearly: (Boston Commercial.)
The report of the Railway Commissioners of Australia for the year ending June 30, 1918, has lately been issued. The report shows that the losses amount to more than $11,000,000 for last year and $11,500,000 for the year 1917, The Commonwealth transcontinental line, which was opened for traffic in October, 1917, has, therefore about eight months of operation. The loss on this line and the other short lines own by the Commonwealth, amounted to $2,280,000. The length of the transcontinental line is 1,051 miles and the cost has been $33,000,000 so far, hut it will require an expenditure of several millions more to put the road in fair shape.
I wish the House to mark this particularly, because it is a very important point in connection with Government operation. Notwithstanding the large loss sustained by the Commonwealth in the last three years of operation there is a further loss on taxation, which is as follows:
Thus, in round numbers, the losses in 1915-16 were $8,000,000 ; in 1916-17 they were $11,500,0100, and in the last year they were $11,000,000. These losses do not take into account any displacement of taxes.

Up to June 30, 1918, these railways had cost a little over one billion dollars and there were 20,259 miles.
If we reckon the tax loss at $600 per mile and we tax the railways in this country $622 per mile per year, this loss would amount to $12,000,000 a year.
But more important still is the fact of high freight rates on all the Australian lines. They are nearly three times as high as in this country, taking the year 1915 as an example. Last year, the people of Australia paid $65,000,000 for their freight bill. In 1917 rates in Australia were increased by 10 per cent, but most of them were fixed at 5 per cent increase the following year.
These facts, from the official reports of the Government itself, show: Direct losses of $8,000,000 to $11,000,000 a year, loss of taxes and on high freight rates total $40,000,000 a year, or a total loss of some $50,000,000 annually, and on top of this wages averaging 30 to 40 per cent less than in this country for the railroad employees.
This is a mighty burden upon the taxpayers of Australia. The socialized telegraph and telephone lines lose $800,000 a year and there are large losses on nearly every other socialistic scheme that those states have plunged into. It is feared that the people have created a pauper state, and at, any rate they have created the largest public debts in all the world.
Now, I do not wish that tins country, the land of my adoption, should emulate the policy of the Commonwealth of Australia. There are some things we do not wish to excel in, and one in particular is the incurring of debt. I have much pleasure, therefore, Sir, in supporting the amendment of the hon. member (Mr. Fielding.)


Mr. S. W. JACOBS (George Etienne Cartier) :: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the
amendment of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens. His address was convincing, cogent and logical; it must, have appealed to the good sense of this House. Section 16, if adopted in its present form, would introduce legislation of a revolutionary character, and it behooves all true Liberals to see to it that the necessary protest is made before it passes into law. When this question was originally before the House, the Acting Prime Minister (Sir Thomas White) said that he could not see very much objection to the theory propounded by the member for Shelburne and Queens, but that at the moment without giving it due consideration he thought impracticable. I submit that neither he nor any of his colleagues have presented any argument to justify us on this side of the House in adopting his conclusions. The House of Commons should have full control of the funds of the country, and if this Bill is passed you abrogate one of the most important functions of Parliament.

I listened with interest to the remarks of the member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) this afternoon, in fact, whenever he rises I listen with attention and respect, because every one in the House will, I am sure, agree that whether he adopts the views of one side or of the other-he has adopted both on various occasions-'whatever he says is worth listening 9 p.m. to. I admire his diction and his style; he is one of the most finished orators in Parliament, and is an ornament to this House. Sometimes, in my leisure moments, I read the speeches of the hon. gentleman, for information and instruction. I have a distinct recollection of a speech he delivered on April 12, 1918, on this very question, which came before the House on the following motion of the Minister of Railways (Hon. J. D. Reid):
Resolved1, That it is expedient to provide that the working expenses of the *Canadian Government railways and of any railway under the change, management or direction of the Minister of Railways and Canals shall be paid out of the receipts and revenues of the said railway, and in the event of a deficit occurring at any time during any fiscal year the amount of such deficit shall toe payable out of ainy unappropriated moneys in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada, the said deficit to toe voted by Parliament at its first session following the close of sudh fiscal year.
The member for Red Deer spoke with his usual eloquence on that occasion. He said, as reported on page 692, Volume 1, Hansard, 1918:
I trust these railways will toe so managed, and I have sufficient -belief in the future of Canada to think that If they are well managed they will not show deficits, hut whether there are deficits or surpluses the principles of sound finance demand that the statements1 in regard to them should toe placed before Parliament in an annual financial statement I very well remember listening to speeches, as well as reading all the speeches he made during my lifetime, of that great master of finance Mr. Gladstone. There was nothing he insisted on more than that the expenditures and the incomes of a country should toe presented to Parliament each year and be debated by Parliament each year. If that is a sound principle- and in every constitutionally-governed country in the British Empire the principle is one of parliamentary practice-then this is a departure from the universal parliamentary practice of all the constitutionally-governed countries to the British Empire, including the Old, Country herself. Before the point was raised by the hon. member (Mr. Fielding) the analogy between the Post Office and the railways occurred to my own mind, and I must say the Acting Minister of Finance was very unsuccessful from my point of view in showing the analogy was not perfect. I think all he said upon the point was really making a distinction without a difference. The analogy to my mind was as perfect as one could find. What was the -analogy? The post offices form a department of

the public service. In so far as the 'government-owned railways are concerned, they constitute a department of the public service. The analogy to that extent is surely perfect They are both departments of the public service which one might call "carrying departments." In the one case they carry letters, and in the other case they oairry goods and persons. You might compare the various stations on your railroad to the various post offices. You might compare your station-masters to your postmasters. You have public expenditure in each case, and you have public incomes in each case. The analogy is absolutely perfect from Alpha to Omega.
I cite this as the view of the hon. member for Red Deer twelve months ago;-you have heard what he said on the same question to-day when it is again brought up by the member for Shelburne and Queens. What has caused this change of attitude in suoh a short time? Is it that his association with the Union Government has caused deterioration of his mind? I should be very sorry to think so, because for some time the hon. gentleman has been flirting with us on this side of the House. I only hope that when he does come back he will be mentally in as good a condition as he was when we turned him over to the pre sent Government.


Mr. A. M. DECHENE (Montmagny) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I would like
to make a few remarks before this debate closes. I am particularly anxious to state my views, considering that the second reading of this Bill has been secured solely through the use of the gag; and to say where we stand on this side of the House as regards public ownership of our railways and other great services of public utility.
For many years past, this country lias made several att-emps in that direction, but without avail. For nearly forty years, we have managed the Intercolonial railway, covering some 1,800 miles in length, and I don't think that there can be found many statements issued by the management of that road and by the Minister of Railways up to now, showing surpluses. And yet the present Government had placed the management of that road in the hands of experienced men, to whom they were paying very large salaries, men who were borrowed from the Canadian Pacific Company and who had put into practice the ways and means in force on that system; however each year there are tremendous deficits on the Intercolonial railway. This shoVs clearly that it is impossible to get any return, out of the great public services, under political management.
13G
But, Mr. Speaker, when you read carefully clause 16, which it is proposed to amend today, I think that even the mover of that clause had a doubt in his mind as to the possibility for the country to get any returns from that new road (Canadian Northern) or from any of the subsidiary companies.
As a matter of fact, if you study closely that clause, which includes some fifteen lines, you notice that it refers almost entirely to deficits and to the way such deficits should be met. In the last three or four lines, it is provided that should there be a surplus, it can be disposed of without- the consent of Parliament. Therefore, is it not equivalent to an admission on the part of the Government, that they do not expect any surplus nor that the company, created by this Bill to administer the railways of this country, is likely to give any profits in the near future?
If there he any doubt that the present managers-and these managers will in all likelihood be retained-are unable to show a profit in their present undertakings, while we have before our eyes the example of what has happened in the past; that with vast subsidies being voted every year, the Government or the managers appointed by the Government were not able to gain any financial success, then there was certainly good reason for including the following proviso in section 16: "if any profits should accrue then the said profits are to be administered in such and such a rway;" which amounts to this: they could be thrown back into the mill again to emerge in the form of a deficit.
But, Sir, this section, along with the others, allows the Government, allows the directors to take over the monies of the various companies and use them as they see fit. No doubt, we members of Parliament sent here by the people to look after their interests, have something to say on this matter.
I believe the country would be very anxious to know just what percentage of shares we have in the capital stock of the subsidiary companies mentioned in the schedule attached to this Bill.
My own opinion, and I believe that I am at one in this with several hon. members on this side of the House, is that our interest in several of these companies is decidedly small, although sufficient to give us control. In several of them we have, I believe, merely 51 per cent or 55 per cent of the stock. Else, how comes it that, since we have taken over the Canadian 'Northern and its subsidiary companies the Govern-

ment has granted to .some of these subsidiary companies the subsidies set forth in the report of the Minister of .Railways for the current year? It is self-evident that if the present Government has seen fit to grant over three hundred thousand dollars to the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway, one of the subsidiary companies mentioned in the present schedule, we do not own all the capital stock of this company; hence we shall be forced to find the money necessary to make a success of the.se different companies. Where are the men who are going to come along and offer us the 40 per cent or 45 per cent of the stock that is out of our hands and that will be drawing dividends. Are they not the .same men who sold us the capital stock of the present company and who were not in a position to deliver the capital stock of the various subsidiary companies?
In the presence of these facts we have the right to be sceptical and to wonder whether public ownership of these railways will be . succesful.
_ We evidently have the right to feel dubious in this regard and we on this side of the House are really very, very doubtful.
But we own the railway^, say some hon. members on the other side; we own the capital stock of the railway companies; the Acting Prime Minister himself tells us: "We own the capital stock but we do not own the real .estate." Why? .Because this real estate is in the hands of the same notorious speculators who sold us this worthless .stock, and who to-day are waiting for us to revive it at the public's expense, so that they may get back the value of the railway bonds they never parted with.
Even, before Confederation, under the Union-.an administration that worked untold harm to the country-the foremost orators and the most ardent patriots of the day fought for the establishment of the Budget system so as to bring all expenditure under the control of Parliament. The fight was a hard one. Some members of Parliament, a .few ministers even, had to resign their seats in the Assembly, and it was only after years of struggle that Parliament finally obtained control of all expenditures drawn .from the Public Treasury.
Now, this very day, by accepting section 16 which has been brought down to the House, we will go back to those frightful days of 4840 and 1845 when the country was governed by an exclusive clique, a sort of family compact.
However, I am not surprised to find this clause here. Last session we witnessed a [Mr. DtVhf'no. I
similar attempt to withdraw several hundred million dollars from the control of Parliament. Do you remember, Mr. Speaker, a certain resolution presented by the hon. Minister of Railways whereby he asked the House to authorize the spending of some '$50,000,000 for the purchase of railway material not only for the Government railways but for those railroads also which were financially unable to help themselves, and not for one year alone but for the duration of the war? Thanks to the opposition of members on this side of the House the resolution remained on the Order Paper until the last days of the session, when the hon. Minister of Railways, realizing that he would never succeed in getting it passed, withdrew it himself.
Well, Mr. .Speaker, the same attempt is being made, this year, in a more concrete form. As the hon. minister has not succeeded in the course of last session, he is trying again, this year, in a way which is far more grievous and more dangerous to the country, by entrusting to the care of his officials the management of an important .part of the people's money. Therefore, I think we are now doing away with the principle which should guide all legislation, whether federal or provincial, that is the control by Parliament of all the monies spent in behalf of the country. After so many battles fought for the control of those monies, especialy in Nova Scotia previous to Confederation, I am in no way surprised at the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen (Mr. Fielding) proposing to-day an amendment to do away with such abuse. He is merely yielding, here, to the experience which he has acquired when he was himself Minister of Finance and when he saw, in his youth, the public men of his province fighting to obtain a right which we are now about to be deprived of. Those are the reasons why I shall gladly vote in favour of the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Queen's and Shelburne.


John Howard Sinclair: I was paired with the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. CARVELL:: I was paired with the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Le-mieux). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. BELAND:: I was paired with the hon. member for Toronto East (Sir Edward Kemp). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. McCOIG:: I was paired with the hon. member for Elgin East (Mr. Marshall). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The question is now on the main motion.


Mr. A. B. COPP (Westmorland):: Mr. Speaker, before this Bill is finally disposed of, I desire to draw the attention of hon. members to the section providing for the amalgamation of the several railway systems. It provides that the Canadian Northern Railway company and its constituent and subsidiary companies as specified in

the first schedule, together with the Canadian Government railways, shall be operated as a national railway system. My understanding is that, prior to the taking over of the Canadian Northern, the lines of railway known as the Canadian Government railways comprised the Intercolonial railway, running from Montreal to Halifax, Sydney, and St. John, and the branches connected therewith; the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the Transcontinental railway.
I do not propose to take up very much time in discussing this question, but I wish to register my protest against the amalgamation of the Intercolonial railway with the Canadian Northern system. The Intercolonial railway, as every hon. member knows, was built in the early years of Confederation. As a matter of fact, it was one of the terms of Confederation that the Lower Provinces, known as the Maritime Provinces, were to be connected by railway with the other provinces forming the Confederation. That promise was never properly implemented for many years. The railway extended from the cities of Halifax, Sydney and St. John to its western terminus ;at Levis., in the province of Quebec. A short dime after the Hon. A. G. Blair became Minister of Railways in 1896, the Intercolonial was extended to the city of Montreal by the purchase of the Drummond County railway (so called). From that time down to 1908 the road was owned and operated by the Canadian Government as a government enterprise, presided over by the Minister of Railways and Canals, the Hon. H. R. Emmerson occupying that portfolio for some time. While I am not prepared to admit that during that time the road was always run and managed .as it might have been, nevertheless, after its extension to Montreal we' undoubtedly had a better train service, and the roadbed was improved; in fact, the roadbed of the Intercolonial is known to be one of the finest, if not the finest, on the continent of America. The Ocean Limiteds were put on, and the service generally was improved. In the year 1908 or 1909 a change was made in the management of the road. Up to that time a gentleman named David Pottinger had been manager for many years. He had grown up with the railway and had an intimate knowledge of it from one end to the other in all its workings. Associated with him were men who had entered the railway in their younger days, and knew all there was to know about its operation. In 1908 or 1909 Mr. Pottinger was not dismissed, but arrangements were made by which a 
board of managers was appointed to manage the road, of which Mr. Pottinger became one. Since the appointment of that board down to the present day the Intercolonial has been be-dainned and bedevilled by mismanagement and extravagance. Men have been brought in from outside at high salaries and forced upon us who did not know the conditions or understand the operation of this railway. The higher the salaries and the more officials we imported the worse the management became, so that to-day the Intercolonial is not as well operated as it ~was in 1907 and 1908 and the years previous thereto. Furthermore, since the Government have taken over the Canadian Northern, the Transcontinental, and the Grand Trunk Pacific, the Intercolonial has been robbed of its rolling stock, and we have not been given the train service that we had every reason to expect.
I register my protest against the Intercolonial being hooked up to the Canadian Northern Railway system .and the supplanting of the Intercolonial railway employees who have spent half a lifetime on this road, know the operations and are just as capable of occupying prominent railway positions in this- country and fulfilling the duties appertaining to them as any person brought in from the outside. The employees of the old Intercolonial railway throughout the Maritime Provinces are being supplanted by other employees who are not any more capable, but are, if anything, less capable, than the men who have occupied prominent positions on that road. I have no word to say against those who will manage the Canadian National Railway system or the Canadian Northern railway. I do not know what their success may be. I trust it will be of the very best.
I have nothing to say against the Government for passing this measure and operating the Canadian Northern railway, as it has been forced upon them. But I do protest against, the amalgamation of the Intercolonial railway with that system. It never was the intention at the time of Confederation that we should be linked up with that system. It never -was the intention at the time of Confederation that we should be linked up with, and operated as, a company road. I protest as strongly as I can because of the fact, which the hon. member for Antigonish and Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) referred to a few moments ago, that under this measure the Government, or the company, have the power of bonding, or mortgaging, the Canadian National

railway to the extent of $75,000 per mile.
I am firmly of the belief that in carrying out the terms of Confederation we should own the Government railway. It should be operated by the Government through the department, and Minister of Railways and Canals. That was the intention of the Confederation pact and it should be carried out to the letter. '
The Intercolonial railway is not in as good a position as it was years ago. The road-bed has been allowed to deteriorate, the cars are not kept in .the same condition, our train service is not as prompt and regular as it was, and the more outside management there has been brought in the worse it has been for the Intercolonial railway. I do not know what other members, particularly from the Maritime Provinces can think of this matter, and it is possible that some may say that it is local. While it may be somewhat local, on the other hand, I claim that it is Dominion-wide. You cannot successfully build up the Dominion of Canada by tearing down one part and handing it over to some other part.	The Intercolonial has always had its head offices at Moncton. We have magnificent shops and buildings to house and take care of the Intercolonial staff. We have upwards of 2,000 miles of railway including the Intercolonial proper and the branches that have been purchased, leased and otherwise acquired, and that is a sufficient system for a manager and his official staff to take care of. I have nothing to say against other systems of railways. What I ask is that the Government and the Minister of Railways should realize that the people of the Maritime Provinces have regarded the Intercolonial railway as one of the Teasons of their coming into Confederation. The other provinces have had a quid pro quo for all we have had from the -Intercolonial. They have their canals. There is no move being made to hand the canals over to any company. The Intercolonial was never intended to he a paying proposition. All that was expected was that it would pay its running expenses. I strongly believe that if the road were freed from political agitation and if the Minister of Railways would take hold of it and put practical, straightforward men who have had some experience on that railway, we would have a system by itself equal to any other system and which would be a great benefit to this country, particularly to the people of the Maritime Provinces. I would ask the minister to consider well the question of the conditions under which we are to have our produce shipped from the Maritime Provinces and whether this road should be operated as a Government proposition. I move, seconded by Mr. -Sinclair (Antigonish and Guysborough):
That Bill No. 70 be not now read a third time but that It be referred back to the Committee of the Whole to -be amended by adding, after the word " railways " in the tenth line of the preamble thereof, the following words:
" save and except that portion of the Canadian Government Bail-ways known as the Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island Bailway and the branch lin-es connected therewith, owned, leased or operated by the Government of Canada."
I make that motion seconded by my hon. friend from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair).


Mr. BUTTS:: Does my hon. friend know of any greater political machine than the Intercolonial was under his Government?


Arthur Bliss Copp: I do know of several greater political machines and I fear I see now, and will in the very near future, a much greater political machine than the Intercolonial ever was.
Mr. J. D, REID (Minister of Railways): Mr. Speaker, I- do not wish to prolong the debate on this Bill but I feel that I should say a few words. I could not possibly accept the amendment. What the hon. member (Mr. Copp) asks us to do is to except the Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island railways from the provisions of the Bill in regard to the operation of the Canadian National railways
Before answering the hon. gentleman's references to the amendment he has moved, let me refer to a few things he has said about the Intercolonial Railway. He states that as agreed on at Confederation the Intercolonial was originally constructed between the Lower Provinces and the City of Quebec, and there is no doubt about that. I also wish to say that so far as I can remember the road was well managed under the former manager, Mr. Pottinger. Mr. Pottinger was a very fine man and had the confidence of all the people in the provinces through which this road runs. But let me say to the hon. gentleman that during the period of Mr. Pottinger's management-during the operation of the road under a commission, and under a general manager, if my memory serves me right-there was always criticism in this House and in the press that political control and political patronage prevailed, and that therefore the railway was not a success. That has been the cry from the very day the Intercolonial Railway was first constructed and operated.


Arthur Bliss Copp: That surely was not true during the time of my hon. friend's administration ?


Mr. J. D. REID:: 
Arthur Bliss Copp: Where did he come from?


John Dowsley Reid: I think he came orig-nally from the Canadian Pacific railway, but he was for a number of years on the Intercolonial. There is also the case of Mr. Appleton, who was head of the engineering or mechanical department at Moncton, and who now superintends that work on the whole of the Eastern lines, I think, between Port Arthur and Sydney. Another case of promotion is that of Mr. Brady, formerly general manager of the Intercolonial, and afterwards of the Transcontinental, and who is now general manager of all Government lines from Port Arthur eastward.


Arthur Bliss Copp: He is one of the importations.
Mr. J. D.jREID: He has been employed on the Government roads probably for the last fifteen years. I mention these cases to show that the staff on the Intercolonial will enjoy opportunities of promotion which would never be within their reach if the Government system were confined merely to that railway.
I take strong exception to another statement by the hon. gentleman to the effect that if the present Bill were passed the Government could issue bonds on the Intercolonial railway to the extent of $75,000 per mile. The hon. gentleman must have known that statement was not correct, because he has read clause 26, which states that the bonding powers of the company shall not apply to the Canadian Government railways.


Arthur Bliss Copp: I overlooked that feature of. the Bill, and made the statement inadvertently.


John Dowsley Reid: That is what I say, the hon. gentleman evidently made a mistake. While the Intercolonial railway is transferred for operation purposes to the Canadian National Railway system, no power is given to the company, or to the Government, to issue bonds in connection with the Intercolonial, the Prince Edward Island, or the Transcontinental railway.


Mr. H. B. MORPHY:: Why is there not any such power in the Bill?


John Dowsley Reid: We felt that if we
wished to do that, we should come and ask authority from Parliament. There are no bonds on the Intercolonial railway now. In

the future if we wished to remove the Intercolonial from under the operation of this system, it will be free from bonded indebtedness in any way, shape or form.
Now with respect to the operation of the Intercolonial, how could we operate that railway successfully, dr extend to it the advantages that it should enjoy, without incorporating it in the whole railway system? If we left the road under the Minister of Railways, according to my hon. friend, we must keep, up the same operating staff that we had in the past.


Arthur Bliss Copp: If we can operate the Intercolonial in that way why does the minister want to adopt the course that he mentioned in answer to my hon. friend just now? He said that he did not intend to bond the Intercolonial because he may want to take it out of the system.


John Dowsley Reid: The Intercolonial Railway has no bonded indebtedness against it at all; it is free from encumbrances, and we have so left it, and if at any time in the future we wish to take it out of the system it is in exactly the same position as it was at the time of Confederation. By linking up the various roads we can operate them in the most economical manner. We have now the Transcontinental between Winnipeg and Moncton divided up in this way: the management at Winnipeg that operate part of the western lines control as far east as Cochrane; then we have the other part under the management at Montreal and that management has control of the Intercolonial. Now we have linked them together under the same management and the same staff in order to save operating expenses. When it comes to quoting freight rates, the tariff man in charge of the Canadian National Railway system must be able to figure out rates from the West clear through to the Atlantic ports. If you have this as part of one co-ordinated system, is it not fair to say that those who are operating the road to make it a success will want to route all the business they can by their own system? My idea, when the Intercolonial Railway was linked up with the Canadian National Railway system, was that it would throw so much, more business down through the Lower Provinces that it would make the Intercolonial pay where it has not paid in the past. The whole trouble with the Intercolonial Railway was that it started at Sydney and ran to Montreal, but the other railways had no interest in giving it traffic, and consequently it was hard work to make it pay. Now that it is part of our national
system all the traffic from the West that can be sent over the Intercolonial to Halifax, 'St. John and Sydney will be so routed.
I cannot for the life of me see why the hon. member can suggest that the Intercolonial should be kept out of the Canadian National Railway system.
Although our national system is under a company incorporated by this Bill, still it is all subject to the control of Parliament, and if the operation is not carried on successfully, hon. members can discuss the system just the same as they were accustomed to discuss the Intercolonial in the past.
The hon. member (Mr. Copp) has emphasized the idea that the employees of the Intercolonial are not in a position to receive the advancement now that they would have received had it not been incorporated in the national system. So far as my information goes, the employees of the Intercolonial are better satisfied that it is part of the Transcontinental, for the reason that a young man starting on the Intercolonial to-day has hundreds of opportunities of getting a position on our system of fifteen thousand miles as compared with the meagre opportunities open to him on the Intercolonial alone.
In my opinion one of the reasons why the hon. member objects to the change is this. We have heard him, so long as he has been a member of this Parliament, complaining day after day bitterly of the patronage in connection with the Intercolonial Railway. He knows well enough that when it goes into this system that ends any opportunity he has of dominating the patronage. The Board of Directors are going to operate this system independent of any members of Parliament or even of members of the Government. That is where the trouble is with the hon. member; there is no doubt about that.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Judge not,-


John Dowsley Reid: No man in this House has fought as hard for political patronage on the Intercolonial railway as has the hon. member; there is no doubt about that. He can stand up here and abuse us on this side of the House about political patronage on the Intercolonial, but he knows that, when his party were in power-


An hon. MEMBER:: Cochrane was the bad spot.


John Dowsley Reid: -He was the man right on the job so far as patronage was concerned.


Mr. POWER:: The Government was absolutely innocent.


John Dowsley Reid: Now, Mr. Speaker, I
have had the Intercolonial railway and the Prince Edward Island railway under the operation of the Department of Railways for a year or two, and while I believe the department did their very best to operate them as successfully as they could be operated under government control, yet I feel it is in the interest of the railways and of the public that these should be operated by an independent commission such as is being organized in connection with this Canadian National Railway system. I feel that it is also in the interest of the employees. I do not see how we can operate successfully if we continue the Intercolonial independent of the Canadian National Railway system. I am sorry the hon. member has moved the amendment, I do not think it is in the interest of any one concerned, and I hope the House will reject it..


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Mr. Speaker, before the vote is taken I feel it is incumbent upon me to say a word or two in as much as I am one of the ministers representing that portion of Canada traversed by the Intercolonial railway. This matter came up some months ago when the operation of the Intercolonial was transferred to the Canadian National railways by Order in Council, and it was done with my full knowledge and consent. I purpose to vote against the amendment of my hon. friend from Westmorland (Mr. Copp) and I shall do so not only with a clear conscience but with the feeling that the adoption of this amendment would really be going back to the old principle of operation of the Intercolonial as we had it in the past as long as I can remember.
There has been a great deal of discussion on this Bill regarding the virtues of public and private ownership, but for the life of me I fail to see wherein it was necessary to discuss the question at all. We have got the railways on our hands to-day-it is not a very rosy prospect I must confess-and it is the duty of Parliament and of the Government especially to try and see that they work out the problem in the best way possible. I repeat that I fail to see how the question whether or not a man is in favour of public ownership or of private ownership of a public utility is raised in connection with the Bill now before the House We have the Canadian National Railway system on our hands, we have the Canadian Northern, we have the Grand Trunk Pacific, we have

the National Transcontinental, we have the Intercolonial; and it is the duty of the Government and of Parliament to devise the best possible method of making the operation of these roads a success. I am not going to hark back to what has taken place in connection with the operation and management of the Intercolonial Railway from its inception. It has been a political machine, pure and simple, and any man who stands up in this House and says that it has not been a political machine up to the last two years or so-well, he is simply talking to hear himself talk. If I thought that the Canadian National Railway system was going to be run as a political machine, as Government railways have been run in the past, I would vote and fight against the whole thing; I do not know what I would not do to prevent its going through. We have not received the service in the Maritime Provinces to which we have been entitled; and it has cost fifty per cent more money to give us the service we did get than it should have cost. In this respect one party has been just as bad as the other. Now, instead of fifteen or eighteen hundred miles of railway, as we had in the Intercolonial, we have about twelve thousand miles-and it looks as if we should have considerably over twenty thousand miles before very long. I tell you, Sir, that unless this system is run as a business proposition, Canada will be faced with a most serious problem; with something more serious even than the debt incurred by the war. Much, therefore, as I would like to see advantages given' to my own part of Canada; much as I would like to see the Intercolonial Railway run for the benefit of the Maritime Provinces, I cannot as a public man agree to any proposal which will cause this or any other portion of the system to be operated as anything but a business proposition. The operation of these Government railways may not be perfect, but it will be under the control of a board of directors entirely independent of the Government, except that they are appointed by the Government. If ever a body of men had absolutely a free hand in the running of a railway, the board administering the Canadian National Railways have had a free hand up to the present time-I know what I am talking about. I can promise that so long as I -remain in this Government there will be no question, so far as I know, about their having a free hand to run the National Railway system as a business proposition. Unless we do run

it that way, we might as well throw up our hands and say that the whole thing is a hopeless mess. But I believe that it can be done; and because we want to run the whole thing as a business proposition 1 want to see the Intercolonial railway put in with the rest of it. The Minister of Bail-ways has pointed out the impossibility of operating the Canadian National Eailways down to Montreal and stopping there, not going on to Halifax and St. John. It is not in the interest of the Maritime Provinces that that should be done. The Government railways can be operated much more economically and in a much more businesslike manner if taken as a whole than they could if part of the system is run by the Canadian National Bailway Company and part by the Minister of Eailways.
I said in beginning that I did not intend to say very much, but I would not feel like giving a silent vote on a matter of such great importance to the Maritime Provinces. I believe that by incorporating practically the whole system of railways in the Maritime Provinces into this railway system, we are doing the Maritime Provinces the greatest possible benefit. If the operation of the national railways goes on as it has gone on during the last year and as I believe it will go in the future, it will not be many years before the people who now oppose this proposal will stand up to bless it and to say that the elimination of politics from the administration of the Government railways and the operation of those railways as a business proposition means the accomplishing of a great work for the people of Canada as a whole.
My hon. friend referred to freight rates. There may be some dislocation of freight rates; there may be cases in which we shall have to pay a little higher freight rates in the future than we have paid in the past. But there will also be cases where we shall get an efficient service, which we have been unable to get in the past. The member for Westmorland (Mr. Copp) knows the trouble he had in his own county in an effort to get service under political management. He does not believe that there is any possibility of a repetition of these things in the future if the Government railways in the Maritime Provinces are run as a business proposition.


Arthur Bliss Copp: But I have no faith in the assumption that they will be run as a business proposition.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is where we disagree. Until it is proved to me that they will not be run as a business proposition, I purpose considering that they will be.
My hon. friend .knows that if this railway system is run as a business proposition it will do much more for the Maritime Provinces in the future than it has done in the past. For these reasons, I intend to vote against this amendment. I am satisfied that if the amendment is voted down the House or the country will never regret the incorporation of the Intercolonial railway in the great Canadian National Eailway system.


Mr. PEDLOW:: Would the minister inform the House why it is necessary to finance the Eailway Department on a basis different from that on which the department that he controls is financed?


Mr. DEPUTY  SPEAKEE@: I do not think that question is in order; it has been decided by the vote which has just been taken.
Amendment (Mr. Copp) negatived.


Mr. DEPUTY  SPEAKEE@: The question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Ernest Lapointe: I realize that the House is anxious to give a final vote on this Bill, and I shall trespass upon its time no further than to make a few brief remarks. First, I wish to correct a statement made by the Acting Prime Minister (Sir Thomas White), who represented me this afternoon as being a strong opponent of public ownership of railways. My hon. friend certainly misconstrued my words if he found in them an expression of opposition to the principle of the nationalization of railways. I merely said that nobody had the right to excommunicate from Liberalism those who were opposed to that principle. My speech was made to protest against the lectures on Liberalism which certain hon. gentlemen on the other side are prone to inflict upon us. I said then, and I repeat now, that public ownership, the nationalization of industries, is not a principle of Liberalism; it is state socialism. That does not mean that I am opposed to it. I am not afraid of words. My view is that it is a huge experiment- and I have not the same confidence in its ultimate success as some of my friends in the House seem to have. But we have no choice in the matter. We are the owners of a great system of railways, and we must try to make it the best system possible. We must, as many hon. members have said, give public ownership a fair chance.

I rise, however, for the purpose of giving my hon. friends opposite, who are so eloquent in their professions of Liberalism, an opportunity of registering their votes in favour of what I consider to be a true Liberal principle. When the House was in committee on the Bill I moved that labour be given a fair share in the 'management of the railway, and I purpose now moving an amendment to that effect. The Government, by the voice of the Minister of Labour in the Senate, has already recognized the soundness of that principle, and at the present time a commission is travelling throughout the country investigating industrial conditions in order to apply this principle to private industries. The Government should demonstrate its good faith and sincerity by embodying the same principle in the management of the National railways which are the very property of the state. The workingman who has, by the exercise. of his franchise, a voice in the management of public affairs in this country, believes he has also a right to a voice in the management of the industries which by his work he helps to build up. He claims his industrial citizenship as well as his political citizenship. This desire comes, I believe, from a high sense of service. Most students of labour and industrial conditions in the world to-day are in favour of allowing labour a share in the management of industries. They believe that by raising the employee to a state of partnership with his employer, by acquainting him with the conditions of the undertaking or the business which is common to both, his sense of responsibility will be enhanced and much trouble will be avoided. The British Government has accepted that principle with regard to mines. Let me refer, in this connection, to the commission presided over by Mr. Justice Sankey. The commission was composed of four eminent men-Mr. Justice Sankey, Mr. A. J. Balfour, Sir Arthur Duckham, and Sir Thomas Boyden. Here are a few words from the report of that commission:-
It is in the interests of the country that the colliery worker shall have an effective voice in the direction of the mine. For a generation the colliery worker has been educated socially and technically. The result is a great national asset. Why not use it?
The British Government has accepted that report, and the principle of a share in the management of the British mines has been accepted and will be carried out. This 'Government should embody a similar principle in this legislation which it is endeavouring to induce the industrials of the country to

accept at the present time. By so doing the Government would give effect to the first clause of the resolution adopted by the Peace Conference and proposed to be incorporated in the Peace Treaty. This resolution, which was communicated to the House yesterday by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Bowell), contained this principle:-
First-the guiding principle above enunciated that labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce.
The best way to recognize that principle is to 'accept the amendment which I now purpose moving. I move, seconded by Mr. Verville:-
That Bill No. 70 be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Committee of the Whole House, in order that the following words be inserted at the end of clause 1 of the said Bill: " At least two of said directors shall be appointed upon the recommendation of the employees of the Canadian National railways."


Mr. ALPHONSE VERVILLE (St. Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to second the amendment of the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. E. Lapointe), although it seems almost unnecessary for any hon. member on either side of the House to have to move an amendment of this nature. I was not here all the time when this Bill was under discussion, but I was surprised to hear that a provision of this kind was not inserted by the Government in the Bill. Many hon. members on this side and many who were on this side prior to Union Government have, time and again whenever opportunity offered, declared that labour should, to some extent, be represented on as many commissions as possible, because the practical knowledge of the labour man was probably more effective than the technical knowledge of many men who are appointed on commissions. We have now reached a stage in the development of this country when we must, willingly or otherwise, recognize this principle that labour should be represented, and any Government, whether federal, provincial or municipal, must also recognize it and, put it into operation. Any hon. member who is in business must have long ago concluded that the most valuable information he has ever received in his private business has, generally speaking, come from those who have had the most practical experience. The Minister of Labour has, time and again, and rightly so, consulted the best element of labour in the country in connection with framing legislation or Orders in Council towards a better understanding between capital and labour.

213P
The mover of this amendment stated that the principle of the representation of labour was recognized in the Senate. I claim that it was not recognized in the Senate, because the Minister of Labour should belong to the House of Commons. I know the Minister of Labour very well, and I have great confidence in his ability as well as in his practical knowledge. If any one should be appointed on the Board of Birectors, apart from the great financiers of the country, or men who have experience in the management of a railway, those who have the most knowledge are surely the railwaymen of the land.
Many of them have grown up with the road from boyhood; they have served their apprenticeship and have acquired the most valuable kind of knowledge for a position of this sort. I hope that hon. members will not think that this proposal is put forward for a political purpose. I thought I heard someone laugh on the other side of the House, but I must have been mistaken. Judging by the present conditions in the labour world, I am afraid that if the Government does not grant to the labour organizations what they have a right to expect, they will take the means to get it. This may seem radical, but any one who has studied the feeling of unrest there is throughout the country must realize that there is only one way of salvation, and that is by co-operation to the fullest extent. The Government may not have said that it will not appoint labour men; I do not know whether it has or not, but I am afraid there will be influence enough brought to bear to prevent the appointment of labour men to this directorate. Ever since I have been in this House I have said that a Minister of Labour in this Government would not make a success of his department unless he was a practical man. The Government, fortunately, have seen fit to appoint a practical man to the head of that department. Now what applies to the Department of Labour surely ought to apply to one of the greatest enterprises this country has -ever undertaken. The Government have everything to gain by adopting this amendment. They will find among the railway men some of the ablest men in America, and able not only for their practical knowledge; some members of the Government would no doubt be surprised at the -technical qualifications of some of our railway employees, and perhaps they are more advanced in finance than some of the ministers may think. Those of -them who have acquired a home of their own know exactly what a dollar is worth, and might do better
in financial -matters than others whom the Government may appoint to the board. I do not know of any government, federal or provincial, that has made a mistake through trying to get all classes of -society represented on the commissions it appoints. Furthermore, a practical knowledge of all the great economic questions of the day will perhaps be worth more -than all the technical knowledge put together. I am proud to second the amendment, and I trust the Government will accept it.
Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Minister oE the Interior); Among all the remarks made by the mover and the seconder of this amendment I am able to find only one with which I very cordially agree, namely, that we have at the present time in charge of the Department of Labour a gentleman of very great practical ability, of devotion to duty, and of fidelity to the cause of labour. With anything else that has been said I am afraid I must differ. In fact, I must express surprise that so strictly logical a mind as that of the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) could he brought to support the amendment now before the House. The amendment is to the effect -that the Government in appointing the directorate of this board must accept at least two members chosen by the railway employees. Had the hon. gentleman really meant that the amendment should be considered as a practical step, he would have added to his amendment provisions that would have enabled the Government to ascertain what the recommendation of the railway employees would be. Without, the machinery for its ascertainment, the amendment would be impossible of execution, for there would be no way in which it could be carried out.


Ernest Lapointe: At the present time the employees of the Government railway vote every winter for two representatives of the Pension Board in connection with the Provident Fund.


Arthur Meighen: Through what organization? There are at the present time, I am told, fifteen or seventeen different organizations of the railway employees, absolutely distinct in every way. Are these fifteen different organizations going to make their recommendations ?


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend
ought to know that it can be done very easily.


Arthur Meighen: I am quite free to remark that the method of doing it was not

made clear by the mover or the seconder of the amendment, and one would have thought that would have been their duty.


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend could easily devise a way of recording their votes.


Arthur Meighen: The devising of the way would be the part of the proposer of the idea. To make the amendment practical some way should be devised.


Ernest Lapointe: If my hon. friend will accept the principle I will devise the way.


Arthur Meighen: I will come to the principle in a moment. I am now making this floint: That the law as proposed to be put into effect by the hon. member would be impracticable of execution. There would have to be machinery provided for carrying it into effect, and because the machinery is absent, the hon. gentleman cannot expect the House to accept the amendment. Presuming that there was only one organization which represented all the employees of the road, what should be done with the amendment ?-and now we come to the principle of the amendment. If the principle is to be adopted, it means this: That the Government which has to appoint this directorate, and be responsible for its appointment, which has to be responsible in general for the management of the road after the appointment, is'to have no say in the appointment of two of the directors. If that is the case, why should it have any say in the appointment of any? If the Government is to be responsible for the conduct of men in the selection of whom it has no voice at all, and if that applies to two of the directorate, why should it not apply to all? Why is the Government to be held responsible for the conduct of large operations by men whom it does not choose? If, in a word, the principle of Government responsibility is to stand, how can the amendment carry?
In the next place, if the amendment were to carry, it would be an admission on the part of this Parliament that while we represent, as the Parliament of Canada to which the Government is responsible, one section of the people of this country, and therefore can nominate men to represent that section on the directorate, we do not represent another section, namely, the labour element. Is Parliament prepared to take that position? Is Parliament prepared to declare that we the representatives of the people hold an altogether different renvtr. Meigben.]
lationship to the proprietary interests of Canada, as opposed to the labour interests of Canada? This Parliament, if it is a Parliament at all, represents labour in the very same sense that it represents proprietorship or capital, and must take the responsibility, in appointing members of a directorate of a great Government railway system, of seeing to it that all major sections of the community of Canada are fairly represented on that directorate so far as may be necessary for the efficient management of the system. No one who understands the English language, or who knows the attitude of the Government, would, for one moment, suggest that the Government is opposed to the appointment on this directorate of men who have peculiar knowledge of the interests of those employed upon the road. It would seem to me obvious that, other things equal, it would be of great advantage to the system that there should be on the directorate men intimate with the needs of the employees of the road and peculiarly qualified to speak for them. That is one thing, but to say that these men must be selected finally, not by the Government which is responsible for the success of the undertaking but by others who have no such responsibility, is to affirm a principle that this Parliament has never before affirmed and one which I really cannot suppose that the hon. member for Ka-mouraska is serious in asking us to affirm. If we were to do so, if we were to take the ground-let me repeat it in another form of words-that Parliament, or the Government, is not qualified to select in the name of labour in the same way that it selects in the name of other classes of the community, either upon the basis of language, religion, occupation or in whatever manner, then we must also assume that we are not able to select in the name of any other section of the community and any other section would be in just the same position to come to Parliament and say: What right have you to select representatives on the Board of the National Railways who are peculiarly conversant with our interests in the management of these roads, or what right have you to select them if you permit one section of the community to select its own? Were the amendment to be adopted, Parliament would be landed in an anomalous and impossible position, in a position inconsistent with the best principles of constitutional government, in a position that no parliament in a constitutionally governed country has ever before occupied.


William Stevens Fielding: Mr. Speaker, I would like to support the motion of my hon. friend from Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe), so eloquently supported by my hon. friend from St. Denis (Mr. Verville), but logically I fail to see any good reason for it. I sympathize heartily with the argument that labour ought to be represented on this Board. I hope the Government will keep that in mind and see that labour is represented on the Board, and, if it be possible, labour connected with the railway itself. But there are other classes also that we would like to see represented on the Board, and I do not think it is wise to select one particular class and dictate as to their appointment. For example the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) suggested- and I like the suggestion-that among the returned soldiers of the engineer corps, there are a number .of very capable men and that it might be desirable that one of this class might be found to go on the board. There is not only the consideration that we would have the benefit of his skill as an engineer, but the fact that he is a returned soldier means a good deal to us all. But I do not think that you should put it in an Act of Parliament that there, must be one. This board ought to represent different interests in the community and if the Government do not see that all legitimate interests are represented, that will be a grievance for which we have a right to call them to account. But I must say that I do not see the logic of saying that as respects one particular section, we will put that in the Bill, but as respects all other elements we will not say anything about them at all. I do not think that is reasonable. I sympathize warmly with the argument that labour ought to be represented on the board, and if the Government fail to provide in some way or other for the representation of labour on that board it will be pursuing a course for which at a later stage it should be called to account in Parliament.


Archibald Blake McCoig: I was paired with the hon. member for East Elgin (Mr. Marshall). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. ROBB:: Mr. Speaker, my duty compels me, much as I regret it, to draw your attention to the fact that the hon. member for North Wellington (Mr. W. A. Clarke) entered this Chamber after the vote was about half taken on this question, and, consequently, he did not hear the question put.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I must ask the hon. member for North Wellington if he was present in the House and heard the question put?


Mr. W. A. CLARKE:: No.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The Clerk will strike the vote from the record.
Yeas 60, Nays 110.


Ernest Lapointe: I was paired with the Minister of Customs (Mr. Sifton). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.
Mr. DUN'CAN ROSS: I was paired with the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Fripp). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.
Ames (Sir Herbert), Anderson,
Andrews,
Argue,
Armstrong (Lambton) Arthurs,
Ballantyne,
Ball,
Blair,
Blake,
Bolton,
Bowman,
Boyce,
Boys,
Brien,
Buchanan,
Burrell,
Butts,
Calder.
Campbell,
Carvell,
Casselman,
Chaplin,
Charters,
Clark (Bruce),
Clark (Red Deer), Clarke (Wellington), Clements,
Cochrane,
Cockshutt,
Cooper,
Cowan,
Crerar,
Cronyn,
Crothers,
Crowe,
Cruise,
Davidson,
Davis,
Douglas (Strathcona), Douglas (Cape Breton S. & Rich.), Edwards,
Elkin,
Finley,
Foster (York),
Glass,
Green,
Griesbach,
Guthrie,
Halladay,
Harold,
Hartt,
Hay,
Henders,
Hocken,
Hughes (Sir Sam), Johnston,
Keefer,
Knox,
Lalor,
Lang,
Loggie,
Long,
Mackie (Renfrew), Maclean (Halifax), McGibbon (Muskoka), McGregor,
McIntosh,
Mclsaac,
McLean (Royal), McLeod,
Maharg,
Manion,
Meighen Mewburn.
Middlebro,
Morphy,
Mowat,
Munson,
Myers,
Nesbitt,
Nicholson
(Queens, (P.E.I.), Nicholson (Algoma), Nickle,
Paul,
Redman,
Reid (Grenville),
Reid, (Mackenzie). Richardson,
Rowell,
Sexsmith,
Shaw,
Simpson,
Steele,
Stevens,
Stewart (Hamilton), Stewart (Lanark),
Sutherland,
Thompson (Weyburn), Thompson (Hastings), Thompson (Yukon), Thomson (Qu'Appelle), Tolmie,
Tweedie,
White (Victoria), White (Sir Thomas), Wigmore,
Wilson (Wentworth), Wilson (Saskatoon), Wright.-110.

Messrs.


Henri Sévérin Béland: 

THIRD READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
'Bill No. 80, to authorize the appointment of an Air Board for the control of Aeronautics.-Mr. Maclean (Halifax).
Bill No. 75, to amend The Live Stock and Live Stock Products Act, 1917.-Hon. Mr. Crerar.
On motion of Sir Thomas White the House adjourned at 11.35 p.m.
Wednesday, May 7, 1919.