1922-03-27

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the name of Mr. Boivin was substituted for that of Mr. Kyte on the Select Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day are proceeded with I desire to draw the attention of the Government to an article which appears in the press of Canada this morning, evidently despatched by the Canadian Press from London, England. It refers to an article in a British paper of the standing of which I have no knowledge, but inasmuch as the article has doubtless, through the Canadian Press, received very wide circulation-possibly world-wide circulation -and as, in my judgment it is defamatory to the honour of Canada I wish to call it to the attention of the Government and ask what action they propose to take in the matter. The article in question refers to the late arbitration on the value of the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company and I shall quote a short sentence which reads as follows:	.

It is not more than two years since the manipulators of Ottawa, by daring and unscrupulous trickery, befooled this railway organization into an arbitration.
Later it refers to one of the arbitrators, Hon. Mr. Taft, as "a man not likely to be amenable to Canadian political and financial pressure," thereby implying that the Board of Arbitrators was subjected to political and financial pressure in the discharge of an onerous duty. Further on the article says:
If some Central American country swindled British investors out of not less than $48,000,000 by methods which were used in Canada, we think collision with the Monroe Doctrine might be risked in an effort to do something about it.
Whatever may be thought of the merits or demerits of the policy of acquisition I am sure that all the members of the House- of this House and the last-are agreed that nothing but honourable methods on the part of Canada were adopted as between this country and the British shareholders

nothing but the most honourable and fair methods throughout. A newspaper article defaming individuals may perhaps be lightly treated, but such an article defaming a nation, and circulating throughout the world, is not a matter we can afford wholly to ignore. A Government exercises some supervision over such matters in so far as they may impugn the honour of another country. The British Government has its obligations in this regard, the same as the Government of any country. I have not had the opportunity of mentioning the matter to the Prime Minister, nor to the Government, but I call their attention to it now and ask that they advise us now if possible, if not, later, what they propose to do with regard to this article that has gained such worldwide circulation.


Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: It is a little difficult to know exactly what course it is most advisable to take in regard to newspaper articles, even articles apearing in one's own country, to say nothing of articles appearing in the press of another country. However, I am sure that the remarks of my hon. friend will be quoted abroad, and in so far as they go to indicate that the methods of this country in its transactions have been honourable I wish to associate myself entirely with him. I think that will be sufficient for the present.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I wish to say that,
although the reading of newspaper extracts on the Orders of the Day is not, strictly

Questions
speaking, permissible, yet I am in the judgment of the House in holding it as proper that, on a subject of public importance, especially when the honour of the country is affected, an hon. member may be allowed some latitude in calling the attention of the Government to the matter.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 12, respecting The Interprovincial and James Bay Railway Company. -Mr. Parent.-

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)

Mr. MICHAUD:: 1.	Has Germany paid to the Allies up to the end of the year 192.1, the sum of $1,620,000,000?
2.	If so. what proportion, if any, of the said sum has been or will be paid to Canada?


Hon. Mr. COPP:: 
BRITISH PREFERENCE GOODS IMPORTED VIA UNITED STATES
Mr. LOGAN:: What was the value of imported goods, subject to British Preferential Tariff, brought into Canada via ports of the United States during the years 1919-20 and 1920-21?


Hon. Mr. BUREAU:: The Statistical records show the value of goods imported from each country via ports in the United States but do not show the value of goods, subject to British Preferential Tariff, brought into Canada via ports of the United States.


SALES TAX COLLECTIONS
Mr. MORRISON:: What amount has been collected each month from the Sales Tax, since its inception?


Jacques Bureau: Statement showing amount collected each month from the Sales Tax since its inception (to 28th February, 1922) : Month	Amount
1920-	
June			$1,906,581.24
July 		 [DOT] [DOT] *		 3,684,718.19
August			 4,129,041.60
September			 4,916,576.79
October 			 5,020,474.88
November 			 4,497,501.66
December			 4,202,006.60
1921-	
January 			 3,276,396.98
February			 2,987,297.01
March 			 3,413,823.36
April 			 3,014,799.73
May 			 4,185,920.71
June			 4,476,949.67
July 			 5,416,071.82*
August			 5,959,828.69
September			 5,466,338.47
October 			 6,075,037.87
November 			 5,618,056.80
December 			 5,991,772.35
1922-	
January 			 5,611,241.80
February			 4,472,708.94 $94,223,145.16


RICHIBUCTO REPAIRS WORKS
Mr. LEGER:: 1.	Did the Department of Public Works purchase a motor boat during the years from 1911 to 1921, for the use of the foreman on the repair works at the North and South Beaches, Richibucto, Kent County, New Brunswick?
2.	If so, is it still owned by the Government, and in whose possession is it at present?
3.	Has this boat been disposed of by the Government?
4.	If so, to whom and on what date?


Hon. Mr. MURPHY (for the Minister of Public Works) :: 1.	Yes, for use by the district engineer and staff.
2.	Yes, still owned by the department.
3	and 4. No. Tenders were called for, but sale was not completed.


COAL ROYALTIES
Mr. KNOX:: What is the amount of the coal royalties collected by the Dominion Government in each of the fiscal years from April 1st, 1906, to March 31st, 1921?	'
Questions


Hon. Mr. STEWART:: 


DOMINION LANDS
[Stage Direction]
1st April, 1906, to 1st April,
1907		
1st April, 1907, to 1st Apri
1908		
1st April, 1908, to 1st Apri
1909		
1st April, 1909, to 1st Apri
1910		
1st April, 1910, to 1st Apri
1911		
1st April, 1911, to 1st Apri
1912		
1st April, 1912, to 1st Apri!
1913		
1st April, 1913, to 1st Apri!
1914		
1st April, 1914, to 1st April
1915		
1st April, 1915, to 1st Apri;
[DOT] 1916	
1st April, 1916, to 1st April
1917		
1st April, 1917, to 1st April
1918		
1st April, 1918, to 1st April
1919		
1st April, 1919, to 1st April
1920		
1st April, 1920, to 1st April
1921		
Total	
$ 4,456	80
9,169	35
6,052	23
155,371	86
221,246	12
107,322	07
147,219	57
149,341	53
106,374	73
69,800	29
151,684	82
148,687	30
178,880	71
184,215	12
193,249	21
$1,833,071	71

[Stage Direction]
Saskatchewan Alberta
1st April, 1906, to 31st March, 1907 1st April, 1907, to 31st March, 1908 1st April, 1908, to 31st March, 1909 1st April, 1909, to 31st March, 1910 1st April, 1910, to 31st March, 1911 1st April, 1911, to 31st March, 1912 1st April, 1912, to 31st March, 1913 1st April, 1913, to 31st March, 1914 1st April, 1914, to 31st March, 1915 1st April, 1915, to 31st March, 1916 1st April, 1916, to 31st March, 1917

299	50 :	? 58	50358	40	192	40459	55	356	03320	10	19,424	991,115	75	7,955	01680	50	1,156	10827	57	3,811	71787	45	4,877	87712	71	1,051	20736	27	2,793	441,919	20	2,275	65

[Stage Direction]
Con.
	Saskatchewan	Alberta	
1st April, 1917, to 31st March, 1918	1,574 05	26,122	251st April, 1918, to 31st March, 1919	564 24	18,857	041st April, 1919, to 31st March, 1920	1,370 37	19,133	831st April, 1920, to 31st March, 1921	4,370 83	40,800	261st April, 1921, to 31st Dec., 1921..	4,964 05	13,442	84
[Stage Direction]
Saskatchewan	$ 21,060 54
Alberta	 162,759 12

Mr. JOHNSTON (Last Mountain) :: 1.	What are the figures, by Provinces, for the rural and urban population of the Dominion of Canada, as shown by the last census?
2.	What were these figures in 1911?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 1.	Final figures of 1921 census classification as rural and urban not yet available.
2.	Rural population in 1911, 3,925,679; Urban, 3,280,964.


DOMINION LANDS-SASKATCHEWAN
Mr. JOHNSTON (Last Mountain) :: 1.	What is the total acreage and value of lands sold by the Dominion Government in Saskatchewan from September 1st, 1905, to December 31st, 1921?
2.	What is the total acreage and value of lands sold by the Dominion Government In Alberta from September 1st, 1905, to December 31st, 1921?


John Alexander Stewart: As school lands sales are not in the same class as other sales, the money collected being held in trust for the provinces, they are shown separately in the following statement:
1.
Province	Area Sold Approximate value
Saskatchewan

5,538,878	$16,619,101
School Lands
Sales	"	 1,457,274	26,967,218
2.
Alberta	3,944,318	11,773,264
School Lands
Sales	"	  954,082	13,204,209

Wheat Board.


MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. MARCILE (Bagot):: 1.	Is it the intention of the Government to discontinue the services of the Mounted Police in the different Provinces of Canada?
2.	If so, when?
3.	If not, why?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: The reorganization of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be fully considered when Bill No. 15, an Act respecting the Department of National Defence, becomes law.


ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY
Mr. MANION:: 1.	Has the Committee appointed to report upon the St. Lawrence Great Lakes Canal made a report to the Government?
2.	If so, has this report been tabled?
3.	Will said report be printed and distributed to the members?


Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: 1.	The report referred to I have just presented and laid on the Table.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	It is entirely for the House to say if it wishes to have this report printed. It is rather a bulky report, and would be expensive to print. In the meantime I have asked the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to distribute to members of both Houses copies of the report as printed by the Government of the United States. Through the courtesy of the United States government copies of the report as printed at Washington have been obtained in numbers sufficient to supply hon. members of both Houses. If the House wishes to have further copies printed, all right.


Arthur Meighen: There are enough
copies of the report for members of both Houses?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes. UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. CHISHOLM:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, petitions and other documents in any way referring to the superannuation of John C. McQuarrie, section foreman at West Bay Road, Inverness County.


Mr. HANSON:: For a return showing the names of all persons dismissed from the Sorel Shipyards since the 29th of December, 1921, together with the cause of dismissal in each case. Also showing the names of all persons taken on at the said shipyards during the same period, showing the cause for employment of each person,


Mr. MARTELL:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports, memoranda, informations and warrants, minutes of evidence and convictions, and all other Court proceedings relating or in anywise appertaining
to the trial and conviction of Clyde Heath and Gurney Young of Tancook, Nova Scotia, for a violation of the Migratory Birds Convention Act. Also a copy of the Order in Council dated on or about the 19th day of November, 1921, authorizing and empowering the remission of all fines and forfeitures occasioned by the conviction of said Clyde Heath and Gurney Young.


QUEBEC FISHERIES
[Stage Direction]
On the Order:
Mr. MARCIL (Bonaventure):: For a copy of the correspondence and all other documents, regarding the transfer of fisheries to the Province of Quebec.


Arthur Meighen: I see no reason why this notice should appear among the Notices of Motion. I think it should appear among the Orders as a notice of motion for the production of papers. And I see no reason why it should not pass.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: I understand the hon. gentleman from Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) desires to speak on this motion- at least so he told me-and I desire to speak also.


Charles Marcil: It may stand until Wednesday.


Arthur Meighen: Then I will not raise any objections.


Ernest Lapointe: And perhaps my hon. friend desires to speak to it.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture) moved:: That the Memorandum laid before the Houst on March 23 rd instant, regarding the Reestablishment of the Canadian Wheat Board, be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture and Colonization.
He said: When the memorandum referred to in the motion was brought before the Government the first minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) intimated that every expedition would be given to the request to have this matter taken up and possibly referred to the Committee on Agriculture. This suggestion seems to meet the wishes of the Council of Agriculture, but they made a request that the matter be expedited in every possible way, and we are proceeding to comply with that request.


Mr. CRERAR:: I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture (M/. Motherwell), or the Government, if it is the intention that the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture will take this matter up and press it immediately that committee gets to work.
Interim Supply


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Did my hon. friend ask if it was the intention of the Government to request the Committee on Agriculture to proceed immediately to consider this matter?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Certainly.


Arthur Meighen: I do not wish to delay the carrying of this motion, but I do not want to waive a right. It seems to me that notice must be given to the House that it shall go into committee on the motion. I am quite willing to have the rule waived in this case, as, indeed, I am in favour of having the motion carried.


Hewitt Bostock: I am informed that notice of this motion was given in the Votes and Proceedings under rule 40.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply-Mr. Gordon in the Chair.
['The Government is in hearty agreement with my hon. friend in its desire to prevent any overlapping.\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 10.51 p.m.\nTuesday, March 28, 1922']
Mr. FIELDING:: In accordance with an intimation previously given, I desire to move now this resolution on which will be based an Interim Supply Bill covering one-quarter of the present Estimates:
Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $76,499,371.88, being one-fourth of the amount of each of the several items to be voted as set forth in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1923, laid before the House of Commons at the present session of Parliament, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1923.
I am asking for one-quarter, which will cover Supply for three months. In some cases only one-sixth has been taken; and if my hon. friends opposite prefer that the Interim Supply be limited to one-sixth, I shall have no objection; but we shall be making, as it were, two bites of a cherry. The time is not far distant when we shall have to have a second motion, and if it be agreeable, I shall take one-fourth. At a previous sitting, there was some discussion as to the procedure as regards this matter; but I think there will be a rather general recognition of the propriety of the motion, so I assume that it will go through without opposition.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: I am afraid I am very much where I was the other day. The only difficulty in connection with this matter is my hon. friend himself, his hon. leader, (Mr. Mackenzie King) and his party. We had an idea that the King's business had to be carried on in a particular

way, and one of the ways which, as we then thought, were necessary, was this very question of interim supply. When the matter was under discussion the other day, I told my hon. friend that he could possibly remove a good many objections which we might have to this matter, if he would indicate wherein he was wrong last year and whether or not the practice which, as we pointed out last year, had obtained from time-well it is not immemorial, because we have not had a Parliament for that length of time, but practically from time immemorial, so far as Parliament is concerned-was wrong and whether the practice insisted on last year was right; whether it is wrong, immoral and improper to do this sort of thing or whether, for the purpose of obtaining campaign literature, it was thought to be a good thing to force a government, that required this interim supply to carry on the public service, to employ the closure. If the latter be the reason, we are not following my hon. friend in any of those tactics. If it be right that the public business should go on-and we used to think that it was- and the real motive of last year was something along the line which I have described, there will be no difficulty this year, because what the Opposition wants to do is to see the public business carried on. I desire, however, to point out to my hon. friend that last Friday he stated that his position then and his position now were not at all contradictory. If my hon. friend's position is: Last year, because the House had had ample opportunity to consider the Estimates, and did consider them, and knew something about them, it was a wrong thing to pass interim supply; and this year, because the Estimates have not yet been reached and we have not yet considered them, this proposal of interim supply is proper-if that be the position, my hon. friend is not inconsistent. But I desire to point out to the House that last year on the 8th of March the Estimates were tabled, and on the 15th of March we started going into committee on the Estimates. We were in committee on the Estimates practically all the time from then on until the 7th of April when this question of interim supply was brought up, with the result that we could receive no accommodation. On the 13th of April the item was passed after a good deal of discussion and after several rather heated arguments as to the way in which supply was being blocked by the then Opposition. Last year, the interim supply vote was put through

Interim Supply
only on the 13th of April, so that every opportunity was given to the House to go into the Estimates, and every member knew exactly what the Estimates were and what they meant. No attempt was made to rush the House. On the other hand, the then Opposition refused to accommodate the government in the conduct of public business after having had full six weeks' time for consideration of the Estimates and of the demands which the government were putting forward.
I have pointed out that there is a great deal of difference between the attitude then taken by my hon. friend and the attitude which is being taken to-day. My hon. friend's attitude of last year is really the chief point of difficulty which we have on this side of the House as regards giving consent. It may be that my hon. friend believes he is consistent because he thinks, with a ministry which is blessed and honoured by his presence, he has the absolute right of interim supply without delay, whereas, on the other hand, any other ministry is to be denied it. If consistency be advanced on that ground, I entirely agree with my hon. friend, but I hardly think he is going to advance that. I invited an explanation before our consent was further asked, but my hon. friend has given no explanation. He says that the business of the country requires this vote. Last year he held the view that the business of the country was requiring too many votes; that there was too much business. If volume of business to be done with the burdens that were then upon the country, many cf which burdens have since disappeared, and if urgency and pressure constituted the real reasons, there would have been no trouble with my hon. friend giving consent to interim supply last year. We realize that business has to be carried on, but our difficulty is to square what my hon. friend is doing this year with what was declared to be a settled policy of his party last year.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If what my hon. friend says is correct, I do not think there should be the slightest difficulty in our coming to an arrangement. The position taken by the Opposition last year was that the Government should not try to force the Estimates through the House of Commons by closure, and that there should be no attempt to pass a one-sixth vote without any opportunity of conference between the two sides of the House. The whole point was that a conference between the Government and the Opposition should
be held before the House was asked to vote an interim supply;the Opposition were quite willing after a conference to give the Government whatever was needed to carry on the business of the country. I have by me the remarks I made in the House last year, and I may quote from them for the benefit of my hon. friend. Speaking on April 12 in reference to a statement made on April 7 I said:
I pointed out at that time that we of the Opposition had no desire to embarrass the Government in the matter of any amount which might be necessary to pay salaries and wages, and, indeed, to carry on the public service to the extent that might be absolutely necessary.
I pointed out that it was customary, when interim supply was desired, for a conference to be held between both sides of the House, and I left the door open very wide to hon. gentlemen opposite to meet the Opposition in a friendly and courteous way in that connection.
Elsewhere in the course of my remarks on April 7 I said:
But in taking this stand we have no desire in any way to embarrass or penalize the Civil Service because of any neglect on the part of the Government. We will be perfectly willing to consider any arrangement with a view of providing what may be necessary in the way of salaries both for the inside and outside services. As respects other expenditures, however, we contend that except as agreed upon, this Parliament should have the full right of examining in the closest detail every item of the Estimates before voting any portion of them.
I said further in conclusion:
May I repeat, in a word, the position which we take? We are ready at any time to meet hon. gentlemen opposite in conference, to agree to give them what is necessary in the way of meeting salaries and wages for employees of the public service. We are prepared to go further and to give them what is needed to carry on the public service of this country in a manner which will not embarrass public business, which will help to maintain the good faith of the Government, and its credit, which will enable the Government to carry out commitments to which my hon. friend has referred; but this must be as a result of a conference between both sides of this House, surrounding whatever may be granted with such conditions as, in the public interest, seem to be absolutely necessary at the present time.
That was our position, and if my hon. friends opposite will take the same attitude on this occasion there should not be the slightest difficulty in our coming to an agreement as to what portion of the Estimates are to be permitted to pass as an Interim Supply. We are asking of our friends opposite nothing more than we when in Opposition, were prepared, to concede to the Government of the day. I may, however, point out to my hon friend this circumstance, which I think is an important
Interim Supply

consideration: The Government of the day fixed the time at which the general elections should be held. The date was fixed as December 6. As a consequence it was not humanly possible for the present Government to prepare the business of Parliament in shorter order than we have despatched it. I might also remind my hon. friends that when we were discussing the question of the Interim Supply last year, the Government of the day had not at the time brought down the Auditor General's report in full. We, on this side, laid the Auditor General's report in full on the Table of the House the very day the House opened.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Volume 4 is missing.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I was under the impression that all the volumes were brought down; volume 4 was the only volume then, that was not brought down.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Volume 4 is the only important one.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think my hon. friend has what he wants. However, all we ask is that hon. gentlemen opposite shall not embarrass the public service; and if they prefer a conference before we press for this Interim Supply, we are ready to meet them and discuss matters, and withhold any part of the Estimates which they would like to have reserved for further consideration.


Arthur Meighen: The Prime Minister, on this question, is in the fortunate position, in which he will often find himself in the House, of being able to quote himself on either side of the question, whichever happens for the time being to be the side that he wishes to advance. It is true that last session, after the motion was introduced for one-sixth of the Estimates to be voted in bulk, the Opposition took the stand that there should be a conference between themselves and the Government, and that they were ready to confer on the question as to the voting of salaries to the civil servants. That was the first proposal, after the introduction of the motion for one-sixth of the Estimates: But the session before, the leader of the Opposition peremptorily notified Parliament that in the session to come, namely, last session, the Opposition would unconditionally oppose all bulk Estimates, whether a quarter, a sixth, or any other proportion. No conditions whatever were attached; we were simply notified that that was the last of bulk Estimates that 
were to go through this Parliament except over the heads of, and by closure on, Opposition. Well, in the face of that notification, would it have been courteous for us to have gone to the then leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) and ask him whether he had recanted? We did not feel that that would be complimentary to the hon. gentleman, and we did not do it. We did him the honour of taking him at his word. I have this quotation from the speech the hon. gentleman made the year before. We introduced our Estimates and submitted them to Parliament; and we were told-not the day that we brought down our Estimates, not before a single member of the House knew anything about what the Government was going to request, not before a single item of the Estimates had been considered, but a month after they had been presented to the House, and after Parliament had had an opportunity to consider them for days and weeks together -we were told that we should have a conference with the Opposition and that they would be ready to vote salaries so that the civil servants might not go without their pay. That was the second position the Opposition took. Well, it was pointed out that if salaries were voted, and there was no money to work with, there would not be much use in keeping the civil servants employed. The Opposition were pledging their willingness to allow the officers of the Pension Board and all the staff to be paid their salaries, but they were taking the position that no pensions should be paid. They were willing, for example, to support the Soldiers' Settlement Board, and pay the thousands of men and women employed therein, but they were not willing that any soldier settlers should get help. When that was pointed out the Opposition changed their attitude. They shifted their position and said: Well, we will let the salaries go through, and if you will confer with us we will let the necessary services be voted. The Government then took the stand that the Opposition had had the Estimates before them for at least five weeks. It was then, not the 27th of March but the 7th or 8th day of April, eight days after the fiscal year had closed; and we said that, having had the Estimates before them for that length of time, if they could show us any items that should be reserved, as respects which they thought the one-sixth should not apply, we would confer with them on any one of those. Now that seemed to me to be reason

Interim Supply
able last year, and it seems to me to be reasonable to-day. But what is the circumstance this year? The Government introduced the Estimates one day and now, on the next day, they demand one-sixth. They said: We will let you study the Estimates over Sunday and we will be back on Monday, when we want this portion voted. How different hon. gentlemen are to-day from what they were a year ago. No; what they wanted a year ago was merely to be able to go to the country and say that the Government had forced its hand into the Treasury and extracted millions of money, using in this House the power of the closure, so that the Opposition, representing the people, were not given a chance to discuss the votes.
They declared. "We were broken through, overcome by closure, the voice of the people was stifled and the money taken from the Treasury." That was all they were asking for a year ago, and that they got, and hon. gentlemen to my left and the people they represent listened to the tale of woe about the extortion of money by closure. The actual circumstances were simply the circumstances I have just disclosed. All manner of time was given for discussion.
Now I do say this. The last thing I want to do is to imitate the tactics of the Opposition last year. But I want to discharge as best I can the duties that now appertain to me as leader of the Opposition. I do not think we know enough about these Estimates to vote in bulk at all; I do not think it is necessary yet to vote them in bulk. We did not take the vote last year till 13th April. The payments made at the end of March can be taken out of the Estimates passed last year. The next payments will be coming due about the 15th April, and I say we ought to know more about the Estimates-we ought especially to be able to go over them carefully and see whether there are not items that should be exempted from this bulk vote-before we are asked to vote it to-day.
^Furthermore, we ought to have information not only as to what the Estimates were last year, but what amount was spent last year. The Government have sought in bringing down these Estimates-which, anyone who knows the slightest thing about public affairs would easily understand would necessarily be very much smaller than last year's Estimates-to convey the impression that the axe has been unmercifully wielded and that the people of this country, as a consequence of the economy of hon. gentlemen opposite, are going to save all sorts of
money in taxation. They compare the main Estimates this year with the whole Estimates last year, and forget to advise the public that there will be Supplementaries this year the same as last. The fact of the matter is that, notwithstanding we are a year farther away from the war, notwithstanding the fact that all war services are necessarily and rightly contracting, and have been contracting every year since the war, we are asked to vote main Estimates this year amounting to fifty million dollars more, I do not doubt, than the whole expenditure of last year.
Comparing the main Estimates this yeav with the main Estimates last year there is a difference of $113,000,000. Of that $113,000,000 difference $81,000,000 odd is made up of advances necessarily made last year on account of the Canadian National railway betterments, because we had just taken over one great system and had to vote $89,000,000 to put it in shape. The advances made last year for the railways of this country are not needed this year, for the most obvious reason in the world,-that last year the railways of this country were put into condition which was necessary in order that the people might get from the system the service they were entitled to. Instead of $50,000,000 being required this year on account of the Canadian National railway only $42,800,000 is required; the Canadian National railways are showing improvement; these railways that, according to hon. gentlemen opposite, had brought the country to the brink of ruin so that they had to come in and arrest the hand of nationalization,-yes, force back the hand of nationalization- in order to save this nation from bankruptcy and despair. The railways are showing improvement. The Grand Trunk last year, having just been taken over, required $89,687,633, not for a year, mark you, but for a year and a quarter, because the moneys voted for the railways last year covered fifteen months from January 1,1921 to March 31, 1922. They took care as well of the Grand Trunk on its being taken over at a time when there were large outstai. fling obligations that had to be provided for if the railway was to stand up at all. Necessarily that $89,000,000 is not required this year; the vote for that system therefore is only $25,750,000. The Grand Trunk Pacific, which also had been taken over just the year before, required last year $26,000,000 in assistance. This year the vote is $15,900,000. There is no individual in Canada who in honesty of mind, would attribute for a moment any intention tc
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economize on the part of a government in relation to advances to assist, when those advances, having been made, are necessarily not required to be made again. That accounts for $81,237,000.
Then there is the Soldier Settlement Board. I wonder if the Government are economizing with the soldier settlers. Last year the vote was $35,017,000, and this year it is $12,000,000, a difference of $23,017,000. That can hardly be attributed to economy. It is because of the fact that we took care of the soldiers when they returned, obviating the necessity of taking care of them later on and having them look after themselves in the meantime. I do not at the moment question that the vote asked for this year will be sufficient to take care of the situation. Indeed, it turns out that of the $35,017,000 voted last year, something less than $12,000,000 was required, because large sums of money came in from the soldiers themselves and took care of a large amount of what was required.
Then also, as we recede from the war the number of men to be taken care of in the Government institutions naturally diminishes, and as it diminishes the requirements of the Soldiers' Civil Re-Establishment decline. Last year's vote was very many millions-I do not know the exact figure-less than the year before. This year the vote is $4,956,500 less than last year, and that can be saved, I do not doubt at all, without very much necessity of the economical pruning knife of the Minister of Finance. The vote last year, I understand, was $21,000,000 less than the vote of the preceding year, and this year the decrease is $4,956,500.
The housing appropriation, which is not spent, but merely loaned to provincial governments, naturally goes down as we recede from the war and war conditions. The decrease there is $2,449,920. It is not a matter of economy in the slightest degree. Those items account for $111,660,000 of the $113,626,000.
The shipbuilding programme brought down in 1919, and never added to since, was completed altogether, I am inclined to think, or within a few dollars. I do not know that it will be suggested that it is an exercise of very great wisdom not to build the ships over again. They are built already. The money does not need to be spent over again. That accounts for $10,000,000 odd. So, aside from those items to which the word "economy" has no application whatever, the Government

is $8,000,000 over the Estimates of last year, and is approximating $50,000,000 over the expenditure of last year all told.
That is an outline of the situation. Consequently, the argument advanced last year that, the expenditure being more than was required ten years before they could not be asked to give the same liberal consideration to a vote on a bulk estimate, has no application whatever. Indeed, it turns against hon. gentlemen opposite, for in every respect in which economy can be exercised to public advantage hon. gentlemen opposite are already $8,000,000 and more over the vote of last year.
I notice a decrease of $235,906 in the vote for the Imperial War Graves Commission. That is accounted for, of course, by the fact that the war graves have been attended to and do not require to be attended to twice over. I do not presume that hon. gentlemen would claim to exercise economy in attending to the graves of our soldiers. It is simply a matter of the work having been done and not requiring to be done again.
Again, last year a vote of $500,000 was required under the Canada Temperance Act for taking the vote in Ontario. That is not required this year. A vote of $500,000 was taken as well last year for the Battlefields Memorial. That is not necessary this year. So the Government, if we leave out those items as to which the word "economy" has no application whatever, is $10,000,009 over last year's main Estimates, with the supplementary Estimates still to come, and approximately $50,000,000 over last year's actual expenditure.
That is a summary of the position today. Consequently it behooves the Opposition, it behooves the supporters of the Government as well, to see to it that these Estimates are scrupulously proven, and before we vote any Estimates in bulk we ought to at least have a sufficient opportunity to go over the votes one by one and make up our minds whether or not there are items as respects which the bulk vote should not apply. That is all I asked of the Opposition last year; but they were not satisfied. Nothing could exceed the unreasonableness of the attitude they took-except perhaps the representations, or rather the misrepresentations they made in the course of the campaign. I do not want to follow their example; but I do ask that this vote stand for a few days, at all events, in order that we may have an opportunity to go over the Estimates

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with care, and then to confer with the Government concerning such items as in our opinion should be exempt from the bulk vote we are asked to pass.


William Stevens Fielding: Mr. Chairman, I am much more interested in getting this appropriation made in the proper way than I am in reviving the discussion of last year. But I am surprised that my right hon. friend has deemed it expedient to enter at this stage into a general discussion of the Estimates. He says we have been claiming great economy. When? Where?


Arthur Meighen: In the press.


William Stevens Fielding: Not a single word. We brought down the Estimates and laid them on the table; no member of the Government said a single word about them. My right hon. friend seems to have got the notion that the people may themselves see something in the direction of economy. I hope they will, but if they do, it will have to be of their own motion; it will not be due to anything that has been said by any member of the Government. My right hon. friend has invented, as it were, a boast of economy, for we have been absolutely silent on the subject.
* The right hon. gentleman says also that we have brought down the Estimates in such a way as to make a comparison with those of last year. Have we not brought them down in the usual form? He also says that the supplementary Estimates have to come. That is true, 'but has it not been so every year? In what other form could the Estimates have been brought down, so far as comparison is concerned, than that in which they are set out in this blue book? My right hon. friend implies that we have been making exceptional claims for economy. He is drawing upon his imagination. He is alarmed by the thought that the people may on their own account see that there is economy; therefore, he feels it necesary to warn them that there is none.
Mr. Chairman, we have no desire to press these Estimates. The vital difference between the position to-day and that of last year is, as has been stated by the Prime Minister, that the Estimates last year should not have been pressed before the House as they were without a proper conference. I have under my hand correspondence which I have had with my esteemed friend the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). Even before the present Estimates were brought down, I wrote to him, informed him of our intention, and
said I wanted his co-orperation. I intimated that while it might be convenient to have a general vote-one-quarter of the whole, or one-sixth, as he might prefer- if hon. members wanted to reserve any portion of the Estimates we were quite ready to do so. There will be no closure in this matter, Mr. Chairman; this vote will be given freely and voluntarily or not at all. If my right hon. friend is trying to lay some plans whereby he may force us to bring on the closure, I tell him at once that his effort will fail. Closure is necessary, in a measure, I suppose, in some things, but it is not the desire of this Government to use it in a case like this. If hon. gentlemen opposite want these Estimates delayed for a few days, I am willing that it shall be so. The leader of the Opposition has said that he has had no time to examine them. Well, he has made quite a criticism of them; if he has not had time to examine them, I do not know where he got the amazing amount of information he had to-day, 'be it correct or not.
As I have said, my great desire is to have this appropriation made in a fair and proper way; it wil be done that way or not at all. My right hon. friend says he wants the matter delayed for a few days; I at once agree to that. My only desire is to provide for the urgent and pressing needs of the public service. If my hon. friends opposite, now or later, stand in the way of those needs being met, they will have to take the responsibility for doing so.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I desire to congratulate the Minister of Finance upon his frankness and his fairness. He says he has made no claim for economy. That is right, and he could not fairly have done so. But many claims have been made for him -made to such an extent, indeed, that my hon. friend's own statement, strong as it is, and respected as he himself is, would seem to be unnecessary on the present occasion. He has many influences working for him, and they have been working very well indeed. The claim of economy certainly came from somewhere-a statment to the press making claims for economies amounting, if I remember rightly, to twenty-three per cent in respect of the main Estimates. However, my hon. friend now agrees that there is no claim to be made for economies.


William Stevens Fielding: Not that there is no claim to be made, but that none has been made.
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Henry Lumley Drayton: Very good: and perhaps he had better not make any such claim. Here is really one of the reasons why there should be a little delay in order that careful examination of the Estimates may be made. I have been able to give a little more time to the Estimates than my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), and I find that last year the main Estimates amounted to $582,000,000; this year they are $466,983,000 a reduction of $115,-
079,000.	I agree with what the Minister of Finance says as to the procedure in presenting the Estimates; he followed the ordinary course. But for the purpose of comparing votes with votes the usual thing is to look at your main Estimates. There is, as I have pointed out, a reduction of $115,000,000 in those Estimates. But I want to point out that in the railway vote, item 112 of the Estimates, there is a saving of $1,417,000; in the Canadian Northern vote a saving of $7,200,000; Grand Trunk, $63,900,000; Grand Trunk Pacific, $10,100,000, -a total saving of $82,655,627 on railway account alone. Most of this will be found to have reference to construction and betterments which have been carried out; and whether or not the present alleged economies will prove to be ex-
4	p.m. travagances, I do not know. It is an indication, however, of the fact that the railway property is in a very much better condition to-day than it was. My leader has pointed out the position with reference to the Grand Trunk. Why, Mr. Chairman, there were millions of dollars of deferred claims which had to be got rid of, and when they were paid off they ceased to be annual charges; they were eliminated for all time. So we have in the railway vote a saving of over $82,000,000. Then there is a reduction of $8,330,000 in the shipbuilding items. I am referring to things which are largely outside the sphere of administration by the present Government, items which cannot result from any action taken by them. In the interest on public debt there is a reduction of $2,229,393, the result of the cancellation of bonds purchased by the late committee that was looking after the stabilization of war bonds. We cancelled, if I remember rightly, some $97,000,000 worth of outstanding bonds. Now, the total of the items I have mentioned, including the figures with respect to soldier land settlement and soldiers' civil re-establishment, referred to by my hon, leader, and including also items with respect to Canada Temperance Act, loans to provinces, and war graves, is $124,339,346.
fMr. Fielding.]
These items, as I have pointed out, have little if anything to do with the cost of government administration proper; they relate to projects that had previously been carried or to liabilities that had previously been met. Of course, I do not know the last state of the accounts; the Minister of Finance knows that. But I want to point out one of the reasons why we ought to consider carefully these Estimates. Down to the 20th of this month, when the last statement was issued, the total amount spent out of the consolidated fund amounted to $307,000,000. Of course it is true the financial year has not yet expired, but the late government did not run above that amount. On the other hand we have requisitions here to the amount of $466,000,000 in the main Estimates. It is true that my hon. friend opposite has a right to set up other claims, although that used not to be done. For example last year, down to 20th March, under the accounting practices of governments of the past, there was a surplus- that surplus representing the difference between Consolidated Fund receipts and Consolidated Fund payments,-of $53,991,334. We adopted the process of writing off investments which cannot be looked upon as active. Payments therefore on their account cannot be deducted from the debt. For example, railway investments and the Quebec harbour investment have been regarded as unremunerative; but the fact remains that even if we take all the public works capital, all the railway capital, all the investments in railways and in the Quebec harbour, and the cost of the few items that still remain of the war, the whole payments down to 20th March last, only amount to $372,000,000. But here, in the face of a claim for a reduction of $138,000,000 in the Estimates, we have estimates calling for a total expenditure of $466,000,000, and if the railway guarantees given during the year as of March 20th, of $50,000,000 are added to the total expenditure for the year down to March 20th, would stand at $422,889,000. I do not think we are at all unreasonable in our demands under the circumstances. We now find ourselves in this situation. The Government have brought down estimates showing a saving of $138,000,000 and yet their total costs of operation down to the 20th of March, as nearly as I can make out amount to $422,889,000. Nevertheless in the face of that enormous paper saving the Government requires a substantially larger vote than the whole of last year's

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expenditure. I quite understand the dilemma in which the Minister of Finance finds himself. Of course he is not going to put the closure through. How could he do that in the face of his actions of last year? My hon. friends opposite last year said the asking of an interim vote was iniquitous. They did not care then whether the King's government went on or not; they did not care whether wages were paid or not. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance says the responsibility is ours to-day, but he is not going to apply the closure. So far as we are concerned, we want to see the public business properly carried on; but we must have time to look into and consider these little things. If my hon. friend says now he is perfectly willing to consider the Estimates with us and have a conference we are perfectly willing to go into a conference with him.


William Stevens Fielding: I have been trying to ascertain to my own satisfaction what was the point in my hon. friend's remarks, and I think I have discovered it. Apparently he is aiming to show, by reference to the expenditure down to 20th March,-I hope he is correct-that when he came into this House the last session he brought forth estimates which were absolutely preposterous and did not represent the probable expenditure of the country. That is the only conclusion to be drawn from my hon friend's remarks. Let me, however, warn him that the expenditures down to 20th March are not to be judged the totgl expenditures for the year. He knows that in any business transaction when you are cleaning up accounts your expenditures are likely to take on a most serious form. My hon. friend can take to himself any credit that he wants to take to-day as to his economy last year; but he can only establish his economy of last year by proving that the Estimates of a year ago were so preposterous that the Liberal Opposition were well justified in objecting to them. However, it is understood this resolution will remain for further consideration.
Resolution stands.

Soldiers' Civil Re-Establishment, $30,820.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Where is that item?


The CHAIRMAN:: Item 29, and the details will be found on page 113 of the Estimates.


Mr. STEVENS:: We would like to have those details read, so that the item can be considered.
25	'


George Newcombe Gordon: Deputy Minister	$6,000
Assistant Deputy Minister and
Secretary	 5,000
Supervisor of expenditures	 5,000
Mr. ME1GHEN: Why this increase of $500 in the salary of the Supervisor of Expenditures?


Hon. H. S. BELAND (Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-Establishment):: When the services of officials are recognized by the deputy minister as being very satisfactory, an increase is granted. .


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman has not been reading the Civil Service Act. These increases are under the Civil Service Commission, and follow a certain course, as recommended by the Commission. I do not know who the supervisor is, but I know of no rule where salaries go up $500 at a bound'-that is salaries of the class of those higher officials of the department.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not personally know the Supervisor of Expenditures. I know him by name only. I understand his services are extremely valuable, and he has been of the very greatest service to the department. He was thoroughly conversant with the very important work of supervising an expenditure of over $40,000,000, and I assume that, for such services as he rendered the department, a salary of $5,000 would not be considered excessive. I have not the details of the matter at the moment. If I had I might be able to give the hon. gentleman all the information.


Arthur Meighen: I do not question the ability of the holder of the office. I presume the hon. minister is right in his description of the man, because the gentleman was carefully selected and appointed by the late government.


William Stevens Fielding: Do not hold that against him.


Arthur Meighen: It is not now within the province of the Minister to say that this salary or that salary should go to this or that officer. Under the present system that is subject to the supervision of the Civil Service Commission, and I want to know how that system works out to give this officer an increase of $500.


Mr. MICHAUD:: I would ask the hon. minister who has charge of this estimate to move down towards this part of the House, so that we would understand what is going on. At the moment we are unable to follow the debate.

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Henri Sévérin Béland: I think I will make the hon. gentleman hear me, without moving any nearer to him. If my hon. friend will put up with me for a few moments, perhaps I can satisfy him entirely.


Mr. SHEARD:: I would also re-echo the statements which have heen made-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Louder, louder.


Charles Sheard: Well, all right, you will hear what I have to say, and much comfort may it bring to you. Here is an estimate providing for an increase of $500 to an official. I want to be assured1 by the hon. minister that that $500 is strictly in accordance with the regulations of the Civil Service Commission, and I do not propose to vote that money until the minister can give us that assurance. We have worked out all the details of the arrangement of the Civil Service, we have scheduled the salaries, and we want to know as to any additions to salaries, if they are in accordance with those schedules and with the provision of the law.


Arthur Meighen: Perhaps I could help the minitser in this regard, and I am surprised he has not learned the facts. I have never had the department under my charge, but I am advised the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment is not under the Civil Service Commission, nor under the act.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am aware of all that.


Arthur Meighen: I presumed it was, but I find it is not.


Henri Sévérin Béland: The increase was granted to this gentleman because of his important and very able services in the control of a very large expenditure.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Here is a department which is being reduced. A large number have been laid off during the past year because of the falling off in employment in the department. The Estimates show that the expenditures this year will be much less than last year and there is a continual reduction in work, in the number of employees and in the amount of expenditure, and yet there is an increase of $500 to the Supervisor of Expenditure; the less work he does the more he is paid-is that the principle?


Mr. CHAPLIN:: And furthermore, I notice that a number of the smaller officers have been let off while all the big fellows

have been kept on. If the organization is dying why not lop off some of the larger-salaried men?


Henri Sévérin Béland: None of the officials to whom the hon. member refers can be dispensed with at this time.


Mr. MEWBURN:: 
Mr. MANION:: Having had the honour,
for a very short time unfortunately, to preside over the department over which the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Beland) presides at the present time, I should like to say just one word, and that is to the effect that the fact that the expenses of this department are cut down-and I am sure the minister will be the first to admit this-is because the medical attention, vocational training and so forth, which have been given to returned soldiers, have been lessened. One of the first things that I learned on going into that department was that it was then in a position to lay off nearly 1,000 employees. At that time, I took the stand-I thought then it was the wisest stand, and I have no reason now to change my opinion-that those employees,
1.000	in number, should be laid off gradually, because of the rather severe unemployment conditions which prevailed in Canada then. That has been done, I presume, although I do not know that the
1.000	employees have all been laid off yet. I point this out, in justice to the late government and to the management of that department, before I took it over and during the time I supervised it, because the reductions in expenditure in that department were due mainly to the facts which I have named. I have nothing to say re-

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garding the increase in salary for this officer; I do not remember being acquainted with the gentleman at all; but as regards the officers in general of that department, they were a very capable, able group of men. I should like also to point out that, to my mind, this is the one department of all others that should be given every attention and every sympathetic care. If there is any other which should be given the same sympathetic care, it is the department of Pensions, and I am sure the minister may feel quite certain that this party in this corner of the House-and I am sure the same is true of all parties in the House-will support him when he brings forward his Estimates for that department, so that the men who have returned from overseas may receive fair treatment. I am quite sure my hon. friend and the party with which he is associated, would not claim any particular economy in regard to that department because of the reductions.


Mr. HOCKEN:: Increases are given to seven of the ten officials in this vote, one increase amounting to $500. The minister of this department will learn from the Minister of Labour that wages are on the decrease in every trade and calling in Canada. Why, therefore, should we make such enormous increases as we find in this estimate? A salary of $4,500 to-day is equivalent to $5,500 a couple of years ago, and will increase in value until wages strike the bottom. If the Government intend to economize they might very well start with the salaries of the civil servants, especially salaries as high as $4,500 a year. I have had very few minutes to look over the Estimates, but what we find in connection with this department is true in the case of nearly every other branch of the Civil Service. The Government, I submit, should begin with such salaries in any attempt to economize.


Mr. BE  LAND@: This increase of $500 is for the Supervisor of Expenditures. It is about the largest increase for the year, and a few moments ago I gave the reason for it. The Committee will readily realize how valuable and important must be the services of an official who supervises an expenditure of nearly $50,000,000 a year.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, no.


Mr. BOYS:: Fifteen millions.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Fifty millions, if pensions and expenditures in connection with the Board of Pension Commissioners are

taken into account. The Board of Pension Commissioners and the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment are now merged into one department, as my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) knows, since it was the late Government that effected the amalgamation.


Arthur Meighen: They are under the
same minister, but does my hon. friend say that this officer supervises pension expenditures?


Henri Sévérin Béland: He will supervise all
the expenditures in the department.


Arthur Meighen: That supervision will be purely formal.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Now, in regard to the other salaries, there are three increases of $120 each, which are provided by the reclassification, one increase of $60, also in accordance with the Civil Service regulations, and one increase of $40. I do not know of any other increases.
My hon. friend (Mr. Mewburn) suggested the appointment of a royal commission to inquire into the complaints and the needs of ex-service men. The practice up to the present has been to appoint a parliamentary committee every session; that, at least, has been done since my return from the Old Country. It has been deemed advisable to confine the inquiries of that committee within certain limits, and I have been of the opinion, as I think every member of the House has been, that it was a proper course to follow. As my hon. friend has said, it is somewhat difficult for special cases to be brought before the parliamentary committee, especially when the men concerned reside at any considerable distance from the Capital. But if the Government appointed a royal commission to travel, as is suggested, from one end of the country to the other, though it might be able to hear every special case on the spot, still thousands of cases would have to be examined, and the inconvenience would be so considerable as to render the process unsatisfactory. Altogether I do not think there could be any advantage in a royal commission, from the point of view of either the public or the returned man himself. I submit that as a consideration, although I do not want to say that I am opposed to the appointment of a royal commission. The parliamentary committee has dealt, in years gone by, with numberless special cases. I well remember, that there were brought

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before the attention of a sub-committee, appointed by the parliamentary committee on Pensions and Re-Establishment, cases which were examined in the presence of the Chairman of the Board of Pension Commissioners, two other commissioners, and some of the highest officials of the department. How could it be possible for a royal commission, which should travel from one end of the country to the other, to take all the officials of the departments along with them? How, for instance, could they have the Pension Commissioners with them all the time in Calgary, Vancouver, or Halifax during four, or five, or six months, as the case might be? I fancy it would take a long time to conduct this investigation, and the difficulties that impede the parliamentary committee would exist, perhaps in a larger measure, in the case of a royal commission such as is suggested. Most of the cases considered by the parliamentary committee at the last session of Parliament and the session before were, I think, satisfactorily solved. My hon. friend is conversant with the subject, and, as he has pointed out, there are a very large number of cases which ought to be submitted to some tribunal for a more exhaustive investigation. There is no doubt about that. In the few weeks that I have been at the head of the department, I have convinced myself, from the correspondence I have received, that there are many complaints amongst the returned men as regards their treatment, especially in connection with pensions.
I am not prepared to lay the blame at the door of the late Government for everything that has happened. This committee must remember one thing: A Board of Pension Commissioners has been created by a statute of this Parliament, and that statute provides that the decisions of the Board shall be final; there is no appeal to +lie minister, no appeal to the Governor in Council. The only tribunal to which the men who are not satisfied with an award may have recourse is a parliamentary committee, or in other words, Parliament itself. I have been two or three months at the head of this department, and I have not yet received any complaint as to the action of the parliamentary committee of last year. I do not know whether my hon. friend the ex-Minister of Militia (Mr. Mewburn) has heard of any complaints against that committee. I think the men have had every possible opportunity, through their various organizations of laying their whole case before the
committee, and the committee of last year was composed of men who had only in view the reconciling of the public interest with the interest of the returned men, because those two interests must be reconciled.
My hon. friend has referred to the special cases, those known as "problem" cases. Those cases exist in fairly large numbers throughout the country, such as tubercular cases. I am a medical man, and I would not declare offhand in the case of a soldier who has been gassed and discharged as 100 per cent fit, and who subsequently develops tuberculosis three years after his discharge, that the disease was not due to his war service, and I hardly think that any chest specialist would go that length. Those are cases which require the special attention of the committee and of this Parliament. Justice should be done to those men, and if any doubt should exist as to the cause of tuberculosis in any man who has seen actual war service in the trenches, and who has been gassed, he should be given the benefit of the doubt. I think that that was the policy of the late Government; I think it is the policy of this Government; and I think it would meet with the approval of every reasonable and humane man in Canada. The question is, how are you going to establish that such a disability, appearing subsequently, is due to war service?


William Alves Boys: How can those cases reach the parliamentary committee, or this House, if there is no appeal from the Pension Board?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I would point out that last year the question of these tubercular cases was gone into very fully by the parliamentary committee, and some reports which would be a credit to any country in the world were prepared and submitted regarding tubercular cases. I expect that this question will come before the committee again this year with a view, very likely, to more being done for these tubercular cases.


William Alves Boys: I am not disputing that at all. I am absolutely in favour of it, but if there is no appeal from the board, I cannot see how you can get a remedy unless the proposition is to amend the act. If that is the minister's proposition, it is well worth considering.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend is perfectly right. There is no remedy except
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by amending the Pension Act. The board are bound to abid.e by the provisions of the law.


William Alves Boys: Would the minister favour an amendment along that line?


Mr. BE  LAND@: My hon. friend may be a member of the committee that is to be appointed. Last year the committee made a number of recommendations to Parliament in their report, and with very few exceptions all those recommendations have been carried out. There were some important amendments to the Pension Act last year, and undoubtedly there will be further amendments this year. As far as these problem cases are concerned they can be dealt with otherwise than by amending the Pension Act. Special legislation might deal with these problem cases, or departmental action might be sufficient following recommendations to Parliament by the committee.
I might say that I did not expect to go into this question at all to-day. I am a very inexperienced minister in the matter of soldiers' civil re-establishment, though I am free to confess that I am extremely happy to have been able to supply this information to the committee. I had expected, however, that the discussion this afternoon would 'be confined to the civil government estimates. When the general estimates of the department are under consideration, perhaps we may go a little more fully into this important subject.


Henry Lumley Drayton: There is a provision in the Pension Act which allows the pensioners to commute their pensions. The underlying idea of this privilege of commutation was to give the pensioner an opportunity to capitalize his claim against the country-it had particularly to do with the smaller pensions for minor injuries-so that, on the one hand, the pensioner would be saved a good deal of trouble, and on the other, he would get a lump sum which might be very useful to him, and at the same time the cost of administration would be decreased. I am a little bit afraid that this plan is working out very badly, and that under financial stress and the pressure of circumstances many soldiers, very often under a misapprehension as to the nature and extent of their injuries, have given a complete release to the country. I do not know what my hon. friend's view may be, but it does seem to me that in deserving cases such a release ought not to be considered as having the slightest bearing
fMr. Belaud.]
on a proper consideration of the pensioner's case. After all, he is the ward of the nation in more ways than one. The important thing is that the right thing be done by the soldier, and the mere fact that he has improvidently, and, perhaps, improperly given the country a quittance of all his claims is no reason why he should not again be put upon the roll if, for example, his old trouble comes back in aggravated form.


Mr. CALDWELL:: As I understand it, the act provides that if a pensioner sustains a subsequent or further disability, he has the right to go back for re-examination and to be given further pension in respect to that disability. That leads up to one point I would like to make. Having been a member of the Pensions Committee for the past two years, it does not behoove me to say how well its members have fulfilled the purposes of the committee. However, in my opinion our Pension Act is fairly adequate, but it is not being administered sympathetically by the pension commissioners. The large end of the complaint I have heard throughout the country with regard to pensions is that the per cent of disability is kept lower than it ought to be by the examining physicians or by the Pension Board. I know of a number of cases of men whose disability was such that they were unable to work but who were allowed only a ten or fifteen per cent disability. The Pension Committee has no power to deal with things of that kind. They may make recommendations for the amending of the act or for changing some of the regulations, but they have nothing to do with the carrying out , of the act. The decision of the Board of Pension Commissioners is final. The minister will find that that is the chief cause of complaint-that the per cent of disability is kept too low. I wish just here to say that I am pleased to see in charge of this department a minister who himself served overseas, a man whom I know to be in perfect sympathy, with the soldiers and their claims. I feel that at this time it is necessary not only to give the soldiers justice, but to treat them with a certain amount of sympathetic consideration.


William Alves Boys: I am much interested in this question of appeal. I know of cases in my own county where men have not, so far as I have been able to judge, received justice. To give every one an appeal to the House or to the Pension Committee might be a mistake, but I would advocate

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an appeal to the House on the fiat of the minister, thus safeguarding against the making of appeals for which there is no foundation. I do think these men should have an opportunity of coming before the parliamentary committee when the circumstances warrant their doing so. Possibly some amendment to bring that about will suggest itself to the committee when it enters upon its work. I want to endorse what the hon. member for Victoria and Carleton has just said, that the administration of this department has fallen into excellent hands. I am quite sure that the minister will deal kindly with these men, who require at our hands the most sympathetic consideration.
Mr.- CLARK: The hon. minister has intimated that the parliamentary committee can. arrive at a satisfactory solution of the various questions involved in re-establishment. I have no doubt that the Pension Committee has done splendid work, and we are all very grateful to it on that account. But many cases have not been satisfactorily dealt with. I notice that this committee has not yet been appointed, and my suggestion is that it be appointed without delay and instructed to give immediate attention to these problems
5 p.m. so that action can be taken before the House prorogues. I have not given serious consideration to the suggestion made by the hon. member for Hamilton; it is something new. But many individual cases have to be dealt with, possibly the most common being the refusal of attention on the ground that the disability is not the result of war service. I think, therefore, that the committee should get to work at once so that we may properly arrive at a solution of some of these most pressing questions.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Chairman, the hon. minister has pointed out that the official to whom an increase of salary is proposed supervises the expenditure of over $50,000,000 annually. I can scarcely believe that that statement is correct, having regard to the provisions of the Pension Act, and to the fact, as has been stated here this afternoon, that the powers of the board are absolute and also to the fact that the expenditure of the $33,000,000, which I presume is included in the $50,000,000, is under the board's direct control and supervision; there is no appeal to the minister or to any one else. Furthermore, I observe that the amount of controllable expenditure in the department has been reduced by
some $5,000,000. We have the spectacle of the Government increasing the salary of an official-he may be a very good official; I do not know him-by a very large sum, at a time when commercial enterprises throughout the country are reducing to rock bottom the salaries of executive heads as well as of workingmen. The Government is doing quite the reverse, and it seems to me that that is not a policy we should pursue at this time.
I concur in the suggestion made by the hon. member for East Hamilton (Mr. Mewburn), because I know of cases which in my opinion cannot receive adequate attention from or adequate consideration at the hands of a parliamentary committee, no matter how good the work of that committee may be. I know of cases in my constituency where the sympathetic touch of a personal interview through a responsible commission would have a very beneficial effect. I hope the minister will give this suggestion his very serious and sympathetic consideration. Although I am a new member of the House it is my opinion that a parliamentary committee can of necessity deal only with general principles; it cannot in the very nature of things deal with individual cases. Some such machinery as has been suggested by the hon. member for Hamilton should be created by the Government to deal with these cases.
It has been suggested that the Pension Act is adequate but that the working out of the regulations has been carried on in a parsimonious spirit. I would like to say, Sir, that my experience has been of an entirely different character. I have found the members of the Pension Board, within the limitations of the act and of the regulations thereunder, to be most sympathetic; and I am satisfied that if there is in any given case a tendency to restrict the expenditure in this regard, it is not because of any shortcoming on the part of members of the'board themselves, but because of the limitations under which they find themselves confined by the act in question.
Some suggestion has been made here in favour of an appeal from the decision of the Pension Board. I hope, however, that the House will go very slowly before it provides for an appeal from a board composed of independent men as the Pension Commissioners are. All of them, I believe, are men of very high standing; all are returned men and in sympathy with the subject matters with which they deal. If you grant

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the right of appeal to Parliament it will only be another step in the direction of the spectacle of special acts being introduced here to grant pensions to returned men, who otherwise could not get them, such, for example as they have had in the United States Congress year after year, a procedure whereby men who are not entitled to pensions may get them through special acts.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Regarding commutation, I am informed it is only given in disability cases between five and fourteen per cent inclusive; it is not granted in a disability case of, say thirty per cent. This plan was recommended last year by the parliamentary committee at the special request, I believe, of the veterans' organization. In the case of a man whose pension has been commuted requiring treatment, my impression is that the department grants free treatment in our hospitals to such persons.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Is treatment allowed for these men after they have commuted, if their disability has not increased? I think not. If their disability has increased I think they are allowed treatment. If their disability does not increase they are not allowed treatment after having commuted their pension: I think that is a hardship.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Where the disability
has not increased a man would not require treatment.


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend will
pardon me for the correction. I believe that any case of disability which is due to the world war recurring at any time is treated by the department.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I may be wrong but I thought it was only if the disability had increased.


Arthur Meighen: The medical treatment for injuries received in the war is always in addition to pension-that is the men are entitled to it so long as they live. It has no relationship to the pension; that is to say the special medical treatment is in addition to the pension. Consequently, it would not lapse because of the commutation of the pension.


Henri Sévérin Béland: That is my impression; I think the right hon. gentleman is right. The deputy minister is not here at the present moment but if he were I think he would corroborate the statement that even in case of commutation if the man's disability were to become such at any time as to

cause him to require further treatment he would have a claim on the department for that treatment.


Arthur Meighen: If he ever received
medical treatment at all.


Henri Sévérin Béland: As regards the discretion of the Pension Board, that is given to it by statute. It is I believe, absolutely impossible to frame a Pension Act which would not give to the Pension Board a certain amount of latitude, or certain discretionary powers. Whether the board uses these powers too much in favour of the returned men or insufficiently in his behalf is for each hon. member to judge for himself. The hon. member for Victoria and Carle-ton, (Mr. Caldwell) has sat on the Pension Committee for the past three years and he thinks the Pension Board is not sufficiently broad in its interpretation of the act; while the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr, Hanson) believes that the board is exercising its discretionary powers in the other direction. If I were to rely on the correspondence I receive I should conclude that the board does not use that discretion too much in favour of the returned men. Let me say further that it is my intention, at a very early date, to submit to the House the names of the parliamentary committee who will this session deal with matters of re-establishment, etc.


Robert James Manion: Before we leave this item I would like to say a word on behalf of the Board of Pension Commissioners. I have had, I think, a good deal of experience with them as an ordinary member of Parliament and I must confess that I think, on the whole, they have proved themselves a pretty reasonable group of men. The position they occupy to-day in Canada is perhaps as difficult a position as any men could possibly have because there are many men who come back from the front feeling they have a pension coming to them when they really have not. In justice to the Board of Pension Commissioners be it said that though there is no appeal to this House, there is an appeal back to them; and in cases where the men were not satisfied with the award of the Medical Board which granted them a pension, I have never found any particular difficulty, when I appealed to the Pension Commissioners, in getting these men another. If the Medical Board which re-examines the man changes the award of the previous Medical Board then the Pension Commissioners will come

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up to that award; and I have in fact had very many cases, changed.
In regard to the remarks of my hon. friend from York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) regarding the permitting of appeals to come to this House I want to supplement what he says-I was thinking of making the same observation when he said it. You would have a terrible condition of affairs, I think, in the House of Commons if every man who felt that he had a right to a pension, or a right to appeal, should bring it before the House most of the members of which are not medical men and cannot therefore judge the real disability of the man. I do not suppose there is any likelihood of the question being thrown back upon Parliament, but if there is that aspect of the matter should be kept in view. Nobody should have an appeal over the heads of the Board of Pension Commissioners back to the Parliament of Canada.


Arthur Meighen: I was glad indeed to hear the minister commend the practice that this House followed so consistently for so many years of appointing each session a joint committee, composed of members from all sides of the Chamber, to consider the whole question of civil re-establishment and how far in any direction the country still might go in providing for the wants of returned men or, as he phrased it so well himself, consider how to reconcile their interests and their wants with the interests of the country as a whole. The late Government adopted that course in order that there might be some medium through which the various grievances and desires of the returned men might find expression, and might be co-ordinated and placed before the country, in order that the country could fully grasp just what they asked for and the grounds therefor, and as well, along side of that, the general situation of the country. It was adopted also in order, if possible, to keep out of the arena of party politics the question of the treatment of returned men who had suffered in the war. To a large extent it was successful. It was successful in securing the unanimous approval on each occasion, of that committee. All sides joined and all sides worked faithfully. I thoroughly endorse the words of the hon. gentleman from Victoria and Carleton (Mr. Caldwell) in that regard, but notwithstanding that fact, notwithstanding that by means of that joint committee we did secure unanimous recommendations, and we did meet the
longings and desires of those men to the utmost possible extent, the opportunity for party advantage presented itself to hon. gentlemen opposite, and, though their own representatives on that committee, session after session, joined with us in fixing the length to which the country could go, they went before the country and complained that we had not gone far enough, and promised the returned men that they would go further, particularly that they would make another cash grant all around to all the returned men of this country. That was to be the chief step in the way of reestablishment that they were to take beyond what had been done before. I read from the pledge they made, and I ask the House to recall that this pledge was made to that class of our population who, of all others, should be treated with the utmost good faith, and should never be misled in any way whatever. The resolution reads:
Resolved that this convention declares-
That is the convention at which the present Prime Minister was made leader, and this is the resolution unanimously passed, a promise unanimously given:
That this convention declares that the adoption of a system of cash grants to the soldiers and dependents of those who have fallen is the most satisfactory and effective means of Civil Re-establishment, such grants to be in addition to the present gratuity, and to any pension for disability resulting from service.
There has been no increase since. That was in August 1919. Hon. gentlemen opposite went before the country, appealed to all the returned men of Canada, and promised that, if returned to power, they would make cash grants to these men, in addition to what had already been done by the Government, and in addition to all that had been recommended by the joint committees of the House. This clause of the platform of hon. gentlemen was paraded on many platforms in the Dominion. It was reprinted and scattered through the streets of our cities. There are hen. gentlemen in this House now who can confirm what I say, and the men had the promise that this would be done. I am not going to charge that it is not going to be done, but I notice the main Estimates are down, and there is no provision for it. Surely, it is not something that is to wait for the supplementary Estimates. However, that may be, I want to impress on the hon. minister the pledge that he made, that his government made, and that his party made, and the character and situation of the men, to whom particularly this pledge was

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addressed. I would like him to give an intimation to the House now as to whether the pledge was a mere lure, as to what extent the pledge was honest, and to what extent it was not.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am very glad the right hon. gentleman has brought this question to my attention. If he wants an answer from me, I will give it to him. The plank in the platform which he has just read was, no doubt, adopted by the convention. At that time it was apparent, at least to the members of the convention, that a general feeling existed in the country in favour of a cash grant. I had myself been able to perceive it in many quarters of the land, though in absolutely none of my public utterances have I once referred to it, and I think I have. been speaking in all the provinces of Canada, with the exception of British Columbia. Lately, during the sittings of the parliamentary committees, it has been made plain to me that the large majority of returned men were not favourable to a cash bonus, and at the parliamentary committee last session I do not think in one single instance was the claim pressed for the payment by the country of a cash bonus to returned men. If my hon. friend wants to know what my attitude would be on the subject, it could not be any different from the one taken by the large majority of the returned men themselves, and that is not to grant the cash bonus.


Arthur Meighen: I have listened with
intense interest and curiosity to the hon. minister's explanation of the plank. May I ask him if the same kind of reasoning will apply to the tariff plank?


Henri Sévérin Béland: If the question were in
order, I would have a ready answer, but happily it is not in order, and I do not want to be called to order by the Chairman. But we can rely, I think, on the . Minister of Finance to give a proper answer in due time.


Mr. POWER:: I would like to say a word with reference to cash bonus. If the exPrime Minister will remember, the plank which he read was inserted in the Liberal platform at the convention of 1919. Parliament met in September, 1919, shortly after the convention, and during that session we had a parliamentary committee on pensions and re-establishment. If the hon. leader of the Opposition will remember, that was the year in which the great agitation took place about the bonus. Hon. members from the other side of the House

were bombarded with telegrams from all over the country. Those who had announced, in election addresses throughout the country, that they were in favour of a cash bonus for soldiers were asked to remember their promises when it came to implement them by legislation. In spite of this, the committee reported that no bonus should be given to the soldiers, because, if the Prime Minister will remember, when the report of this committee was brought before the House, the leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, moved that the report be sent back to the committee for further consideration on the ground that adequate provision had not been made for the re-establishment of the ex-soldier. This motion was voted down by the majority at the back of the right hon. the present leader of the Opposition. At the following session of Parliament a committee was appointed to deal with the question of pensions and soldiers re-establishment. Shortly after the committee was convened and about to begin its labours, a delegation came from Toronto, headed by one Harry Flynn. He was received by the acting Prime Minister, Sir George Foster, who announced to him that, under no consideration, would the then government discuss with them the matter of a cash bonus to returned soldiers. This having been the definite decision of the government, a committee decided that it was useless to study the question of bonus, since, even if they recommended it, it was the government's policy not to grant it. The bonus question, in so far as the committee on re-establishment was concerned, was then dropped. Since then, a year and some months have elapsed. At the last convention of the Great War Veterans' Association held at Fort William, the question of a cash gratuity was submitted to the convention, and it was decided that it was not the policy of the Great War Veterans' Association to insist on a cash gratuity or on the veterans' scheme any longer. Under the circumstances, I hardly think it is the duty of any hon. member to bring it before the House any longer if the veterans themselves do not see fit to pass resolutions to that effect or to submit such demands to the House or to the Government.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know that anything could excel the casuistry of the minister himself, unless it be that of his first lieutenant on the subject. A great party meets; it considers a question of enormous consequence to the country, involving, not

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hundreds of thousands, but millions upon millions of dollars, involving the welfare of a vast section of our population, and that section the most deserving of all. It weighs and considers all subjects, all considerations, pro and con. It determines that the Government of the day is wrong, and it determines to pledge its party to do something that the Government of the day refuses to do. That party is returned to power. It is asked if it intends to carry out its pledges made to those men, who saved the honour of this nation, those men who served as no others in our history have done, those men to whom we owe to-day the best that this country can give. What do this Government say? "Oh," they say, "We adopted that, it is true, but a year afterwards the Government opposed to us said that it would not carry it out." Well, in the name of common sense, why would they adopt it if the Government opposed to them was ready to carry it out? It was because the Government opposed to them was not ready to carry it out that they adopted it. If we had been ready to carry it out, there was no need for its adoption; it would have been done. The hon. member for South Quebec (Mr. Power) says:"You, when you were Prime Minister, refused this money." Certainly I did, and I said so to the country; but did hon. gentlemen say so to the country? No, they scattered that platform throughout the length and breadth of Canada right on election day. They have members sitting in this House because they got votes on the pledge made in that platform. Undoubtedly, at the session before last, I very frankly told the House that the Government had shut the door on further gratuities. In face of that, this House was moved for a reference back of the committee's report as a protest of the then Opposition against the stand which I took before Parliament and the country.


Charles Gavan Power: At the time this House was moved to refer the matter back to the committee, the right hon. gentleman was not Prime Minister. He had not shut the door on bonuses, but the Hon. Mr. Calder had.


Arthur Meighen: The Government to which the right hon. gentleman belonged had. I am glad I am disclosing the rocking foundation on which hon. gentlemen rest. The Government had shut the door. The next year the Government maintained the shut door consistently. They did not seek to deceive the returned men. Did the hon. gentleman state in this House that he had
abandoned all claim on behalf of returned men to increase their gratuities? No, he waits until his party is in power before he does that.


Charles Gavan Power: The right hon. gentleman stated a few minutes ago that every member of this House who sat on that committee had1 always adopted the reports of the Committee on Re-establishment. That would mean that members on this side of the House had acquiesced in the Government's decision to close the door. In that respect, may I correct the right hon. leader of the Opposition, because I, for one, have never acquiesced in the decisions of the committee, have always kept the door open, and have said so in this House.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, did I not say that the committee was unanimous?


Charles Gavan Power: It was not.


Arthur Meighen: The comimttee agreed; but, as the hon. gentleman points out himself, the members of the committee took the position that they should not press for any further cash gratuities because the Government had made known that it was worthless to do so. I admit that to be true. We did make it known to the world; we took the country into our confidence; we did not seek to gain votes by pretending to hold open the door which really was closed. Then, the next session, when we came back again, we took precisely the same position, and, in view of that the committee did not consider the question of further cash gratuities. All these sessions go by. Hon. gentlemen then go to the country; they go to the country on this platform; they scatter it abroad and they get votes on it. They get the consideration, and hon. gentlemen now laugh, having deceived the soldiers of this country and having obtained, as their reward, seats in Parliament.


Charles Gavan Power: Supposing what he says is true, does the right hon. gentleman think it is any worse for hon. members on this side to have deceived the soldiers in that respect, than it was for hon. gentlemen on the other side to have deceived the same men when they told them in 1917 that, when they should return, Canada would be theirs and then, when they did return, not to give them what they almost unanimously demanded?


Arthur Meighen: Anything that any
member of the government of that day told the soldiers of this country was carried out.
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Mr. DOFF:: What about the soldiers'
votes?


Arthur Meighen: Every one of them had a vote.


William Duff: The right hon. gentleman stole them afterwards.


Arthur Meighen: They would not have had votes if the hon. gentleman had had his way.


William Duff: Is that so? We did not steal the election as my right hon. friend did, sending code telegrams.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for Quebec South has almost admitted you did and the minister himself says: "Yes, we promised that; we walked right up to the ballot boxes with that promise in our pockets; we flared it on the billboards; we took the soldier to the booth and we voted him on the strength of it; but now we find the Great War Veterans' Association is against it."


Charles Gavan Power: It is true that we took the soldier to the polling booth, but we did not steal his ballot nor stuff the ballot boxes.


Arthur Meighen: I am glad to be assured that there are depths of infamy into which the hon. gentleman has not yet fallen. Is there any clause in the resolution of 1919 which states that it is subject to confirmation by the Great War Veterans' Association? I suppose, when we come to the tariff, we shall be told that we cannot carry out the tariff policy because the Y. M. C. A.-


Charles Gavan Power: The Manufacturers' Association.


Arthur Meighen: -or some other organization has failed to approve it since. Imagine a great party determining on its policy on a great subject, more than that, on a sacred subject of public polity, getting into power on the strength of it, and then standing in their places and telling the nation: "Oh, the day of repudiation is come; the day of betrayal is come; we got your votes, and we sit and smile at the success of our trickery."


William Duff: Very dramatic.


Arthur Meighen: No, but I think it is very infamous.


William Duff: Yes, on my right hon. friend's part.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think there is anything dramatic about it. Is this to be

an indication of what we are to expect all this session?


William Duff: Speak for yourself.


Arthur Meighen: Does this apply to the whole of this voluminous document that acquired so much fame, that was used so widely, so profusely, throughout the country? Is this the style of reasoning every time we remind hon. gentlemen of the faith they pledged? Have hon. gentlemen no opinions of their own? Have they no principles of their own? Do they depend for their principles on organizations outside of this House? Or, having advanced them, have they no means of putting them into effect? Have they no intention of doing so? Now let us put the matter in a kernel again.


Charles Gavan Power: Is that a question? If it is, I will give the answer.


Arthur Meighen: All right.


Charles Gavan Power: We do not depend for our principles on organizations outside of the House, but I imagine that the Government should depend on recognized organized public bodies to learn the opinions of the members of those bodies. The Great War Veteran's Association, I may remind my right hon. friend, represents possibly the great majority of the soldiers throughout Canada, and it is the Government's duty to consult them.


Arthur Meighen: Would it not be wise, not to say honest, to get those opinions before making any promise or pledge? How does the opinion of any body outside of the House come in between the pledge made and its fulfilment?


Charles Gavan Power: It is no longer necessary; the right hon. gentlemen established the soldiers so well that it is no longer necessary to carry out the pledge.


Arthur Meighen: I think we did establish them well; that is what we said. We had gone, we -believed, so far as the country, under the circumstances, was able to go. We took into account the circumstances of the country and frankly told the soldiers what we were able to do. We said: "This we can do; more than this we cannot concede. We disdain to ask your vote on a pledge, implied much less expressed, to do more than we intend to do." In that we are proud to distinguish ourselves from hon. gentlemen opposite.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The leader of the Opposition seems to forget that there

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are times and places for all things, and that a course which at one moment may be the most advisable may not he the best at another time. When the Liberal Convention held its meetings in 1919 we were not faced in this country with the condition that we have since been obliged to recognize, of huge deficits arising out of railway properties taken over by the government under the administration of my right hon. friend. The financial situation as it then presented itself to the country was entirely different from that with which we are faced to-day, or which confronted the people at the last general election. I think that the Liberal Convention was thoroughly sincere-nay, more, it was thoroughly right -in the position it took at that time. The men were just returning from the war and were about to be re-established and we felt that to have given them a cash grant would have been the best means of meeting the situation that then existed. But to-day we are not in 1919; this is the year 1922, and we have before us a financial problem which is appalling.


Arthur Meighen: Will my hon. friend
permit me a question? Did he, after he knew what the railway deficits and obligations were, say to the country that this pledge would not be carried out?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am happy to tell my right hon. friend that I did.


Arthur Meighen: Where?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would reply by asking my right hon. friend, or anyone associated with him, to point to any utterance of mine, on any platform in the country, in which I declared that if the Liberal party were returned to power we would give cash grants?


Arthur Meighen: I am not asking that. The promise was here; there was no need of a further promise. The hon. gentleman says: "We will not carry out that promise because of the railway obligations." Well, it was his duty to inform the country, in that event, after the railway obligations became known to him, that he would not carry out his pledge. Now, let him point out where he did that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If my right hon. friend will allow me to make my position clear, I will repeat what I have said.


Arthur Meighen: That will not do.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It may not serve my right hon. friend's purpose, but
it will serve the purpose of the House and of the country. The important consideration in this matter is the position taken by myself and hon. gentlemen associated with me in the recent campaign, when we asked the people to return us to office, instead of hon. gentlemen opposite; and on no platform at any time during the whole campaign did I in any way, directly or indirectly, promise cash grants to the returned men. On the other hand, I think I am quite right in saying that when I was questioned on the subject, once or twice, I declared emphatically that under the changed circumstances we would not consider cash grants.


Arthur Meighen: I have never seen the declaration.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon.
friend says he has never seen It. He has watched the papers very closely, if he ever saw any utterance of mine wherein I promised cash grants to the returned soldiers if my party were returned to power, let him quote the statement. If he cannot produce any such, then I say he should be careful in the language he uses.


Arthur Meighen: Is not this platform a promise?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I will give
my right hon. friend all the opportunity he wishes to speak on this subject. He may have all the time he likes, but I think he should accord a like courtesy to those on this side of the House. I challenge him and hon. gentlemen associated with him to point to any utterance of mine in which I promised cash grants to the soldiers. If he is unable to find any utterance of that kind, on the part of myself or any of my colleagues in the last election, he is clearly not justified in saying so far as we are concerned that there has been any betrayal or deception. What I did say was that the government of my right hon. friend was not a representative government, that the following behind him was not representative, and that the returned men were entitled to have all matters of concern to them considered by a committee of a new Parliament which would be directly representative of the people, which could take account of the position of the country as it is, and which I trusted would, deal generously with the proposals put before
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them. That promise has been implemented or will be implemented in full shortly, and my own hope is that when the committee meets it will take a generous attitude towards the questions placed before it.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I think the discussion is getting rather out of order, and I suggest that the committee come back to the consideration of the matter in hand. Does the minister (Mr. Beland) think that it is necessary to have all this supervising staff for whom we are asked to vote this afternoon? There is a deputy minister, an assistant deputy minister, a secretary, a supervisor of expenditures, an assistant secretary, a chief clerk, etc. It seems to me that we might possibly be able to get along with a little less supervising expenditure than is asked for. The tendency in government departments is usually to increase rather than to decrease staffs. We must face this fact, however, that if $100 can be saved here or there, it is that much reduction in the national tax bill, and consequently it is a question that should receive the earnest consideration of the House. I have full confidence in the intention of the minister to administer the department as economically as possible. At the same time I know how easy it is to have increases in departmental expenditures, and I do trust that in small matters, as well as in large, not only the minister, but every member of the Government, will exercise the strictest economy in the conduct of the public business.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: This department is not under the Civil Service Commission, but the minister is increasing salaries as if it were, and that is not to the advantage of the commission. There is no maximum in the department under present circumstances, so that $120 may be added every year indefinitely. The authority of the commission is denied so far as fixing a maximum is concerned, but the department proceeds to make increases just as though the department were under the control of the Civil Service Commission. If this department is not under the commission, it should be; or, in the alternative, all departments should be removed from the control of the commission. If I might answer the question that my right hon. leader put, as frankly as a similar question has been answered in this House before, I would tell him that the reason why that pledge

is not implemented is because-"we are here and you are there."


Charles Gavan Power: May I ask when this
supervisor of expenditure was appointed. It seems to me the position is somewhat useless. I share the opinion of the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) that we should economize as much as possible. I understand that the expenditure in the department of Soldiers' Civil Re-Establishment, irrespective of pensions, amounts to something like $15,000,000 or $16,000,000. With regard to pensions, I do not care who the supervisor is; he has nothing to do. The Pension Act exists, the Board of Pension Commissioners fixes the pension to be allotted to the pensioner, and it is the duty of the Government to pay this pension irrespective of whether there is a supervisor of expenditure or not. The question to my mind is whether the office should exist at all, rather than whether the supervisor should get an increase of $100 or $200. May I ask the minister when, and for what purpose, the office was created. There does not appear to be any supervisor of expenditure in any other department, and I wonder why one is necessary in this department.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am not in position to
give the committee the exact date when Mr Waddington was appointed supervisor of expenditure, but I am under the impression he was appointed some two or three years ago. As to the necessity for the position, I think the committee would be unanimous in appreciating its importance. It is true that the amount of pension to be paid in each case is fixed by the board, but the total expenditure is large, and has to be supervised. The total outlay of the department this year is between $45,000,000 and $50,000,000. Personally, I think the position is an indispensable one. There are very few departments paying out so much money. I do not know Mr. Waddington personally, but from reports I have had from many sources he is one of the most capable auditors and accountants in the country. I confess that I cannot understand my hon. friend from Quebec South when he says that the position could be done away with. I do not believe that it would be in the interests of the department or the country to dispense with the position, for the present time at all events.


James Dew Chaplin: As I pointed out some time ago, this office has got rid of sixteen clerks. Now sixteen junior clerks must have had a head clerk over them. Why

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is this head clerk retained? Is it to look after the sixteen juniors who have gone? We have to practise economy; that is why I am bringing up this point. This is a department that is finishing its work, and I believe that in letting out men, we should start at the top, instead of at the bottom. We have here a deputy minister, an assistant deputy minister, a supervisor of expenditure, an assistant secretary, a head clerk, a principal clerk, a storekeeper, and a departmental librarian. We have a lot of head men left, but the tail has all gone. Let us get rid of some of the ones higher up.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend is quite right in his contention that some of the higher officials should he dispensed with. I can assure him that both before I took charge of the department and since, very high positions in the department have been dispensed with, and others will be as time goes on. I have in mind the case of an engineer who is in receipt of a salary of over $3,000 whose services have been dispensed with in our unit in Montreal. All over the country from Vancouver to Halifax we are dispensing with the services of highly paid officials. I submit, when you consider that the number of employees in the department is somewhere around 5,000-I speak subject to correction, but that is about the number, and at one time it was 11,000-it is necessary to retain some of these higher men; but I repeat to the Committee, we are dispensing with highly paid officials all over the country. In Toronto, for instance, a highly paid official with a salary of $5,000 is being released by the department on the 1st of April. I hope that will be satisfactory to my hon. friend.


James Dew Chaplin: That gentleman would be outside the department of civil government.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend will, of course, realize that those at the head office have to do with the service all over the country.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister has not yet answered satisfactorily why there has been an increase.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Before the House rises, let me point out to the Prime Minister in answer to an explanation he made a moment ago, that the reason for abandoning this pledge was that subsequent to the making of the pledge by the convention it had been discovered that there were heavy
railroad obligations incurred, that he officially, as leader of the party, and with the sanction of the committee directing the affairs of the party, published this handbook which was sent all over Canada and was the bible of the speakers for my hon. friend. He has challenged us to produce something, and I now produce it. This handbook contains in the early pages a repetition of the pledge exactly as read by the leader of the Opposition. A little further over I find several pages devoted to an exposure, according to their view, of the railway indebtedness and obligations. Now we have in this same official speaker's handbook, containing a photograph of the Prime Minister on the front page, and his autobiography on the inside, the pledge of the party for loans to the soldiers, and an acknowledgment of the nation's obligations as well. In other words, in spite of the country's enormous indebtedness, these gentlemen on the eve of the election pledged themselves to the payment of cash grants to soldiers in exactly the terms of the 1919 platform. This is published in the Liberal handbook issued in October last. My hon. friend the Prime Minister will not repudiate that handbook? I pause to give him an opportunity to do so. He says emphatically, no;-he will not repudiate it. There is an answer to my hon. friend's challenge. In 1919 I went home to my constituents; I faced the returned men and said exactly what the right hon. leader of the Opposition had said; I told them very plainly that we felt the country could not stand a cash grant. But in my riding and in other ridings throughout the country my hon. friends opposite persisted in their pledge as a bait to the returned men. They are now on the treasury benches, and we know perfectly well that they have no intention whatever of implementing that pledge. The hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) said a moment ago that the reason why they did not implement the pledge was because, forsooth, they were prevented from doing so by us; that we blocked them. Will he not call upon his leader now to implement the pledge? Does he not stand to-day exactly where he stood then? I say to the Prime Minister: Either admit frankly that our position was the correct one, or take steps to implement the pledge which was so seriously made by hon. gentlemen opposite at the Liberal convention and during the late campaign.
At six o'clock the Committee took recess.
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After Eecess
The Committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Arthur Meighen: I thought it conceivable that when the apology offered by the leader of the Government for breach of a public pledge in this matter was hopelessly riddled by the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Stevens) there would be at least an attempt to substitute another. It will be remembered that the excuse given was: Oh, when we made our pledge in 1919 we did not know the country's obligations. Since then we have found out and because we owe so much money we cannot redeem that pledge. It has since been pointed out that the obligations had been incurred then; hon. gentlemen opposite knew all about them. It has been pointed out, moreover, that in the campaign a party of which the present Prime Minister is the leader, issued to this country an official document with the imprimatur of the party and the leader, as the programme of the Liberal party, reaffirmed that pledge and declared it to be the aim of the Liberal party. That was issued in the month of October, 1921, more than a month after the elections were declared, indeed after the writs had been issued for the general election. Now, where goes the excuse that at the time it was given hon. gentlemen opposite did not know what our debt was. They knew everything in October, 1921. Then the need for votes arose, and then went forth the affirmation of the pledge to the whole people of this country and candidate after candidate stood upon it, candidate after candidate held out that bait to the electors of this Dominion. I have some of their manifestoes before me. I hold in my hand a document issued uniformly by three candidates of the present Prime Minister-not by one remember, but by three-in the city of Vancouver, with the photographs of the three to the left and this pledge given:
The Liberal Candidates pledge themselves to a system of cash grants to the dependents of the fallen as the most satisfactory and effective means of civil re-establishment-such grants to be in addition to the present gratuity or pension.
Could any fault be found with these three candidates for repeating that pledge given on November 19, 1921? No fault could be found with them. They had the confession of faith of the whole Liberal party; they had the pledge of its leader; they had that pledge reaffirmed just one month before this was given; they were authorized to make it; they were authorized

to solicit votes upon it. They did make it, they did solicit votes upon it, and they did get votes upon it-doubtless votes by the hundred. Their position is just the position of numerous gentlemen opposite, I doubt not; it is not the position of every one. Now what are hon. gentlemen going to do about it? Sit in their seats and smile at the success of chicanery of this kind? If that is to be tolerated, how can we raise our voices later on and protest against the prostitution of other pledges that possibly more than this mean something to hon. members? If this goes by without protest, merely with a smile, if we accept the cynical assurance of the Prime Minister that we must not take election promises too seriously, what is to become of responsible government in this country? Oh, he declares, what we told the people was that we were going to restore responsible government. The Prime Minister, the leader of the party, goes to the country, holds in his hand a pledge and asks for support upon it, spreads it through the country and gets support upon it-gets support upon it and declines to fulfil it. When he does that he does more to subvert responsible government than he could do with the worst parliament ever elected. He strikes at the root of all responsibility; all responsibility is gone. How are the public to know after this what they are going to get if they vote for this man or vote against that man? There is to be no assurance of what they will get. Hereafter if this conduct goes without protest on the part of this Parliament all the elector knows hereafter, if he votes in favour of a certain set of commitments, is that he will either get them when the elections are over, or be told by the elected Prime Minister not to take his pledges before the contest too seriously. If he is so to be told, where is responsible government? Now I put this to hon. gentlemen opposite-one or two of whom at least I know were not parties to either making the affirmation or the breaking of this pledge-what are they to say, now that the time has come for us to pass upon this matter as a principle of public policy? The time has come now for hon. gentlemen to express themselves. That the pledge was made there is no doubt; that it was reaffirmed, and again reaffirmed, and reaffirmed officially, there is no doubt; that it was never repudiated until the goods were delivered upon it there is no doubt-none whatever. Is the repudiation now to go without protest at the hands of the Parliament of Canada?

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Mr. MILLAR:: Mr. Chairman, sitting
pretty close to the official Opposition I find myself somewhat in sympathy with the criticism they have offered in regard to these increases; with a lot of what they have said I find myself entirely out of sympathy. I am not going to take time now to tell about the faults and the wrongdoings of either of the old political parties; if I were to do so I think we would be here all night and all day to-morrow. I am thoroughly convinced, however, from what I have heard them say about each other that the Progressives should have been here several years ago-that is a fact of which I am thoroughly convinced.
I would like to say that I am very much disappointed that so many increases are asked for in the Estimates that have been brought down. It is very nice, indeed, that those engaged in the government employ as civil servants shall receive additions to their salaries, but what about those who are receiving very much less, who have to pay these increases? I felt when I came here-and many of my Progressive friends had the same feling-that we should be prepared to give every degree of credit to the Government if they were deserving of credit, and that we should also give credit to the official Opposition where it was deserved. I felt determined, when I went back to my constituents, that any degree of credit that was coming, either to the Government or to the Opposition, should be given them as honestly as I could give it. I considered that in that way I would be doing something towards the good government of the country, and the Government, knowing our attitude, I believe, would be more apt to do the right thing, but looking as we are, for retrenchment and economy, and finding these increases asked for which I cannot justify, I feel very much afraid that I shall not be able to say the good things I intended to say with reference to the Government and their economy. As the people in the West know that $5,000 per anum in Ontario, say in the city of Ottawa, will go as far as $7,000, or perhaps $8,000, in the West, I am inclined to think that, under present conditions, with	the economic
depression under which we are suffering, and the necessity for strictest economy, they will consider that such increases as have been asked for here are not justified.
Much has been said about the condition of the West, and I am not going to deal with it. It has been discussed at considerable length, but I assure you that what has been said has not been overdrawn. We are living in critical times. There has been such a keen competition between the different factions, and the different industries throughout the country, each striving to get what it could, without any thought as to the other fellow, that these industries have driven the agricultural classes pretty well to the wall, and if the crop this year should fail, I shudder to think of the result. I am afraid the industrial and commercial life of Canada would almost topple over like a house of cards.
I have been looking, and hoping, for the strictest economy in connection with the Civil Service. It is hard to get proof of many things I believe, but I think that a great many more officials are engaged than are required. While there are many who are giving efficient service, who are earning their money and are not getting any more than they should receive, on the other hand, there are men engaged in the Civil Service who are not required. How do you suppose the returned soldier who was placed in a position of want and need, would feel when he went into the Soldiers' Settlement Board in the city of Regina, was kept waiting two hours before he could see the party he wished to see, and observed twenty stenographers, not one of whom, during those two hours, handled the typewriter? He would get the impression -and I think many have the impression- that, while a large sum of money may have been expended, as has been pointed out here, in re-establishing returned soldiers and paying them pensions at figures that would seem to indicate that they have been better treated in Canada than in other countries-too much of the money has gone into administration, and too much to the officers rather than to the private soldiers. I would like to see an analysis of the figures, and see how much has been spent in administration, how much has gone to officers, and how much to private soldiers. I have met many private soldiers who, I am quite convinced, have not been fairly treated. I am not going to speak at length on this matter, but I do not feel like backing up the action of the minister or the Government in increasing salaries all along the line.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I quite appreciate the remarks which have been made by the hon. gentleman who has just spoken (Mr. Millar). I am also of the opinion that the strictest economy and retrenchment should



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be practised in administration, not only in this department but in all other departments of the public service. It is true that in every department there is a considerable number of officials who are receiving somewhat high salaries, but I may be permitted to say to my hon. friend that those salaries are based on a classification which has been made. The salary attached to each particular class is fixed by the Civil Service Commission, or by the reclassification board employed by the late government for the purpose. This afternoon some remarks were made on the subject of the increase of $500 to the supervisor of expenditures, whose salary was already $4,500. The right hon. gentleman, in explanation given to the House, stated that these officials were not subject to the Civil Service Commission or rather, to be exact, that the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. In a large measure that is true, but in so far as the civil government employees are concerned, they come under the supervision of the Civil Service Commission and in this particular instance the $500 which is asked for as an increase cannot be paid to Mr. Waddington, or the supervisor of expenditures, until it has been authorized by the Civil Service Commission, and that applies to all other officials whose salaries are under study and observation by the commission at the present time. As to the other officials, the increase is the regular increase provided for all officials-absolutely the same. As regards the promises and pledges made during the election campaign, my hon. friend is undoubtedly better posted than I am. Though it was my privilege to cover a large part of Canada during the last campaign, I never heard either the leader of the Government or any gentleman associated with him on the platform making threats of the kind that have been referred to. I cannot, of course, speak for those who delivered public addresses in my absence. The manifesto of a certain gentleman, who stood as Liberal candidate in British Columbia, has been quoted in this House. I am not in a position to answer for him. I am not, moreover, exactly informed in the subject, and, perhaps, other hon. gentlemen are not.


Arthur Meighen: What about the official Liberal handbook which I hold in my hand?
rMr. Bfiland.]


Henri Sévérin Béland: I explained before six o'clock to my hon. friend that it is quite evident to-day, after recent conventions of the Veterans, that the sentiment of the latter, and the veterans at large in Canada, is unalterably opposed to the payment of a cash bonus.


James Dew Chaplin: The Great War Vet-eans' Association was never in favour of paying a cash bonus; it was a little body of returned men headed by a man called Flynn.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend has been, for a long time, a member of this House, and I know he wants to be fair; but if he sat with us in the parliamentary committee two years ago when that coim mittee convened at the Museum, he will remember that, outside of Mr. Flynn or bis followers, three or four gentlemen representing very important bodies of returned men submitted to the committee a definite plan for the payment of a cash bonus. The hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin) was present, and he will remember that it was a well-elaborated plan. It was, indeed, an attractive plan, but at that time it did not carry with the committee or with Parliament. Since then, as everyone is aware, it has developed that the veterans, with the exception of a very few, are opposed to the payment of a cash bonus. If I am not mistaken, listening to the hon. gentleman who leads the Government (Mr. Mackenzie Ring), I took it that his idea was not so much that a cash bonus should be paid to the returned men, as that our duty towards the returned men would be measured by the ability of the country to pay; that he would go as far as the financial resources of the country would warrant. That is what I took from the remarks of the present Prime Minister all through the campaign while it was my privilege to accompany him. I do not know why my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), who leads the Opposition so ably, should attempt to make a little political capital out of this thing.
1 sat for three years on the parliamentary committee as a member representing the then Opposition in this House, I had associated with me, a number of Liberal members, and not on one occasion did we seek to gain a particle of political advantage out of a proposition that we might have made at the time, not only in the country, but on the floor of this House. Hon. gentlemen who sat in the previous House, many of whom I see here, will remember that when the then hon. member for London, Mr. Cronyn, presented to this House the report of the committee, I for

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one rose in my seat to concur in it, and it was adopted unanimously. Who would deny that, such an opportunity being offered to me, I could not have availed myself of it to propose something that I knew the government could not carry out. I never did that. Why? Because I think it is really criminal, in the case of returned men and their cause, that we should seek any political advantage. It is beyond doubt that, in a heated campaign, some men will publish something that may attract a few votes to them. That has happened undoubtedly amongst some of the Liberal candidates, and who can say, without fear of contradiction, that some of my right hon. friend's friends have not, on some occasion, resorted to the same tactics. I am quite sure they have. But we are here to study the important problem of re-establishment, as we have been engaged in doing in previous sessions, and let us examine this question without allowing ourselves to be biased by political or partisan inclinations. That is my view of the subject. I think I have given the committee, in all good faith and sincerity, the reasons why these salaries should be voted. Whether it be the desire of the committee that they should be passed, is another matter.


Mr. ARTHURS:: I understood the hon. gentleman to say that he believed a great majority ofj the returned soldiers were unalterably opposed to a cash bonus. Is that correct?
Mr.'BELAND: Yes, that is what I said.


James Arthurs: I am afraid the hon. gentleman has in mind an indiscriminate cash bonus. Will he also say that he believes the returned soldier is not in favour of a cash bonus which is dependent in amount upon length of service?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am not aware of any such resolutions being adopted by any of the veterans' organizations. The returned men have submitted a number of suggestions to this Government, as they have to the late government. These suggestions in due course will be submitted to the parliamentary committee that is shortly to be appointed for the purpose of studying the important questions of re-establishment generally, the treatment of special or problem cases, the problem of amputation cases, the insurance feature of re-establishment, the treatment of patients generally, the granting of pensions and the care of the disabled soldier. Upon all these subjects we have received a number of suggestions,
and they will be studied in due course by a committee that will be appointed. My personal opinions on the subject are well known. Anything which can be done on behalf of the returned men and which is compatible with the resources of the country, I for one am in favour of doing.


Robert James Manion: I quite believe my hon. friend is sincere in his remarks; but when he -states that neither the leader of the Government (Mr. Mackenzie King), nor any one of the men who were associated with him, ever on the platform spoke in favour of the $2,000 gratuity, or anything verging upon that-that is about what I understood him to say-I think, perhaps, he is a little mistaken, because I hold in my hand an article which I remember reading at the time during my campaign in my constituency stating that when the leader of the present' Government spoke in Port Arthur he begged the Liberals of Fort William to bring out a candidate against me, a thing which they did not do. When he spoke there, he had accompanying him Colonel Thompson, a personal friend of mine, a gentleman for whom I have a great deal of respect. Colonel Thompson spoke in the presence of the present Prime Minister, because he spoke right after the Prime Minister. According to the Fort William Times Journal of November 11, this is what Colonel Thompson said:
Colonel Thompson spoke briefly, as he said the previous speakers had handled the questions of the day so completely there was little for him to say. He pledged the loyalty of the returned man to the country, declaring at the same time that the $2,000 bonus was not more than he deserved, in view of the high wages paid during the war to the men who remained in the industries. But the returned men were loyal, etc.
And he goes on with other remarks. Now, I admit that that is not an express endorsation of the demand for the $2,000 bonus; but if it is not an implied support of that demand, particularly in view of the fact that the Liberal party's platform pledged itself to the grant, then I do not quite know what it is. The leader of the Government (Mr. Mackenzie King) was on the platform when Colonel Thompson made this speech, and he had spoken a few minutes before Colonel Thompson did. In fact, just before the account of Colonel Thompson's speech is a report of my hon. friend's remarks, and he certainly had at that time an opportunity to put himself on record as being opposed to the $2,000 grant, just as I did. I remember well
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making a speech which was used against me in my election, because I had taken a stand against the grant. May I say to my hon. friends on the left, before I sit down, that some of them have been unfairly critical of hon. members in this corner of the House because they have thought it necessary to consider this question. Hon. gentlemen on our left speak as though we were wasting time. I presume, however, that when we come to the tariff they will take up the plank of the Liberal platform and deal with it from their point of view because it happens to suit their purpose. Just at the moment the party at this end of the Chamber think that the question of the grant to the soldiers is one that can fairly be discussed, and I think that if my hon. friends on the left of us can discuss any question that suits them, we should be able to do the same. I may say that I ran against a gentleman who supported the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), and although I have nothing to say against him personally, many of the friends who worked in his interest carried on against me as lying and slanderous a campaign as was ever conducted against a man in any fight in the country. I do not see, therefore, why we should be chided because once in a while we spend a little time discussing this matter, which was embodied in the plank of the Liberal party's platform.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Before six ocloelc, Mr. Chairman, I drew your attention to the fact that the discussion was out of order. We are considering a matter of voting salaries to pay nine employees in the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. I can quite understand that it may be a pleasant occupation to hold political inquests, and I could do a little inquesting myself under this head if I cared to do so. I submit to my hon. friend (Mr. Manion), however, that the whole discussion of the bonus is out of order under this head, and I ask for your ruling, Mr. Chairman.


Robert James Manion: May I speak to this
question before you give your decision, Mr. Chairman? I think that on these Estimates any part of the Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment vote comes up for consideration, and to my mind the question of the $2,000 bonus is certainly a part of this whole question. The grant was claimed by a large percentage of returned soldiers headed by Flynn, and it is still claimed by many; and I repeat that the question was used against me in my own

constituency. So long as it is a claim on the part of the returned soldiers in the country, it is, in my opinion, just as right to discuss the bonus as it is to consider the wages of the men who carry out the re-establishment.


George Newcombe Gordon: The member for
Marquette (Mr. Crerar) has asked for a ruling on the relevancy of the discussion respecting a bonus to returned soldiers. In my opinion there is very much ground for the position taken by the hon. member, and I feel that the discussion has exceeded reasonable bounds. I do not think that the remarks of the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) are entirely relevant to the subject before the committee, but this being my first day in the Chair, I have been inclined to allow some latitude to discussion. Perhaps I should have been within the strict interpretation of the rules had I called hon. members to order before, but the discussion, I think, is now distinctly out of order.


Arthur Meighen: In view of the fact that there is no item in the Estimates for soldier appropriations, it would be useful to the committee, Mr. Chairman, if you would suggest under what item we might discuss this subject.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: There are various ways in Which my right hon. friend can bring the matter before the House. He can do so by way of private member's resolution in condemnation of the Government.


Arthur Meighen: But in committee.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I submit that if on any item before the House we are to wander over the whole field of political inquesting, we shall never get through with the business of the session. I have a good deal of sympathy with the attitude my right hon. friend has taken, and the leader of the Government is perhaps in a rather difficult position in giving an explanation; but I submit that this is not the proper place in which to discuss this question. I want to see the business of the House proceed and the minister in charge of the department get his estimates through, with such reasonable explanations as the House is entitled to have.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I do not think the minister has given an explanation on one question I asked before, and I shall put the question again as clearly as I can. The department last year had twenty-five clerks and officers, and sixteen clerks have been

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discharged because there was no more work for them. At least, that is what we infer from the Estimates: to use the words in the Estimates, "the position is not required." The Government has retained nine of these officers, and they are the highest paid. Surely some of the highly-paid executive officers could have been dispensed with if the Minister could discharge two-thirds of the staff. The answer suggested by my hon. friend, that the Civil Re-establishment Department includes the Pension Board, does not affect this question at all; the Pension Board carry on all their business with their own staff and with their own appropriation, and all that the minister has to do is to act as a medium of approach between the Pension Board and Parliament. His staff has very little, if anything, to do with the Pension Board administration. We should therefore have an explanation as to why the Government cannot dispense with some of the highly paid executive staff in conjunction with the sixteen clerks for whom there is now no work.


Henri Sévérin Béland: The officials for whom the salaries are being asked administer the department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. At the present time this department comprises in round numbers, not twenty-nine, but five thousand employees in the different units throughout the country from Vancouver to Halifax. In Ottawa we have some eleven hundred employees, and we have units also in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, London, Ont., Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.
As regards these sixteen clerical positions not required, we are not dispensing with these men. We thought they would probably be required, but have found that they will not be required for this year. Perhaps my hon. friend was absent from the House before six o'clock when I stated that a number of the higher officials are being' dispensed with. I cited the case of an official in Toronto drawing a salary of $5,000 a year whose services would terminate on the last day of this month. If I am not mistaken, his name is Mr. Coulthard, in charge of the surgical appliances branch.
I am informed by the officials of the department that he will not be replaced. I also cited the case of an engineer in Montreal, drawing a salary of over $3,000, whose services have already been dispensed with, and there are other cases. I could have supplied full information to the committee and had the deputy minister with me had I known that these questions would be
raised. My hon. friend may rest assured that it is not only the officials drawing small salaries, that are being dispensed with, but, proportionately, an equal number of the higher officials.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Not in Ottawa.


Henri Sévérin Béland: If my hon. friend were
minister of this department he could realize that these officials are actually required, to carry out in an efficient manner the work of the department all over the country, and unless my worthy predecessor thinks these men should be dispensed with, I doubt whether we should let them go, at the present time at all events. It was represented to me that these men are necessary for the efficient carrying out of the work of the department.


Miss MACPHAIL:: Starting with the
lower salaried, officials and going up the list, there is first an increase of $40; one of $60, and three of $120, the last one being an increase from $3,240 to $3,360. Then we have a rather large jump in the salary of the Supervisor of Expenditures, from $4,500 to $5,000. I should like to ask the minister whether the Supervisor of Expenditures, has any particular educational or technical qualifications to justify that increase. What is the explanation for this jump in his salary? An increase of $120 seems quite reasonable, but it almost looks as though it were a case of the higher the salary the higher the increase which is really quite a familiar thing to-day.


Henri Sévérin Béland: It will be to my eternal honour that some explanations of mine have drawn into the discussion in this committee the first lady member of the House. I hope that I shall be successful in answering the question which she has so gracefully asked. The increase is always, I think, based on the amount of the salary, and is regulated by the Civil Service Commission. In the case of a man drawing a salary of $4,500, I would think that if an increase was granted at all, it should be $500. In the case of the next man down the list, who is now receiving $3,240, the increase is proportionately less, $120. Lower down the list, as my hon. friend from Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail) has pointed out, the increases drop from $60 to $40. I would repeat that no increase in salary in these eases can be granted unless it is approved by the Civil Service Commission.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Not in this case.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Yes, in this case. There can be no increase in salary unless author-

Supply-Re-Establishment
ized under the Civil Service Act, which means, by the Civil Service Commission. Answering the question by my hon. friend from Quebec South (Mr. Power) this afternoon, Mr. Waddington was appointed after competitive examination three years ago.


Mr. SPENCE:: Is the Supervisor of Expenditures working on a graded salary?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am not in a position to give that information at present, but I shall be glad to do so when the Estimates of the department are up.


David Spence: I think raising a man's salary in this way is a bad precedent to establish. I have a great interest in the returned men, and anything the minister may do for them will have my sincere sympathy and support. I was inspired to suggest this afternoon that a royal commission be appointed to deal with these special cases, so that the returned men who had grievances could appear before the commission as it travelled over the country and lay their cases before them. I might mention one particular case, that of a fireman on one of the railways. He went overseas, came back and was discharged, and since has been invalided. I am sorry to say he had to be sent to an asylum, and now he has a seizure every day or two and is not fit to carry on any work. He has a wife and child, and nothing to support them. The D.S.C.R. refuses to support him. They say that under the Act they cannot do anything for him. It is such cases as this that the royal commission could take up. I have the honour, Mr. Chairman, to be a supporter of the right hon. Arthur Meighen-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


David Spence: -a man possessed of distinguished qualities, a man who has both backbone and ability; a man who is highly regarded in all parts of this Dominion. I may say that at a meeting at which the right hon. Arthur Meighen was to speak-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


George Newcombe Gordon: I wish to call the attention of the hon. member to the fact that while it has always been the custom under the items of the Estimates pertaining to civil government to discuss the general policy of the department concerned, he is, I think, travelling rather far afield. We have spent a good deal of time on this resolution, and I would ask the hon. member to deal particularly with the matter

under discussion as found on page 113 of the Estimates.


David Spence: I am not transgressing
the rules any more than other hon. members did, Mr. Chairman.


George Newcombe Gordon: Order.


David Spence: Then if I may not go ahead I will take my seat.


Mr. WHITE:: I am not just clear in my mind as to what jurisdiction these particular salaries come under. It has been pointed out by the leader of the Opposition that they do not come under Civil Service Commission; yet the minister has referred to increases which are granted under the rules of that body. I am at sea as to what those rules are, as regards maximum salary and so on. The increases asked for cannot be justified by the increased duties of the officers concerned, because sixteen clerks have been dispensed with, as well as other officials; so that the work of the department must surely be lessened. Nor can the increase be based on the cost of living, because reports issued by the Department of Labour go to show that the cost of living has come down in all branches. It seems to me that the more serious part of this question has not yet been touched on. There is an increase of but $960 in respect of six positions, but there is a precedent being established which may affect a great many positions in the gift of the Government. The Minister of Railways, through his heads of departments, will have to convince some of the railroad men that they should accept lower wages in order that freight rates may be reduced. If the principle involved in the increases now proposed is adopted in one case and not in another, some difficulty may result. If these increases are put through, what about the principles of economy that were preached before the election? The Government would be well advised to forego any such increases as are now proposed.


Mr. JELLIFF:: I have been waiting
patiently throughout this discussion to hear some justification of these increases. If the efficiency of the minister's department is going to be proportionately increased by adding $500 to the salary of one employee, $120 to the salaries of several others, $60 and $40 in other cases, I should offer no objection, because I do not believe we can have in any of these departments too high

Supply-Railways
a degree of efficiency. But that has not been established by any explanation made by the hon. minister. It has not been shown that there is any logical connection between the increases asked for 9 p.m. and the reduction in the total personnel. If additional duties or responsibilities were to devolve upon remaining employees because of a reduction in the numbers of the staff, we could reconcile ourselves to increases, provided, as appears from these Estimates, there is a considerable reduction in the total amount required by the department. I was elected, as was almost everyone sitting on this side of the House, on a platform of strict economy.


Mr. McMASTER:: Not including the hon. members to your extreme right.


Lincoln Henry Jelliff: Oh, no. Mr. Chairman, I come from a portion of the country where in municipality after municipality the farmers, to the extent of seventy-five per cent of the population, are unable to pay their provincial taxes. Furthermore, in order to redeem that portion of the country, in order to make it a national asset instead of a national liability, those farmers have assumed a burden amounting to $5,000,000 for the purpose of irrigation. In order to put that country on its proper footing they have assumed an indebtedness that it will take nearly all this generation of farmers in the district to discharge. I cannot go back and face my people there if I vote for increases which are not justified by efficiency or by some other good and sufficient reason. There is a large decrease in the total amount asked for this department. I believe that the minister is heartily in favour of doing all he can for the returned men, and I would like to stand behind him. But I would like a further justification of the increases asked by this vote.


Mr. GARLAND (Carleton) :: The Minister has said that under the rules of the Civil Service Commission the maximum salary of employees now getting $4,500 is $5,000. The Estimates, however, show that that rule does not apply in other departments. I do not think that is the scale adopted by the Civil Service Commission.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Department o£ Railways and Canals- salaries, $191,970 ; Contingencies, $29,500.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON; Explain.
['The Minister has said that under the rules of the Civil Service Commission the maximum salary of employees now getting $4,500 is $5,000. The Estimates, however, show that that rule does not apply in other departments. I do not think that is the scale adopted by the Civil Service Commission.']
George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the resolution carry?
Mr. MEI'GHEN: One moment. Surely the Minister of Railways is not going to ask that all his civil government estimates go through without any explanation, particularly when that minister permitted an ambiguous, almost meaningless, assertion of policy in the Speech from the Throne to come before Parliament to be voted on without any details as to what the intention of the Government was, and after a promise from the Prime Minister that the desired explanation would be given. We ought to have had that explanation even before being called upon to pass the Address. Surely it is now the duty of the minister to tell the House what -the policy of the Government in relation to the railways is before we are asked to vote the civil government estimates providing for the salaries of the officers of the department. For example, would it not be interesting to know whether the Intercolonial railway is to be taken out from the management of the national railways and placed again under the Department of Railways and Canals as was promised by certain members supporting the Government? Is that promise to be carried out? If so we may 'be required to vote these estimates and more, because the railway department will have more to do then than it has to-day, and we will have a lot of questions as to who are going to be necessary and who are not. These estimates may be necessary if the Intercolonial is really going back under the administration of the Department of Railways but may not be necessary if the administration of that railway stays where it is. Now is the time, when we are entering upon the consideration of the railway estimates, to know what the railway policy of the Government is. I hope the desired explanation will not be deferred again. I hope we shall not be asked to vote money from the Treasury to carry out the railway policy of the Government without knowing what that policy is.


Hon. W. C. KENNEDY (Minister of Railways and Canals) :: My right hon.
friend the Prime Minister is not more anxious-


Arthur Meighen: I beg my hon. friend's pardon?
Mr. KENNEDY (Essex); I should say the ex-Prime Minister; we have been so accustomed to refer to my right hon. friend as the Prime Minister that I for the moment forgot the change that has taken place. I want to tell my right hon. friend
Supply-Railways

that I am just as anxious to make a statement to the House as he is to hear it. I hope, however, he will agree with me that in order to present an intelligent statement it is necesary that we should be in possession of all the facts and figures essential for the purposes of comparison when considering the main Estimates. The railroads that are under the jurisdiction of the Government have to make their returns at the end of the year and these returns should be embodied in the railway statement. They have not yet been submitted to the department. I am awaiting these statistics and they cannot come too soon; I am doing everything I can to hurry them up. Then I shall be glad indeed to make a statement of the Government's railway policy as far as I can and explain the transactions of the past year. Tonight we are simply called upon to discuss the civil government estimates of the department. In so far as the main Estimates are concerned it will be necessary to have the story of the past year's operations before we can discuss them intelligently. All that I am now asking, Mr. Chairman, is that we go on with the estimates of civil government.


John Alexander Stewart: In the Speech from the Throne it is stated that the policy of the Government is to co-ordinate the different railway properties that belong to the Canadian people, and it does seem to me that before being asked to take up any railway estimates at all we might very well have from the Minister of Railways a statement of just what the Government means by the use of the word "co-ordination". The word is susceptible of a great many meanings. It may mean just what this Government believes to be the proper policy, it may mean many other things; and it does seem to me that the Minister of Railways ought, before going on with any part of his Estimates to give to the committee a statement of exactly what the Government means; how they propose to manage the different properties; what they propose to do with the properties now managed by the Grand Trunk Board, and what they propose to do with the properties having regard to the management under the board of which Mr. Hanna is the head. These are matters that in no way depend upon the annual reports to which the minister has just referred. We on this side urge that that statement be given to the committee, that the committee be told in clear terms exactly what the policy of the Government is-either that

or that the items we are now asked to consider stand until that statement has been given.


Mr. KENNEDY (Essex):: The hon. gentleman who has just resumed his seat was Minister of Railways for two or three months just before the out-going government went to the people. Nobody knows better than he, therefore, that in so far as these estimates are concerned the question of co-ordination does not bear on them at all. These are civil government estimates, there is nothing in them that will be affected by the meaning of the term "coordination." I have told his leader and I have told the committee that before the main estimates are brought in I will submit a statement giving in full the policy of this Government. To-night I am asking that the civil government estimates be taken up and it is for the committee to decide whether they care to do so or not.


John Alexander Stewart: It seems to me that the question as to how the Government proposes to handle the railway properties is one that has direct reference to the items we are now asked to consider. These officers for whom salaries are sought will have to do with the management of the railway properties; and whether these properties are to be managed as they are now, or managed by two boards, or whether we are to follow the advice of the member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) and the member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) and have another management of the Intercolonial-these are all matters that surely bear direct reference to the estimates we are now asked to consider. The two hon. members referred to have laid it down as a part of the Confederation pact that the Intercolonial railway must be taken away from the management of any of these boards. That must be done they say, in order to carry out what preceded Confederation, and to give effect to what I understood the member for Cumberland to say was contained in Section 142 of the British North America Act.


Hance James Logan: Section 145.


John Alexander Stewart: Very well. Section 145 of the British North America Act-that in order to carry out its terms we must place this road back under government and political control, and with that control must go the regulation of the rates without any regard to either the cost of operation or the judgment of the Board of Railway Commissioners. It does seem to me therefore that the whole question of

Supply-Railways
the administration of the Railway Department is one which depends upon how these properties are going to be handled, and it is surely a reasonable request that we either have the statement asked for, or that these items shall stand until that statement is presented by the minister.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: I have again to say to my hon. friend that he simply wishes to anticipate the statement that will be made when I am in possession of the facts that bear upon it and when the right time comes it will be presented. There are many questions arising in connection with the subject and everyone will have ample opportunity to present his views when that time comes; but such a discussion to-night is entirely out of place. In the debate in the Speech from the Throne the leader of the Government told my hon. friend perhaps the one thing he is most concerned about and that is that there is to be one control. That will be dealt with at the right time, and to-night I do not think it is out of the way to refer to the discussion that took place when the railway estimates were before the House on former occasions. If the hon. gentleman will refer to the discussion a year ago, when the hon. Dr. Reid had charge of railways and canals, he will find that we discussed the civil government estimates without the statement of the minister, and I am only asking the House to do what has been the practice in the past, with the full assurance that at the right time, and in the very near future, I will be able to give the hon. gentleman the full information which he desires.


John Alexander Stewart: The items
we are asked to consider are not urgent. If they were, there might be something in the claim that is now made by the minister. Last year, when the House was asked to consider these same items, under the conditions that have been stated by the minister, we were on into the middle of April. None of these items is required. The amount provided for in the votes is not required at the present time, and no interests will suffer by delay. If it were a question of the money not being available to pay the items at the present time, it seems to me the minister would be justified in making the request which he has made to-night, but, in view of the fact that the money is not required, it seems to me that the request we make on this side of the House, that these matters be allowed to stand until we are able to take up the whole question, is a reasonable one.


William Stevens Fielding: I suggest that the same objection might be raised to any item that is not urgent. All the items in the Estimates are urgent. We are anxious to advance business, and, therefore, the criticism is not a strong one. We are proceeding in the same way as Parliament proceeded in former years. I do not hesitate to say that if hon. gentlemen think this item should not be hurried along too much, I will offer no objection, and I will advise my hon. friend the Minister of Railways to consent. But the same thing might be said for every department. You might say "It is not urgent, what is the hurry?" There is no particular hurry, except that all business must be put through.


John Alexander Stewart: Surely there is this difference between this department and any other department; that the minister himself has stated that there is due the House a statement, which was not only promised in the Speech from the Throne, but in the remarks made by the Prime Minister himself upon the Address. There is that difference between this department and any other department that might be considered. In that respect I do not think, as the hon. Minister of Finance has said, that it is exactly on all fours with any other department and the objection that we urge in this connection could not be urged with the same force against any other department. The question of urgency is an incident. It is not the objection on which we are asking for delay. We are asking for delay, not because the items are not urgent, but because we have not the statement that has been promised to the House by the minister, and for that reason we request that the items be allowed to stand.


William Stevens Fielding: Does the hon. gentleman think there is material difference between the procedure now and the procedure in_ other sessions? The statement of the minister is due, but, it is not always brought in. Whether promised in the Speech or not, the statement has to accompany the main Estimates of the Department of Railways and Canals, and always did, and that is the practice now. However, if the hon. gentleman thinks it is desirable that this item be held over, I do not wish to suggest that it should be pressed.


Arthur Meighen: We certainly ask to have it stand. As to the railway policy, there is uncertainty. Hon. gentlemen opposite would not dispute that there is uncer-
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tainty as to what the Government propose to do on major questions of public policy. There is uncertainty, and doubt, even in the Speech from the Throne itself. No one on this side of the House knows what is going to be done. We do not know what are to he the responsibilities of the Department of Railways. I do not know whether hon. gentlemen opposite do or not, but I venture to suggest over half of them do not, and I venture also to suspect that at least a third of them expect something to be done that is not going to be done.


William Stevens Fielding: That is a good reason for objecting.


Arthur Meighen: Unquestionably there is doubt as to the railway policy. Now, I put it to the Minister of Finance: Is there any subject, is there any department, as to the policy of which there is no uncertainty on the part of this Government? If there is one I should like to take up the civil estimates of that department.


William Stevens Fielding: I am afraid my hon. friend would say there is none.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, and perhaps the hon. gentleman will admit the truth of that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let us take up my Estimates. They are practically the same as the Estimates of the right hon. gentleman last year.


Arthur Meighen: I expect there is no policy with regard to the hon. gentleman's estimates, so that perhaps we can take them up.
Item stands.
Privy Council, Salaries,	$44,810
Contingencies	 10,000


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The bases of this estimate are the figures that my hon. friend caused to be inserted last year. There are no Increases in the staff, and there are no increases in any of the salaries, excepting those that are statutory.


James Dew Chaplin: I see there is an extra clerk required. The minister tells us that the increases here are statutory. Is that one clerk a statutory increase, or how is that?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: He is trading an office boy for a private secretary.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it is a private secretary.	[DOT]


Arthur Meighen: How many private
secretaries has the minister? All those

formerly employed are apparently to be
employed again, except the office boy, and I do not really recall who that was. I cannot remember any office boy. And thp next is "allowance to private secretary $600". That is the ordinary allowance. In place of those two items, there is to be another private secretary at $3,600 and another assistant at $3,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the amount the hon. gentleman just mentioned of $600 was the amount voted in addition to the regular allowance of a clerk who served as a private secretary. That was adopted last session because my right hon. friend had a private secretary appointed as a clerk, and gave him the additional allowance of $600. Under the new Civil Service regulations, the appointment to the staff is made at the salary named in the estimates, no additional allowance being given to the official as private secretary.


Arthur Meighen: That is correct, but it means an additional cost to the country of $5,610. Why not do it in the old way and save the country $5,610?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think my right hon. friend will recall that there are two departments-Privy Council and the Department of External Affairs. I think he had control of only the one when he was Prime Minister. At the present time the office of President of the Privy Council has been consolidated with that of the Prime Minister, a saving of $10,000 being effected thereby. That has imposed an additional duty on the Prime Minister, and under the circumstances, it seemed permissible to allow him an extra private secretary. We save $10,000 by not having a separate portfolio, and all we add is a little extra for a private secretary.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think that explanation will go. There was more under the Prime Minister before. The Mounted Police Department was under him, and I think there was some other department as well that is not now under the hon. gentleman. It is true the Presidency of the Privy Council is held now by the Minister of External Affairs; but the management of the Privy Council is merely a duty in Council; it is not a duty involving administrative functions particularly at all, not at all events since the mounted police, who formerly were under that department, and the Department of Health, have been moved out. I think there is, perhaps, one port-

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folio less in the present Government than in the previous Government, but I think my calculation is correct that there are two more than in the Government which administered affairs during the last session of this House. There is an increase of about $20,000. The diminution is only over the government that was formed in the month of September, 1921; consequently, over what has prevailed substantially for a long time back, instead of there being a diminution, there is an increase, and I may say that I am not very hopeful that even this saving tof $10,000 will last very long. How many private secretaries are there? I do not see how more could be utilized; I do not know of any cause of more being utilized. I managed to keep those we had fairly busy, but I do not see how any minister could utilize any more.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Before the Prime
Minister replies, might I make an observation? One of the duties of private members on the Government side of the House is to listen attentively. Their work can be rendered much easier and much pleasanter for themselves, if Prime Minister, exPrime Minister, Ministers of the Crown and ex-Ministers of the Crown would speak in an audible voice.


Arthur Meighen: Would the hon. member kindly tell us who the two additional secretaries are?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Beaudry is private secretary, and Mr. Talbot is assistant secretary.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would the Prime Minister be good enough to tell us whether these private secretaries have been approved by the Civil Service Commission, or is this the extension of a little patronage on his part?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Civil
. Service Commission have approved their appointment in accordance with the regular method prescribed.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Civil Government-External Affairs-salaries and contingencies, $110,030.
['The Civil\n. Service Commission have approved their appointment in accordance with the regular method prescribed.']
William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is a change of
one in the number of clerks; but with that exception, the amounts asked for are identical with what was asked for last year by the then Prime Minister when he was in charge of the Department of External Affairs. The only increases are those which are allowed by statute.


Henry Lumley Drayton: There seems
to be 100 per cent increase in private secretaries again. There was one private secretary before, and we now have two private secretaries. Is there a boom in private secretaries?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If there is
any explanation needed in that regard, it is simply that the Estimates, as now presented, state exactly the position in which the clerk is employed. I am informed that in previous sessions a vote had been taken under the designation "secretary clerk," and the official having that position would fill the position of private secretary. I have tried to make it plain that the positions which these officials are intended to fill are those of private secretaries.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am afraid
the Prime Minister should look at his Estimates for he is not getting rid of his secretary clerks. There were three secretary clerks before, and there are three this year.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am glad
my hon. friend has mentioned that. It illustrates one of the difficulties set in the way of the Government under the working of the Civil Service Commission. My right hon. friend had a couple of very estimable gentlemen as his private secretaries. Under the working of the Civil Service regulations both of these gentlemen have to be retained in the Department of External Affairs at the salaries which they were then receiving, very high salaries, one being $3,800 and the other $4,000. I think it is obvious to hon. members that it could hardly be expected that an incoming Prime Minister should take over the private secretaries of the outgoing Prime Minister. Under these circumstances, it has been necessary to retain in the Department of External Affairs at the high salaries mentioned, the gentlemen who were secretaries to my right hon. friend. I might explain that one of these gentlemen has since been transferred by the Civil Service Commission to another department of the Government, a department for which he is well suited, and I hope that before long it will be possible to have the other gentleman also transferred to some other department, but under the working of the Civil Service Act as it is to-day, the Prime Minister is obliged to keep both of these gentlemen on the permanent staff at the salaries mentioned in the Estimates. I think both of them are splendid men, have filled their

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positions with credit to themselves and have rendered real service to the country. It is a misfortune that we are restricted in the manner we are in the matter of making transfers.


William Alves Boys: Practically all the officials
in this branch down to the last four have their salaries increased, and strange to say, those who can least afford a reduction, namely, three confidential messengers and one messenger clerk, have their salaries reduced. The three confidential messengers suffer a loss of $180, and one messenger-clerk a loss of $120. It seems strange that those who get the larger salaries should be increased, while those with smaller allowances are cut down.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is a matter regulated entirely by the Civil Service regulations. There are many aspects of the work of that body that are difficult of understanding and appreciation, and this would appear to be one of them. In regard to any decreases, unless there has been a transference of some clerk at a higher salary to some other department, which has necessitated the bringing in of another at a lower salary. I cannot see that there is anything to indicate that anyone has been reduced.


William Alves Boys: I appreciate the increases, because they are statutory; but surely there is nothing that compels you to reduce the salary of the lowest paid men.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What has
taken place is this. One high paid confidential messenger has been transferred to another department, and instead of bringing into the office another man at a similar salary, a messenger has been brought in as a junior who will have to work his way up.


William Alves Boys: What about the three confidential messengers? Have they all been transferred, or are they new messengers?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is one new one, but the others were there when my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) was in the department.


William Alves Boys: I can understand the explanation regarding one, but not the four.


Arthur Meighen: I owe it to the Prime Minister to confirm the principle which he expounded as regards secretaries. Efficient secretaries cannot be obtained if at the expiration of the term of office of their

minister they are to be merely turned out and let loose on the world. Consequently, it has been a rule that they shall be given the salary that they had before, without the secretarial allowance, and in so far as these Estimates provide for that, I commend rather than criticise them. I am not clear, however, as to how that was effected. I understand that my secretary, who was with me a considerable time, is going to the Interior Department, where certainly he can render his best service, and therefore there need be no provision for him here. But as regards the others, I see that $4,000 for one was voted last year, while this year there are two, one at $3,800 and one at $3,000. It may be that he is accepting a lower salary; if so I make no comment at the time. But still there appears to be another secretary, that is to say, there are two instead of one. In other words, there are two for the office of External Affairs and two for the office of the President of the Privy Council. I am afraid my hon. friend will not be able to get out of his office for secretaries.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If my right hon. friend was able to get out of his office I shall not have any difficulty in getting out of mine, because I have the same number of secretaries as he had, I think he had the same number of persons acting as secretaries though they may not have been so designated. The only difference between himself and myself is that I have designated the office of secretary as such. It is quite true that I have a secretary attached to the office of the Privy Council, and also to the office of External Affairs, but as my right hon. friend knows, External Affairs appropriation covers also the requirements of the Prime Minister's office, and I do not think that anyone in this House will for a moment think it extravagant to ask for two secretaries for the responsible position of Prime Minister.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly not, and I do not want to appear to dispute the word of the Prime Minister; but I cannot make his statement harmonize with the estimates. There are two secretaries provided for here in about the sixth item in the estimate. That is clear. Then going back to the Privy Council estimates, we find there are two more, or four in all. Now, I do not think that four secretaries can be efficiently used, but even supposing that they can,
I do not understand the explanation that these are simply officers who formerly acted

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as secretaries and are now being only named as such. If so, the Prime Minister should be able to point out where there is a reduction from last year's estimate in lieu of the men who acted as clerks last year. A man may have served as clerk last year, getting $600 extra as secretary. Well, show where he goes off as clerk, in order that we may understand why he appears again as secretary.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon.
friend is hardly fair when he seeks to imply that there are four secretaries for this one office. As I explained a moment ago, two departments of the Government have been brought under one minister, and I cannot agree with the leader of the Opposition when he says that there are no duties attaching to the office of President of the Privy Council. During all the time that he was Prime Minister he had four secretaries but he had also a separate minister holding the position of President of the Council, and that minister had his staff with him. He had his secretaries, and evidently there was work then for them to do. There is work to be done to-day, and it is a very considerable work, as my right hon. friend would know if he had acted as President of the Privy Council. I appreciate the fact that he was not President of the Council and therefore cannot be aware of the work attached to the office. The President of the Privy Council found it necessary to have the staff I ask for here, and I confess that I find it absolutely necessary myself.


Mr. TOLMIE:: I quite agree with the
remarks of the leader of the Opposition regarding the hardships suffered by secretaries who on the expiration of the term of office of their ministers are thrown out of employment. Is it the aim of the Government on this occasion to find work for such secretaries at the salaries that they would have drawn, with the $600 secretarial allowance deducted?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There again, it is not a matter so much of Government policy as what the Civil Service Commission will permit. There are a number of positions in the Civil Service to which men may be appointed at the instance of the Commission. So far as it is possible to do so, the Government is trying to take care of the secretaries of gentlemen who held portfolios in the late government. For instance, my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin) has retained
the secretary of his predecessor at exactly the same salary, and proposes to treat him in exactly the same way. That has not been possible in all departments, but we have endeavoured to look after those members of the service who were secretaries and to see that they receive the salaries that would be equivalent to what they earned previously in the departments. I think that a man who has served as an efficient private secretary to a minister of the Crown is likely to make the very best type of civil servant; he is apt to have much larger experience and wider information than any clerk, of the work of the Government departments except in special fields ; and I should like very much if some way could be found to retain men who have given service to the country, not by day only but also by night, year in and year out, and who at the time of change of administration might otherwise not be retained in their offices. It cannot all be done in a day, however.


Arthur Meighen: On the whole, I think
.the Government have acted fairly with the secretaries of the late ministers. I do not know that that statement can be applied absolutely, but speaking generally I think they have acted fairly. I simply want to understand the vote. I think I understand by the last statement of the Prime Minister that he has two secretaries as President of the Privy Council and two secretaries as Minister of External Affairs, making four secretaries in all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would state it in this way. I have one secretary as President of the Privy Council; he has an assistant. I have one secretary as Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs, and he has an assistant. As my right hon. friend knows, and this should be remembered, the difference between the office of the Prime Minister and that of other departments of the Government is that mos't of the work is necessarily carried on by the secretaries, not by a staff as in the case of other departments. Practically, the immediate personnel of the Prime Minister's office changes with a change of Government. That is not so to the same extent with regard to other Government departments.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
High Commissioner's Office-salaries, $26,640 ; Contingencies, $76,586.
["I would state it in this way. I have one secretary as President of the Privy Council; he has an assistant. I have one secretary as Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs, and he has an assistant. As my right hon. friend knows, and this should be remembered, the difference between the office of the Prime Minister and that of other departments of the Government is that mos't of the work is necessarily carried on by the secretaries, not by a staff as in the case of other departments. Practically, the immediate personnel of the Prime Minister's office changes with a change of Government. That is not so to the same extent with regard to other Government departments."]
William Lyon Mackenzie King: This is exactly the same vote as last year except for the statutory increases.
Supply-High Commissioner


Richard Burpee Hanson: We have noticed through the press that a gentleman from the city of Toronto, a great personal friend of the Prime Minister, and a stalwart of the Liberal party, has been appointed to the very important position of High Commissioner for Canada at London. It seems to me that we might well have some statement from the Prime Minister as to any changes which he proposes to have made through that gentleman in the working of that office. I understand that it has been his stated policy that any announcement with regard to matters of policy, and I regard this as a matter of policy, shall be made to Parliament. I believe that principle has been honoured more in the breach than the observance by the present Prime Minister, because I notice that the present High Commissioner was banqueted on a number of occasions, on one of which at least I think the Prime Minister was present. I would suggest that this is an opportune moment for the Prime Minister to state to the House and to the country what changes he proposes shall take place with respect to the working of the office of the High Commissioner at London under the new incumbency.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I may answer my hon. friend by saying that of recent years there have been representatives of different government departments in London, for instance the Immigration Department, the Pension Board, Trade and Commerce and other departments, each of which has carried on its work by direct communication with the departmental heads here, but there has not been supervision under one head, of all the government agencies in the Old Country. It is proposed that the High Commissioner who has just been appointed shall exercise supervision over all the government agencies in London, to co-ordinate the work as effectively as possible, and to be the one channel through which the departments of the Government will communicate with the Government offices in Great Britain. That is the one change, I think, of importance.
Another change that has been suggested is that in making further appointments to the office of the High Commissioner in London, an effort be made to secure Canadians to fill the vacancies that occur on the staff.


Robert James Manion: The Prime Minister has just covered the point I was going to raise. I have noticed at different times at that
[Mr Mnrlcpn^io TCinsr. I
office in London that there were a great many on the staff who were not Canadians, and while I have no objection in any shape or form to British born being in that office, I believe that the Canadian office in London or anywhere else is one that should be filled by Canadians. I was going to ask my right hon. friend the Prime Minister to make a statement in regard to that, and I am very pleased to hear that it is the intention of the Government to fill that office as far as possible with Canadians.


Arthur Meighen: I am getting afraid of the overtime working of this word "coordination". I do not know what is meant by co-ordination now. Perhaps we had better defer these estimates. How are you going to co-ordinate the various offices in England, the Immigration Office, the Trade and Commerce Office, and all the others under the High Commissioner? The Trade and Commerce officers are officers of the Trade and Commerce Department and will be subject to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. The Immigration officers, Mr. Obed Smith and those under him, are under the Minister of the Interior. Similarly any officers that may be over there in the interests of the Railway Department will be under the Minister of Railways. How are they to be under the High Commissioner, and then each in turn under his minister here? That kind of coordination will simply mean chaos. It will simply mean a division of authority, a conflict of interest, friction and trouble, so if that is going to be the fruitage of all the promises made at these banquets I am afraid it would be better to eliminate coordination from the dictionary altogether. Would the Prime Minister tell us to what extent these men are to be responsible to the High Commissioner, and to what extent they are to be responsible to their ministers?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I might tell my hon. friend that when Sir George Perley, who was High Commissioner under his government, returned to Canada to tender his resignation, he informed me that he thought it very important that in some manner the High Commissioner should have supervising authority over all branches of the Canadian Government in England. He stated that during recent years different agencies of the Canadian Government in England were becoming accustomed to taking up matters on their own account with the British Government

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without any knowledge on the part of the High Commisioner as to what was going on, and frequently this had resulted in two or three different departments of the government of Canada dealing with the Home Government without the knowledge of each other and with consequent confusion and a great deal of overlapping. He pointed out that from his view it was most important that, if possible, as had been originally intended, all communication between the Home Government and the different departments of the Canadian Government carrying on work there should be through the High Commissioner's office or with its knowledge. It was, I say quite frankly, on the suggestion and recommendation of Sir George Perley as the result of his experience as to what was best and most necessary in connection with that office, that the present Government was pleased to take the line of policy which it has taken, the advantages of which, I think, are so obvious as to commend it to everyone.


Arthur Meighen: That is a very different thing indeed to placing these officers under the High Commisioner. What Sir George Perley evidently intended was this, that in so far as these officers acting under the instructions of their respective ministers had anything to do with the British Government they should act through the High Commissioner's office, making that the medium between them and the British Government. But that does not place them under the High Commissioner in any way whatsoever. It merely makes the High Commissioner the agency of communication for all the departments. There is no supervision exercisable by him at all, nor is there any co-ordination. There is merely the ultization of the High Com-misioner's office for the purposes of communication with the British Government. That is all I have ever heard Sir George Perley urge, myself, and that does not in any way detract from the authority of the minister over his officers or place any of the supervising power, over an officer of a department in the hands of the High Commissioner in London. That, I should think, would be detrimental to the service, and I venture to suggest that if the High Commissioner asked for it, his request would not be endorsed by the Minister of Trade and Commerce on the one hand or the Minister of the Interior on the other. To make him a medium of communication is wholly another thing. He is in no sense a supervisor of their work.


Mr. GOOD:: I would like to ask the Prime Minister a question which applies not only to this department, but possibly to some others. As prices are going down, we ought to expect some reduction in the items included under the heading "Contingencies"- clerical assistance, rent, insurance, income tax, fuel, light, stationery, etc. I notice here, and I have noticed in connection with the other estimates we have discussed this evening, that no reduction in these items is indicated. I feel a little uneasy lest with the falling prices we are really enlarging or increasing our expenditures.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is very difficult to tell exactly how much will be required for this service during any given year. It has been found advisable to vote annually a certain sum, all of which may not be required. We are simply following that course: we are voting, in
10 p.m. round figures, the same as was voted last year. If the full amount is not needed, the balance will be returned to the Treasurey, but if an insufficient amount were voted, embarrassment might result. With the business growing as it is, what is saved through reduced costs may be taken up in increased and extended duties.


William Charles Good: Well I do not feel quite satisfied with the answer, although it may be a sufficient one as applying to this particular item. If we vote more than will be required, we may be giving encouragement to extravagance, and surely that is something we ought to avoid. It might be that embarrassment would be caused if less than the amount required were voted. But if that applies to this particular department, it surely does not apply so much to the departments nearer home.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: What is the salary of the High Commissioner?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am informed it is $10,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Civil government-Militia and Defence- salaries and contingencies, $615,577.
['I am informed it is $10,000.']
Sydney Chilton Mewburn: I have a very sincere sympathy with the minister who is in charge of this very onerous department of government, and I commend his efforts to economize. I find that he has reduced the staff by nine, making a net saving of $925, which is very commendable indeed. I understand that the minister is going to "co-
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ordinate" several of the government services: militia, naval, police, and air services are to be merged. I think the items which have just been called ought to carry, but I sincerely trust that when the minister gets through with his efforts in the co-ordination of these four departments, there will be something left beyond air.
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Militia and Defence) : I may say that I tried to use the word "synchronize" instead of the word "co-ordinate," but it did not seem to fit in.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The "syn" part is all right.


George Perry Graham: Well, some of us do inherit things. The estimates for civil government are practically what they were last year. We have reduced the number of employes by nine, but we are providing for $24,000 by way of annual increase according to the classification. If you will permit me, Mr. Chairman, I will read a statement which the officers of the department have given me; it will cover the case fairly and generally:
The original permanent civil establishment of the Department of Militia and Defence for the fiscal year 1921-22 (i.e., the year of readjustment after the war and after reclassification) numbered 441. The Estimates for that year were prepared in the fall of 1920 and were not submitted to Parliament till four or five months later. Owing to the rapid falling off of the work during that time, it was difficult to make any close or accurate forecast of the needs of the department for twelve to fifteen months in advance. Accordingly, when the Estimates were presented to Parliament it was thought that 42 of the 441 positions would not be required and, on the suggestion of the Minister of Militia, the money for these positions was not voted, leaving a net establishment of 399 persons.
Later in the year it was found that two of these positions would be required, and as the incumbents had been in the service for many years and there was a surplus in the appropriation, their salaries were paid, bringing the establishment to 401 persons.
During the year, a committee on reorganization, consisting of a representative of the Civil Service Commission, the Assistant Deputy Minister, and another general representative of the Department, together with the Chief of the branch being reorganized, found during their investigations that it was expedient to create fourteen new permanent civil positions in the various branches of the department, thus making the establishment 415, but, at the same time, this Committee recommended that 24 of the then existing positions should he abolished, reducing the establishment to 391. The recommendation to Privy Council for the new establishment embracing these changes has been put forward by the Civil Service Commission and is now before Privy Council.
One account clerk, a returned soldier, still suffering from wounds, is carried super-
[Mr. Mewburn.j
numerary to establishment but for which no vote is required, reducing the actual establishment for which Estimates are being put forward to 390 as compared with 399 for last year.
Attached hereto is a balance sheet showing the changes in the establishment since April 1st, 1921, and the money value of these changes.
It should be noted in connection with the total amount voted for the fiscal year 1921-22, $586,431, and the total amount required for 1922-23, $585,577, that although the saving of $854 seems small, the amount for the coming year includes provision for the annual increases in salaries of $60, $120 or $180 to 390 employes and had there not been savings as described above and in reclassification, the requirements for this year must have exceeded the vote for last year by the estimated amount of those increases, viz: about $24,000.


Arthur Meighen: Tell us when the work of re-classification was undertaken.


George Perry Graham: It was begun in 1920 and
completed about three months ago.


Arthur Meighen: I see; we have at least enabled the Minister to effect such reductions as he has made.


George Perry Graham: He had quite a willingness to do it before.


James Dew Chaplin: I notice that about 20 junior clerks have been released but that in place of them pretty nearly the same number of senior clerks have been appointed. How is that?


George Perry Graham: In 1921-22 there were 27 junior clerks and in 1922-23 there were 16. Then of junior file clerks there were 33 in 1921-22, and 16 in 1922-23.


James Dew Chaplin: Further up the list there are three more junior file clerks, making twenty altogether that have gone, and on the other side of the page nearly the same number of seniors have been added. That is to say, on the one side about twenty juniors are represented to have gone, and on the other side some twenty seniors have been added.


George Perry Graham: If we are to take all the good that is to come out of the Civil Service Commission we must accept the things to which we object as well. These changes are due to the re-classification made with ' the full consent and approval and with the assistance of the Civil Service Commission. Under that re-classification these changes were made. On the whole, my hon. friend will see that there is a reduction in the number of employees.


Henry Herbert Stevens: With the decrease of activity in my hon. friend's department, so widely advertised and so marked with the

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reduction of staffs throughout the country, why is it necessary to have three .purchasing agents instead of one? I should think with the reduction of activities throughout the country, one junior purchasing agent would have been able to carry on without adding two more to the staff.


George Perry Graham: That is the exact number the department had before the war. Under the re-classification the staff has been reduced' to a pre-war condition.


Henry Herbert Stevens: But the number has increased.


George Perry Graham: There is no increase
anywhere except through re-classification.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Then this is a case where figures lie.


George Perry Graham: I wil not give the reverse statement. I might say this, Mr. Chairman, in reply to the remark of my hon. friend as to decreased activities: During the war period a great many hundred temporary employees had of necessity to be taken into the department. The estimates of this department ought now to be credited with a further reduction of $600,000; instead of the reduction being $1,100,000 it actually is $1,700,000. These temporary employees were engaged after the war and they were paid out of Demobilization Vote, consequently their namies, or jthe amounts paid to them, do not appear in the Civil Service list. But the reduction that takes place in the Department on March 31st, of 400 employees-which reduction I dislike personally very much to make-means a saving of $600,000 more than appears in these estimates. In other words, had not that reduction been made the vote under War Claims, which appears in another place, would have been $600,000 larger than it is.


Arthur Meighen: I notice it is now a good deal larger than last year.


George Perry Graham: The War Appropriation?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


George Perry Graham: Well, I tell my right hon. friend, since he insists, that if he had not taken $3,000,000 out of the Demobilization Fund to give it to the Dominion Steel Company we would have paid a lot of these debts this year.


Arthur Meighen: And I tell the minister that with that taken out, an obligation which undoubtedly rose from the war, there was still a large balance over, and the



[Stage Direction]
whole amount asked for last year was for a sum much less than the sum asked for this year, although we are a year further from the war. I would like to ask the minister how much of this reduction was effected or provided for in the year 1921 in sums that are attributable to and paid out of demobilization or, as it is called now, "Adjustment of War Claims"?
George Perry Graham: These included in the $600,000 have been made since the present Government came into office and are to take effect from April 1st, the beginning of the next fiscal year.


George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the resolution carry?


Arthur Meighen: I do not think this item should carry, although we have had some usesful discussion on it. In the absence of the hon. member for Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) who was Minister of Militia in the late Government, and who will be back, I think, to-morrow-at all events by Wednesday-I think the item should stand.


George Perry Graham: I am not going to press for its adoption but we will have all the other Militia estimates open for discussion, and I would like to say that I would have had my bill for uniting the different defence departments under one head up to-day had it not been at the request of the ex-Minister of Militia who asked me to defer it until he came back. He raised no objection to going on with the estimates.


Arthur Meighen: I think it is correct that the hon. member for Wellington made that request-I know he mentioned to me that he would ask that the bill should stand over-but his request would have had just as much application to these estimates. I do not suppose he anticipated the estimates would be gone on with, there are other estimates that can be taken up.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Before we pass from this item may I ask the minister if this sum we are voting here will cover the administration of the co-ordinated departments after the co-ordination takes place?


George Perry Graham: No. It is a difficult situation to form an opinion as to the various departments as the amalgamation is not completed and each department is asking for its own estimates; but in the other departments we expect to have a saving

in some of them at least-much more than will appear on the surface. Under the heading of Civil Government, part of the estimates we are asking prac-


EDITION
[Stage Direction]
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[Stage Direction]
tically total the same amount as before till we have an opportunity, after the bill for the amalgamation goes through, to find out just where we can make a saving. It is confidently expected, for instance, that the executive work of the Air Force and the Militia can be merged; I am afraid it will become necessary to make a large reduction in the number of temporary employees on the staff of the Air Board-in fact I know it will have to be done, much to my regret. Then we have the Naval Service which we hope to amalgamate as far as possible-the purchasing department and the departmental services as we might call them. In the mounted police, which has always conducted its departmental services separately, we hope to make quite a large saving; but what these savings will be I cannot tell from the estimates for Civil Government until I have had an opportunity to bring the different departmental staffs together. I shall then be able to tell what the actual saving will he in that respect. As I say, each department, at the present time, is asking for its Civil Government estimates practically the same amount as before. When I get the amalgamation into one department effected, I hope to be able to make quite a saving in Civil Government, as well as in the other branches. It must be remembered that a great deal of what we call temporary services, although they are not perhaps paid for out of that vote, always have been carried on by temporary and not by permanent employees,
Mr. GOULD:: If we can point out to the minister when he brings his bill down where a million or two can be saved in this department, he might not need all the money asked for in this item.


George Perry Graham: I am afraid it would not interfere with the civil staff very much, if any. It is like a business. You have your organization and a great deal of the work is carried on by temporary employees. So far as the permanent employees are concerned, unless we drop the organization altogether, I am afraid we need not expect much reduction in the civil staff.
Item stands.
Naval Service, salaries, $215,220.


Arthur Meighen: This is an increase over last year of some $5,130.


George Perry Graham: The increases are all statutory.


Arthur Meighen: One would think, with all the co-ordination going on, that there might he a diminution.


George Perry Graham: The only reply I can make to that is that the Civil Service Commission is responsible for every increase there.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: They are the customary statutory increases?


George Perry Graham: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Is the whole staff to be continued? The minister had not the privilege of being here last session and the previous session, or he would understand my amazement now in finding the civil list added to even in this awful department of Naval Service.


Robert James Manion: Suppose the work of
the department were wiped out altogether, would the minister say that, because the Civil Service Commission had made appointments to the staff and the staff had been organized, it would therefore continue in perpetuity? If the work is cut down, does not the staff come down, even in spite of the Civil Service Commission?


George Perry Graham: I will explain that we do not expect to have a saving until we get our reorganization effected. That is one of the difficulties of reorganization. We are not just in a position to say how great the saving will be. These estimates do not all belong to the naval service proper. These include very many other services besides what is sometimes called the Naval Service. They include fishery protection, which is undertaken by the British navy to some extent. They include the wireless telegraphy, the hydrographic staff, the tidal surveys and so on. Several items are put under the naval expenditures which are not justly chargeable to the naval service at all, and I might point out that notwithstanding the criticism that, while last year the naval service estimates for the naval service alone, without the other services were $2,500,000, this year I have reduced them with one stroke of the pen to $1,500,000.


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend did not answer the question I asked. I wanted to know, as a general question, not dealing with his department more than any other, though it does deal with his department; when the work of a department is cut down, is it prohibited by the Civil Service Commission, as implied by his own remarks, that the organization should be cut down at

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the same time? Is the cutting down absolutely prevented by the Civil Service Commission?


George Perry Graham: I would not think so.


Robert James Manion: His remark suggested
the question. If the minister says it is not prevented, and he has cut down the estimate a million and a half-


George Perry Graham: A little over a million.


Robert James Manion: That must mean the cutting down of the work of the department to a great extent. It would seem to me, that under those circumstances, that would permit of the cutting down also of the headquarters staff.
' Mr. HANSON: Will there be two deputy ministers of this department, of defence? There is the Deputy Minister of Naval Service, the Deputy Minister of Militia and the Deputy Minister of Fisheries. Is the hon. minister going to have three or four of them?


George Perry Graham: I will explain that situation more fully when I get my bill for the amalgamation of the different services.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Does the minister think we ought to consider that item before he knows what he wants? He apparently does not know what he wants, and apparently cannot give any explanation as to what he wants. Why should we consider this matter till the bill is brought down? Referring to another matter, he says all the changes are the result of the action of the Civil Service Commission. I never knew the Civil Service Commission created vacancies or positions, nor do I think they are doing it now. We are going to have the work of the department cut down to a very large extent, but I see we have one inspector where there was none before. We have one accountant in grade 4 where there was none before, and six head clerks at headquarters where there were formerly four. We have an accountant in grade 2 where there was none before. Then, we have two new secretaries to the executive, whatever that is; I suppose that is to keep track of the contractions that are going to be made in the service. We have two secretaries to the executive to work out the reductions that the hon. gentleman is going to make; we have six senior account clerks as against five before; we have six senior clerks as against five; we have sixteen clerk stenographers as against eleven; five clerk typists as against one, and seven file clerks as against
27J
six, and we are told this is all due to the Civil Service Commission.


George Perry Graham: Get down to the totals.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am taking the explanation of the minister. The explanation given by my hon. friend was that all these changes were made by the Civil Service Commission, and I am pointing out at a glance that he has not been quite properly instructed.


George Perry Graham: Notwithstanding my hon. friend's wonderful information, he dodged successfully or unsuccessfully the Civil Service Commission while he was in office. We have the same number of clerks as before, and owing to re-classification, their status has been changed. If he looks at the totals he will understand it.


James Dew Chaplin: I would like to call attention to the same thing that I had occasion to refer to a few minutes ago. There are at the foot of this list some fifteen or. sixteen junior clerks who have lost their positions, and those positions have been taken by senior clerks at much higher salaries. Is that also under the commission?


George Perry Graham: It is absolutely under the commission.


James Dew Chaplin: It is time the department of the minister took something into its own hands.


George Perry Graham: Would the hon. gentleman vote for that?


James Dew Chaplin: Yes, I will vote for the abolition of the commission.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is my hon.
friend serious in stating that the Civil Service Commission dismissed a large number of the more poorly paid clerks in the department? That was the question that was put.


George Perry Graham: I did not say anything of the kind.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is the question that I understood was put by my hon. friend, and the answer was that they were dismissed by the commission.


George Perry Graham: That was not the
question nor the answer. My hon. friend is wrong both ways.


James Dew Chaplin: My question was quite plain. I inquired why it was that fifteen junior clerks had lost their jobs and senior clerks at higher salaries had taken their places.
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George Perry Graham: My hon. friend is, I think, mistaken. He should not be led astray by the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) who knows nothing about the Civil Service Commission. Of course, he had some branches under him, but they were not under the Civil Service Commission.


James Dew Chaplin: I am asking a plain question.


George Perry Graham: This is a reclassification of junior clerks into higher positions. The hon. member will probably find most of these junior clerks who, he thinks, were dismissed, occupying better positions owing to reclassification.


James Dew Chaplin: That is one reason why I am in favour of abolishing the commission. Let me just look into the explanation of the minister. There are five junior typists at a salary of $720. Does the minister mean to say that those men are now in amongst senior clerks at a salary of $1,140? That is a pretty big increase for one year. I do not think the minister has made a proper explanation, because these junior clerks are at such a low salary and the senior clerks at such a relatively high salary. As I understand the matter, the usual increase is only $120 a year.


George Perry Graham: Most of these stenographers are ladies and not men. I say again to my hon. friend that as long as we have the Civil Service Commission, the departments are bound to carry out the classifications under the commission in this respect.


James Dew Chaplin: Is there anything in the Civil Service Act that would prevent the minister from reducing this staff? Another objection which I have to this proposition is this:	The minister tells us
that there has been a reduction in expenditure in the outside service of some million dollars. In other words, men in the outside service are losing their jobs, and yet the overhead of the department remains stationary. In ordinary business, when your business goes away from you, you must bring down your overhead to correspond.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: What is the extent of our Naval Service in Canada? This, I understand, covers the fleet which, if newspaper reports are true, is somewhere out in the Atlantic at the present time; but beyond one cruiser, two destroyers and two submarines, that, I think, constitute the fleet,

what is the Naval Service of Canada? I was going to add-and, perhaps, the minister could give the explanation when he rises to answer my question-that it seems to me that 125 of a staff in the head office of the Naval Service is quite a considerable staff to run our limited Naval Service.


George Perry Graham: As I pointed out a moment ago, that would be what the country understands as the Naval Service, but the Naval Service includes probably half a dozen other branches. It includes the Fishery Protection Service, in which we have six fishery protection vessels. It also includes the Hydrographic Survey in which we have five vessels. Then, under the arrangement with the British Admiralty, when we passed the Naval Service Act in 1910, we have to provide for the care of the docks at Esquimalt and Halifax. We have at the present time a school at Halifax and a school at Esquimalt in addition to the ships to which my hon. friend refers. These ships were presented by the British Admiralty to the Dominion of Canada through the late government, and they were accepted by the late government.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: A great mistake.


George Perry Graham: I shall be prepared to discuss that, but not on the civil estimates. That is the situation, and these two destroyers, two submarines and one cruiser are now the property of Canada on account of the presentation made of them through the late government to Canada.


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: It appears to me that the same objection might be made to passing this estimate as was raised to the militia and defence estimates. If it is intended to co-ordinate the three branches of the service, it seems a strange procedure to continue the appointments under the head of civil government, to pass the three civil government estimates, and then later on to have an explanation by the minister as to how these savings are going to be made. It would be more satisfactory to know what the Government proposes to do in the matter before we pass all the estimates for civil government. It may be that many of these officials will not be required. If the Government cannot do anything themselves in making an adjustment on account of the Civil Service Commission, there is something radically wrong. I quite appreciate that, where three branches of the Government are to be co-ordinated and brought under one head, a min-

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ister would naturally desire to have some reforms made. If it is owing to the fact that the Civil Service Commission exercises so much control over him that his hands are tied, something should be done about the matter. Surely if those three branches are brought under the one department, some very radical changes can be made and great savings effected. It has been intimated that there is going to be a very large saving made in the Air Force, the Naval Service and the Militia. If that be the case, surely as the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin) has pointed out, there must be some reductions made in the overhead charges in connection with this, as there would be in any business that was carried on on a business basis. It seems a most unusual thing to pass all these items under the head of civil government, and then to discuss how these reforms shall be put into effect. This item could surely stand along with the other two to which the same complaint might be raised.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend is, perhaps, not quite clear on this point. These services must be continued, because any changes that are made cannot be completed for perhaps three months. The bill may not pass. Indeed, my bill would have been before the House instead of these estimates, if it had not been for the Opposition. This is not my fault. It is necessary to pass these estimates in order to carry on the work as we have it, until we can complete the reorganization, and I am inclined to believe that the shortest period in which we can get the reorganization effected is three months. It is not an easy matter to get together four different departments, and to undertake to say what the adjustment is going to be until we get them together. We may find that one man will answer where we have two now. I do not know which man, I do not know what salary, and until we can get the amalgamation effected, which will take some months, we must have estimates passed to carry on with our staff.


William Alves Boys: In the Department of Naval Service there is a deputy minister at $6,000, and an assistant deputy at $4,200; under Militia and Defence a deputy minister at $6,000, and an assistant deputy at $5,100. In the Air Board the total is given as $75,000. I presume the Chairman of the Air Board has the same status as a deputy minister ?


George Perry Graham: The minister is chairman of the board and he gets nothing in addition for it.


William Alves Boys: But I thought there was a Chairman of the Air Board too.


George Perry Graham: There is a Deputy Chairman, General Gwatkin.


William Alves Boys: I presume he gets $5,000 or $6,000. His salary would be part of the $75,000.


George Perry Graham: General Gwatkin is a military man, but at my request he is acting as Deputy Chairman of the Air Board at the present time. Colonel Biggar was Deputy Chairman and he got no salary whatever; he acted for nothing. General Gwatkin was Inspector General of the Air Force, and, as I say, is Acting Deputy Chairman of the board. I may add that the Acting Deputy Chairman is retiring after a few months'leave of absence.


William Alves Boys: As it stands, I presume he receives $5,000, or possibly $6,000. Turning to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Controller, I take it, would receive $5,000 or $6,000. We have, all told, seven or eight highly paid officials, and if there is to be a co-ordination it is to be presumed some of the officers must be dispensed with. Surely it is important to know if that is to take place before we are asked to vote these salaries. If you are to have only one deputy and one assistant deputy under the co-ordination, then a lot of salaries will not be needed, and we ought to have some knowledge on that point before being asked to vote these items. The same line of reasoning no doubt applies to clerks and other officials in the various branches of the service, but for convenience sake I single out the most highly paid officials in order to ascertain the minister's views. I appreciate what he says, that it will take a little time to effect the reorganization, but perhaps it would be well to let the Estimates stand until the bill is before the House. If the bill does not pass I can understand that all these officers will have to be kept on. If, on the other hand, the bill passes and there is a co-ordination, most of these salaries would not be required for more than three months at the outside.


George Perry Graham: There is a difficulty in dropping these Estimates until we know how we are to make the reorganization. The hon. member possibly thinks that it is an easy matter to get the different staffs to work in, but until I have the full author-
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ity of Parliament to commence the work of reorganization I do not know just what may be done. It will take months to work it out exactly in detail, and in the meantime we have assured the House of our intention to cut down expenses, by cutting down more than $1,000,000 in the Naval Estimates. That is good evidence that we intend to make reductions. Of the civil government expenditures, only 46 per cent refers to Naval Service at all; 54 per cent is for other services. When hon. gentlemen talk about cutting down on civil government, they are talking about something which they cannot grasp; nor can I grasp it fully until I have had a chance to take off my coat and go into it and decide what I am to do. Not a dollar of this money that is not absolutely necessary will be expended, but in the meantime the staffs have to carry on until we can effect the amalgamation.


William Alves Boys: A 25 per cent vote would take care of the situation for at least three months. I think the Estimates should stand and the minister could go on with the bill. Upon the result of the bill we could deal more intelligently with the items.


Hance James Logan: I endorse what has been said by the hon. member. We are absolutely in the dark to-night. Let us have the bill, and we can intelligently discuss the Estimates. Discussing Estimates for three or four departments that are to be co-ordinated, seems to me rather ridiculous. Why cannot we wait until the exMinister of Militia (Mr. Guthrie) returns, have the bill presented by the present minister (Mr. Graham), and then approach the Estimates in an intelligent and satisfactory way? We all desire to carry on the affairs of the country, but we are rather in the dark at the present time, and if the minister is at sea we are out in the ocean.


Donald Sutherland: Does the reduction of $1,000,000 which the minister refers to apply to the Naval Service proper or to other branches connected with it?


George Perry Graham: It applies to Naval Service proper and to other services too.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The minister says that 46 per cent of the activities represented here are concerned yith the N aval Service. What becomes of the other 54 per cent? I think my hon. friend has made a serious charge in connection with the Civil Service Commission. I do not profess to have looked into the matter as he has done, but for the purpose of appre-
TMr. Graham.]
ciating the facts, I would ask him to give me the names of the junior clerks who were reclassified and promoted, showing from what ratings they were promoted and what ratings they were given, and when that was done.


Robert James Manion: While the minister is looking up the information, I should like to emphasize a fact stated by previous speakers. I was one of the first to mention that I did not see any reason why the Civil Service Commission should be permitted to keep the overhead as high as it was, when the rest of the staff had been cut down. In looking over the details I find that it is as high as it ever was. Take the Department of Militia. There are 390 employees provided for this year as against 399, a decrease of 9; but in the Royal Northwest Mounted Police there is an increase of 8-22 as against 14; while in the Department of Naval Service the number is absolutely the same as it was before. So that with one exception, there are the same number of employees in the three departments as there were under the expensive operation which the late government carried on, according to my hon. friend. Certainly, with the cutting down that he is doing-and I have no reason to doubt that he is cutting down-I think there will be plenty of opportunity for him to reduce the staff. Seeing that he is reducing the outside staff he might effect economies in the inside service, and I agree that this vote should be held until we can get more details. At the moment the minister is not in a position to tell us what he is going to do. To keep him in good humour I might remind him that last year I well remember sitting behind the minister when his Estimates were up, and when hon. gentlemen opposite who were then on this side of the House took up very much more time discussing Estimates than we have done, sometimes even prolonging the discussion for a week or two; so we have a long distance to go before hon. gentlemen opposite are equalled in their blocking tactics of last year and the year before.


George Perry Graham: In reply to my hon.
friend's question as to General Gwatkin's salary, he receives a pension from the British Government, and I am informed that the amount he receives from us is $3,500. I might say, so far as giving details is concerned, that it is impossible for me to give them now. The best I could do would be to make a blind guess. It will take three

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42.'}
months to make the amalgamation, and if Parliament takes the ground that it must know all the details before we proceed with the work, I say that that is a very unbusinesslike stand to take, and that nobody would take it in their own private business. We cannot proceed to amalgamate these branches until given authority to carry on.	*


Robert James Manion: But under the amalgamation we should not need the same amount of money. My hon. friend admits that he will probably cut the staffs down, but here we find an increase in the Estimates of three different branches. We should not be required to vote an equal or greater amount than was voted last year.


Oliver Robert Gould: It seems to me that the
minister is asking us to construct a large frame work into which can be fitted the various organizations that have existed in the past. If the bill he proposes for the co-ordination of the various branches should pass the House, the structure we are now building by the passing of these Estimates will have to be wrecked to a certain extent. It does seem to me that the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) expressed the proper view, and that the minister should bring his bill before the House and give us at least some idea of what he proposes in the way of co-ordinating these various branches. Then the members of the committee would be in a better position to make suggestions to the minister as to how the moneys required for the administration of this amalgamated department could be provided. I hope the minister will see his way to adopt the suggestion of the hon. member for Cumberland.


Arthur Meighen: Before the committee
rises I would like to say a word in regard to an impression which I think the committee has gained from the minister. I do not think he intended to give a wrong impression, but I think the committee got the impression that the Civil Service Commission is responsible for what they are not responsible for at all. Notwithstanding the Civil Service Commission and the Civil Service Act, as the minister well knows-I do not think he tried to mislead the committee or had any thought of doing so-the Government can make any reduction that it sees fit. The Government may accept the recommendation of the Civil Service Commission as to what organization is necessary for a certain work, but the responsibility of accepting it is on the Government. The Government can dismiss as many officers as they desire. If there were anything in the act restraining or abbreviating the right of the Government or the authority or responsibility of the Government in respect of the public service, I would feel, like the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin), that the time had come for an amendment, but that is not in the power of the commission at all. That is not its responsibility; that is the responsibility wholly of the Government. I commend the attitude of the minister in allowing this item to stand.


George Perry Graham: I have no objection to
letting it stand. I was just saying that I cannot tell what is going to happen until I have the authority to have it happen. Let me point out to my right hon. friend that I did not make any suggestion that the Civil Service Commission dismissed people. He was listening to his desk-mate, not to me. I fully explained that probably none of the junior clerks referred to were dismissed, but simply became seniors in the re-classification. The ex-Minister of Finance put his own interpretation upon that. He was the one to talk about the commission dismissing them.


Arthur Meighen: I think that the committee got the impression, not that the commission dismissed anybody, but that they prevented the minister from dismissing them.


George Perry Graham: I never suggested that. It was the ex-Minister of Finance.


Mr. BROWN:: I would urge upon the Government the necessity of giving consideration to the demand which exists throughout the country for a reduction in the staffs of the Civil Service. The impression prevails generally throughout the country, and is shared in by myself to a very large extent, that civil servants are treading on one another's toes, so tremendously is the Service over-manned. To what extent that is true we are not in a position to say, but since coming here we have not seen anything that would tend to dispel the impression that we had when we came. If the Government could do anything to dispel the impression that the service is tremendously over-manned or over-womaned, as the case may be, or could do anything to reduce the overhead expenditure, I am sure it would receive the commendation of the people of this country.
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William Lyon Mackenzie King: Before moving that the committee rise and report progress, I might perhaps explain the position in which the Government is placed in regard to this vote. To-day is the 27th of March, and in four days we shall have entered upon a new fiscal year. Unless the Government is to dismiss immediately all employees whose services it will not be necessary to retain; once this amalgamation takes effect, these amounts will have to be voted to cover the interval at least, and all the Government is asking at the present time is to allow the vote for civil government to go through so that the clerks at present employed in these different positions may be retained until the minister has had time to effect the reorganization proposed under the new bill. Before that bill becomes law it will have to receive its three readings in this House, and then pass the Senate; and until that has been done it will not be possible for the minister to begin the work of consolidation. That is our only reason for seeking to get through these votes as they stand.


John Livingstone Brown: My remarks applied not merely to the Militia Department but to all departments of the service.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Government is in hearty agreement with my hon. friend in its desire to prevent any overlapping.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 10.51 p.m.
Tuesday, March 28, 1922